Cognex Corp (CGNX) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Cognex Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call.

您好，歡迎參加康耐視 2023 年第四季財報電話會議。

(Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

（操作員指示）謹此提醒，本次會議正在錄製中。

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Nathan McCurren, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

現在我很高興向您介紹主持人，投資者關係主管內森·麥卡倫 (Nathan McCurren)。謝謝。請繼續。

Thank you, Donna. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. With me on today's call are Rob Willett, Cognex' President and CEO; and Paul Todgham, our CFO. Our results were released earlier today. The press release, annual report on Form 10-K and a newly introduced quarterly earnings presentation are available on the Investor Relations section of our website.

謝謝你，唐娜。大家，早安。感謝您加入我們。與我一起參加今天電話會議的是康耐視總裁兼執行長 Rob Willett；和我們的財務長 Paul Todgham。我們的結果於今天早些時候發布。新聞稿、10-K 表格年度報告以及新推出的季度收益報告可在我們網站的投資者關係部分取得。

Today's earnings materials and statements we will make during this call contain forward-looking statements and are based upon information we believe to be true as of today. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that are described in our SEC filings, including our most recent Form 10-K filed this morning for 2023.

我們將在本次電話會議中發布的今天的收益資料和聲明包含前瞻性聲明，並且基於我們認為截至今天的真實資訊。所有前瞻性陳述均受到我們向 SEC 提交的文件中所述的風險和不確定性的影響，包括我們今天早上提交的 2023 年最新 10-K 表格。

Before I hand it over to Rob and Paul to discuss the results and outlook, I want to spend a minute explaining changes to our reporting metrics that you will notice. As we previewed with you on last quarter, after the acquisition of Moritex in the fourth quarter, we now have a more material level of acquisition costs and amortization of intangible assets. As our financial results have begun to be more impacted by these nonrecurring and purchase accounting charges, we've made changes to our non-GAAP measures to exclude those charges from the reporting of our adjusted earnings figures. This change in methodology applies to our calculation of non-GAAP operating expense, operating income and net income per share.

在我將其交給 Rob 和 Paul 討論結果和前景之前，我想花一點時間解釋一下您會注意到的我們報告指標的變化。正如我們在上個季度與您預覽的那樣，在第四季度收購 Moritex 後，我們現在的收購成本和無形資產攤銷有了更實質的水平。由於我們的財務表現開始更多地受到這些一次性會計費用和採購會計費用的影響，我們對非公認會計原則措施進行了更改，以將這些費用排除在調整後收益數據的報告之外。這種方法上的變化適用於我們對非公認會計準則營運費用、營運收入和每股淨利潤的計算。

We have also introduced and we expect to be reporting on and speaking to more frequently adjusted gross margin, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. These changes and the new non-GAAP measures referenced on our call today are clearly defined with a historical look back to prior period impacts in the earnings presentation posted to our website this morning.

我們也介紹並預計將更頻繁地報告和討論調整後的毛利率、調整後的 EBITDA 和自由現金流。這些變更和我們今天電話會議中提到的新的非公認會計原則措施都透過今天早上發佈在我們網站上的收益報告中對前期影響的歷史回顧進行了明確定義。

You can also see a reconciliation of certain items from GAAP to non-GAAP in our earnings press release. We want to emphasize that our previously communicated long-term financial targets of 15% revenue growth, mid-70% gross margin and over 30% operating margin are unchanged and should be evaluated on an adjusted basis, excluding these nonrecurring and purchase accounting charges.

您也可以在我們的收益新聞稿中看到某些項目從 GAAP 到非 GAAP 的調整。我們想強調的是，我們先前傳達的15%收入成長、70%中期毛利率和30%以上營業利潤率的長期財務目標沒有改變，應該在調整後的基礎上進行評估，不包括這些非經常性和採購會計費用。

Next, Rob will discuss our fourth quarter and 2023 results, Paul with then provide additional detail on the financials, and Rob will conclude with our outlook and a discussion on how our execution of strategic initiatives in 2023 sets us up for the future growth.

接下來，Rob 將討論我們第四季度和2023 年的業績，Paul 隨後提供有關財務狀況的更多詳細信息，Rob 將最後介紹我們的展望，並討論我們在2023 年執行戰略舉措如何為我們未來的成長奠定基礎。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob.

這樣，我就把電話轉給羅布。

Thanks, Nathan. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. 2023 was a year of perseverance at Cognex. We advanced many high potential strategic initiatives while navigating a global manufacturing recession. We continue to take important steps towards achieving our strategic priorities and long-term goals.

謝謝，內森。大家好，感謝您加入我們。 2023 年是康耐視堅持不懈的一年。在應對全球製造業衰退的同時，我們推動了許多高潛力的策略舉措。我們繼續採取重要步驟來實現我們的策略重點和長期目標。

After growing almost 30% in 2021, fueled by pandemic-related acceleration in logistics and electronics investments, revenue was slightly down in 2022 and declined 17% in 2023. Customers have remained cautious with investments as we observed lower confidence in near-term end demand, leading to increased CapEx scrutiny and delayed orders. PMI readings have now reached 15 consecutive months in contraction territory, which is the longest such stretch since the tech bubble and 9/11 period over 20 years ago. Investment in China remains especially muted.

受疫情相關的物流和電子投資加速推動，2021 年收入增長近30%，但2022 年收入略有下降，2023 年下降17%。客戶對投資保持謹慎態度，因為我們觀察到對近期最終需求的信心較低，導致資本支出審查增加和訂單延遲。 PMI 讀數目前已連續 15 個月處於收縮區間，這是自 20 多年前科技泡沫和 9/11 事件以來最長的收縮區間。對中國的投資仍尤其低迷。

In addition to these macro challenges faced by both Cognex and its peers, a high exposure to the leaders in the industries we serve was a headwind for us in 2023. About half of our 2023 revenue decline was driven by 2 large long-standing customers who reduced their spending after heavy investment in prior years. However, we are confident that we still maintained or gained share with each of these customers.

除了康耐視及其同行面臨的這些宏觀挑戰之外，我們在2023 年對我們所服務行業的領導者的高度關注也是一個阻力。我們2023 年收入下降的大約一半是由兩個大型長期客戶造成的，這兩個客戶經過前幾年的大量投資後，他們減少了支出。然而，我們有信心我們仍然保持或增加了與這些客戶的份額。

In some of our end markets, notably EV battery and semiconductor manufacturing, large investment plans are underway. Many of these projects have not reached a stage where significant volume of our products is ordered but we anticipate our customers' manufacturing projects that broke ground in 2022 and 2023 will represent future revenue opportunity for Cognex.

在我們的一些終端市場，特別是電動車電池和半導體製造領域，大型投資計畫正在進行中。其中許多項目尚未達到大量訂購我們產品的階段，但我們預計客戶於 2022 年和 2023 年破土動工的製造項目將為康耐視帶來未來的收入機會。

Throughout 2023, we stayed disciplined in our approach to discretionary spending and thoughtful about hiring. We have faced challenging periods before in our 43-year history, and we have shown the ability to evolve. For example, in the year 2000, semi customers accounted for over half of our revenue and we saw a significant downturn in that business.

2023 年全年，我們在可自由支配支出方面保持了嚴格的紀律，並對招聘進行了深思熟慮。在我們 43 年的歷史中，我們曾經面臨過充滿挑戰的時期，但我們已經展現了發展的能力。例如，在 2000 年，半客戶占我們營收的一半以上，我們看到這項業務大幅下滑。

To adjust, we moved fast to diversify our business towards factory automation and penetrate the Chinese market. While different today, we see disruptive trends playing out in our markets, such as the shift away from internal combustion engines towards EVs and deep learning machine vision technology becoming accessible to an increasing number of customers and applications. We are mobilizing to capitalize on these trends and remain focused on the long term and on continuing to evolve to deliver future growth.

為了進行調整，我們迅速採取行動，實現業務多元化，邁向工廠自動化並滲透中國市場。儘管今天有所不同，但我們看到市場中出現了顛覆性趨勢，例如從內燃機轉向電動車，以及越來越多的客戶和應用程式可以使用深度學習機器視覺技術。我們正在動員起來，利用這些趨勢，並繼續專注於長期發展，不斷發展以實現未來的成長。

Before I go into more detail on this evolution and our outlook, let me turn it over to Paul for the financial results for the quarter.

在詳細介紹這一演變和我們的前景之前，讓我將本季的財務表現交給 Paul。

Thank you, Rob, and hello, everyone. Turning to results for the fourth quarter. Revenue declined 18% on a reported basis. This includes $7 million of revenue or a 3-percentage point contribution from Moritex. I'll also remind you that we're comparing against the fourth quarter in 2022 that included $20 million of revenue that shifted from the third quarter due to the fire at our primary contract manufacturer.

謝謝你，羅布，大家好。轉向第四季的業績。據報道，收入下降了 18%。其中包括 700 萬美元的收入或 Moritex 的 3 個百分點的貢獻。我還要提醒您，我們正在與 2022 年第四季度進行比較，其中包括由於我們的主要合約製造商發生火災而從第三季度轉移的 2000 萬美元收入。

From an end market standpoint, our biggest year-on-year declines remained in consumer electronics and semi. Broader softness continued across our other factory automation businesses such as automotive, medical-related, consumer products and food and beverage. The underlying business conditions we are seeing in each of these end markets remain consistent with what we reported in the past 2 quarters. These end markets were roughly flat sequentially but declined year-on-year, mostly driven by the timing of 2022 revenue due to the fire.

從終端市場的角度來看，年比跌幅最大的仍然是消費性電子產品和半成品。汽車、醫療相關、消費品以及食品和飲料等其他工廠自動化業務繼續呈現更廣泛的疲軟態勢。我們在每個終端市場看到的基本業務狀況與我們過去兩個季度報告的情況保持一致。這些終端市場環比大致持平，但同比下降，主要是由於火災導致 2022 年收入成長。

Within automotive, we continue to see softness across the internal combustion business and increasing demand from EV battery manufacturers. Logistics remained stable, contributing growth sequentially and roughly flat year-on-year. On a geographic basis, revenue in the Americas increased sequentially driven by growth in logistics. Revenue in China stepped down further in the quarter as we continue to see a challenging economic environment. Year-on-year revenue declined across all regions with the steepest decline in China.

