Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:MPWR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Hsing: At this time, Quinn, as Bernie said earlier, these markets are very much oscillating and that came in the net, you see it. We done from this quarter. So from last year, year-to-year, we’re still down. But AI, as these are power modules and as we’re ramping up as a result of — can maintain growth over in these years and still a slight growth from the last years. That’s mainly due to AI. And also in the prior quarters in the autos that we see as a very lumpy business, as lumpy for ADAS ramping up. But all of these, we believe that will happen in ramping up in the next year, not only from ADAS. And also, as you mentioned about on the general CPU and in the server side. And I might as well as mention all the other ones.

We still have a lot of greenfield products that haven’t really ramped up yet. And many, many projects gets delayed in this year pushing to next year. And we don’t want to give a very clear forecast that we still don’t know yet. But sometime in the next years, we believe that they will start ramping up and all these greenfield products. So that’s kind of my summary for the near-term business.

Quinn Bolton: Thank you, Michael. I guess a follow-up question. Bernie, I think in the script, you mentioned some pushouts, some pull-ins or expedites. I think the pull-ins or expedites maybe newer given just the overall challenging industry. Were the pull-ins specific to certain customers or end markets or are you starting to see pull-in requests across multiple end markets? Thank you.

Bernie Blegen: Yes. Quinn. I think what we’re experiencing here is a unique business cycle and that right now, our end customers are unwilling to commit beyond a fairly lower window of expecting lead times within under 10 weeks for delivery. So that makes, as we said earlier in the comments, the predictability really hard to call right now. But I think, as Michael just said, that when we look at our design win pipeline, it’s strong. And we’re confident that we’re in a good position to capture share and growth as the market recovers. But right now, we’re still in a level of unpredictability.

Michael Hsing: He’s talking about which segments.

Bernie Blegen: Oh, I’m sorry. Which segments?

Michael Hsing: Yes, which segments. We look at it kind of a rough surveys. Like it’s actually across the entire product segment, including consumers. Some of the products, they need and pull-it in very quick. As Bernie said, the lead time is very, very short. And we don’t have those products, it’s pretty much across the board. And other than AI, we really planned ahead, and we really plan ahead from the beginning of the year. And we can anticipate all the ramp-up even for the next few quarters.

Quinn Bolton: Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Genevieve Cunningham: Our next question is from Tore Svanberg of Stifel. Tore, your line is now open.

Tore Svanberg: Yes. Thank you, Michael, Bernie. Congratulations on that $1 billion cash balance. First question is on the Q4 outlook. I know you typically don’t guide by segment, but can you just talk about directionally where you expect each segment to trend in Q4?

Michael Hsing: Yes. Q4 is still down quite a bit from Q3 and pretty much everything except maybe not auto. I mean all the public sideways are maybe is slightly up and also that AI power still continuously ramp up.

Bernie Blegen: Yes. I think that when you look at the broader market, we’re experiencing a lot of the weakness in demand that many of our peer companies are. And what makes us differentiated is the AI boost we’re experiencing.

Michael Hsing: And pretty much AI and auto and everything else is pretty much muted, yes.

Tore Svanberg: Very good. And as my follow-up and maybe related to the previous question on enterprise data and AI, just wondering if you have any visibility on the sustainable growth here. There’s obviously one big partner that’s ramping right now, but it looks like there’s some other processor companies that are going to be catching up next year. So if you could give us any color on, especially enterprise data segment for 2024, that would be really helpful.

Michael Hsing: I can tell you, overall, how the MPS strategies. Like the MPS strategy always get the best — which provides the best performance. When the volume gets higher and requirement is lower, we don’t chase those low-end segment. I see MPS is still in the forefront in terms of best efficiencies and the lowest generate heat in smallest areas. We are still the leading — would be next year and the year after, all these products are eyeing in development with our customers and with the leading-edge — leading providers in AI GPUs specifically. And that’s a huge market, and we don’t want to take all of them. And to your other part of the question is the general market. In general market, in other segments, we view CPUs. And you’ll remember in the VR13, we didn’t have a lot of design wins.