Impinj - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello and welcome to the Impinj first quarter 2024 financial results conference call and webcast. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone, and to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Andy Cobb, Vice President Strategic Finance. Please go ahead.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you, MJ. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us to discuss Impinj's first quarter 2024 results. On today's call, Chris Diorio, Impinj's Co-Founder and CEO, will provide a brief overview of our market opportunity and performance. Cary Baker, Impinj's CFO, will follow with a detailed review of our first quarter 2024 financial results and second quarter outlook. We will then open the call for questions. Jeff Dossett, Impinj's CRO, will join us for the Q&A. You can find management's prepared remarks plus trended financial data on the company's investor relations website. We will make statements in this call about financial performance and future expectations that are based on our outlook as of today. Any such statements are forward-looking under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Whereas we believe we have a reasonable basis for making these forward-looking statements, our actual results could differ materially because any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. We describe these risks and uncertainties in the annual and quarterly reports we file with the SEC. We do not undertake and expressly disclaim any obligation to update or alter our forward-looking statements except as required by law. On today's call, all financial metrics except for revenue or where we explicitly state otherwise are non-GAAP. Balance sheet and cash flow metrics are GAAP. Please refer to our earnings release for a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial metrics to the most comparable GAAP metrics. Before turning to our results and outlook, note that we will participate in Baird's Global Consumer Technology and Services Conference on June 4th in New York. We look forward to connecting with many of you there.

I will now turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

Thank you, Andy, and thank you all for joining the call. 2024 started strong. The momentum we saw exiting 2023 continued through the first quarter, with revenue and profitability exceeding both our fourth quarter results and first quarter guidance. Our strategic focus on silicon and enterprise solutions helped create that momentum while paving the way for multi-year growth tailwinds, while our recent reorganization and legal settlement paved the way for growing profitability. Turning first to silicon, the green shoots, bright side, of the last two quarters continued first quarter endpoint IC revenue exceeded our expectations, driven by improving demand in both retail apparel and general merchandise, as well as the long tail of other applications. Looking forward, we expect second quarter to again deliver solid endpoint IC product revenue growth.

We also expect Impinj M800 volumes to double in the second quarter as our production ramp picks up, albeit still a small portion of our endpoint IC volumes overall. For Reader ICs, we expect eFamily shipments to accelerate in the second quarter as we near the end of our prior generation product shipments, buoyed by a healthy number of design wins and burgeoning opportunities. Turning to solutions, the visionary European retailer's ongoing rollout of our self-checkout and loss prevention solution is performing nicely, and we expect rollouts at additional brands of that customer to drive modest gateway demand through at least the end of 2024. Our tagging ramp, which replaces existing hard tags with embedded tags that use our protected mode for consumer privacy, is also on track, driving growing endpoint IC volumes.

For general merchandise, the large North American retailer's RAIN tag usage has accelerated, driven by additional products being tagged and new product ordering. We anticipate steady growth in general merchandise tagging for the remainder of the year. Finally, in supply chain and logistics, we expect the second large North American supply chain and logistics end user to increase their label consumption in 2024. Taken together, our enterprise solutions efforts are and continue paying clear dividends in next-gen IC volumes. I'd like to now touch on two solutions growth opportunities: Digital Product Passport and food. On DPP, I recently spent a week in the EU speaking with partners and end users on how we together advance RAIN as the technology of choice for textile DPP.

RAIN has the apparel penetration, but DPP also requires consumer engagement, i.e., DPP making the strongest case to date for putting RAIN reading into the hands of consumers, and large enterprises are making that need known. On food, demand is growing at a faster pace than I had expected, with several quick-service food chains talking openly about using RAIN for inventory, shelf life, and freshness. The overall food opportunity is so large that any adoption could drive meaningful endpoint IC volumes. On the intellectual property front, in March, we successfully settled our patent dispute with NXP, concluding a multi-year litigation during which Impinj prevailed in multiple jury trials. As Cary will detail shortly, NXP agreed to pay Impinj an upfront amount and a yearly license fee in exchange for a broad patent cross-license. Settlement increases our cash reserves and competitiveness, frees management bandwidth, and removes uncertainty from the industry overall.