在汽車領域，我們繼續看到內燃機業務的疲軟以及電動車電池製造商的需求不斷增加。物流維持穩定，貢獻季增，年比基本持平。從地理來看，美洲地區的收入在物流成長的推動下持續成長。由於我們繼續看到充滿挑戰的經濟環境，本季中國的收入進一步下降。所有地區的收入年比均出現下降，其中中國降幅最大。

Adjusted gross margin in Q4 was in line with expectations at 70.7% or 68.7% on a reported basis, including $4 million of acquisition costs and intangible asset amortization and cost of sales. Compared to last year, favorability from the decline in broker buys was offset by volume deleverage, Moritex and unfavorable mix. On a sequential basis, adjusted gross margin was down slightly due to Moritex.

第四季調整後毛利率與預期一致，為 70.7%，報告基礎上為 68.7%，其中包括 400 萬美元的收購成本以及無形資產攤銷和銷售成本。與去年相比，券商購買量下降帶來的好感被成交量去槓桿化、Moritex 和不利的組合所抵消。環比來看，由於 Moritex 的影響，調整後毛利率略有下降。

Let's turn now to operating expenses. Adjusted operating expenses increased $5 million or 5% sequentially and $6 million or 6% year-on-year. The sequential increase is due to the timing of incentive compensation and other employee benefits and the addition of Moritex. The year-on-year increase is driven by the investment in the Emerging Customer initiative and Moritex, partially offset by continued diligent cost management and lower incentive compensation. Excluding the Emerging Customer initiative in Moritex, adjusted OpEx would have declined by $4 million or 4% year-on-year.

現在讓我們轉向營運費用。調整後營運費用較上季增加 500 萬美元，即 5%，年增 600 萬美元，即 6%。環比增長是由於激勵薪酬和其他員工福利的時間表以及 Moritex 的加入所致。同比成長是由對新興客戶計劃和 Moritex 的投資推動的，但部分被持續努力的成本管理和較低的激勵薪酬所抵消。如果不包括 Moritex 的新興客戶計劃，調整後的營運支出將年減 400 萬美元，即 4%。

As you'll see in our non-GAAP reconciliation tables, we had $8 million of acquisition costs and $2 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was 13% in Q4, below Q4 of 2022 due, primarily to operating deleverage and our investment in Emerging Customers. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.11 in Q4, a year-on-year decline driven by lower revenue and margins, partially offset by a lower tax rate and share count.

正如您將在我們的非 GAAP 調節表中看到的那樣，本季我們的收購成本為 800 萬美元，與收購相關的無形資產攤銷為 200 萬美元。第四季調整後 EBITDA 為 13%，低於 2022 年第四季，這主要是由於經營去槓桿化和我們對新興客戶的投資。第四季調整後攤薄每股收益為 0.11 美元，年減是由於收入和利潤率下降所致，但稅率和股數下降部分抵消了這一下降。

Turning to the balance sheet. Cognex reported a strong net cash position at the end of Q4 with $576 million in cash and investments and no debt. The $270 million quarter-on-quarter decline was driven by the closing of the Moritex transaction in the quarter. After acquiring Moritex, we believe we still have sufficient capital to support our growth plans and to continue to return capital to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends.

轉向資產負債表。康耐視報告第四季末擁有強勁的淨現金頭寸，現金和投資為 5.76 億美元，無債務。季度環比下降 2.7 億美元是由於本季 Moritex 交易完成所致。收購Moritex後，我們相信我們仍然有足夠的資本來支持我們的成長計劃，並繼續透過股票回購和股息向股東返還資本。

With that, I'll turn it back over to Rob to discuss the future growth drivers and the outlook.

接下來，我會將其轉回給 Rob，討論未來的成長動力和前景。

Thanks, Paul. And thank you, Paul, for being a valued member of our executive team over the past 4 years. As previously announced, Paul will be leaving Cognex on March 15. He's made significant contributions to Cognex' success, including enhancing Cognex's planning and budgeting process and overseeing investments in Cognex' CRM platform. The external search for our next CFO is progressing well. I am pleased with the quality of candidates we're seeing, and we will update you with developments as they become available.

謝謝，保羅。保羅，謝謝你在過去 4 年裡成為我們執行團隊的重要成員。正如先前宣布的，Paul 將於 3 月 15 日離開康耐視。他為康耐視的成功做出了重大貢獻，包括加強康耐視的規劃和預算流程以及監督康耐視 CRM 平台的投資。我們下任財務長的外部搜尋工作進展順利。我對我們看到的候選人的品質感到滿意，一旦有進展，我們將向您通報最新情況。

Now let me spend some time discussing how we continue to invest in the future despite near-term macro challenges. Last year, Cognoids worked hard to release more products than in any previous year in Cognex history. Our portfolio of new products leverages the best rule-based vision while incorporating more human-like inspection capabilities made possible by advances in deep learning and edge learning artificial intelligence technology.

現在讓我花一些時間討論儘管近期面臨宏觀挑戰，我們如何繼續投資未來。去年，Cognoids 努力發布了比康耐視歷史上任何一年都多的產品。我們的新產品組合利用了基於規則的最佳視覺，同時融入了透過深度學習和邊緣學習人工智慧技術的進步而實現的更多類人檢查功能。

As with many industries, developments in AI have profound implications for industrial machine vision. We were early to identify major advancements in AI technology, leading to the acquisition of ViDi Systems and Sualab in 2017 and 2019. These acquisitions jump-started our innovation around the use of convolutional neural networks, the technology now powering our deep learning and edge learning products. AI makes our products easier to use and sell and makes machine vision more human-like, enabling Cognex to expand its applications where human inspectors have previously been the only viable option.

與許多行業一樣，人工智慧的發展對工業機器視覺具有深遠的影響。我們很早就發現了人工智慧技術的重大進步，並於2017 年和2019 年收購了ViDi Systems 和Sualab。這些收購啟動了我們圍繞卷積神經網路使用的創新，該技術現在為我們的深度學習和邊緣學習提供動力產品。人工智慧使我們的產品更易於使用和銷售，並使機器視覺更加人性化，使康耐視能夠擴展其應用程序，而人類檢查員以前是唯一可行的選擇。

Increases in the cost and scarcity of labor continues to be a problem for our customers. We estimate that 35 million people across the globe are manually completing vision inspection tasks, such as examining products for scratches, dents and defects. One of our customers estimates that they spend over $1 billion per year on human visual inspectors. AI-enabled machine vision can complete this work more cost effectively while helping to improve quality and productivity.

成本增加和勞動力稀缺仍然是我們客戶面臨的問題。我們估計，全球有 3500 萬人手動完成視覺檢查任務，例如檢查產品是否有刮痕、凹痕和缺陷。我們的一位客戶估計，他們每年在人工視覺檢查員上的花費超過 10 億美元。支援人工智慧的機器視覺可以更經濟高效地完成這項工作，同時有助於提高品質和生產力。

Our deep domain knowledge allows us to leverage the best of rule-based deep learning and edge learning technologies to address the full spectrum of customer needs. We remain dedicated to helping the world's most sophisticated manufacturers and logistics providers achieve their goals while also bringing Cognex machine vision technology to more markets and new customers.

我們深厚的領域知識使我們能夠利用最佳的基於規則的深度學習和邊緣學習技術來滿足全方位的客戶需求。我們始終致力於幫助世界上最先進的製造商和物流供應商實現他們的目標，同時將康耐視機器視覺技術帶給更多市場和新客戶。

To reach the broader customer base that can now be served by our new easier-to-use edge learning technology, we launched our Emerging Customer initiative, a sales force expansion that drove $28 million of OpEx in 2023. Our initial Emerging Customer sales class is now trained and has started to sell. We expect this initial class of Emerging Customer salesnoids to generate over $50 million of incremental revenue and positively contribute to operating income in 2024.

為了涵蓋更廣泛的客戶群（現在可以透過我們更容易使用的新邊緣學習技術來服務），我們推出了新興客戶計劃，這是一項銷售隊伍擴張，在2023 年推動了2800 萬美元的營運支出。我們最初的新興客戶銷售類別是現在已經接受培訓並開始銷售。我們預計首批新興客戶銷售人員將產生超過 5,000 萬美元的增量收入，並對 2024 年的營業收入做出積極貢獻。

Early orders reinforce our belief that this initiative can be gross margin accretive. Now equipped with the right products and with a defined process for hiring and training, we are well positioned to welcome our second class of Emerging Customer salesnoids this year. We have budgeted approximately $25 million of additional OpEx for this initiative in 2024.

早期訂單增強了我們的信念，即這項舉措可以增加毛利率。現在，我們配備了合適的產品以及明確的招募和培訓流程，並已準備好迎接今年的第二批新興客戶銷售人員。我們為 2024 年該計劃額外投入了約 2,500 萬美元的營運支出預算。

I'll turn now to our outlook for the first quarter, along with a few thoughts on the full year. In the first quarter, we expect the following results: revenue between $190 million and $205 million, which represents flat year-on-year and sequential growth, reflecting another challenging quarter. I will note that this is narrower than our normal $20 million range as we continue to see a relatively stable operating environment. Moritex should contribute 6% to 8% of revenue in Q1 and for the year.

