Cerence Inc. (NASDAQ:CRNC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Stefan Ortmanns: Maybe let me take this question and put volume , OEM. So and I think what we just said and what Tom mentioned right, so overall, we have a very high penetration rate. That’s our foundation, we have a strong IP for conversational AI and the rock solid business model, and also good relationship with OEMs. And now, how we can further improve the quality of our products, right? And what you have seen also in the video, I think that’s based on the integration of large language models and generative AI, we are working across the globe was all big OEMs on our new applications, for example, car knowledge, right, we are prototyping with them. And we are also in discussion on the business model, right. I cannot go into the details here.

But we have huge opportunities. And also the ChatGPT is quite expensive. And Iqbal and team are working on a very efficient, cost efficient solution. Also covering privacy topics. Maybe Iqbal , do you want to add a bit from your side on the technology here?

Iqbal Arshad : No, I think you’ve covered for the most part. Unless there’s any other specific questions. I’ll be more than happy to answer that.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Nicholas Doyle with Needham.

Nick Doyle: Hey, guys, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask how you’re thinking about the two wheeler contributions next year. You had talked about production, total production, around 50-60 million units and kind of making up the difference in your longer term assumptions. Those differences coming from these transportation adjacencies. So just wondering what — how big are these three models? Do they make up a decent portion of that — of those units? And then also, you talked about seven design wins, I think in the first quarter. This year, are these three wins coming out of that pipeline? Thanks.

Tom Beaudoin: Yes, so with — Stefan, let me land on it, hand it over to you. Yes, we’ve had a number of design wins. I think it’s a, you had some go in production in Q3 and we have some more going in Q4. The two wheeler market is about half the size the auto. And this is a new market for us. So we’ll have to see how this wrap. As we said in some of the comments here, it’s not going to be a big contributor to FY23. But as these go into production, and they start ramping, and we get royalty reports, and these are kind of hybrid solutions. So some of it’ll get, some of it, the connected side of it will have to get amortized over the service life of the agreement. Then again, we’ll provide some updates on this particular transportation adjacency market in November.

Stefan Ortmanns: And maybe let me also just add here that we have in total eight design wins, four went live so into production in last quarter. I think it’s also distributed across the globe, in China, in India, there’s mass volume, right in Japan, North America, and also Europe. And I expect that we will see also revenue growth in FY24 as Tom mentioned.

Nick Doyle: Got it. And then for the emerging market wins, they’re adopting one or two components. Is that related to the two wheelers like side question? And can you just tell us more maybe what the one or two components are? What customers are really liking taking to and then how they’re working with the software component and how much of that is related to the immersive containing. Thanks.

Stefan Ortmanns: So overall, I think that was actually a contribution to this high penetration right in the emerging markets here. That’s cars in the mid to low range cost range. They’re starting with typical audio AI, let’s say for speech signal enhancement for enabling third party opportunities, like car play, but that gives us also the huge opportunity for bring in our future solution for creating results, new OEMs also OEM branded compensation AI solutions.