ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. (ADTN) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning. My name is Rob and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Ad Tran Holdings 4th Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again press the star 1. Thank you. Mr. Peter Schumann, Vice President, investor relations, you may begin your conference call.

Thank you, Rob. Welcome and thank you for joining us today for AdTran Holdings' fourth quarter 2024 financial results conference call and welcome to all those joining by webcast. During the course of this conference call, AdTran representatives expect to make forward-looking statements that reflect management's best judgment based on factors currently known. However, these statements involve risks and uncertainties, including the risks detailed in our earnings release, our annual report on Form 10-K, and our filings with the SEC. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements, which may be made during the course of this call. We undertake no obligation to update any statements to reflect events that occur after this call. During the course of the call, we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP to GAAP measures and certain additional information are also included in our investor presentation and in our earnings release. We have not provided reconciliations of our first quarter 2025 guidance with regards to non-GAAP operating margin because we cannot predict and quantify without unreasonable effort all of the adjustments that may occur during the period. The investor presentation has been updated and is available for download on the ADTRAN Investor Relations website. In addition, financial measures during the course of this conference call are preliminary estimates. They consequently remain subject to the company's internal controls and procedures and are subject to risks and uncertainties including among others changes in connection with the quarter end or year end adjustments. Turning to the agenda, Tom Stanton, AdTran Holdings CEO and Chairman of the Board will provide the key investment highlights for the fourth quarter 2024 and Uli Dopfer, our Senior Vice President and CFO will review the quarterly financial report performance in detail and then we'll take any questions that you may have. I'd now like to turn the call over to Tom Stanton.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. ADTRAN executed well during Q4 with improvements across several key operating metrics. Revenue increased sequentially, our non-GAAP gross margins remained strong, and our non-GAAP operating profits continued to expand. Revenue was up across all regions with non-U.S. revenue up 10% quarter over quarter. Dravening deeper into the details, optical networking revenue showed meaningful growth in Q4 with a 16% sequential increase, supporting our belief that revenue bottomed in Q3. Our optical networking solutions growth was up across all regions, led by an uptick in business from a mix of service providers, internet content providers, and enterprise customers. Optical networking solutions added 18 new customers during the fourth quarter. These new customers included a broad mix of fiber broadband customers, government agencies, utilities, and large-scale enterprises. The growth in our customers matches the diversity and network upgrade catalyst with our optical customer base. In some use cases, it is broadband operators upgrading their backhaul networks to 100 gig or regional transport networks to 400 or 800 gig. In other scenarios, it is internet content providers upgrading capacity between large-scale compute sites or large enterprises or government institutions upgrading and securing their private networks. Under any of these scenarios, these customers need scalable, secure, and automated optical networks from a vendor that they can trust. We address all these needs. With continued advancements in our portfolio, improving customer inventory levels, and growing opportunities across multiple verticals in the optical segment, we are optimistic about the growth opportunities moving forward. Our access and aggregation solutions grew 8% sequentially, driven by fiber footprint expansion and network upgrades. The quarter's growth was led by the U.S. customers deploying multi-gig fiber services. Investment remains strong among service providers in the U.S. and Europe, and we are upgrading and expanding their fiber footprint. print. We remain the leading vendor option given our portfolio and presence in our target markets. During the quarter, we began shipping infrastructure to 12 new fiber-to-premise service providers, continuing our trend of new customer acquisition in this segment. With a strong pipeline of expansion opportunities and network upgrades, we expect meaningful revenue growth in this area. Our subscriber solutions category had another strong quarter, although slightly down sequentially, that's following two strong quarter-over-quarter increases. The strength in CPE is directly attributed to fiber access footprint expansion that we have experienced. We expect meaningful growth in CPE as our customers work to connect more homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure sites with fiber. Within the category, we added 23 new service-provided customers during the fourth quarter. Within our product pipeline, we will be introducing several new multi-gig Wi-Fi 7 products over the next six months to help continue to drive new demand for a growing base of large and regional service providers. The direction in our industry is clear. Our customers need fiber networks that scale from optical cord to the customer premise while delivering best-in-class subscriber experiences through better insights and automation. We have made major upgrades across all aspects of our portfolio, from our recently introduced industry-leading 800-gig transport solution, the M-Flex, to the industry's highest density, most power-efficient 10-gig fiber access platform in our SDX family. We have the leading fiber infrastructure platforms that customers need to build their networks of the future. On the customer premise side, we have the connectivity solutions for nearly any need. Whether it is 10-gig Wi-Fi platforms for residential services or 100-gig business services, we have high-performance and cost-effective solutions that offer world-class user experiences. These networking platforms are complemented by our Mosaic software suite that automates and simplifies all aspects of our portfolio, from automating the provisioning and monitoring of complex optical networks, to automating and optimizing the performance of multi-gig Wi-Fi networks. The breadth and capabilities of these software applications paired with our networking platforms differentiates us from our competition and positions us for additional success moving forward. Turning to our operational performance for the year, we made substantial progress during 2024. Although revenue for the year decreased due to software end markets, including customers focusing on reducing inventory and higher interest rates, the non-GAAP gross margin for the year expanded to 41.9% on a non-GAAP basis from 39.3% the prior year, reflecting higher efficiency and value realization directly related to our operational efficiencies and low overhead costs that were driven by both site and product consolidation. Non-GAAP operating profit also meaningfully improved, turning positive for the full year 2024 compared to the negative figures earlier in the year. This growth underscores our ability to adapt to evolving market conditions and drive profitability. Additionally, we achieved success in optimizing our cash flow. Net cash provided by operating activities increased to $104.3 million during 2024, A significant improvement compared to net cash used in operating activities of $45.6 million during 2023. Our free cash flow of $39.9 million during calendar 2024 improved by $128.7 million from the prior year. This focus on operational efficiency and financial discipline positions as well for a substantial future growth. This past quarter's strong performance, combined with our improved outlook, reinforces our confidence in the long-term target operating model of gross margin percentages in the low to mid-40s and an operating profit margin percentage in the double digits. In summary, we had a good quarter of improved financial results, strong bookings, and positive momentum entering 2025. We continue to grow our customer base and invest in our strategic platforms with major opportunities in the U.S. and Europe still ahead of us. With that, I will turn things over to Uli to provide a few of our financial results. Following Uli's remarks, we will open it up to any questions you may have. Uli?