我現在將談談我們對第一季的展望，以及對全年的一些想法。我們預計第一季的結果如下：營收在 1.9 億美元至 2.05 億美元之間，年比和環比成長持平，反映出另一個充滿挑戰的季度。我要指出的是，這比我們正常的 2000 萬美元範圍要窄，因為我們繼續看到相對穩定的營運環境。 Moritex 應貢獻第一季和全年營收的 6% 至 8%。

Adjusted gross margin in the high 60% range. Gross margin continues to be below our long-term targets given volume deleverage and negative mix. A full quarter of Moritex is expected to be an approximately 2-percentage point drag on gross margin, an incremental 100 basis point headwind compared to Q4. Our gross margin guidance also includes an approximately 2 percentage point drag from a strategic logistics project with a large customer. The project has higher upfront cost but includes high-margin recurring revenue enabled by our edge intelligence software.

調整後的毛利率在 60% 左右。鑑於銷售去槓桿化和負面組合，毛利率繼續低於我們的長期目標。 Moritex 整個季度的毛利率預計將下降約 2 個百分點，與第四季相比增加了 100 個基點。我們的毛利率指導還包括來自大客戶的策略物流項目約 2 個百分點的拖累。此專案的前期成本較高，但包括我們的邊緣智慧軟體帶來的高利潤經常性收入。

We expect adjusted operating expenses to increase mid-single digits on a sequential basis due to investment in our Emerging Customer initiatives, higher incentive compensation and the impact of a full quarter of Moritex operations. For the full year, we expect the incremental $25 million of Emerging Customer OpEx to ramp throughout the year, similar to the investment we made in 2023. We also expect incentive compensation to be a $15 million to $20 million year-on-year headwind.

由於對新興客戶計劃的投資、更高的激勵薪酬以及 Moritex 整個季度營運的影響，我們預計調整後的營運費用將環比增長中個位數。就全年而言，我們預計新興客戶營運支出將全年增加 2,500 萬美元，與我們在 2023 年的投資類似。我們也預計激勵薪酬將年增 1,500 萬至 2,000 萬美元。

While we continue to see a challenging operating environment in the first quarter, we are more optimistic about the back half of the year. We have started to see signs in longer cycle businesses that momentum could be building. For the full year, we expect logistics to grow as we start to see infrastructure investment plans materializing, though logistics growth this year will likely still be below the long-term market growth we expect. We expect our EV battery business to be a strong growth driver long term but we are seeing more tentativeness from these customers, driven by uncertainty around end-user demand and the political environment.

雖然我們第一季的經營環境仍然充滿挑戰，但我們對下半年的情況更加樂觀。我們已經開始在週期較長的企業中看到勢頭可能正在增強的跡象。就全年而言，隨著基礎設施投資計畫開始落實，我們預計物流將會成長，儘管今年的物流成長可能仍低於我們預期的長期市場成長。我們預計我們的電動車電池業務將成為長期強勁的成長動力，但我們看到這些客戶在最終用戶需求和政治環境的不確定性的推動下更加猶豫不決。

The semi landscape is improving, as you have heard from the leading semi equipment manufacturers, with more optimistic 2024 outlook. Consumer electronics has positive long-term trends but the timing and in-year contribution remains uncertain. As usual, we expect to have more visibility by next quarter and to give you more clarity for the year on our next earnings call.

正如您從領先的半導體設備製造商那裡聽到的那樣，半導體行業的前景正在改善，2024 年的前景更加樂觀。消費性電子產品有正面的長期趨勢，但時機和年內貢獻仍不確定。與往常一樣，我們預計到下個季度會有更多的可見性，並在下一次財報電話會議上讓您更清楚地了解今年的情況。

While we expect to deliver below target growth in the first half, we remain confident in our 15% annual revenue growth target over the medium to long term. Based on double-digit market growth, expansion of our served markets, our pipeline of new products and our reputation with leading manufacturers, we believe the progress Cognoids have made last year on several promising initiatives positions us well for the future.

雖然我們預計上半年的成長將低於目標，但我們對中長期 15% 的年收入成長目標仍然充滿信心。基於兩位數的市場成長、我們所服務的市場的擴展、我們的新產品系列以及我們在領先製造商中的聲譽，我們相信Cognoids 去年在幾項有前途的舉措上取得的進展使我們在未來佔據有利地位。

Now we will open the call for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

現在我們將開始提問。接線員，請繼續。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from Andrew Buscaglia of BNP Paribas.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自法國巴黎銀行的安德魯·巴斯卡利亞（Andrew Buscaglia）。

So in your commentary for your Q1 guidance, you talked about some signs of stabilization or stabilization, and the guidance implies just a modest sequential decline. Where are you seeing that stabilization? It sounds like logistics is a little bit better than you would have expected. And then can you just comment around some of the other end markets, I know visibility is limited but where you see that momentum building?

因此，在您對第一季指導的評論中，您談到了一些穩定或穩定的跡象，而該指導僅意味著適度的連續下降。您在哪裡看到這種穩定？聽起來物流比你想像的好一點。然後你能評論一下其他一些終端市場嗎？我知道能見度有限，但你在哪裡看到這種勢頭正在增強？

Yes. Thanks, Andrew. So we have a sales funnel. We see order patterns that are -- that exist across our business, so we have some pretty good kind of visibility about how the business is looking and the sort of volatility that we see in that. So the overall picture seems to be stabilizing overall. As you say, I think where there is more sort of positive momentum, yes, in logistics. We see that building across a number of other markets and of our larger markets also. And we see EV battery continues to have a nice growth momentum behind it. Generally, our European business also seems to be pretty stable and growing, in a way, in terms of its momentum overall.

是的。謝謝，安德魯。所以我們有一個銷售漏斗。我們看到訂單模式存在於我們的業務中，因此我們對業務的外觀以及我們在其中看到的波動性有一些相當好的可見性。因此，整體情況似乎整體趨於穩定。正如你所說，我認為在物流方面有更多積極勢頭。我們看到許多其他市場和我們更大的市場也在建立這種勢頭。我們看到電動車電池繼續保持良好的成長勢頭。總的來說，我們的歐洲業務似乎也相當穩定，在某種程度上，就其整體動能而言，正在成長。

So those would be positive areas. I think more uncertainty would be around China, right? As we mentioned, we'll give you a better readout on consumer electronics, whether we know kind of how that's looking for the year. But it's not -- there's nothing particularly to point at this point about that. So I think that's the overall color. It's not strong but it's not the sort of whipsaw or decline that we saw, if you go back sort of into last year back a few quarters that we were seeing, we see more relative stability.

所以這些將是正面的領域。我認為中國周圍會有更多的不確定性，對嗎？正如我們所提到的，無論我們是否知道今年的消費性電子產品情況如何，我們都會為您提供更好的消費性電子產品資訊。但事實並非如此——目前還沒有什麼特別值得指出的。所以我認為這就是整體顏色。它並不強勁，但也不是我們看到的那種洗盤或下降，如果你回顧去年我們所看到的幾個季度，我們會看到更多的相對穩定性。

Yes. Okay, okay. And then just some clarification on the Q1 guide for margins. Is it fair to say excluding -- it sounds like a 2-point dilution from more tax, 2 points from this logistics project, you're closer to 70%. And then following up on that, how do you figure this initiative is gross margin accretive? Or can you talk about some of the pilots you've done or something to give us confidence that, that will lead to positive contributions to margin?

是的。好吧好吧。然後是對第一季利潤率指南的一些澄清。公平地說，如果排除的話，聽起來像是增加稅收稀釋了 2 個百分點，這個物流項目稀釋了 2 個百分點，你就更接近 70%了。接下來，您如何認為該舉措會增加毛利率？或者您能否談談您所做的一些試點工作，或者讓我們相信這將為利潤率帶來積極貢獻的事情？

Yes. Andrew, this is Paul. Why don't I start with your specific kind of gross margin question and then Rob can chime in on emerging customers and any additional color. So we are expecting adjusted gross margin in the high 60% range in Q1. The sequential step down, which is about 200 to 300 basis points, that really is driven by a full quarter of Moritex and then the strategic logistics projects that we called out in Q1, which brings with it additional high-margin recurring revenue. So the -- those are really the drivers from -- yes, from Q4 to Q1.

是的。安德魯，這是保羅。為什麼我不從您的特定毛利率問題開始，然後羅布可以插話新興客戶和任何其他顏色。因此，我們預計第一季調整後的毛利率將在 60% 左右。連續下降約 200 至 300 個基點，這實際上是由 Moritex 整個季度以及我們在第一季度呼籲的戰略物流項目推動的，這帶來了額外的高利潤經常性收入。所以，這些確實是從第四季到第一季的驅動因素。

If we think kind of relative to our full target, our target of mid-70%, I think there's really 3 drivers there, and two of which are the same. One is we expect deleverage from muted volume and negative mix to continue to be 200 to 300 basis point headwind in the first quarter. And again, that's driven by a few factors, just lower revenue levels overall as well as product mix. Q1 is typically a lower quarter for consumer electronics, for instance, which is primarily software and comes with very high -- higher gross margins.

如果我們認為相對於我們的全部目標，即 70% 的目標，我認為確實有 3 個驅動因素，其中兩個是相同的。其中之一是，我們預計第一季成交量低迷和負面組合帶來的去槓桿化將繼續面臨 200 至 300 個基點的逆風。同樣，這是由幾個因素驅動的，只是整體收入水準和產品組合的降低。例如，第一季通常是消費性電子產品的較低季度，消費性電子產品主要是軟體，毛利率非常高。

And then Moritex, a full quarter of Moritex is overall a 200 basis point rough headwind, and that's an incremental 100 basis points compared to Q4. And then the strategic project we referenced is also about a 2 percentage point or 200 basis point drag. This is something we don't tend to report very often extent. Actually, I was looking through my notes. I think Q3 2021 was the last time we called out any one project having a strategic impact.

然後是 Moritex，整個季度的 Moritex 整體上面臨 200 個基點的逆風，與第四季相比增加了 100 個基點。然後我們提到的戰略項目也有大約2個百分點或200個基點的拖累。這是我們不常報告的範圍。事實上，我正在翻閱我的筆記。我認為 2021 年第三季是我們最後一次點名具有策略影響的專案。

So it's not something that we would generally expect to be reporting and I don't have visibility to more of those this year. But it is very opportunistic. And when we see a great opportunity to build a long-term revenue even if it comes with some upfront costs, we'll, of course, make that investment.

