Texas Instruments - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 revenue $4.74B (+7% q/q, +14% y/y) with growth across all end markets; GAAP EPS $1.48 included a $0.10 reduction not in original guidance. Segment strength: Analog +16% y/y, Embedded +9%, Other +11%.
• Q4 guide: revenue $4.22–$4.58B and EPS $1.13–$1.39; management cited lower wafer loadings, higher depreciation, and a ~13% effective tax rate from new U.S. tax law as drivers.
• Versus S&P Global consensus: revenue beat ($4.74B vs $4.64B); on an S&P “Primary EPS” basis, TXN delivered a beat ($1.57 vs $1.49), while reported GAAP EPS was $1.48 due to a discrete $0.10 reduction. Values retrieved from S&P Global.
• Capital returns and cash generation underpin the narrative: trailing-12M FCF rose 65% to $2.4B; dividend lifted 4% to $1.42 per share (22nd consecutive year).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Broad-based recovery: “Revenue increased 7% sequentially and 14% year over year with growth across all end markets.”
• Data center momentum and planned disclosure: fastest-growing market, >50% ytd growth; TI plans to break out “data center” as a distinct market and estimates ~$1.2B 2025 run rate.
• Cash generation and returns: trailing-12M CFO $6.9B, FCF $2.4B; $6.6B returned to owners over 12 months.

What Went Wrong

• Margin pressure ahead: sequential gross margin down ~50bps in Q3; management guiding further pressure in Q4 from lower loadings and higher depreciation.
• EPS headwind: GAAP EPS $1.48 included a $0.10 reduction not in guidance; ~$0.08 tied to restructuring related to closing last 150mm fabs.
• Moderate cycle and macro uncertainty: recovery “continuing at a slower pace,” customer inventories low but hesitancy persists, especially in industrial; tariffs/geopolitics remain a swing factor.

Transcript

Speaker 2

Welcome to the Texas Instruments Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference call. I'm Mike Beckman, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm joined by our Chief Executive Officer, Haviv Ilan, and our Chief Financial Officer, Rafael Lizardi. For any of you who missed the release, you can find it on our website at ti.com/ir. This call is being broadcast live over the web and can be accessed through our website. In addition, today's call is being recorded and will be available via replay on our website. This call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause TI's results to differ materially from management's current expectations. We encourage you to review the notice regarding forward-looking statements contained in the earnings release published today, as well as TI's most recent SEC filings for a more complete description.

You likely saw last week we announced that the Board of Directors has elected Haviv Ilan Chairman of the Board beginning January 2026. Haviv succeeds Richard Templeton, who will retire as Chairman after a 45-year career with TI. I'm sure you will join me in congratulating them both. Today, we'll provide the following updates. First, Haviv will start with a quick overview of the quarter. Next, he'll provide insight into third quarter revenue results with some details on what we are seeing with respect to our end markets. Lastly, Rafael will cover the financial results, give an update on capital management, as well as share the guidance for fourth quarter 2025. With that, let me turn it over to Haviv.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Mike. I'll start with a quick overview of the third quarter. Revenue came in about as expected at $4.7 billion, an increase of 7% sequentially, and an increase of 14% year over year. Analog and Embedded Processing both grew year over year and sequentially. Analog revenue grew 16% year over year, and Embedded Processing grew 9%. Our other segment grew 11% from the year-ago quarter. Let me provide a few comments about the current market environment. The overall semiconductor market recovery is continuing, though at a slower pace than prior upturns, likely related to the broader macroeconomic dynamics and overall uncertainty. That said, customer inventories remain at low levels, and their inventory depletion appears to be behind us. We are well positioned with capacity and inventory and have flexibility to support a range of scenarios. Now, I'll share some additional insights into third quarter revenue by end market.

