Ceragon Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:CRNT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Ceragon Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ:CRNT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 7, 2024

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Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Ceragon Networks Conference Call. Our presentation today will be followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this call is being recorded. I’d now like to hand it over to Rob Fink, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Rob Fink: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Hosting today’s call is Doron Arazi, Ceragon’s Chief Executive Officer and Ronen Stein, Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I would like to note that certain statements made on this call including projected financial information, results and the company’s future initiatives, future events, business outlook, development efforts and their potential outcome, anticipated progress and plans, results and timelines and other financial accounting related matters constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and the safe harbor provisions and the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Ceragon intends forward-looking terminology, such as believes, expects, may, will, should, anticipates, plans or similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect only current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of Ceragon’s management. The actual results, performance or achievements of Ceragon may differ materially, as they are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause Ceragon’s actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties that are described in Ceragon’s most recent annual report on Form 20-F and may be supplemented from time to time in Ceragon’s other filings with the SEC, including today’s earlier filing.

The earnings PR, all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference. Forward-looking statements related to the date initially made do not purport to be predictions of future events or results and there could be no assurances that they will prove accurate, and Ceragon takes no obligation to update them. Ceragon’s public filings are available on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at sec.gov and they may also be obtained from Ceragon’s website at ceragon.com. Also, today’s call will include non-GAAP numbers. For reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results, please see the table attached to the press release that was issued earlier this morning, which is also posted on the Investor Relations section of Ceragon’s website.

With all that said, I’d now like to turn the call over to Doron. Doron, please go ahead.

Doron Arazi: Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. This was a solid start to 2024 for Ceragon. We are executing against our strategic plan and are on pace to achieve our full year growth and profitability targets. Demand for our solutions is strong and growing in North America and India in particular and we are expanding our presence with private network customers globally. We grew revenue year-over-year, expanded our gross profit margin and delivered another profitable quarter with positive free cash flow. The quarter was highlighted by a particularly strong booking level. The large scale network modernization project for a Tier 1 operator in India was a major contributor to the higher bookings, as we received significant initial orders against the agreement.

We continue to generate strong bookings in North America as well and we generated improved bookings in all other regions sequentially. The strong bookings give us visibility and optimism that we will achieve our full year growth and profitability targets. Our new products and solutions are serving as a catalyst for our business. As expected, our new offerings are creating higher customer interest and are starting to translate the bookings and revenue. We used Mobile World Congress as a venue to showcase our next generation solutions. We also started delivering significant quantities of one of our new products in the first quarter. Some of the new solutions in our portfolio that are worth highlighting include: first, our multi-hall or fixed wireless access family of point to multi-point solutions that operate in the V-band frequency, opening doors to diverse applications through its use of unlicensed spectrum along with its high capacity and short range characteristics.

These quantities are ideal for both private networks and service providers aiming to establish swift connections in confined, dense areas such as cities and campuses. Next, the IP-50CX, the most compact universal microwave radio in the industry. This all outdoor radio with its unparalleled versatility has the capability to form the entire network from small scale to large scale aggregation sites, significantly simplifying network architecture, reducing costs and accelerating time to revenue. Finally, there is the IP-50EX, an ultra-compact, high capacity, E-band radio, which is ideally suited for a variety of use cases, especially when small size and low OpEx are priorities. As I am sure you know, MWC is the largest most influential connectivity event in our industry.

Our goals at MWC were to demonstrate our technology, communicate our millimeter wave solution, which is the industry’s broadest and also demonstrate our recent advances in microwave and millimeter wave transport and fixed wireless access. We achieved each of these goals. We had a record number of face-to-face meetings with customers and prospects received great affirmations of our upcoming next gen technology and received strong indications that we are well aligned with market needs. We provided an industry first live demonstration of the capabilities of our soon to be 100 gigabit per second E-band link that is based on our new system on a chip with great feedback. We also showcased end-to-end private networks offering with a unique display of our broadband luminaires that integrate gigabit speed wireless connectivity into lightning infrastructure to enable smart city connectivity.

Visitors to our booth learned about our professional and managed services offering and saw a demonstration of our Ceragon Digital Twin solution and how it optimizes networks for reduced costs and improved user experiences. As it relates to private networks, we made particular strides in the energy sector during the quarter. We signed new deals serving the energy industry across multiple regions with an aggregate deal value of nearly $10 million. These energy sector agreements underscore the pivotal role we play in advancing digital or digital transformation within the energy industry, facilitating the goal of network operators to achieve high capacity at reduced costs. In the second half of 2023, we expanded our talent center approach to better position Ceragon for profitable growth.

In addition to our existing and very successful talent centers in Israel and Romania, we have now opened two new talent centers, one in Bangalore, India and one in Asuncion, Paraguay. The primary goal of these talent centers is to improve our access to the talent market as well as to support our long-term targets of growth and expanded operating margins. I’d now like to provide an overview of our Q1 highlights by region. Noting that on today’s call, we will focus primarily on activities in North America and India, the two regions that have and we expect will continue to have, the greatest impact on our results in the near-term. In North America, revenue was $28.9 million. We continue to maintain our presence with large carriers and other major customers.

