ON Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:ON) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Our next question comes from Harsh Kumar from Piper Sandler.

Harsh Kumar : First of all, some great color on Tesla, Volkswagen, JLR, particularly the traction inverter win at Volkswagen. I think that’s huge. I had a question on gross margins. You’re basically guiding gross margin 400 basis points, but you are saying that the headwind from silicon carbide is between 100 and 200. Should we assume that it’s closer to 200 at the beginning of the year? And could you give us some color on how that number will trend? Do you expect it to be gone by the end of this year? Will it continue into next year? And then any color on Fishkill that 50 bps to 70 bps of headwind as well would be helpful.

Thad Trent : Yes. So let me start with the latter. The East Fishkill is 50 basis points to 70 basis points. You can think about that as being linear throughout the year and very consistent. That’s where the foundry services that we’ll be providing to GLOBALFOUNDRIES at kind of a low margin, low single-digit type margin. In terms of the silicon carbide, as I said earlier, we’re really happy with the execution there. We’re in that range of 100 basis points to 200 basis points. We think that starts to peak kind of in midyear. We think that based on what we can see now with the $1 billion run rate or the $1 billion number that we’re going to hit in ’23, we think we’ll exit the year with that headwind behind us. So that’s why I’ve said that 2023 is really a transition year for us.

Harsh Kumar : Okay. So it will be gone by the end of ’23? And just curious about the softness in March. Have you seen any kind of noise cancellations in core industrial just outside of the consumer industrial? And a couple of the other companies have talked about cancellations in the auto business. I was curious if you’ve seen anything kind of strange over here in your auto business with increasing cancellations?

Hassane El-Khoury : No, no. This is Hassane. We haven’t seen any of that in automotive. Like I said earlier, we still remain oversubscribed in auto. So it’s not really a demand for us, it’s more of a supply. So as we get more supply, we’re going to be able to cover more of the demand. But cancellations have not been an issue in automotive. Obviously, we’ve seen cancellations. If I look at a trend, actually Q4 was slightly down as far as cancellations on the non-auto. So I think it’s too soon to call it a trend. But it looks like it’s getting better. But like I said, with our LTSAs, we’re able to engage with customers for a win-win. So we don’t see that impact beyond what we guided.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Caso from Credit Suisse.

Christopher Caso : Just a follow-up question on some of the industrial weakness that you saw. And recognize for you, the industrial market is very broad. And it sounds like you’ve seen some different trends there. Perhaps you could just give some more color on what you’re seeing and how that looks like it’s trending into midyear?