Skyworks Solutions Inc (SWKS) — Q3 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Rob. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to Skyworks third fiscal quarter 2020 conference call. With me today are Liam Griffin, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kris Sennesael, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our discussion will include statements relating to future results and expectations that are or may be considered forward-looking statements. Please refer to our earnings press release and recent SEC filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for information on certain risks that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially and adversely from any forward-looking statements made today. Additionally, the results and guidance we will discuss include certain non-GAAP financial measures, consistent with our past practice. Please refer to our press release within the Investor Relations section of our company website for a complete reconciliation to GAAP. With that, I'll turn the call to Liam.

Thanks, Mitch, and welcome, everyone. Before we discuss our Q3 results, I want to briefly comment on the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to impact families, businesses, and markets worldwide. I'd like to start by recognizing the tireless efforts of our talented Skyworks team, as we've rapidly adapted and responded to a new working environment. We've implemented rigorous protocols designed to protect the health and safety of our employees along with our valued customers and trusted partners. In parallel, we continue to deliver the vital connectivity solutions that people worldwide are depending upon to navigate the pandemic. Now we'll turn to an overview of our third quarter performance. Skyworks delivered results well above consensus in the June quarter, as our Sky5 platform gains traction powering innovation in 5G applications at the leading smartphone OEMs and increasingly across our IoT customers. For the third quarter, we reported revenue of $737 million, nearly $50 million above our guidance. We achieved gross margin of 50.1% and operating margin of 31.3%. We posted earnings per share of $1.25, beating our guidance by $0.12. And we generated strong operating cash flow totaling $259 million in the quarter. Our momentum continues to improve reflecting on our execution across a rapidly evolving business landscape as well as the broadening adoption of 5G. A few data points highlight the growth of this critical technology. Globally, 5G subscriptions are continuing to grow with estimates approaching $3 billion over the next five years. 5G handset demand is accelerating across a diversified set of customers and geographies. In fact, in China, during the month of June, approximately 60% of all smartphones sold were 5G-enabled. And a new 3GPP standard was also released, validating the extension of 5G technology into IoT, V2X, multimedia broadcast, and other services. Clearly, 5G, along with other advanced wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi 6 and enhanced GPS, are spawning new usage cases and fortifying the backbone of an expanding connected economy. During the quarter, we secured key design wins across numerous applications, from mobile phones to industrial IoT, automotive, cognitive audio, aerospace, and defense. Specifically, in mobile, we are expanding our Sky5 platform across multiple flagship 5G models at Samsung, Motorola, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi. In addition, we are populating some of the highest performing 5G platforms that we'll be launching later this year. In IoT, we're enabling AT&T's tri-band gateways with our Wi-Fi 6 solutions; ramping indoor and outdoor access points at Aruba, Juniper, and Linksys; powering integrated connectivity in Amazon and Ring security systems; launching voice assistant solutions and mesh routers at Google; and we're leveraging our 4x4 MIMO and Wi-Fi engines and premium sound bars at Sonos. In addition, we delivered new cognitive wireless audio solutions powering the leading gaming headsets. Now moving to the industrial space. We are supporting IoT platforms at Bosch and Gemalto and leveraging our GPS circulator in advanced filter solutions at leading aerospace and defense companies. And in automotive, we're capturing new designs with Sky5 at BMW, Ford, and other leading manufacturers. These wins demonstrate our market leadership, underpinned by a diverse and growing set of critical technologies, resolving increasingly complex architectures and preparing our customers for the performance gains demanded in 5G. During the pandemic, we have witnessed a sharp inflection in the usage case of our core technology, enabling a variety of work-from-home applications, online learning and education, media and gaming, at-home fitness, safe telemedicine, and a sustainable shift to touchless commerce. Given this increased demand for high-speed data consumption, networks are being taxed as never before. To illustrate how the pressure on the network is intensifying, on a typical day in just one second, there are 96,000 gigabytes of Internet traffic, 85,000 videos watched on YouTube, 84,000 Google searches, and 5,000 Skype calls. Now more than ever, always-on connectivity is paramount, creating a compelling market opportunity for Skyworks' proven solutions. Whether it's Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, telemedicine, or touchless home delivery, at Skyworks, our commitment is to make these connections seamless and efficient. Looking forward, we are not bounded by handset volumes, as our reach continues to expand across the IoT space, enabling a wide range of industry applications and customers, all benefiting from the performance and utility of our solutions. In short, our unique technologies have never been more valuable, essential, and critical. With an expanding opportunity set, emerging in ways that we have never imagined. With that, I will turn the call over to Kris for a discussion of Q3 and our Q4 outlook.

