Teradyne, Inc.
Q3 2016 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 28 Oct 2016

[Operator:]

Good morning. My name is Ginger, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Teradyne Quarter Three 2016 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. Mr. Andy Blanchard, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

[Andrew Blanchard:]

Thank you, Ginger. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our discussion of Teradyne's most recent financial results. I'm joined this morning by our CEO, Mark Jagiela; and our Chief Financial Officer, Greg Beecher. Following our opening remarks, we'll provide details of our performance for the third quarter of 2016 and our outlook for the fourth quarter of this year. The press release containing our third quarter results was issued last evening. We're providing slides on the Investor page of the website that may be helpful to you in following the discussion. Those slides can be downloaded now or you can follow along live. Replays of this call will be available via the same page after the call ends. The matters that we discuss today will include forward-looking statements that involve risk factors that could cause Teradyne's results to differ materially from management's current expectations. We encourage you to review the Safe Harbor statement contained in the earnings release as well as our most recent SEC filings. Additionally, those forward-looking statements are made as of today and we take no obligation to update them as a result of developments occurring after this call. During today's call, we'll make reference to non-GAAP financial measures. We've posted additional information concerning these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, where available, on the Investor page of the website. Also between now and our next earnings call, Teradyne will be participating in investor conferences hosted by Baird, UBS, Credit Suisse, and Bank of America. Now, let's get on with the rest of the agenda. First, Mark will comment on our recent results and the market conditions as we enter the fourth quarter. Greg will then offer more details on our quarterly financial results along with our guidance for the fourth quarter. We'll then answer your questions, and this call is scheduled for one hour. Mark?

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us. Today I'll cover three main points in my prepared remarks

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Thanks Mark, and good morning everyone. I'll start with a quick summary of 2016, as you can now see our fourth quarter's guidance. I will also provide additional details on the growth drivers that Mark discussed, along with our third quarter results and fourth quarter guidance. So starting with the 2016 summary, this year is firming up to be our seventh straight year with strong financial performance. In fact, both the top line and non-GAAP EPS are projected to be up over last year, despite the headwinds from our Wireless Test business. Factoring (12

[Andrew Blanchard:]

Thanks, Greg. Ginger, we'd now like to take questions. And as a reminder, please limit yourself to one question and a follow-up.

[Operator:]

Your first question comes from Timothy Arcuri from Cowen & Company.

[Timothy Arcuri:]

Thanks a lot, I guess, I had two. So I just wanted to confirm some of the numbers. So you had talked about the memory TAM being up next year. It sounds like it's going to go from $400 million to – $450 million to, say, $500 million. But can you confirm what you think that the SOC TAM does next year?

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah. Look, what I said is that we've got a pretty wide range right now $2.1 billion to $2.5 billion, so at the midpoint $2.3 billion. We've certainly seen stronger performance in the market in the recent few months than we had expected even three months ago. So we're perhaps a little optimistic, but that's the range.

[Timothy Arcuri:]

Okay. And then, I guess just more of a bigger picture question on Wireless Test. And I guess the question is, certainly it sounds like it did eke out a profit in the third quarter. But can you just go through the rationale in terms of why you even want to stay in that business, if we have to wait another year, or maybe five or six more quarters until things really start to pick back up again? Why not basically restructure the business and sell it and then take that money and reallocate that into Industrial Automation as a huge aspect (27

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Tim, this is Greg. The first thing you do when a business gets in trouble, which we've had experience with, whether it was Storage Test some number of years ago or Semi Test back in 2009 is, you have to remodel it to get it healthy again so that you can grow from health. And until you do that, you really don't have any good options. So that's the key thing we're focused on at this point, getting it healthy and it turned a profit this quarter and there are some encouraging design win momentum we have. But the meaningful business is two years out. So we're happy that we've repositioned the company on better footing after a very strong history, but obviously the market has gone soft on us. But we think the next couple of years, or two years out, we can have better performance. And to your point about automation, we have dry powder, we have the capacity. So LitePoint isn't stopping us from making another move. It's more, what are the opportunities? What's the risk-adjusted return? And all those discussions and analysis take time. We don't move fast. When we see something, we need to really make sure we understand the space, the fit, the culture, and that's our thought (29

[Timothy Arcuri:]

Got it. Thank you, Greg.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Jagadish Iyer from Summit Redstone.

