Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Thomas O’Malley: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask something in relation to just the broader smartphone ecosystem. A couple other players in your largest customers around talked about a weaker June due to some inventory work down. I just want to understand your timing with customers. Do you generally recognize some benefit in the June quarter from new platforms on a year-over-year basis? And are you seeing any of the inventory headwinds that we’ve heard about in the market from others?

Venk Nathamuni: Yes. Tom, thanks for the question. So when we look at our bookings patterns from our top customer. If you ignore what happened during the pandemic, I would say in the last year and year and a half or so, we’ve returned to some semblance of normalcy, right? So there’s a typical seasonal pattern that we’re beginning to see, especially in the last 4 or 5 quarters, And based on those patterns, I would say that tends to be very little in terms of new product introduction that’s related to the June quarter. Now as you talk about what some of our peers have mentioned on their earnings calls, especially in the smartphone space, I recognize that some of them had inventory issues and some of them didn’t. And for us, it’s really hard to compare our bookings patterns with what we see with our peers because the dynamics are very different.

As you know very well, we’ve had a 15-year history of working incredibly closely with this customer and we tend to have much longer visibility at least in terms of new products and so forth. And I think to compare our patterns with what we are hearing from others, I don’t think this is something that we have the ability to prognosticate.

Thomas O’Malley: Super helpful. And then if I just look at the full year, I know just being sensitive on customers, et cetera, but you have a really nice content road map here this year with new codec and new amps. And I look at kind of the full year, and I’m not seeing kind of the expected growth that I would normally see in a content-rich environment year-over-year. To what extent are you guys baking in headwinds in regarding total units? Can you talk about what conservatism you’re kind of introducing to the model there over the next couple of quarters? And maybe just your expectations for, smartphones in general for this calendar year? Just because it seems like when I’m looking at your numbers here, I would expect a little bit more in terms of revenue growth on the audio side given the content increases you’re describing? Thank you.

John Forsyth: Thanks, Tom. Obviously, we’re just guiding the quarter right now, so I can’t speak to what numbers you may have for the full year. To your point, we don’t get too far out over our skis on assumptions on units, of course. We think that’s prudent. And we do also, as you said, we feel good about the content that we have coming this fall. But beyond that, we’re not giving guidance right now.

Venk Nathamuni: Yeah. And if I could, Tom, just to add to what John said, we — when we provide guidance, we take all the factors into account in terms of what the ordering patterns are, what the historical seasonality is, and things of that sort. And we try to provide guidance with what we think is the most likely outcome. But looking beyond the current quarter is not something that, we were particularly equipped with.

Chelsea Heffernan: And we have time for one last question.

Operator: Your last question comes from the line of Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital.

Ananda Baruah: Hey. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you taking the question. And congrats on the great execution this quarter. I guess the question, maybe, John, along those lines is given the new technology that you have ramping boosted amp and the smart codec, all things being equal, could you see better than typical seasonality through the back half of the calendar year?

John Forsyth: I don’t think I’m in a position to guide that right now, Ananda. I think a lot of that does depend on the scheduling of orders around the ramp. As you would imagine, it’s a really significant ramp of material with the boosted amplifiers being three per device, and then the codec with a one attach rate as well. That’s a lot of material. And, so that will be showing up in our results as we go forwards. But exactly how that pans out relative to typical seasonality, I don’t think we’re in a position to comment in detail.

Ananda Baruah: That sounds well. And then just a quick follow-up is given sort of just tipping back to your comment here about Gen-AI opportunities, given the multiple touch points you could have into the various potential areas of needs. Does that place the company in a stronger position to expand its customer base participation? And that’s it for me. Thanks.

John Forsyth: I certainly hope so. I think with our existing customer base, a number of those customers are many of the brands who I think will be bringing generative AI-centric devices to consumers. So we’re very well-positioned from that point of view. But I think we can target achieving deeper penetration of some of those customers as we go forward. I mentioned that there are multiple product categories where I think we can be relevant and where GenAI can be relevant across smartphones, watches, AR, VR, laptops and so on. In some of those markets, we’re still in the early innings, laptops being a prime example. And I think we have both product solutions today, which are highly relevant just in terms of delivering significantly increased power efficiency, plus the engineering and IP expertise that will lend itself extremely well to participation in GenAI cycle of products. So yes, is the answer. I’m hopeful that we can certainly be active participants in that cycle.