So they can ship more of it. In that sense, the dynamic hasn’t changed the marketplace in terms of we have a robust Wi-Fi 6, portfolio. We have a robust Wi-Fi 7 offering. We have the SOCs to complement our broadband Wi-Fi offering. Right? I know that the broadband access it’s funny when it does well it gets discounted, when it goes down but that’s the problem. Sort of – so honestly if you step back, we’re trying to build the broad base portfolio company with potential to generate large profits and earnings per share for shareholders. And at the same time, build scale and while investing in what I call more resilient businesses like our instructions and so on so forth, so that we can build a comprehensively a large company. I mean, that’s the ultimate goal.
And no matter what happens now. We are really focused on the long-term goals and that we’re very committed to.
Christopher Rolland: Thanks for that Kishore. And then secondly, about your infrastructure business, the upside there, you guys kind of highlighted millimeter wave and 5G backhaul. I would say, first of all the millimeter waves side, I think it’s been very slow adoption. So it’s interesting to see you guys picking up why now? And then secondly, on the 5G side, we’ve seen builds really start to slow even in India now. What are this specific programs that you guys are linked to that are kind of swimming upstream here?
Kishore Seendripu : Yeah, it’s just real quick maybe a clarification, Chris. I think you’re aware, most of our businesses have been backhaul. So, these backhaul transceivers that we’ve been shipping this year has been a big driver right? So very different than the markets you know, the access, 5G access markets that you’re describing. And so, these are microwave backhaul that’s replacing fiber, kind of in between base stations. So very – again just want to emphasize a very different market than the decline that you’re referencing, which we also see. We sell into the wireless access market. We are familiar with it. Not surprising. There’s definitely been weakness there. So, but we’ve been able to gain traction in some of these other markets that are little niche, nichier markets.
They’re a little bit smaller, but they’ve been great growth drivers for MaxLinear. There’s a trend in the microwave millimeter wave backhaul deployments as well, right? The people are deploying more and more multi-band deployments and multi-band, I mean like millimeter wave band microwave kind combined radios or hybrid radios. So that increases the content, as well. Yes, India has been a driver as India was rolling out strongly on 5G. And now we see a slowdown. So we expected the slowdown as of guidance – guided accordingly. And you also keep in mind that we did not have excess inventory in the infrastructure channel. We basically – we’re running short in supply and the supply to the market. So, the growth, you’re seeing, what you call our ability to pull us out and go upstream is really based on the fact that the channel was not overstocked.
So we are shipping to natural demand. Now with the slowdown, we will be caught up with this slowdown as well. So really the growth is coming in the backhaul to these multi-band hybrid deployments, which millimeter is a part of. And you also want to think about the fact that as the access bandwidth increase, the front haul and backhaul data pipe is no longer going to be provisioned sufficiently by microwave and they have to use millimeter wave. It’s cost effective to – in combined with microwave and they’re making trade off versus fibers. So you can imagine countries like India and even in the US in metropolitan zones and things like that, people are trying to do lot of hybrid deployments. Now does it slow down? Yes, absolutely. We have guided so accordingly and it’s going to be a little – what I call the telecom at CapEx being dramatically slowed down as lot of the telecom OEMs have talked about.
In fact some have pre-announced right? We should see some impact of it. But this is where our infrastructure is going to really be driven by our growth in our storage accelerators and our optical datacenter investments. So I think it’s turning out to be a pretty nice portfolio, which I’m quite pleased actually they also been taken a while.
Christopher Rolland: Thank you guys.
Kishore Seendripu : Yes.
Operator: Our next question is from Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.
Ross Seymore: Hi guys, just wanted to ask a couple questions. For the fourth quarter not going up sequentially. Was that that demand change more inventory was out there than you expected? And I know those two things are interlinked. But what changed from three months ago to today that leads the fourth quarter to be down sequentially?
Kishore Seendripu : Yeah, I mean, I think it’s exactly as you stated, I think it’s both, right? I mean, there’s definitely more inventory. We saw more push outs. I mean, we saw bookings in the quarter. So we saw some improvements, but it wasn’t as much as what we had originally expected three months ago. Honestly, we ourselves are sort of baffled if you will as to how much inventory is out there and just slow down and how to reconcile that. Right? So you know it it’s getting clear as the slowing economies sort of is all the catching of with us. I think there are two parallel economies over their right now. A tech economy and there’s a chip economy. And maybe there’s a consumer economy, I don’t know there, maybe they’re three of them and we’re definitely in the cheap economy. And we’re seeing some of the downsides of that.
Ross Seymore: I guess just a second question, I have two quick follow-ups. The first one is from first year as a whole, I know you are not going to guide the total revenues. You talked a little bit about the linearity of it with the seasonal comment earlier. But from a high level what do you think are the idiosyncratic tailwinds or headwinds that you guys as a company have as you look at ’24?
Kishore Seendripu : I think it’s pretty straightforward. I mean, I don’t – I’m not going to guide of course next year, but I mean, I think the shape of it is probably the opposite of this year, right? I mean, we started the year out really strong and we saw that kind of deteriorate to some degree. We are working through this inventory and I think you’re likely to see us continue to improve and a lot of that’s coming from just naturally inventory burning off. But it’s also coming from new programs. New products that are going to ramp in that kind of the second half next year. I mean, you got a lot of new wins coming from optical. That starts to ramp next year. Wi-Fi 7 starts to ramp next year. So you’ve got several new programs that are going to ramp on top of the inventory just naturally burning off.
So both of those will help. I mean, I guess the only other thing that I just mentioned on another question was seasonality. I think you probably see a little bit of softness in seasonality. But I think it’s more influenced at least in the short term by the inventory that sits in the channel.
Ross Seymore: Yeah. And then my last one and forgive me for speaking in three. I know it’s a confidential process in the arbitration with Silicon Motion. But any sort of update on either the timing, reiteration of what you said before. But the timing of it or the potential magnitude any sort of color on that in fact tends to be the most frequent question I get. And I again I appreciate your somewhat, if not significantly limited in what you can say.
Kishore Seendripu : Yeah, I don’t think anything’s changed just as we had updated before. I mean, the only change is that Silicon Motion filed for arbitration. Confidential process. So you’re correct. And that we can’t add any more color there. Still expect that arbitration process takes 12 to 18 months.