因此，這不是我們通常期望報告的內容，而且今年我看不到更多的內容。但這是非常機會主義的。當我們看到建立長期收入的絕佳機會，即使需要一些前期成本，我們當然會進行投資。

Yes. Thanks, Paul. And I think -- so I give maybe some longer-term color. I think it will be difficult to get back to our mid-70% gross margin target this year until we have a recovery in volumes and fully integrate Moritex. But I think how we see -- or I know how we see our gross margins kind of improving over time include three factors I'll point out. One is emerging customers, right? So we're out selling highly profitable embedded systems through that channel, and we're excited about what we see with those products and that sales force.

是的。謝謝，保羅。我認為——所以我可能會給出一些長期的色彩。我認為，在銷量恢復並完全整合 Moritex 之前，今年很難回到 70% 的毛利率目標。但我認為我們如何看待——或者我知道我們如何看待我們的毛利率隨著時間的推移而有所改善，包括我將指出的三個因素。一是新興客戶，對吧？因此，我們透過該管道銷售高利潤的嵌入式系統，我們對這些產品和銷售團隊所看到的情況感到興奮。

New products. So we have a pipeline of new products we've introduced last year that are ramping nicely, very nicely, some of our most successful products ever. And they come with a strongly accretive gross margin for Cognex. And the third factor would be the Consumer Electronics business. It was the worst performing of our large markets last year. It can have a cyclicality and a volatility, and we fully expect it to return and deliver some strong growth at some point, whether that's this year or not, will certainly all help to boost our gross margins right back to where we expect them to be.

新產品。因此，我們去年推出了一系列新產品，這些產品正在快速發展，其中一些是我們有史以來最成功的產品。它們為康耐視帶來了強勁的毛利率成長。第三個因素是消費性電子業務。這是去年我們大型市場中表現最差的。它可能具有週期性和波動性，我們完全預計它會在某個時候回歸併實現強勁增長，無論是今年與否，這肯定會有助於將我們的毛利率提高到我們預期的水平。

Other things I think are worth pointing out on the broader margin discussion, one is that Moritex is a drag on our gross margin but has come with very strong operating margins that are accretive to us as a business. And as we continue to integrate it and sell its products more directly, attached to Cognex vision systems, and we develop the specialty optics business that they bring -- and we bring together and integrate them, we expect this to be a nice tailwind for us on our operating margin.

我認為在更廣泛的利潤率討論中值得指出的其他事情是，Moritex 拖累了我們的毛利率，但它帶來了非常強勁的營業利潤率，這對我們作為一個企業來說是增值的。隨著我們繼續整合它並更直接地銷售其產品，附加到康耐視視覺系統，我們開發它們帶來的特種光學業務- 我們將它們聚集在一起並集成，我們希望這對我們來說是一個很好的推動力我們的營業利益率。

So still challenging in 2024 but what we have shown through our history and many times in my 15 years here is when we pivot back to growth, there's very, very strong fall-through on incremental revenue that occurs at Cognex. So that also gives us great confidence that we should be able to get back to our overall targets.

因此，2024 年仍然充滿挑戰，但我們的歷史以及我在這 15 年裡多次表明的是，當我們轉向成長時，康耐視的增量收入會出現非常非常強烈的下滑。因此，這也給了我們很大的信心，我們應該能夠回到我們的整體目標。

The next question is coming from Jim Ricchiuti of Needham & Company.

下一個問題來自 Needham & Company 的 Jim Ricchiuti。

Two questions. First on the EV portion of the business, just in light of the mixed demand trends that we've all been reading about geographically on the EV business. How are you seeing that business? For instance, what's your line of sight? Because my sense is you may be a little bit removed from what's happening on the EV battery side.

兩個問題。首先是業務的電動車部分，考慮到我們都在了解電動車業務的地理混合需求趨勢。您如何看待這項業務？例如，你的視線是什麼？因為我的感覺是，您可能對電動車電池方面發生的事情有些疏遠。

Yes. Thanks, Jim. I've spent a lot of time in the last 2 quarters out meeting with a lot of EV battery manufacturing companies. So I can tell you that there's a huge investment going on in that industry, particularly in Europe and America. It's -- so Cognex has two really kind of vectors, I would say, on that growth. One is just building lines. These customers are building EV production lines to coat and cut in the line and stack and inspect EV batteries, right? And they're -- I visited just in Europe last week, 2 companies that are investing over $1 billion to do that, right? Not all of it in automation, obviously, but real momentum. That is not a short-term thing, right? So -- and machine vision is key to them doing that.

是的。謝謝，吉姆。在過去的兩個季度中，我花了很多時間與許多電動車電池製造公司會面。所以我可以告訴你，這個產業正在進行巨大的投資，特別是在歐洲和美國。我想說，康耐視在這種成長方面有兩種真正的載體。其一隻是建構線路。這些客戶正在建造電動車生產線，以在生產線上進行塗層和切割以及堆疊和檢查電動車電池，對嗎？我上週剛訪問了歐洲，有兩家公司為此投資超過 10 億美元，對嗎？顯然，並非全部都是自動化，而是真正的動力。這不是短期的事情，對吧？因此，機器視覺是他們做到這一點的關鍵。

So there's new lines, newbuilds where, as one would expect, Cognex is one of the preferred suppliers for what is quite a challenging machine vision kind of a task that goes on. The second -- so I think that's sort of the -- if you like, the newbuild greenfield type scenario that we might be familiar with from other industries at Cognex. But there's a second thing going on, which is manufacturing of EV batteries is -- it's very competitive on the innovation side but it's also pretty dangerous and legally concerning thing for these companies. So they're very concerned to inspect in quality and we've been developing technology in that market that is very advantaged both through the computational imaging company we bought last year, SAC -- actually, I should say in 2022.

因此，正如人們所期望的那樣，有新的生產線、新建的工廠，康耐視是這項頗具挑戰性的機器視覺任務的首選供應商之一。第二個——所以我認為這就是——如果你願意的話，我們可能在康耐視的其他行業中熟悉過新建綠地類型的場景。但還有第二件事正在發生，那就是電動車電池的製造——它在創新方面非常有競爭力，但對這些公司來說也相當危險和法律上令人擔憂的事情。因此，他們非常關注品質檢查，我們一直在該市場開發技術，透過我們去年收購的計算成像公司 SAC，我們非常有優勢——實際上，我應該說是在 2022 年。

And then our deep learning technology, which help -- those 2 technologies together allow us to image in -- with incredible speed and definition scratches, dents, problems and then diagnose them with deep learning technology to see whether that's a problem or not. I visited a number of companies in the last 6 months who have just said what an extraordinarily challenging and expensive task that is for them, where they're scrapping huge numbers of good batteries that they're just concerned can become problems, cause fires, et cetera, for them later. So there are those 2 things going on, Jim, which is really, I would say, the sort of sweet spot of what Cognex is doing.

然後我們的深度學習技術，這兩種技術一起讓我們能夠以令人難以置信的速度和清晰度成像划痕、凹痕、問題，然後用深度學習技術診斷它們，看看這是否是一個問題。在過去的6 個月裡，我拜訪了一些公司，他們剛剛表示，這對他們來說是一項極其具有挑戰性和昂貴的任務，他們報廢大量優質電池，他們擔心這些電池可能會出現問題，引發火災，等等，稍後為他們提供。所以，吉姆，有這兩件事正在發生，我想說，這確實是康耐視正在做的事情的最佳點。

On the downside, and I think this is what you're hearing and I think we're hearing it too, is there's anxiety. There's anxiety about will EVs be successful as we think? Are they perhaps niche kind of products for wealthy customers, or are they broadly going to cannibalize a lot of the internal combustion engine business that's out there? And I've -- so that's kind of one issue. On the one hand, we will see the slowing sales of EVs and the relatively poor EV numbers reporting out of some of the big companies. So I think there's a concern that they are becoming a little more cautious, the end-user consumers.

不利的一面是，我想這就是你所聽到的，我想我們也聽到了，那就是焦慮。人們擔心電動車會像我們想像的那樣成功嗎？它們是否可能是針對富裕客戶的利基產品，或者它們是否會廣泛蠶食現有的許多內燃機業務？我已經——所以這是一個問題。一方面，我們將看到電動車銷售放緩，以及一些大公司報告的電動車數量相對較差。因此，我認為人們擔心最終用戶消費者會變得更加謹慎。

And then there's another end user vector, which is one Chinese company, BYD, is talking about developing and selling a $12,500 EV car. So -- and really selling it very broadly in some of the markets that perhaps in America, we're less focused on. So there's plenty to be interested in and confused on that vector.

還有另一個最終用戶媒介，即一家中國公司比亞迪，正在討論開發和銷售一款 12,500 美元的電動車。因此，實際上在一些我們不太關注的市場（也許是在美國）廣泛銷售它。因此，這個向量有很多令人感興趣和困惑的地方。

And then the final one in terms of long-term demand, which we see with our customers too, is there is some concern about political changes and support for EV business, right? So most -- one specific large EV producer from Asia has certainly communicated that they're putting some of their investments in the U.S. on hold until they see more of a clarity in the political environment and what that means for some of the subsidies that they would be expecting to receive through the Inflation Reduction Act.

然後，就長期需求而言，我們也從客戶那裡看到了最後一個需求，即對政治變化和對電動車業務的支持存在一些擔憂，對嗎？因此，大多數——亞洲的一家大型電動車生產商肯定已經表示，他們將暫停在美國的部分投資，直到他們看到政治環境更加明朗，以及這對他們的一些補貼意味著什麼。期望透過《通貨膨脹削減法案》獲得收益。

Jim, it's a long answer, but I hope it's helpful.