First, the industrial market increased about 25% year over year and was up low single digits sequentially, following a strong result in the second quarter. The automotive market increased upper single digits year over year and around 10% sequentially, with growth across all regions. Personal electronics grew low single digits year over year and grew upper single digits sequentially. Enterprise systems grew about 35% year over year and grew about 20% sequentially. Lastly, communications equipment grew about 45% year over year and was up about 10% sequentially. With that, let me turn it over to Rafael to review profitability and capital management.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Haviv, and good afternoon, everyone. As Haviv mentioned, third quarter revenue was $4.7 billion. Gross profit in the quarter was $2.7 billion, or 57% of revenue. Sequentially, gross profit margin decreased 50 basis points. Operating expenses in the quarter were $975 million, up 6% from a year ago and about as expected. On a trailing 12-month basis, operating expenses were $3.9 billion, or 23% of revenue. Operating profit was $1.7 billion in the quarter, or 35% of revenue, and was up 7% from the year-ago quarter. Net income in the quarter was $1.4 billion, or $1.48 per share. EPS included a $0.10 reduction not in our original guidance. This includes $0.08 of restructuring charges related to efforts to drive operational efficiencies to support our long-term strategy, including the planned closures of our last 150mm fabs. Let me now comment on our capital management results, starting with our cash generation.

Cash flow from operations was $2.2 billion in the quarter and $6.9 billion on a trailing 12-month basis. Capital expenditures were $1.2 billion in the quarter and $4.8 billion over the last 12 months. Free cash flow on a trailing 12-month basis was $2.4 billion. This includes $637 million of CHIPS Act incentives, including a $75 million payment received in the third quarter related to the direct funding agreement. In the quarter, we paid $1.2 billion in dividends and repurchased $119 million of our stock. In September, we announced we would increase our dividend by 4%, marking our 22nd consecutive year of dividend increases. This reflects our continued commitment to return free cash flow to our owners over time. In total, we returned $6.6 billion to our owners in the past 12 months.

Our balance sheet remains strong with $5.2 billion of cash and short-term investments at the end of the third quarter. Total debt outstanding is $14 billion, with a weighted average coupon of 4%. Inventory at the end of the quarter was $4.8 billion, up $17 million from the prior quarter, and days were 215, down 16 days sequentially. We have executed well on building an inventory position, which we believe will allow us to consistently deliver high levels of customer service. Turning to our outlook for the fourth quarter, we expect Texas Instruments' revenue in the range of $4.22 to $4.58 billion, and EPS to be in the range of $1.13 to $1.39. Our fourth quarter outlook includes changes related to the new U.S. tax legislation and now assumes an effective tax rate of about 13%.

In addition, we expect our effective tax rate in 2026 to be about 13% to 14%. In closing, we will stay focused in the areas that add value in the long term. We continue to invest in our competitive advantages, which are manufacturing and technology, a broad product portfolio, reach of our channels, and diverse and long-lived positions. We will continue to strengthen these advantages through disciplined capital allocation and by focusing on the best opportunities, which we believe will enable us to continue to deliver free cash flow per share growth over the long term. With that, let me turn it back to Mike. Thanks, Rafael. Operator, you can now open the line for questions. In order to provide as many of you as possible an opportunity to ask your questions, please limit yourself to a single question.

After our response, we'll provide you an opportunity for an additional follow-up. Operator?

Speaker 3

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. 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 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Timothy Arcuri with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks a lot. Haviv, I'm wondering if you can talk about the linearity of bookings through the quarter. I know in the June quarter things had softened throughout the quarter, but this quarter it seemed like things got a little better as you moved through the quarter. Can you talk about that as you head into, you know, CQ4?

Speaker 1

Yes, I'll give some high-level comments, and Mike, please add anything with more details. This quarter kind of came in as expected, and nothing, not similar to what we saw in Q2. It was a little bit hectic with the tensions related to trade and tariffs. We saw a lot of change through the quarter. This was more of an as-expected quarter through the quarter in July, August, and September. Mike, anything to add on that one?

We had talked about the turns portion of the business had kind of started out strong at the beginning of second and had moderated near the end. We did not see that same behavior again in third. It really, that portion kind of followed what you would expect to see in a kind of a cyclical recovery that we saw in third. Do you have a follow-up? I do, yeah. Rafael, I wanted to ask about loadings that are assumed in the fourth quarter. I know you usually come in at the high end, but if we assume the midpoint of the guidance, and I assume that depreciation grows like it has the past few quarters, gross margin, if I exclude the depreciation, so on a cash basis, it is down like sub 67%, so it has not been that low in like 10 years.

