Broadcom Inc (AVGO) — Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Sherri, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me on today's call are Hock Tan, President and CEO; Kirsten Spears, Chief Financial Officer; and Charlie Kawwas, President, Semiconductor Solutions Group. Broadcom distributed a press release and financial tables after the market close, describing our financial performance for the third quarter of fiscal year 2022. If you did not receive a copy, you may obtain the information from the Investors section of Broadcom's website at broadcom.com. This conference call is being webcast live, and an audio replay of the call can be accessed for one year through the Investors sections of Broadcom's website. During the prepared comments, Hock and Kirsten will be providing details of our third quarter fiscal year '22 results, guidance for our fourth quarter as well as commentary regarding the business environment. We'll take questions after the end of our prepared comments. Please refer to our press release today and our recent filings with the SEC for information on the specific risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made on this call. In addition to U.S. GAAP reporting, Broadcom reports certain financial measures on a non-GAAP basis. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures is included in the tables attached to today's press release. Comments made during today's call will primarily refer to our non-GAAP financial results. I'll now turn the call over to Hock.

Thank you, Ji, and thank you everyone for joining today. I feel somewhat surreal here with what I'm about to report and go through in my presentation. Let me start by saying, while consumer IT hardware spending has been reported to be weak, very weak, from our vantage point, infrastructure spending is still very much holding. In our fiscal Q3 '22, consolidated net revenue was a record $8.5 billion, up 25% year-on-year. Semiconductor solutions revenue increased 32% year-on-year to $6.6 billion and infrastructure software revenue grew 5% year-on-year to be $1.8 billion. In Q3, our semiconductor business was robust, with solid contributions from all our end markets. Cloud and service provider growth remained strong, and in Q4 is actually expected to accelerate year-on-year, driven by data center build-out and infrastructure upgrades. Year-on-year, enterprise continued to grow for the sixth consecutive quarter on campus deployments and data center refreshes. Looking at Q4, we expect enterprise to continue to grow double-digit percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, in wireless, which is very much tied to our large North American OEM, it was solid in Q3 and is expected to grow in Q4 as we ramp the new platform. Now, let me provide more color by end market. Starting with networking. Networking revenue was a record $2.3 billion and was up 30% year-on-year, representing 35% of our semiconductor revenue. As both cloud and enterprise data centers refresh, they continue to increase adoption of our Tomahawk, Trident and Jericho switching silicon platforms. Importantly, we expect these trends to continue. In mid-August, Broadcom announced the Tomahawk 5 switch series, providing 51.2 terabits per second of Ethernet switching capacity in a single monolithic device, double the bandwidth of any other switch silicon available in the market today. We also announced the industry's first silicon photonics co-packaged with the Tomahawk, which will enable a new benchmark for low power, and extend our leadership and innovation in hyperscale data centers. Networking remains strong, given these drivers. And in Q4, we expect this segment to be up 30% year-over-year. Next, server storage connectivity revenue was a record $1.1 billion or 17% of semiconductor sales, as growth of 70% year-on-year exceeded our expectations. A primary driver remained the growth of our next-generation service storage connectivity where we benefited from high content and continued deployment of servers and storage in both cloud and enterprises. We anticipate this strong trend to actually continue. And in Q4, we expect server storage connectivity revenue to grow about 45% year-on-year. Moving on to broadband. Revenue of $1.1 billion grew 20% year-on-year, in line with our expectations and represented 17% of semiconductor sales. This steady growth was driven by major service providers continuing to deploy next-generation broadband fiber to the home globally, with high attach rates of Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. We are the industry leader in investing in the next generation Wi-Fi 7 and unlocking amazing wireless experiences across home gateways, enterprise access points and smartphones, and we expect first deployments to occur in the second half of 2023. In Q4, we expect our broadband business to grow above 20% year-on-year. Finally, moving to wireless. Q3 revenue of $1.6 billion represented 25% of our semiconductor revenue. Sustained demand from North American customers drove wireless revenue up 14% year-on-year, in line with our guidance. In Q4, we expect wireless revenue to be seasonally up 20% sequentially and grow 10% year-on-year. Finally, Q3 industrial resales of $244 million declined 4% year-over-year, reflecting weakness in China, partially offset by continued strength in the U.S. and Europe. Nonetheless, for Q4, we forecast industrial resales to rebound to high-single-digit growth year-on-year. In summary, Q3 semiconductor solution revenue was up 32% year-on-year. In Q4, we expect semiconductor revenue to remain strong at 25% year-on-year. Now, putting this in perspective, and if we look at it on a sequential basis, Q3 grew 6% as did Q2, and Q4 will grow another 6%, largely driven by the seasonality of wireless. Turning to software. In Q3, infrastructure software revenue of $1.8 billion grew 5% year-on-year and represented 22% of total revenue. In dollar terms, consolidated renewal rates averaged 128% over expiring contracts, and for strategic accounts, we averaged 140%. Within these strategic accounts, annual bookings of $461 million include $136 million of cross-selling of our portfolio products to these core customers. Now, 95% of our renewal value represented recurring subscription and maintenance. And just to put all this in context, over the past 12 months, consolidated renewal rates averaged 122% over expiring contracts. And within strategic accounts, we averaged 137%. Because of these trends, our ARR and the indicator of forward software revenue at the end of Q3 was $5.5 billion, which was up 5% from a year ago. And in Q4, we expect our infrastructure software revenue to sustain around mid-single-digit percentage growth year-over-year. In summary, therefore, we're guiding consolidated Q4 revenue of $8.9 billion, up 20% year-on-year or 5% sequentially. Now, before Kirsten tells you more about our financial performance for the quarter, let me provide a brief update on our pending acquisition of VMware. We're making good progress with our various regulatory filings around the world. We have an excellent team focused on this effort, and we are moving forward as expected in this regard. We continue to expect the transaction to be completed in Broadcom's fiscal year 2023. We remain excited about our acquisition of VMware and continue to be impressed by the world-class engineering talent as well as strong customer and channel partnerships. We have tremendous respect for what VMware has built. And together, we will enable enterprises to accelerate innovation and expand choice by addressing the most complex technology challenges in this multi-cloud era.

