Good morning and welcome to the Allegro MicroSystems Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker for today, Jalene Hoover, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Crystal. Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss Allegro's fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. I'm joined today by Allegro's President and Chief Executive Officer Vineet Nargolwala, who will provide highlights of our business, review our quarterly financial performance, and share our first quarter 2025 outlook. Allegro's Chief Financial Officer, Derek D'Antilio, is not in attendance today due to a personal matter. We will follow our prepared remarks with the Q&A session. Our earnings release and prepared remarks include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The non-GAAP financial measures that are discussed today are not intended to replace or be a substitute for our GAAP financial results. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, which is also available in the Investor Relations page of our website at www.allegromicro.com. This call is also being webcast and a replay will be available in the Events and Presentations section of our IR page shortly. During the course of this conference call, we will make projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution that such statements are based on current projections and assumptions as of today's date and as a result are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from projections. Important factors that can affect our business, including factors that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements are described in detail in our earnings release for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 and in our most recent periodic filings with the SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission. Our estimates or other forward-looking statements may change, and the company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes to assumptions, or other events that may occur, except as required by law. I will now turn the call over to Allegro's President and CEO, Vineet Nargolwala. Vineet?

Thank you, Jalene, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2024 conference call. We are pleased to have delivered fourth quarter revenue and EPS above the high end of our guidance range despite a challenging macro environment. This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our Allegro team that always puts customers first and innovates with purpose. For full year fiscal 2024, we delivered 8% revenue growth with e-mobility growing 38% and 5% EPS growth. I'm proud of the above-market performance the company has delivered and the progress we have made in serving our customers and positioning the company for sustained long-term growth. We delivered record annual sales of more than $1 billion, a company first, as well as a record level of design wins of more than $1 billion. E-mobility, which includes the increasing electrification of vehicles and the higher adoption of ADAS features, continues to drive Allegro's above-market growth and accounted for more than half of our design wins in fiscal year 2024. From a new product standpoint, we kicked off a record number of products and introduced over 30 new products to the market, emphasizing our ongoing commitment to innovation. We extended our leadership in magnetic sensing with the acquisition of Crocus. We're seeing great excitement from our customers for highly differentiated ExtremeSense TMR technology that presents the greatest accuracy, lowest power and highest sensitivity for the world's most demanding applications. Not only are we expanding TMR across our automotive and industrial products, but we are also excited about expanding into medical applications such as continuous glucose monitoring with leading biomedical OEMs. We have made significant strides in expanding our operational capabilities, building supply chain resilience and improving delivery and quality experiences for our customers. Through our continuous portfolio review process, we also made the decision to cease investment in our Photonics business to prioritize resources and investments on continued innovation and development of our leading magnetic sensing and power portfolios. In summary, fiscal year 2024 was a successful year, with much to be proud of and celebrate for team Allegro. Now there's been a lot of discussion on whether xEV momentum is slowing. The facts are that battery electric vehicles are only 15% of global production and growing at 25%. While hybrids are 22% of global production and growing at 16%. And every OEM is working diligently to bring new xEV models to market. The good news for Allegro is that our content on both platforms is equally strong, and much higher than that on ICE vehicles. So Allegro wins no matter which platforms OEMs choose to invest in and grow. And the geographical lens is also very important. xEVs now represent nearly half of total China auto sales, and Chinese OEMs are expanding their global share with economical and compelling products. This is why continuing to win with Chinese OEMs is increasingly important, and why we have doubled down on our presence with our China-for-China manufacturing initiative. I visited China a few weeks ago, and I'm pleased with the progress we are making and the continued strong support we have with Chinese OEMs and Tier 1s for Allegro's unique value proposition. And we are making great progress outside of China as well, with global OEMs that are shaping the future of e-mobility. Our magnetic sensing and power solutions are finding great resonance with customers in a broad range of applications. And the Allegro team remains focused on executing our product strategy, continuing to win in the target markets and serving our customers. Now, let me spend some time discussing what we're seeing in our end markets. Our first quarter sales outlook comprehends ongoing inventory rebalancing in automotive and inventory digestion in the channel, resulting in what we expect to be a trough revenue quarter before returning to sequential growth thereafter. We are working closely with customers and channel partners to