While we are happy to put this dispute behind us as the RAIN pioneer and innovator, we remain vigilant and committed to safeguarding our patented inventions as well as identifying additional licensing opportunities. In closing, we delivered a very strong first quarter in every respect: financial, organizational, and market leadership. We see continued strength looking into the second quarter. Looking further out, we see growing opportunities to drive recurring licensing and services revenue, monetizing our IP platform and cloud services. We continue driving our bold vision to connect every item in our everyday world, confidence in our market position, and energized by the opportunities ahead. Before I turn the call over to Cary for our financial review and second quarter outlook, I'd like to again thank every member of the Impinj team for your constant effort driving our bold vision.

As always, I feel honored by my incredible good fortune to work with you.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Cary?

Cary Baker (CFO)

Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I will review our first quarter financial results and second quarter financial outlook. first quarter revenue was $76.8 million, up 9% sequentially compared with $70.7 million in fourth quarter 2023 and down 11% year-over-year from $86 million in first quarter 2023. first quarter endpoint IC revenue was $61.5 million, up 14% sequentially compared with $53.9 million in fourth quarter 2023 and down 8% year-over-year from $67 million in first quarter 2023. first quarter endpoint IC revenue exceeded our expectations led by retail. Looking forward, we expect second quarter endpoint IC product revenue to increase sequentially, again led by retail. first quarter systems revenue was $15.3 million, down 9% sequentially compared with $16.8 million in fourth quarter 2023 and down 19% year-over-year from $18.8 million in first quarter 2023.

first quarter systems revenue was below our expectations, primarily due to lower channel reader sales. Looking ahead, we expect a sequential decrease in second quarter systems revenue with increasing channel reader sales more than offset by declining project-based gateway sales. first quarter gross margin was 51.5% compared with 50.9% in fourth quarter 2023 and 52.4% in first quarter 2023. The sequential increase was driven by mix within endpoint ICs. The year-over-year decrease was driven primarily by lower revenue on fixed costs, partially offset by higher systems product margins. Looking to the second quarter, we expect gross margin to increase. Total first quarter operating expense was $32.9 million compared with $33 million in fourth quarter 2023 and $36.4 million in first quarter 2023. Operating expense was lower than we anticipated due to strong spend management across all major functions as well as lower litigation costs.

Research and development expense was $16.5 million, sales and marketing expense was $7.7 million, general and administrative expense was $8.7 million, including litigation expense of $1.3 million. We expect a slight sequential decrease in second quarter operating expense as litigation expense declines to immaterial levels more than offsetting investment in our base spend. first quarter Adjusted EBITDA was $6.7 million compared with $3 million in fourth quarter 2023 and $8.6 million in first quarter 2023. first quarter Adjusted EBITDA margin was 8.7%. first quarter GAAP net income was $33.3 million. first quarter Non-GAAP net income was $6.2 million or $0.21 per share on a fully diluted basis. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the first quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and investments of $174.1 million compared with $113.2 million in fourth quarter 2023 and $164.7 million in first quarter 2023.

Inventory totaled $87.8 million, down $9.4 million from the prior quarter. first quarter net cash provided by operating activities was $60.1 million. Property and equipment purchases totaled $6.2 million. Excluding the $45 million income from the litigation settlement, free cash flow was $8.9 million. Before turning to our guidance, I want to highlight a few items unique to our results and outlook. First, NXP paid us a one-time $45 million litigation settlement payment in the first quarter. We recorded that $45 million in our first quarter GAAP financial statements as other income in our income statement and as cash on our balance sheet. Next, NXP will pay us an annual license fee each April for up to 10 years unless they design out our IPs and exercise an early termination right.

Earlier this month, we received a first $15 million covering the period from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025. We will recognize the full value of that payment as second quarter endpoint IC revenue, which is reflected in our second quarter guidance at nearly 100% gross margin. Going forward, the payments will increase annually by a modest fixed rate for as long as the agreement is in effect. As a reminder for calculating our quarterly diluted earnings per share, when quarterly non-GAAP net income exceeds $12 million, you should add the 2.6 million shares underlying our convertible debt into our diluted weighted average shares, and you should remove the corresponding $1.2 million of interest expense from our net income. Finally, first half 2024 marks a turning point in our operating margin profile.