吉姆，這是一個很長的答案，但我希望它有幫助。

No. Thank you, Rob, for the -- there are a lot of puts and takes, and I think you've highlighted those. And the next question, maybe a little easier and simpler, just on the early customer business. You sound encouraged. Where -- can you elaborate on where are you getting traction? Is that $50 million, by the way, essentially from this first class of salespeople? Or are you including some from the second class that's underway? And is this spread out over the course of the year or back end?

不。謝謝你，羅布，有很多的看法，我想你已經強調了這些。下一個問題可能更簡單一些，只是關於早期客戶業務。你聽起來很受鼓舞。您能詳細說明一下您在哪裡獲得關注嗎？順便問一下，這 5000 萬美元基本上是來自這些一流的銷售人員嗎？或者你是否包含了正在進行的第二期課程中的一些內容？這是在一年中還是在後端進行的？

Yes. So we did pilots about -- starting about 1.5 years ago, so we have a few salesnoids who are kind of helping us understand. We did a lot of experiments, as you might imagine. And then we went out and hired pretty -- a large number of this first class, which came in starting sort of in April, the last of them came in, in October or so. And we've trained them and almost all of them are now in the field. And that's the whole ball game really this year regarding our growth expectations, right? And then we're going to be hiring the second class as we move through the year at different points based on kind of when they become available in the locations we're hiring. And so we wouldn't -- I wouldn't expect them to contribute meaningfully to any kind of revenue growth in 2024, the second class.

是的。所以我們從大約 1.5 年前開始進行了試點，所以我們有一些銷售人員來幫助我們理解。正如你可能想像的那樣，我們做了很多實驗。然後我們出去僱用了相當多的一流人才，他們從四月開始進來，最後一批人是在十月左右進來的。我們已經對他們進行了培訓，現在幾乎所有人都已上崗。這就是今年我們成長預期的全部內容，對嗎？然後，我們將根據我們招募地點的可用時間，在一年中的不同時間點招募第二類員工。因此，我們不會——我不希望他們對 2024 年的任何收入成長做出有意義的貢獻，這是第二類。

And then this is a group of salesnoids that we've trained and given them a great really very advantaged edge learning and ID products. And they're out in the field and we're driving them towards metrics about -- which include activity, kind of number of sales calls and other good sales metrics. And we're measuring that performance. And we do expect there to be learning curve effects, right, as they become better and better trained and better able to execute and we sort of factored that into our numbers. They'll contribute in the first quarter nicely but we expect them to contribute more sequentially each quarter as we move through the year.

這是我們訓練的一組銷售人員，並為他們提供了非常非常有優勢的邊緣學習和 ID 產品。他們在現場，我們正在推動他們制定有關指標，其中包括活動、銷售電話數量和其他良好的銷售指標。我們正在衡量這種表現。我們確實預計會出現學習曲線效應，對吧，因為他們訓練得越來越好，執行能力也越來越強，我們將其納入了我們的數字中。他們將在第一季做出很好的貢獻，但我們預計隨著全年的推移，他們每季都會做出更多貢獻。

And I would just add. This is, we believe, gross margin accretive based on all the tests and pilots we've run so far. And the drivers of that really are twofold. One is many of these customers, not all, but many of them are lower-volume customers. So expectations around volume discounts and so on are clearly lower and we're -- our list price realization is higher. And secondly, we're selling our easiest-to-use products, which have less service associated with them, great technology, again, the power and the software that's allowing us to command quite high margins when we sell.

我只想補充一下。我們相信，根據我們迄今為止進行的所有測試和試點，毛利率會增加。其驅動因素確實是雙重的。一是這些客戶中有很多，不是全部，但其中很多都是小批量的客戶。因此，對批量折扣等的期望顯然較低，而我們的標價實現較高。其次，我們銷售的是最容易使用的產品，這些產品的相關服務較少，技術也很​​出色，同樣，強大的功能和軟體使我們在銷售時能夠獲得相當高的利潤。

The next question is coming from Jacob Levinson of Melius Research.

下一個問題來自 Melius Research 的 Jacob Levinson。

Paul, I appreciate your help over the years and wish you the best of luck in your next endeavor, and hope you get to work hard and play hard, and move fast in whatever that next chapter is.

保羅，我感謝你多年來的幫助，祝你在下一次努力中好運，並希望你努力工作，努力玩耍，無論下一章是什麼，都能快速前進。

Thanks, Jacob.

謝謝，雅各。

Just on China, I know this is -- it's a market I think sometimes that's just hard to know what's really happening if you're not there, and it's certainly been a challenge for a lot of companies that we cover. And obviously, a big piece of that for your folks is consumer electronics and maybe we have to wait another quarter to hear how that's shaping up. But Rob, maybe if you can just give us a sense of what you're hearing broadly from the field in terms of sentiment. And we've heard some companies indicate that January was actually off to a pretty good start. So just curious what you're seeing there.

就中國而言，我知道這是一個我認為有時很難了解實際情況的市場，如果你不在那裡，這對我們報道的許多公司來說無疑是一個挑戰。顯然，對你們的人們來說，其中很大一部分是消費性電子產品，也許我們還得再等一個季度才能知道情況如何。但是羅布，也許您可以讓我們了解您從該領域廣泛聽到的情緒方面的情況。我們聽說一些公司表示一月份其實有了一個很好的開始。所以只是好奇你在那裡看到了什麼。

Yes. So I visited China in the fall for the first time and since pre-COVID. So it has changed. Certainly kind of some of the enthusiasm and growth expectations are different very much. Greater China, for us, experienced the largest year-on-year revenue decline of any of our major regions. So we were down 29% in Q4 year-on-year and 28% for the year. So I think it's going to dampen growth expectations for many companies where that market was such a driver of growth over such a long period. The decline we experienced in automotive was most pronounced in China around the world for Cognex.

是的。因此，自新冠疫情爆發之前，我在秋天第一次訪問了中國。所以它已經改變了。當然，有些熱情和成長期望有很大不同。對我們來說，大中華區的收入年減幅度是我們所有主要地區中最大的。因此，我們在第四季度同比下降了 29%，全年下降了 28%。因此，我認為這將降低許多公司的成長預期，因為該市場在很長一段時間內一直是成長的推動力。對康耐視來說，我們在汽車領域經歷的衰退在中國和全球範圍內最為明顯。

So then certainly, electronics is a key part of our business in China. And as I mentioned, certainly with large customers we're confident that we're maintaining share. And what we do for large smartphone companies and also in the EV space is highly advantaged, and we think we're very well positioned to grow and help them grow as they need to in China.

因此，電子產品無疑是我們在中國業務的關鍵部分。正如我所提到的，對於大客戶，我們當然有信心保持份額。我們為大型智慧型手機公司以及電動車領域所做的工作非常有優勢，我們認為我們處於非常有利的位置，可以在中國發展並幫助他們根據需要成長。

But also, I think we're all seeing, we're in the early innings of a long-term shift in manufacturing away from China that could benefit us nicely this year and beyond. And we're seeing production capacity moving from China, particularly for us, to India and Vietnam, and we're making sure that we have strong presence and relationships in both places to help with that transition. And then obviously, some of the EV battery opportunities that are sort of where there's overcapacity in China and some stagnation there, it is resulting in more businesses around the world, particularly in Europe and the U.S. growing.

而且，我認為我們都看到，我們正處於製造業從中國長期轉移的早期階段，這可能會讓我們今年及以後受益匪淺。我們看到產能從中國轉移到印度和越南，特別是對我們來說，我們正在確保我們在這兩個地方擁有強大的影響力和關係，以幫助實現這一轉變。顯然，中國產能過剩和停滯的一些電動車電池機會正在導致世界各地更多的業務，特別是在歐洲和美國的業務成長。

So my overall view, I would say, in our own business, we have a strong group of committed Cognoids in China. We're seeing very, very low turnover in terms of people leaving the business and a lot of enthusiasm around our new products and new technology. We celebrated with them our 40th anniversary at the -- near the end of last year and saw a lot of kind of Cognex culture playing out strongly, and we have a very seasoned management team. But certainly, I think the business that we kind of expect in China in the years to come will be lower and will result in opportunities elsewhere.

因此，我的總體觀點是，在我們自己的業務中，我們在中國擁有一支強大的、忠誠的 Cognoids 團隊。我們看到員工離職率非常非常低，但人們對我們的新產品和新技術充滿熱情。去年年底，我們與他們一起慶祝了我們的 40 週年紀念日，並看到康耐視文化的多種形式正在蓬勃發展，我們擁有一支經驗豐富的管理團隊。但可以肯定的是，我認為未來幾年我們預計在中國的業務將會減少，並將在其他地方帶來機會。

Yes. And Jake, I'll just add a couple of points specific to kind of our financials and maybe your first comment about I've heard China is off to maybe a little better start in January. So seasonality in China and Asia more broadly is slightly different than other parts of our business. We do typically see a step up from Q4 to Q1. So your comment may be very, very true and we would see it ourselves from a seasonality perspective. We're basically flat against a year ago and flat against Q4 in our Q1 guide. But the answer is quite different. If you're looking sequentially, we're seeing a little bit of a step-up in Asia. If you're looking year-over-year, we're expecting China to be weaker than it was a year ago. So again, depending on your lens, that's one aspect.

是的。傑克，我只想補充一些關於我們財務狀況的具體觀點，也許你對我聽說的中國的第一個評論可能會在一月份有一個更好的開局。因此，中國和亞洲的季節性因素與我們業務的其他部分略有不同。我們通常會看到從第四季到第一季的進步。所以你的評論可能非常非常真實，我們會從季節性的角度來看待它。我們與一年前基本持平，與第一季指南中的第四季持平。但答案卻截然不同。如果你按順序觀察，我們會看到亞洲有所進步。如果你逐年觀察，我們預期中國將比一年前更弱。再說一遍，這只是一方面，取決於您的鏡頭。

And the other color I would give on our full year results, we're -- again, as Rob mentioned, we were down 28% on the year for China. That's 23% in constant currency and a 5-percentage point drag on FX with a weaker CNY. The biggest piece of that, the biggest contributor to that is our consumer electronics business -- or was our consumer electronics business in 2023. So while the overall business was weak, our numbers were worse because of the disproportionate impact that consumer electronics plays in that, which generally does follow different macroeconomic drivers and factors than the core Chinese business. I think it's important to sort of separate those two. And certainly, as we're going through the year, I know the team will call out those differences where they're meaningful.

