Ambarella, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMBA) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

I think that’s the key. The second thing is, for us, it’s not just silicon. In fact, we also have bundled software. We are going to show a development environment that we already introduced our customer, we will publicly introduce to the CES about how we are using a software environment bundled with our current solution that enable Edge device or Edge servers quickly moving to AI model to help Edge applications. So, I think that’s where we are focusing on right now. And it’s not that we don’t want to focus on bigger cloud or hyper – much bigger application is really that I think with our current silicon and our current resources we would like to focus on areas that we know, that we are familiar with, and we want to know that we can win.

So, I think that’s where we are sitting on with the current plan. Of course, we are not – we definitely need to build a roadmap. But however, like we said last time, our current commitment to ARM is using our current engineering resource, which is enough to do [indiscernible] system, developing the application, developing software for Edge applications, those are – those applications are using current resources. Had we decided to extend our roadmap or doing other applications, we probably need to talk about different engineering resource, which we haven’t committed to that yet.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Rolland of Susquehanna.

Matt Myers: Hi guys. This is Matt Myers on for Chris. So, you guys talked about first quarter potentially growing low to mid-single digits. Maybe it’s a little bit slower than we were thinking about. So, I was curious is this more end demand-driven or inventory-driven? And how should we think about inventory dynamics into the April quarter by auto or IoT with an enterprise or consumer in there? And then how are you thinking about the shape of end demand into the first quarter and then through next fiscal year?

Brian White: Well, I think that the data points that we are looking at in support of the growth we talked about for fiscal Q1 is based on, number one, looking at our bookings and backlog trends, which have absolutely improved. So, our book-to-bill was much better in Q3 than what we have been experiencing for a number of quarters. And as we look at the backlog build into Q1, it’s tracking well above the prior quarter, and it’s supporting the growth range that we talked about. And so when we combine the data from bookings and billings and we compare that to the feedback that we are getting from our customers, as well as the requests that we are getting relative to push-outs versus pull-in of shipments, which have become much more balanced than they have been in the past.

That gives us the confidence to talk about the beginning of growth in fiscal Q1 and then growth for the full fiscal ‘25. But certainly, we have ways to go. And so that recovery is certainly helped by the turnaround of the inventory situation. End markets also seem relatively healthy and in support of that growth. But I would say the primary driver at this point is getting to the bottom of that inventory cycle and getting through that excess material at customers.

Matt Myers: Got it. Thanks Brian. That’s great. And then I also wanted a question on video processors. So, based off if you are talking about CV2 being about 60% of revenue, there is clearly a big drop-off in video processor revenue this year. And if CV2 is going to continue increasing next year, what’s your outlook here, particularly for video processors? And are you still investing a lot in this business or getting new wins here? And how should we just think about this particularly in the next year?

Fermi Wang: Right. So, first of all, I want to point out, although we haven’t really paid down [ph] on a video processing only chips, but video processing technology continued to be a very important part of offering in our AI chip. So CV2, all the CV family chip has a big portion of the AI – sorry, the image processing or video processing technology in there. So, I just want to clarify that. So, the – this year, our CV total revenue approached to 60%. Obviously, it was what I just said and also, if you look at the design win momentum, we have majority of that is CV. So, I think the potential continue to go to the favor of CV. But however, I think the decline of a video processor will slowdown because that we have a big jump reduction in the last 2 years, but we still have a long tail of a video processor chip that sell into different markets, including the enterprise security camera as well as automotive.

So, I think that we should expect much less reduction on the video processor and with a very long tail.

Operator: Thank you. For our next question, which comes from the line of Kevin Cassidy of Rosenblatt Securities.

Kevin Cassidy: Yes. Thanks for taking my questions. This quarter, Hokuto, the Japanese auto distributor, came up as a 12% customer at the first time in a year or more. Is there anything happening there or is it just because the overall revenue is down, or is there some new designs happening in Japanese automotive?