[Jagadish K. Iyer:]

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. It's a big picture question on this Universal Robots, so given that your investment is ongoing, how should we think about it at least for the next two or three years in terms of the profitability for this UR business? Even though there is going to be sizable unit growth, how should we think about profitability, and then I have a follow-up?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Okay. So we've tried to outline this in the past, but what we did this year is, we essentially, intentionally, are taking down their run rate profit of 15% from last year to something 10% range, or 10% or a little bit better. We are putting in much more distribution muscle power working with an ecosystem. The reason we're doing all that is, we know there's other cobot makers coming to the plays. We're far ahead on the product. We want to get far ahead on the distribution and third party ecosystem providers, so that when someone else comes along, we are clearly the proven low-risk solution. So, what does that mean for next year? Well, as we continue to grow significantly, we're going to grow the spending to make sure we don't curtail the possible sales growth, market share, because once you get into these accounts, they often deploy another stage in manufacturing. So you really want to get in and then you can grow much greater once you are in an account. With that said, we would expect the profit rate next year to move from around a 10% range towards a 15% range.

[Jagadish K. Iyer:]

Fair enough. Just on another question on memory, given that the NAND is moving more towards 3D and you also have testing of the SSD, why isn't that memory market not growing substantially than the $400 million to $450 million that you guys have outlined? Thank you.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah. Well, we said $450 million to $500 million for next year, so coming off of this year at $400 million, that will be a significant step up, but kind of flat with where it's been looking backwards for several years. And the thing that is driving the test demand is more on the order of the high speed interfaces going into NAND chips, more so than the vertical structures of NAND devices. So that technological shift in NAND really doesn't have a large impact on test but moving to UFS, PCIe, those kind of high speed interfaces, does. So that's what'll drive the increases next year, we think. Now, the bit growth in NAND has kind of been consistent year-over-year, so it's really this technological shift to higher speed interfaces.

[Jagadish K. Iyer:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Farhan Ahmad from Credit Suisse. Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker) Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I had a question on your Systems Test. You had a very strong quarter in terms of bookings, and you referenced that there are some products that should be driving your (32

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yes. Okay. We're not really in a position to announce the product. But it is incremental. It's a new application for our Storage Test automation product. But we've started out here, in conjunction with a couple of key accounts, working on a new application. And like you mentioned, the revenue and shipments of that will be early next year, probably a little bit in Q1 and more in Q2. And somewhere around that point, we will introduce the product.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

If I could just quickly add, the Storage Test platform is very versatile, as you probably can see by now. It has significant automation and it's asynchronous to slots, so it is a vessel that can be used for multiple applications. So I think there is a ongoing story as to that product and that technology moving to some other markets over time. Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker) Got it. And could you just remind me what your expectation of the System Test market is for next year, just given that you'll have this new product as well?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

We tend to just say System Test will probably be at model profits, which is about $65 million revenue.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Storage Test.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Storage, also in the Storage Test. Was that System Test? I'm sorry, Storage Test (33

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Well we got the Storage Test but (34

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Okay. There's a slowdown in 3.5 inch test volume, that's in Storage Test. So this new application can offset some slowdown. But then when you go to mil-aero, mil-aero should be growing. The budget sequestration stopped. There's much more flight testing programs, so we see growth in mil-aero. Production Board Test we see some slight growth there as well. There is a whole set of applications that are high panel count that we have two test heads, the very efficient architecture that we can do the throughput much better, so we see growth in both Production Board Tests, low growth, and in mil-aero.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Can I just add to that. It's been difficult to predict the Storage Test demand over the years if you've followed that. So right now it looks as though the hard disk drive market will – for test capacity will be a bit weak. And therefore we're being conservative. But it turns on a dime, that market, so it's hard to tell. Same thing with SSD, SSD is another thing that's hard still to calibrate in terms of size. But we're being pretty conservative at this point. Farhan Ahmad - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker) Got it. Thank you. That's all I have.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Krish Sankar from Bank of America.

[Krish Sankar:]

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two of them. First one, the strength you saw in bookings in Q3, was that more related to pull-in from Q4 or in other words historically your Q4 bookings have grown sequentially. Should that be relatively more muted this time around and then I had a follow-up.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

No. That wasn't related to pull-ins. That was a new application where there's some engineering that needs to get completed for the application. So....