Thanks, Liam. Skyworks' revenue for the third fiscal quarter of 2020 was $737 million, which is $47 million higher than the midpoint of the guidance coming into Q3. Revenue was down 4% year-over-year. However, excluding Huawei-related revenue in both Q3 of fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2020, revenue was up 2.5% year-over-year, despite the negative impact from COVID-19. Gross profit in the third quarter was $369 million, resulting in a gross margin of 50.1%. Operating expenses were $139 million, up slightly year-over-year as we continue to prudently manage OpEx while making the necessary investments in research and development to accelerate future growth of our business. We generated $230 million of operating income, translating into an operating margin of 31.3%. We had $2.3 million of other expenses, mainly driven by currency loss, and our effective tax rate was 7.5%, driving net income of $211 million or $1.25 of diluted earnings per share, which is $0.12 above the midpoint of the guidance. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Third fiscal quarter cash flow from operations was $259 million. Capital expenditures were $72 million, resulting in $187 million of free cash flow. On a trailing 12-month basis, our free cash flow margin is 32%. We paid $73 million in dividends and repurchased approximately 670,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $87.42 for a total of $59 million. During the first three quarters of fiscal 2020, we have repurchased 4.6 million shares. And during the last 12 months, we have returned 84% of the free cash flow back to the shareholders through a combination of dividends and share buybacks. We ended the third fiscal quarter with cash and investments of $1.2 billion, and we have no debt. Now, let's move on to our outlook for Q4. We expect double-digit sequential revenue and earnings per share growth, driven by the strong demand for our market-leading solutions. Specifically, we anticipate revenue to be between $830 million and $850 million. We expect gross margin in the range of 50% to 50.5% and operating expenses of approximately $142.5 million. Below the line, we anticipate roughly $1 million in other income and a tax rate of 9.5%. We expect our diluted share count to further reduce to approximately 168 million shares. Accordingly, at the midpoint of the revenue range, we expect to deliver diluted earnings per share of $1.51. Lastly, given our confidence in Skyworks' strategic outlook and strong cash flow generation, we announced a 14% raise to our quarterly dividend to $0.50 per share. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Liam.

Thanks, Kris. With 5G gaining traction, we are now at the cusp of a multiyear upgrade cycle, one in which Skyworks is uniquely positioned to outperform. Our Sky5 platform provides tremendous flexibility to our customers, purpose-built to be baseband agnostic, while powering the most innovative 5G handsets. In addition, these same 5G solutions are now expanding across industrial and automotive applications. And as complexity intensifies, we are aggressively adding to our enabling technologies, with ongoing investments in both TC-SAW and Bulk Acoustic Wave filtering. In fact, we just exceeded shipments of 150 million BAW-enabled modules and we see strong momentum for this technology in both mobile and broad markets. Our proven ability to advance key connectivity protocols, delivering higher speeds and lower latency across 3G, 4G, and now 5G, positions us well to capitalize on rapidly evolving market opportunities. Indeed, our mission of connecting everyone and everything, all the time has never been more relevant. Finally, the strength of our balance sheet and cash generation capabilities allow us to accelerate the investments that fuel long-term profitable growth while enabling Skyworks to deliver premium returns for our stockholders. That concludes our prepared remarks. Let's open the line for questions.

Thank you. Yes, Bank of America. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations Liam and Kris on the strong results and execution. Liam, I'm curious what drove the $50 million-or-so upside in the quarter – in the June quarter and what's driving the strength in September? I asked that because a few weeks ago one of your competitors had mentioned the possibility of a delay in one of the flagship 5G phone. So I was wondering if you were impacted by that or by any potential kind of supply-related or trade tension-related pull-ins by any Chinese customer. So just give us a sense for what the upside kind of tells us about the true state of demand and your progress with customers?

Sure. Well, the upside came from a number of opportunities that we're able to execute upon largely the launch – the initial launch of 5G products much through China with some of our partners that we mentioned; Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, and others. We also had some nice penetration in our Wi-Fi portfolio. Our Wi-Fi 6 launches were beneficial to us. But there was still a great opportunity in core mobile to grow. We did have to combat some supply chain issues, to be fair, but we started to improve through the quarter with acceleration through the last month of the quarter that's now propelling us into Q4. So we're very comfortable with where we are right now. I think the team did a good job of navigating the COVID-19 headwinds for sure but executing well through our factories and delivering what our customers need.

