Broadcom Inc (AVGO) — Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Operator, 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 closed, describing our financial performance for the first quarter fiscal year 2023. 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 section of Broadcom’s website. During the prepared comments, Hock and Kirsten will be providing details of our first quarter fiscal year 2023 results, guidance for our second quarter, as well as commentary regarding the business environment. We will 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 will now turn the call over to Hock.

Thank you, Ji, and thank you all for joining us today. In our fiscal Q1 2023, consolidated net revenue reached $8.9 billion, reflecting a 16% increase compared to the previous year. Revenue from Semiconductor Solutions rose by 21% year-on-year to $7.1 billion. As anticipated, Infrastructure Software revenue fell by 1% year-on-year to $1.8 billion, although our core software saw a growth of 5% year-on-year. Looking back at Q1, we observe that infrastructure spending remains elevated, particularly among service providers, while hyperscale and enterprise spending holds steady. Investment in technology for infrastructure has robustly exhibited double-digit growth for nine consecutive quarters. We are well booked for fiscal 2023, with lead times and visibility on semiconductors staying steady at approximately 50 weeks. Despite a few requests for order delays, these instances are rare and have not significantly affected our business. Since we ship consistently throughout the quarter, our inventory remains stable at around 80 days, and overall inventory of Broadcom products within the ecosystem is well managed. We are committed to shipping our backlog only as needed by our end customers. Now, let’s provide more details on each of our end markets. Starting with networking, revenue was $2.3 billion, a 20% increase year-on-year, aligning with our guidance and making up 32% of our semiconductor revenue. The advanced Tomahawk switches continue to be deployed by hyperscalers in their leaf and spine architectures. While we are enhancing bandwidth for these hyperscalers, power management remains a significant challenge. Recently, we introduced the industry's first integrated silicon photonics networking solution, code-named Bailey, which combines active optical interconnects with our next-generation Tomahawk 5 switch at 51.2 terabits per second. Bailey enhances switching performance while reducing total system power. Notably, a growing segment of our switches is now utilized within hyperscalers' AI networks, separate from traditional x86 CPU workloads. Looking ahead, we will utilize large-scale, large language models that involve billions of parameters, requiring thousands of AI engines to run synchronously at speeds of 400 gig and 800 gig. The networking infrastructure to support such density is crucial for AI operations. These AI networks are currently being implemented at specific hyperscalers using our Jericho 2 switches and Ramon Fabric. In fact, we estimated that our Ethernet switch shipments for AI deployments exceeded $200 million in 2022, with expectations to rise to over $800 million in 2023 due to increasing demand from hyperscale customers. We foresee this trend accelerating, necessitating even higher performance networks for the future. This drives our investment in a new generation of lossless, low-latency Ethernet fabric designed for demanding AI workloads. Additionally, the booming growth of generative AI is boosting our compute offload accelerated business at hyperscalers, growing to over $2 billion in revenue in 2022, and we are on track to surpass $3 billion in fiscal 2023. In Q2, we expect the positive momentum to contribute to an additional 20% year-over-year growth in networking revenue. Next, our server storage connectivity revenue hit a record $1.3 billion, accounting for 18% of semiconductor revenue, marking a 57% year-on-year increase. As mentioned in previous quarters, the shift towards next-generation megawatt solutions has significantly driven this year-on-year growth. After four consecutive quarters of increases, this transition is now largely complete, and we predict Q2 to see about 20% year-on-year growth in server storage connectivity revenue. In broadband, revenue grew by 34% year-on-year to a record $1.2 billion, making up 17% of semiconductor revenue. This quarter, our broadband division experienced strong growth from telcos deploying 10G PON and cable operators adopting DOCSIS 3.1. These gateways have high adoption rates for WiFi 6 and 6E. We anticipate the foundational drivers of broadband to maintain momentum in Q2, forecasting a solid 10% year-on-year growth. Now for wireless, Q1 revenue was $2.1 billion, representing 29% of semiconductor revenue. Demand from North American customers resulted in a 4% year-on-year increase in wireless revenue, showcased by content gains highlighted last quarter. Sequentially, wireless revenue was flat compared to Q4 and is expected to see a seasonal dip in Q2 along with a high single-digit percentage decrease year-on-year. Lastly, Q1 industrial resale revenue was $229 million, down 4% year-on-year, as weaknesses in China countered strengths from renewable energy and medical sectors. For Q2, we predict industrial resales to decline by low single-digit percentages year-on-year due to ongoing challenges in China. To summarize, Q1 Semiconductor Solutions revenue increased by 21% year-on-year, and we expect high single-digit percentage growth in semiconductor revenue for Q2. Turning to software, Q1 Infrastructure Software revenue was $1.8 billion, a slight 1% decline year-on-year, which represented 20% of total revenue. Despite a 5% growth in core software, the Brocade business experienced a downturn due to fluctuations in enterprise consumption within a narrow segment of SAN storage. For core software, our renewal rates averaged 119% of expiring contracts, with strategic accounts averaging 129%. The annualized bookings from these strategic accounts totaled $536 million, of which $197 million, or 37%, came from cross-selling our product portfolio. Over 90% of the renewal value was derived from recurring subscriptions and maintenance. Across the last 12 months, consolidated renewal rates were 119% for expiring contracts and 134% for strategic accounts. Consequently, our ARR, which indicates future revenue at the end of Q1, stood at $5.3 billion, reflecting a 3% increase from last year. For Q2, we expect our Infrastructure Software segment revenue to rise by low-to-mid single-digit percentages year-on-year, as stable growth in core software is somewhat counterbalanced by weakness in Brocade. In closing, we are guiding for consolidated Q2 revenue of $8.7 billion, an 8% increase year-on-year. Before Kirsten shares additional insights regarding our quarterly financial performance, I want to give a brief update about our pending VMware acquisition. We are making headway with our global regulatory approvals, having secured legal merger clearance in Brazil, South Africa, and Canada, along with foreign investment control clearance in Germany, France, Austria, Denmark, Italy, and New Zealand. As stated in our previous earnings call, we anticipate that the review process might take longer in other regions due to the transaction's size. Nevertheless, we still expect this transaction to finalize within fiscal 2023. We believe that the merger of Broadcom and VMware will aid enterprises in accelerating innovation and expanding choice by addressing their complex technology challenges in this multi-cloud landscape, and we are confident that regulators will recognize this during their review. Lastly, Broadcom recently released its third annual ESG report, which can be found on our corporate citizenship website, outlining our commitments to positively impacting our customers, employees, and communities through innovative products and operational excellence. We remain dedicated to this mission.