You are already sitting on a lot of inventory. I do not think you want to build more. What is the path to get cash margins on a better path here? It is below where it was seven to eight quarters ago when revenue was $600 million to $700 million, lower than where it is today. Thanks.

Let me try to answer that. There were several questions there, so let me see if I can hit most of them. First, your question is maybe fundamentally on inventory, so let me start there. We're very pleased with our current inventory position. That objective for inventory is to support customers, to keep lead times short, and have just great customer delivery, customer satisfaction. That we are achieving, and we're pleased with where the inventory is. Now, given the midpoint of our revenue, in order to continue to maintain those levels of inventory and where we want to be on inventory, we're adjusting the loadings down into fourth quarter. We did some of that in third quarter, and we're going to do some more into fourth quarter.

As we do that, and as you pointed out, when you look at fourth quarter, you have lower revenue, you have higher depreciation, you have the hit on the lower loadings. That's how you get to the EPS range that we have listed.

All right, we'll move on to the next caller.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Danley with Citibank. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, guys, and thanks for pronouncing my last name correctly, Operator. Hey, guys, could you just talk a little bit more about the restructuring? Maybe what was the catalyst for it, and then any benefits to expenses, either gross margins or OpEx going forward?

Speaker 1

At a very high level, it's related to actually two things. First, I think we announced several years back that we are winding down our six-inch fabs, our 150mm fabs. We have one in Sherman, the old site, the old fab in the site, and one in Dallas. Both of them have actually started the last wafer this month, and we will see a gradual reduction in cost related to these two factories through, I think, the first half of 2026. We're just taking the hit on the restructuring costs in Q3 as we had predictability, and the amount was clear to us in terms of the size of it. Regarding the other part of it, this is an ongoing work that we're doing. We always look at the efficiency gains.

We had some areas where we felt that our R&D machine is not generating the returns that we would expect on the long term, and we decided to consolidate some sites. That is also going to take place in the next couple of quarters for the company.

Do you have a follow-up, Chris?

Rafael, is there anything that, just on the OpEx side, that you want to mention, Rafael, on this one? No, I would just say, tactically, for fourth quarter, expect OpEx to be about flat to third quarter, and that's, as Haviv alluded to, the benefits from the restructuring. They don't all come in immediately, so it just takes a little while for that to happen, and there will be benefits in both COR as well as OpEx.

Do you have a follow-up, Chris? Yeah, hey, thanks, Mike. I think you guys said industrial was up low single digits sequentially, and auto was up, I think it was high singles or something like that sequentially. That sounds like a bit of a change from what you said last quarter and intraquarter. Is that true? You know, why do you think industrial's slowing down and auto's a little better than expected?

Let me take a first, Chris, as you remember, we only guide at the company level. We don't guide by market. We did say, I think, on the industrial side that we had a very strong Q2, so kind of indicated that we assume Q3 will taper off, right? Actually, to me, that low single digit growth sequentially was good. I'm pleased with the result. Remember, very strong growth in the second quarter. On the automotive side, I would say, look, automotive was kind of sequentially up and down and up and down, but all in a very similar level, right? The recovery in automotive, at least for Texas Instruments, was very, the trough was shallow, and now, you know, it's kind of back to where it used to be. I would not read too much into it.

You know, it came in more or less as expected, and I think, Mike, it grew across the regions in automotive?

It did, yeah. It grew sequentially across all the regions.

All the regions. No surprises there, Chris, from our perspective at least.

Yeah, I'd just add within industrial, a second to third transition usually actually down. If you just look across the averages over history, it's actually down a little bit. Up low single digit is actually not an unusual result if you're in a recovery. All right, I'll move on to the next caller. Thanks, Chris.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Moore with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Great, thank you. I guess I continue to get a lot of questions about pricing for you guys. Anything unusual happening there? I think you alluded to kind of an ongoing learning curve, kind of price declines, but anything happening where any markets are sort of different on the pricing side?