Got it. And for my follow-up does – how should we think about then seasonality going into December? Because I imagine that this year is perhaps more special because there are these big 5G ramps but there's also all the disruptions because of COVID and the macro headwinds because of COVID. So how should we think about your December quarter seasonality given all these puts and takes?

Sure. Sure. Now, obviously, today we guided our Q4 quarter. But as we start to think about December, based on the traction that we're working and the demand for this 5G technology, which is still tremendous, we think that the December quarter should be strong for us. And that will come across with a number of customers, but we have some really powerful design wins that we've created. We talk a lot about content reach here at Skyworks, and I think you're going to see that when you look at some of the new launches that will happen at the end of the year. So we're very well positioned for it. As we've always talked about, complexity is our friend. The technology bar is high. That's exactly what we want to see and we'll be able to demonstrate that through 5G handsets here in the second half for sure.

Hi guys. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the strong results. I guess my first question is on broad markets. Kris, if you can help out by sort of sharing what percentage of revenue came from the broad markets business in the quarter. And I guess more importantly, Liam, you talked about a number of businesses within broad markets and kind of the design wins there. But what were some of the key drivers in Q2, and if you were to highlight one or two perhaps? And what's the outlook into September in broad markets?

Yeah. So broad markets revenue in the June quarter was approximately 31% of total revenue. As a result of that, broad market was approximately flat on a sequential basis, compared to the March quarter there. Looking forward, into the September quarter, we do see an acceleration of the business there. And we do expect in the September quarter, our broad markets to be up double-digits on a sequential basis.

Yeah, Toshi. And just a little bit of color on customers and design wins. A lot of new customers brought under our umbrella here this last quarter, more design wins with names like Sonos, did some really good work with AT&T on gateways, design wins at Honeywell, infrastructure designs with Ericsson and Fujitsu. So, a very broad reach of broad markets and then also, our audio portfolio is starting to gain some momentum here and we've got some great wins with cognitive audio in some of the gaming platforms. So, a pretty diverse portfolio in broad, and there's a lot more we can do on the top line. We're going to be up strong in Q4 in broad markets. And the customer roster continues to grow.

Got it. Thank you for that. And then a quick follow-up on BAW, you talked about exceeding the 150 million mark recently. I think a couple of months ago you put out a press release on passing 100 million. So you're clearly seeing good momentum there. Curious, what are some of the key applications where you're seeing the ramps at your customers? And for context, I was hoping you could provide, roughly what percentage of your business today is BAW? I imagine it's still pretty small at this point, but if you can kind of share how big or how small at this point BAW is that would be helpful. Thank you.

Certainly. We view our technologies, like TC-SAW and Bulk Acoustic Wave filters, as enabling technologies for system solutions such as Sky5. We're currently addressing this. There were times when we sourced these components from third parties or explored other technology nodes to compete with BAW. Now, we have the capabilities in-house within our factories, which provides us with significant flexibility. In the cellular sector, our presence is growing with Bulk Acoustic Wave technologies. We've secured design wins in ultra-high band pads and other areas. While 150 million units is impressive, there is still much more market share available for us to capture. We are in the early stages, and I’m pleased with the team's progress. We have strategically invested in these technologies over the years to be prepared, and I believe the team is performing exceptionally well. There is considerable interest from customers, and I expect our design win pipeline to strengthen over the next 6 to 12 months.

Yes. Thank you. Liam, just a follow-up on that on BAW. Can you just talk about today kind of positioning within the receive path versus transmit path? And maybe how that evolves for you kind of over time in the next few years?

Sure, Craig. Well, I mean the application for BAW can be in many different segments, we can go UHB, we can go mid-band, high band. We're actually – we actually have BAW opportunities in our Wi-Fi modules as well. So there's a lot of growth that we can capture. Now, certainly some segments are more challenging than others. But when you start to look at 5G you've also – you're also dealing in 5G with TDD, time division duplexing, which does create some unique opportunities for BAW and for our technology. So we'll see some growth there of technologies that have been in handsets, and then new technologies that are 5G only, we can capture with BAW. And then we can also deploy the technology in other markets like I said, Wi-Fi and some other adjacent markets. So it's a great technology that we have under our roof. As I said, we've been cultivating it for a long time. We understand the mechanisms. We understand what filters belong and what frequencies and what spectrum. But you should expect more from us, and we'll continue to update you.