Thank you, Tom, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call this morning. to begin i will first walk through our preliminary q4 2024 financial performance and then i will discuss our expectations for 2025 at q1 2025. q4 revenue was 242.9 million dollars a sequential increase of 15.1 million or seven percent and above the midpoint of our guidance Revenue increased 17.4 million year over year or 8%. Our network solution segment delivered 197 million accounting for approximately 81% of total revenue in Q4 compared to 80% in the prior quarter. Our services and support segment delivered 45.8 million or 19% of total revenue in Q4 compared to 20% in the preceding quarter. From a product category perspective, access and aggregation delivered $72.7 million or approximately 30% of total revenue and increased 8% sequentially. Our optical networking solution category was 81.6 million or 34% of total revenue. This was up 16% sequentially. subscriber solutions was 88.5 million or 36 percent of total revenue this was down two percent sequentially non-us and us revenues were 57 percent or 43 percent of total revenue respectively we had one customer who represented more than 10 percent of our q4 revenue non-gap gross margin during the quarter was 42.0 percent a sequential decline of 11 basis points non-GAAP operating expenses in q4 were 94 million reflecting a quarter of a quarter increase due to higher deferred compensation and increased sales commissions for q4 our non-GAAP operating profit was 7.9 million or 3.3 percent of revenue and above the midpoint of our guidance range This compares to a non-GAAP operating profit of 2.5 million or 1.1% of revenue in Q3 2024 and a loss of 3.2 million in the year-ago quarter. The improvement in operating margin and profitability was driven by higher revenue, a healthy gross margin, and effective management of our fixed costs. Non-GAAP tax expense in Q4 was 3.1 million. We generated a small amount of non-GAAP net income during Q4 and were breakeven on an earnings per share basis. This compares to a loss of 5 cents per share in Q3 2024. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement. First, I'd like to highlight for the full year 2024, operating cash flow was over 100 million, a nearly 115 million dollar swing from the prior year. During Q4, Before, networking capital decreased by 4.7 million quarter over quarter to 276.9 million. Trade accounts receivables were 178 million at quarter end, resulting in DSO of 67 days. This compares to 70 days in the prior quarter. Our inventories were down to 269.3 million at the end of the quarter. Accounts payable were 170.5 million. DPOs were 72 days versus 67 days the prior quarter. Operating cash flow was 5.8 million compared to 42.0 million in Q3 2024, mainly due to the timing of receivables at year end. As I shared, cash flow for the year was 103.1 million compared to negative 45.6 million for the full year of 2023. We had free cash flow of negative 10.4 million in Q4 compared to positive 23.2 million of free cash flow in Q3 2024. The lower free cash flow number for the fourth quarter was the result of the lower operating cash flow. For the year, we generated positive free cash flow of 39.9 million, an increase of 128.7 million from the full year 2023. At the end of Q4, cash and cash equivalents were $77.6 million, a quarter-over-quarter decrease of $10.9 million. In 2025, strengthening our balance sheet is a key strategic priority. We have taken several significant actions in this direction. As previously communicated, we are in the process of selling our unused corporate real estate, which is now listed on our balance sheet as assets held for sale. We are also working to monetize other non-core assets. Due diligence by interested parties continues, although we are limited based on NDAs on what we can share. Our intent is to substantially strengthen our financial position during 2025, aiming to exit the year with a positive net cash position. In summary, although 2024 was challenging, we delivered solid operational execution. As we regain scale in our business, we anticipate an expanded operating margin. We do expect moderately high operating expenses for 2025 in line with normalized payroll and benefit increases, turning now to our outlook for the first quarter. We expect revenue to range between 237.5 to $252.5 million, and a non-GAAP operating margin between 0% and 4%. Once again, additional financial information is available on AdTrend's newly updated investor relations website at investors.adtrend.com. This concludes the prepared remarks portion of the call, and I will now turn the call back over to Rob to begin the Q&A session.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question comes from a line of Michael Genovese from Rosenblatt Securities. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks so much. Congratulations on the nice results. I guess I want to follow up on the balance sheet point. to begin, $112 million of net debt, if I got that right, exiting the quarter. So you want to be in a net cash position by the end of the year. Am I right that that seems fairly trivial with that a real estate sale and sort of just cash generated from operations should be able to get us there easily. And I guess my question is really, are there other assets, anything in the business that could be sold and kind of inventory? How much of this is going to be inventory and working capital as we...