Speaker 1

Short answer is no. For the year, I think our assumption coming into the year was kind of a low single digit decline, like for like on the pricing side. I think that's how we are trending here today. I expect the year to end at that low single digit price reduction in 2025.

Do you have a follow-up, Joe? Yeah, and just your any comment on lead times? Are you still in the range that you've talked about? Any areas where lead times are getting longer? I'd say across the portfolio, very consistent with what it was the quarter prior. Not much of a change in that. Our lead times right now are competitive. We worked very hard to make sure that our inventory position could allow us to do that. We're happy with the lead time position that we have. Not a lot of change on a sequential basis.

Joe, just a little bit more color on the lead times. I think, you know, we always talk about inventory part by part, the technology by technology, package type by package type. I think, as Rafael mentioned, the third quarter was a very good quarter for us because we've reached our milestone of, you know, that's where we need to be. We had a few areas where we were still catching up. That's now behind us. We are now prepared for any scenario. As Mike said, we are serving our customers through, you know, a grotesque of meetings with no issues. Very strong support from Texas Instruments. We are hitting our metrics and exceeding them even. Customer service is continuing to be very high for the company, which explains some of the low visibility we are seeing in terms of turns business, as Mike mentioned before.

All right, thanks, Joe.

Thank you.

Move on to our next caller, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stacy Raskin with Bernstein Research. Please proceed with your question.

Hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. For my first one, I just wanted to dial in on the gross margin expectations explicitly for Q4. You talked about loadings and everything else. You talked about the tax rate coming up. It seems to be you're guiding it down, I don't know, maybe 250 bps, something in the ballpark of 55%. I just want to know, is that the right number to think about? Given that baseline, how much cost should I be expecting comes out of the model due to the 150mm fab closures in the first half?

Speaker 1

Yeah, Stacy, high level, you're in the ballpark. We let the EPS guide speak for itself, but you have lower revenue. You fall that through. You have increases in depreciation. For the year, it's $1.8 to $2 billion. It should be an increase second to third, similar to third to fourth, should be similar to second to third. You do that and you have higher levels of depreciation. As Haviv said, we're very pleased with our inventory levels. They're doing what they're supposed to. We are moderating those wafer starts, those loadings. As those come down, we get the impact on gross margins. Let me just also step back and stress that we run the company with a mindset of a long-term owner and the objective to grow free cash flow per share over the long term. That is gaining momentum.

On a trailing 12-month basis, our free cash flow is up 65% from last year. It has the potential to accelerate and grow even faster next year, as we have outlined in our framework back in the capital management.

Do you have a follow-up, Stacy? I do, thanks. Your Q4 guide is down about 7% sequentially off the slightly higher than expected Q3 base. My message is that down 7% or so is pretty much seasonal, like on a pre-COVID basis. I know post-COVID seasonality has been all over the place, all over the place. Pre-COVID, it typically was down, call it like high single digits. You seem to be on a seasonal trend now, and maybe that's consistent with customers no longer draining inventory. How do I think about normal seasonality, like pre-COVID levels for Q1? My feeling is that it's typically down sequentially. What is, I'm not asking you to guide it, but just what is normal for Q1, at least on a pre-COVID basis, if we're running more of a seasonal pattern from here?

Stacy, before we talk about Q1, let me just add a little bit more color on Q4. As you said, I look at it as a roughly seasonal guide, as you said. The reason is there is a recovery, but it's a very moderate pace, right? That's what guides our, call it, seasonal view into Q4. I also mentioned, that's what we're seeing. This is part of the way we do business these days. More customers are direct, more customers are on consignment. Customer inventories are low, and I think they've gone through this depletion process. That's behind us. We are going to be just seeing it real time as it comes, and hence our guidance. Now, regarding Q1, Mike, you can comment if you want.

