恩智浦 (NXPI) 2012 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the second quarter 2012 NXP Semiconductors N.V. earnings conference call.

My name is Shaquana and I will be your coordinator for today.

(Operator Instructions).

I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Mr. Jeff Palmer, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Please proceed, sir.

Great.

Thank you, Shaquana, and good morning, everyone.

Welcome to the NXP Semiconductors second quarter 2012 earnings call.

With me on the call today is Rick Clemmer, NXP's President and CEO, Peter Kelly, our newly appointed CFO, who takes over as of August 1st, and Kalle Sundstrom, our previous CFO.

We will be all available today during the Q&A portion of the call.

If you've not received or obtained a copy of our second quarter 2012 earnings press release, it can be found on our Company website under the Investor Relations section at nxp.com.

Additionally, we have posted a supplemental earnings summary presentation and an Excel document of our historical financials to assist in your modeling efforts.

This call is being recorded and will be available for replay from our corporate website.

Please be reminded that this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause NXP's results to differ materially from management's current expectations.

The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the macroeconomic impact on the specific end markets in which we operate, the sale of new and existing products, and our expectations for financial results for the third quarter of 2012.

Please be reminded that NXP undertakes no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements.

For a full disclosure on forward-looking statements, please refer to our press release.

Additionally, during our call today, we will make reference to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude the impact of purchase price accounting, restructuring, impairment, and other charges that are driven primarily by discrete events that management does not consider to be directly related to NXP's underlying core operating performance.

Pursuant to Regulation G, NXP has provided reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our second quarter 2012 earnings press release, which will be furnished to the SEC on Form 6-K and available on NXP's website in the Investor Relations section at nxp.com.

Before we begin today, I would like to highlight that we have changed two of the four end markets we report within our HPMS segments.

We have defined the new end markets as Portable and Computing and Infrastructure and Industrial.

These two new end markets replace what were previously known as Wireless Infrastructure, Lighting and Industrial, as well as the end market known as Mobile Consumer and Computing.

Included in the supplemental presentation on our IR website, we have provided a bridge and an explanation of what specific products are reflected in each new end market definition.

there has been no changes to the Automotive and Identification end market definitions.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Rick.

Thanks, Jeff, and welcome, everyone, to our earnings call today.

As is our practice, I will address revenue trends in our various markets and channels, with Peter Kelly now providing more color on profitability and other financial metrics.

We are very pleased with our performance in the second quarter, as we delivered product revenue of $1.02 billion, up 12% sequentially, above the high end of our original guidance.

NXP revenue was $1.09 billion, up nearly 12% sequentially, also above the upper end of our guidance range.

We experienced growth in every one of our target end markets, a positive indication that company-specific opportunities we have previously addressed are coming to fruition.

We acknowledge the macro environment has clearly weakened, however we see our growth in the intermediate term as less dependent on the cyclical industry rebound and more a function of unique company-specific design wins.

From a segment perspective, HPMS revenue was $803 million, a 13% sequential increase, and $30 million above the midpoint of our guidance.

As Jeff commented, we have changed two of our end-market definitions within HPMS to better reflect our strategic focus in the mobile computing and specialized industrial areas.

My comments today will reflect these new definitions.

Overall, we experienced solid growth in all of our HPMS segment end markets and, in most cases, delivered performance above our guidance.

Within our Automotive business, revenue was $244 million, up nearly 7%, above the high end of our expectations, with record levels set in the North America and China markets.

From a product perspective, we experienced strong sequential demand for entertainment and sensor products, with keyless door entry products in line with our expectations, while in-vehicle networking declined modestly in the quarter, principally due to softening demand from European automotive OEMs.

However, we continue to see luxury brands driving resilient demand and trends in North America and Japan strengthened during the quarter, albeit with increasing chatter of weakening demand for mass-market vehicles in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

We believe we gained share during the second quarter against an automotive semi market, which we anticipate will reflect flat overall growth.

Furthermore, we are beginning to see our efforts outside of our core automotive business beginning to pick up some steam.

As an example, we were awarded designs for our new interior ambient LED lighting product, which combine our LED lighting driver and the in-vehicle networking technology into a flexible lighting solution.

Within our ID business, revenue was $234 million, up 25% sequentially, about $9 million better than our original expectations.

We experienced robust order trends across most of the portfolio, with our core ID business growing about 12% on a sequential basis, and representing approximately 80% of the total ID revenue.

Within our core ID franchise, automatic fare collection, banking, and tags and labels were all up robustly in the quarter, while our e-gov product line was flattish sequentially, but within our original expectations.

Within our emerging ID business, which includes mobile transactions and authentication, revenue was $50 million, up $27 million sequentially.

