William G. Bock - Chief Financial Officer
Analyst · Lehman Brothers. Your line is open
Good morning everyone, I'm very pleased to report a solid second quarter. We were in line with or favorable to our guidance on virtually every measure, and as promised, we brought operating expenses down from first quarter levels while also growing our top line to a record $75.6 million. We'll first cover our GAAP results. On this basis, gross margin was $45.4 million or 60% of revenue. Research and development investment was $22 million, and SG&A expense was $21 million. Other income, principally interest income on invested cash, was $6.8 million. The GAAP income statement also includes income from discontinued operations of about $600,000, or $0.01 per share. The resulting total GAAP earnings per share on a fully diluted basis was $0.13. Our non-GAAP adjusted financials that follow exclude approximately $8.6 million of pre-tax stock compensation expense. Non-GAAP gross margin was within our target range at 60.5%. The decline versus last quarter resulted from supply chain expedites, and certain increased inventory reserves. These were one-time charges and we expect gross margin to improve in Q3 while remaining within our guidance range of 60 to 62%. As I mentioned, operating expenses were down sequentially in Q2. We had suggested a $1 million sequential decline from first quarter, but we achieved more than double that. SG&A expenses declined as planned to $17 million, or 22.6% of revenue. This was due to actions taken during first quarter and discussed in detail during last quarter's call. During the quarter, R&D investment also declined, coming in at $18 million or 24% of revenue. When we provided guidance last quarter, we estimated R&D expense based on the expectation that we would pull some new product mask expense into June. These development expenses did not make it into the second quarter, but did, in fact, occur in the first week of July. Thus we're enjoying a favorable result in the current quarter but anticipating R&D investment will increase sequentially in Q3. The lower operating expenses drove operating income to $10.6 million or 14% of revenue. This represents a significant improvement over the last two quarters, and good progress toward our long-term operating model. As previously discussed, that long-term operating model features a target 25% operating income. We expect to make significant progress toward this objective in each of the remaining quarters of 2007. Wrapping up the income statement for second quarter, other income in the period was $6.8 million. Our non-GAAP income tax provision was below our target range at 17%. This was due to a one-time favorable tax audit result in one of our foreign subsidiaries. We now expect the company's tax rate to be approximately 20% through the remainder of 2007. Income from continuing operations, therefore, was $14.4 million, or 19% of revenue, a 7 point jump over first quarter and exceeding any quarter of 2006. EPS for continuing operations came in at $0.26, fully $0.03 above the high end of our guidance range. Let me also discuss our headcount trends. Second quarter closed with our employee base at 526, down an additional 21 from our first quarter headcount of 547. These reductions were primarily in manufacturing operations in Austin, essentially completing the transfer of all production offshore. These actions effectively complete the structural changes needed to align our operations with the revenue run rate we anticipate in the second half of 2007. We will, however, continue to consolidate facilities into our headquarters location during the fourth quarter. Turning to the balance sheet, accounts receivable increased to $42.2 million, driven by some nonlinearity of shipments during a quarter. As previously discussed, we transitioned into a new ERP system on April 2nd and shipment levels were low in the first half of April, returning to normal levels for the balance of the quarter. Days sales outstanding was 50 days. Inventory dropped to $19 million or approximately 6.3 turns. Distribution inventory also declined. Cash and equivalents totaled $644 million at the end of the quarter. This balance reflects the payment of approximately $40 million in taxes on the gain from the divestiture of our cellular business, partially offset by operating cash flows. Also through the second quarter, we've repurchased approximately two-thirds of our original $100 million share repurchase plan. Today we make a significant announcement regarding our cash position. I am very pleased to report that last week our board of directors approved an expansion of our share repurchase plan, quadrupling its size to a new $400 million authorization. This program is authorized over a 24-month period and we may repurchase shares through private transactions or on the open market, depending on market conditions. It is our intention to be active in the execution of this plan, effectively returning capital to shareholders and significantly reducing our outstanding share base. We believe this is a responsible action as it relates to our excess cash position, returning value to shareholders while retaining full flexibility for both the operation of the business and for strategic opportunities. Necip, I'll now turn the discussion over to you.
