FARO Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:FARO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Peter Lau: Yes, Greg, thanks for the question. I mean geographically, I would say we continue to see broad strength in the Americas region with EMEA staying study. APAC contraction driven by China. I would say that the execution was driven by a number of factors, probably most notably normalization of material availability, which obviously allows us to react to our sales forecast a little bit better — be in a better position with finished goods, a better position to move our products around the world to satisfy set customer demand. So a little bit of market, a little bit of execution, which obviously drove a better-than-expected results, Greg.

Greg Palm: And other than calling out China as a maybe a region of weakness. Is there anything out there geographic-wise or end market-wise that cautions you going forward relative to maybe what you would have thought a few months ago?

Peter Lau: Yes. I mean, look, Greg, I think we’re all kind of looking at the developing situation in the Middle East and trying to understand what that means for the broader macroeconomic environment. The AEC market continues to remain a little soft with the decline in resi and commercial projects. But that said, I would say industrial applications on the 3DM side still pretty strong, I would say, a good macroeconomic environment there. So look, we’re watching it closely, the continued normalization of our supply chain should allow us to continue to react and drive execution of that demand, and we’ll be particularly focused on that execution in the fourth quarter.

Greg Palm: Understood. And then if I could just shift gears a little bit on gross margin. In terms of the outlook for Q4, Allen, does that take into account a lower maybe headwind from the broker fees? Or is that still taking into account kind of a full 300 basis points?

Allen Muhich: If you think about the purchase price variance that we experienced in Q3, I think we expect that the combination between the 2022 broker buys as well as the localization of our supply chains to Southeast Asia. The effect that we’re seeing in Q3, we expect to modestly improve in Q4, but generally, by and large, remain the same. The margin improvement that we see in Q3 — from Q3 to Q4 is mainly going to be driven by the increase in revenue and our above corporate average contribution margins and better fixed cost absorption.

Greg Palm: Okay. And so do you realize then most of that benefit in Q1? Or is it sort of exiting Q1 where you see most of that headwind dissipate?

Allen Muhich: There’s certainly going to be a sizable improvement in Q1, but not to the full extent that we’ve outlined, that would be more of a — into the second half — mid-Q2 into the second half, not to get too precise.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will go next to Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Co.

Chris Grenga: This is actually Chris Grenga on for Jim. And congrats on the quarter, by the way. With the release of Sphere XG, I was just wondering if you could talk about the trend that you’re seeing in terms of bookings in terms of the revenues per user. Any color even at a high level that you could provide there, that would be great.

Peter Lau: Chris, thanks for the question and I appreciate the commentary. Probably too early to talk about Sphere XG and that trend as it just released in the middle of August. What I will say is the added functionality on Sphere XG along with the workflow component and the integration with our new Orbis product will allow many of our customers to seamlessly automate the capture and the readiness of that 3D data. And so we expect really big things from Sphere XG and look forward to talking more about that in quarters to come.

Chris Grenga: Got it. And on automotive, could you just maybe talk a little bit more about what you’re seeing there? And — was there any exposure to sort of what we’re hearing about with respect to the UAW situation?

Peter Lau: Thanks, Chris. Yes. No, look, it’s something that we’re watching closely. As I commented, we are still seeing broad strength in our Americas business. And at this point, would expect that to continue into the fourth quarter. So no specific effects, but we’ll continue to watch that situation pretty closely.

Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today’s program. You may now disconnect.

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