Our mobile transaction design-win momentum continues to build, not only in shipments, but also with approximately 200 unique handset and tablet design wins awarded.

Of these projects, roughly 40% are either in production or moving toward production over the few quarters.

The unique leadership position that NXP has in security solutions, is driven by the broad ecosystem, including applications, software, and antenna knowledge.

Moving now to our newly defined Portable and Computing, or the P&C end-market revenue, we were up $179 million, up 14% sequentially.

As we highlighted last quarter, we brought Dave French, a 30-year industry veteran, including being the previous CEO of Cirrus Logic, to lead the new P&C group.

Within P&C we have brought together our 32-bit ARM MCU products, our high-speed interface solutions, and our general purpose logic products into a single, focused group.

We took this step because our customers consistently see synergies across the portfolio, which has led to several significant design wins in the smart phone and tablet market, an end market which we have historically not participated in.

From a sizing perspective, over the trailing four quarters, the MCU and high-speed interface product lines are roughly similar in size and each contributes just under one third to the overall revenue of the P&C group, with the remainder being the logic product line.

During the second quarter, we experienced strong sequential growth, due to the demand for both MCU and high-speed interface solutions, while revenue from logic was flattish.

Turning to the newly defined Infrastructure and Industrial, or the I&I, end market, revenue was $146 million, up about 7% sequentially.

From a product offering perspective, this group is focused on high-performance RF, our HPRF products, power and lighting solutions, silicon front-end tuners, as well as new emerging low-power RF solutions for the healthcare and consumer markets.

From a sizing perspective, HPRF is the largest single business in the group, representing about half the revenue over the last four quarters.

The HPRF product portfolio is predominantly focused on cellular base stations, including power amplifiers and small signal LNA devices, both areas where we continue to gain share in 3G and LTE base stations.

Additionally, we have a solid presence in the broadcast, aerospace, and defense markets for radar systems.

During the second quarter, HPRF solutions for base stations were down slightly, consistent with the overall base station market, with other HPRF products down mid single digits.

Moving to the silicon front-end tuner product line, this represents about a fourth of the group revenue over the last four quarters.

This is an area that NXP is the market share leader, with a relative market share of nearly 2X our nearest competitor.

During the quarter, the front-end tuner business was up roughly in line with the overall I&I growth rate of 7%.

Lastly, the remainder of I&I is made up of our power, lighting, and emerging product solutions, which grew strongly on a sequential basis, primarily due to power and lighting solutions, and offer an opportunity for well above industry growth, if we can successfully execute our strategy.

Finally, turning to the Standard Products business, revenue was $219 million, up about 8%, essentially in line with our guidance, although the environment was clearly much more challenging.

From a channel perspective, sales into distribution increased by approximately 14%, as our distribution partners supported new design programs ramping into production.

Resales out of distribution were up about 3% from the prior quarter.

We continue to manage distribution inventory within our target range, with total months of supply on hand being flat at 2.4 months this quarter.

Absolute dollars of inventory in the channel were up slightly on a sequential basis.

Our distribution partners continue to be fairly conservative on future demand, based on the ongoing anemic growth in the world's economy.

From a geographic perspective, all regions, with the exception of EMEA, were up, with the particular strength coming from the combination of China and South Asia Pacific end markets.

In the EMEA region, which accounts for about a quarter of our product revenue, the weakness predominantly affected our automotive business, but we did see some slowdown in our ID and I&I groups, as well.

Before I turn the call over to Peter, I'd like to address the number one question we get asked by investors and analysts.

Specifically, what are the key growth drivers that give us the confidence that we can outgrow our peer group?

If we look at the incremental revenue over the last four quarters, assuming we achieve the midpoint of our Q3 guidance, the key areas which have and should continue to drive our outperformance are as follows.

First, our ID business is key, both the core and the emerging products.

Markets where we hold a strong lead in all our focused areas.

This will be driven by increased demand to contactless banking products as the US and China both begin to roll out new upgrades, new e-government tenders and infrastructure upgrade programs.

Layered on top of our core business is the recent accelerated ramp of mobile transactions and the future rollout of new authentication programs in our emerging ID business.

Taken together, this should contribute roughly two-thirds of our incremental revenue through the third quarter.

Secondly, we have discussed three design opportunities in the tablet and smart phone space, all outside of MFC, which contribute strong growth.

We have discussed a high-speed aggregation interface device, which is just begun production, a production authentication device, which includes a load-control switch and a companion authentication device.

This should enter production for us in the fall of 2012.

And finally, an MCU-based system control design, which should enter production in the spring of 2013.

Each of these designs should contribute roughly $200 million to $250 million of incremental revenue over a three-year design life.

While we are in the very early stage in the cycle on these opportunities, and they should contribute roughly a third of our incremental revenue through the third quarter.

