Proto Labs - Q3 2023
November 3, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings. Welcome to Protolabs' third quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Jason Frankman, Vice President and Corporate Controller. Thank you. You may begin.
Jason Frankman (VP and Corporate Controller)
Thank you, Sherry, and welcome everyone to Protolabs' third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Rob Bodor, Protolabs' President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dan Schumacher, Chief Financial Officer. This morning, Protolabs issued a press release announcing its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2023. The release is available on the company's website. In addition, a prepared slide presentation is available online at the web address provided in our press release. Our discussion today will include statements relating to future performance and expectations that are or may be considered forward-looking statements and subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.
Please refer to our earnings press release and recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for information on certain risks that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially and adversely from any forward-looking statements made today. The results and guidance we will discuss include non-GAAP financial measures consistent with our past practice. Please refer to our press release and the accompanying slide presentation at the investor relations section of our company website for a complete reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results. Now I will turn the call over to Rob Bodor. Rob?
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter earnings call. Protolabs had an excellent third quarter. From a financial perspective, I am very pleased with our results, which surpassed our expectations on the top and bottom line. In the third quarter, we generated record revenue, improved profitability, generated substantial cash flow, and returned capital to shareholders. We reported revenue of $131 million, the highest quarterly revenue figure in Protolabs's 24-year history. Revenue was up broadly, both year-over-year and sequentially, across injection molding, CNC machining, and 3D printing. Along with record total revenue, network revenue in the third quarter was a record $23 million, growing over 80% year-over-year in constant currencies. Our digital network, powered by Hubs, continues to take share in the market at an outstanding pace.
Our digital factory business, fulfilled through our internal factories, rebounded nicely from the second quarter with sequential growth. We continue to accelerate innovation for customers with the fastest and most reliable lead times in the industry. Our strategy is working. Record revenue in an uncertain macro climate demonstrates this. Protolabs is becoming a one-stop shop for custom prototypes and low-volume production parts. As we integrate the factory and network offers, we continue to realize significant value from the Hubs acquisition. Our comprehensive offer through the digital factory and the digital network continues to resonate with customers who are increasingly adopting it. This is clear to us as a significant portion of third-quarter network growth was driven by Protolabs customers. We serve the largest customer base in our industry. In the third quarter alone, over 23,000 unique design engineers and production buyers ordered parts from Protolabs.
While we have the scale, infrastructure, and automation to serve all of these customers, a notable portion of our third quarter revenue growth was from larger strategic customers. These customers are taking advantage of our comprehensive offer fulfilled through the combined digital factory and digital network. This unique hybrid offer unlocks our ability to go deeper with customers and serve them more strategically, expanding our share of wallet. From prototype to production, from delivery overnight to over time, and from quantity 1 to quantity 1 million, we can serve customers' needs better than any other company in our industry. In addition to reporting record revenue, we also further improved our industry-leading profitability. Third quarter earnings per share increased both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. We generated our highest quarterly non-GAAP EPS in 3 years.
Earnings outperformance was largely driven by higher volume and improved gross margins in both the digital factory and the digital network, which resulted in Protolabs' highest quarterly consolidated gross profit dollars since 2019. Third quarter network gross margin was also a record, and we have now expanded consolidated gross margin and operating margin for 3 consecutive quarters. We are not just talking about profitable growth, but we've been executing on it. Expanding profits allows us to drive investments in innovation and improvements to our customer offer. During the third quarter, we received external recognition for one such innovation, our instant design for additive manufacturability analysis tool. This proprietary software provides customers with rich design for manufacturability feedback to help them design the best 3D printed parts, and it does so instantly. For this innovation, Protolabs won a 2023 IDEA Award.
This is an award presented by several industry publications that recognizes the best new product innovations of 2023. This is another example of how our commitment to innovation helps us maintain our position as industry leader. While our offer continues to delight customers, the broader economic environment is still uncertain. Manufacturing conditions in the U.S. and Europe remain soft and have not consistently improved throughout 2023. Yet we grew in the quarter, especially our digital manufacturing network business, with year-over-year growth of over 80%. Protolabs offers the most comprehensive digital manufacturing service in the world in terms of pricing, lead time options, and part envelope.