Yeah, it's not unusual to see fourth to first, just historically. This is not a guide for what we're going to see, but what historically is done is typically down just slightly sequentially. It's not unusual to see. All right, Stacy, thank you for the questions. Move on to the next caller, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ross Seymour with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Hi guys, thanks for asking a couple of questions. Haviv, congratulations on the Chairman role as well. I wanted to go back to the gross margin side. Rafael, you talked about all the reasons it was going to drop and the rough range from the prior question. Just wondered, how does that flow through into next year from the perspective of depreciation? Is there any change to the range you gave before? If you're flat to slightly down in the first quarter, does that flow through in the utilization dynamic? Does that have to flow through inventory, etc., in leading to a headwind as we go into the first half of next year as well?

Speaker 1

Yeah, a couple of things. First, on depreciation, no change to our guidance. $1.8 to $2 billion for this year. You come back into the fourth quarter, as I answered to Stacy a second ago. For next year, we've said $2.3 to $2.7 billion, but to be on the lower end of that range. That should give you enough to model that. Beyond that, we'll forecast one quarter at a time. It's going to depend on revenue and demand. By lowering the loadings now, it puts us in a good position to have the level of inventory that we think is required. I think that's going to put us in a good position going into 2026.

Ross, the only color I'll add, and Rafael touched upon it, we do think, and that's the way we run the place on free cash flow per share, we have made excellent progress on ramping and qualifying our Sherman new site. We are winding down two 150mm fabs. Our investments in Utah, in Lehi 2, are continuing as planned. Our eyes are on free cash flow per share growth, and start with free cash flow, right? When you get to the right level of inventory, when you execute on your expansion plans, I think we are now well prepared for any scenario. As you remember, we have framed 2026 not on free cash flow per share, but on free cash flow. That's where our sight is on. Okay?

Do you have a follow-up, Ross? Yeah, I do. I just wanted to also talk about margins, but on the OpEx side, clarification first, then the question. The clarification for Rafael, you talked about OpEx being flat in the fourth quarter. I assume that's excluding the charge in the third quarter. As you look forward, in the past, you've had years that OpEx is flat year-over-year. You just took some restructuring. You're consolidating R&D sites, you said. How should we think just generally about OpEx, whether it's relative to revenue or absolute levels? Do you plan to grow at low single digits? Is it something higher than that, like this year? Any sort of color about how you're approaching OpEx as you look into next year?

Yeah, so a couple of things. First, on the first part of your question, when I think about OpEx, I do not include restructuring in that. That is a separate line. So that $85 million, of course, that's not going to repeat. Put that out. The OpEx, the regular OpEx, I expect it to be about flat third to fourth quarter. Beyond that, on R&D and SG&A strategy, more broadly speaking, we have a disciplined process of allocating R&D and SG&A to the best opportunities and the best investments. That's both primarily on the R&D space, but even in the SG&A strategies such as ti.com to strengthen our competitive advantages. On the R&D side, Ross, today I'd like to talk about, and we are seeing, the data center market becoming a larger opportunity over the last several years, and I think that continues into the future.

When I think about industrial, automotive, data center, the amount of opportunity to expand our portfolio is high. We have a lot of good investments to make there, and we plan to continue to grow our portfolio in these three areas. We care about all markets, all five markets, but these three will have a really long-term growth opportunity ahead of them, and Texas Instruments can do more to sell these markets. I expect to see that in 2026 and beyond.

Thank you, Ross. We'll move on to our next caller, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Snyder with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could maybe give us a little bit of color in China and what you're seeing there. I think last quarter you called out some pulling activity. I'm curious whether you saw a reversion there in terms of orders or whether orders ended up better than you expected, and sort of what you're seeing on a real-time basis heading into Q4.

Speaker 1

High level in Q3. China came back to normal, and I expect that to continue into Q4. Mike, anything specific on the China business in Q3?

Yeah, maybe add, as we probably talked about last quarter, you know, there was a potential for pull forward in second. If you look at industrial in China, you know, that was one of the only markets that didn't grow sequentially. If you look on a year-over-year, still up about 40%. I think you're looking at where it essentially didn't repeat. We didn't see that same level of pull forward, at least evidence of it. I can't confirm that with certainty, but it doesn't appear that that same pull forward trend repeated itself in third, just based on that. We'll have to see how it plays through. That's the only thing I would add.