manage orders to reduce inventory and return to normalized business levels as quickly as possible. In specific instances, we are providing pricing support to the channel to help clear inventory. Our OEM contract renewals have taken place, with pricing largely in line with historical patterns. At a macro level, auto productions are expected to be stable, with double-digit growth in xEVs. Industrial end markets are generally expected to remain muted, with lower demand and broader market recovery expected in the second half of the calendar year or later. Against this backdrop, we are really excited about a slew of innovative new product launches for fiscal 2025. These include our highly anticipated silicon carbide high-voltage gate driver this quarter, new high-speed current sensors and position sensors including TMR, a new portfolio of intelligent motor drivers with risk architecture, expansion of our TMR portfolio into a broader set of low-power medical applications. And later this month, we will be launching a portfolio of products to support the 48-volt transition in vehicles, as well as in industrial applications like data centers and clean energy. These new products and record level design win pipeline reinforce our confidence in the ability to grow above market over the mid- to long term, consistent with our target financial model. And we continue to invest in R&D and sales while we navigate near-term inventory corrections to maximize growth in strategic focus areas. I will now review the Q4 financial results. Sales were $241 million. Gross margin was 53.8%. Operating income was 23.8% and adjusted EBITDA was 30.7% of sales. As a result, earnings were $0.25 per share. Q4 sales declined by 6% sequentially and 11% year-over-year. Sales to automotive customers were $182 million, down 7% sequentially and up 2% year-over-year representing 76% of Q4 sales. E-mobility sales declined by 14% sequentially and were 49% of fourth quarter auto sales. Industrial sales were $44 million, declining 5% sequentially and 29% year-over-year. Other sales, which includes consumer applications were $15 million, up 4% sequentially and down 48% year-over-year. From a product perspective, magnetic sensor sales were $146 million, declining 5% sequentially and 13% year-over-year. Sales of our power products were $94 million, declining 7% sequentially and 9% year-over-year. Sales by geography were well-balanced with 27% of sales in China, 26% of the rest of Asia, 18% in Japan, 16% in Europe, and 13% in the Americas. Operating expenses were $72 million, a decrease of $2 million or 3% from a year ago and inclusive of a full quarter of Crocus. Fourth quarter R&D expenses were 17% of sales and SG&A was 13% of sales. Operating margin was 23.8% of sales compared to 27.2% in Q3 and 30.2% a year ago. The effective tax rate for the full year was 11%. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 9.5%, down sequentially primarily as a result of R&D tax credits. The fourth quarter diluted share count was 194.5 million shares and net income was $48 million or $0.25 per diluted share. Turning to full year 2024 results. Fiscal 2024 was another strong year for Allegro with sales increasing 8% year-over-year to a record $1.05 billion. Gross margin was 56.3%. Operating margin was 28.5% of sales. Adjusted EBITDA was 34.7% and earnings per share were a record $1.35 per share. Sales to automotive customers increased by 17% led by a 38% increase in e-mobility sales. Industrial sales increased by 7% year-over-year and other sales declined by 44% during the year. Moving on to product sales. Magnetic sensor sales increased by 9% year-over-year to $650 million or 62% of total sales. Sales of our power products increased by 7% year-over-year to $399 million. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. We ended Q4 with cash of $222 million. Cash flow from operations in the fourth quarter was $13 million and capital expenditures were $14 million. During the quarter, we made a tax payment of $41 million to repatriate Crocus IP which we expect to largely recover through US tax credits in fiscal 2025. Excluding this payment, Q4 operating cash flow was $54 million and free cash flow was $40 million or 17% of sales. Full year cash flow from operations was $182 million. Capital expenditures were $125 million and free cash flow was $57 million, or $98 million excluding the Crocus related tax payment. From a working capital perspective, Q4 day sales outstanding was 45 days compared to 41 days in Q3. Inventory declined by another $3 million sequentially and days of inventory were 126 days compared to 124 days in Q3. Finally, I'll turn to our Q1 outlook. We expect first quarter sales to be in the range of $160 million to $170 million as we work with customers to reduce their inventory levels. Based upon our backlog, fill rates, and customer demand, we anticipate low double-digit sequential growth going into Q2. We expect Q1 gross margin to be between 49% and 50%, which reflects a combination of capacity underutilization, product mix, and price adjustments primarily in distribution. We expect operating expenses to be between $72 million and $73 million. We project our non-GAAP tax rate to be 12% and our diluted share count to be approximately 196 million shares. In April, we also made a $50 million voluntary payment on our $250 million term loan which is projected to reduce our annual interest expense by approximately $4 million. As a result, we expect non-GAAP EPS to be between $0.01 and $0.03 per share. Recall that we have been taking actions over the past year to reposition our company for long-term growth, which contributed approximately $15 million or a 10% decline in organic operating expenses during the second half of fiscal 2024 compared to the first half of the year. So we entered fiscal 2025 with an optimized footprint and ready to serve our customers and grow. I am very proud of what we've achieved over the past year to navigate inventory dynamics while delivering record financial results. I would like to thank the entire Allegro team for this terrific performance and their dedication in serving our customers. I'll now turn the call back to Jalene for questions.

