Gregory R. Beecher
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to first provide some color on our very strong quarter and also comment on our model. Then I'll cover the more detailed second quarter highlights and third quarter guidance and close with some summary comments. In the second quarter, we had sales of $548 million and non-GAAP EPS of $0.77. LitePoint, our wireless test segment, was a stand-out performer with $112 million in revenue and $189 million in bookings in the second quarter. On the product front, LitePoint successfully introduced 2 new wireless calibration and test products in the IQ family, which were both aggressively ramped in the quarter and met customer acceptance tests ahead of schedule. These new products further extend our lead in providing wireless test solutions that enable brand and chipset companies to get their new products to market fast, while also meeting their aggressive cost targets for high-volume production testing. I'll come back to LitePoint a little later. But first I'd like to provide some overall comments on the year as we passed the halfway mark. Our first half non-GAAP EPS of $1.07 gives us our best first half start in the last 10 years. Looking around the corner, we'd expect, as Mike said, normal second half seasonality to come into play. This generally causes our revenue to peak in the second or third quarter and trough in the fourth quarter. For us, apart from adjusting our supply line, our model anticipates and flexes variable costs down in periods of lower sales, allowing us to deliver very solid earnings through the trough and across the cycle. Let me take a moment now to give you a sense of how we think about our normalized sales and earnings. I'm doing this now to remind you of the high-level structure, as there have been a fair number of moving pieces over the last year. You'll recall that our model was set so that at $350 million in quarterly sales, we've delivered a 15% non-GAAP operating profit. Now if I take our average quarterly sales over the last 10 quarters and insert LitePoint at $50 million a quarter, our average quarterly pro forma sales would total $430 million a quarter. So while we only need around $350 million a quarter to generate a 15% operating profit, our pro forma run rate is about $80 million north of this level. Operating with this lean financial model drives our above-industry profitability and strong free cash flow. Looking at this over a slightly longer time period and on an annual basis reveals that we've grown the company from an average top line of $1.1 billion in 2007, 2008 average to $1.5 billion in 2010, 2011 average, and we're on track to step that up to a new level in 2012. Looking at it from a free cash flow perspective, over the last 2.5 years, our free cash flow as a percent of sales has averaged 18.5%. One other quick way to get a sense of the changes we've made is that in 2007, our quarterly breakeven was about where it is now. And we didn't have LitePoint, Nextest, Eagle or storage test businesses at that time. This growth, combined with steady financial discipline, allows us to be on offense in exploiting new growth, whether geared towards expanding LitePoint more aggressively, funding new investments in our other test businesses or adding new inorganic growth engines. We fully expect our core and past growth investments to continue to generate very solid earnings, providing the necessary cash to in turn fund other new close to the core growth, continuing the cycle of increasing our earnings power and cash flow generation in an otherwise cyclical SemiTest market. This is in part why we have been cautious in buying stock back as we believe there may be other good opportunities where we can put our hard earned cash to very good use. Please note, though, there is no predicting whether we will find other suitable M&A candidates. And as such, we continue to evaluate our capital allocation alternatives. In 2012, we expect nearly 50% of our earnings to come from new markets we've entered in the last 5 years. This includes performance analog, memory tests, hard disk drive and most recently, wireless product test. So in short, at the halfway mark to the year, we're averaging quarterly sales of $472 million with a 26% operating profit rate, which tracks quite well against our $350 million, 15% operating model. As you can see from our guidance, using the midpoint, we also expect to operate very favorably toward 15% PBIT model in the third quarter at $440 million in sales and a 24% operating profit. Turning now back to LitePoint. We expect to continue to grow and to gain share. The overall served market is growing, led by healthy trends in mobile computing, particularly the growth of smartphones and tablets, the emerging Internet of things that connect every day household appliances to the Internet, and a bevy of other new wireless applications or familiar devices such as set-top boxes and TVs. So in addition to the healthy unit growth, we're benefiting from an increase in the amount of testing. Smartphones are moving to dual Wi-Fi bands, which increase the number of channels by fivefold. And they are adding multiple antennas, which increases coverage and support faster data rates, both of which increase test times. The new standards such as 802.11ac and LTE obsolete the existing installed base of testers, as these new standards require more bandwidth, more computing power and more complex modulation. So we have a combination of strong unit growth, test time growth and an equipment refresh that extends