So I guess just more detail on how we get to net cash and can we get can we get much better than that cash break even by the end of the year um the answer your question is yes so just directly yes the um we do expect inventory to come down through the year um we do be expect to be generating um free cash flow through the year um and you're right with the asset sales that we're talking about um that should be really easy as you know the biggest issue is timing asset sales, especially when you're talking about property and, you know, the market. And we have some properties that are relatively unique, so you have to find the right buyer, and it's got to match up. Having said that, we have found some customers that are, we have seen that alignment, but getting them to closures is the biggest thing. As far as the other asset sales, we talked about anything that's really, that's non-strategic, and our strategic areas are fairly easy to define. They're, you know, subscriber, fiber to prim, and optical. And those are the businesses we're in. So things that don't fall in line that we would take a look at and, you know, we, yeah, there's definitely, there's a potential for us to move forward on some of those assets as we find the right buyers.

Yep. Okay, great. Yep, Absolutely. I guess my other one would be just kind of on the sustainability of the telecom, you know, recovery, you know, so I don't want to ask, you know, too many multi-part questions, but if I had the time, I would sort of, you know, kind of Europe and the U.S. visibility to, as we move beyond the first quarter, you know, to the rest of the quarters of the year, how would you kind of describe visibility and the sources of visibility that make you feel better that we could have a sustained recovery throughout the year?

Well, the best visibility is a purchase order. And, you know, unfortunately, our business is typically more book-and-ship than, you know, maybe some longer-term businesses. But the – so the confidence that we have is typically, number one, based off of what we have in backlog and is tangible. And then the other is just kind of planning from the different customer bases that we deal with. The environment is definitely picked up, without a doubt. I mean, the last six months has been substantially different than the six months prior to that. Bookings have picked up. In general, things, yeah, I mean, just things just look more positive. But, you know, we really don't have a crystal ball. I can't tell you explicitly what I'm going to do in Q4 of this year because I don't know. Q3 is still murky as well, right? But as that window comes in, we get stronger and stronger confidence.

And I can just say, trending-wise, things are looking are looking very positive um thanks so much your next question comes from a line of christian schwab from craig hallam capital group your line is open great thanks for taking my uh questions good quarter back to the inventory you've done a uh um a significant job of reducing you know your inventory on your balance sheet over the last two quarters um do you have a stated goal uh for inventory and you know what level do you think um that could potentially be reduced to