我要對我們的全年業績給出的另一種顏色是，正如 Rob 所提到的，我們的中國業務比去年同期下降了 28%。以固定匯率計算，這一數字為 23%，人民幣走弱對外匯造成 5 個百分點的拖累。其中最大的部分、貢獻最大的部分是我們的消費電子業務——或者說是我們2023 年的消費性電子業務。因此，雖然整體業務疲軟，但我們的數字更糟糕，因為消費性電子產品在該領域發揮了不成比例的影響。 ，它通常遵循與中國核心業務不同的宏觀經濟驅動因素和因素。我認為將兩者分開很重要。當然，隨著我們度過這一年，我知道團隊會指出這些有意義的差異。

The next question is coming from Joseph Donahue of Baird.

下一個問題來自貝爾德 (Baird) 的約瑟夫·多納休 (Joseph Donahue)。

I'm on for Rob today. I wanted to dig into your discussion about the logistics outlook a little bit. Can you talk about where the optimism is coming from? Is it greenfield or brownfield, larger or small customers and kind of your expectations for the timing on when we might see an uptick?

今天我來找羅布。我想深入探討你們關於物流前景的討論。能談談樂觀情緒從何而來嗎？是綠地還是棕地，是大客戶還是小客戶，您對何時出現成長的預期是什麼？

Sure, yes. Yes. Thanks, Joe. So revenue contracted last year 21% in logistics and was down 25% in 2022 after growing 65% in logistics for us in 2021. So certainly, we've seen kind of, as you know, pandemic-fueled investment particularly around e-commerce in the United States in 2021 and then overcapacity that's being kind of worked through. And so that trend is continuing to play out perhaps as we might have expected. Our logistics business among newer smaller customers continues to grow nicely, not as much as we would like, right, last year but good underlying growth potential playing there and -- that we expect that to see.

當然，是的。是的。謝謝，喬。因此，我們的物流收入去年收縮了21%，在2021 年物流成長了65% 之後，2022 年收入下降了25%。所以，如你所知，我們當然看到了疫情推動的投資，特別是在電子商務方面2021 年美國將出現產能過剩，然後產能過剩問題就會解決。因此，這種趨勢也許正如我們所預期的那樣繼續發展。我們在新的小型客戶中的物流業務繼續良好成長，雖然沒有我們去年希望的那麼快，但那裡有良好的潛在成長潛力——我們預計會看到這一點。

So we did see nice quarter-on-quarter growth in logistics in Q4. So that -- there's a picture developing that we think is pivoting back to growth quite nicely. It's coming from those smaller customers. It's coming from customers beginning to embrace vision technology and edge intelligence. It's coming from a penetrating parcel and postal applications. We're seeing some nice wins from some big names, which are indicative of bigger business coming further. We see potential in a lot of geographies around the world, notably e-commerce in India. So there are certainly those trends happening nicely.

因此，我們確實看到第四季度物流業出現了良好的季度環比成長。因此，我們認為目前的情況正在很好地恢復成長。它來自那些較小的客戶。它來自於客戶開始接受視覺技術和邊緣智慧。它來自滲透包裹和郵政應用程式。我們看到一些知名企業取得了一些不錯的勝利，這表明更大的業務即將到來。我們看到了世界各地許多地區的潛力，尤其是印度的電子商務。所以這些趨勢肯定會很好地發生。

Among our larger customers, we are confident that they will return to being larger customers of Cognex over time. The timing of that might still be a little tricky to call at this point. But I would say that our business is growing -- kind of the momentum in the business, the reach, our technology, its acceptance in the market is growing nicely. I think as one looks around, what one would read that is relevant perhaps to Cognex, not necessarily customers specifically, although possibly Walmart is a great example of the potential in logistics, the companies that they plan to automate or partially automate, many of its 100-plus U.S. warehouses in the coming years. So -- And we see that as a nice example. UPS certainly has been pretty open about their intention to automate and improve the production and throughput in their warehouses. And certainly, we think a very strong potential user of advanced automation and vision technology. So these would be examples of some of the things that we see going on.

在我們的大客戶中，我們相信隨著時間的推移，他們將重新成為康耐視的大客戶。此時此刻，打電話的時機可能還是有點棘手。但我想說的是，我們的業務正在成長——業務的勢頭、影響範圍、我們的技術以及市場的接受度都在良好成長。我認為，當人們環顧四周時，人們會讀到的內容可能與康耐視相關，不一定是特定於客戶，儘管沃爾瑪可能是物流潛力的一個很好的例子，他們計劃實現自動化或部分自動化的公司，其許多公司未來幾年將在美國開設 100 多個倉庫。所以——我們認為這是一個很好的例子。 UPS 確實非常公開地表示他們打算實現自動化並提高倉庫的生產和吞吐量。當然，我們認為先進自動化和視覺技術的潛在用戶非常強大。這些是我們所看到的一些事情的例子。

You will note in our filings that we didn't have a 10% customer last year, so that's obviously notable. But I think there are certainly better days ahead pretty much across the board for our entire logistics business. And we do expect it to grow this year.

您會在我們的文件中註意到，去年我們沒有 10% 的客戶，所以這顯然值得注意。但我認為，對於我們整個物流業務來說，未來肯定會有更好的日子。我們確實預計今年它會成長。

Okay. And then related to that, next question would be kind of could you talk about whether we should have this margin headwind from this logistics project run beyond the first quarter? And then related to that, if the recurring revenue that you've described that's associated with this project something that you think could be kind of expanded in terms of the software you're developing to other customers? Or is it more of a unique situation that it's going to be a one-off?

好的。與此相關的是，下一個問題是，您能否談談我們是否應該在第一季之後繼續應對這個物流項目帶來的利潤逆風？與此相關的是，您所描述的與該專案相關的經常性收入是否可以在您正在開發的軟體方面擴展到其他客戶？或者這更像是一種獨特的情況，它將是一次性的？

So the quick answer is, one, it's an in-quarter event where we took the decision to help a large important customer implement some of this technology that we call edge intelligence. This is a product we've been developing for quite a long time. And what it allows us to do is manage all of our vision systems, very, very appropriate for large customers with large deployments, manage them through middleware, which allows us to calibrate support, upgrade but also provide a lot of key manufacturing data to our customers, right? And we've taken the view for a long time that customers should pay on a monthly subscription basis for that business. And so this is our largest success to that product so far. And we will be -- we've signed a contract that will allow us to bill monthly for that and really hopefully add more functionality over time through it, right?

因此，簡單的答案是，第一，這是一個季度活動，我們決定幫助一個重要的大客戶實施一些我們稱之為邊緣智慧的技術。這是我們已經開發了很長時間的產品。它使我們能夠管理我們所有的視覺系統，非常非常適合大規模部署的大客戶，透過中間件管理它們，這使我們能夠校準支援、升級，同時也為我們的客戶提供大量關鍵製造數據。客戶，對嗎？長期以來，我們一直認為客戶應該按月為該業務付費。這是迄今為止我們對該產品最大的成功。我們將 - 我們已經簽署了一份合同，允許我們每月為此計費，並且真的希望隨著時間的推移通過它添加更多功能，對吧？

Then we have -- when we go out and install now in some of our applications, we provide this technology to customers and we invite them to use it after a free trial period. So this is one of our main pushes to try to get our business more on a subscription-type basis. And that business should be highly profitable as it continues to grow. We've been working really hard on this for a long time. It's still early days in terms of its commercial rollout. This is a really nice first example, and we do expect to see many more as that technology kind of matures and customers become aware of its value.

然後，當我們現在出去安裝一些應用程式時，我們向客戶提供這項技術，並邀請他們在免費試用期後使用它。因此，這是我們試圖在訂閱類型的基礎上獲得更多業務的主要推動力之一。隨著該業務的持續增長，其利潤應該會很高。很長一段時間以來，我們一直在為此努力。就其商業推廣而言還處於早期階段。這是一個非常好的第一個例子，隨著技術的成熟和客戶意識到其價值，我們確實希望看到更多。

The next question is coming from Joe Ritchie of Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的喬·里奇。

Paul, wish you the best of luck. And then love the slides. So thank you for the additional detail this morning. My first question, maybe just starting on Slide 6. I know it's really early in the year, Rob, and kind of hard to have a perfect crystal ball on exact growth rates for 2024. But I'm curious, you already mentioned that logistics you expect to grow in '24. If you had to forced rank your different end markets of businesses in '24 and where you would expect to see the most growth versus potentially the lease growth? I'd love to hear any color you would have at this point.

保羅，祝你好運。然後喜歡幻燈片。感謝您今天早上提供的更多詳細資訊。我的第一個問題，也許只是從幻燈片6 開始。羅布，我知道現在還為時過早，很難對2024 年的確切增長率有一個完美的水晶球。但我很好奇，你已經提到了物流你期望在 24 年成長。如果您必須對 24 年不同的業務終端市場進行強制排名，您期望在哪裡看到最大的成長與潛在的租賃成長？我很想聽聽你現在想要的任何顏色。

Yes. Joe, well, we don't give full guidance. So we don't give certainly full year guidance and we don't give guidance by industry. But I will -- I'll comment a little. I would also say I've been running industrial companies for the best part of 25 years, and this is always a bit of a dark confusing period as we come into January and has a lot of businesses don't really kind of getting gear through January and then we have Chinese New Year. So it's too early to call some of these things.