Our combined factory and network model is effective, as you can see in our financial results, and it resonates with our customers, which I'd like to highlight with a few tangible examples of how customers are deriving value out of sourcing prototype and low-volume production parts from Protolabs through the factory and the network. In my first example, a Fortune 500 medical company's production vendor had a line down situation and could not deliver time-sensitive components, leaving a large gap in delivery of end-use equipment for surgical rooms. Because this medical company is a regular customer of Protolabs in Injection Molding and is familiar with our speed and reliability, they turned to Protolabs to help solve this issue. The customer initially leveraged our digital factory and its world-class lead times for CNC machine parts.
Protolabs has always been a great candidate for line down situations due to the industry-best lead times and on-demand production that our digital factory affords. However, prior to the establishment of the digital network, production in these types of situations would often shift away from Protolabs as volumes increased. That is no longer the case because of the digital network. Through the network, we were able to support production for the medical customer and delivered over $500,000 in production grade end-use components over the course of a few months. The combination of the factory and network capabilities provided immense value, enabling this Fortune 500 medical customer to avoid an extended production shutdown, saving them significant time and money. In addition to increasing number of customers using the combination of the factory and the network, Protolabs also continues to accelerate innovation through our digital factory.
As the industry leader, we are called upon by the most innovative companies in the world to help develop next-generation products. Recently, a luxury high-end automotive manufacturer selected Protolabs to assist with its first foray into the electric vehicle market. Protolabs worked with Hutchinson, a multinational design firm and manufacturer, to prototype the battery pack cooling system for the luxury automaker's first electric vehicle. We rapidly manufactured injection molded parts, which meant stringent project timelines and quality standards. Utilizing our speed, reliability, and quality, we delivered parts to specification for testing and to be mounted on the electric supercar prototype, reducing validation and testing times and accelerating their innovation. This is the power of Protolabs and illustrates why we are often the partner of choice wherever innovation is happening. Now for a brief update on our 2023 priority areas as we approach the end of the year.
As a reminder, our 2023 priorities are, first, to drive revenue growth, particularly in our largest services, injection molding and CNC machining, and second, to increase shareholder value through expanding profitability in the factory and the network. We are successfully delivering on both priorities, revenue growth and profitability. Starting with revenue. At the beginning of this year, we stated that our goal for injection molding was to grow 2023 revenue year-over-year. Year to date, IM revenue is up organically, and we believe we will achieve our goal for the full year. We continue to win more injection molding orders that leverage both factory and network fulfillment. Additionally, we are winning larger orders, demonstrating our expansion into more production use cases.
CNC machining is also up year to date, and like injection molding, we expect our CNC machining service to achieve revenue growth for the full year over 2022. Third quarter revenue through our digital factory grew sequentially as more customers took advantage of our world-class reliability and the fastest lead times in our industry. Meanwhile, Q3 CNC machining revenue via the digital network grew over 85% year-over-year, highlighting the effectiveness of the combined model and the value that Protolabs customers get from the broad offerings fulfilled through the network. We have also delivered on our profitability priority. In the third quarter, we exhibited the robust earnings power of our business model. Even in an uncertain macro climate, we expanded profitability.
Margin expansion in both the digital factory and the digital network were the result of sound execution by controlling our cost structure and gaining efficiencies and leverage while fulfilling increasing demand. In addition, we continue to invest in our executive leadership team. I am excited to have Agnes Semington join our team as our new Chief Human Resources Officer. Agnes has extensive experience in human resources leadership across manufacturing and digital companies, and will guide our HR team and strategy as we continue to make Protolabs a great place to work. I'd like to thank all Protolabs employees for their contribution thus far in 2023.
The efforts and commitment of our employees enable us to continue to succeed and grow profitably. In summary, Protolabs' combination of factory and network offers has enabled us to outperform peers in the current environment, and we believe we will outgrow the market over the long term. Third quarter revenue growth was broad-based, including sequential and year-over-year growth in our three largest services from many different customers. We are well-positioned to weather economic volatility due to our best-in-class profitability and strong cash flow generation. We will continue to reinvest profits into the business as we seek to further expand our offer and capture additional share of wallet. In the third quarter, we generated record revenue, improved profitability, generated substantial cash flow, and returned capital to investors. We are a great long-term strategic partner for our customers and believe we will deliver value for shareholders over the long term.
Dan will now provide additional financial detail on our third quarter results, as well as our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2023. Dan?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, I'd like to remind you all that we made the strategic decision to exit our Japanese operations last year. In September 2022 was the last month in which we generated revenue in Japan. As such, this will be the last quarter of year-over-year comparisons, excluding Japan. Our financial results begin on page 11 of the slide presentation. Third quarter total revenue came in at $130.7 million, up 7.1% year-over-year in constant currencies and excluding Japan. Revenue exceeded our guidance range due to a pickup in order trends after the first few weeks of July that continued through the end of the quarter.
