Diodes Incorporated
Q3 2018 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 5 Nov 2019

[Operator:]

Good afternoon and welcome to Diodes Incorporated Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's conference call, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, Monday, November 4, 2019.I would now like to turn the call over to Leanne Sievers of Shelton Group Investor Relations. Leanne, please go ahead.

[Leanne Sievers:]

Good afternoon and welcome to Diodes' third quarter 2019 financial results conference call. I'm Leanne Sievers, President of Shelton Group, Diodes' Investor Relations firm. Joining us today from Taiwan are Diodes' President and CEO, Dr. Keh-Shew Lu; Chief Financial Officer, Brett Whitmire; Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Emily Yang; and Director of Investor Relations, Laura Mehrl.Before I turn the call over to Dr. Lu, I'd like to remind our listeners that the results announced today are preliminary, as they are subject to the company finalizing the closing procedures and customary quarterly review by the company's independent registered public accounting firm. As such, these results are unaudited and subject to revision until the company files its Form 10-Q for its third quarter 2019. In addition, management's prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements which are subject to risks and uncertainties and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Therefore the company claims the protection of the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements that is contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.Actual results may differ from those discussed today and therefore we refer you to a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Forms 10-K and 10-Q. In addition, any projections as to the company's future performance, represent management's estimates as of today, November 4, 2019. Diodes assumes no obligation to update these projections in the future as market conditions may or may not change, except to the extent required by applicable law.Additionally, the company's press release and management statements during this conference call will include discussions of certain measures in financial information and GAAP and non-GAAP terms. Included in the company's press release or definitions and reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP items, which provide additional details.Also throughout the company's press release and management statements during this conference call. We refer to net income attributable to common stockholders as GAAP net income. For those of you unable to listen to the entire call at this time a recording will be available via webcast for 90 days in the investor relations section of Diodes’ website at www.diode.com.And now I'll turn the call over to diodes President and CEO, Dr. Keh-Shew Lu, Dr. Lu, please go ahead.

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

Thank you, Leanne. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Diodes achieved another quarter of record financials resulting in increased profitability and cash flow from operations. Our nine month revenue grew 5.4% over the same period last year, while earning increased over 30%. This growth is especially notable at the time during which our served market was down more than 6.5%. EBITDA also set a new quarterly record and represent the second consecutive quarter to see a $300 million annual run rate, as it approached 25% of total revenue.Further, gross margin remains above 37% of revenue, as product mix continue to benefit from record revenue in the automotive end market, which remain at 10% of total revenue, as well as our Pericom brand IC product. I would also like to take this time to provide an update on our proposed acquisition of Lite-On Semiconductors. As recently announced, Lite-On Semiconductor shareholders approved the proposed acquisition at a special meeting of shareholders on October 25. Diodes’ has also made a necessary regular filing in U.S., Taiwan and China. In China, especially, we are waiting feedback from the government and at this time are not aware of any issues that will delay the closing’s expected date in April 2020.To conclude, I'm very pleased with our year-to-date performance, as we carefully navigate the seasonal softness and the inventory adjustment that are typical of our industry as we approach year-end. Long-term, I believe Diodes remains well positioned to continue delivering consistent profitability growth with an ongoing on content gains in high growth areas, such as connected car, high-end servers, and storage, 5G, as well as IoT.With that, let me now turn the call over to Brett to discuss our third quarter financial results and our fourth quarter 2019 guidance in more detail.

[Brett Whitmire:]