Got it. Thanks. And then just as a follow-up just since it's been a little while since you completed the Avnera acquisition in broad markets. Would love to get an update on just how that's performing. What being part of Skyworks has helped in terms of perhaps your scale and reach and just any update there?

Sure. Sure. Great question. Well, we had a really exciting, I'd say, six months here with Avnera and the acceleration of the technology has been incredible. We're seeing some great lift now in products like gaming headsets, high-performance audio. We're moving to technologies now that have not only just audio itself, but really the voice synthesizing, right? Thinking about voice as an interface is a very, very powerful thing. Looking at what we're dealing with the pandemic and touchless commerce and touchless transactions, some really good stuff. So having said all that, our momentum has accelerated. We don't have BU by BU, we basically don't report by segment on BUs. But we have a really strong portfolio in the AIS business what we call AIS. And it's been – this last quarter was our the best quarter we've had so far, and we expect that to continue to grow over the next several quarters, but really good momentum there.

Hello, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and nice growth. Liam, I'm curious this latest restriction on Huawei does seem like has some teeth and I think they're going to shift to emerging solutions. I'm just kind of curious, what you've seen either – I think maybe update us I think Huawei is very small for you. Is there any opportunities I guess with them? And then as we look out maybe the box could gain some share. Have you seen anything change in terms of positioning once that restriction happens?

It's still an interesting dynamic. On one hand, our exposure has significantly reduced due to the trade ban, leading to decreased revenues from Huawei. Although our revenues aren't at zero, they have declined. We have managed to compensate for this by increasing our presence with European players like Nokia and Ericsson, as well as Fujitsu in infrastructure. Most of our business with Huawei is in infrastructure, which has posed a challenge for us. However, we have been performing well with other Chinese companies like Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi. We continue to diversify in the infrastructure space with Ericsson and Nokia. I believe the toughest times regarding Huawei are behind us. They were a significant customer, but their business with us has gradually declined, and we have found opportunities in other markets. So, while there has been a challenge, it is easing.

Got you. And then maybe another question on Android. Just curious to your perspective on the trajectory of the market. You mentioned 60% 5G. I think it's been coming at the expense of 4G. I do think there are mid-range phones coming later in the year. I'm just kind of curious as you look to the back half of the year, your perspective on the overall handset market. Obviously, 5G content is good for you either way. I'm just kind of curious to your perspective as to whether you see this market re-accelerating in the back half.

Yes. You're right. I mean, 5G is going to be an inflection for all segments. So, obviously at the highest end, we're going to have the most complex technology and the richest level of content. But if you think about it on a relative basis, many of the opportunities that we have in China and even at Samsung, the return on the content is significant. So you could be looking at platforms that in a 4G world may be offered $4 to $5 for us, in a 5G world it could be $8 to $10 or even $15. So, on a relative basis, there's more of a pop-up in some of the mid- and lower-end platforms than they may be in the larger ones. Now the large ones, of course, can have more units and give you a little bit more dense, but we've done quite well with populating the China brands. We're doing much better at Samsung right now, because we've set our sights on the high-performing technologies the 5G solutions and kind of really stepped a little bit away from 3G and 4G there and that's worked out great for us. It gives us a chance to really demonstrate the technology prowess that we bring. So we're going to have a nice combination in that area, but I think now it's kind of meshing together. And one of the things that we do well as a supplier is just to create the right solution for the right customer. So a Sky5 engine for one customer may be very different than what we do with someone in China or somewhere in Korea.

Yes. Thank you. Good evening. I wonder if you could give a little more granularity about what you're talking about with regard to Sky5 and where you're seeing traction on that. And given that that Sky5 is a higher-end product where you'd be competing a little more against Qualcomm modems where obviously they're trying to get their RF there, how that's helping you to compete against Qualcomm's own RF solution?