We added high margin licensing revenue and reduced operating expense by removing litigation spend and reorganizing our Reader and Gateway channel business. As you can see in our second quarter guidance, those actions drive substantial earnings per share accretion, and they will also drive significant free cash flow. Furthermore, these margin improvements accrue before the M800 drives additional leverage. Turning to our outlook, we expect second quarter revenue between $96 million-$99 million compared with $76.8 million in first quarter 2024, a 27% quarter-over-quarter increase at the midpoint including the licensing payment, and a 7% quarter-over-quarter increase at the midpoint excluding it. We expect Adjusted EBITDA between $23.9 million-$25.4 million. On the bottom line, we expect non-GAAP net income between $21.7 million-$23.2 million, reflecting non-GAAP fully diluted earnings per share between $0.72 and $0.77.

In closing, I want to thank the Impinj team, our customers, our suppliers, and you, our investors, for your ongoing support. I will now turn the call to the operator to open the question and answer session. MJ?

Operator (participant)

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one, on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. As a courtesy to others, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have additional questions, please re-queue, and we will take as many questions as time allows. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Today's first question comes from Harsh Kumar with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hey, first of all, guys, huge congratulations. The settlement of the litigation and then also just the turn in the business. Chris, what a big difference six months can make. There's a lot of interesting stuff in your comments. I wanted to start with general merchandise. I wanted to start with the large North American retailer that you highlighted in your comments. I wanted to ask you how this was going. You obviously talked about some pickup there. Maybe you could just provide us some additional color. And then what is the implication of this implementation succeeding? Is this a big thing that the entire retail industry is waiting for? Does this have huge implications for adoption for the rest of the retail? And I've got to follow up.

Appreciate it. I'm going to let Jeff lead in here because he's very close to the customer side, obviously. And so, Jeff.

Jeff Dossett (CRO)

Yeah. Thank you for your question, Harsh. Our tagging ecosystem partners who serve this large North American retailer's tagging needs have signaled steady gains in the tagging of additional general merchandise categories as well as modest uptick in overall consumer demand. Some of the general merchandise categories are progressing more quickly than others, but we are optimistic that the progress will continue in the year ahead.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

And Harsh, I'll add that historically, that end user has significantly led our industry, and others have followed their moves. Of course, there was a setback during the years from 2013, basically, to 2019 associated with the Round Rock litigation, but that's well behind us now. And so, although we don't have firm data to date, it's my expectation that this customer, being a bellwether for many other large customers and for our industry overall, has proven historically and either side's going everything they do going forward, I would put into. They set the benchmark for other companies to follow.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Very well. Question then from my follow-up, guys. I wanted to ask about logistics. Again, the second customer that is ramping, do you think you're in a position to be able to say that this customer will grow with you every quarter steadily for the rest of the year? And when do you think you might reach the point where you are sort of, call it, 100% penetrated at this customer in tagging?

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

I'm going to start here, and I'm going to let Jeff jump in. Harsh, we only drive one quarter at a time. With any of these large deployments, there are always teething issues as we go along. We work with the customer, and our partners work with the customer to get through those teething issues. There's always a little bit of ups and downs along the way. It's difficult for me to say that at any given quarter, things are going to be consistently up. What we do see is strength of that customer, a commitment, a real commitment to go forward and to digitize the entirety of their operations, and a commitment to not only tag all the items they transport and move but also to substantively change how they run their business. We see multiple opportunities with this customer, and then hopefully, again, it's a bellwether for the overall supply chain and logistics industry. Others will follow.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. I'll probably get back and learn. Thank you.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thanks, Harsh.

Jeff Dossett (CRO)

Thanks, Harsh.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Hi. Thanks. Just maybe on that second logistics customer, as you know, I'm sure, they discussed moving into this phase two implementation where presumably, it sounds like they're going to be putting readers, RFID readers, in the hands of their drivers. And I assume that's going to help your Reader IC business. But Chris, maybe as we think about their deployment, it moving now into their vehicles, what is the significance of this? Or is this all part of their grand plan that you guys were always kind of aware of?

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

I'm going to let Jeff take the lead here, and then I'll circle back on the impact to silicon.

Jeff Dossett (CRO)

I think first, Jim, I want to reiterate that we prefer to have our existing and prospective end customers speak to their own programs and deployments. But what I will say is that I think we have platform opportunities with this particular customer going forward and, importantly, multiple silicon touchpoints in those opportunities.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Got it. And thank you. Follow-up question. Chris, I wanted to go back to your comment about the food applications and moving faster than you expected. How should we think about this? When could this potentially be perhaps a more meaningful incremental driver for the Endpoint IC business? I mean, I'm sure everything else dwarfs this, but you seem pretty excited about what you're seeing.

