Good day and welcome to the Lantronix Fourth Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Rob Adams, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead sir.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining the fourth quarter fiscal 2022 conference call. Joining us on the call today are Paul Pickle, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jeremy Whitaker, our Chief Financial Officer. A live and archived webcast of today's call will be available on the company's website. In addition, you can find the call in details for the phone replay in today's release. During this call, management may make forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from management's current expectations. We encourage you to review the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in the earnings release, which was furnished to the SEC today and is available on our website and in the company's SEC filings, such as the 10-K and 10-Q. Lantronix undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. Please refer to the news release and the financial information in the Investor Relations section of our website for additional details that will supplement management commentary. Furthermore, during the call, the company will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. Today's release, which is posted in the Investor Relations section of our website, describes the differences between our non-GAAP and GAAP reporting, and presents reconciliations for the non-GAAP financial measures that we use. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jeremy Whitaker, our Chief Financial Officer. Jeremy?

Thank you, Rob and welcome to everyone joining us for this afternoon's call. I'm going to provide the financial results as well as some of the business highlights for our fourth quarter fiscal 2022 before I hand it over to Paul for his commentary. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, we reported record revenue of $35.9 million, an increase of 74% when compared to $20.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 and up 11% sequentially, as compared to $32.3 million reported in the third quarter of fiscal 2022. The year-on-your increase was driven by organic growth of 29% in addition to the contribution from our acquisition of the TN Companies. Gross margin was 41.9% for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, as compared with 42.1% in the prior quarter. Selling, general and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 were $9.4 million compared with $6.1 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 and $8.3 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2022. Research and development expenses for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 were $4.9 million, compared with $3.6 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 and $4.5 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2022. The year-on-year increases in SG&A and R&D are largely driven by the acquisition of the TN Companies at the beginning of our fiscal year. GAAP net income was $2.5 million or $0.07 per share during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to a GAAP net loss of $1.1 million or $0.04 per share during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. The increase in GAAP net income was primarily due to non-cash income related to our most recent acquisition. Non-GAAP net income was $2.9 million or $0.08 per share during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 compared…

Thank you, Jeremy. I'm pleased to report results today because I'm not only reporting on our fiscal fourth quarter and 2022 year-end results, but I am also laying out for your investors what is expected to be an exciting fiscal 2023 for all of us. Starting with Q4 as Jeremy revealed to you, revenues for the quarter totaled $35.9 million, up 74% year-over-year and 11% sequentially. For the year, we grew revenues an impressive 81% and 31% organically. While we intend to continue to build on capabilities and competencies through M&A, it is our ability to grow organically that will be the true test of our operating philosophy as well as our ability to integrate and manage those acquisitions. Q4 results were solid with our outperformance coming against the backdrop of ongoing supply chain disruptions and increased costs, which continued to temper profit growth. During Q4, we were able to secure additional semiconductor supplies that we had originally expected in the September quarter, which helped us to exceed our initial revenue expectations. Despite these additional shipments, we still saw late shipments to customer request, they increased to approximately $10 million up from just over $7 million last quarter. We are starting to see supply improving for some of our components. But on the whole, it remains a mixed bag as we continue to see long lead times for a number of important products. Looking at requested shipments for our fiscal first quarter ended -- ending in September, we expect a slower start to our fiscal year versus Q4. However, our operations team will continue to aggressively source supply in hopes of meeting customer requested delivery dates. In aggregate, we expect the supply chain to continue to improve over the remainder of the calendar year. As we turn to our product…

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And the first question will come from Mike Walkley with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the strong fiscal 2022. I guess, Paul just in terms of your guidance, can you just help us maybe think about the seasonality for the year, it sounds like it's a much stronger second half of the year, congrats on the TOGG and Enel deals, any should it be a steady sequential increase from maybe a down sequential September quarter or how you're thinking about how that linearity plays out in the year given supply issues also?