Thirdly, we have discussed our auto franchise, which should be a good contributor to growth on an annualized basis versus 2011.

In the automotive semiconductor market, we hold strong market shares in our focused areas, which should contribute growth due to OEM designs for keyless door entry and entertainment systems.

Additionally, we have opportunities to grow into new adjacencies, including the area of solid-state lighting, but note, new auto designs take longer to provide incremental growth.

Regardless, through the third quarter we anticipate our automotive business to contribute approximately 10% of our incremental growth.

Above and beyond the previously noted opportunities, we see the incremental growth in our HPRF and Standard Products portfolios.

Taken together, we see our growth as clearly a function of company-specific designs.

We continue to believe the combination of our unique product portfolio, applications knowledge and laser focus on customer requirements should enable NXP to grow in excess of the overall semiconductor industry.

Now I'd like to turn to turn the call over to Peter to discuss the financial details of the quarter.

Thank you, Rick, and good morning to everyone on today's call.

As Rick has already covered the drivers of the revenue during the quarter, I will move directly to the highlights of the P&L.

In the second quarter, revenue was $1.09 billion, an increase of 12%, sequentially, and $23 million above the upper end of our guidance.

We generated $505 million in non-GAAP gross profit, nearly a 17% increase sequentially and $6 million above the midpoint of our guidance.

Non-GAAP gross margin was 46.2%, a 190 basis point sequential improvement from Q1, slightly below the midpoint of our guidance range on a percentage point basis, impacted by a weaker-than-expected recovery in our Standard Products segment, and stronger shipments than planned in the ramp of high volume design wins.

Non-GAAP gross profit increased by $72 million, quarter on quarter, of which about two-thirds was from the flow through on the additional revenue and about one-third from the improvements in fab utilization of 13 points from Q4 to Q1.

Turning to the operating segments, with the HPMS segment, non-GAAP gross profit was $428 million or 53.3% of revenue, a 180 basis point improvement versus the prior quarter due to the items previously discussed.

Within our Standard Products segment, non-GAAP gross profit was $67 million or 30.6% of revenue, a 140 basis point sequential improvement.

Although an improvement quarter on quarter, it was less than expected and we continue to see this part of our business impacted and continuing to be impacted by the general lack of recovery in the industry.

Total operating expenses were $303 million, up $10 million on a sequential basis, and in line with the midpoint of our guidance.

From an operating profit perspective, total NXP non-GAAP operating profit was $204 million, an increase of nearly 45% on a sequential basis, and represents for the quarter an 18.6% operating margin.

Interest expense was $70 million, essentially in line with our expectations, and our non-controlling interest was $16 million, a result of improving utilization rates at SFMC.

Taken together, total NXP non-GAAP earnings per share were $0.45, $0.05 better than the midpoint of our guidance, of which about $0.02 was due to better-than-anticipated cash taxes.

Now, I would like to turn to the changes in our cash and debt.

Cash at the end of the second quarter was $837 million, a sequential increase of $55 million.

During the quarter, we experienced several cash movements which I would like to highlight.

First, SFMC, our consolidated joint venture fab with TSMC, declared and paid a $100 million special dividend to shareholders.

Due to the consolidation of SFMC financials into NXP, we made a payment of $39 million to TSMC.

Secondly, we paid $45 million to Delva Corporation in the final settlement following failure to meet certain contractual performance targets.

Lastly, we received $59 million relating to the settlement of an outstanding legal claim.

Total debt was $3.82 billion, a sequential increase of $10 million, primarily due to currency translation effects of our debt.

Our total net debt at the end of Q2 was $2.98 billion, a decline of $865 million from the year-ago period, and a reduction of $65 million versus the previous quarter.

We exited the quarter with a trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of $974 million and our ratio of net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA was 3.1.

Turning to working capital metrics, days of inventory were 106 days, an increase of 4 days.

Days receivable were 38 days, flat sequentially, while days payable were 86, up 10 days sequentially, reflecting the growth in material costs to support increased sales.

Taken together, our cash conversion cycle improved to 57 days from 64 days in the prior quarter.

Cash flow from operations was $269 million, a result of growing revenues and improved profitability, supported by positive working capital metrics on the positive impact of currency translation effects on our debt.

Net CapEx investment during the quarter was $73 million, and resulted in a positive free cash flow of $196 million or 18% free cash flow margin.

During the quarter, we spent $37 million on share repurchases under our existing program to offset future equity dilution.

Now I would like to provide our outlook for Q3.

As Rick mentioned, we believe our performance over the medium term is a function of our success with key customers and less related to or anticipating a semiconductor cycle rebound.

We acknowledge the challenging macro environment, which we are not immune to.

