Q1 2025 TTM Technologies Inc Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Sameer Desai; Vice President - Corporate Development and Investor Relations; TTM Technologies Inc

Thomas Edman; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; TTM Technologies Inc

Daniel Boehle; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President; TTM Technologies Inc

William Stein; Analyst; Truist Securities

James Ricchiuti; Senior Analyst; Needham & Company LLC

Ruben Roy; Analyst; Stifel

Mike Crawford; Analyst; B. Riley Securities

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the TTM Technologies, Inc. first-quarter 2025 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, April 30, 2025.
Sameer Desai, TTM's Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations, will now review TTM's disclosure statement. Mr. Desai?

Sameer Desai

Thank you, Sheri. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that today's call contains forward-looking statements, including statements related to TTM's future business outlook. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to one or more risks and uncertainties, including the risk factors we provide in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review.
These forward-looking statements represent management's expectations and assumptions based on currently available information. TTM does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or other circumstances, except as required by law.
We will also discuss on this call certain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. Such measures should not be considered as a substitute for the measures prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, and we direct you to the reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures included in the company's earnings release, which is available on the Investor Relations section of TTM's website at investors.ttm.com. We have also posted on that website a slide deck that we will refer to during our call.
I will now turn the call over to Tom Edman, TTM's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Tom.