Thank you, Hock. Let me now provide additional detail on our financial performance. Broadcom had another great quarter with robust financials. Consolidated revenue was $8.9 billion for the quarter, up 16% from a year ago. Gross margins were 74% of revenue in the quarter, about 10 basis points higher than we expected. Operating expenses were $1.1 billion, down 1% year-on-year. R&D of $929 million was also down 1% year-on-year, primarily from streamlined project and other variable spending, offset in part by higher people costs resulting from increased headcount as we are hiring. Operating income for the quarter was $5.4 billion and was up 17% from a year ago. Operating margin was 61% of revenue, up approximately 50 basis points year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $5.7 billion or 64% of revenue. This figure excludes $127 million of depreciation. Now a review of the P&L for our two reportable segments. Revenue for our Semiconductor Solutions segment was $7.1 billion and represented 80% of total revenue in the quarter. This was up 21% year-on-year. As Hock discussed, this came from strength across all of our semiconductor end markets. Gross margins for our Semiconductor Solutions segment were approximately 69%, down approximately 160 basis points year-on-year, driven primarily by product mix within our semiconductor end markets. Operating expenses were $802 million in Q1, down 2% year-on-year. R&D was $716 million in the quarter, down 1% year-on-year. Q1 semiconductor operating margins were 58%. So while semiconductor revenue was up 21%, operating profit grew 23% year-on-year. Moving to the P&L for our Infrastructure Software reportable segment. Revenue for Infrastructure Software was $1.8 billion, down 1% year-on-year and represented 20% of revenue. Gross margins for Infrastructure Software were 91% in the quarter and operating expenses were $346 million in the quarter, down 1% year-over-year. Infrastructure Software operating margin was 72% in Q1 and operating profit was stable year-on-year. Moving to cash flow. Free cash flow in the quarter was $3.9 billion, representing a 16% increase year-over-year. Free cash flow represented 44% of revenues in Q1 2023 consistent with what we achieved the same quarter last year. We spent $103 million on capital expenditures. Days sales outstanding were 33 days in the first quarter compared to 30 days in the fourth quarter. We ended the first quarter with inventory of $1.9 billion, down 1% from the end of the prior quarter or 78 days on hand. Overall, inventory of Broadcom’s products across the ecosystem, as Hock indicated, remains well managed. We ended the first quarter with $12.6 billion of cash and $39.3 billion of gross debt of which $1.1 billion is short-term. During the quarter, we repaid $260 million in senior notes that were due on maturity. The weighted average coupon rate and years to maturity of our fixed rate debt is 3.61% and 10.2 years, respectively. Turning to capital allocation, in the quarter, we paid stockholders $1.9 billion of cash dividends. Consistent with our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders, we repurchased $1.2 billion of our common stock and eliminated $333 million of common stock for taxes due on vesting of employee equity, resulting in the repurchase and elimination of approximately 2.7 million AVGO shares. The non-GAAP diluted share count in Q1 was $434 million. As of the end of Q1, $11.8 billion was remaining under the share repurchase authorization. Excluding the potential impact of any share repurchases, in Q2, we expect the non-GAAP diluted share count to be 438 million. Based on current business trends and conditions, our guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2023 is for consolidated revenues of $8.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA of approximately 64.5% of projected revenue. In forecasting such profitability, we expect gross margins to be up approximately 150 basis points sequentially on product mix and R&D spending to be up sequentially on continuing hiring of engineers and seasonal payroll tax step-ups. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, please open up the call for questions.