before you would need to maintain it for future growth objectives yeah we we you want to talk about our turn those turns go ahead yeah so so currently our inventory turns are you know 2.2 2.1 not you know not where we want to be not where we have been in the past and our goal is to increase our inventory returns back up to in that four times range for the year. Obviously, this is a process and takes some time. For this year, like Tom said during his part of the call earlier, we anticipated inventory will continue to come down throughout this year. And how much just depends on the demand profile from customers on how much additional you know material we need to buy from from the outside in order to satisfy this demand so but overall i would anticipate inventory will come down some maybe not quite as significant as we have seen you know first quarter of last year where we had a significant drop in inventory but we are working through the process and anticipate a gradually you know decline in inventory yeah i think the key is the way to think about it is four times inventory terms that's really where we're comfortable there we've been there before we get much above that and we start having customer issues so kind of low fours is is

a comfortable place for the company fantastic and then you know given the improved business environment that you're seeing i know you have you know limited visibility but we are coming off uh a pretty challenged um you know uh industry environment in calendar 2024. you know would you expect you know revenues this year although quarter to quarter volatility but would you expect 10 plus type of top line growth this year does that seem fair fair um let me just explicitly say we really don't get full year guidance um we know that there are

numbers that are out there um you know we're aware of that um but um you know we we we we have we've had in the past struggle to get you know quarter guidance so we uh you know we're comfortable with you know the guidance range that we've given for the next quarter and and i think i would i would go back to the you know the first round of questions which was you know the environment is definitely improving so i don't want to mislead anybody there the trend is definitely positive but um but you know we still have to see how the year plays out great uh no other questions thank you okay your next question comes from a line of brian coots

from needham and company your line is open nice job here um you can write down there what you have today today well we have a fairly large um reserve uh build that we built over the the last few years you know when our inventory was so high so i think we are we are in a in a safe spot here obviously it always depends on you know demand and and and what customers are asking for but so far i mean our inventory service is fairly significant so i i'm i'm i don't have

to sleep with sleepless nights over it yeah it's been fairly consistent on the last few quarters and don't see a big change and you mentioned non-core assets any ballpark you can share on you know what percent of revenue we're talking about here we can like you know it's not yeah it's it's it's not a big part of our revenue anything that we would if it was a big part of our revenue we really have to talk about whether or not it's strategic or not so it's it's and a couple half uh 10 customer in the quarter uh i assume that was an international

customer that's correct and um did you have any in 24 anytime customers for the year oh good question do you for the year no we had for for individual quarters we always had one actually that quarter we didn't have one um but we did not have a 10 percent quote um revenue customer for the entire year last year great and on the the optical outlook do you feel like deployments are kind of finally back in balance here with regards to inventories are we still a little headwind an obstacle we know we still have you know we we I think we've

been fairly vocal about we expect one inventory situation to clear itself up in Q1 that's still the case inventory that it was getting better and better through the year we kind of have one outlier that we think will clear up in Q1 so exiting Q1 we expect to be in a good place any details you can share there in terms of how meaningful that is to the optical business today it's lumpy so it can be it can be uh good and then some other quarters it can be less good so um i i wouldn't overweight

on that i mean you know kind of our our sense on that and then it's um it's i will say it's good to have and we're we're continuing to make inroads but i would say there's no big reflection point On the broadband front, access and ag, thinking around the U.S. marketing this year, but maybe some of these other government state programs and even a couple of other federal programs are still driving some strength there. Any anecdotes you can share around broadband and fiber running from the U.S. market?

Yeah, I would say, you know, there are tales from previous stimulus programs that are still doing things, but they're not the meaningful driver to our business. We've had close to 200 customers come in a couple weeks ago, and there was, be it or no be, there was a lot of positive energy about what their plans were. And that's kind of what's driving the business right now. I think in the Tier 3 space, I think there are a lot of people that are gearing up. I think the big question itself is still out there, but it's becoming less and less a part of people's near-term plans. For us, it's never been a big driver for this year. We were kind of more excited about what was going on. Tier 3s in general, we think that, you know, they have been kind of slower, and we think that they're going to have to start investing again. we also think that the tier two space with some of the new equity that's been coming into there has been very exciting and that continues to be the case so it's these larger customers are just at least for us anyways are doing better and you know bead it'd be nice to have a decision so that the clarity to the customer base would be there but like i said it's not a big driver for this shares revenue.

Got it. Thanks, Tom. And just to clarify what you just said about the tier twos, you're seeing more positive momentum, better continue to ramp up.

Yes. Yeah. And tier twos would be some of these kind of newer footprint expansion people that have, you know, private equity and others have invested in.

