ON Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:ON) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Hassane El-Khoury: Yes, look, in our — just for China specifically in our non-strategic markets. Obviously, that’s been down, both the market is down, but also that’s not a strategic market for us, so we’ve been exiting and a lot of the exit is driven by the market in China for us. So that contributes, it’s part of our plan, so that’s not a surprise for us. It’s actually what we anticipated and that’s why we’ve been focusing on these exits, as far as protecting our margin and that’s been our strategic plan all along. And we’re starting to see it play out, which is not a surprise for us. On the EV, although there’s some pause in EV or a little bit of redirection on the EV market in China for us, that market is actually net incremental.

We are the ramping party in EV in China and therefore that will remain through the rest of the year even with the current outlook as a net favorable to our revenue growth. So we’re — I would say, no surprises, no changes to our outlook and no changes to our execution as we move forward this year.

Gary Mobley: Got it. As my follow-up, I want to ask about the supply of silicon carbide materials to support your $1 billion of revenue. I appreciate the fact that you’ll be majority internally sourced for substrates exiting the year, but I presume that you’ll probably purchase somewhere close to $200 million in merchant supply this year. Maybe if you can give us an update in terms of some of the constraints that you might be seeing there from your more traditional suppliers and how you may be broadening your supplier list there?

Hassane El-Khoury: Yes. Look, I’m not worried about the merchant supply. Obviously, our percent of internal is going to be incrementally going up throughout the year. We’re going to be majority internal. But as far as derisking, we’ve done a very good job on having multiple sources that we are able to pull on. All sources, not internal, are qualified. And we’re getting what we need. So therefore, think about it as a very good and already in the playbook risk mitigation strategy while we continue to execute greatly on our internal substrate.

Thad Trent: Yes. And I would just add that although it’s a tight market out there, obviously, I think that’s well known. We — as I’ve said, we’ve been building inventory in silicon carbide for this ramp. So we’ve been preparing for it. And then obviously, as we get more flex into internally supplied substrates, that helps us.

Gary Mobley: Thanks, again.

Operator: Our next question comes from William Stein with Truist Securities. Your line is open.

William Stein: Great. Thank you. Hassane, at the silicon carbide event you hosted, I think it was perhaps about a year ago. You talked about the trend in supply and demand in silicon carbide likely remaining in the shortage situation for many years. Then we have this surprise — certainly surprised to many people announcement from Tesla that on their next-gen vehicle, the so-called Robotaxi, they’re going to be reducing silicon carbide usage meaningfully. I know it’s only one customer. I know they’re still small share of global auto production, but it’s an important customer. It’s an important data point. I wonder how that influences your view of supply and demand for silicon carbide longer term, not just the next year, but as we think about five years plus?

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