Yes, Chris. I think one of the things to remember, and I know you've been following this for a long time, is that the technology inflections have always been a challenge. 2G to 3G was years ago, but that was a challenge. 3G to 4G was much harder. But the leap from 4G to 5G is really significant, and I think anyone in this industry would agree with that. And so one of the things that has allowed us and positioned us to be ready and at the precipice of all this is that we've been working on these markets for years. This has been our bread and butter, working in wireless technologies, cultivating and crafting the right enabling solutions bringing in our own TC-SAW, bringing in our Bulk Acoustic Wave, leveraging our own gallium arsenide in Boston and L.A., we're crafting this stuff. So when we go in, we call it Sky5, but that Sky5 could have eight to 10 permutations depending upon the customer need, depending upon the baseband. So we want our products to be baseband agnostic. They can work with Qualcomm, they'll work with MediaTek, whoever. And that's an important thread for us. So I think that's what makes us unique. And there are some great solutions out there point solutions, but what we've been seeing is our customers want to pick the very best solutions and create their own architectures, and really not just run off of a baseband reference design. So, that's the way we see it. We understand the complexity in 5G. It's more than just the product itself. It's the people engagement. It's the FAE engagement ensuring that the know-how that we have at Skyworks can transfer over to our customers and put them in position to win.

Thank you. For a follow-up, I guess the question on use of cash and Liam how you’re positioning the company over the next few years. And you're starting to see the fruits of the 5G cycle. It sounds like you guys are really confident in your ability to generate cash from that. How are you going to use that cash, and sort of position the company beyond this cycle? This historically runs a couple of years. And what are you thinking after this? What's the sort of longer-term plan beyond this 5G cycle?

Yeah. So, first of all, I think we're very well positioned from a balance sheet point of view. We have $1.2 billion of cash, no debt. And we will continue to generate a lot of cash despite the fact that we make major investments advancing the technology. We will continue to invest in R&D. As you can see in our operating expense level, we will continue to invest in our factories as well with our CapEx, which is running on or about 10% to revenue. Most of the cash that's being generated is being returned back to the shareholders, a combination of our dividend program. And we've just increased our dividend by 14% as well, of course, as continue to be active from our share buyback program. But, yes, we are continuing to make major investments, advancing the technology on all the levels in our power amplifiers, our filter business, TC-SAW and more and more so BAW as well as driving those complex integrated solutions.

Thanks for the question. This is Seth on for Tim. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more color on the gross margin. It seems to have come in a bit lighter than we would have expected at these revenue levels, if there's anything additional to call out there?

I'm pleased with the gross margin performance in the June quarter, which was 50.1%. We had anticipated around 50%, so we exceeded that by 10 basis points. For September, we expect gross margins to improve sequentially, reaching a range of 50% to 50.5%. We're making good progress in enhancing our gross margins, partly due to a stronger mix of 5G products. However, we're facing some headwinds from COVID-19, including supply chain disruptions, increased logistics costs, and challenges in our factories. We believe these issues will resolve over time. Additionally, as we grow our revenue and continue to implement cost reduction strategies while incorporating more 5G products into our offerings, we aim to improve our gross margins towards our target of 53%.

Thanks. And just as a follow-up. I was wondering you gave some good color on China smartphones. I was just wondering, if you could give us maybe a little bit more color on how the revenue kind of trended in June, percent of revenue or any other details. And kind of what the demand looks like specifically from China going forward. Thank you.

Yes. So, China, overall China revenue is approximately 23% of total revenue. Mostly of that is Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi. There's very little Huawei left. And then, of course, some other smaller Chinese customers. As Liam indicated before, 5G is really kicking off in China. And so, we have a great relationship with those customers. There is a big step-up in content in those 5G phones compared to the 4G phones. And as a result of that, our revenues with the Chinese players are up on a year-over-year basis and is expected to further accelerate strongly into the September quarter.

Thanks a lot. Liam, 150 million BAW-enabled modules, which is very good. The BAW on those modules, is that all manufactured by Skyworks? Or do you still source from other suppliers, as it makes sense for your manufacturing plan? And given your discussion of 5G, it sounds like a lot of that would be coexist and receive side filters, which is right up your power alley, have you started shipping production shipments out of BAW duplexers? And then I have a follow-up, please.

Sure. The good news is that everything is now produced in-house. We've been working on this for a significant amount of time, and the team has been doing an excellent job. We have some outstanding technologists working both in the labs and in the factories to ensure we get this right. The technology is still in its early stages. Although 150 million units is impressive, there are 1 billion units available to capture. We still have a long way to go, but the technology looks promising and has received endorsement from some very important customers. Additionally, we are utilizing not only Bulk Acoustic Wave technology on the transmit side, but the diversity receive technology is also crucial for enhancing downlink speeds. We will be able to implement Bulk Acoustic Wave technology at both ends, and we are excited about executing this plan. We have made significant progress and will continue to seek out more customers as we move forward.