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

I am, Jim. So if you look back in time, what I've said is that food opportunity is so large that it's hard to see it moving really quickly. But what I'm actually seeing or what I'm feeling is that it's moving a good bit faster than I had expected. And when we see some of the fast food chains talking openly about inventory shelf life and freshness, and we see other opportunities out there on the market on the food front, we see our partners bringing in food opportunities, overall, for me, it's a little bit of a surprise. It's got a quick pace to it, and I wasn't expecting that. Now, part of the reason could simply be that with retail adopting RAIN so successfully, that technology has proven uses are proven, and it kind of paved the way.

But I still thought things were going to take a little longer. So I'm rather excited by the food opportunities and where they are right now. And as we learn more going forward, we'll bring other opportunities and insights to your attention.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. Congrats on the quarter, guys.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

The settlement.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Mike Walkley with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Mike Walkley (Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Yeah, my congrats on everything too. I guess, Chris, just on the strong intellectual property and your comments about protecting it, what has been kind of the feedback from the RAIN RFID industry post your settlement with NXP? And are there additional opportunities to license your technology?

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

I'm going to start with the latter part of the question. First, Mike, and there are additional opportunities out there for licensing overall. So this opportunity is on our IP front, on cloud services front, and for our platform overall. We just got a lot of strengths and capabilities in the things that we're doing. And furthermore, we see opportunities to integrate with our partners and make more partners out in the market and try to provide additional licensing opportunities that generate recurring revenue. So on that front, we feel good, which is why I cited it in the prepared remarks, although obviously, we didn't give any further details because we can't really cite anything until we have any further details. And licensing is core to our strategy going forward. In terms of the industry reaction to settling with NXP, the industry was, for the most part, relieved.

There was a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the fact that there was litigation ongoing between the two largest endpoint IC suppliers. The fact that that overhang to the industry is removed, I guardedly think that it will help the industry continue to move forward. It takes away any concerns or any concerns about potential impediment going forward. On top of that, of course, Cary cited the details of the settlement, and we feel the outcome was good for us and good for the industry overall.

Mike Walkley (Analyst)

Great. Helpful. For my follow-up, Cary, just on gross margins, obviously, next quarter will be a high gross margin quarter with the licensing payment. But as we kind of back that out and think about gross margin trends for the rest of the business with M800 ramping and potentially a stronger mix of systems later in the year, how should we just think about gross margin trends for the business?

Cary Baker (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think, as you know, looking to the second quarter, we expect gross margins to increase with a strong benefit from the license revenue. If you were to remove that, we're modeling gross margins at the product level to be about flat quarter to quarter. And currently, we're running below our targeted 53%-54% range for a few reasons. First, we remain a little subscale, but are closing that gap quickly. And then second, as has been the case historically, the system's business recovery typically lags the Endpoint IC's recovery. This has caused our Endpoint IC revenue to grow as a percent of our total revenue. Endpoint IC carries a gross margin that's slightly lower than our corporate average.

And then finally, our lower margin 200 mm volume running SKUs are slightly higher as a percent of revenue in Q2 and will likely be so again in Q3. That product line is two generations old at this point, and we're moving it before the M800 ramps. We'll know more about that pace of the M800 ramp in the next quarter or so, but the second quarter volumes remain small from a mixed perspective, and we're really not having any visible impact to our gross margin. So overall, though, we remain confident in the gross margin targets that we outlined at our investor day.

Mike Walkley (Analyst)

Great. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you.

Jeff Dossett (CRO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Christopher Rolland with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Christopher Rolland (Analyst)

Hey. Thanks for the question. The Digital Product Passport, I think you talked to it regarding textiles as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, the applications, maybe the economics associated with it, and how big you think it can ultimately be?

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

So, Chris, the application really is the EU has passed a set of past regulations that basically require traceability of textile items from cradle to grave-from point of manufacturing, all the way through shipment, sale, consumer use, and recycling. Those regulations are really beginning to kick in in 2027 for lifecycle traceability. And the key thing is the EU wants to give the consumers the ability to an item's provenance so that the consumers make an informed choice around item sustainability and informed choice about the products that they're buying. And doing so provides the data about the item to the consumers. And then, like I said, recycling can end up blind. So the key here for us is that I believe DPP will drive significant opportunities for consumer engagement. Now, RAIN RFID is not a shoo-in for DPP because there are other data carriers.

