MaxLinear, Inc. (NASDAQ:MXL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

David Williams: Okay. Great. Thanks. And then maybe just on the gross margin side, it was a little bit lower, I think, this quarter than we expected because of mix tends to — or it looks like it’s going to bounce back. How much of this — and maybe all of it is really driven more by the favorable mix. And then maybe if you can talk to any of the pricing pressures you’re seeing either on the sales side or on the input cost side?

Steve Litchfield: Yeah. I mean, so with regard to gross margins, so yeah, just mix related. We talked a lot about how some of the newer business, some of it in the connectivity area was lower margins. And then if you recall, the infrastructure business with the substrate shortages really kind of hurt us in Q4. So that will start to recover and thus, the raised guidance in Q1. So that’s encouraging. With regard to the ASP pressure, as you know, I mean, most of our business doesn’t have — isn’t really subjected to a lot of ASP pressure. I think around the edges, there are certain places like third-party routers that could potentially see that, but we’re prepared for it. And that’s one of the things that we’re excited about some of the newer products, the lower cost structure on a go-forward basis. So we remain committed to getting gross margins up to those mid 60 levels.

Kishore Seendripu: And the ASP pressures in our business really there’s a lot of inventory in the channel, like in the broadband side. Pricing does not change how much you can ship because it’s built up in the channel. So, the FX are more limited. However, what has happened was that there was a lot of demand scrambled last year. And we ordered product that at much higher costs because the foundries and the packaging companies raised prices quite a bit, even though there was like what I call volatile demand being spoken about, but we paid the extra monies to secure more product. And now, of course, that sort of catches up with you when the demand now declines, right? So, paying more, listening to our customers to get the product sort of also has hurt us a bit.

David Williams: Thanks so much guys. Appreciate it.

Steve Litchfield: Thanks David.

Operator: Our next question comes from Christopher Rolland with Susquehanna. Please state your question.

Christopher Rolland: Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. Great to see infrastructure guided up. I was wondering if you guys could illuminate a little more on the substrate availability. And is there still a shortage going on there? When do you think we could be at equilibrium? And would you expect more supply to come online into June as well? Could we potentially see an up quarter there?

Kishore Seendripu: Hey, Chris. On the substrate, I don’t think anybody would even now say that there is any capacity issues anymore or less in the system for supply. I think a lot of them are lines down. The tragedy of the whole process has been that the way — the qualification process now is at a place where we are in the recovery process and that recovery process has a certain time cost into completely feeling our capacity needs for wireless infrastructure. And by the time we hit second quarter middle, lot will end up. We should have no product issues, right? Now the capacity is available, but there is a gestation cycle to ramping up product because we’ve got other alternatives that we’re calling, and we don’t want to stop that in between. So, I don’t see capacity issues moving forward in wireless infrastructure once we are past a quarter or so.

Christopher Rolland: That is very helpful. Thank you. And then lastly, Kishore or Steve, if you guys want to take a shot at this, we don’t need specific numbers, but maybe looking out over the full year for 2023. If you could kind of force rank your outlook, just given the drivers that you guys know regarding your four segments, if you could kind of force rank growth for us, I think that would be very helpful?

Steve Litchfield: I’ll take a stab at it. Look, we’re not going to guide the entire year for the whole company or by end market. But look, I mean, definitely, as I look at 2023, as Kishore just comment on some of the wireless areas, I mean, look, infrastructure is going to do well this year. I think the connectivity and — the connectivity and broadband area, there is inventory in the first half of the year that we got to work through, and that will be a headwind. And then the industrial multi-market, I think, will be somewhat subject to this as well. But so that’s kind of how some of the inventory dynamics play out. But I mean, I really do — I know probably gone on about this quite a bit. But the growth that we’re seeing I think we remain very focused on winning more of the fiber business as well as getting more market share with some of our Wi-Fi offerings as well. So, those are things that really lead us out of this exiting 2023 and into 2024.

Kishore Seendripu: And there’s an outside factor, too. I don’t know how many of you have thought about it is that, I mean, China is now no COVID or whatever you call the policy, but there is free movement now. Everybody is traveling. Second half does China really snap back and then does it create a positive vector. And that’s the one I am sort of keeping an eye out fall.

Christopher Rolland: That’s fantastic. Thank you, guys.

Steve Litchfield: Thanks Chris.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital. Please state your question.

Ananda Baruah: Yeah. Hey, guys. Thank you for taking the question. Yeah. Just a couple if I could. On — with regards to sort of customer verticals, is there anything interesting to glean there from a demand perspective?