Thank you, Vineet. This concludes management's prepared remarks. Before we open the call for your questions, I'd like to share our first fiscal quarter conference lineup with you. We are attending TD Cowen's 52nd Annual TMT Conference on May 29 at the InterContinental New York Barclay; and Mizuho's 2024 Technology Conference at the JW Marriott Essex House New York on June 12. We will now open up the call for your questions. Operator, please review Q&A instructions.

Thank you. We will now conduct a question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Gary Mobley of Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is now open.

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. My thoughts are with Derek, whose presence on the call is missed. And my question is this outlook for low-double-digit percent sequential revenue growth in Q2, which presumably puts the number at about $180 million in revenue or more, is that representative of true end demand? Or is that still under shipping end demand? And maybe you can just give us a sense of maybe the continued rate of revenue recovery after the second quarter? Thank you. And I have a follow-up.

Hey, Gary. This is Vineet. Thanks for your question. Thanks for your kind comments as well. We do expect to start to return to normal ordering patterns. We've talked about automotive being the last end market to enter into an inventory rebalancing mode. We believe it's going to be the first one coming out of it. I think this quarter is going to be instrumental in getting it there for us. And we expect order to return to sequential growth coming out of Q1. And I think low to mid-double-digit is the right way to think about it.

Okay. Now some of the factors pressuring gross margin that you admitted to, I guess, a little bit concerning, right, especially with respect to price support to clear the channel. And I was hoping to flush out some additional details there. Is that going to be indicative of the pricing trend going forward? Is that something customers and distributors are going to grow accustomed to? Maybe you can just give us some level of comfort that is a temporary pricing situation?

Yes. Gary, it's a great question and it's a fair question. I would characterize our pricing support as temporary and really very targeted with certain distributors. When you look at our Q4 to Q1 transition on the gross margin, only about 100 basis points is due to price and mix, okay? The vast majority, I would say about 300 basis points, is really the underutilization, which is temporary here in the first quarter. We've taken prudent actions to manage direct labor and so on and so forth. But obviously, there's a certain amount of fixed cost that doesn't go away, and so that's really representative of that. And it's largely been in our distribution channel; again, that's where we believe the bulk of the inventory problem resides.

Thank you.

Thanks, Gary.