Thanks, Dr. Lu, and good afternoon, everyone. As part of my financial review today, I will focus my comments on the sequential change for each of the line items and would refer you to our press release for a more detailed review of our results, as well as the year-over-year comparisons.Revenue for the third quarter 2019 was a record $323.7 million compared to $322 million in the second quarter 2019. Gross profit for the third quarter remained a record $122 million or 37.7% of revenue compared to the prior quarter of $122 million or 37.9% of revenue.GAAP operating expenses for the third quarter 2019 were $73.3 million, or 22.7% of revenue and $68.8 million, or 21.3% of revenue on a non-GAAP basis, which excluded $4.5 million of amortization of acquisition related intangible asset expenses. This compares with GAAP operating expenses in the second quarter 2019 of $73.5 million, or 22.8% of revenue and $69 million or 21.4% of revenue on a non-GAAP basis.Total other income amounted to approximately $20,000 for the quarter, including $2.6 million of other income $272,000 of interesting time, largely offset by $2 million of interest expense and $822,000 of foreign currency losses. Income before taxes and non-controlling interest in the third quarter 2019 was a record $48.7 million compared to $47.9 million in the previous quarter.Turning to income taxes, our effective income tax rate for the third quarter was approximately 21.8%. GAAP net income for the third quarter 2019 was a record $38.1 million, or $0.73 per diluted share, compared to net income of $36.3 million, or $0.70 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2019. The share count used to compute GAAP diluted EPS for the third quarter of 2019 was 51.9 million shares.Non-GAAP adjusted net income in the third quarter was a record $41.9 million, or $0.81 per diluted share, which excluded net of tax $3.7 million of non-cash acquisition related, intangible asset amortization costs. This compares to non-GAAP adjusted net income of $40 million, or $0.77 per diluted share in the second quarter 2019. EBITDA for the third quarter was a record $78.3 million, or 24.2% of revenue, compared to $77.1 million, or 23.9% of revenue in the prior quarter.We've included in our earnings release, a reconciliation of GAAP net income, to non-GAAP adjusted net income and GAAP net income to EBITDA, which provides additional details. Cash flow generated from operations was $67.2 million for the third quarter 2019. Free cash flow was $41.8 million, which included $25.4 million for capital expenditures and net cash flow in the third quarter was a negative $17.1 million, which includes a pay-down of $52.6 million of long-term debt.Turning to the balance sheet at the end of third quarter, cash and cash equivalents, plus short term investments totaled approximately $226 million, working capital was $465 million and long-term debt including the current portion was $119 million.In terms of inventory at the end of third quarter, total inventory days increased to 104 in the quarter, compared to 100, last quarter. Total inventory dollars amounted to approximately $230.8 million, which reflects a $5 million increase in raw materials, $2.8 million increased in finished goods and $100,000 increase in work in process. Finished goods inventory days was 27 in the quarter, compared to 26 in the second quarter 2019. Capital expenditures on a cash basis for the third quarter 2019 or $25.4 million, or 7.9% of revenue and within our target model, a 5% to 9% of revenue.Now turning to our outlook. For the fourth quarter, we expect revenue to be approximately $300 million plus or minus 2%, which at the midpoint represents an annual growth of 2.8%. Even in the overall weak market environment and continued outperformance of our served market. We expect GAAP gross margin to be 36.5% plus or minus 1%.Non-GAAP operating expenses, which are GAAP operating expenses adjusted for amortization of acquisition related intangible assets are expected to be approximately 22% of revenue plus or minus 1%. We expect net interest expense to be approximately $2 million. Our income tax rate is expected to be 21% plus or minus 3%, and shares used to calculate diluted EPS for the fourth quarter are anticipated to be approximately 52.5 million.Please note that purchase accounting adjustments of $3.7 million after tax, for Pericom and previous acquisitions are not included in these non-GAAP estimates.With that said, I will now turn the call over to Emily Yang

[Emily Yang:]