Yes, I'd say it's, the Q1 is less seasonality and it's more a product of some of the supply chain limitations that we're running into, you don't really get the answers out of the component suppliers. And sometimes you're able to, they have upside demand that they delivered to you late in the quarter, you're able to convert that. I think that's what's kind of happening in Q1, we had slated product that was due to be delivered on our dock in September. And then we were able to bring that into the June quarter, which of course as soon as we can convert product, and components into product and deliver that to our customers, it's pretty critical that we get that out the door. In terms of these larger programs, we've had long-term visibility, some of the award letters have allowed us to do place long lead time, purchase orders in place at no risk to us. And so we're able to really kind of schedule and deliver to those forecasts. So that's why we've got pretty good visibility in the December quarter and beyond. And that's some of the limitations we're running into for this -- for the September quarter.

Great, thanks. And then just on TOGG, now that you've got that order, can you remind us kind of the long-term opportunity within and the timing when that hits the model for fiscal 2022?

Yes, they're doing a plant opening in October, the assembly lines are being qualified today are going through, they're actually in place and producing bodies and are going through qualification. I was there this past quarter visited the plant. So their production is pretty much in line to start kind of that January '23 timeframe. So the plants opening in October, you can expect some components to be delivered in the December timeframe. But bulk of that delivery will come in the latter half of our fiscal year and continue on through 2023. And if we think in terms of total unit opportunity, first purchase orders for 25,000 SiPs at this point and their first year forecast I think is roughly 30,000 and moving to 60,000 a year thereafter. But plant capacity is basically I think at max 167,000 units.

Great, thanks. Last question for me, and I'll jump in the queue. Just Jeremy with listed product, new divisions in the product mix changing in fiscal '23. Any thing to think about on gross margin should be somewhat stable, or maybe a little down given some of these new projects?

Yes, so I would, as it relates to some of our largest design wins, such as Enel with the QED and then also with TOGG, those tend to be on the lower end of our scale. So there will be some downward pressure as it relates to that. That said, we do get back with the higher revenue, we'll get some better absorption. And with the expected up tick in some of our higher margin areas like services, that will also give us a little bit of relief. I think, also in the second half of the year, we may begin to start seeing some relief as it relates to some of the different supply chain costs beginning to normalize. So like I said from, I think from a straight product mix, some downward pressure, but some of that will get offset by some of these other areas as we progress through the year.

Yes, Mike, I'll give you two other pieces of color as well, we just at the end of July, I believe it is we're off that transition services agreement with CSI, so kind of final integration, warehouse move completed, that was basically $1.2 million a year that doesn't repeat in fiscal 2023. And this particular quarter was the purchasing of components was a little bit more normalized. It'll take a while for PPVs to kind of work through the P&L, but freight was just, we saw a significant increase in freight, upwards about 50%. And you couldn't forecast that kind of increase. I don't see those types of increases repeating and so we should be on the downward trend in terms of some of those additional supply chain costs.

Great, that's very helpful. Thank you.

The next question will come from Scott Searle with Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Nice to see the strong organic growth guys. Maybe just to jump right in, in terms of the June results, OpEx was elevated. I'm wondering if that's more of a normalized number, if there's any one-time impact in there. And then Paul to follow-up on some of your comments related to gross margins, freight was elevated as well, components supply chain remains difficult. But it sounds like things are improving going forward. I'm wondering what the magnitude of the impact was in the June quarter? And how we should think about that going into September and beyond and that trajectory over the course of fiscal '23?

Yes, it's hard for us to kind of project, what freight is going to be going forward, it was a significant up tick, kind of halfway through the quarter. And I think as we get back to a more normalized environment, we could start to utilize some lower cost shipping lanes, as well. So I don't think that they necessarily continue to tick up, but should normalize. And I think we'll be able to whittle those down, I will state as I have stated before that I do think that we have quite a bit of improvement to be had on the COGS line just in the way that we've kind of executed purchasing, supply chain management component management or commodity management, I should say. And then as we get into a more normalized environment, I think that just brings it all back around. In terms of OpEx, I'll let Jeremy give you a little bit of color there, but just simply say that we did have some R&D projects that had to go to certification, those certifications where at least a part of up tick in OpEx, I wouldn't look at the OpEx number as a normalized number, something that's going to continue to repeat, we did have some one-times in there as well, some variable comp. Any other color, you want to highlight Jeremy?