Specifically, we saw significant demand from large ISPs for Siklu’s millimeter wave solutions. The headwinds service providers face have been well documented and cap expanding by large networks has been more volatile. We continue to navigate these challenges better than many in the space, though it has reduced our line of sight to converting bookings to revenue and elongated our sales cycles somewhat. In private networks, we have made important first steps in a few new accounts, receiving initial orders and we expect the number of new customers to increase in Q2. Also, our expanded marketing initiatives in North America are just now accelerating and we hope to start seeing the fruits of these investments later this year. In India, revenue was $26 million with record bookings, again related to large agreement we discussed last quarter as well as high value of orders received from one of our long standing customers.

We continue to expect delivery and deployment of new customer orders to begin in the second quarter and deployment is expected to take approximately two years, with about 75% of the project value expected to be recognized during this timeframe. Clearly, we continue to be successful in India and North America and this is facilitating our growth and profitability. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Ronen Stein, our CFO, to discuss the results in more details. Ronen, over to you.

Ronen Stein : Thank you, Doron, and good morning, everyone. As Doron outlined, the first quarter represented a solid start to the year for Ceragon. To help you understand the results, I will be referring primarily to non-GAAP financials. For more information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations of these measures, we refer to today’s press release. Let me now review the actual results. Revenues were $88.5 million, up 6% from $83.4 million in Q1 2023. Our strongest regions in terms of revenues for the quarter were North America and India with $28.9 million and $26 million respectively, in line with the continuous strong demand we see in these regions. Our third strongest region in terms of revenues was EMEA with $14.9 million.

We had two customers in the first quarter that contributed more than 10% of our revenues. Gross profit for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $32.5 million, an increase of 14.7% compared to $28.4 million in Q1 2023. Our non-GAAP gross margin was 36.7% compared with gross margin of 34% in Q1 2023. We continue to achieve high gross margins, mainly as North America becomes the strongest region in terms of revenue, with record quarterly revenues and product mix continue to be favorable while we keep costs under control. Our gross margins may fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter due to changes in product and regional mix. As for the operating expenses. In general, this quarter’s operating expenses fully include the Siklu acquisition impact. Research and development expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $8.7 million, up from $7.7 million in Q1 2023.

As a percentage of revenue, our R&D expenses were 9.8% in the first quarter compared to 9.2% in the first quarter last year. Sales and marketing expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $10.7 million, up from $9.8 million in Q1 2023. As a percentage of revenue, sales and marketing expenses were 12.1% in the first quarter compared to 11.8% in the first quarter last year. General and administrative expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $5.5 million compared to $5 million in Q1 2023. As a percentage of revenues, G&A expenses were 6.3% in the first quarter compared to 5.9% in the first quarter last year. I’d note that our GAAP operating expenses include restructuring expenses associated with organizational changes, the establishment of the two new centers of excellence Doron mentioned earlier, as well as integration costs related to Siklu.

These charges are backed out of our non-GAAP operating expenses. Operating income for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $7.6 million compared with $5.9 million for Q1 2023. As a percentage of revenues, non-GAAP operating income was 8.6% in the first quarter compared to 7.1% in the first quarter last year. Financial and other expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $2.3 million. Our tax expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $0.5 million. Net income for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $4.7 million or $0.05 per diluted share compared to $3.6 million or $0.04 per diluted share for Q1 2023. As for our balance sheet. Our cash position at the end of the first quarter was $28.8 million compared to $28.2 million at the end of 2023.

Short-term loans were $30.5 million compared to $32.6 million as of December 31, 2023. We believe we have cash and facilities that are sufficient for our operations and working capital needs. Our inventory at the end of Q1 2024 was $61 million down from the $68.8 million at the end of December 2023. The reduction is mainly as our efforts during 2023 to streamline inventory levels following the improvement in components availability have materialized. We continue to monitor inventory levels, taking into consideration the improvements in availability of components and expected changes in demand. Our trade receivables are at $97.4 million as compared to $104.3 million at the end of December 2023. Our DSO now stands at 101 days. As for our cash flow, net cash flow generated by operations and investing activities in Q1 was $2.4 million.

We are reiterating our full year outlook. For 2024, we expect revenue of $385 million to $405 million, representing growth of 11% to 17% compared to 2023. This guidance includes the contribution from Siklu. Non-GAAP operating margins are targeted to be at least 10% at the midpoint of the revenue guidance. Non-GAAP operating margins are targeted to be at least 10% at the midpoint of the revenue guidance. As a result, we expect increased non-GAAP profit and positive free cash flow for the full year of 2024. With that, I now open the call for your questions. Operator?

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Q&A Session

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will be from Alex Henderson from Needham & Company.

