Analog Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah : Thanks, Will. Great question. Let me — I’ll — let me do the easy part of that, and that is, sell-in is essentially equal to sell-through. So from a channel standpoint, we’re well aligned and our channel partners are not building inventory. I made the comment that we’re holding some finished goods on our own balance sheet. From a customer standpoint, I think Vince has had a lot of conversations with customers. So I’m going to pass to him to talk about what he’s hearing from them.

Vincent Roche : Yes. I don’t think our customers are in the mode of building safety stocks. There are mismatches, I think. There’s the well-described golden screw problem. It’s probably a base in compared to where it was six months ago, but I don’t think customers — there’s no major inventory building going on right now. And I think our customers are doing their best to match their orders and the product supply to be able to create finished goods. So they’re not there yet. I think there is still some unserved demand that customers are trying to fulfill. So — but we’re working very closely with our customers. As we’ve said, we take our signals from sell-through, and we’re working with our customers diligently across all 125,000 of them, big and small, to make sure that we get the best match between what they need and what we’re able to deliver.

And what I’m hearing in general is that, yes, we haven’t serviced all the demands that all the customers have needed. But in general, we’ve been very transparent. Our customers are very pleased with our customer service. And I think it positions us very, very well coming out of the supply crunch to be able to deepen our engagements with our customers and — both on the R&D side as well as the supply chain side. And customers are increasingly interested to partner with companies like ADI on both of those dimensions, and we’re ready.

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah : And we’re seeing in the pipeline — we’re seeing it in the pipeline growth.

Michael Lucarelli : And we go to our last question, please?

Operator: The last question today comes from Toshiya Hari with Goldman Sachs.

Toshiya Hari : I had one quick housekeeping question and then another broader question. In terms of the housekeeping question, I was curious what did pricing do in fiscal year ’22 on a pro forma basis? I think the business grew, what is it, around 25% pro forma. How much of that was pricing? And as you think about fiscal ’23 or calendar ’23, is the expectation for foundry costs to increase in the out-year as well? And then my broader question is probably for Vince. As you think about the full year ’23, based on your backlog, based on your design wins and customer conversations, which end markets or applications are you most excited about in terms of contribution to growth? I realize you run a diverse business, and that’s the beauty of ADI. But if you were to single out a couple, where your expectations are the highest, which ones would they be? And which end markets or applications would you be most worried about?

Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah : Sure. Thanks, Toshiya. Let me take the first one quickly. So for ’22, growth was fairly balanced and about half of that is coming from ASPs. But I do want to emphasize something that we’ve said over the course of all of ’22, we passed cost through to customers. We did not use that environment to raise our gross margins. That was how we did the calculation of how much price to pass on to a customer was based on the input costs that were relevant to those customers. So with that, I’ll let Vince take the more interesting part.

Vincent Roche : Yes. Thanks, Prashant. So yes, I think in terms of ’23, the markets that have been performing very, very well for the company over the last couple of years, particularly Automotive, which we’ve already talked about; the electrification of the vehicle, we’re very, very well positioned there. And we’re winning a lot of share in the in-cabin electronics as well, the new display systems, which are very, very complex. The dashboard displays need a lot of very, very clever power electronics. So we’re well positioned. From an Industrial perspective as well, digital healthcare has been growing at the company in double digits for over the last 7 years or thereabouts. We expect to see that continue. Also, aerospace and defense, that’s likely to be a very brisk business.