Necip Sayiner
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Thanks, Paul. While it was the video products that were the stars of the first quarter, in the second quarter it was our Broad-based products that reached a new high, a real tribute to the diversity of the business. Our Broad-based revenue increased 10% sequentially to a new record, now representing more than 40% of the company's revenue. The MCU business was particularly strong, surpassing the revenue peak achieved last year. Our latest generation low-power MCUs introduced a year ago are now ramping with particular success in portable applications. Our precision mixed-signal products also grew nicely sequentially due to increased demand in medical applications. And our USB products, which continue to be widely adopted, had a solid quarter in touchscreens and other animated applications. Design wins in the quarter were at an all-time record, up 45% year-over-year and development kits totaled nearly 8,000. The timing product line delivered another record quarter as well. However, the pace of order growth has slowed as the communications' end markets have cooled. We've seen a decline in demand from top telecom customers, particularly in the optical segment. This was offset by the revenue increases from a growing customer base, as well as the newly acquired timing products. We expect the business will continue to perform meaningfully better than the industry growth rate forecasted for 2011, even in the face of the optical networking headwinds. What we consider emerging products in the Broad-based category grew in combination nearly 30% sequentially. In Q2, we announced a new wireless sensor node solution powered by a harvested energy source. This enables customers to develop self-sustaining ultra-low power wireless sensor networks for home and building automations, security, medical and other monitoring devices. It's the pairing of our very low-power MCU and our high-performance wireless receivers that makes this innovative solution possible. The newest of our emerging product lines, human interface, includes touch controllers and proximity sensors. Our initial success in industrial markets is promising, and we shipped our millionth cumulative unit to industrial customers in Q2. As you know, it takes a while for the segment to become meaningful given the long design cycles and the fragmented nature of the customer base. So we've also developed a touch controller optimized for the smartphone opportunity, which we began sampling in Q2. That device achieves a very attractive combination of performance and cost. I'm pleased to announce we have secured our first design win at a Tier 1 handset maker that will begin shipping in Q4. This establishes our solution as a contender for many more opportunities in this space, giving us confidence that human interface will be a meaningful incremental growth driver in 2012. While we're satisfied with the continued share gains in the Broad-based business, we also observed demand slowing in the back half of 2011, with revenue expected to be lower sequentially in Q3. We believe our initial target of 30% annual growth for Broad-based revenue is intact but based on the current economic environment, we're likely to end the year at the low end of that range. Turning to the Access business, revenue recovered nicely in Q2 growing sequentially over 5%, with ProSLIC revenue driving the increase. Modem revenue has mostly stabilized with the CPE portion of that product line now at only 6% of company revenue. Therefore, the lumpy nature of the ProSLIC business will dictate the modest sequential changes in the Access business for the remainder of the year. Broadcast revenue was up slightly for the quarter, totaling 34% of company revenue. Growth in TV tuners and AM/FM radios offset declines in FM tuners into handsets, which are also now 6% of company revenue. In video, our TV customers are signaling to us that they see weakening sell-through and lingering inventory, particularly in Europe. We're expecting this weakness to translate into a sequential decline in Q3 for our video products. Last quarter, we talked about the midyear model refreshes we were competing for, and I'm happy to report we have won those designs. Revenue from these new wins gives us continued confidence in our $60 million revenue target for the year. Our non-handset audio business is expanding into a broad set of applications going into the seasonally strong Q3 period. However, that expansion isn't uniform. We're seeing lower-than-typical seasonal ramps for MP3 player and PND customers, where forecasts have come down based on lower expectations for consumer demand in the second half of the year. The net effect will be a slight sequential increase for audio in Q3, but clearly not to the magnitude we would expect to see in a more typical seasonally strong period. Looking at the business in total, near-term visibility is a concern as end customers globally are much more cautious than they were even a quarter ago. An increasing number of well-publicized economic issues impacting consumer demand, coupled with ongoing softness in the communications sector lead us to believe that revenue in Q3 will be down 5% to 10% to about $113.5 million to $120 million. We're anticipating that both Access and Broad-based will be lower sequentially, and that Broadcast will experience a larger sequential decline. We expect gross margin to increase by about 50 basis points. We anticipate operating expenses to total approximately $54 million. On a GAAP basis, we're projecting earnings of $0.16 to $0.22. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding stock compensation expense, we expect $0.34 to $0.40. While the near-term uncertainty is unsettling, we are very focused at this point on 2012 execution and setting the stage for a return to our target growth rate. Today, in our Broad-based business, we are achieving a very attractive growth rate in a subpar economic environment. We believe this business will bring significantly more incremental revenue dollars in 2012 than 2011 due to a number of drivers. First, our established businesses in timing and MCU have been enjoying strong design win momentum, which has consistently translated to market share gains in these product lines. Second, we expect that our emerging businesses in wireless and isolation combined could double in quarterly run rate by the end of next year. And third, our touch controllers will be ramping in smartphones, providing a new incremental growth driver as we proliferate our solution in the marketplace. We believe this growth in Broad-based products will also be augmented by continued dominance in TV tuners. We now fully expect the silicon tuner adoption rate to hit 50% next year, and we believe our solution will continue to enjoy the comparative leadership we have established with the leading OEMs. Admittedly, it's too early to be at all definitive about next year, but I do believe that the new product momentum is working in our favor, irrespective of the market headwinds. We'd now like to take your questions. Shannon?