Yeah. Hey, guys. Congratulations on yet another solid quarter and guide and thanks for all the color you guys provided. Hock, you mentioned generative models in your commentary. I wanted to understand the difference between what you are doing in AI so far versus maybe what our understanding of generative is. You talked about $200 million in Ethernet related to AI, is that largely generative, because we have heard other companies say that for large part, the generative models are using InfiniBand and then you talked about $2 billion in compute offload going to sort of $3 billion. My understanding was that was mostly for video processing. Maybe help us think about how we think of Avago’s place or Broadcom’s place in the generative process?

Thank you for the question and the chance to clarify why we emphasized this point. In 2022, generative AI was just beginning to emerge, and while AI networks were already present in hyperscale environments in significant amounts, we wanted to draw a parallel to traditional CPUs used in regular workloads in these data centers. We have faced limitations with the performance of silicon CPUs, and as Moore's Law begins to wane, we are seeing buyers scale up by positioning rows of server CPUs and networking them to function closely in parallel. As we transition to large language models in AI, particularly generative AI, GPUs are being connected in hundreds, soon to be thousands, of racks and are working together in parallel. These GPUs operate synchronously to perform what we refer to as bulk parametric exchange, running various AI engines—whether they are GPUs, TPUs, or other AI types—together in a network. This network is becoming an essential aspect of the AI landscape in hardware. To enable this, we must assemble numerous racks of AI engines working in parallel, much like hyperscalers have done with CPUs to enhance their performance, as Moore's Law reaches its limits and presents similar constraints with AI engines made from silicon. Therefore, the network plays a crucial role in realizing the potential of generative AI. In 2022, we estimate that AI workloads in hyperscale environments accounted for around $200 million worth of silicon, Ethernet switches, and fabric in those AI networks. With the rise of generative AI and the excitement surrounding it, we are witnessing a significant increase in demand. Our hyperscale customers are eager to secure products and ensure they can establish highly efficient, low-latency networks that can scale, and Ethernet is key to that scalability.