Revenue fulfilled through our digital network of manufacturing partners was $22.6 million in the third quarter, a record for the network business, and up 81.2% in constant currencies. Our network offer, with its broad range of manufacturing capabilities and lead times, continues to gain share, even in uncertain macroeconomic conditions. Changes in foreign currencies represented a $1.7 million favorable impact to revenue in the third quarter, in line with our expectations. Revenue by region is summarized on Slide 12. In the Americas, revenue grew 5% year-over-year. In Europe, third quarter revenue grew 16.9% year-over-year in constant currencies. Looking at revenue by service, CNC machining grew 11% year-over-year in constant currencies and excluding Japan, driven by continued growth through our integrated CNC offer. Injection molding revenue grew approximately 6% year-over-year in constant currencies and excluding Japan.
The increase was largely due to higher orders for follow-on parts. Expedites on part orders increased as customers still take advantage of our best-in-class lead times and reliability in uncertain economic conditions. Third quarter 3D printing revenue grew 7% year-over-year in constant currencies. Sheet Metal revenue declined 18% year-over-year in constant currencies in the third quarter. As you'll recall, our Sheet Metal service experienced revenue headwinds earlier in the year. In response, we furloughed 25% of our Sheet Metal workforce in the second quarter. We saw signs of improvement in the third quarter as revenue increased 9% sequentially. We served 23,080 unique product developers in the third quarter, a decrease of 3.1% year-over-year.
As Rob mentioned, our unique hybrid offer allows us to go deeper with customers and serve them more strategically, expand share of wallet, and grow our overall revenue. Turning to Slide 18 in our detailed income statement. Overall, third quarter non-GAAP gross margin increased 190 basis points sequentially to 46%. This is the third consecutive quarter of sequential gross margin expansion. Both factory and network gross margins expanded over the second quarter. On the digital factory side, sequential gross margin improvement was driven mainly by higher volume, labor efficiencies, and continued investments in increased automation. Our manufacturing facility teams managed costs to volume levels well in the Q3, including flexing overtime and contractors as needed, while maintaining our industry-best lead times.
On the network side, third quarter gross margin increased to a record 33.7%, from 31.2% in the second quarter of 2023. Throughout 2023, we have continued to refined our network sourcing and pricing algorithms. Our long-term target for network gross margin is still between 25% and 30%. Turning to operating expenses. Total non-GAAP selling, general, and administrative expenses were $43.7 million in the quarter, or 33.5% of revenue, compared to $43.1 million, or 35.2% of revenue in the second quarter of 2023. Improved operating expense leverage sequentially was driven by efficiencies on higher volume, as well as continued focused cost containment efforts, partially offset by higher incentive compensation. Moving to taxes.
Our non-GAAP effective tax rate in the third quarter was 20.5%, compared to 25.2% in the second quarter. The sequential decrease in the non-GAAP effective tax rate was primarily due to an improvement in earnings in our tax jurisdictions that are fully reserved for net operating loss. Third quarter non-GAAP diluted net income per share was $0.51, compared to $0.33 in the second quarter of 2023. The sequential earnings per share consisted of a few items. First, higher volume, as revenue was up $8.4 million quarter-over-quarter. With our profit model, we get significant leverage on increased volume, especially in the digital factory. The remaining increase was driven by a number of items, including a lower effective tax rate and higher interest income. Moving to cash flow and balance sheet highlights on slide 19.
We generated $24.2 million in cash from operations in the quarter, up from $9.3 million in the prior quarter. Our business exhibits very strong cash flow generation in any economic climate, allowing us to invest in future growth and return capital to shareholders through share repurchases. In the third quarter, we repurchased 9 million of common shares and will continue to purchase opportunistically going forward. Our balance sheet is still very strong. On September 30, 2023, we had $114.9 million of cash and investments on our balance sheet and 0 debt. Turning now to our forward-looking guidance, which is outlined on slide 21. We expect to generate fourth quarter revenue of between $118 million and $126 million. At the midpoint, this implies 5% revenue growth year-over-year in constant currencies.