是的。喬，好吧，我們不提供全面的指導。因此，我們不會提供全年指導，也不會按行業提供指導。但我會——我會發表一些評論。我還想說，25 年來我一直在經營工業公司，進入 1 月份以來，這始終是一段令人困惑的黑暗時期，很多企業並沒有真正讓設備順利通過。一月，然後我們就過中國新年了。所以現在對其中一些事情做出評價還為時過早。

But if I talk about our industries overall, I think it's probably pretty in line with how we think of our long-term growth plans as I look at this year. I think logistics, we expect to see it grow this year, and I think we're confident we're getting back to strong growth there. It's perhaps notable in the logistics to say that can be longer cycle business. So what we might see in bookings may not turn into revenue until possibly 25% but we're confident about we'll be reporting good results in logistics.

但如果我談論我們整個行業，我認為這可能與我今年對長期成長計畫的看法非常一致。我認為物流，我們預計今年會成長，而且我認為我們有信心在那裡恢復強勁成長。值得注意的是，在物流領域，這可能是一個週期較長的業務。因此，我們在預訂中看到的可能要到 25% 才能轉化為收入，但我們有信心在物流方面報告良好的結果。

Consumer electronics has the potential to really come back strongly but as I said, too early to say. Automotive, we view that as sort of a 10% long-term grower and that industry looks like it's having some challenges at the moment. EV, I think we're very confident about that contributing and driving some growth, potentially offsetting declines in internal combustion engine business. But -- so probably, I would rank that as the lower of our big industries with expectations. But things can change quickly. So there's just a few sort of thoughts for you, Joe.

消費性電子產品有潛力真正強勁復甦，但正如我所說，現在下結論還為時過早。汽車產業，我們認為作為 10% 的長期成長者，該產業目前似乎面臨一些挑戰。電動車，我認為我們對貢獻和推動一些成長非常有信心，有可能抵消內燃機業務的下滑。但是，很可能，我會將其列為我們預期中較低的大行業。但事情可能會很快發生變化。喬，我有一些想法要告訴你。

Yes, that's helpful. And totally appreciate the potential volatility but it is helpful color. And I guess, maybe two other real quick ones. So just making sure that I have thought through the gross margin progression correctly from the first quarter through the rest of the year. It sounds like you do expect to get back to 70-plus percent gross margins by 2Q. And then also, I just had a question around free cash flow. Just what are kind of expectations for free cash flow this year? It seemed a little bit lighter than we anticipated in 4Q. Any comments around that would be great.

是的，這很有幫助。並完全欣賞潛在的波動性，但它是有用的顏色。我想，也許還有另外兩個真正快的。因此，只需確保我正確地考慮了從第一季到今年剩餘時間的毛利率進展。聽起來您確實希望到第二季毛利率恢復到 70% 以上。另外，我剛剛有一個關於自由現金流的問題。今年的自由現金流預期如何？第四季的情況似乎比我們預期的要淡一些。任何對此的評論都會很棒。

Sure. So I think, again, without guiding beyond the current quarter, the -- by virtue of a roughly 200 basis point drag from one strategic logistics project, I think you kind of get back to hopefully what you're seeing. The Moritex drag versus our long term will certainly persist for a while until we fully integrate and achieve more synergies and then the impact of volume deleverage and mix. That will change a little bit quarter-to-quarter but obviously growth is the driver there that's going to help us get back to target margins.

當然。因此，我再次認為，在不超出當前季度的指導的情況下，憑藉一個戰略物流項目約 200 個基點的拖累，我認為您會希望回到所看到的情況。 Moritex 對我們長期的拖累肯定會持續一段時間，直到我們完全整合並實現更多協同效應，然後是成交量去槓桿化和混合的影響。這將在每個季度發生一些變化，但顯然成長是那裡的驅動力，將幫助我們回到目標利潤率。

Specifically for free cash flow, the biggest driver of free cash flow for us is obviously our profit. And so as we get more leverage on growth, which we expect to do, obviously, that would help. We did have a little higher investment in working capital in Q4. Some of that is sort of strategic decisions we're making around inventory. So we may see elements of that going forward. But generally speaking, this is a business that continues to generate cash. We do feel quite good about the inventory we have to deliver on our growth expectations. So hopefully, you shouldn't be seeing major drags on the capital side.

特別是對於自由現金流而言，我們自由現金流的最大驅動力顯然是我們的利潤。因此，當我們獲得更多的成長槓桿時（我們希望這樣做），顯然這會有所幫助。第四季我們的營運資金投資確實有所增加。其中一些是我們圍繞庫存做出的策略決策。所以我們可能會看到未來的一些因素。但總的來說，這是一項持續產生現金的業務。我們確實對必須實現成長預期的庫存感到非常滿意。所以希望你不會看到資本上的重大拖累。

The next question is coming from Piyush Avasthy of Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Piyush Avasthy。

Just quickly on Moritex, I think you said 6% to 8% contribution. Can you elaborate on trends you're seeing in Japan and particularly the semi and electronics end market there? Are you seeing some stabilization in those markets as well? Like -- and I know it's still early but have you started to see any synergies as you continue to integrate?

就 Moritex 而言，我想您說過 6% 到 8% 的貢獻。您能否詳細說明您在日本看到的趨勢，特別是那裡的半導體和電子終端市場？您是否也看到這些市場出現一些穩定？就像——我知道現在還為時過早，但隨著你們繼續整合，你們是否開始看到任何協同效應？

Yes, thanks for your question. So yes, so plenty of synergies with Moritex, and we're out of the gate fast on that. A lot of the synergies have to do with helping to sell their product more broadly and across Cognex but we're also integrating our businesses in Japan and we're excited about the reputation and leadership that Moritex brings us in Japan. So you asked about semi, our business in SEMI, and we have -- we're overweight semi in our Japan business now both between Cognex and the Moritex piece that we've acquired. It has -- it did experience a period of tremendous growth in 2021 and the first half of '22. And then the trajectory slowed a lot in the second half of 2022. And there are signs that we may see -- we have more optimism about semi coming back later in the year. And I think it's hard to call it beyond that at this point.

是的，謝謝你的提問。是的，與 Moritex 有著如此多的協同效應，我們很快就會在這方面取得進展。許多協同效應與幫助在整個康耐視更廣泛地銷售他們的產品有關，但我們也在整合我們在日本的業務，我們對 Moritex 在日本為我們帶來的聲譽和領導力感到興奮。因此，您詢問了我們在 SEMI 中的半成品業務，我們現在在日本業務中增持了康耐視和我們收購的 Moritex 業務中的半成品。它確實在 2021 年和 22 年上半年經歷了巨大的增長期。然後，這一軌跡在 2022 年下半年大幅放緩。有跡象表明，我們可能會看到——我們對今年稍後半成品的回歸更加樂觀。我認為目前很難將其稱為超越這一點。

Got it. And just following up on the margin commentary, it was very helpful. Like I think you've talked about some cost management actions and then you continue to invest across our Emerging Customer initiatives. Maybe elaborate on how you are balancing these two heading into '24. And for the cost management actions, are these more structural in nature that can provide you a longer-term tailwind or more transitory that when sales improve, these costs might come back?

知道了。跟進邊際評論，這非常有幫助。就像我認為您已經討論了一些成本管理行動，然後您繼續投資於我們的新興客戶計畫。也許詳細說明一下進入 24 年後您如何平衡這兩者。對於成本管理行動，這些行動本質上是更具結構性，可以為您提供長期的推動力，還是更短暫的，當銷售改善時，這些成本可能會回來？

Yes. Thanks. So as we look at kind of pieces of Cognex's cost, we have sales, big sales expense. We're investing heavily, as you saw in our Emerging Customers, right? And we see that as the potential to make our sales force more productive, where those sales -- those Emerging Customer salespeople will be delivering leads and opportunities to the other -- rest of the sales force. So we're being careful about how we're building that sales force to balance both the more sophisticated and the Emerging Customer salesforce and also balance it in terms of the sophistication but ease of use of our technology. So that's -- there is some sort of changes going on there, which are allowing us to be careful on the cost side in that area.

是的。謝謝。因此，當我們查看康耐視成本的各個部分時，我們有銷售額，龐大的銷售費用。正如您在我們的新興客戶身上看到的那樣，我們正在大力投資，對吧？我們認為這有可能提高我們的銷售團隊的生產力，這些銷售人員——那些新興客戶銷售人員將向其他銷售團隊——其他銷售人員提供線索和機會。因此，我們正在謹慎對待如何建立銷售隊伍，以平衡更成熟的銷售隊伍和新興客戶銷售隊伍，並在我們技術的複雜性和易用性方面取得平衡。因此，那裡正在發生某種變化，這使我們能夠在該領域的成本方面保持謹慎。

Our engineering teams certainly are benefiting from the new AI tools that are available to engineers and those who write software. So certainly, there's some things that we're looking at carefully to make sure that we can increase capacity and manage cost carefully. And then like every company, we have G&A-type functions, again, that are benefiting from process improvement. And in general, we're really not adding headcount or haven't added headcount outside of the Moritex acquisition in really all of the -- if I put aside the Moritex and Emerging Customer pieces, we've been very careful to reduce head count in the rest of the business.

我們的工程團隊無疑受益於工程師和軟體編寫人員可以使用的新人工智慧工具。當然，我們正在仔細研究一些事情，以確保我們能夠增加產能並仔細管理成本。然後像每家公司一樣，我們也有 G&A 類型的職能，這些職能也受益於流程改善。總的來說，我們確實沒有增加員工人數，或者在收購 Moritex 之外的所有業務中都沒有增加員工人數——如果我把 Moritex 和新興客戶部分放在一邊，我們一直非常小心地減少員工數量在其餘的業務中。

Yes. And I think practically this is true for all companies. The biggest variable costs, if we outperform or if we underperform tend to be our incentive compensation, right? So we've called out -- that's a headwind of $15 million to $20 million, just a reset towards our budget targets for 2024, where we are expecting to grow. And outperformance of those internal obviously will drive some incremental commissions and company bonus, and underperformance will drive some leverage but we're obviously starting from a very low incentive compensation in 2023. That's really the biggest driver of the things that are going to change in year depending on our company's performance.