Thank you, Hock. Let me now provide additional detail on our financial performance. Revenue was $8.5 billion for the quarter, up 25% from a year ago. Gross margins were 76% of revenue in the quarter and up 80 basis points year-on-year. Operating expenses were $1.2 billion, up 8% year-on-year, driven by investment in R&D. Operating income for the quarter was $5.2 billion, up 32% from a year ago. Operating margin was 61% of revenue, up approximately 320 basis points year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $5.4 billion or 63.5% of revenue. Note that this figure excludes $129 million of depreciation. Now, a review of the P&L for our two segments. Revenue for our semiconductor solutions segment was $6.6 billion and represented 78% of total revenue in the quarter. This was up 32% year-on-year. Gross margins for our semiconductor solutions segment were approximately 72%, up 220 basis points year-on-year, driven by favorable product mix and content growth in next-generation products across our extensive product portfolio. Operating expenses were $853 million in Q3, up 9% year-on-year. R&D was $765 million in the quarter, up 10% year-on-year. Q3 semiconductor operating margins increased to 59%. So while semiconductor revenue was up 32%, operating profit grew 44%. Moving to the P&L for our infrastructure software segment. Revenue for infrastructure software was $1.8 billion and represented 22% of revenue. This was up 5% year-on-year. Gross margins for infrastructure software were 90% in the quarter and were stable year-over-year. Operating expenses were $375 million in the quarter, up 4% year-on-year. Infrastructure software operating margin was 70% in Q3, and operating profit grew 5%. Moving to cash flow. Free cash flow in the quarter was $4.3 billion, representing 51% of revenue. We spent $116 million on capital expenditures. Days sales outstanding were 29 days in the third quarter compared to 30 days a year ago. We ended the third quarter with inventory of $1.8 billion, up 10% from the end of the prior quarter, in large part due to higher material costs and the expected sequential revenue ramp. We ended the third quarter with $10 billion of cash and $39.5 billion of gross debt, of which $304 million is short-term. Turning to capital allocation. In the quarter, we paid stockholders $1.7 billion of cash dividends. Consistent with our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders, we repurchased $1.5 billion in common stock and eliminated $292 million of common stock for taxes due on vesting of employee equity, resulting in the elimination of approximately 3.2 million AVGO shares. The non-GAAP diluted share count in Q3 was 436 million. In Q4, we expect the non-GAAP diluted share count to be 435 million, which excludes the potential impact of any share repurchases completed in the fourth quarter. We have not repurchased any of our shares since we announced the pending acquisition of VMware, as repurchases are subject to regulatory rules. We maintain our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders, including buybacks, as soon as we can under SEC rules. Based on current business trends and conditions, our guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 is for consolidated revenues of $8.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA of approximately 63% of projected revenue. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, please open up the call for questions.