Necip Sayiner - President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Bill. Before we discuss the business results, I'd like to comment on the use of our cash as it relates to our M&A efforts. We believe our substantial cash balance will allow us to pursue targeted acquisitions to accelerate our growth. We have ruled out large public transactions and have turned our focus to late-stage private companies. As a result, we can meaningfully increase our repurchase program while also having a substantial war chest enabling multiple potential strategic acquisitions. We recently added an industry veteran to the leadership team giving us a dedicated management resource to focus on acquisition activity. Mark Downing our new Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, will also be looking for untapped possibilities in our portfolio that could drive new revenue opportunities. I'm very pleased to bring someone of Mark's caliber to the management team and believe this is another positive indication of our commitment to expand and grow our business. As you recall, we view our business in the context of the following product lines, embedded modems, voiceover broadband, broadcast, microcontrollers and timing. These product areas represented almost 90% of our revenue in Q2. Our mature products made up the balance. Record revenue in Q2 was driven by double-digit sequential growth in both the broadcast and MCU businesses. Let's start with our broadcast business. We continue to have a leadership position in FM radio due to our cost-effective architecture and superior performance. Our broadcast revenue increases in Q2 were driven by increasing share in handsets, particularly among our Korean customers as FM penetration continues to rise, and strong demand in non-handset applications which represented close to 30% of broadcast revenue in Q2. FM design win activity, a leading indicator of the future health of the business, continues to be strong. We added more than 70 new design wins during the quarter, split evenly between handset and non-handset applications. We began shipping our FM transmitter in Q2 as planned. We're still the only supplier offering this function in a form factor appropriate for handsets and portable media players. We expect a steep ramp of the FM transmitter in non-handset applications to begin in Q3 followed by a ramp in handsets early next year. We also expect our AM/FM sever to begin shipping in volume in Q4 as planned. Based on the strength of our existing FM tuner, complemented by new products and customer diversification, broadcast growth looks very healthy for the second half of the year. Our microcontroller revenue increased to record levels again this quarter, growing by over 10% sequentially. Growth was driven by strength in consumer, industrial and networking applications, primarily in Asia and the Americas. We shipped more than 5,000 development kits during the quarter due in part to demand generated from a series of customer seminars hosted globally. We believe our current mixed-signal MCU product portfolio already addresses approximately 20% of today's $5 billion 8-bit MCU fam. New products in development will not only increase our market share potential in markets we address today, they will also expand our served market to about to about 50% of the TAM or about $2.5 billion over the next two years. Embedded modems which we forecasted to be flat to slightly up this year, performed as expected during the quarter. We're gaining share across all of our major markets, set top boxes, point of sale terminals and fax. We've made good progress in top tier design wins for multifunction printers and believe this is a significant opportunity for future marketshare gains. We expanded our voice family during the quarter, announcing a next-generation ProSLIC for the consumer and enterprise markets with two voice ports on a single chip. The dual ProSLIC integration and remote diagnostic capabilities further distance us from the competition. The voiceover broadband business remained weak as anticipated in Q2, due to inventory at the European customer and reduced demonstrate from our customers supplying Vonage. We expect some recovery in this business in Q3, due to marketshare increases in Europe. The timing business which includes clocks and oscillators, continues to enjoy strong designing activity. Our any-rate clocks announced in Q1 are expanding our content within existing customer applications and have also opened up new opportunities in media broadcast, test and measurement, and point-to-point microwave applications. Oscillator revenue grew double digits in Q2 in spite of being limited by some capacity constraints that should be resolved in Q3. We're continuing our investments in this area, developing new products that could double our addressable market from $400 million to $800 million. Now, turning to the guidance for Q3. We are expecting all of our major product lines to grow in the third quarter. Total revenue is expected to be up sequentially by 7 to 11% to $81 million to $84 million. We are expecting gross margin to increase sequentially, but stay within our target range of 60 to 62%. We anticipate R&D investment to increase due to additional new product development activity while SG&A expense is expected to remain flat in absolute dollars. We expect our adjusted operating profit will be in the range of 16 to 18%. Third quarter net income per fully diluted share on a GAAP basis is expected to be $0.16 to $0.18. Non-GAAP EPS, excluding a non-cash charge for stock compensation, is expected to be in the range of $0.28 to $ 0.30. We'd now like to take your questions. Shannon?