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

Derek D’Antilio : Yes. And I think, Chris, I expect inventory levels from a dollar standpoint to flatten out from here on. As Vineet mentioned, we have sufficient die bank. And it’s really there to support our customers from a quick term standpoint. So we feel good about the current levels, but I wouldn’t expect it to increase from here.

Christopher Caso : Okay. Great. As a follow-up, follow-up is on pricing. And I guess we’ve heard some commentary from others, perhaps some uncertainty about what will happen with foundry pricing as we go into next year. Can you talk about your view of what you think is the cost situation as you go into calendar ’24? And if that changes, how that may affect your pricing to your customers and your revenue on a year-on-year basis next year?

Vineet Nargolwala : Yes, Chris. Maybe I’ll start with the second part first. So we’ve been very consistent in our commentary around pricing. And our pricing, especially in our automotive business, which is about 70% of our business has always been value proposition based. We are in long-term agreements with most of our customer base. It’s very hard for us to sort of do transactional pricing. So it’s not a question of input costs go up or down X and hence, price goes up or down Y. So I think our value and the innovation we drive in our products helps drive the value proposition and the pricing equation. And so we feel really good about the stickiness of that pricing as we go forward. From an input cost standpoint, I would say that the pace of change has moderated, but inflation hasn’t completely gone away.

And so we are in active dialogue with some of our major suppliers and partners around what’s changing, what to expect as we go into the next calendar year, but we feel good about balancing sort of the input and the output here from a cost standpoint.

Operator: And it comes from the line of Quinn Bolton with Needham & Company.

Quinn Bolton : Congratulations. On the next quarter and outlook, I guess, Vineet, I just wanted to come back to your commentary around the China market. It sounds like you’re seeing perhaps some volatility in the auto business in China. But if you look beyond China, I assume the rest of the geographies, you’re not seeing anything that makes you nervous about the outlook for the other geographies. Is that the right interpretation of your prepared comments?

Vineet Nargolwala : Yes, Quinn, thank you. That’s exactly right. So I would say, when we look at our other regions, the order patterns, the stability is fairly consistent with what we’ve seen in our past quarters. It’s really China, and the commentary was very China-specific that it’s hard to sort of pinpoint exactly the quarter-to-quarter transitions, we’re really bullish about the mid to long term. But in the near term, there are multiple variables at play that make it really hard to pinpoint to quarter-to-quarter transition. So it is very China-specific. The rest of the regions, I think, are performing as we expected. And certainly, we see — while we’re watching it closely, we don’t see any near-term churn in those regions.

Derek D’Antilio : And Quinn, as you know, one of the nice parts about our business is that each of the sort of five regions are approximately 20% of our sales, so it’s pretty well balanced.

Quinn Bolton : Got it. And just a follow-up on the China business. I don’t know if I missed it, but did you make comments about where you thought dealer inventory levels were within China? I know production seems like it had slowed, but do you have any thoughts on inventory levels of vehicles within the China market? Are they elevated? Are they back to normal? I think some of your auto peers had suggested that dealer inventories in China may now be back to more normal levels?