Thank you for your question. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Caso of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Yes. Thank you. Good morning. I wonder if you could give a little more color on what was discussed on pricing. And more specifically in terms of the guidance, how much of the sequential decline is driven by units presumably reducing inventory in the channel as compared to pricing? And then maybe similar with the visibility for the September quarter and indication you provided there. Is that more a function of pricing coming back into September or kind of resumption in unit orders?

Yes. Hi, Chris. Thanks for the question. As I mentioned earlier, pricing is actually the smallest part of the transition. So, we really think it's volume here in Q1 and as that starts to come back as we get out of this inventory digestion mode and get back to sequential growth going into Q2, we expect that to moderate, right? So our utilization is going to increase, and we should start to see the margins come back as well.

Okay. With respect to the comments on EV versus hybrid, the slowdown in EV has been well-documented here. You pointed out that hybrid we've got equal content there. But I imagine there's got to be some transition as some of the OEMs kind of shift that around. Can you speak to that? To what extent is some of the slowdown you're seeing now attributed to a slowdown in EV? And how do you see that transition to hybrid as we have heard that the number of OEMs have accelerated the hybrid programs, but it probably is an immediate effect?

Yes, Chris. So it's a great question. We really have a global perspective on the automotive market. When you look at our geographical balance, it's indicative of how the automotive sector splits out by region. Outside of the US, we really don't see any slowdown in EV production, but also in the design of new EV programs. Your question regarding a shift between EVs and hybrids. The components that we ship into hybrids and EVs are largely the same. It's just a matter of knowing where they end up because, apart from a few customers, most of our customers have a broad portfolio under multiple brands in multiple regions. So it's very hard to figure out exactly where a part might end up. But a hybrid platform benefits from both an EV powertrain and the traditional ICE powertrain. We think that's actually a net positive for Allegro; same content as we see in a pure battery electric vehicle. While the rating of the power unit might be a little different, we don't see any difference in the content we ship to EV or to a hybrid. Of course, when it comes to logistics of part numbers and ensuring the right part is delivered, there are some considerations there. Our belief is that our customers and Tier 1s are pulling the right strings to ensure the right inventory is getting to the right customer for the right program. Hopefully, that answers your question.

It does. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Joshua Buchalter of TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Hi, Vineet. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning. I echo the thoughts to Derek and his family; I hope all is okay. I guess if I look at the June guidance, you had previously flagged that you expected that quarter down, and the Street gets things wrong all the time, but this is materially below the Street. And it seems like at least from speaking with you last quarter, it’s worse than you originally expected. Maybe you could spend a couple of minutes just talking about what changed and what worsened that's driving the weaker outlook in June at least versus certainly what the Street was expecting and I think versus what you guys were expecting as well? Thank you.

Josh, thanks for the question and your kind thoughts as well. As we said in the last quarter, we started seeing automotive enter into an inventory rebalance more that was reflected in our Q4 guidance. It ended up being a little bit better than expected. Our Q1, as we talk to our customers and their Tier 1s, we noticed that there was an opportunity, and some of this is related to the push-pull between different parts and so on. Remember, we don't actually plan for each quarter; we plan for the year and between quarters, there's a lot of push and pull between customers on ordering one part versus pulling another part. What we're seeing in Q1 is a result of two things: one is us working very actively with our customers to ensure that inventory levels for Tier 1s and CMs come down to normal levels as quickly as possible so we can all get back to sequential growth. The second, I think, is a reflection of the normal push and pull that happens between quarters on orders.

Thank you for the information. My follow-up question is about E-mobility, which seems to have performed significantly worse than the legacy auto parts this quarter. Is there anything we should take away from that? Also, could you provide any metrics regarding bookings, backlog, or book-to-bill ratios to help us understand the expected return to double-digit sequential growth in the September quarter? Thank you.