Most of that is on the receive side, given your strength in DRx.

Yes, it is, today. But I think we're going to broaden that reach and start to also look at TX chain add, and I think we have some design wins with customers there too. But the lion's share of the print today has been on the DRx side, but we certainly can take that technology and drive it in the transmit chain. We've got customers that want us there as well. And with our Sky5 solution, we can create some really unique highly performing engines that make it very simple for our customer to use in a 5G spectrum. So, it's going to be a really important technology for us. And, as I said, early indications are strong.

Hey, everyone. I hope this isn't too easy of a question, but I wanted to ask about your performance in the mobile unit compared to the market. If I'm correct, you achieved 2% year-over-year growth in the first half of 2020, while the mobile handset market saw a decline of around 20%. Could you outline how you've managed to perform so well in such a challenging market, particularly in terms of gaining market share and increasing content?

That's a great question. I'll provide a high-level overview and then get into more details. The main catalyst for our growth is the 5G rollout. If you look back to 2018 and early 2019, most phones were operating on 2G, 3G, or 4G, and 5G was not yet available. The technology was being prepared but had not launched. Now, we are starting to see the initial stages of 5G deployment, which became evident in our Q3 results and will be even more pronounced in Q4. We have developed specific content for 5G that we will start integrating into these platforms. The addition of 5G enhances what is already available. For instance, if you have a 4G phone with a certain amount of content, you can add 5G on top of that. It’s crucial to note that a 5G device will still support 3G and 4G while incorporating the advanced performance of 5G technology. This is significant, and we are still in the early phases of this transition. Many exciting platforms have yet to launch, but we anticipate they will. Over the next five years, we could see up to three billion subscribers using 5G technology, compared to just a few hundred million today. There is still a lot of potential to capitalize on the 5G opportunity. Beyond handsets, there are excellent use cases in IoT and other markets. The demands for faster technology in work-from-home scenarios highlight the need for solutions that 5G or Wi-Fi 6 can provide. Currently, we are witnessing several interesting trends that can greatly enhance our business.

Okay. Appreciate that. As my follow-up question, I wanted to ask about the emergence of the mid-tier price point in China. So China has been great in the first half of the year perhaps driving 250 million, 5G units in 2020 globally. But I'm curious to know your relative positioning as the midyear portion of the 5G market in China opens up and how that compares to where you're positioned at the same sort of price tier in 4G?

Yes, we have established a strong reputation and position with key players in China, such as Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, and our partnerships have been highly successful. We have effectively utilized our 4G solutions. As we transition to 5G, Skyworks stands out due to the extensive range of our technology and the expertise our team possesses in developing these solutions, making us an excellent partner for Chinese brands in launching these technologies. 5G is quite challenging, which I have mentioned before, but our collaboration extends beyond hardware to include support from our field application engineers, helping to bring products to market and ensuring successful launches. This close alignment with significant brands positions us well for future opportunities in China. We see great potential there, and while things are already in motion, the global outlook for unit growth over the next five years suggests significant upside.

Yeah. Thanks for taking the question, and nice job on the execution guys. Liam, I wanted to go back and just understand the BAW module business a little bit better. So it looks like shipments were up about 50% in the last quarter we're at 150 million. But from the press release, it looks like you're shipping BAW modules on both integrated mobile and broad markets. So can you give us some sense for how that splits out now? And as you ramp BAW module significantly over the next four to six quarters, how does that split play out? We've got the huge units in integrated mobile, but ultimately IoT units in broad markets will be even bigger. So how do you see that playing out intermediate to long-term?

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good question. So right now for the most part, we're probably 80% 5G mobile with our Bulk Acoustic Wave solutions. And again, those solutions are integrated in Sky5. We are seeing a growing opportunity in technologies like Wi-Fi. We're using filtering within our integrated Wi-Fi solution; it creates a great technical performance. So that's an opportunity. But I will say that, if you think about the number of units that we produce just as a statistic that we've said before, we manufacture about eight billion TC-SAW filters a year, about eight billion. And our BAW modules, we're doing great. We did 150 million. There could be more than two filters in the device potentially. But the difference between where we are in technologies like TC-SAW and where we are in BAW, it's incredible the opportunity that we're going to have. We're still crafting the technology. We're happy with what we've done so far, but there's just so much more to go. So there's going to be a clear line of sight in mobile because the mobile device print today has BAW right, and if there are sockets that are there right now that we could address. As we move into IoT in some of the broad markets, it will be a kind of a teachable performance for us. We're going to basically try to power some of these solutions that maybe weren't wireless before. Maybe they were wired and we try to create technologies that will unwire them. Maybe we do more in Wi-Fi leveraging Bulk Acoustic Wave. So it's going to be much more individual market specific solutions that will go to the IoT space. But then back in mobile, which we know so well and we're under the hood with every customer, those opportunities we can see directly today, and it's on us to go out and capture it.

