Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Onto Innovation Inc. (NYSE:ONTO) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 4, 2023

Operator: Good day, and welcome to the Onto Innovation First Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Mike Sheaffer, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mike Sheaffer: Thank you, Danielle, and good afternoon, everyone. Onto Innovation issued its 2023 first quarter financial results this afternoon shortly after the market closed. If you did not receive a copy of the release, please refer to the company’s website where a copy of the release is posted. Joining us on the call today are Michael Plisinski, Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Slicer, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind you that the statements made by the management on this call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Such statements are subject to a range of changes, risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to vary materially. For more information regarding the risk factors that may impact Onto Innovation’s results, I would encourage you to review our earnings release and our SEC filings.

Onto Innovation does not undertake the obligation to update these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. As a reminder, today’s discussion of our financial results will be presented on a non-GAAP financial basis, unless otherwise specified. A detailed reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results can be found in today’s earnings release. I will now go ahead and turn the call over to our CEO, Mike Plisinski. Mike?

Michael Plisinski: Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining our call today. Onto Innovation closed the first quarter with revenue of $199 million near the midpoint of guidance, while earnings came in near the high end of guidance aided by gross margin, favorably impacted by product mix. The primary shift in mix was an increase in revenue from higher margin Iris film systems and two lithography tools sliding into the second quarter due to delays from our supply chain. Following the growth of the last few years, we’re increasing our focus on strategic supply chain initiatives and expanding our development engagements. We expect our investment in the supply chain to yield over $10 million in cost synergies in 2024 with additional savings to follow.

Expansion of our development engagements allows us to participate earlier in our customers’ process development. This provides us more time and insight to deliver the comprehensive solutions required for R&D and ultimately migrate into volume production. In the quarter, we were honored to have been awarded by world leader TSMC with the Novel Technology Collaboration Award for our contributions last year to advance both front and backend process control. With over 60% of our first quarter revenue tied to new R&D or pilot-line investments, we believe we’re setting a strong foundation for future growth across several exciting markets. So let’s start with the highlights from our advanced nodes customers. Advanced logic revenue was essentially flat from the fourth quarter and represented 53% of our advanced nodes revenue.

Over 85% of our advanced logic system revenue was for applications below 5-nanometer. Our latest AI Diffract software incorporates an exclusive modeling technique to enable earlier adoption of OCD and R&D lines. We now accurately compensate for the broader process shifts associated with R&D without frequent and time consuming model retraining. This allows our customers to leverage the speed of Atlas 3D metrology earlier in process development, including sub two nanometer structures years ahead of volume production. Not surprisingly, revenue from memory customers declined roughly 50% from the fourth quarter in line with several publicly announced capacity reductions and expansion delays. In the quarter, our Iris films metrology was successfully qualified by a second top three semiconductor manufacturer.

These systems are now part of a volume purchase agreement that we believe implies a jump from 0% to over 25% share of films metrology at this customer. The agreement also implies integrated metrology share of over 70% and of course, includes our flagship Atlas OCD platform and our Echo and Element metrology systems for opaque films and materials applications. The VPA covers shipments in 2023 and is valued at over $90 million, adding some confidence to our current estimates for the year. This account demonstrates the importance of our strategy to our customers. By working together earlier in their development, we’re able to provide a portfolio of technologies that deliver better dimensional and material – metrology at speeds required by high volume production.

Similar to our advanced nodes customers, we see an increase in R&D engagements for inspection of new chiplet packaging designs. These designs require inspection resolution at submicron levels in systems that must also provide a wide range of metrology for denser 3D interconnects and through silicon wheels needed for chip stacking. In the quarter, Dragonfly inspection was selected by a top five semiconductor manufacturer implementing new 2.5D packaging technology. A second top five manufacturer selected dragonfly inspection in EB40 for System on Integrated Chips or SoIC for 3D chip stacking applications. Revenue from power devices in the first quarter was up 20% over the prior year and our portfolio of inspection technology and dimensional and films metrology convinced 18 customers in the quarter to purchase a new Onto innovation product for their process, and several added combinations of three or more products.

Several of these systems went to support the high growth gallium nitride and silicon carbide segments of the power market. In closing, we are happy to announce our second demo center opened in January in Taiwan to facilitate customers’ access to our most advanced equipment. Over ten packaging and specialty customers have already hand carried their next generation wafers to our facility to work with our experts and latest technology. With our new training systems in place, our training capacity is more than doubled, and the course offerings have expanded significantly. This will allow us to cross-train over 60% of our field service engineers on our most advanced equipment paving the way to more efficiently serve future growth. Our improved support infrastructure and productivity is leading to a pickup in annual and multi-year service contracts.