Hock, you started off your preamble talking about the disconnect between some of the macro data points on the consumer side versus the infrastructure side. Obviously, you have a limited exposure on the consumer side of things. But in the networking, broadband, server, the enterprise and cloud businesses in general, are you seeing any changes? Because it's really hard for, I think, investors and even myself to reconcile the fact that everything is fine for you despite the macro data points seemingly worsening for many of your peers.

No, the short answer is no. By this, I mean that we have been discussing true demand during the earnings call and in conversations with analysts. The revenues we report reflect what we believe to be true demand, based on how we have evaluated our performance over the past eight quarters. We carefully review our backlog before delivering products to customers, ensuring it reflects true end demand. The numbers we presented today demonstrate this strength across various end markets and the infrastructure products we provide. We have a significant backlog, and our lead time remains steady at 50 weeks. While current bookings may suggest different trends, this is largely influenced by customer perceptions and their outlook for the coming year. However, we believe the data from Q3 and our expectations for Q4 accurately represent true end demand and consumption by our customers.

I wanted to follow up on that, Hock. I understand that you believe you are shipping to actual demand. However, it seems that if this were truly the demand situation, others would appear to be stronger than they currently do. What gives you confidence that what you are seeing is indeed true demand? Considering your efforts to adjust shipments and manage orders, do you think it's possible that your customers might be misleading you despite those actions? What kind of assurance can investors take from your statement that you are indeed shipping to true demand?

We have implemented a lot of checks and balances over the past two years before we release products for aircraft or trucks to our customers. We're quite proficient at this process. In response to an earlier question about whether we've noticed any significant changes in the consumption of our products, I can only speak to our specific products, and the answer is no, we haven't observed any changes.

Thank you. I just wanted to clarify and then ask a question. Hock, I just wanted to clarify if any of your products are directly or indirectly exposed to any China restrictions that have been in the press over the last handful of days. And then, Hock, I wanted to ask the growth question in a different way, which is, in the past, you described a sustainable kind of mid-single-digit growth rate for Broadcom. Is that still a good framework to use as we are looking out at the next year or so, or if you could give us maybe by end market, hyperscaler versus enterprise versus telco or consumer, which markets just conceptually you would expect to kind of grow better or slower than that kind of broad growth rate for the Company?

That second question is interesting, but let me address the first one. No, we have not been notified. None of our products are affected by any recent restrictions on shipments to China. We have not been impacted at all, and we do not expect to be. Regarding your point, while that involves some speculation, I maintain that the long-term sustainable demand in the semiconductor space is a mid-single-digit compounded growth rate, around 5% or maybe 6%. I still believe that, despite the marketing excitement over the past year. This has always been the case, and I think we will eventually revert to that norm. What we are observing is indeed interesting because it depends on the starting point for that compounded growth. The 5% I mentioned is the long-term growth rate. In the short term, as we all know, during up cycles, growth can exceed 5%, and during down cycles, it can fall below that, averaging out to 5%. Your point stands that eventually, we will return to the norm, though I don’t see that happening this year. In 2022, we are projecting a year-on-year growth rate for semiconductors of around 25% in Q4, which is significantly above the 5% norm. So yes, things will eventually turn around and revert back to that norm, though it may take a couple of years to get there.

Back in April, you guys did this really nice teaching of your customs look in ASIC business. And the business has been growing at a 20% CAGR over the past few years. You've got a pipeline of over 70 programs at 7, 5 and 3 nanometers. And then specifically, Hock, in your compute offload, right, you got some really nice programs like GPU, SmartNIC video transcode. Is the team still on track to drive $2 billion in compute offload ASIC revenues this year? And then, just given the strategic nature of these ASIC programs to your customers' future initiatives, like, will this segment hold up better in a weaker macro environment, let's say, next year?

Well, to answer your first question, yes, we're on track for this year to hit that $2 billion. We told you that, and we're getting there. As far as does this particular compute offload defy gravity, I don't know. I can't really answer that. I'd like to believe it's emerging, and it's a very emerging business. And so, like, all emerging businesses that have hit some level of critical mass as it appears to have in our case, it may pull up somewhat better than perhaps enterprise, as we are seeing. And so, you're not wrong in that regard. But that is actually calling for some level of speculation on our part because I mean in more than '23, right? I'm looking at '23, '24, '25, next three years, will it hold up better? That I don't know the answer. For '23, sure, it will hold up better.

Hi. Hock, I was wondering if you could update us on the semi's backlog number. I think it was $25 billion last call, which was a little bit more than a year. Can you update us on that backlog number? And then also within that, have you seen any movement in the backlog? I mean, I know probably, it's up. But have you seen any customers cancel or push out? I mean, obviously, that was more than offset by incoming bookings, it sounds like. But sort of what's the fluidity within that backlog? Thanks.