Yes. Thanks, Josh. I would tell you that it’s really an artifact of the normal push-pull that happens between quarters. We look at the full year, and when we look at full year 2024, E-mobility grew 38%. So almost 40% on a year-over-year basis, really powering our growth in automotive, which overall grew 17%. We have no complaints about our performance in E-mobility. We continue to see great momentum; over half our design wins in fiscal 2024 came from E-mobility and Automotive. Great momentum, the team continues to do a great job of executing on new products that align well with customer needs and out-innovating competition. The design wins give us confidence in the mid- to long-term. I’m not worried at all about our ability to execute our strategy in E-mobility and really outperform the market. Our return to sequential growth will be driven by automotive, and within that, I think E-mobility is going to lead the way.

Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Quinn Bolton of Needham & Company. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I offer my best wishes to Derek and his family. Vineet, I guess two questions for you. One, on the price adjustments in the channel. Can you say, is this a one-time price adjustment on things that you've already shipped, where you're going to take an adjustment to prices one-time to clear the channel? Or will you be taking lower prices on a go-forward basis on new products shipped into the channel? And then I've got a follow-up question.

Quinn, thanks for the question and also the kind thoughts. It is exactly the one-time phenomenon that you pointed out. We recognize as we work with our distributors, particularly in Asia, that they needed support to clear the inventory, and we've been very targeted. We've given one-time price support in a very targeted fashion to help our distributors clear the inventory. I would tell you that we launched over 30 new products to the market in fiscal 2024. The ASPs on those new products are higher than our fleet and are holding up really well. So we don't expect the pricing phenomenon that I highlighted here to be an ongoing situation.

Understood. I know you’re not providing guidance beyond the first quarter, but you've mentioned a return to low double-digit sequential growth. Given what that suggests for revenue in the September quarter, it still falls short of the run rate you've experienced in previous quarters. Do you anticipate that low double-digit growth rate will persist for several quarters?

Yes, Quinn, we do. I think it's going to be a bit of a climb back to what I would call our normal operating quarterly run rates. We feel really good about getting there in this fiscal year, but it might take us a couple of quarters to get there. Thinking about it in terms of low to mid double-digit growth rates sequentially is the right way to think about it.

Thank you. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Vijay Rakesh of Mizuho. Your line is now open.

Yes. Hi, Vineet. I would like to echo my thoughts for Derek as well. Just a question on the guide, wondering you missed that. Like, was there something that you missed for the drive-down that you probably would have seen before? And was the inventory primarily all dis-inventory?

So Vijay, I'm not sure about your first question in terms of a miss. We expected some level of inventory correction. Let's come back to what we said in the last earnings call. We said we're seeing auto now enter into an inventory rebalance mode. Typically, Tier 1s and CMs hold about four to six weeks of inventory. Through the supply crisis, they have been asked by the OEMs to hold 10 to 12 weeks of inventory, and we're actually getting some price support and incentives to hold that inventory. As the supply prices abated, the incentives went away, and as the interest rates went higher and stayed higher, the cost of carrying that inventory started to bite. So, CMs and Tier 1s are starting to reduce their inventory levels back to four weeks to six weeks. We expected that to happen over a couple of quarters; it's happening a little sharper, sooner than we thought. But what it does from a positive standpoint is creates a clearing event where we can start to get back to sequential growth. What was your second question with Vijay?

Yes. I would like to add another question. When you mention inventory related to automotive and distribution in Asia, is there any specific concern regarding a particular customer or company? It seems to be a broad issue across the automotive sector and Asia distribution inventory.

Yes. It's actually more about the overall industrial inventory in the market. Our industrial OEMs are likely the most affected by interest rates, so we anticipate lower demand. We have been providing price support to our distributors in Asia, where the majority of electronics manufacturing occurs for our industrial customers. That's how to view the situation, along with the geographic aspect. In the automotive sector, we mainly deal directly with OEMs or Tier One suppliers. There is a slight inventory in China and Japan for servicing our OEMs there, primarily because they manage the paperwork and provide initial quality support. There is some inventory, but it is not a major concern for us.

Got it. Thanks. And last question, I think on fiscal 2025, I know you've not given the full year guidance yet, but how would you see that year-on-year versus, I think you've talked about 25% automation, but any thoughts on that?