over a few years. So the future looks quite promising even before factoring in further share gains. To put some guideposts on the LitePoint revenue range going forward, when we announced the purchase in September of last year, we planned for 20% revenue growth per year for several years. That plan had revenues of approximately $160 million in 2012 and $190 million in 2013, totaling $350 million for that 2-year period. Driven by the strong 2012 to date and current outlook, our updated view shows revenue over this 2-year period will likely be closer to $450 million. That's $100 million greater than our initial plan. Keep in mind, though, that LitePoint's quarterly volatility will remain very high with its very short lead times. Moving to SemiTest. Mobility remains a key driver for us. Microcontroller and analog related to power management did see solid improvement in the quarter. Now to the key highlights of the second quarter. We had total company bookings of $502 million and LitePoint bookings of $189 million. SemiTest bookings were essentially flat at 358 million. SOC test orders were 337 million and Memory Test orders were 21 million in the second quarter. SemiTest service orders were 67 million. System test servers orders were 9 million and overall Systems Test Group orders came in at 45 million. In the second quarter, SemiTest sales were 67% of the total. Systems Test Group was 13% and Wireless Test was 20%. Our book-to-bill ratio for the second quarter was 1.1 for the overall company, just shy of 1 for semiconductor test, 0.6 for the Systems Test Group and 1.7 for Wireless Test. At the end of the quarter, our backlog stood at $562 million, of which 81% is scheduled to ship and be recognized as revenue within the next 6 months. The top line of $548 million was up $152 million or 38% sequentially from the first quarter. SemiTest was $365 million, up $97 million or 36% and Systems Test group was $71 million, down $26 million or 27%. Wireless Test was $112 million, up 257%. We had 1 10% customer in the quarter and our top 5 customers accounted for 36% of our second quarter sales. This level of concentration continues to reflect the strength in the mobility area. SemiTest product shipments increased 45% from a quarter ago. Within the $548 million, service revenue was $68 million, a $2 million increase compared to Q1. SemiTest service revenue was $52 million. Total company product turns business was 45% versus 33% a quarter ago. SemiTest product turns business was 40% versus 37% a quarter ago. The increase in product turns business reflects the nature of our wireless segment, which as described to you in the past has shorter lead times and visibility. Memory revenue was $16 million in the quarter. Now moving down the P&L. Non-GAAP gross margins increased from 49% in the first quarter to 57% in the second quarter, due to volume and mix. R&D expenses were $65 million or 12% of sales compared to $60 million or 15% of sales in the first quarter. SG&A expenses were $73 million or 13% of sales compared to the $68 million or 17% of sales in the first quarter. Non-GAAP operating expenses up $138 million or up $10 million from the first quarter, driven primarily by higher variable compensation. Our net non-GAAP interest and other expense was $2 million. We had a cash tax provision of $15.5 million or 9% in the second quarter. We continue to expect a full year cash tax rate around 9%. Cash flow from operations generate $71 million after capital additions. We ended the quarter with gross cash of $829 million. DSO was 57 days, up from 51 in the first quarter, due to the shipment profile being weighted toward the latter part of the second quarter. On the capital allocation front, we still have $169 million remaining under our authorized buyback, and we remain opportunistic in the timing of buybacks to ensure that long-term shareholders are rewarded. We'll also continue to relook at our capital strategy to ensure we provide the best possible returns. We expect to grow cash and marketable securities by about $120 million in the third quarter and end with a gross cash balance of $950 million. As noted in the press release, sales for the third quarter are expected to be between $420 million and $460 million, and non-GAAP EPS range is $0.41 to $0.51 on 208 million diluted shares. I should add that the guidance excludes the amortization of acquired intangibles, the noncash imputed interest on the convertible debt and includes taxes on a cash basis. Our GAAP EPS range is $0.22 to $0.29. The operating profit rate at the midpoint of our third quarter guidance is about 24%. Now moving to the P&L percentages on the third quarter. We expect non-GAAP gross margins to be 55%. R&D should be 16% to 15% and SG&A should be 17% to 16%. Non-GAAP net interest expense is expected to be about $2 million. The cash tax provision should be $8 million to $10 million. So in summary, 2012 is off to a great start. Our growth in this year have delivered another step-up in revenue, our fast first half earnings are the best in 10 years. We're very well aligned to the secular growth in mobility devices and we have a very resilient model that can handle the normal seasonal swings and orders in revenue, while still delivering strong earnings through normal troughs and across the cycle. In the current environment, we'll stay focused on maintaining financial discipline, investing to support growth in our existing businesses and very selectively investing to drive our above-industry average growth. Now I'll turn the call back over to Andy.