Well, as to clarify the first couple of points, our backlog and our terms are very clear. We do not allow cancellation on our backlog. We have not seen that, to answer your second question. And on the first part, keep in mind, our revenue continues to grow each quarter sequentially as our backlog continues to build up. And compared to the preceding quarter, our backlog at the end of Q3 increased to $31 billion. So, we are still shipping below our booking rate.

Hock, sometimes we forget that historically, we've been at an ASP eroding sort of industry, at least on a like part-for-part basis. I know the mix changes over time, but I think that's changed significantly in the last 1.5 years or so. I'm wondering whether you're seeing that dynamic continue or revert and if you can comment as to how that influencing margins. You're getting such tremendous contribution margins in the semi business. I would have to think pricing is playing some part in that.

Actually, it isn't. I mentioned this in previous earnings calls, and it's worth repeating. We have been able to raise prices over the past 12 months, but only because our material costs have increased. If we look at percentages rather than absolute dollars, our material costs and the cost of goods sold are expected to increase by 10% to maintain our margin percentage despite the price increase of at least 10%. Maintaining that just keeps our gross margin percentage stable. Therefore, price increases have minimal impact on our margin improvement. What has allowed our margins to accelerate, as I noted in the last earnings call, is the pent-up level of spending we've seen, notably in enterprise and somewhat in cloud and broadband, alongside the adoption of next-generation products and technology. This consistently enhances our gross margin. It’s a fundamental aspect of the semiconductor cycle: the new generation of products boosts and expands our gross margin, and the accelerated adoption is what drives this gross margin growth. Price increases themselves are not the primary factor.

I wanted to ask about the wireless segment, solid results this last quarter. It sounds like you're guiding 20% sequential growth into this current quarter. But if I look back over the past couple of years, it's actually been solidly above the 20% sequential growth rate. So, I guess, how are you thinking about the demand profile there? And I guess, with that, your content expansion opportunity as we look at the next-generation product cycle going forward. Thank you.

In the wireless business, it's important to note that when we look at any specific three-month period, like Q3 and now Q4, and compare it to the same period from a year ago, the results can vary significantly. There's no consistency; changes can range from 20% to 30%. Even a slight shift in shipment timing can lead to these differences. Therefore, I wouldn’t focus too heavily on the specific percentage, as variations are common year-over-year. Overall, the unit volume isn’t drastically different from last year; it’s mainly the increase in content that may provide a year-over-year boost. However, when comparing quarterly results, it's worth considering that some volumes may not align perfectly within these three months. Just keep all this variability in mind.

First of all, congratulations for reporting very good guidance, very good results in such a turbulent market. Hock, I wanted to ask a quick one and then a main question. There's been a lot of concerning sort of news coming out of China reported by companies. So, I was curious, first of all, how much exposure do you have to China? And then, for my main question, it's a question of sustainability. Somebody asked about revenues, but I wanted to ask about gross margins. You've got 90% odd margins in software that I think is the norm, but then you've got 72% gross margins in semis, which are sort of honestly abnormal compared to other companies. So, when you think of sustainability of that semi business up in the 70s, what do you think are some of the drivers that keep it up there for you guys, longer term?

Let me address the second question first as it’s a bit more complex, though quite straightforward. Our semiconductor gross margin continues to expand rather than remain static. Looking back five years, we operated with margins in the low to mid-60s, but today we are above 70%. This is a hallmark of the semiconductor technology business, as new product generations emerge regularly—every 12 to 24 months for wireless, every 2 to 3 years for switching, and every 5 years for storage. With each new generation, we enhance our margins by delivering increased value, allowing us to achieve higher prices and profitability. As we introduce new generations, our portfolio margins keep growing. Currently, we are in the 70s. Regarding where we may be in five years, I anticipate this gross margin expansion will persist. While I can't provide a specific mathematical formula, our portfolio of about 16 semiconductor franchises has historically demonstrated an annual average expansion of 50 to 100 basis points. We expect this trend to continue. In the past two years, we've witnessed a rebound driven by changes in IT spending linked to lockdowns and COVID-19 behavioral shifts, which accelerated the adoption of next-generation products across many of our franchises, enhancing our semiconductor gross margin. However, I believe things will revert to a more normalized expansion of 50 to 100 basis points once the current excitement subsides. Despite this, we foresee sustainable expansion in our semiconductor gross margin. In software, while we can't maintain 90% margins indefinitely, we believe semiconductor margins will keep rising. Lastly, regarding your first question about China, it constitutes about 13% of our semiconductor revenue.