The fourth quarter of any calendar year is difficult to forecast because of the impact of the holiday season. This revenue guidance takes into account quarter-to-date order trends, as well as our best estimate of the impact of seasonality in the fourth quarter. We expect foreign currency to have between $0.5 million and $1 million favorable impact on revenue compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Moving to earnings guidance. We anticipate non-GAAP add backs in the fourth quarter to include stock-based compensation of approximately $4.5 million and amortization expense of $1.5 million. We currently estimate our fourth quarter non-GAAP effective tax rate will be between 19% and 20%. Considering this, we expect fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings per share between $0.26 and $0.34. Now back to Rob for closing comments.
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Thanks, Dan. Our third quarter growth, including record total revenue and record network revenue, is evidence that our unique combined offer is gaining significant traction in the market. In addition, gross and operating margins improved sequentially for the third consecutive quarter. Protolabs is the most profitable and cash flow positive company in digital manufacturing. We are focused on executing successfully on our 2023 priorities and driving toward our long-term strategy, which creates shareholder value. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Are we ready for questions?
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Yes, we are.
Operator (participant)
Great. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question is from Jim Ricchiuti with Needham and Company. Please proceed.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning. Congratulations, by the way, on the quarter. First question is just regarding the guidance, and this may just simply be a function of the Q3 being stronger. But, you know, if we look at the seasonality, and I'm talking sequentially, the decline, it appears, you know, at the midpoint of your Q4 guidance, it's a little bit more of a sequential decline than we've seen in prior years. And I wonder if you could speak to that, and then I've got a follow-up question. Thank you.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah. On that, I think what we're seeing, at least, from the order trends early in October, that, CNC did not start the quarter as strong as it did, as the rates we were seeing in, last quarter. And that's why, you know, we adjusted the guide to where it was, which is, I agree with you, Jim, it's a little bit softer than our normal, seasonality dip, third quarter to the fourth quarter.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. You know, you talked a little bit about inroads that you've been making and with larger strategic customers, and I'm wondering if you might expand on that. These are existing customers, presumably, that you're going deeper into. Can you talk about the types of customers and, you know, why you think you've been a little bit more successful than perhaps in the past?
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Yeah, sure, happy to do that. Thank you for the question. So, our. In our top, we have kind of top 5 segments or industries, right, where we serve customers, medical, computer, electronics, automotive, aerospace, and industrial equipment. In those industries, we serve many of the most innovative companies, right, in those industries, and we serve 85% of the Fortune 500 companies in those industries. And some of them we've served for two decades, right? So, large strategic customers have always been part of the mix for Protolabs. But over that period of time, we've often heard from customers that, while they're happy with our services, they want to use us more comprehensively, in different use cases, not just in prototyping, but in production, opportunities and so forth.
And so that's been really core to our strategy over the last several years, is to expand our capabilities in order to be able to serve them in those different settings and to serve them more holistically and therefore more as a strategic partner. And I think this quarter, we've seen some good traction in that. Over the last several quarters, you've heard use cases that we've shared on the earnings calls of customers as they're using us in those ways. And this quarter, we saw our average order values increase across both the network and the factory.
So investments that we've been making in the factory to expand our capabilities, as well as progress we've made in getting our customers to adopt and see the value of our offerings in the network, have all been gaining traction for us. So we saw an increase in larger production orders from those customers and larger orders really across the board in multiple services. So very pleased with you know, this kind of evidence that the strategy is gaining traction this quarter.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. And, just one quick follow-up and you may have given this in the presentation. Did you say what the Hubs gross margin was?
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Yeah, we did. It is 33.7. 33.7%.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Sorry. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please proceed.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions, and congrats on the progress here. I guess just maybe following up on that, you know, recent question. You know, why the success now with some of these bigger, you know, customers and wallet share expansion opportunities? Are you doing anything different internally that's allowing you to win more share? I'm just sort of curious to kind of hear your thoughts on the evolution of some of those wins.
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Sure. Well, we've, you know, continued to drive expansion, and we've continued to invest in our sales force as well. In the Americas, we've invested in a new sales leader. And I think, you know, all of those things, as we've been rolling out more and more of these capabilities and engaging our customers with our broader offerings, you know, we saw a particularly nice uptick in the take rate in the quarter as a result of that.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay. And is it across sort of all offerings, injection molding, CNC, 3D printing? Is it more concentrated with a specific service?
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
I think we saw a growth pretty broadly across multiple services. I would say that it was more in kind of larger production orders and longer lead time offerings where we saw the most growth.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay. And then just wanted to follow up once on the guidance, because it is a significantly. Not significantly, but it is quite a bit more of a seasonal decline in Q4, as Jim had stated. But are you able to maybe quantify order rates in October versus what you're seeing, you know, in what you saw in Q3, and is there any sort of added level of conservative base from what you're seeing in October? Just wanted to clear that up.