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Well, Krish was that (36

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

That's what I thought.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

But Krish are you referring to the total company?

[Krish Sankar:]

Yes, overall. Yeah.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah, I think no. There's no pull-in from Q4. Semiconductor Test as an example, it's really the strengthening of microcontroller test and analog automotive test that has driven that. And none of that we saw as an acceleration. So the one thing about the fourth quarter bookings, if you look at it historically, fourth quarter tends to have been a low point. However, last year we had quite a large surge as a couple of large customers shifted orders a little bit earlier out of Q1 into Q4. And so comparing this year's Q4 bookings with last year we have that phenomena that take into account. That may happen again, it may not happen again. It's really just a matter of a few weeks worth of timing that can shift the bookings in the fourth quarter around that sort of year-end mark.

[Krish Sankar:]

Got it, got it. And then thanks for the color on 2017 SOC. Looks like at the midpoint, the SOC market might be down 4%. I think you guys are not giving guidance for Teradyne for 2017 but historically your SOC revenues have dragged (37

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Well, remember that part of our story here both historically and looking forward is to pick up market share. So one point of share gain is probably reasonable to think about next year for us in SOC. And we also see that the memory market will rebound a bit next year. So I think you've got to factor those into the math as well.

[Krish Sankar:]

Got it. Thanks folks.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Toshiya Hari from Goldman Sachs.

[Toshiya Hari:]

Great. Good morning guys. My first question is regarding your long-term model in Semi Test. You seem to be assuming an average market growth rate of 1% and to your point earlier about 1 percentage point of annual share gains. On your market growth rate of roughly 1%, just given what we've seen so far in 2016 and what you're guiding SOC to in 2017, do you think that 1% number could potentially be a little bit more on the conservative side? And on your annual share gain of 1% point, obviously you've done a great job in the past picking up share at the expense of your nearest competitor. But going forward where do you see the incremental opportunity from an end-market perspective?

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Well so both of those. So yes we have the recent couple of years have been pretty strong indicators of a return to a bit of market growth. But I think we're still sticking to that 1% number for a while here because after a decade plus of a negative CAGR, we don't want to get too exuberant until we have a few more data points in. It's certainly encouraging what's happened this year and the strengthening prognosis for next year, so those are all positive signs. But overall I think we stay with our model at this point of about 1% average CAGR and there'll be a lot of noise around that. As you see this sort of 11% growth, 2017 compared to 2015 that's certainly well above that line. But I think it's too early to say we're going to move that up. On the share gains, the share gains come about in two ways. One way is that we are positioned in segments with customers that tend to grow faster than the market because they're in, as Greg was talking about in his script, the sort of sweet spot of growth around mobility automotive and such. So part of our share gain story just comes from riding the rising tide of being in the more attractive markets. Same thing on NAND in the memory space, where we tend to be a little more concentrated in NAND flash, that's growing more than DRAM and we tend to benefit from that, even without accounts, let say, trading hands (41

[Toshiya Hari:]

Great. And as my follow up, I had a question on Universal Robots as well. It seems like you're tracking to beat your 50% growth rate this year with year-to-date growth around 70% if I recall correctly. What's been the upside surprise here and what are your preliminary thoughts going into 2017? And kind of related to that, when you talk about M&A in automation, is the focus on hardware or software or I suppose distribution capability? Thank you.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

I'll start with this and maybe Mark can go in as well. First, yeah there really isn't a surprise in our 67% growth. We did say 50% or greater and we have third-party research firms that have this market in the billion dollar range in 2020. So we see explosive growth for years to come. We're much more focused on trying to figure out by region what is it that needs to be done for particular regions to get more of a velocity through that region. Sometimes it's more technical people, sometimes it's distributor's velocity, sometimes it's leads. There's a whole set of factors that we are working in some regions that are growing higher than 67%. So there's a lot of hands-on to try to figure out how to get it growing as fast as it possibly can because we have a huge lead and it's a very fast payback and it's very easy to deploy. So it's a very unique opportunity that we have.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

And then on the question around M&A, the things you said are yes, yes, yes. So software, some additional hardware capability and distribution, those are all three areas that we're actively looking at as a way to accelerate – not just accelerate UR but catch another wave of inflection in the market around what's going in around Industrial Automation. This trend for cobots will pull – coattails (43

[Toshiya Hari:]

Thank you so much.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Tim Diffely (sic) [Tom Diffely] (44

[Thomas Robert Diffely:]

Yeah, good morning. So I guess getting back to the Wireless business, I think you mentioned that it became profitable during the quarter. At $100 million next year do you expect that profitability for the full year?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Tim (sic) [Tom] (44

[Thomas Robert Diffely:]

Okay. And at this point, do you think the risk is to the upside or downside for that revenue number?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

I actually feel pretty good about that revenue number. I think it's cautious. So I suppose in theory there could be a little bit of upside, but we didn't see much of that this year. So I'll stick with the number that yeah $97 million and $100 million is a very good number for next year.