Understood.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Hock, as your cloud customers are now aggressively focused on generative AI development and deployment across their data center footprint, right? This is driving strong AI-focused Ethernet switch port demand and demand for our compute offload as like TPU for this year, as you mentioned. But from a new product ramp and design win funnel perspective, is this also causing your cloud customers to want to pull forward some of your future programs like Tomahawk 5 or Jericho 3 next-gen switching and routing products and/or pulling the design and tape out of their next-generation compute offload AI ASIC programs?

Yes. We are seeing all of the foregoing by the way, and that happened over the last 90 days. We have seen a lot of that urgency, a lot of that, you might call it excitement, but you hit it right on.

Okay.

Thank you for taking my question. Hock, I am just curious to understand just the views about the second half. If I look at the last few years, Broadcom has managed to grow semiconductor sales, right, anywhere between 5% to kind of double-digit second half half-over-half, just the broader business environment. So it’s kind of more of a broader business environment question, not guidance per se, what could change that trend for Broadcom in a positive or negative way this year?

In a general sense, while this isn't guidance, we are feeling optimistic about a soft landing. We anticipate moderation in growth during the second quarter, but we still expect a year-on-year improvement in the second half.

Understood. Thank you, Hock.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to verify, Hock, did you say that you started hearing urgency from your hyperscale customers around the AI in the last 90 days, and just given that, how do I think about that in the context of lead times that are still 50 weeks? You have got like, sounds like, $1.6 billion in incremental net working growth in year-over-year in 2023 from AI across both Ethernet and the ASICs. I guess given the lead times, is that more of a second half kind of thing when that contributes to the model or does it contribute more linearly for the year or I guess just how do I think about the timing levels in the wake of the strong demand right now just given the broader lead times?

Stacy, thank you for your question. That's a very insightful observation. As I mentioned, we are not providing guidance on what to expect beyond the second quarter or for the second half of this year.

You give us some guidance for the year on this, right, so...

No guidance. Sorry, I give you a conceptual trend, how is that. But…

Okay. The networking guidance for Q2 is expected to increase by about mid-teens sequentially. Is that part of what’s contributing, or will there be even more as we move forward? Once we get through this quarter, we will have completed the first half of the year, right? So I guess…

I think…

….I have been asking in the second half, right?

Stacy, I wish you guys will not do too much analysis, but I know that won’t happen. I am only guiding Q2. I will let you figure out what happens in the second half. I think you are probably better off doing that than I am.

Got it. Okay. Thank you so much, Hock.

Thank you.

Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question and I know that it might be difficult to share too much on the ongoing review from the European Commission. But I was hoping maybe you could speak a little bit about where they are concerned, i.e., mix fiber channel, host bus adapters and other storage adapters. Do you view these as core businesses within Broadcom, are they easy to extract out of your portfolio and is there IP that is critical for these businesses that are clearly used by your other larger core businesses? Anything to kind of help us understand would be grateful. Thank you.

C.J., I appreciate your efforts in reviewing those reports. However, I cannot comment on any of this as we are actively working with regulators on all related issues regarding our clearance. I’m sorry, but I can’t provide any details. I can assure you that we are making good progress.

Thank you.

Hi, Hock. I have a quick question about generative AI. As you evaluate the workload, what percentage do you anticipate will be related to generative AI by the end of 2023 or in 2024? Additionally, I want to ask about the silicon photonics side. You briefly mentioned the silicon photonics cable with the integrated switch, which has a capacity of 51.2 terabytes. When do you expect this to ramp up and what are the power advantages associated with it? Thanks.