Furthermore, as many of our new opportunities are in high-volume, consumer-focused mobile applications, we anticipate our gross margin will likely grow more slowly than originally envisaged, as these programs drive an increasing part of our revenue growth.

However, we believe through good expense control, our model can deliver positive operating leverage, resulting in strong operating margins and positive cash flow.

With these views as a backdrop, we currently anticipate product revenue will increase in a range of 6% to 12% sequentially.

At the midpoint, we expect product revenue to be up about 9%, sequentially -- 9% sequentially in Q3 to $1.1 billion, reflecting the following trends in our business.

Automotive is expected to be about flat, consistent with normal seasonality, and reflecting a more challenging environment in Europe.

Identification is expected to be up about 10% sequentially, predominantly driven by banking remodel transactions.

Portable and Computing is expected to be up over 20% sequentially as the new high-speed interface and logic programs Rick discussed earlier are expected to accelerate.

Infrastructure and Industrial is expected to grow in the low teens on a percentage-point basis, as we are seeing a positive improvement in demand for our HPRF products from base station customers.

Standard Products is expected to be about flat with the impact of the general macroeconomic environment.

We anticipate revenue from the combination of our manufacturing, corporate, and other segments to be approximately $60 million.

Taken together, total NXP revenue should be up in a range of 4% to 10% sequentially.

Additional inputs that will help you tune your models are as follows.

We anticipate non-GAAP gross profit to be in the range of approximately $526 million to $567 million, driven by higher revenue, improvement in factory utilization, and tempered by the margin profile of certain high-volume programs, as previously discussed.

We anticipate operating expense in Q3 to be in the range of approximately $310 million to $315 million, with a sequential increase, primarily due to investments in new programs.

Over the medium term, we anticipate our operating expenses should track roughly in a range of one-third to one-half the rate of our revenue growth.

Taken together, this should translate into a non-GAAP operating profit in the range of about $217 million to $253 million.

Net interest expense should be around $68 million.

Cash tax expense should be approximately $9 million to $12 million or about $11 million at the midpoint.

And non-controlling interest should be about $14 million, plus or minus $2 million.

Average diluted share count should be about 254 million shares, and taken together, our guidance implies non-GAAP earnings per share in a range of $0.50 to $0.62 per share, or approximately $0.56 per share at the midpoint of our guidance range.

Now we'd like to turn to your questions.

Jeff?

Shaquana, could you please poll for questions?

Yes, sir.

(Operator Instructions).

And your first question comes from the line of C.J. Muse, representing Barclays.

Please proceed.

Yes, good morning or afternoon.

Thank you for taking my questions.

I guess first question, on the gross margin side, can you walk us through when we should see the benefit from the fall-off of these new designs, as well as improvement for Standard Products and what the timeline looks like, assuming business stays at current levels where we can achieve the 48.9% gross margin?

Yes.

So, C.J., I think clearly the headwinds in the Standard Products is creating some issues specifically on Standard Products gross margin and having clearly an overall impact on our total.

I think the easiest thing to say is we're still committed to the models that we've put in place.

We still think that we have the opportunity to move forward with that.

On an operating margin basis, we feel very comfortable that we'll be able to move to 25%-plus operating incomes associated with it.

But with some of these higher-volume success, the real success we've had on some of these new design wins, as they ramp up, they won't have the same kind of gross margin profile as our -- as much of our core business that's much lower volume and runs through different channels to the market.

So, there will be some influence on our overall gross margin performance associated with that, but we don't expect it to have any impact whatsoever on our operating income basis and believe that the inherent increased value driven by the upside revenue at a very nice profitability creates a significant opportunity.

But clearly we're not changing our model perspective on gross margins at all and it just creates a little bit of a transitionary basis that gives us a little more of a challenge on gross margins, per se, in the near term.

Peter, do you have anything else you want to add?

No, I think that's a good summary.

C.J., did you have a follow up?

Yes, that's helpful.

And, as a follow up, I was hoping you could walk through what typical seasonality looks like in Q4 and I'm particularly interested in the ID side, where -- whether or not we see any budget flush or what-not?

Well, our Q4 is typically seasonally down a little bit after a strong Q3 on a seasonal basis.

So, I think that's probably the best way to say it.

Now this year, with the overall uncertainty in the overall world economy and how all that plays out, it clearly could be somewhat different, one way or the other, and the continued ramp-up of these new design wins we talk about will have somewhat of a tempering effect.

But clearly, our seasonal pattern would be that we would be down in the Q4 timeframe.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot, C.J.

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Covello, representing Goldman Sachs.

Please proceed.

Good morning.

It's [Jim Shirer], in for Jim Covello.

Congratulations on the strong results and thanks for letting me take the time to ask a question.

Just to follow up on the margin side, you talked about some of the impacts of mix that are affecting the near-term results.