Thomas Edman

Thank you, Sameer. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for our first-quarter 2025 conference call.
I'll begin with a review of our business highlights from the quarter and a discussion of our first quarter results, followed by a summary of the current geopolitical environment and impact to TTM. Dan Boehle, our CFO, will follow with an overview of our Q1 2025 financial performance and our Q2 2025 guidance. We will then open the call to your questions.
Highlights of the quarter's financial results are summarized on slide 3 of the earnings presentation posted on TTM's website. We delivered a strong first quarter of 2025, and I would like to thank our employees for their hard work and contributions in support of these results. In the first quarter of 2025, TTM achieved revenue and non-GAAP EPS above the high end of the guided range. Revenue grew 14% year-on-year, representing better than seasonal trends due to demand strength from our Aerospace & Defense, Data Center Computing, Networking and Medical, Industrial & Instrumentation end markets, partially offset by a slight decline in the Automotive end market. Overall, the company book-to-bill ratio was 1.10.
Demand in our Aerospace & Defense market, which was 47% of revenues for the quarter, remains strong, and we continue to have a solid program backlog of approximately $1.55 billion. Finally, the company's non-GAAP operating margins of 10.5% were up 340 basis points year-on-year as we recorded the third consecutive quarter of double-digit operating margin performance, reflecting continued solid execution. Both non-GAAP operating margin and non-GAAP EPS were at a record high for our first quarter and performed much better than normal seasonal trends. The strong first quarter results demonstrated the company's strategy of reducing seasonality in operating performance. Let me now turn to the new policies being implemented by the current administration, the potential impact to TTM and how we are positioned to withstand the challenges we might face this year.
We have significantly reshaped the company over the last 10 years through diversification of end markets as well as our manufacturing footprint, divesting consumer and lower-margin facilities in China and investing in new production capabilities in other regions such as Malaysia. We currently have no direct consumer exposure and the Aerospace & Defense market is close to 50% of revenues. When thinking about tariffs, we categorize the potential impact in 3 ways: direct impact to revenue; direct impact to materials and equipment; and indirect impacts such as overall end demand weakness and economic slowdown. First, we do not expect significant direct impact to revenue as only 3% to 4% of our revenues represent direct imports from China into the U.S. by our customers.
For this revenue, the customer is responsible for paying the tariffs. And in most cases, they can find alternative contract manufacturers outside of the U.S. to do their necessary assembly work. We also are working with these customers to offer alternative TTM PCB manufacturing locations to help mitigate the impact if that is their preference. So far, we have not seen significant changes in customer behavior.
In terms of our raw materials and equipment, TTM is responsible for paying tariffs on imports into the U.S. And although we generally source within country or region, we do have some greater exposure here. We import very little from China into the U.S. and from the U.S. into China, but we or our vendors import materials worth approximately 11% of revenues into the U.S.
from Europe and the rest of Asia. In regards to equipment, approximately 23% of our global capital spending in 2024 was equipment imported into the U.S. from Europe and Asia, with very little from China. In 2025, we expect equipment imported into the U.S. from Europe and Asia to be approximately 29% of our global capital spending due to equipment purchases for our new manufacturing facility in Syracuse.
In addition, very little equipment from the U.S. is exported into our facilities in China. Our goal is to mitigate the impact of tariffs on materials and equipment purchases through delivery timing, sourcing location and the adjustment of pricing models. We are also engaged with the government in regards to the portion of our equipment investment, which is tied to Department of Defense-related funding. So as a reminder, the minor direct impact of tariffs is a result of our diverse manufacturing footprint with a presence in North America, China and Malaysia, and we plan to employ mitigation strategies to minimize its effects.
Finally, the indirect impact, i.e., end-market potential demand weakness due to higher prices in specific markets or an overall economic slowdown is more difficult for us to predict. To date, we have not seen a significant shift in customer behavior due to tariffs, but we will continue to monitor this closely. Every year, we model downside and upside scenarios to our budget, and the key is to be vigilant, flexible and poised to adjust to a potentially dynamic demand environment. An encouraging indicator is the number of announcements coming from companies in our commercial markets regarding planned investments in more manufacturing in the United States, which could be a positive for TTM longer-term due to our strong U.S. footprint.
Of note is the Stargate project to bring the supply chain of generative AI to the U.S. In addition, NVIDIA, Apple and Meta have all made public announcements regarding their plans to invest in the U.S. That brings me to another focus of this administration, which is the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and its impact to our business. The initial impact of DOGE has been largely felt outside of the Department of Defense. Within the DoD, the focus has been on consulting contracts rather than reductions in defense programs.
In regards to the defense budget, fiscal year '25 has started with a continuing resolution as Congress works to develop a reconciliation package. Discussions to date show a continued increase in defense spending in the $150 billion range. In addition, the President has indicated that the 2026 budget request will be in the $1 trillion range, indicating further increases in defense spending. There have also been actions from the government to support the domestic defense industry, particularly around missile defense. The Missile Defense Agency currently has an RFI out for the Golden Dome for America project, seeking information and market analysis concerning the strengthening of the country's missile defense system.
Note that roughly half of TTM's Aerospace & Defense business is tied to radar systems, which would benefit from more missile defense spending. Outside the U.S., various NATO countries are looking to increase defense spending, which would potentially benefit U.S. defense contractors in the near-term. Next, I will provide an update of our new facilities in Penang and Syracuse. We continue to make progress with customer qualifications in Penang with increasing revenues in the first quarter and a book-to-bill well above 1.
We expect the revenue ramp to accelerate and reach breakeven levels towards the end of the third quarter. In terms of the new facility in Syracuse, external construction is largely complete, and we continue to make progress on the internal fabrication. We have placed orders for equipment and pending uninterrupted delivery expect installation to begin in the summer with production slated for the middle of 2026. Lastly, I would like to highlight that we published our second corporate sustainability report, or CSR, on April 22, Earth Day, which reflects our clear commitment to minimize the impact of our facilities on the environment. Now I'd like to review our end markets, which are referenced on Page 4 of the earnings presentation on our website.
The Aerospace & Defense end market represented 47% of total first quarter sales, compared to 46% of Q1 2024 sales and 47% of sales in Q4 2024. Revenues grew 15% year-on-year. The solid demand in the defense market is a result of a positive tailwind in defense budgets, our strong strategic program alignment and key bookings for ongoing franchise programs. We maintain a solid A&D program backlog of approximately $1.55 billion at the end of the first quarter compared to $1.38 billion in the year ago quarter. During the quarter, we saw significant bookings for the Javelin and LTAMS-related programs.
We expect sales in Q2 from this end market to represent about 45% of total sales. Bookings in the Aerospace & Defense market ship over a longer period of time than in our commercial markets and provide good visibility into the future revenue growth. Sales in the Data Center Computing end market represented 21% of total sales in the first quarter compared to 21% in Q1 of 2024 and 22% in the fourth quarter of 2024. This end market saw 15% year-on-year growth, which was better than expected due to continued strength from our Data Center customers building products for generative AI applications. We expect sequential growth in revenues in this end market to represent 21% of second quarter sales.
The medical industrial instrumentation end market contributed 13% of our total sales in the first quarter compared to 14% in the year ago quarter and 13% in the fourth quarter of 2024. This end market saw a return to year-on-year growth of 5% as inventories have normalized in the industrial area, and we saw increased demand from our semiconductor testing customers as generative AI drove increased purchases of automated test equipment. For the second quarter, we expect the medical industrial instrumentation end market to be 15% of revenues. Automotive sales represented 11% of total sales during the first quarter of 2025 compared to 13% in the year ago quarter and 11% during the fourth quarter of 2024. The year-over-year decline for Automotive was due primarily to continued inventory adjustments and soft demand at several customers.
We expect our Automotive business to contribute 11% of total sales in Q2. Networking accounted for 8% of revenue during the first quarter of 2025. This compares to 6% of revenue in the year ago quarter and 7% during the fourth quarter of 2024. Year-on-year growth was 53%, the strongest in many quarters due to increased switch-related demand from certain Networking customers. In Q2, we expect this end market to be 8% of revenues as this market continues to show strong growth, driven by AI-related demand and new products.
Next, I'll cover some details from the first quarter. This information is also available on Page 5 of our earnings presentation. During the quarter, our advanced technology and engineered products, which include HCI, rigid flex, RF subsystems and components and engineered systems, accounted for approximately 44% of our revenue. This compares to approximately 48% in the year ago quarter and 50% in Q4. We are continuing to pursue new business opportunities and increased customer design engagement activities that will leverage our advanced technology and engineered products capabilities in new programs and new markets.
PCB capacity utilization in Asia Pacific was 58% in Q1 compared to 52% in the year ago quarter and 59% in Q4. On a year-on-year basis, utilization rates improved as Data Center demand continues to be strong and the Networking market rebounded. Our overall PCB capacity utilization in North America was 35% in Q1 compared to 38% in the year ago quarter and 34% in Q4. As a reminder, North America utilization figures are not as meaningful as Asia Pacific because bottlenecks in these high-mix, low-volume facilities tend to occur in areas outside of plating, which is the core process that we use for calculating utilization rates. Our top 5 customers contributed 45% of total sales in the first quarter of 2025 compared to 42% in the first quarter of 2024.
We had one customer with over 10% of our total sales in the quarter. At the end of Q1, our 90-day backlog, which is subject to cancellations, was $517.5 million compared to $459.5 million in the first quarter of last year. This quarter, we started to report total company backlog excluding shipments into the hubs to provide a more accurate measure of backlog, and we have restated last year's number as a result. As I mentioned earlier, our Aerospace & Defense program backlog was $1.55 billion at the end of Q1 this year compared to $1.38 billion at the end of the first quarter of last year. Our overall book-to-bill ratio was 1.10 for the 3 months ending March 31.
Now Dan will review our financial performance for the first quarter. Dan?