Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEIS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Krish Sankar: Got it. Got it. That’s very helpful. And then a follow-up on Data Center. Obviously, the Data Center revenues grew nicely like 15% Q-o-Q, but it’s still down 22% on a year-over-year basis. I think, Steve, you mentioned as 1 hyperscaler customer is ramping for AI. So, I’m just kind of curious, was the incremental $10 million revenue largely driven by that one customer? Are you sole-sourced? Or is it still like multi-sourced? And kind of like what is your strategy on a go-forward basis? Because a year ago, if I’m correct, maybe the terminology is too exaggerated, but you kind of deemphasize hyperscalers and focus on I&M? So, is there a new renewed focus on Data Center? Thank you.

Steve Kelley: Yes, that’s a good question and let me just — it’s a multipart question, so I’ll give you a multipart answer. So, first of all, yes, it’s a soft environment today from a demand standpoint and data center. But we do have this sole-sourced design win, which we touched on last call as well as this call, and that’s been ramping and has acted as a shock absorber basically. So, we’re not seeing the degree of correction that some others may be because of this ramping design win. I think this is a cyclical market. We don’t know exactly when the demand is going to snap back. But if history is any guide, could snap back as soon as first half 2024. Because the last time we went through this inventory digestion, it took us about three quarters to get through it.

So, we’re ready for a snapback in the Data Center market. We think the fundamentals are great. Still a lot of data being generated and transmitted and stored. So, the long-term story is very strong. We think there are a couple of accelerators next year, one is AI, of course. The second is the transition to 48 volts. So, we think there’s some positives on the horizon for Data Center, but our strategy remains unchanged. We’re still going after opportunities where we can get paid for the engineering value that we provide. And so again, we’re trying to keep our margins going up and to the right, and we’re not as concerned about revenue growth in Data Center.

Krish Sankar: All right. Thanks a lot Steve. Appreciated.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Steve Barger: Thanks. You talked about inventory being in good shape in the channel. But can you expand on your comment about having a more aggressive go-to-market strategy and tie that into the efforts to cultivate distribution and VAR relationships? It seems like that will be an important force multiplier if end markets do get a little bit weaker going forward.

Steve Kelley: Yes, Steve, I think we’ve done a lot on the go-to-market strategy. Let me just list some of the things that we’re doing that are, I think, most important. The first is probably our website. We launched the new website in August and it’s been a big hit with our customers and our distributors. If we take a look at some of the statistics, today, we’re seeing roughly double number of hits on a daily basis on our website. And we’ve tripled the number of customers who are downloading and interacting with the website, typically downloading data sheets or application notes. So, we’re very happy with that and then let me add the e-commerce capability next quarter. It does going to help us as a company, it’s also going to help our distributors as well and so that’s a big plus.

The second big thing we did was on the sales side, where we basically split our sales force into two parts and one of those parts is focused exclusively on Industrial and Medical. So, those people, the apps engineers and the sales engineers only get paid on Industrial and Medical design wins and revenue. So, it’s been — its brought a tremendous amount of focus to our effort, not just through distributors, but also directly with customers. So, that’s been a big plus for the company. And thirdly, I think we’ve raised our game in the marketing communications area and our ability to train our distributors and salesforce and how to sell our product and how they fit from a customer standpoint. So, I think we’re in much better shape than were two years ago.