And then if you're an incumbent, even the incumbent tier two carriers um you know they're worried about being overbuilt right so um yeah i mean there's a good kind of competitive dynamic going on there that's great that's all i've got guys thank you okay thanks your next question comes from a line of tim savageo from northland capital markets your line is open hey good morning and um congrats on seeing the top line inflect uh higher here And you're talking about or guiding to a modest increase in Q1 revenue. Sequentially, that is. I wonder if we can get any more color on what's happening there from either a product or geographic standpoint, what you expect to drive that uptick or what some of the moving parts might be.

Yeah. I mean, I agree with your term modest, but modest is in the eye of the beholder. For us, we're pretty happy with it because typically we're seasonally down. So, yeah, so we're kind of, like I said, we think it's a positive thing. In general, you know, I think we'll see a stronger access in ag growth. We tend to see, you know, our European buyers tend to buy a little earlier in the year. We saw that last year where they bought kind of earlier in the year and then less in the second half of the year. And then the kind of more traditional customers have the typical seasonality where their first quarter is down and it starts picking up in the second and third. And then fourth is a little bit of a unknown thing. I'm kind of expecting that same trend where we'll see a strong European content and then we'll see the U.S. starting to pick up after that. Does that answer your question?

Sure does. Sorry about that. Okay, and back on the optical front, and let's kind of combine with this overall kind of carrier behavior that you're seeing. But, you know, I, too, was interested in the cloud commentary to the extent you have some direct exposure there. But I guess the question is more about indirect impacts of what's happening with AI in the network. You know, I heard Cisco talk about that recently and saying that, you know, carriers are maybe working on their networks or investing, you know, in anticipation of, you know, bandwidth coming into the network. I wonder if you're seeing that in your customer base or any early indications, whether that would be different, you know, kind of U.S. versus Europe. but i guess the overall question is is you know are there outside of direct exposure to cloud suppliers are there indirect benefits in the carrier customer base that you're starting to see yeah the direct answer to that is a yes and in both the u.s and europe um with um yeah with some you know very you know specific things that they're trying to get done and and going through.

So it's, I think it's made everybody of any size kind of look at their networks and see how do they play on a going forward basis. And I think when they do that analysis, that ultimately is going to lead to upgrades in their network. And some are farther along than others. But without a doubt, I would agree with the comment that was made. Great.

And then last question for me, I know you mentioned, you know, the early buying in Europe is a potential driver in Q1. I imagine that comment is around your sort of established customers in Germany and the UK. but I wonder if we can get an update on what's happening with some of these newer ramps in Europe on the access side and whether that might be contributing as well.

It definitely is contributing. We're starting to see some of the – I mentioned that we'd started shipping GFON to some of those customers at the tail end of the year, and we had some other ones that were starting to ship in Q1. But the numbers are so much driven by the kind of establishment players that um it's a positive thing but it's it's it's you know i don't want to mislead you here those we have a handful of customers that really drive the bigger numbers and it's yet to see exactly how that's going to play itself out when i'm going by it's kind of historically what they have done and what we expect for this year um and yeah i think i think those are the ones that are driving the bigger numbers although those other ones will continue to add on some Some of them don't come on, though, until the end of the year, right? We have some larger things. We have some of them that come on at the end of this year, and then we have some come on early next year as well. But the ones that I had previously talked about coming online, I think all of those have or will start the first half of the year.

Got it. Well, congrats once again, and I, too, am pleased with the modest uptake in Q1. I'll pass it along.

Your next question comes from the line of Amira Menai from Odo. Your line is open.

Yes. Hi. Thank you for the presentation. I have actually two questions. The first one is regarding the guidance for Q1 2025. You anticipate a non-duperating margin between 0 and 4%. Now, if you end up at the lower end of the range, the margin will decline compared to Q4.

What factors could drive this decrease and the second question is uh what is the current status of the beat program and how much would it with its potential impact affect uh the group's activity uh in the coming years thank you so i would i will start amira hi um so what what would i mean obviously if we would end up at the lower end of our revenue guidance then we would move towards the lower half of our profitability guidance range obviously there are some uncertainties that we have baked into our guidance projections and they are related to items you know that are more sitting in other cogs or cross margin and then I think we touched on during my presentation we touched on the fact that we anticipate smaller you know increase in operating expenses based on you know inflation or payroll adjustments and benefit adjustments for the year on the b thing we don't there's really no impact to us on b if b gets delayed we don't have a whole lot in this year anyways definitely nothing in q1 okay thank you so much okay and that concludes our question and answer session i will now turn the call back over to tom for closing remarks all right thanks

everybody thanks for joining us uh this quarter we look forward to um having a robust discussion at the end of Q1. Thanks very much, everybody.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's quarterly all-hands meeting. Thank you for your participation. You may now log off.