From here, are there any more structural things that you anticipate that you could do on the cost side to get you back towards that 54% low end of the target range?

Or is it basically just to be driven by mix from here?

No, I think there are clearly some things that we'll do, Jim.

We talked about the fact that we have a 6-inch -- a 4 and a 6-inch facility in the Netherlands that over the next couple of years we'll be consolidating into our 8-inch facility there, as we go through the customer requalifications and the transition associated with that.

That's not something that will happen near term, but it's a process that's underway as we build the bridge inventory to be able to do that, and clearly we'll have some impact in the near term on our inventory levels, but will give us some significant cost savings as we actually implement that.

I think, for us, it's really about how we continue to make progress towards our model and I think that's the thing that we feel good about, is the continued progress, albeit that it's probably not at the rate that we would absolutely have liked, based on the headwinds that we have in Standard Products, as well as the mix implications of some of the new product design wins that give us a very strong top-line growth.

Jim --

Thanks.

That's helpful.

Yes, go ahead.

Yes, I was just going to add one thing, really.

What we're talking about is a slowing in the overall growth of our margin.

As we mentioned, it's the impact of these high-volume design wins, but the -- the good side of the high-volume design wins is it does give us the ability to go after more cost reduction.

It just takes a little bit longer to show through.

So, there is another positive to this.

Understand.

That's helpful.

And then just to follow up on the end-market commentary, you talked about the Industrial and the Infrastructure area being up in the low teens, which seems substantially better than most of your peers have already reported.

You talked about some of the strength in base stations that you're seeing.

Is that a broad market increase or is that just a matter of specific design wins that you have ramping in this quarter?

I think it's more of the design-win side.

I think when you look at 3G and LTE, we've talked about that we believe we have a very strong position and, clearly, when you think about the revenue ramp associated with base stations, it's going to be more likely to be in the 3G and LTE area, so I think that's a contributing factor.

And it's somewhat driven by customer-by-customer basis, depending on where their inventory levels are, et cetera.

So, as we talked about before, the HPRF area is one that swings around quite significantly over a period of time, based on the customer demand and how successful they are with their new design wins associated with it, but in the current timeframe, at least, we see the requirements and expectations from customers that drive that stronger basis in the near term.

But I think it's more a customer specific than a broad increasing end market associated with it, Jim.

That's great.

Thanks so much, guys.

Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of John Pitzer, representing Credit Suisse.

Please proceed.

Yes, guys.

Congratulations.

A couple of questions on revenue and a couple question on gross margins.

On the revenue front, Rick, can you help me understand if you were to kind of differentiate between the core business and new product opportunities, are you essentially guiding the core business flat for the September quarter and all the growth is coming from new products?

I thought that I understood that until I got the guidance for the Infrastructure and Industrial business.

So, I would say that if you had to break down our range, the 6% to 12%, which is clearly, we think, a very positive momentum, it's probably something like 0% to 4% that's kind of in our core business, something like that, with the remainder of it coming from the incremental design wins and the ramp-up associated with our ID business, to try to put it in perspective, John.

And then my second question, guys, just on gross margin, the headwind in Standard Product, is that a pricing headwind or a volume headwind or both?

And then when you think about the mix in the High Performance Mixed Signal, any sense now relative to how you think mix is going to play, at what revenue level on a quarterly run-rate basis you need to be to kind of hit the target margins that you have out there?

Thank you.

So, on both of those, so if you look at the Standard Products, I think it's a combination of volume and pricing.

I mean, clearly, the pricing environment, when you're kind of in this lull or slow-ish period compared to a year ago, you see a more aggressive pricing environment.

And we've talked about that we saw, early in the year, as much price decline as we would typically see on an annual basis.

So, I think we see that pricing impact in Standard Products, but as much as anything else, it's probably the economic environment.

Now, there was just a report this morning talking about a positive associated with the economic environment in China, which could bode well for going forward.

But clearly, we don't see that in the near term relative to the demand in Standard Products.

And I think relative to gross margin, I don't think it's as much about the actual revenue volume that we're at to be able to drive that.

I think we have to go through a little bit of this transition.

We've got get Standard Products back within the model range that we would like for them to participate in, and we have to get through kind of this transitionary period with some of these new design wins that are a little bit lower gross margin but actually pretty strong on the operating income level, because it doesn't require the same level of R&D or sales and marketing investment associated with it.

So, I think when we look at it, we're clearly focused on ensuring that we're adding shareholder value with the strong revenue growth contributing on the bottom line operating income that may require a little bit of a tempering for a period of time associated with just our specific gross margin model, but give us, still, the ability to move towards our operating income levels on a timely fashion.

Great.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks, John.