I don't need to explain what we all hear about generative AI. It's still in the early stages, but we definitely see a strong sense of urgency among our customers, particularly in the hyperscale environment, to keep up with this trend. With generative AI, the models are using billions more parameters. We're seeing data centers scale out their AI engines in a way we haven't experienced before. This is a solvable challenge, as we are already providing technology to support AI networks for some hyperscalers, where we're managing hundreds or thousands of AI engines working synchronously. The focus is on scaling effectively and ensuring we don't become a bottleneck to achieving optimal performance in AI data centers. The current challenge lies in networking and conducting massive data exchanges while operating large numbers of machines in parallel. Since we are still in the early stages, we believe we have time to develop a new generation of Ethernet switches specifically tailored for these unique workloads, which differ significantly from traditional data center tasks. These switches need to be virtually lossless, low latency, and capable of scaling to thousands of engines. We are actively working on silicon solutions to meet these criteria and aim to enhance the performance of our existing technology in anticipation of the trends we foresee in the coming years.

Okay.

… a lot of investment in that direction.

On the silicon photonics cable, just wondering when the time of ramp and…

It’s there…

... or advantages there? Thanks.

We plan to launch Tomahawk 5 in early 2024, as previously mentioned. This model is a conventional silicon-based switch with pluggable optics, capable of 51.2 terabits per second. Then we will introduce Bailey, which is the fully integrated silicon photonic version. This version does not fully integrate the active components of the pluggable optics into the switch. We expect to launch that shortly after. In terms of power, silicon photonics represents a significant advantage. The Tomahawk 5 offers double the performance of Tomahawk 4, and we believe it can achieve this performance while using the same power level, or even less, compared to Tomahawk 4.

Great. Thank you.

Sure.

Thanks certainly ask the question. I wanted to go into the compute offload number that you talked about, Hock, the $2 billion last fiscal year going to $3 billion this year. I know it’s a touchy subject and so no customer specifics, of course. But generally speaking, can you just talk about the breadth and types of compute offload and how that’s changing in the mix from the $2 billion last year to $3 billion this year?

I would prefer not to address that question, Ross, as it is quite sensitive regarding my limited customer base. However, I can share that it includes some of the compute engines and related components that support this engine.

Is the concentration changing? So are you broadening customers in that growth?

No. No. Very concentrated.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good quarter, Hock. So apparently over the last quarter you were getting out of wireless, you are getting into wireless or handset guys are going to start doing wireless. So I wanted to get a couple of updates. So maybe you could set the record straight. First of all, even if you see a sea change in, let’s say, silicon, mixed silicon baseband providers in the next year or two, does that fundamentally change your opinion of your wireless group, and either way, actually, does it get better, does it get worse, because obviously, if architectures change, it has a big impact on the supply chain and I know, historically, you have worked very closely with key players and helping develop all the other pieces of the puzzle like transceivers that are required if you are going to do your own. So maybe you could just kind of reset the bar on what you expect for without guidance, but in general, the wireless division in the next year or two, does that for you to get greater? Thanks.

Thanks for your question, Ed. As you know, our wireless division consists of several key products rather than being a single product line or homogeneous group. All these products are aimed at the same high-end flagship handsets and are largely focused on a key customer in North America, which is significant compared to other North American OEM customers. In that regard, it remains a focused area for us. To answer your question, while we have multiple products that progress with each new generation, this may not happen annually, but there's a fairly regular cadence over time for each product. It's a strong business for us. Addressing your question directly, nothing significant or meaningful has changed. Our relationship and strategic engagement have been consistent for many years, and we expect this to continue in a stable manner.

And then just to remind if we could, a three-year roadmap, I mean, you see stuff pretty far out, right?

Yes.

Great. Thank you for taking question. Can you hear me well?

Yeah.

Yes.