No, I was going to point out the variable comp, which was higher than what we saw in Q3. And I would expect that to normalize in Q1 and have a lesser impact.

Hey, Jeremy, is there can you quantify the gross margin impact in the June quarter? And also, Paul, just to clarify, I think in your comments as well, you talked about $10 million up from $7 million. So there's basically, kind of $3 million was left on the table in effect this quarter, for various component availability issues?

Yes, I'll cover the late customer request date, we were making pretty good progress, we actually expected to whittle down that $7 million, we did get some significant up tick in demand in the quarter, if I look at ordering patterns, they were actually pretty good. We're seeing some of the ordering pattern starting to request product in the out quarters as well. So customers are getting a little bit more visibility and are able to plan a little bit better. I think that will kind of help us on our supply chain cost and not having to go out to the spot market. But yes, it was unfortunate that we saw that up tick in late to customer request date, but on the positive demand for the quarter was really strong, if you take that $3 million and add it to our results, it gives you a good indication of where the quarter demand rate actually was.

And if I could just lastly follow-up on some Mike's questions around the guidance, nice to see that 15% to 20% outlook for the year, you didn't mention that it starts a little bit slower in September, I'm wondering kind of what that means sequentially in terms of the trajectory of revenues. And then given the timelines for some of the larger opportunities with TOGG and with Enel, it sounds like they start to ramp-up in the back half of the fiscal year. So a couple of questions in there with, given that you're seeing 3% organic growth, 15% to 20% seems like it's a relatively modest number. I guess I'm wondering what are you factoring in terms of Enel contribution and TOGG contribution in the year and then kind of given what sounds like a back end loaded year, is it correct to be assuming that you're exiting fiscal '23 probably somewhere in the $45 million plus range per quarter somewhere in that ballpark? Thank you.

Yes, that's a safe assumption. I mean, if we're going to do $150 million at the midpoint next year, we have to have some quarters that are starting with a four. And we do expect that to happen. In terms of contribution, I'm a little conservative on the contribution of Enel just especially with new programs that are ramping up, we expect it to start to affect our December quarter. That still remains true, we're saying 10 to 20 it's probably more on the order of $20 million. And right now we're dialing in a 150 midpoint. We think that 20% growth is pretty good. Internally, I think we have line of sight to some possibilities of being a little bit better. But we're trying to be prudent here planted out, try to, I guess rationalize our customer expectations in terms of their ramps as well. So, we'll provide additional color as we're able to move further along in the fiscal year.

Great. Hey, thanks so much. Congrats on the quarter.

Yes, thank you for further clarification, that midpoint is about 155.

Thank you.

Your next question will come from Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. So it gives us like, what is your -- we could do the math, but why are gross margins going to be, is it it's kind of confusing, because we talked about, we're not adding a lot of potential revenue from the big programs at lower gross margins, but your implied gross margins for your revenue guidance is kind of below what we've kind of been operating that lately and certainly last year, so can you help give us clarity there, please?

Yes, I think if you -- obviously, if you do the math, it's right in line with what we have been driving. I think if we look at what our stated operating model is, it's 10% EBITDA margins were just slightly below that 9% doing okay in today's environment, we'd like to be driving 10% quite solidly. And so right now, the EPS guidance is right in line with that revenue guidance. So it's not really an expectation of gross margins drifting downward, we think, well you can actually improve that as we go through the year. But at this point in time, trying to forecast exactly what's going to happen over this next fiscal year, we're trying to be prudent and just anticipate some of the supply chain costs coming out, out of the P&L a little bit later. But I do think that there's certainly the potential for upside. But at this juncture, this is what we feel is prudent to forecast.

Okay, that's fair. What do you believe, what you guys are assuming your organic growth rate is on a go forward basis or over the course of the next year, ex a couple of the main big program wins?