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Yeah, no, I mean, we're using our, you know, a similar model that we're looking at. I mean, the challenge, Greg, right now is, you know, the macro backdrop and what is going to happen during the holiday season, which is pretty uncertain. But as I said earlier, you know, I think the only thing that has changed from an order rate perspective, maybe Q3 and Q4, is that, you know, CNC was a touch softer to start October, which is why I put the guide where it was, using kind of our order trend and our seasonality model.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay, fair enough. I will leave it there. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Brian Drab with William Blair. Please proceed.
Brian Drab (Partner, Equity Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, and shockingly good result in a tough environment, so congratulations.
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Thanks, Brian.
Brian Drab (Partner, Equity Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Can you comment a little bit further on the gross margin trajectory? Hubs had such a strong quarter in terms of gross margin. Does that moderate? It sounds like you did reiterate the longer-term guidance for that to be lower than what you did in the third quarter. So, how does that look into the fourth quarter and beyond? And then also, I guess with things slowing down a little bit, there's some deleveraging in the fourth quarter. So just some comments on gross margin, please.
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Yeah. So, from the Hubs gross margin perspective, you know, we really kind of made the changes coming out of Q1, which is where we saw, you know, a higher gross margin than the range in Q2 and Q3. And to be honest, we want to see you know, how we can then continually evolve that model in different macro markets before we change that range as of now, right? So, you know, it is, we are very pleased with the results from what we've adjusted there. And, you know, you know, I would think we should see something similar in the fourth quarter for that margin.
But like I said, I think we want to see in different you know, macro conditions and so forth, that we can continue to maintain that margin before we would adjust the range. You're right on, you know, the factory side. There's a lot of inefficiency that happens within the factory around the holiday period, right? So we've got people taking holidays and vacations. We have to augment that more with contractors and overtime. And so, you know, we should see the factory margin come down a titch in the fourth quarter as it normally does.
Brian Drab (Partner, Equity Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay. So overall, company Gross Margin down somewhat?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah
Brian Drab (Partner, Equity Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
In the fourth quarter sequentially? Okay.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yep.
Brian Drab (Partner, Equity Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay. Okay, and then I'll just ask one more question for now, I guess. The, you know, the developer count is down a little bit, and the revenue's up a lot. And I'm just wondering if you could comment on, you know, are, are we maybe entering a, a, a phase for Protolabs where we're going to see, you know, sustained higher revenue per developer? I mean, this is obviously a metric that a lot of people use to, to build their models around, to some extent. And, you know, that's stepped up significantly, revenue per developer. Do you expect that to be sustainable?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah, thank you. I think, I think you're right about that. I think that the, you know, the metric of number of developers is probably going to be less relevant for us, you know, longer term as we go forward, because consistent with our strategy, we are, you know, showing signs that we're able to penetrate our customers and increase our average order values with them, and so forth, right? And in this quarter, even with a modest decrease in that count, we were able to grow revenue overall. You know, in the past, we were very driven by the product developer count solely, given that we were primarily a prototyping company, and so those were really our primary customers.
As our strategy of expanding our capabilities, serving our customers more holistically, serving them in production use cases, and so forth, continues to roll out, I think we're able to expand revenue somewhat independent of that metric. So I think it'll become less and less relevant over time.
Brian Drab (Partner, Equity Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is from Ben Rose with Battle Road Research. Please proceed.
Ben Rose (President)
Yes, good morning, guys. A few questions. I know that last quarter, you called out some weakness in medical devices and consumer electronics, and it sounds like those couple of verticals did rebound this quarter. Is there any commentary you can give as to perhaps why that was the case, if in fact that was the case, and how sustainable you think that is, you know, moving into next year?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
So, Ben, on the medical side, we were up quarter-over-quarter in medical, really with some of the strength in injection molding around medical. However, it was still down 4% year-over-year. So, you know, it performed well, but it was still slightly declining year-over-year. And computer electronics did not improve for us quarter-over-quarter. But, you know, injection molding medical is important to us, as you can imagine, with our quick turn business for those in medical that are developing new devices, you know, we help them succeed at what they're doing and bringing those devices to regulatory approval and into production.
Ben Rose (President)
Okay. And so just from an end market standpoint, was there a relative strength therefore, in areas like auto and aerospace and defense?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah. So the strong industries for us in the quarter were aerospace, automotive, and industrial.
