Semtech Corporation (NASDAQ:SMTC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mohan Maheswaran : Yes. So, the 39% is our estimate for this year’s growth. That’s correct for LoRa-enabled business. The 60% now refers to end nodes, and I simply commented on the fact that if you extract China, you take out China where the growth has been a little bit slower, end nodes would have grown 60%. So, end nodes as growing 60% in North America and Europe. It actually is €“ it’s about 17% to 20%, including China. So, it’s still pretty good, but I think it just shows that the acceleration in other regions is quite good. Next year, a lot is going to depend on the second half. I mean, obviously China continues to be weak. And €“ but we have some very good things going on like the Amazon announcement we just made, we think sidewalk and some of that is €“ some of those areas are starting to get some momentum.

We have a few headwinds, I mean, really what happened in the last couple of years with the helium gateways is going to give us a little bit of a headwind for growth next year, but still, we haven’t given up. We think next year should still be a reasonably €“ the growth, it won’t be close to the 40% CAGR, but I think if we can get some momentum on some of these other used cases, I think we’ll still see good growth.

Harsh Kumar : Hey Mohan, very helpful and if you don’t mind, I’ll ask another one and I promise I’ll get off the line after this. I had a question on the deal. You’ve got a second request. So, that changes the timing of the deal. I guess my question is, where do you think the timing of the deal will lie? And then for Emeka, 319 odd million raised, do you think that’s enough to close the deal? And then were you looking at converts the entire time or were you looking at straight debt? And then given the interest rates, you sort of pivoted to convert and if these are converts, would you have an intent to buy these bonds back so they actually don’t convert and dilute?

Mohan Maheswaran: So, let me start with the timing Harsh, which is obviously out of our control to some extent. I can tell you what we’re hoping, which is that towards the end of the year and early next year, we will be closed and we’re ready to close and we’re ready to move to integration. We’re very well prepared for that. We’re excited about doing it. And so far, there’s no indications that that timeline shouldn’t be achievable.

Emeka Chukwu: And so Harsh with regards to your question, we do have the financing that we need to close the transaction. We have a combination of our line of credit from our commercial banking partners. We have a term loan from our commercial banking partners and then we do have this convertible debt in addition to our internal cash. So the financing is pretty much in place for the acquisition. In terms of what we were looking at, we were looking at all the options. We were looking at everything and we were trying to €“ we had to make the decision that we thought was best in terms of the cost of capital and things like that. With regards to being able to retire the debt, we just have to see how things play along here. So that we do have a lot of options on what we can do with regards to the , but I will make those decisions at the right time.

Harsh Kumar: Appreciate it, guys. Thank you.

Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Trevor Janoskie with Needham. Please proceed with your question.

Trevor Janoskie: Yes. Hi. This is Trevor on for Quinn Bolton. Thanks for letting me ask a question here. So, given your comments on demand stabilization, does this mean you see fiscal 4Q and fiscal 1Q 2024 as the possible revenue trough, with the step-up in the second half of 2024? Thank you.

Mohan Maheswaran: That is the hope from what we see today. We certainly see the second half as being sequentially up from the first half. If you look at FY 2023, we had a very strong first half. Looks like it’s going to be a relatively weak second half, but as you see from our comments that we expect FY 2023 to be a record year for us. So, when you look at it as a total, it looks like a pretty good year. Now, going into next year, we know the first half is going to be relatively weak. The question is, how strong is the second half going to be if it comes back and how it comes back. And the main drivers of the weakness have been China and Consumer. There’s some inventory build-up I think from the very strong first half. So, as those bleed through and China comes back and consumer starts to strengthen a little bit, we could hopefully see a stronger second half next year.

Trevor Janoskie: Awesome. Thank you. And you spoke about relative resilience in North America and the EU and broad industrial. Do you expect this resilience to continue moving forward? And is automotive playing a big role in this as well?