In the first quarter, we had five new customers moving to recurring support contracts, renewal rates for existing recurring contracts exceeds 95%. In the future, we see the opportunity to increase the value of these support offerings by integrating smarter software solutions. And with that I’ll turn the call over to Mark to review our financial highlights.

Mark Slicer: Thanks Mike and good afternoon everyone. As Mike highlighted, we closed the first quarter with revenue of $199 million, down 17% over the same period last year and just below the midpoint of our first quarter guidance range, while achieving an EPS of $0.92, which is $0.04 above the midpoint of our EPS guidance range of $0.80 to $0.95. The impact of the memory – of the memory market being the biggest driver of this revenue decline after coming off our record setting fourth quarter and year. Now, moving on to the quarterly revenue by market; advanced nodes revenue of $66 million, declined 35% year-over-year and represents 33% of revenue. Specialty devices and advanced packaging achieved $93 million in revenue, declined 6% year-over-year and represents 47% of revenue.

Software and services revenue of $40.2 million was down 4% year-over-year and represents 20% of revenue. As Mike stated we achieved 54% gross margin for the first quarter exceeding our guidance range of 51% to 53% primarily from the shift of the two JetStep Systems into the second quarter due to delays from our supply chain. First quarter operating expenses were $58 million, down $3 million quarter-over-quarter and $3 million above the high-end of our guidance range. We exceeded the guidance range as we maintained a higher level investment in R&D to drive our strategic growth priorities as well as several cost reduction initiatives, didn’t see the immediate drop through expected in Q1. However, we are still committed to delivering $25 million to $30 million of cost reductions for the year.

Our operating income of $49 million was 25% of revenue for the first quarter compared to 31% from the prior year. Our net income for the first quarter was $45 million or $0.92 per share, down 30% over the same period last year and as previously mentioned $0.04 above the midpoint of our guidance range. Now moving on to the balance sheet; we ended the first quarter with cash and short-term investments of $584 million, up $36 million from the start of the year with operating cash flow of $50 million, representing 25% of revenue. Inventory ended the quarter at $338 million, an increase of $14 million since year-end primarily driven by the delay in the shipments of the two JetStep Systems as well as the continued receipt of parts to service our expanded installed base.

As stated during our prior earnings call, a top priority for 2023 is to optimize our levels of inventory to return to mid-$200 million range by the end of 2023. Inflows of raw materials are declining as we have worked with suppliers to continue to burn off our existing inventory. This will continue – this will contribute to our free cash flow returning to historical and consistent performance levels of over 20%. Accounts receivable decreased $32 million to $210 million in the quarter and our days-sales-outstanding increased nine days to 96 days. During the quarter we repurchase an additional 46,000 shares of common stock, bringing our cumulative share repurchase to just over 1 million shares under the current program, or $68 million return of capital to shareholders.

We have $32 million remaining under our existing $100 million authorization. Now, turning to our outlook for Q2; we currently expect revenue for the first quarter – for the second quarter to be $203 million plus or minus 4 percentage points. We expect gross margins will be between 50% to 52% down versus Q1 due to the forecasted mix in the second quarter including a projected record six JetStep Systems. For operating expenses, we expect to be between $58 million to $60 million. For the full year 2023, we expect our effective tax rate to be between 14% to 16%. We expect our diluted share account for Q2 to be approximately 49.2 million shares. Based on these assumptions, we anticipate our non-GAAP earnings to be between $0.75 per share and $0.90 per share.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, we expect to be back to 54% gross margin levels due to the improving contribution from our JetStep Systems. We expect OpEx to be in the range of $55 million to $56 million as we move past the annual one-time compensation elements in Q2 and see the full benefit of our cost reduction activities together. Together this will result in exceeding first quarter earnings levels. As I referenced in my earlier comments and highlighted during our February earnings call, we are reducing costs in the range of $25 million to $30 million, which includes driving further operational and supply chain efficiencies at our manufacturing sites, staff reductions and reduced discretionary costs. With these cost reductions predominantly permanent in nature, we expect to move back into our gross margin and operating profit metrics of the long-term operating model when industry growth returns.

And with that, I will turn it back over to Mike for additional insights into Q2 and the remainder of 2023. Mike?

Michael Plisinski: Thank you, Mark. As Mark just mentioned we expect only a slight uptick from the first quarter reflecting the continued weakness in memory and weaker advanced logic spending projected in the second quarter. Offsetting that weakness is strong demand from specialty customers and power, packaging and EUV wafer manufacturing. Collectively, we believe our specialty and advanced packaging markets reached the bottom in the first quarter with solid growth into the second quarter and incrementally stronger second half. Although we believe advanced nodes will bottom in the second quarter, the rate of recovery remains uncertain. So even while revenue projections reflect broader market challenges we’re very pleased with the progress we’re making expanding into new accounts and new markets.

