Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ:HLIT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Tim Long: Okay, great, great. And maybe just on to the fiber-to-the-home piece, it sounded like some good wins there. Can you just maybe qualify that a little bit or a little bit more detail on kind of where you are seeing success there, what type of customers? And how that arc looks over the next few years?

Patrick Harshman: It’s been predominantly with our cable customers. A combination of what we would call fiber on demand that is filling in brownfield opportunities. But together with an increasing exposure to greenfield new footprint. And it’s still a smaller piece, but for example, in the U.S., the beam funding is something that we currently worked with several customers on putting in proposals for. So, we see a combination of those two applications.

Tim Long: Okay. Thank you.

Patrick Harshman: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Koontz of Needham & Company. Please go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Koontz: Okay. Thanks for the question. On the book-to-bill there about 0.8, that’s the lowest we have seen little, I am sure it’s raising some eyebrows out there and your backlog being down, and you talked about normalization in lead times of your ordering patterns from customers. Can you share any color specifics on the composition of the backlog there that might support there? Are you seeing more of the backlog now comprised of next six months versus previous prints?

Sanjay Kalra: Well, Ryan, I will say that. First of all, we were not surprised by the book and bill in the fourth quarter. That’s something which we anticipated as we were entering in the quarter. We knew that the elevated book-to-bill levels we have seen in the past, during the pandemic, they would not persist however. And we always expected them to come back to the historical levels. And our exit backlog and deferred revenue is still very close to record levels of $457 million. And both segments are looking good in terms of the composition. One metric we share is that 80% of our backlog and deferred revenue is expected to convert revenue in the next 12 months. And that’s consistent. That team persists since last two quarters, and that’s how both the segments are comprised of. We feel very strong in the position we have for our total backlog and deferred revenue for both the segments.

Ryan Koontz: Alright. And just to follow if I could. On the Europe number in Q4 look like it was pretty soft. How much would you attribute that to FX, or is it an impact and may be impacted by the Video segment there and you talked about some weakness historically coming from the Video segment in Europe?

Sanjay Kalra: The FX impact was not that significant. We do experienced some FX impact, but looking at our total revenue, it wasn’t as much. I would say, a few million dollars, maybe around $2 million or so.

Ryan Koontz: Got it. Alright. Thanks. That’s all I had. Appreciate it.

Sanjay Kalra: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Tim Savageaux of Northland. Your line is open, Tim.

Tim Savageaux: Okay. I think that was me. I have a question on €“ and good afternoon. I have a question on really Comcast in particular, quite an uptick there in the quarter. And I guess I want to get your perspectives along several lines on that, which is for that specifically, would you characterize that as sort of a year-end spending thing or because you have been kind of stair stepping up here, I guess the overall question I am getting to is that are we at or near peak Comcast contribution on a quarterly type basis. So, how would you describe that? And where would you put them in terms of their overall deployment of the kind of next-gen remote PHY technology? And I have a follow-up on that.

Patrick Harshman: Tim, I appreciate where the question is coming from. It’s difficult to answer without really crossing the line and discussing my understanding, our understanding of Comcast’s plans and intentions, etcetera, which is somewhere we can’t and shouldn’t try to go. They have €“ I think then, as explicit as they want to be on their recent public statements about their intentions in this area. I would say that there is always some variability quarter-to-quarter. It was a strong quarter. But we €“ look, we said that there €“ excuse me, our total business is 15 million modems passed, and that’s across what is now 90-plus customers. So, Comcast is certainly the biggest piece of that, but by no means the whole piece of that.

So, you can do some very rough math looking and saying that even within Comcast, we are €“ we still have quite a bit of runway ahead of us, I think in any scenario in which they go forward. And our approach to the relationship is to be a long-term partner as they continue to evolve and develop their network. Beyond that, there is not much more specifically we can say.

Tim Savageaux: Let me try on that one. And I don’t get to my follow-up, but just focus on something that you said there. Well, obviously, you did about $240 million with those guys this year. And obviously, the vast majority of that, call it, 200 plus is in cable access. I guess what I am really trying to get to as you look towards your growth expectations for €˜23, in particular, and not being driven by any new customers, and that’s going to be the focus of my follow-up. Do you expect a lot of growth there, or should we think about more of a steady state at a high level on com €“ from Comcast, which we have seen to beginning these last two quarters, or do you expect Comcast to be a meaningful source of growth for broadband in €˜23?

Patrick Harshman: Well, again, we cannot forecast expectations around any specific customer. I appreciate where the question is coming from, but we simply can’t go there. What I can say is that of 11 announced Tier 1s to-date, only seven are really ramping. Comcast is one of those seven and by far the furthest along. So, we expect others, who we have won, the other 10 to play an increasingly large role. And then if you zoom out on the business, we are increasingly confident in adding to that number over the course of this year and as we look forward beyond 2023 or late 2023, early €˜24, into €˜25, we see an ever-growing list of customers, who will be, we think, similarly aggressively engaged in rolling out multi-gigabit services.

Tim Savageaux: And that’s where my last question €“ yes. And that’s where my last question was headed. Obviously, there is another Tier 1 about the same size, who is sort of publicly committed to at least the type of architecture you are providing. Should we think of that relative to all we have just been over with Comcast right there in terms of quarterly contributions and ramps? I think it’s been probably like $400 million over the last 3 years. I mean how should we think about that opportunity in particular relative to what you have seen on a Comcast? Can you give us any kind of metrics? I mean the same footprint, should we assume it’s the same or maybe a quicker deployment, so maybe bigger?

Patrick Harshman: Yes. I am sorry not to be able to be more explicit. I can’t allude to expectations about any other specific customer. What I can’t tell you again is our 2025 target, which until recently, I think a lot of people thought was over the top. Our $825 million top line, we are confident in delivering on that number. And that number will be comprised of contributions from a number of large and small operators on domestic U.S. and international. And that’s the best indication I can give you for what we expect the trajectory of the business to be. And it’s based on a, I would say, a statistical combination of a wide pool of the current customer plans as well as our prospective customers’ intentions that we have confidence around the participating.

Sanjay Kalra: I will just add that the 2023 guidance we have given is in line with our long-term model, even though Patrick mentioned the guidance is conservative. It captures only the Tier 1s we have and very small piece of new Tier 1s you might get. But it’s in line exactly with our long-term model of $825 million in 2025.

Tim Savageaux: Got it. Thanks.