What we, our partners, and our enterprise end users want is to make the tags that are already on the retail apparel items and far more embedded in the items be a data carrier for DPP. In order to get there, we need consumers to be able to read those items, which is the impetus for putting readers into mobile phones. I personally think that RAIN reading in mobile phones opens up a world of opportunities and actually is a new and transformative use case for the mobile phone suppliers. I am hopeful, but I can't go beyond hopeful. I'm hopeful that this increased pressure or increased impetus for putting RAIN reading in mobile phones maybe will put us over the edge, over the top in terms of getting the readers into phones, which would open up a wealth of opportunities beyond DPP.

So that really is the core focus. The tags are already going on the items. We need to get consumers being able to read them. And when they can, it opens up a whole new set of opportunities post-point of sale.

Christopher Rolland (Analyst)

That's very interesting. Just a quick follow-up there. Would you be selling ICs into the mobile market for that, or could they use some sort of existing function there? And then just housekeeping on the licensing, is there a volume component to royalties for future payments, and how dependent on volumes are those payments?

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

So I'm taking the latter question first. The payment is a fixed amount increasing by a modest amount each year. And that's what we said with regards to the licensing payment. Going to the former, it's too early to say whether there's an opportunity for us in silicon in the mobile phones or not. But putting that aside for a minute, if you think of our platform that has the Endpoint ICs, Reader ICs, we're pushing more into some of the services around it. We already have enterprise-level engagements. We see a large opportunity for our platform, whether or not it's actually our silicon that ends up in the phones. Of course, we'll try and get our silicon in the phones, but even if we don't, we're going to be pushing forward with opportunities that leverage our platform, the benefits our platform brings. We want to be there side by side with the retailers and the phone providers and the manufacturers to be part of the overall solution.

Christopher Rolland (Analyst)

Thanks, Chris.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Scott Searle with Roth MKM. Please go ahead.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice to see the continued recovery in the core business and the outlook of those key customers. Maybe quickly on that front, on the retail apparel front, it sounds like that drove the upside for Endpoint ICs in the first quarter and is driving the outlook of the upside into the second quarter as well. Chris, is the retail apparel market now normalized as we get into the second quarter, or are we still recovering and working through some in-line inventory in there, or are these new design wins and ramp-up in unit volumes, etc.?

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

I'm going to start by saying thank you. Then I'm going to hand off to Jeff because I think Jeff can provide some commentary there. Jeff?

Jeff Dossett (CRO)

Well, we are seeing some restocking taking place in both apparel, footwear, and general merchandise to better match to an uptick in consumer demand. Whether or not that trend continues, it's too early to call and probably not for us to call that. But overall, the partners who engage with those retailers signal some strength into the second quarter and cautious optimism for the second half but are awaiting more confirmation of the sustainability of that uptick in demand.

Yeah. And I'm going to layer a little bit more on here. So we see multiple drivers as we look out. We see embedded tagging, which replaces hard tags with soft labels. And our tags get reused, but soft labels don't. So we see some tailwinds from that embedded tagging. Obviously, general merchandise, we already talked about that going forward. And so we see some tailwinds for general merchandise, as Jeff just highlighted, the retail rebuys. And then our efforts around solutions, driving solutions in the market, and our strength in those solutions accounts. All four of those factors, we believe, are tailwinds that are driving our Endpoint IC volumes.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Gotcha. And if I could follow up on the DPP front, Chris, it's a huge opportunity there. I'm wondering if you could walk us through what's the process and some of the milestones that it'll look like over the next couple of years. You're talking a lot about retail apparel, the traceability to engage consumers on that front, but I thought we were going to see tires and batteries kind of starting first, some of those recyclable items more so than we think about textiles. Has that changed in terms of the implementation of different product categories, or is it just because the retail apparel is just such a large unit opportunity and drives incremental feature sets from Impinj? Thanks.

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

Yeah. So from my understanding of where DPP is today, and not only are the regulations kind of being ironed out but the implementation's being ironed out. Excuse me. Batteries are going first, from my understanding, but also from my understanding that straight out the gate DPP carrier for those batteries is QR codes. Textiles is the next one to come along. It's a much bigger category. And the data carrier is not decided yet. So it could be multiple things. It could be RAIN RFID. It could be QR codes. It could be NFC RFID. It could be a bunch of different things. And it's not decided. In fact, there's committees working on figuring out what the data carriers are. RAIN RFID is a big benefit that item visibility is great. It's already on the apparel items. That's great. It's being embedded into the items. That's great.