Okay. Nothing special to report there, James, okay?

Do you have a follow-up? Yes, please. I know when you get to the beginning of next year, you'll give us an update on the Capital Management Day, but I'm just sort of curious, as we sit here today, in light of the slower recovery you seem to be talking about right now, or you're seeing right now, can you maybe give us a sense about whether you expect that your CapEx for next year will be toward the lower end of the range you outlined at the beginning of this year?

Yeah, we gave you the framework, James, and again, we gave you a $20 to $26 billion framework there, but of course, it can be higher or lower. I think the probability of being lower is probably more probable than higher than $26 billion, right? At the end of the day, we'll see what it wants to do. This recovery has been moderate. We haven't seen even the market goes back to trend line, not to mention going above trend line and customers building inventory. We just haven't seen it. It could still happen in this cycle. It could not. The good news from a Texas Instruments perspective is that we are ready for any scenario. If it wants to grow quickly, we will be able to serve it.

If it wants to continue in that moderate recovery, of course, we will be at the lower end of the CapEx and free cash flow will grow, as indicated in our framework that we provided in capital management. As February comes in, we'll have some more information. We'll have Q4 behind us, and we'll provide more color on that, James.

Thanks, Jim.

Thank you.

Move on to the next caller, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Caso with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, thank you. I guess first question is with regard to general conditions and the recovery. I think the words you said were that the recovery was continuing at a slower pace. Can you talk about what's changed in your mind since the last earnings call? I think earlier in the year, you know, perhaps you were more optimistic that, you know, this would follow lines of a more typical recovery, which would be stronger by now. What sort of changed in the part of your customers and such, as compared to the last earnings call?

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's fair. I think that's related more to the first half of Q2. I think Mike mentioned that, and we acknowledged that in the July call, that it had a very rapid start. We were thinking that we were sitting on a sharp slope. I think time taught us that it is not, I would not say it's just a moderate, okay? We are seeing the market getting back towards trend line, but still below trend line. You know, that's one of the more moderate recoveries that we've seen in the history. I think you have to go back many years to see similar behavior. It could still change.

I don't have, I cannot prove it, but I do see when I talk with customers, especially on the industrial side, and if you think about investing, building new factories, putting more CapEx, there is a bit of a wait-and-see mode with our customers. They're just hesitant to have clarity on what exactly are the final rules. Should I put my factory in this country or in another one? Even in our domain, think about it. The rules are still not finalized in terms of the rates of tariffs, for example. Will they be or not? I do see this hesitancy at the customer base, and I see it mainly on the industrial side. On the automotive side, the secular growth is continuing. Just constant growth allows that market to go back to the level it picked before. The outlier is data center.

Data center, again, not a large part of our revenue, but growing more than 50% for Texas Instruments year to date. That's where we see strong investment. That's the only place where we see a strong growth, where customers are investing and moving fast, and Texas Instruments wants to do more there. We are investing as well, but again, a smaller part of our revenue.

Do you have a follow-up, Chris? I do. Thank you. As a follow-up, if you could take us through your thought process with regard to the reduction in wafer starts and utilization. Is it a function of what you just said, that typically the recovery was stronger at this point, and it's not there, so you need to moderate a bit? You could take us through the thought process of that, and for how long you would keep the loadings at a lower level, and what would you need to see to start raising those loadings again?

Yeah, so it is, you can think of it fairly mechanically, frankly. Think of revenue was $4.7 billion and change in third quarter. Now the midpoint is $4.4 billion. If you run the factories the same way you were before with lower revenue, you just grow inventory and keep on growing inventory. We only grew $17 million in third quarter, so it was essentially flat, but at a lower revenue, same loadings, you would grow inventory. You need to moderate that in order to keep inventory either flat or maybe slightly down as we go into fourth quarter. The second part of your question, it's going to depend on revenue, right?