Alex Henderson: Just a couple of questions very quickly on the commentary. The 100 gig system on a chip product that’s still on schedule to be GA this year. Is that correct?

Doron Arazi: We intend to launch this product by the end of 2024, indeed.

Alex Henderson: And then the second, you made a comment about the new products launched — recently launched. The one of them was seeing significant orders. Can you give us some more granularity around which one of the products it was? And what kind of orders are you seeing? And what are the ramp of those two products that were, such important products that were launched here in the current quarter? What’s the ramp look like?

Doron Arazi: Yes. So, regarding the first one that we already started delivering significant quantities it’s our new all outdoor, probably the tiniest one in the industry microwave product and it gets a lot of traction, primarily in India. It basically replaces our old IP-20C that is kind of in relative advanced stages. And definitely, we see a lot of traction. And obviously, the first links were launched with the frequencies that are associated with the Indian market because of the huge demand, but we do expect to, basically have this product with much more frequencies in the coming quarters and we believe it will also ramp up very nicely in the rest of the world. As to the other product we are talking about a smaller and more cost efficient E-band that is suitable, very nicely to Tier 1 operators, but also to smaller ISPs. This one was already, we already started production and delivery, but the quantities were very minimal, and we expect this product to start contributing to our business in this quarter and definitely more significance in the second part of 2024.

Alex Henderson: Can you talk a little bit about the linearity that you expect over the course of the year and give us some sense of, I’m assuming that the June quarter is sub $100 million but up nicely from the seasonally softest quarter of the year, the March quarter. Can you talk a little bit about linearity over the quarter — over the year?

Doron Arazi: So look, one major factor that will impact the linearity is obviously the fact that in Q2, we are starting to deliver our products and obviously, also start also starting the installation of the big contract we won with the new customer in India. And that by itself should put us in a level of revenue that is higher. Generally speaking, following Q1 booking, basically, the backlog we have enabled us to get to $100 million. The main, so to speak, two factors that will define whether we will be able to kind of create a more rationalized quarter-over-quarter revenues are basically two. One, the customer demand and the pace they want us to deliver these orders. And second, our ability and capacity to manufacture the products in a timely fashion.

Now in terms of manufacturing capacity, we have no issue. But yet as a very cautious company, until we receive the large orders or the initial large orders from India, we are very careful in terms of component buying and that may cause certain delays that I think that within less than a quarter we’ll be able to overcome. So to summarize, in Q2, we do expect a ramp in the business or in the revenue generation. But I think that during the second half of the year, if assuming customers continue with the same, so to speak, expectations of delivery timeline, we will probably be achieving beyond $100 million a quarter in this second part.

Alex Henderson: The gross margin numbers, 36.7% in the quarter, I’m assuming that you’re not going to be doing that again here in the June quarter or even in the back half with the mix shifting towards India, which generally a lower margin. Is it reasonable to think that’s more on the 35.5%-ish range, for the next couple quarters as that — as that kicks in? And you have start-up costs with your new products?

Ronen Stein: As I said in the previous call, I think that we would be around between the 35% to 37%. On average, we will — we opt to target to reach the 36%. So, yes, something in between the 35.5% and 36% as an average is reasonable. It might go down to around 35%, but it might go up also to 37%, depending on the specific quarter, specific mixture by regions and a specific product mixture or services mixture, whether we give more software or not very much dependent on how backlog is being — the very good backlog that we have is converted depending on the specific needs in each quarter of the customers.

Doron Arazi: Just to add on top of it, I think in the last — in the previous call, we said that we are planning for further improvement in our gross margin on an annual basis. Last year, we ended up with a gross margin that is slightly shy of 35% non-GAAP. And as we said in the previous conference call said in the previous conference call, we are shooting and we believe that with the right, so to speak, mix, no big changes in what we expect. We are nearing, we will be nearing the 36% and that’s our minimum goal for this year.

Alex Henderson: One last question and I’ll cede the floor and get back in queue. Can you remind us where we are on the book-to-bill in the — as we exited ’23 and what the book-to-bill looked like in the first quarter?

Doron Arazi: Yes. Look, first of all, we did not specifically refer to that in the last two quarters because I think that on a quarterly basis, it may sell it. Last quarter and for the full year of 2023, we were with book-to-bill above one. And also after this quarter and I think that my prepared comments were alluding to that very strongly, we had a huge book-to-bill that is hugely above one. And I don’t want to kind of create a situation where people are, maybe misled by this because, obviously, getting this amount of orders from India in advance in order to prepare us to the very big volumes of delivery is not necessarily indicating what we expect to happen each and every quarter. So all-in-all, very strong end of 2023, very strong beginning of Q1 2024. I think that the way to look at the bookings is more on a trailing 12-month approach. And definitely on a trailing 12-month period we are way above one in terms of book-to-bill.

Operator: Our next question is from Rommel Dionisio of Aegis Capital.