Thank You, Brett, and good afternoon. Looking more closely at third quarter revenue, POS revenue was up driven by strong demand in Asia. Distributor inventory in terms of weeks was down in the quarter, and within our normal range of 11 to 14 weeks, which is where we expected to remain near-term.Global sales for the third quarter, Asia represented 74% of revenue, Europe 17% and North America 9%. In terms of our end markets, industrial was once again our largest representative end market at 28% of revenue, consumer 24%, communication 22%, computing 16% and automotive 10% of revenue.Now, let me review the end markets in greater details. Starting with our automotive market, revenue reached another record as we continue to gain increasing traction and content in this key focus area for Diodes. We also expanded our product portfolio by introducing exciting new products for multiple product line, including mouse MOSFETs, crystals, LED drivers, TVS, Zener Diodes, protection products, bipolar junction transistors, SBR and sensors.Diodes also recently released our XRQ family of crystal qualified to AECQ 200 grade one requirements, targeting auto applications the demand frequency accuracy under harsh environments. Additionally, Diodes leading PCI Express 4.0 Solution and USB type C solutions for signal maxing and signal integrity continue to see growth in emerging automotive applications like instrument cluster, infotainment and assisted driving information.In fact PCI Express has become the interface of choice for the backbone transmission of engine control units ADAS, navigation, telematic and infotainment systems. Diodes is well positioned to address this need with a variety of products designed to support the PCI Express protocol. Diodes is the only supplier to offer PCI Express 4.0 clock generators and clock buffers with AECQ grade two 105C ambient temperature support.Also in the automotive market, we continue to see success with our proprietary SBR technology, as well as MOSFET designings. This product is suitable for a wide range of applications in connected driving, ADAS telematics and infotainment, power train covering conventional hybrid electric vehicles and battery management system.In addition, we saw new design wins for our gate drivers’ ICs for in car charging system for portable equipment such as phones and tablets. We also saw growth in our TVS product in cameras and ADAS system and for our multi-chip array products using engine diagnostic test systems. Diodes also have multiple design wins and revenue growth from our newly introduced LED driver in rear light and air filter applications.In our largest representative end market of industrial, our momentum continued with new design win activities across many applications such as metering, DC fence, power tools and power supply, as well as home appliances including e-lock applications. Our glass preservation process rectifier and bridge rectifier product experienced strong growth in applications including pumps, mixers, irrigation systems and measurement system.In the third quarter revenue increased for our linear mode discrete LED drivers in various commercial and industrial lighting applications. Bipolar transistors also continue to be in demand for industrial applications, where they are often used for voltage regulation and driving the gate of power devices such as MOSFET and IGBT.Additionally, we continue to expand our market position in industrial PC by expanding designing activities with our low power PCI Express 2.0 package switch. Our process low power performance gives Diodes a leading position in the small link com [ph] port expansion applications. We are also seeing USB type-C adoption into medical equipment with our HDMI over the Type-C crossbar switch design in for transporting video image to monitor over USB-type C interface.Diodes also introduced during the quarter our universal high speed crossbar switch that supports the latest protocols such as PCI Express 4.0, Thunderbolt 3, Super Speed USB 20 gigabit per second and 10G based KR. It provides an almost universal solution to routing high speeds signals up to 20 gig per second.Further with the rapid adoption of high speed interfaces across multiple end applications in the IoT industry, ESC protection is becoming more and more important for such data links. Multiple design wins in third quarter confirmed Diodes leading position in ESC protection devices.Turning to consumer, this market continues to be strong area for Diodes SBR Schottky and GPP rectifier growing both sequentially and year-over-year. We saw increased momentum for new applications like smart speakers, wireless chargers, gaming PC power, Lycos [ph], protection circuit modules for reverse polarity protection and IP phone market. Low leakage CSP product are increasingly used in the battery pack for portable devices to boost battery life. Also in the quarter Diodes protection product continue to gain traction in various panel applications, such as mobile panels, TV panels, monitor panels and notebook panels.In the communication market as reported last quarter, we continue to see design win expansion of our products in the 5G applications like CPE, small cell, base station, baseband units and remote radio units for higher speed, increased bandwidth and improved power density. We also saw additional design wins in 5G applications for discrete, power management, clocks and connectivity products including USB re-drivers and switches. Power density is one of the key concerns for 5G smartphones and Diodes has been actively engaged in this market with a comprehensive small footprint DFN and CSP MOSFET portfolio.Also in the communication market, we continue to see revenue growth from mobile handset applications for our products like Tight Tolerance Zener Diodes, high voltage fast switching dials, low leakage signal diodes and fast recovering GPP rectifier. In addition, our protection products continue to be our key growth area, driven by USB type-C adoption in mobile phone applications.Lastly in the computing market revenue growth in notebook PC applications for our TVS products, high current LDOs, Tight Tolerance Zener Diodes rectifier and small signal fast switching diodes. Our signal integrity solutions continue to maintain a leadership position as they are well recognized by CPU partners. With the adoption of USB type-C in notebook and PC applications, we are seeing this area as the next big growth engine for protection and connectivity product from our Pericom product line.Speaking of our Pericom IC product line, as Dr. Lu mentioned in his comments, we once again achieved another quarter of record revenue from this product, which is a testament to Diodes ability to leverage our global sales channel and cross selling opportunities we have been able to achieve across our customer base. We also achieved strong revenue growth for low switches in PC and mobile applications combined with increasing design wins for our high breakdown voltage products for our applications such as Power over Ethernet, server power and data center.In summary, our achievements of record results in the third quarter is a further testament to Diodes’ consistent execution and the increasing benefit from our total solution sales approach and content expansion at key customers. Further, as indicated by our fourth quarter guidance, we expect full year revenue to grow 2.8% over 2018, which is further evidence of our continuous outperformance of our served markets. We look forward to the additional opportunities afforded by the proposed acquisition of Lite-On Semiconductor in terms of broaden product offering, as well as wafer and packaging capacity to further support our future growth.With that, we are now open the floor to questions. Operator?

[Operator:]

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Gary Mobley with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now open.

[Gary Mobley:]

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to start asking about the gross margin assumption for the fourth quarter with gross margin expected to decrease about 120 basis point quarter-over-quarter. I'm curious to know how much of that is underutilization of manufacturing versus pricing on a like-for-like basis for products?

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

Well, Gary majority actually is coming from under utilizations. We right now, our module is 95% for AT and we could probably go down another 5% for utilization of AT and probably 5% to 10% for wafer fab. Our ASP actually is quite stable. You would remember we use in the module as 1.5% down to 2% per quarter, ASP 1.5% to 2% down per quarter that's our modules. And we are looking at probably about the same kind of the rate.But - so basically the reason for ASP point of view can be within the model is really for a commodity in down more. But if I look at the automotive and Pericom IC in third quarter they all have the record from automotive and from Pericom IC and also the high GP products. So, from - we expect that kind of product area will continue. And therefore, commodity or the commodity yes go down, but the higher GP product going up therefore our ASP is within the model.