是的。我認為實際上這對所有公司都是如此。如果我們表現出色或表現不佳，最大的變動成本往往是我們的激勵薪酬，對嗎？因此，我們呼籲——這是 1500 萬至 2000 萬美元的逆風，只是對 2024 年預算目標的重新設定，我們預計該目標將實現增長。那些內部人員的出色表現顯然將推動一些增量佣金和公司獎金，而表現不佳將推動一些槓桿作用，但我們顯然是從2023 年非常低的激勵薪酬開始的。這確實是未來將發生變化的最大驅動因素。年取決於我們公司的業績。

Appreciate all the color. Best wishes, Paul, and good luck this year.

欣賞所有的顏色。祝保羅，今年好運。

The next question is coming from Jairam Nathan of Daiwa.

下一個問題來自 Daiwa 的 Jairam Nathan。

So just wanted to get some more details on the $50 million in Emerging Customers. Like if you kind of look at it from a 2023 perspective, it's almost 6% revenue growth. Just wanted to kind of better understand, which end markets are you seeing the first initial success in and what's the kind of -- are you seeing a different set of customers -- of competitors? And the success rate in bids, if you can give some more information around those.

所以我只是想了解有關 5000 萬美元新興客戶的更多詳細資訊。如果你從 2023 年的角度來看，你會發現營收成長了近 6%。只是想更了解，您在哪些終端市場中看到了最初的成功，以及競爭對手的類型（您是否看到了不同的客戶群）？還有投標的成功率，如果您能提供更多有關這些的資訊。

Yes, thank you. Thanks for the question. Yes. So we're really enthusiastic about what's going on in that market. It is -- the -- many, many Emerging Customer salesnoids we have are calling more broadly on manufacturing industries and finding opportunities that may -- are more weighted towards industries like packaging and consumer products, and food and beverage, right? Visited -- I went on right along with one of these -- one of the team members, and we visited a company that made pretzels, would not have been a Cognex customer before, really, not -- certainly not a target for us. So to give you an idea of that. And then -- yes, so there was another aspect of your question, I think.

是的，謝謝。謝謝你的提問。是的。因此，我們對該市場正在發生的事情非常感興趣。我們擁有的許多新興客戶銷售人員正在更廣泛地呼籲製造業，並尋找可能更專注於包裝和消費品以及食品和飲料等行業的機會，對吧？參觀了——我和其中一位團隊成員一起去了，我們參觀了一家生產椒鹽捲餅的公司，這家公司以前不會是康耐視的客戶，真的，不是——當然不是我們的目標。讓您了解一下。然後——是的，我認為你的問題還有另一個面向。

Oh, competitors, yes, yes. Yes, thank you. I think -- so the competitors that we're seeing in that market tend to be more weighted towards optical sensor type companies, right? So of course, we still see our traditional competitors, like some of our Japanese competitors. But it's a broader market. We're finding ourselves in newer situations and where we're seeing more German, American optical sensor suppliers. So traditionally, we haven't thought about competitors but where we can replace potentially many of their products with one of our Snap -- In-Sight Snap vision sensor, for instance.

哦，競爭對手，是的，是的。是的，謝謝。我認為 - 所以我們在該市場看到的競爭對手往往更注重光學感測器類型的公司，對嗎？當然，我們仍然看到我們的傳統競爭對手，例如我們的一些日本競爭對手。但這是一個更廣闊的市場。我們發現自己處於新的境地，我們看到更多的德國、美國光學感測器供應商。因此，傳統上，我們沒有考慮競爭對手，而是考慮我們可以用我們的 Snap 之一（例如 In-Sight Snap 視覺感測器）取代他們的許多產品。

So there are opportunities we're seeing there that are taking us to new places and through the pilots that we did last year and then what we're seeing, these are really great opportunities for us now and to do further work to help our customers realize more value. I would say, just finally, to profile those customers, generally they're going to be much less sophisticated than the large customers we work with. Probably may not have engineers on staff. So our products now are the ones we're selling through that channel are very easy to demonstrate and very easy to install even for the person we send out, the salesnoid that we send out. So yes, it's a new world and we're kind of excited about it.

因此，我們看到了一些機會，這些機會將我們帶到新的地方，透過我們去年所做的試點以及我們所看到的，這些對我們來說確實是一個很好的機會，我們需要做進一步的工作來幫助我們的客戶實現更多價值。最後，我想說的是，為了描述這些客戶，一般來說，他們的複雜性遠低於我們合作的大客戶。可能沒有工程師在職。因此，我們現在透過該管道銷售的產品非常容易演示，即使對於我們派出的人員（我們派出的銷售人員）來說也非常容易安裝。所以，是的，這是一個新世界，我們對此感到興奮。

Okay. And just following up on like -- if I kind of think of a measure like sales per sales employee, a salesperson, where do you see the potential here compared to -- or the gap between the new cohort, the 2023 cohort versus your regular salesforce?

好的。只是跟進——如果我想一個衡量標準，例如每個銷售員工的銷售額，一個銷售人員，與——或者新群體、2023 年群體與常規群體相比，你認為這裡的潛力在哪裡？銷售隊伍？

Well, there -- most of these new salesnoids are coming out of college, right? And so they have a new training and background. Most of them do have engineering backgrounds but they're sort of much -- I think, more comfortable with the technology and interfacing with it. And as the world moves, this might sound like isn't that something that's already happened but from analog to digital and less sort of deep specialty programming, it's a different speed, a different cycle, I would say, in how sales occur.

好吧，這些新推銷員大多都是從大學畢業的，對嗎？所以他們有新的訓練和背景。他們中的大多數人確實有工程背景，但我認為他們對技術和與之互動更熟悉。隨著世界的變化，這聽起來可能不是已經發生的事情，而是從模擬到數位以及不太深入的專業編程，我想說，銷售發生的方式是不同的速度，不同的周期。

But I think what Cognex offers to some of those -- to those new salesnoids is a great career path, right? We're investing in their training and development. They love our culture. We love what they bring to our culture, the energy that they bring. And we hope to see them develop, many of them more into bigger roles more sophisticated sales opportunities, management and all of that. So yes, that's how we're thinking about it.

但我認為康耐視為其中一些——那些新的銷售人員提供了一條很好的職業道路，對嗎？我們正在投資他們的培訓和發展。他們熱愛我們的文化。我們喜歡他們為我們的文化帶來的東西，他們帶來的能量。我們希望看到他們不斷發展，其中許多人扮演更大的角色，擁有更複雜的銷售機會、管理等等。所以是的，這就是我們的想法。

One more question, I think. Yes, please go ahead.

我想還有一個問題。是的，請繼續。

Our last question for today is coming from Ken Newman of KeyBanc Capital Markets.

我們今天的最後一個問題來自 KeyBanc Capital Markets 的 Ken Newman。

This is Katie Fleischer on for Ken today. I just had one question. You mentioned in the prepared remarks that you're starting to see healthy project starts in EV battery and semi end markets, but they haven't really gotten to the point where Cognex is involved yet. I know visibility into these secular trends is pretty limited. But do you have any sense of when you might start to see those impacts flowing through to your results and maybe like when Cognex will typically get involved in projects like that? .

這是凱蒂·弗萊舍今天為肯做的節目。我只有一個問題。您在準備好的評論中提到，您開始看到電動車電池和半終端市場的專案健康啟動，但還沒有真正達到康耐視參與的程度。我知道對這些長期趨勢的了解非常有限。但是您是否知道什麼時候您可能會開始看到這些影響影響到您的結果，也許康耐視通常會在什麼時候參與這樣的專案？ 。

Yes. Well, I should say that we have a healthy -- a pretty significant EV battery business we're building over the last 2 years. We see some nice growth for that. So my comment was really a lot about the funnel and the opportunities that you're seeing, which have grown hugely, I would say, over the last 12 to 18 months. And plants are breaking ground. And generally, with machine vision, we tend to be something that's pretty late in the cycle in terms of when it's purchased and installed.

是的。嗯，我應該說，我們在過去兩年裡建立了一個健康的、相當重要的電動車電池業務。我們看到了一些不錯的成長。所以我的評論實際上是關於你所看到的漏斗和機會，我想說，在過去的 12 到 18 個月裡，這些漏斗和機會有了巨大的成長。植物正在破土動工。一般來說，對於機器視覺，我們往往在購買和安裝週期中處於相當晚的階段。

So my comment was really around that. And so we do expect -- we've planned and expect to see very healthy growth in that business this year. And then what potentially could become a problem is if projects get delayed, they can get delayed in semi and EV because execution is slow, right? We've seen that, right? Can't get labor, can't get the technical expertise that's needed to get these plants launched on time and then political issues. I think I definitely see concern about whether changes in Europe and America are going to go on supporting the level of investment that was sort of touted over the last year or two. So those are some of the uncertainties but the trend and the opportunity and the value of machine vision is clearly there.

所以我的評論確實圍繞著這一點。因此，我們確實預計 - 我們已經計劃並預計今年該業務將實現非常健康的成長。那麼潛在的問題是，如果專案被推遲，半電動車和電動車的專案可能會被推遲，因為執行速度很慢，對嗎？我們已經看到了，對吧？無法獲得勞動力，無法獲得按時啟動這些工廠所需的技術專業知識，然後出現政治問題。我想我確實擔心歐洲和美國的變化是否會繼續支持過去一兩年所吹捧的投資水準。這些是一些不確定性，但機器視覺的趨勢、機會和價值顯然是存在的。

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Willett for closing comments.

謝謝。現在，我想把發言權交還給威利特先生以供結束發言。

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us this morning and we look forward to speaking with you again on next quarter's call.

好的。太感謝了。感謝您今天早上加入我們，我們期待在下個季度的電話會議上再次與您交談。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation and interest in Cognex. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.

女士們、先生們，感謝您的參與以及對康耐視的關注。今天的活動到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路或登出網路廣播，然後享受剩下的一天。