I am trying to understand what is happening with hyperscale clients this year. Looking at your networking division, if you achieve at least $600 million growth in AI and $1 billion growth in compute, that could represent all your growth in networking. This implies that the primary area of growth this year in that space is AI. Outside of Broadcom, we've observed that memory and x86 CPU servers are currently struggling, although we expect a recovery in the second half of the year. In contrast, the GPU market is performing well and is accelerating. My question is whether it's accurate to say that only AI is growing in large data centers this year, and whether this indicates future trends, or if you believe that the general-purpose infrastructure centered around x86 or similar CPUs still has a strong growth potential.

You raised some very interesting questions, Pierre. The challenge is that my customers, the hyperscale companies, don’t always share their insights, so I don't have all the answers to your questions. What I do know is that in certain areas of their operations, we are witnessing a heightened sense of urgency and focus, particularly in relation to spending as they aim to keep up with the excitement surrounding generative AI applications and workloads. This is driving a significant amount of excitement in our networking business with these hyperscalers. Beyond that, we have the usual backlog in networking switches, routers, and key components, which is something we continue to see. As I mentioned in last quarter's results, we are experiencing sustained strength, and that trend has continued into the current quarter. Regarding future guidance, we prefer not to speculate, but for now, we see strong and consistent activity in traditional data centers and networking deployments, particularly among hyperscalers and in the enterprise sector.

Okay. Great. Just to clarify, is it fair to assume that the majority of your growth this year in networking will come from AI, with $600 million from AI Ethernet and $1 billion from other sources, or is that not the right way to think about it? I’m specifically asking about your business, not anything else.

I will not think about it at this point. It might be a bit too mature. Don’t forget generative AI is still early stage.

Yes. Okay. That’s very clear. Thanks, Hock.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. There were many great questions, quite frankly, on the networking business, which I think is quite significant for you. Maybe if I could, a clarification on that and then a broader question that I want to address on broadband. On the networking piece, I was curious if you could discuss the growth opportunity in your Tomahawk portfolio now that a peer has elected to stop investing in their switch division. And then as it relates to broadband, several companies across the broadband ecosystem have guided a softer outlook due to a buildup of inventory, but quite frankly, that’s been on the customer premise side, you obviously have more weighting towards fiber and sell into the infrastructure portion. And so I was hoping you could discuss how you are thinking about the growth of your fiber business within broadband both from an infrastructure side and a consumer equipment standpoint as governments begin to deploy funds for broadband infrastructure? Thank you.

Thank you for your question. Broadband is a strong and sustainable business for us. It used to be seen as boring, but boring is good right now. In the last quarter, we experienced a remarkable year-on-year growth of 34%. Although we have seen consistent growth in broadband over the past four to five quarters, achieving 34% growth is quite exceptional. For the second quarter, we expect growth to stabilize but remain positive. Our position in the market is bolstered by next-generation 10-gig PON technology, which has seen significant deployment by telecom companies supported by governments across Europe and North America, among other countries. The main focus is on delivering essential broadband services to every household, and we are witnessing a lot of deployment activity. Additionally, we are observing a strong and ongoing deployment of cable infrastructure using DOCSIS technology, as cable operators adapt to remain competitive with the telcos deploying 10-gigabit PON. This competitive pressure necessitates updates in DOCSIS technology to prevent subscriber loss. We see robust demand for both DOCSIS 3.1 and the anticipated but not yet widespread DOCSIS 4. Meanwhile, PON technology is gaining traction, which explains our strong performance last quarter and sustained strength over the previous quarters. This growth is enhanced by high attach rates of WiFi 6 and 6E accompanying many of these deployments, contributing further to our broadband revenue growth. Overall, we are pleased with how well this segment is performing.

Thank you, Sherri. In closing, we would like to highlight that Broadcom will be attending the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Tuesday, March 7th. Broadcom currently plans to report its earnings for the second quarter of fiscal 2023 after close of market on Thursday, June 1, 2023. A public webcast of Broadcom’s earnings conference call will follow at 2 p.m. Pacific Time. That will conclude our earnings call today. Thank you all for joining. Sherri, you may end the call.