Knowles Corporation (NYSE:KN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And I would say since the last earnings call, our visibility into growth, to nice growth in this space for 2023 looks pretty good, the bookings have been strong, and we expect them to continue to be strong. And that’s being driven by the kind of the abatement of the global shortage of chips. First, for automotive, but also more of our designs are now entering production and we have more confidence that rendering production that’s going to drive growth. We are experiencing some softening in the industrial markets, with inventory starting to come a little bit more elevated than normal in a distribution channel. But overall, I would sit there and say, we still expect your mid single-digit growth for PD in 2023. In the medtech space for a full year, I would say, based on what’s going to happen in the first quarter, which is there is this inventory correction.

I would say we’re expecting the full year to be flattish for the segments. All of our data points and discussions with our customers lead us to believe that we will return to growth in this business in the second half of the year. But with the top first quarter already being down versus prior year, it’s probably going to get the top to get more than a flattish business for the full year. Now, lastly, probably you’re still the one that I probably have the most, I would say wide variety of outcomes would be the consumer microphone business. I mean, there’s a lot of people who are predicting, I would sit there and say, a big upswing in the back half. I mean, it could happen. But I’m not calling the bottom here. But right now it’s good. Again, the first apps continue to be impacted by demand in China, inventory clearing, I would say we’ll definitely see sequential improvement from the first half based on normal seasonality in the back half of 2023.

And there’s cautious optimism on return the growth in the second half for the segment driven by normal seasonality, inventory being out of China and a recovery in China. So I know it’s a long answer. But all in all, I guess what I would say given the PDF mid single-digit, MSA relatively flat and given us first half challenges with CMM and I would say upside downside right here, kind of middle of the road, we see revenue being flat full year in 2023. I mean, I hope that kind of gives you some color on all the markets with a lot of markets. But I want to make sure we cover that.

Bob Labick: Yeah. That’s super helpful. And then it doesn’t sound like this is the case at all. But I just want to clarify. In terms of some of the changes, is there any market share shifts of any node, doesn’t sound like there’s any major certainly like any major losses, despite, everything that’s going on. But any market shifts potential wins or how are you viewing the competitive landscape in this difficult macro environment?

Jeffrey Niew: I would say, Precision Devices are getting really hard identify the real competition here. I don’t think there’s any shifts, I would sit there and say we’re taking share in the defense portion of that market. And it’s easy with the market. So I don’t know how you sit there and start taking share. We’re just capitalizing on a new market in terms of PD. In medtech and specialty audio, I would sit there and say, we kind of took some share last year, I think those share gains are sustained. I don’t think we’d see a lot of changes in that either up or down in terms of share, we have relatively high share in that business. And then the consumer nodes business, I really can’t point to and sit there and say we’ve lost this or we won this and changing shared significantly.