Your next question comes from the line of Vivek Arya, representing Bank of America.

Please proceed.

Thanks for taking my question.

Rick, very strong growth and very positive message, very different from what we are hearing from the rest of the ecosystem.

I'm wondering, how are you getting the comfort that there is no over-build in the channel anywhere?

For instance, your Standard Products sales were up, I believe, 8%, but disty sales were up 3%.

So, just how are you getting the comfort?

How are you putting the safeguard in place to make sure there is no overbuild?

Well, so I guess you're talking about more on Standard Products than on the across-the-board basis.

In Standard Products, I think the key factor for us is, even though we're in a tough marketing environment, our focus in Standard Products is to move to some of the new areas, our thrust areas with ESP protection where, some of the new smart phones and tablets may require 10 to 12 or 13 ESP circuits where a typical feature phone in the past would only require one ESP circuit.

So, clearly, one of the things that's driven the near-term growth is some of the ramp-up associated with the ESP protection into some of those key customers on the smart phones and tablet area and that kind of normalizes out a little bit, as we go forward.

And clearly, with a very uncertain economic environment we're somewhat more cautious relative to the outlook of our Standard Products, going forward, but we clearly do not believe that there's any significant inventory build whatsoever in our Standard Product area and we think that we continue to operate within the range we'd like to.

We would like for our Standard Products inventory level to be a little bit above the overall Company basis, just because of the actual individual price point associated with it, but we don't see any increased -- significant increased inventory levels in the channel in Standard Products, at all.

Got it.

You mentioned mobile as a key growth area, smart phones and tablets.

I'm curious, is your NFC product capable of supporting all mobile operating systems -- Android, Windows, and iOS -- or is it focused on Android only?

We publicly announced that it will support Windows and it does support Android as we've spent a lot of time talking about.

With the 200 handsets and tablets -- smart phones and tablets that we've won the design win associated with it, I think that kind of speaks for itself.

Got it.

And just one last one for Peter.

First, welcome.

And second, with your background on the operational side, I'm wondering what kind of changes and improvements should we expect to see over the next several quarters?

Thank you.

Sorry, changes in the Company?

I'm -- can you just be a little bit clearer?

Yes, any change in strategy, any change in focus, any change on the financial side in terms of deleveraging targets, et cetera?

No.

I think one of the good things is I've come from within the Company and the strategy we have for the Company overall is one that's decided by the leadership team.

So, I've been very involved in the last year as have the other MT members in defining and agreeing to our strategy.

So, I'm kind of pretty comfortable where we are, really.

So, no, I don't have any big plans to change anything.

Okay, great.

Thanks and good luck.

Just to continue to improve performance.

Yes.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Caso representing Susquehanna Financial.

Please proceed.

Hi.

Thank you.

I just wonder if you could go over some of the comments on distribution again and it sounded like last quarter that the distribution inventory was up a bit in dollars, anticipating some of these design wins you talked about now, and it looks like sell-in was up greater than sell-through, again.

To what extent -- as we look forward, what should we expect the distributor inventories to do over the next couple of quarters?

Should we expect those to come down as some of these design wins do start to sell out through distribution?

I think we feel like our distribution inventory levels are well within the range we'd like to operate in and on a months of inventory basis was flat from the Q1 timeframe.

So while there could be some sell-out with the actual shipments of some of the new design wins associated with it, if the economic environment were to create a little more stability, then I think there would be an inclination on the part of our distribution partners to put a little more inventory in place.

So, I don't know that we would expect to see any decrease whatsoever in the distribution inventory levels, going forward, but it's not like we expect to see a significant increase, either.

We think that they're operating at what we believe to be a normal range and no indications of any kind of problem areas, at all.

Okay, thanks.

As a follow up, could you talk a bit about where your fab utilization is right now?

And, I guess, as we look forward what's the impact on lead times right now?

I think you said the lead times increased a little bit last quarter.

Could you give us an update on that?

So, fab utilization in Q2 was 92%, which is up from 84% in Q1.

And, I guess, in terms of lead times, 92%, the fabs are running pretty effectively and an increasing part of our wafer production is coming from external fabs as we go through the year.

But I think our lead times vary greatly from product to product.

So, while in Standard Products we could have fairly short lead times based on being able to ship from inventory, in some of the cases associated with our ID business, we actually are trying to edge out all the capacity we can, because one of the things that provided the Q2 ability to perform above our guidance was the fact that we were able to squeeze some additional output out of our manufacturing facilities where we're capacity limited in the case of our ID business, that gave us that upside.

So, it's really focused on the individual product capability and the capacity that's in place.

And lead times in some of our Standard Products would actually be quite short in the current environment, while clearly in the case of our ID business, it's more booked out and it's about how we squeeze out additional capacity, either through our foundry partners or from our internal manufacturing facilities.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Vijay Rakesh, representing Sterne, Agee.