The higher the revenue could be over the next 6, 9, 12 months going into 2026, then the faster we could increase the loadings back up, or we may leave them at that level if the revenue is more moderate. It's just going to depend on how revenue comes in.

Yeah, thanks, Chris. Moving on to the next caller, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Blaine Curtis with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, thanks, guys. I added two questions. I just wanted to follow back up on that loading comment. You said that you would keep it kind of flat in December. I guess, you know, you're not going to guide to March, but I'm just kind of curious. You've been growing, you know, inventory for many, many quarters. Is this now the way to think about it? You'll keep it flat until you see a more robust recovery in the top line?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think you're referring to flat inventory levels, and I said flat to down. We are comfortable with the $4.8 billion that we have of inventory that has very low obsolescence level. We hardly ever scrap any of our inventory because it lasts a long time, both in finished goods and in chips, in chip form, in die bank, and in finished goods. We feel very comfortable with that level, but it's about sustainability, right? If you just keep on growing, it's just not a good allocation of your cash, of your capital for owners. It's better to moderate the loadings. That way you're flat to down in the current environment, and we feel that we can do that and continue to have very high levels of customer service and metrics supporting our customers.

Do you have a follow-up?

Thanks. I guess just a follow-up. In terms of the lower loading in the December quarter, is that all reflected in the gross margin guidance, or does that kind of spill into March? Obviously, like I said, you're not going to guide to March, but just kind of thinking about the moving pieces, is there any kind of part of the December cut that spills into March in addition to whatever March is? Yeah, we're not guiding to March, as you pointed out, but the lower loadings that I'm talking about, some of that happened in third quarter. There was a step down in third quarter, second to third, and there's another step down into fourth. That is, of course, embedded in the EPS guidance that we just gave.

All right, thanks, Blaine. Move on to our next caller, please.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Torres Vanberg with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, thank you, and congratulations, Haviv. My first question is on the enterprise data and communications business. I get the enterprise data. That's obviously tied to data center, but I'm a little bit surprised to see the communications equipment being that strong. Is that also tied to data center and perhaps, you know, some of these cluster buildouts, or is there anything else going on there?

Speaker 1

Oh, yes, I think it's a great question, and that's the reason I think we indicated before, and we'll provide more color in Q1. We are planning to break out the data center as a market for the company. Right now, our data center sits mainly in enterprise, in that computer and equipment, but also on the comms side. We have there the wire, the switches, and the wired comms in a rack and rack-to-rack. We also have the optical module business there in comms. They are really part of the data center market, if you will. The other part of the data center market for Texas Instruments sits today in industrial. Think about all this high-voltage power delivery, the PSUs, and all that. There is also a lot of architecture change there going to high-voltage DC and all that.

I think it's time that Texas Instruments calls out a data center at the top. We'll provide more color in Q1, but just for the year, and we are in the midst of collecting all the bits and pieces. Texas Instruments is running more or less at a $1.2 billion run rate in 2025. That's what we're seeing right now. We'll provide more specifics in Q1. It's also our fastest growing market. It's growing year to date above 50% for the first three quarters. I see customers continuing to invest, as I alluded before. That's the one market that we see capex going into, and I'm not seeing any slowdown there, at least in the foreseeable future, related to our visibility at least. Okay?

Do you have a follow-up, Tory? Yes, that was very helpful. Just a quick follow-up. I know you typically don't guide by markets in Q4, but any sort of outliers one way or the other by your end markets into the December quarter, please? I'd just say there's no specific outliers to call out. As you look across our businesses, some of our end markets have higher sensitivity to seasonality than others, personal electronics being probably the most sensitive to it. Overall, there's nothing specific that I'd call out about fourth quarter's transition. Tory, thank you for the question. I'll hand it back over to Haviv to wrap this up.

Thank you, Mike. Let me wrap up with what we've said previously. At our core, we're engineers. Our technology is the foundation of our company. Ultimately, our objective is to, and the best metric to measure progress and generate value to our owners is the long-term growth of free cash flow per share. Thank you and have a good evening.