But we're not in mobile phones. So that's why I highlighted the opportunity in the mobile phones and that there are now large enterprises in Europe that are pushing and letting their needs be known that we need RAIN readers in mobile phones. And so whether that push will be enough is to be determined, but it's the first time we've really had a real push from the leaders in the market, from the enterprises in the market, saying, "We need this capability." And so I think that your first indicator will be over the next, call it, one to two years, whether RAIN is classified as a data carrier for DPP. And we hope to make it soon.

Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is a follow-up with Harsh Kumar from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hey, guys. So a lot of us are going to probably be struggling with this as we model. So I thought I would just ask this openly. What should be the expected OpEx level going forward? In other words, I know you were spending $4million-$4.5 million in legal. Is that a fair number for us to take out? And then I'll just ask the second one that's on my mind too. Do you want us to model the next year's payment in some manner as it'll come to in the second quarter of 2025, or do you think it's just appropriate to see what that number is and that it could change dramatically? I'd just love some thoughts on this.

Cary Baker (CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Harsh. This is Cary. So from an OpEx perspective, our Q2 OpEx or what we've embedded in our Q2 guide is pretty clean. There is immaterial litigation spend, and the business is normalizing following the reorganization that occurred in Q1. As I look to the second half, I would assume modest growth. We're going to continue investing in this business and in front of this opportunity, but you've got a pretty good picture of our OpEx right now.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. And then what about the expected payment next year?

Cary Baker (CFO)

Good question. That one, it's early. There is an ability for NXP to design out, but that is not something that's easily done. So I don't expect a huge increase in that payment, but I think it is fair to model that at this point, and we'll keep you up to date on where that might grow.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Of course. Thank you.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Yeah. With the litigation uncertainty behind you and the growing cash position, what I'm wondering is you guys have periodically looked at M&A as a means of accelerating parts of the business, growth in parts of the business. So the Voyantic acquisition sounds like it was a nice acquisition for you, small, but I think provides some benefits. I'm wondering if we might see a pickup at all or if you're looking at opportunities that might accelerate the growth in some of the newer markets.

Chris Diorio (Co-Founder and CEO)

Yeah, Jim. I'll do my best to answer that question. Obviously, I can't speak to any particular opportunities or anything that might be coming our way. Voyantic was an opportunity for us because what they offered was well aligned with our platform. Essentially, they're at the front end of the in-line manufacturing, work-in-lay testing, quality assurance, and some data services around the inlays, which, of course, use our ICs and leverage our ICs for the inlays. So it was a natural addition to our platform that I think will stand us in good stead going forward. We are always open to other areas that strengthen and augment our platform. And if something was to come along, we'd be interested. And we keep our eyes open all the time.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

I don't think the additional cash is going to say, "Oh, we're actually going to—it's going to make a huge difference either way." It's really identifying an opportunity that makes sense for us as a company. The additional cash is nice because it's easier for us to finance it. But the key thing is we see an opportunity that's good for us. We'll pursue it. And absent that, we won't.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Okay. And one final question, if I may. Cary, I think you alluded to the M800 volume still being relatively small, but is there any way I think you touched on this at the Investor Day, but has your thinking around the impact on gross margins as that scales? Has that changed at all? And maybe you could just remind us of the impact as it becomes a bigger part of the overall volume.

Cary Baker (CFO)

Thanks, Jim. So the M800 benefits from a lower-cost basis. And that lower-cost basis will translate into approximately 300 basis points of gross margin accretion as the M800 ramps and becomes the volume runner in our business. Now, an Endpoint IC ramp when we typically launch a new IC takes multiple years to achieve, call it, volume running status. We're certainly pleased with where we are, and as Chris alluded to in his prepared remarks, where the M800 is ramping into Q2, but the volumes are still small, and the impact on gross margin is not visible at this point. We're in the early days of the ramp. It's really too hard to project a precise timing of that ramp. But we're encouraged with where we are, and we'll keep you up to date as we progress in that ramp and throughout this year.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Cary Baker (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, you may press star, then one. Seeing no further questions, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Co-Founder and CEO Chris Diorio for any closing remarks.

Andy Cobb (VP of Strategic Finance)

Thank you, MJ. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank all who were on the call today for joining us. Thank you for your ongoing support. Bye-bye.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.