indie Semiconductor, Inc. (NASDAQ:INDI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Donald McClymont: It’s a mix. Once we ramp our product, and we’ve done our bit of engineering, if you like, then there’s typically still a ramp at the OEMs, which contributes to our overall revenue profile. And of course, by virtue of the fact that we’re a growth company, new products that are planned to ramp, we typically can mitigate those, we have a lot of ramps ongoing. And I would say, there’s always going to be a mix of new product starts, as well as ongoing growth from existing programs. It’s just the nature of the beast. We’re a growing company, so there are new programs that are going to ramp in addition to running revenue.

Operator: The next question is from Craig Ellis of B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Craig Ellis: Yeah, I’ll start with a longer-term question for Donald. Donald, I was very intrigued by the comment that you feel like you have increased visibility to becoming a $1 billion sales company by 2028. I was just wondering if you could flesh that out a little bit more and talk about what you see in that timeframe from the user experience business broadly, the ADAS business broadly, and then what role electrification will play in getting to that billion?

Donald McClymont: Yeah. Well, we’ve been building our, let’s say, customer portfolio and design wind portfolio over the course of the last period. And as you know, of course, our heaviest R&D investment is in the ADAS space. And that’s going to be one of the large drivers for that growth into that timeframe. The user experience will continue to grow, but ADAS, as you can see, as you can say, would be the main engine behind that and e-vehicle directly pertaining to the propulsion system, maybe a little behind that.

Craig Ellis: Got it. Thank you. And then, Tom, I wanted to flip it over to you and ask much more of a near-term question. So, really like the renewed or reiterated target to get to operating profitability this year. Can you just help us kind of bridge the gap between where we were this quarter, next quarter, which I think would be a $13 million operating loss all the way to profitability that seems to imply either very significant sequential fourth quarter revenue growth or pretty dramatic gross margin or operating expense reduction? Just a little help there. Thank you.

Tom Schiller: Sure. Yeah. In fact, it’s all of the above. So, it’s accelerating growth into Q4, continued gross margin expansion, and then operating leverage. We actually expect Q4 OpEx to tick down because for Q2 and Q3, we’re seeing higher tape out costs, mass costs coming through. But that’ll reduce in Q4. So, all of those factors get us to profitability next quarter.

Operator: The next question is from Ross Seymore of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Ross Seymore: Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. Just wanted to follow up Craig’s question on the fourth quarter side of things and not to sound too cynical, but considering the pushout side of things in the third quarter, what gives you the confidence in that acceleration on the revenue side in the fourth quarter?

Donald McClymont: Just the situation of our backlog where we are, where we can see things going. We feel extremely confident about it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have called it in that sense, given it’s a short-term turn. As Tom also mentioned, we do have a little help from the OpEx dropping. We have ever more, let’s say, labor and R&D cost intensive programs which we’re deploying right now. So, the middle of the year is where we spent heavily to get the tape out, which are going to drive the revenue in the 2024, 2025, 2026 timeframe and beyond.