We continue to grow our position in the planar films market. We’re growing our lab share for leading-edge logic, and each quarter we see new submicron applications moving to our Dragonfly G3 platform, including power applications in GaN and silicon carbide. We expect these wins to position us well for outsize revenue growth when markets recover, and our customers once again focus on ramping production to meet the growing demand for complex semiconductors. With that demand combined with the initiatives to strengthen our financial model, we expect to be more – we expect to more efficiently serve this projected growth, which should be reflected in higher margins and greater shareholder returns. I’ll now turn the call over to Danielle for your questions.

Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. We’ll take our first question from the line of Quinn Bolton with Needham & Company. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Quinn Bolton: Hey guys. Thanks for letting me ask a question. Mike, I guess, kind of going through the puts and takes in the business, understand the weak memory environment and some pressure on the advanced foundry/logic in the second quarter that you mentioned. But you talked about a $90 million contract talked about strength in specialty. I think the China and mature nodes businesses seem to be second half weighted for the industry in whole. And I guess I’m wondering do you guys see a stronger second half relative to the first half?

Michael Plisinski: Relative to the first half, yes, but I wouldn’t say we’re expecting a massive snap back in the second half.

Quinn Bolton: Okay. But modest half over half growth consistent with your expectations?

Michael Plisinski: Yes. And as I mentioned, the advanced logic, the advanced nodes continue to be the most, let’s say the – where the recovery is the furthest out. But we do see our – at least our specialty in advanced packaging markets growing fairly nicely in the second quarter and maintaining that, that rate of growth or at least a strong growth right through the second half. So that that’s really going to carry the strength of the growth we see in the second half.

Quinn Bolton: Got it. Thank you for that. And then I guess question looks like you guys continue to see strength or share gains in the planar films segment with the Iris tool. I think last year you said you generated about $50 million of revenue. As you looked at 2023, how do you see Iris and what’s the outlook there? Do you think you can continue to make share gains in 2023 with that solution?

Michael Plisinski: Yes. We definitely do. I mean, that was the exciting part of the highlight I made for the first quarter, having Iris qualified by another top three semiconductor manufacturer. So we had one before and we had several other smaller customers. Now we have another one, and we have – as we mentioned in the fourth quarter evaluations that nearly all of the top five semiconductor manufacturers now. So momentum’s building, the value proposition is being proven, and I think the – that momentum will carry forward this year in revenue growth of certainly double-digits – fairly strong double-digits. And then once the industry really recovers and we see broad-based expansions, those two are the record positions we win are going to have much longer or bigger tails, have broader impact on our revenue.

Quinn Bolton: Got it. And then just a quick one for Mark, if you look to the third quarter you mentioned gross margin coming back to the range of roughly 54%. Should we assume that, that you’re back to sort of a more normalized run rate of four litho JetStep X500 systems in the third quarter?

Mark Slicer: Yes. Yes. Quinn, that’s a good assumption. Yes, I would – I would say that that’s consistent with what we’re seeing.

Michael Plisinski: And also just to add to that, we did – we did say in the past that we were working through the cost reduction, the margin improvements in litho throughout this year with the fourth quarter being sort of reaching our target model. And so we’ll see the benefit of that as well as we move into the second half, not just a real lives number but also better margins on those tools.

Quinn Bolton: Excellent. Thank you.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from the line of Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Craig Ellis: Yes. Thanks for taking the questions and I’ll start with one for you, Mike and just make it high level. So in the past you’ve often characterized your expected performance versus industry as either in line or outgrowing and off now growing, but as you look at this year and acknowledging we’ve got some pretty significant cross currents. Where do you think the business shakes out versus industry growth?

Michael Plisinski: Where’s the industry growth end-up? I’ve seen a lot of different numbers right now on, on where the industry growth shakes out. I think we’re comfortable with the guidance we’ve provided. We don’t see any deterioration to that. We’re working hard to actually drive some upside to that – to that previous guidance. So you see the emphasis we have on the power semiconductors, some of the two-and-a-half and 3D packaging technologies we’re engaged in which are coming online. The IC subs or the panel packaging business with the litho and then bringing in process control or introducing process control into those markets as well. So where the spend is we have more to offer those customers. And so from our perspective was our thesis for why we were going to outperform remains the – we’ve talked about the films also adding some upside growth.