[Thomas Robert Diffely:]

Okay, and then following up on the Semi bookings, in general, have you seen a shift, I know you mentioned that a lot of bookings happened very late in the year, early in the following year. But have you seen a shift over the last several years of pulling the bookings in, in general, and then peaking revenues a quarter (45

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yes, I don't think, I mean, there's no general case here. It's kind of very specific around mobility and phones. And last year was a little bit of an anomaly after four years of a pattern where orders started to accelerate in Q1 and shipments peaked either in late Q2 or early Q3. Last year the orders came in, in late Q4 and began to come in and the shipments started to ramp a bit earlier too in late Q1. So that was very specific to last year, very specific to phones. And this year, if we look forward that possibly could occur again. In total, there's not a big issue here, whether the orders come in the last couple weeks of this year or first couple weeks of next year. We see that there's some variability there, but nothing significant to what's going on. The other segments that are growing, and in our case microcontrollers, we saw orders in the third quarter higher than we've seen from microcontrollers since early 2014, same thing with automotive. So those, I think, are more indication of – that's not a cyclical business typically, and it's driven by new model years coming along that are going to take a step function in automotive safety, is one thing driving it, where the millimeter radar and other things like that will start ramping next year and become a driver for test. So that's going to be a long, long multi-year tubing (47

[Thomas Robert Diffely:]

Okay. Great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Edwin Mok from Needham & Company.

[Edwin Mok:]

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. So, first on UR, just to reiterate (47

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

I'll start with that one. Yes, a lot of our effort is going into the distribution network. And that includes making sure we have the best distributors, they have the right technical resources, sales persons (48

[Edwin Mok:]

Okay. That's helpful. And then go back to ATE space, I think you highlighted both the SOC market and as well as the kind of auto related market that drove the strong booking this quarter. I was wondering, did that kind of strength in booking, was that surprising for you guys in terms of how fast it happened? And then, kind of tying that to your outlook in 2017, is that what kind of (49

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah. So the strength of microcontroller in automotive orders in the third quarter were more than we expected. And we have seen five quarters of below trend line buying in that segment. So we knew it had to return. It just so happened that it came back in third quarter and it was a bit of a surprise. So that's a factor in our optimism around next year's market. But that's not it alone. We've also seen strong indications around mobility as well, for next year, which is our biggest segment. So in general, I would say that, as we went through third quarter, the optimism and the orders both moved higher than we had originally expected.

[Edwin Mok:]

Great. Thanks. That's all I have.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Mehdi Hosseini from SIG.

[Mehdi Hosseini:]

Yeah. It's actually Mehdi Hosseini. Thanks for taking my question. I have couple of follow-ups, and first one is for Mark. We saw earlier this morning another consolidation among the larger customer base. And I want to see how you have factored in the continuing consolidation among your customers into the incremental $0.35 of earning that you expect Semi Test to bring in from 2015 to 2020. And I have a follow-up.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah, it's a good question. First of all, we expect consolidation in our customer base will continue. Now you might think well, if that's happening, there must be some manufacturing efficiencies that can be gained that might depress the test market. But in fact, much of the test industry has already been efficiently consolidated through the outsourcing trends of the past decade. Many of these customers utilize subcontract manufacturers in Asia, in facilities that are already – where multiple customers have consolidated test capacity. So, we don't – have not historically, and don't expect there to be, much of a impact to the test market as a result of the consolidations.