Yes, Vijay, we're not guiding for the full year. I think the best we can talk about now is what we see sort of sequentially from Q1 to Q2. We think that trend is probably going to continue for the next couple of quarters in terms of low-to-mid double-digit sequential growth.

Thank you for your question. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Lipacis of Evercore ISI. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Vineet, how does operationally ramping utilization rates down and then back up work? Are you significantly reducing utilization rates during this fab shutdown? How quickly do you expect to return to your normalized loadings? I assume there may still be some underutilization charges as you ramp back up in Q2. Is that a reasonable expectation? I have a follow-up as well. Thank you.

So Mark, thanks for the question. We don't own a fab anymore, so really the underutilization is happening in our assembly operations and test operations in the Philippines. As a reminder, we do only 50% of our assembly in our factory in the Philippines and we do 100% of our tests. Our team has done a great job of managing the short-term costs, whether it's shifts or furloughs and so on. We retain the ability to snap back very quickly as we've seen, and we believe that the auto will come back here very quickly. On a sequential basis, we have the ability to support that. In addition, we've been continuing to bank build, which gives us the ability to turn pretty quickly and reduce lead times to respond to our customers efficiently.

That's helpful. And a follow-up if I may. Separately, a lot of times, you have an overbuild followed by an overcorrection, and then everybody lowers utilization and then there's a restock and then you start to overbuild again. When you said that six weeks is normal in the channel, now they're shooting to four to six weeks in a lower demand environment, it sounds like you might be setting up for that classic cycle. So, I guess my question is, what's your feel on this situation? Is that drop to four to six weeks kind of set us up? How do you manage that operationally for Allegro? Thank you.

So, Mark, it's a great question. Most of my peers in the industry are trying to get their arms around this. The way to think about it for us is this: our auto customers, especially the Tier 1s and CMs, are comfortable operating at four to six weeks; that's been their normal mode. The OEMs believe that's a little under-cooked, so they'd like them to hold a little bit more. We get back into balance over the next couple of quarters. Our distribution channel, which largely sells industrial and consumer and a little bit of auto in Asia, is comfortable in the 10 to 12-week range. We know that because of lower industrial demand and some over-ordering in industrial and consumer, that is definitely higher than the 10 to 12 weeks. We think they will come back into balance over the year, and really the industrial demand needs to pick up for that inventory to start flowing again. We're seeing some green shoots in our POS, but a couple of months don't make a trend. However, we are optimistic this will start to form a true demand pattern. Our ability to work closely with our supply chain, process improvements, cycle-time improvements, and geographical resilience we've built into our supply chain set us up well to respond to any snapback in demand.

Very helpful. Thank you, Vineet.

Thanks, Mark.

Thank you for your question. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas O'Malley of Barclays. Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. Thank you. This is Kyle Lucian on for Tom O'Malley. Thank you for taking my question. So I was wondering for the June decline, how much of that would you attribute to volume versus pricing support?

It's mostly volume.

Mostly volume. All right. Thank you. And then for my follow-up, you characterized industrial as improving later this calendar year. Can you give an idea of the shape of that recovery? Would you expect strong growth off the bottom as we've typically seen in prior cycles? Or do you expect just modest improvement initially?

It's hard to tell, Kyle. At this point, we are very targeted in our exposure to industrial markets. It's very focused on clean energy, including data centers, EV charging, industrial automation. We see some really good design win momentum there. There's a lot of regulations and government investment incentives that are driving momentum in these markets. We feel reasonably confident that as the inventory position starts to work down, those industrial markets will get back to growth in a meaningful way. It is hard to call the timing; however, we expect this inventory correction mode to continue for a few quarters. We're optimistic that in the second half of our fiscal 2025 we should start to see the industrial markets come back to growth.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you for your question. I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Jalene Hoover for closing remarks.

Thank you, Crystal. We appreciate you taking the time to join us this morning. This concludes this morning's conference call.