Rogers Corporation (NYSE:ROG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Colin Gouveia: That’s a good question where we are now with the portable electronics. It really is a 10 year low in terms of handset cells below $1.2 billion. So what we hear from a lot of companies is that they’re anxious for that to end. And we’re fortunate in terms of how we’re positioned in China that we can call on all the local OEMs and also Western OEMs who produced in the region. And while we feel reasonably optimistic about our design wins for 2024 and ’25, we’re working closely with them to understand how they’re protecting things to go. One thing I’ll mention that’s helped us a lot is that we had that UTIS fire several years ago, but that facility now is up and running and we’re seeing a lot of design wins coming from that team with that technology. So that helps us in terms of what we think about growth in portable electronics for next year.

Craig Ellis: Now that’s very encouraging. And then, Ram, if I could, just a couple for you quickly. You mentioned the new CapEx guidelines for this year. The change versus prior, is that really just the timing of growth that’s related to some of these macro factors that everybody’s dealing with or were there efficiencies that the team found that are just allowing you to do more with a little less CapEx than what you had expected?

Ram Mayampurath: Yes, that’s a good question, Craig. So certainly by increasing throughput and removing some of the bottlenecks, particularly in our curamik facility in Germany, we have been able to lower our overall CapEx spending. And in terms of the guidance for the year, that’s mostly just cash flow timing. The expansion plans in the curamik facility in China and the others we talked about are as planned and scheduled, going on as scheduled. The timing of the cash flow as we manage cash has brought down the CapEx slightly lower. But also to say that we are targeting a 7% to 8% for the next couple of years in CapEx.

Craig Ellis: Very helpful. And then finally for me, before I hop back in the queue, the team did a great job this year executing on drivers to gross margin expansion and hitting the 35% target a quarter earlier than I certainly had expected. The question is this as we look ahead. Ram, I think you’ve historically said that the path to the target model gross margin is about 30% efficiencies and other things that could be cost related and then 70% volume and mix. Is that still the right way to look at the path from here to that 39%?

Ram Mayampurath: That is still the right way to look at it. Now, needless to say, we will continue our operational excellence, manufacturing procurement, and design improvement efforts to lower that cost as fast and as efficiently as possible. But the big step change will come from volume returning. And once you correct that cost line, as you know, once we see that volume, you can see much more quicker improvement of the margin.

Craig Ellis: Absolutely. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate that.

Colin Gouveia: Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. And it appears that there are no further questions. And this does conclude our question-and-answer session. Therefore, I’ll now turn the call back over to Colin Gouveia for closing remarks.

Colin Gouveia: I just wanted to say thanks all for joining and look forward to talking with several of you over the next several weeks.

Operator: And this concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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