[Gary Mobley:]

Okay. So follow up question, I want to ask about seasonality for the first quarter, typically in the first calendar of any calendar and fiscal year, you see similar a bit of a 3% sequential revenues decline just given what you know today about timing to Chinese New Year and maybe demand trends or whatnot. How would you call the seasonal trends in the first quarter relative to revenue?And then with respect to OpEx, one would think that you would show an increase in OpEx sequentially in the first quarter because of payroll taxes and whatnot, but in recent years, you've basically trended flat in the first quarter on a sequential basis. So how would you call the OpEx change as we look into Q1, Brett?

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

Okay, Gary from a seasonality point of view our 1Q typically is a 5%. And so we expect this year similar to that kind of drop, but we are not sure yet. But from the market point of view what we can see probably similar to that kind of drop it's about 5%. From the operational costs point of view actually it going to become more coming from under royalty cost.Now from the - that with GP, and from the salary and operational costs salary yes we have to close that point one is in July which is more for the direct - or more for the indirect employee like our engineer and our managers that typically is in the July, 1st of July, then for the operator or operation point of view manufacturing, then it’s in 1 January of right within the Chinese New Year, so it would be in 1Q. So, yes, that one operation will be down, operation cost would be up slightly.

[Gary Mobley:]

Thank you for that.

[Operator:]

[Operator instructions] Our next question comes from Sean Harrison with Longbow Research. Your line is now open.

[Sean Harrison:]

Hi, everybody and congratulations on the strong results.

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

Yes, thank you, Sean.

[Sean Harrison:]

If you look at the guidance in terms of the sequential change for the December quarter, are there any end market verticals that you anticipate to perform better or worse than the implied sequential decline?

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

Well, I still believe our Pericom IC and our automotive is still going to be performed quite strong okay. We target 10% this year, and so far, we continue and in 10%, and we even have the record. So, in third quarters. So, I still expect we will continue very strong. I don't see a reason or a trend to go in weaker in automotive and Pericom IC.

[Emily Yang:]

Right. So let me just add a little bit more. So overall automotive market is definitely not growing, and it's actually quite slow. So majority of the growth coming from Diodes is really coming from the content expansion that we've been really focusing on. So again, overall market is definitely not growing is definitely not that positive. But overall, our result has been pretty positive, really driven by the focus we've been focusing on for the last few years.

[Sean Harrison:]

And so, I guess, the takeaway would be the underperforming areas would be within consumer electronics, communications and PC is just seasonality, plus, maybe a little weaker market trends, not trying to put words in your mouth, but...

[Emily Yang:]

Okay, sorry, I assume you're talking about the Q4 revenue guidance?

[Sean Harrison:]

Correct. I was wondering if...

[Emily Yang:]

Okay.

[Sean Harrison:]

What would be maybe the weaker end markets.

[Emily Yang:]

Right. So I think overall our revenue guidance is mainly driven by more than usual our year inventory adjustment, especially in Europe and North America. But if you look at our overall business in 3Q our POS is actually up our channel inventory is down, we actually performed better than our served market, right. So even with our Q4 guidance, whole year estimate was still growing about 2.8%, which is still much stronger than our peers. So I think, overall, if you look at the business, we're very confident that we are actually in good shape.

[Sean Harrison:]

It's very helpful. And then follow-up tax rate has continued to decline here, which is nice to see as we look out over the next 12 to 18 months how much further can that decline?

[Brett Whitmire:]

Well, I would expect to continue to see some improvement there. It’s hard to say exactly what that is, but we're guiding into fourth quarter to continue that momentum down and I would expect to continue to see momentum as we go into 2020. We've been working toward a model and we haven't gotten full entitlement of that yet.

[Sean Harrison:]

Okay. And then last if I may, just is China the big regulatory approval here that is the one that you need to see get cleared to get the deal closed in April, or is there something else I'm missing?

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

China antitrust is the key item for us to be able to consolidate AOC [ph]. We don't see they're going to turn it down it might just the timing. We believe they will approve it that just may not be the time we expect. So that is the key.

[Brett Whitmire:]

That's what we understand from our attorneys that are handling this for us. We basically addressed everything that's been asked. We provide all the information. It's just a matter of timing working through their process, and we're just trying to keep everybody updated on that.

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

And we applied per the requirement. So just we do take order action, apply per order, government requirement.

[Brett Whitmire:]

That's right.

[Sean Harrison:]

Okay, thank you.

[Operator:]

Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Dr. Keh-Shew Lu for any further remarks.

[Keh-Shew Lu:]

Thank you for your participation on today's call. Operator, you may now disconnect.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.