Please proceed.

Yes, hi, guys.

Just looking at your gross margins again, sorry to beat a dead horse, but is there leverage -- just if you can get more leverage on the gross margin by tweaking your Standard Products portfolio?

I'm sorry.

Ask the question again?

It wasn't so clear.

I'm just wondering, trying to get your margins up, is there more leverage if you go slow on the Standard Product side, because, obviously, that has a lower margin mix, too, right?

It does.

I think the key for us in Standard Products is keeping our factories loaded.

As we've talked about, this is not a strategic business for us.

It's about generating cash and providing us the scale with our distribution partners where the combination of our Standard Products and HPMS business allows us to be the second largest semiconductor company through the distribution channel, and gets us the scale on a manufacturing volume where we produce well over 70 billion units a year, based on the combination of the two.

So, the Standard Products provides that cash and the capability, but clearly we need to improve their performance so they begin to move back within the range that we've established associated with it and that's a priority for us in Standard Products is how we do that.

But we clearly -- there's a tradeoff associated with loading the facilities versus the pricing environment at which you can sell that product and that's what they're very focused on how they maximize associated with it.

Got it.

I agree, I see good growth there.

I think this last question here, what are the timelines on how you're paying down the debt here over the four, six quarters?

Well, we don't talk specifically about what we plan with the individual parts of the debt, but I guess the comment I would make is in terms of our interest payments, we'd look to exit the year with about $65 million in the quarter, so we see next year in the range of $240 million to $260 million, so, clearly, we have plans to pay down the debt.

I think, probably, the key thing is if you look at the last 12 months, we've actually reduced the debt by about $865 million.

So --

Yes.

Thanks, Rick.

Thanks, Vijay.

Your next question comes from the line of Franklin Jarman, representing Goldman Sachs.

Please proceed.

Great.

Thanks for taking my questions, guys.

I guess the first question I had was just with regards to your capacity utilization trending a little bit above 90% now, how should we think about capital spending plans, going forward?

Thanks.

Well, we've said that we would spend about 5% over a cycle and so we might be up a point in the areas and periods of time where we're capacity constrained, such as we are today in our ID business.

So, clearly, it's very important that we make the right kind of investments to be able to support our customers where we have a unique sole-source position associated with that.

So, I would assume that we might spend as much as 6% this year associated with that, but it's still in line with the 5% over the overall cycle associated with it.

It's not like that you'll see us jump up to double digit percentage, but, clearly, we might spend a percentage up now versus a percentage below that 5% overall range in periods of time where we don't have that requirement for the investment in capacity.

That's great.

Thanks.

And just as a follow up, given the cash that we saw deployed towards share repurchase, can you just talk about your commitment to achieving the 2 times net leverage target that you've talked about in the past?

How are you thinking about the ultimate timing here?

We've seen net leverage sort of flat.

Obviously, you've made a lot of improvements here at this point, but can you talk a little bit about the longer-term goal towards 2 times?

We clearly have the top priority for the Company to get below 2 times leverage and we would expect that to be measured in quarters, not years.

That doesn't mean that every dollar that we generate will absolutely go to that.

There'll be trade-offs associated with it and where we have a requirement for some future equity, to be able to deliver the best return for our shareholders, we may actually repurchase some stock at minimal levels, such as what we talked about in this case.

But there's -- let there be no confusion, our top priority is on continuing to drive our debt down until we get below the 2 times basis.

Yes.

And, obviously, the other really great thing is, as we increase our revenue and profitability, as our actuals for this last quarter and our guidance for the next quarter demonstrates, that makes it easier and easier to pay the debt down and, obviously, gives us a better EBITDA line, as well.

And I guys don't want to talk about exactly how you're going to go after the 2013 maturities, but could I think of that as potentially being addressed with cash on hand, rather than being refinanced?

Well, I definitely have to pay it off next year.

So, I guess that's --

And we don't see any problem in just raising the cash to be able to meet that requirement, I guess, is the only way we can answer that.

But we're not going to be specific with our strategic financing decisions in advance.

Fair enough.

Thanks very much, guys.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions).

And your next question comes from the line of Harlan Sur, representing JPMorgan.

Please proceed.

Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking my question and great job on the quarterly execution.

Back in April, the team was of the view that the Standard Products segment could get gross margins back in the range of kind of low-to-mid 30s within the next one to two quarters.

I know you had 31% in Q2, so the team is making nice progress there, but it sounds like things are a little bit more challenging here in the third quarter.

I just wanted to find out what are your expectations for ASP declines, utilization, and gross margins for this segment in Q3?

Well, I think the best way to kind of summarize all of that, Harlan, is we would not expect to see a significant decline associated with those.