[Mehdi Hosseini:]

Great. And then a follow-up, along the lines of efficiency in the system, I've seen three consecutive quarters of decline in your backlog, but you're executing really well, and maybe this decline in backlog has more to do with the industrial shorter lead times. In that context, and maybe this is more for Greg, how are you planning to manage your working capital, since the lead time or the backlog is no longer going to be indicative of what the business trend is going to be two, three quarters out?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

We've actually been managing in that scenario for quite some time. In Semi Test, our largest business, we often get the official purchase order four to six weeks before the tests are shipped. Now we're working with customers collaboratively prior, so we're building inventory based upon the signals they're giving us. So we've been at that for a while. If I go to Universal Robots, which is a very quick fulfillment, super quick, there there's only three products. There isn't a whole lot of different configurations or instruments where you can get stuck. So that is a very low obsolescence risk and those products last for a very long time. So we're comfortable in this environment. And over the years periodically we've improved our supply line responsiveness. We've taken days and weeks out and work with our supply chain to do that. We think we're responsive and we don't see any inventory risk. And our charge as compared to others sort of fit with other equipment companies. We're not high. We're probably on the low side. So I think, all told, we're doing okay against the new environment.

[Mehdi Hosseini:]

Great. And just a quick follow-up, should I assume or is it conservative enough to assume the free cash flow margins are going to average like 15% given how efficient you are with working capital?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

I suppose. I mean our history has been a bit above that, but you could use 15%. That would be a slight decline.

[Mehdi Hosseini:]

Okay. Well the minimum is 15% and any more efficiency coming in is all upside.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Yes.

[Mehdi Hosseini:]

Okay. Thank you.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Okay. Very good.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from C.J. Muse from Evercore.

[C.J. Muse:]

Yeah. Good morning, thank you for taking my question. I guess first question, I think auto SOC test peaked around $400 million back in 2014. It sounds like we're in the low $300 million I think this year. A, is that correct and B, how do you think about growth in that segment into 2017?

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah. So C.J. this is Mark. This year we think automotive is probably just south of $400 million where the year is done. And if last year as an example 2015 it might have been closer to $300 million and then the year before that $400 million. So as we look forward we expected it's going to probably follow that trend line we're talking about off of that $400 million base going forward. It'll be $400 million growing at a couple of percent a year.

[C.J. Muse:]

Okay, very helpful. And then second question on gross margin. As you look at the guide for Q4, is that uplift principally Eagle Test mix? And then looking to 2017 and the new target model can you walk through what's driving that uplift?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

It's simply better mix principally in Semi Test.

[C.J. Muse:]

Okay and then for 2017 same thing?

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Yes.

[C.J. Muse:]

Okay.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Our margins, I think you know, C.J. move around based upon mix, whether our large customers buying in volume or depending upon the various segment our margins can move around. But we tend to have this pattern that's continuing that in even years we're at about 54%, and the odd years we do a bit better.

[C.J. Muse:]

So I guess the interpretation is the change to your target model is an improving mix for you led by auto and the catalog parts over time.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Yes. And we've been beating the model for so long, we just thought we should move the gross margins up, so it's more consistent with where we've been. And we also are likely to put out a bit more OpEx or considerable OpEx behind Universal Robots. So that's the way to fund it with better gross margins that we know we can get.

[C.J. Muse:]

Makes sense. Thank you.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Okay. And operator, we have time for just one more question, please.

[Operator:]

Okay, your final question is from Stephen Chin from UBS.

[Stephen Chin:]

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow-up on beating your UR growth target spend (57

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Yeah. It's a turns business. So the process typically is lead generation, qualification, close and then some application work to deploy the robot into the factory. All of that can occur within a handful of week period in the quarter. So we track weekly, we're looking at metrics around all of those items to see if we're tracking toward our target and the close rate, the qualification rate and sort of those kind of things. So as we go into fourth quarter if you look at the history, fourth quarter is always a big quarter for UR and all the indications we have right now is that will be true again this year. And that's how we're running it.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

And I'll just add that, we don't have any significant distributors whatsoever. I think our largest distributor is just under 5%, so there's so many different buying locations in different countries and different applications, so it's very disperse. But each regional person has a pipeline to their distributors that they put a probability on and all that math ends up being the forecast.

[Stephen Chin:]

Got it. Thank you.

[Mark E. Jagiela:]

Okay, folks, thanks so much for joining us. And for those who are remaining in the queue, I'll reach out to you here after this call. Thanks so much.

[Andrew Blanchard:]

Thank you.

[Gregory R. Beecher:]

Thanks.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. At this time you may now disconnect.