Just two questions here again. Sorry. On the enterprise storage side, I saw you guys had a pretty good quarter guide. Just wondering what your exposure was between consumer and enterprise. And what are you seeing in terms of that strength going forward? And also, just my second question on the VMware side. I know you said you're still expecting that to close in fiscal '23. Can you give us some color, have we gotten most of the approvals, are you waiting on some, where that stands? Thanks.

In terms of our semiconductor revenues, we categorize them into three groups across all our end markets except for wireless, which falls under consumer. Our consumer segment within semiconductor contributes about 23% to just under 25% of our revenues, with a better estimate being between 20% to 25%. The remainder, which ranges from 75% to almost 80%, is nearly evenly divided between traditional enterprise and service providers, which include hyperscale companies and telecommunications. Therefore, consumer accounts for 20% to 25%. Regarding the regulatory process with VMware, we are currently navigating a few jurisdictions and are making good progress. We fully expect to complete this by the end of fiscal '23.

With regards to the 50-week lead times that you talked about, what is your goal there over the next, say, 12 months? Do you want to get that down? And to the extent if you do want to, kind of what has to happen from the standpoint of foundry, substrate, things like that, to get that number lower?

I don't know. We haven't thought that hard about it yet, seriously, Joe. No. I kind of like the 50-week lead time, to be frank, because it gives us great visibility. It also pushes politely, gently about their demand out one year. So, it gives us great visibility. Meanwhile, between now to the end of 50 weeks, we all know where we stand with each other and we know where we stand now, which is pretty good visibility.

I wanted to follow up on Joe's question on the supply side. Hock, just based on the sequential revenue growth that you've been marking over the past couple of quarters, your guidance for the October quarter, it's pretty clear that supply continues to be kind of the key determinant of your revenue growth. Based on indications from your foundry supplier and key substrate suppliers, from a modeling perspective, should we expect mid-single-digit growth to be kind of the normal cadence over the next few or several quarters, or could there be a point in time where your rate of growth starts to accelerate, given easing in some of the other end markets? Thank you.

That's a very good question. Let me try to answer that. We've always maintained that supply does not limit our revenue. We focus on understanding what our customers truly need and ship according to that. So, if you view it this way, supply is not the real constraint; it's about real demand and identifying that demand. For the October quarter, we've increased from 8.4 to 8.9. This is largely driven by the seasonal ramp of our North American handset manufacturer, which accounts for that rise. We're closely aligned with the end consumption of products, and it's not primarily about supply. I've mentioned this consistently over the past several quarters, and we're still following that same approach.

Hock, you mentioned in your prepared remarks about your first co-packaged optics product in networking. I was wondering if you could provide a deeper overview of the current status in this area. Regarding your product portfolio, will you have parallel products that include both co-packaged optics and traditional products designed for standard optics over the next few years? Additionally, can you share your insights on how significant co-packaged optics might become in the next 3 to 5 years? Will adoption be gradual for specific use cases, or do you expect a more rapid increase in certain bandwidths where co-packaged optics may be more advantageous than pluggable optics?

Let me explain this. Your question is about the pace of adoption across all our product lines, especially in semiconductors, where we have new generations of products that are quite impressive. However, adoption tends to be slower than we would like. For example, in data center switching, we're still selling earlier versions like Tomahawk 1 and 2 alongside Tomahawk 3, which was released before our current generation. To give you an idea, Tomahawk 4 accounts for less than 30% of my total sales in that line. This shows that multiple generations often coexist, and this is likely to continue. When we launch Tomahawk 5 in two years, we'll still see Tomahawk 1 sales declining only slightly. This coexistence is the norm across all our products, including server storage, where multiple generations are simultaneously available due to the gradual pace of technology adoption. We tend to see a mix rather than a clear winner emerging, as there is always a shared volume of different technologies. In the consumer market, the adoption can be faster, but we still see 2 or 3 generations of our North American OEM products running at the same time. With infrastructure products, however, adoption takes longer and it's common to have three generations in the market at once. This means that any increases in gross margin are impacted by the mix of product generations. Therefore, our gross margin increases gradually, at a rate of about 50 to 100 basis points each year as newer generations are adopted steadily. I hope that addresses your question.

Thank you, Sherri. Broadcom currently plans to report its earnings for the fourth quarter of fiscal '22 after the close of market on Thursday, December 8, 2022. A public webcast of Broadcom's earnings conference call will follow at 2 p.m. Pacific. That will conclude our earnings call today. Thank you all for joining. Sherri, you may end the call.