So if you look for us, wherever you look at the market, we’ve said down 20% and we’re expecting or at least we’re fighting to be above that.

Craig Ellis: Got it. That’s real helpful. And then Mark, I wanted to dig in deeper on where we stand with $25 million to $30 million in cost savings. How much of the $25 million to $30 million is comprehended in the color that you provided for operating expense to be back at $55 million in the third quarter? And what does that leave for the fourth quarter, because it doesn’t seem like we really captured anything in the first quarter? So I want to understand how we’re progressing and when we will realize the full benefit of that.

Mark Slicer: Yes. No, I mean, we did capture some. I mean, when you look at our run rate coming off of Q4 where we were in a low $60 million, $61 million range of OpEx, so we did have some reductions, certainly not where we wanted to be for Q1. I think just coming off the strong year end and pivoting into the drop, I mean, we’re certainly trying to capture that. We will see some of it in Q2. But again, we have the spike in the annual kind of compensation elements that historically have always hit in Q2. And then we’ll see – I think, we’ll see the bigger benefit in Q3 and Q4. That’s why we’re confident that we’re back into that $55 million range of operating expense which is certainly lower than as you’d expect to our 2022 run rates, where we were topping out at – we were at the $60 million to $62 million range.

Craig Ellis: So, are you saying that you think we’ve gotten perhaps a third of it now through the second quarter, but with some of the second quarters really not visible because of the annual expense increases that you have?

Mark Slicer: Yes.

Craig Ellis: When you look at the remaining two-thirds and 3Q and 4Q?

Mark Slicer: Correct. Yes, that would be probably the way I would put it.

Craig Ellis: And then you said some of it would be – some of it would be structural. So how much of the savings that we’re seeing is structural and how much of it is just more temporal? Thanks, Mark.

Mark Slicer: Yes, I mean, I would say majority of it is as is permanent. I mean, that’s what we’re striving for obviously as we want to see when the growth comes that back. So we want to be able to drive that leverage. I mean, there obviously is some variable spend as you would expect, items like sales commissions and things like that to come down. But again, we’re aiming to make those structural changes long term. And I wouldn’t consider this cutting variable spend that’s going to come back up the second, we see that growth, it’s going to be managed to the point where we’re going to get back into the model of an expense profile that has that contribution that drop through that, we want to get as far as the model dictates. So to answer your question, predominantly as I said, taking those out and then keeping those costs out and managing the other variable spend to the degree we can.

Craig Ellis: Got it. Thanks guys.

Michael Plisinski : Thanks Craig.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from the line of Vedvati Shrotre with Jeffries. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Vedvati Shrotre: Hi, thanks for taking my question. So, I think in the last quarter you had quantified about $70 million coming from three opportunities. The bigger piece of it was jet step in 2023. And then the next two pieces were NovusEdge and the panel portion of it. Has this $70 million changed? Could you just give some puts and takes, like do you expect to see more from JetStep or NovusEdge or the panel piece of it?

Mark Slicer: I think power not panel JetStep is part of the panel piece. So, that is pretty well established where…

Vedvati Shrotre: I’m sorry, I meant, the thin piece of it. Yes.

Mark Slicer: Thin, the plainer films?

Vedvati Shrotre: Yes.

Mark Slicer: Yes, so plainer films definitely as we sort of alluded to, we see some growth there, some upside there. We expect to meet or exceed our targets there. Power, where we are definitely going to exceed our targets there based on what we’re seeing also from the adoption we talked about in the call on the first quarter, 18, new customers selecting one of our products in the portfolio and our intent and expectation is we can sell them additional products in the portfolio as they realize the benefits of a suite of products tied together by our Discover Enterprise software platform. So that momentum is, I think, building nicely. And then the other piece you mentioned was the NovusEdge. They were also constrained by manufacturing, which we’re trying to speed up or release that constraint. But that is at least going to maintain the guidance I provided. I think roughly $70 million, $80 million if not exceed, if we can release some more product, customers will take it.

Vedvati Shrotre: Got it. That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Sheaffer I will turn the call back to you for any additional closing remarks.

Mike Sheaffer: Thanks, Danielle. Just a quick reminder for everybody about three upcoming events. First, Onto management, will be participating at the B. Riley conference in LA on May 24. And second, we will be hosting our analyst event at the New York Stock Exchange on June 1. And third, we’re participating at the Stifel Conference in Boston on June 6. Thanks again, everybody for joining us today. A replay of the call is going to be available on our website about 7:30 Eastern Time this evening. We would like to thank you for your continued interest in Onto Innovation. Danielle, please conclude the call.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.