We edged up a little bit in Q2 and we think we'll continue to edge up.

It's extremely difficult to drive that profit improvement in the current environment, but that's the clear objective and the organization is very focused on driving that.

Great, thanks.

And then, on your base station products, the team has always had solid traction with the China equipment OEMs, like ZTE and Huawei, and I know that you've also won some share at guys like Ericsson, so maybe if you could just talk about which set of customers are driving the growth in the third quarter and what end market geographies you think are driving the higher CapEx spend?

It's very customer-specific and probably inappropriate for us to comment on the specifics, by customer.

But I think it's pretty much across the board.

When you look at it, there's some uptick and it may be simply that they had some inventory replenishment that they had to do in their supply chain.

But also, I think there are some end-product design wins that they've been successful at that's driving that.

But I would pretty much say that it's across the board at different levels of mix, et cetera.

So, it's not like it's on a region-by-region basis.

Thank you, Rick.

Thanks, Harlan.

Appreciate your comments.

Your next question comes from the line of Jake Kemeny, representing Morgan Stanley.

Please proceed.

Hi, Jake.

Operator --?

Mr. Kemeny, your line is open.

You have a follow-up question from the line of John Pitzer, representing Credit Suisse.

Please proceed.

Yes, guys.

I thought I'd chime in with a gross margin question, because there hasn't been enough of them yet.

But when you kind of break apart the revenue stream between HPMS and Standard Products, Rick, I just want to make sure I understand.

Is it the Standard Products where you see the most headwinds?

And when you think about the HPMS product line, you guys have historically talked about a 58% to 63% type gross margin target.

I take it, since you're sort of endorsing the total gross margin that HPMS is still on track.

Do you get there more quickly than you would getting to kind of your target margins in standard products?

Thanks.

So, John, I think we tried to talk about that a little bit.

I think, near term, we'll have a little bit of pressure on moving absolutely to the target gross margin in HPMS, with some of the new high-volume design wins that won't have the same inherent gross margin characteristics as our normal, ongoing business.

So, we're not backing off of those targets that we've put in place, but on the interim basis, if we can drive these higher-volume design wins that drive more significant bottom line operating income level, then we're clearly going to be focused on taking advantage of that.

Our Standard Products is much more what I would say market sensitive and, clearly, we're -- I was pleased that the team made some progress in Q2, but we clearly have more progress that we need to make, and it's a high priority of the team in how we drive that.

And, frankly, the revenue growth in Standard Products is not that important to us.

It's about how we balance off the utilization of capacity and support our customers with these new, unique design wins on, like, ESP protection, but not really be too caught up on the high-volume, ultra-low-cost products that might drive lower gross margins.

So, we're trying to balance that off so that we can begin to move closer and closer to the target model, but clearly with headwinds from a market environment in Standard Products.

But in the case of HPMS, it's more just the mix basis associated with these higher-volume design wins that won't have the same inherent gross margin characteristics, but will be pretty nice operating income.

And then, Rick, how much below kind of the average HPMS gross margin are these new product wins?

And typically, at any point in a new product ramp, there's inefficiencies.

Is that the case with these new products and will you see incremental improvement in gross margin over the next couple quarters as you ramp to more volume in the new product design wins?

Yes.

And then, how much below sort of the average HPMS are these new business opportunities?

John, I don't think we're prepared to talk about the specifics associated with that, but you and I both know that with the higher-volume design wins that are associated with smart phones and tablets, you won't run the same inherent 58% to 63% gross margin of the typical High Performance Mixed Signal portfolio focused on the Automotive and Industrial space.

Great.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

At this time, there are no further audio questions.

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Clemmer for closing remarks.

Well, thanks a lot for joining us this quarter.

Again, we were very pleased with the performance in Q2.

The ability to drive revenue growth at 12% we think clearly shows the fruition of the strategy that we've put in place and actually confirms the ability to execute on that, even with the anemic macro environment.

We look forward to seeing the continued ramp-up of those NXP-specific design wins and, clearly, the improved operational performance that allowed us to drive more than a 2X increase in sequential improvement in EPS is something that we're very pleased about as a company, all resulting in the robust cash flow generation of $269 million for the quarter.

And just one last comment, in closing.

As we said, this is kind of Kalle's swan song with us.

We really appreciate his contribution that he's made over the life of NXP and want to wish him the best as he moves to a different kind of chip industry, out of the semiconductor business.

So, good luck, Kalle.

We wish you well.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Operator, thank you very much, and thank you, everyone, for your interest in NXP.

One last point.

We are holding our annual analyst day in New York City on September 13th.

We hope to see you there and thank you, again.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference.

This concludes the presentation.

You may now disconnect and have a great day.