Allegro MicroSystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALGM) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Derek D’Antilio : Yes, Josh, this is Derek. So the results for the last couple of quarters, and particularly the mix between market and even in Q1 were really a result of what we’ve shipped — shipping out of backlog, making allocation decisions. Going into Q2, there’s still some of that. From a distribution channel standpoint, we’re at target levels right now. We’ve continued to rebuild that distribution channel over the last four quarters. As you know, that troughed about a year ago. We’ve continued, I think, to work with our distributors. We’re at target levels right now in our distribution channels. So within Q2, I’d expect sales to distribution to be down marginally and sales to OEMs to be up slightly.

Joshua Buchalter : Okay. Got it. And then I also wanted to ask about China from your prepared remarks. You mentioned it declined 7% in the quarter. Was that commentary mainly focused on autos? Or was it more broadly across your other segments? And do you expect China to grow into the back half of the year as some of the auto numbers have picked up in recent months?

Vineet Nargolwala : Josh, this is Vineet. So I’ll take that one. I think before I jump into some China-specific remarks, the context here is that any time you go to a big technology or market transition, it’s never a straight line, right? It’s never linear. And the transition to an all-electric future is going to be no different. Now China does have some specific issues that it’s dealing with. But we believe that in the near term, there is going to be choppiness across all our end markets. Derek pointed out that auto production declined in China in the first half. We’re certainly seeing some impact of that. Industrial continues to be, from an inventory standpoint, still elevated. But make no mistake, China is a very important region for us.

It’s very important for the entire automotive industry, is the lead of our volume when it comes to autos and EVs and local Chinese OEMs or Chinese brands are now playing a much bigger role and the global stage when it comes to EV. So we’re really confident and have a lot of conviction in our mid- to long-term thesis around China and the China OEMs. Near term, like we said, it’s going to be a choppy market. It’s a little bit like solving from multivariable calculus, right? There’s a lot of variables at play. And as Derek pointed out, it’s a little hard to pinpoint the quarter-to-quarter transition exactly, but we feel really good about the mid- to long-term perspectives in China.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And it comes from the line of Chris Caso with Wolfe Research.

Christopher Caso : I guess the first question would be around lead times. And I think your comments said that they were down about 30% in the first quarter. Can you talk about where that stands against where lead times would normally be? And is it increasing supply still likely to bring those lead times down further as we go through the year and what impact they may have on your order rates?

Vineet Nargolwala : Yes, Chris, this is Vineet. I’ll take that one. So our lead times, as I said, we’ve — our teams have done a great job of reducing our delinquent backlog and bringing the lead times back into what we would consider a market competitive or industry standard. Having said that, we do have plans to further reduce our lead times, especially targeted around our distribution channel, some of our Industrial customers, where point-of-sale really matters. And so you can expect us to continue to bring down our lead times. I think from an inventory level, Derek can add some more, but we feel really good about where we are with our inventory levels now. And the nature of that inventory being in sort of die bank, I think, gives us a lot of optionality.