So, what we're forecasting is 20%. That's what I think we can dial in, I think we've got line of sight to do better than that, as the year goes along. But some of these windows, given what these production ramps are expected to do, it could move in and out of that, that last June quarter, some of the bigger quantities that ramp-up, and so we're just trying to forecast what we currently see today. Does that make sense?

Yes, I guess I'm just trying to gauge just how conservative we're trying to be. I mean, if we're on the high end of revenue expectations for next fiscal year for Enel, I mean that's pretty much, that puts you near the top end of your growth expectations. That's your outline today. So, that kind of suggests a lot of conservatism and many other programs as well as a couple of other big programs that we've talked about. Am I thinking about that, right?

You are, I think that kind of makes sense, the way you're framing it, bear in mind, this program starts to ramp really at the end of the December quarter, and more appreciably in our third fiscal quarter. So that March quarter, there is one other supplier that Enel has some dependency on that has been the long pole in the tent, we've been ready to go since the September timeframe, September quarter timeframe. So this particular quarter that we're in as Enel has requested, but the other vendor has not necessarily delivered what they've needed to deliver because of some of their supply chain dependency. So, given the fact that we have some dependency on that other vendor, it's not, it's I think it's prudent to anticipate, be a little bit more conservative, anticipating some of those same type of supply chain disruptions happening. And so when we look at it, we see it starting to happen in December quarter with a ramp-up that could be quite steep, but at the same time, you have to ramp-up production on a compute box. So it should move pretty steadily up from that timeframe through the end of the calendar year.

Okay, that's great news. But one last question, if I can squeeze it in here is, is there any update for us on the M&A landscape and recent valuation changes, at least in the public markets here in tech this year, can you give us any update on any potential funnel or you seeing more stuff to look at or is nothing really changed?

We have had some additional meetings, I'd say that the opportunities are a bit more actionable of late and the conversations are a bit more numerous than they have been. Valuation certainly helps. We went through that kind of VC cycle last year where things were quite good. And I think people wanted to go, make a run of it for themselves raise money, a lot of those players are, things didn't pan out the way quite like they thought that they would. And so we're now having discussions again. So I think that's, it's a good environment. At the same time, we want to make sure that we pick the right assets. Given all the rules that we have going on, I think we can afford to be a bit picky and pick something that's a decent value, but also strategically aligned. But there's definitely a couple of tuck-ins out there that are definitely actionable. So it's a good environment, valuations are a bit more reasonable. Starting to see some depressed assets, which is kind of a good sign as well. It could present a good buying opportunity.

Great, no other questions. Thanks, guys.

The next question will come from Jaeson Schmidt with Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys, thanks for taking my questions. Just two quick ones. First, could you just comment on what you're seeing in the distribution channel from an inventory standpoint?

Sure, that was kind of easy. We saw distribution throughout the channel decreased. So they sold out more than they purchased. A bit disappointing, in terms of having to go bang on distributors and say, hey, you already had minimum stock levels. And if we can just kind of ship directly to your customer, we'll just cut you out of the loop and recoup that margin. But we did see those inventories come down. I think that's a good sign. There's nothing building up in the channel. But I think it does kind of indicate a little bit of hesitancy out there in terms of today's environment and wondering what might happen. So I do think these are intentionally bringing that down. We look at it to make sure things aren't building up, so that we don't have a whiplash effect, but they're in pretty good shape right now for us, anyway.

Okay, that's helpful. And then just a clarification. I know you mentioned that you could ship more in the June quarter, hence or the out performance but I'm just trying to get a sense on was this characterized, would you characterize this as sort of pull forward in demand? And some of the softness here starting fiscal '23 is just sort of that air pocket? Or is the softness starting this year really just a function of the supply chain still?