That's really helpful. Then the follow-up question is related to both the near-term that you're seeing and then longer term. So clearly the business is growing very robustly right now and you've got very strong guidance for the September quarter, and you're seeing very good trends seasonally in the December quarter. The question is this: as we look at the longer term performance of the business before the industry ran into trade and entity list and COVID issues, yours was a business that could do $1 billion plus per quarter. As you look at your pipeline and your design wins that at this point should be extending well into next year, do you feel like you're starting to get the visibility for when the business can get back to that $1 billion a quarter level? Or is that really going to come to you as you work through things in the first half of next year? Thanks, Liam.

That's a great point, and we are well aware of our capabilities at the $1 billion-a-quarter level. The opportunities before us now are actually more favorable than they were three years ago. The technologies we've been discussing are quite challenging. Implementing 5G is notably difficult, requiring skilled and experienced personnel along with the right technologies; it's not about being fabless, but about creating the necessary components. The upcoming shift demands impressive technological performance across all areas, from our factory to the field application engineers and up to the customer's installation, which bodes well for us. Our position today is a result of two decades of dedicated effort in developing this technology, and we're now witnessing that hard work pay off. We're optimistic about future revenue growth as long as we keep securing design wins. We know that our content has been rising. Additionally, I mentioned in our prepared remarks that the current use cases for connectivity are becoming increasingly important. I believe this trend will persist even after the pandemic subsides, leading to lasting behavior changes in connectivity and wireless performance that will be widely adopted. This is a new focus for our portfolio that we weren't considering a year or two ago, but it's emerging as a positive development for Skyworks.

Hey, good afternoon gentlemen. I appreciate you letting me ask a question. I wanted to focus first on just kind of the near-term. What sort of visibility do you have into orders for the second half? I ask because while production plans seem extremely strong, I think there's some investor consternation that improving production plans may fall on weaker consumer demand over the next several quarters in the context of just the challenges we've been seeing with COVID-19. So, I guess how do you handicap that in the context of your inventory depletion and gross margin expectations over the next several quarters?

Yes. We currently have strong visibility into demand, which we value greatly. We recognize the volatility surrounding the COVID situation and continue to experience it. However, we are in a solid position with a strong backlog in our core technologies. We need to execute on that. Considering our current situation compared to previous periods, we are well-positioned to deliver in the second half of the year. I'll have Kris provide more details on the inventory situation.

Yes. No, I feel very comfortable where the inventory level is right now given that we just guided a very strong sequential growth into September and we expect further strong sequential growth into the December quarter. We have been loading our factories in order to drive maximum usage of our capital equipment and then trying to minimize our capital expenditures, so most of the inventory that we have is based on backlog and firm orders that we have on the books. So, there is very little risk for excess and obsolete. And so I feel really good about where we are from an inventory point of view and being able to serve our customers as the business continues to grow in September and December.

Great. For my follow-up, you are baseband agnostic, but I would like to hear your thoughts on the growing content opportunity at MediaTek, which appears to be a strong driver for you as you target low to mid-tier 5G handsets over the next year or two. Thank you.

Yes, absolutely. I agree. MediaTek is one of our key players in the baseband agnostic sector. We are doing a lot of productive work with them and are seeing strong performance on several of their new platforms. They serve as a significant entry point into China and other emerging markets. Currently, some of our platforms in MediaTek are generating between $6 to $8, and that segment is growing. We have achieved considerable success with them in 4G, and we are now collaborating on 5G technology. Beyond just the transmit chain, we also possess advanced DRx receive side technology, which we discussed in response to another question. Their 5G volumes are beginning to increase. Though MediaTek has been around for some time, they are re-emerging as a leader in emerging markets and within China. They support many well-known brands like Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, often incorporating the MediaTek baseband in their products. We have a strong alignment with MediaTek's baseband and consider them an excellent partner, especially as we notice growing momentum on their side.

Thank you all for participating on today's call. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming conferences. Thank you.