Ben Rose (President)
Okay. And, you know, Europe was particularly strong in this quarter, in contrast to a number of the other manufacturing automation companies that we follow. Is there any specific commentary you can give as to the strength there?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah, Europe's growth is mainly being driven by our expanded network offer within the region. So that really drove the growth that we saw in Europe.
Ben Rose (President)
Okay. And then, you know, with regard to the unique developer number in the quarter, I was curious to know, are you or can you cite the number of production buyers that you had in this quarter, perhaps versus last year, and perhaps how that number is evolving?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah. No, we don't have a number on production. But I would say the indicator ends up being, as was discussed earlier, your revenue per developer, as Brian talked about. So, you know, as that increases, it'll be a sign that we are getting, you know, more of that production business and you can see that in the quarter.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Okay, thank you very much.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Thanks, Ben.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is a follow-up from James Ricchiuti with Needham and Company. Please proceed.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Hi, Jim.
Operator (participant)
Jimmy, are you there?
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Apologies. Apologies, I was on mute. Yeah, you may have touched on this, but what I'm struck by is the stronger growth rate in Europe over the last several quarters versus North America. That's not to say you didn't show progress in North America this past quarter, but yeah, I'm wondering as you think the next year, and I'm not looking for guidance, but will we—you know, is that going to be one of the priorities, potentially a more uniform growth rate between the two main regions? And to the extent you want to, but is there any preview you can give us about possibly what some of the priorities might be looking out to 2024?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah. So let me answer as it relates to kind of the difference in growth rates, and Rob can talk about a bit in terms of priorities. You know, as you know, before we acquired Hubs, the U.S. business, from a manufacturing side, is much larger in the U.S. than in Europe. And so the higher growth rates, the disparity between the growth rates between the U.S. and Europe, is driven by a higher percent of our Europe business is through the network, and that is growing, as we talked about, over 80% year-over-year. And so Rob will add something.
Rob Bodor (President and CEO)
Yeah, sure. Thanks. So, you know, we see both Europe and the Americas as very good long-term markets for us with strong industrial bases. And, you know, as Dan points out, the mix is somewhat different in terms of our business in those two regions. And of course, Europe is smaller relative to the Americas. Our objectives are to grow in both regions, and we believe that, you know, from a long-term standpoint, there's similar opportunity there. Now, in the short term, there is somewhat difference in kind of the macro environments in the two regions, and so, you know, we're going to have to kind of manage through that as well in the near term.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Then, again, to the extent you're willing to, we're a couple of months away from the end of the year, anything you want to possibly lay out there in terms of how you're thinking about some of the priorities looking out to 2024?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
We are going through our budget cycle right now, Jim. You know, we're meeting with the businesses on the budget, and we're putting those plans together, and we'll talk more about our goals for 2024 at the next earnings release.
James Ricchiuti (Managing Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst)
No, I understand. Thank you. Congrats again.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Thank you, Jim.
Operator (participant)
Our next question is a follow-up from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please proceed.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Yeah, thanks. This is hopefully a quick one. I'm not sure if I missed this, but did you comment on the mix of, you know, kind of the lower price, longer lead time, versus, you know, quick turn? I know that was a kind of a trend you were seeing year to date, and I'm just curious if anything changed here in Q3.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah, I don't think we addressed it specifically in the prepared remarks. We saw increase. I would say that our longer lead time, lower priced offerings grew faster than the average, right, for us in the mix in the quarter, right? And you can see that because the network offerings, which are mostly in that category, grew 80% or better.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Okay. And, I mean, in terms of the. 'Cause, 'cause the gross margin was, you know, up quite a bit on the factory side of, of things. So if it wasn't, you know, mix, was it, was it just, you know, utilization and, and higher revenue? Any other reason why gross margin was quite a bit stronger than recent quarters?
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yeah. So, Greg, the primary driver really was the pickup quarter-over-quarter in revenue and the leverage that we saw off of that. I mean, we were able to, you know, do a good job of holding our costs on that revenue pickup in the factory, while still meeting our industry best lead times. So that was the main driver. I would say, we did see more customers in the third quarter asking for things quickly than we have in the past. And those were mainly, as Rob talked about, some of those strategic customers that use us more holistically, you know, throughout the portfolio.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst, Industrial Technology)
Understood. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that.
Dan Schumacher (CFO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
We have no more questions in the queue, so that will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.