Yes, I don't see it as pull for these have been, so we exited this quarter with $10 million of revenue that customers requested in the June quarter, they wanted it, we couldn't deliver it. So that went up by $3 million over the previous quarter. So I kind of look at that number. The reason why we've been tracking that number is because it's a good indicator of demand. So demand still appears to be strong at least for us. I will say that we've been talking about our base business, that kind of long sales cycle industrial business. That's several years old it, it was growing at a double-digit rate, it really shouldn't be growing at a rate quite that strong. So we've been talking about expectations of that moderating around this June timeframe. I think we're starting to see that and it's at mid to high single-digits growth as opposed to double-digit growth, which is more appropriate for that business. So a little bit of catch-up has been done. But as indicated by the latest CRD shipments, despite being able to be our revenue expectations in the June quarter, we still didn't meet everything that customers requested. So if I could get enough supply we are able to ship against that late CRD number of $10 million be able to certainly outperform in the September quarter it's just, we're truly at a juncture at this point where we're supply chain constraint.

Okay, got it. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thanks, Jaeson.

The next question will come from Ryan Koontz with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Thanks for the question. Most of them have been answered. But when asked about your new product segments here, and what your expectations are going forward, as it relates to your backlog and your pipeline opportunities, even if it's not quantitative, maybe some qualitative directional expectations there, and also kind of help us understand how to bridge your legacy segments around REM and IoT into the new definitions and what sort of verticals drive which sorts of categories? Thank you.

Yes, I think we'll be providing some reconciliation, Jeremy, you can correct me if I'm wrong, where we kind of will provide the older, the previous segments, and then the new segments side by side, so you get a sense of what both of those are doing, I think, as we look at solutions, and now will be a big part of that. So, in terms of absolute dollars, total system solutions have higher ASPs attached to them. And so they can, that particular segment can substantially outperform all the others and then, but we do like the sticky embedded business as well, you design into customers platform, and they just continue to buy those sub-assemblies and deliver those, we've had strong growth in that segment as well. Qualitatively, I would say, we'll probably get decent growth out of both, with maybe systems edging out embedded towards the second half of the years at Enel platform starts to shift, because there are a lot of dollars attached to that. And then in terms of software and services, we wanted to provide visibility to how we're doing on the software side and talk about it as in a meaningful way, I think we still look at high margin ARR, still very early innings, but we wanted to report on that goal that we had for this fiscal year. In addition to that, I wouldn't expect the design services business to grow at an appreciable rate, that's not a good indication of what the business is actually doing because most of that revenue is leveraging, hardware revenue, residual hardware revenue that would enter, it would be counted for an embedded or solution category. So we kind of look at that more meaningful, and that software and services bucket is really kind of the software play. And so we'll continue to track that number to provide some visibility for that.

Yes, super helpful.

Yes, Paul, I can confirm that we're disclosing both the previous classification and the new classification, both in our earnings release and in the Form 10-K. So investors can see the new and the old classifications as we transition.

Perfect, thanks. And Paul, is there an updated target for mix of software services or software standalone, which to think about at all?

Not at this time, but we are going through and looking at some of the programs that we have and are totaling that, I will update a target over this next year, or probably at this next quarter will give an update in terms of what our target exit rate is for the year.

Helpful, thank you.

Thank you.

The next question will come from Scott Searle with Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, Paul, just a quick follow-up from an industry standpoint, given the Semtech Sierra Wireless or the pending combination. Are you seeing any implications for your business in terms of more opportunities opening up, particularly on the module front or otherwise? Thanks.

Yes, it's an interesting one, I think, if you look at it that semiconductor consolidation cycle, some would argue that it's run its course and then you would possibly want to start to move up the food chain. I think as we get some successes in specific areas related to specific technologies, compute, being one of those I think it becomes would become an attractive asset to either invest in or acquire. So I think it's expected to happen in more verticalized segments, I think is a reasonable expectation, but it is interesting some of the technology partnership discussions that we're having these days, and it's all around semiconductor guys. So one of the things about it's intuitive if you think about it, today's semiconductors are getting more and more complicated and somebody has to unlock that potential. More often than not customers just don't have the ability and the expertise inside to really leverage all that semiconductor has to offer. So somebody like us that's able to take Qualcomm platform and turn it into an end product for a customer really becomes a valuable asset. So that's a value proposition that we're definitely exploiting, clearly is driving some results. That's where a lot of our success is happening in terms of revenue, and I would expect those technology partnerships to become more important to us in the future.

Great, thank you.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Paul Pickle for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us today and have a great week.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.