Good day and welcome to this Even Incorporated third quarter, 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the conference over to Richard Kingston, Vice President, Market Intelligence. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Jason and Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Siva's third quarter, 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today on the call are Amir Panush, Chief Executive Officer and Yaniv Arieli, Chief Financial Officer of Ceva.
Before handing over to Amir, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as well as assumptions that if they materialize or prove incorrect could cause the results of Ceva to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions.
Forward-looking statements include statements regarding our market positioning strategy and growth opportunities, market trends and dynamics, expectations regarding demand for and benefits of our technologies, our sales pipeline and backlog our financial goals and guidance regarding future performance and our expectations regarding utilization of our stock repurchase program Ceva assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information which speak as of their respective dates.
In addition, following the divestment of the Intrinsics business, financial results from Intrinsics were transitioned to a discontinued operation beginning in the third quarter of 2023 and all prior period financial results have been recast accordingly. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe provide a more meaningful analysis of our core operating results and comparison of quarterly results.
A reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures is included in the earnings release which we issued this morning and in the SEC filing section on our investor relations website with that said, I'd like to turn the call over to Amir who will review our business performance for the quarter and provide some insight into our ongoing business, Amir.
Thank you, Richard and welcome, everyone and thank you for joining us today.
Our third quarter delivered another impressive consecutive performance executing effectively against our strategic plan and exceeding market expectations.
Our results are past targets with both topline revenue growth and non-GAAP fully diluted EPS coming in above projections.
Total revenue for the quarter came in at $27.2 million up 13 year over year benefiting from our innovative product offerings to the market and positive tailwinds in both our licensing and royalty businesses, our backlog and pipeline continue to improve, and we are in a healthy position as we head into the fourth quarter in 2025.
As a result, we are raising our guidance for the full year 2024 which you and I will elaborate on later in the call. In licensing the third quarter produced several important milestones for Ceva that reinforce our strategy of delivering leading HIP that enables smart edge devices to connect, send and infer data.
Highlights include the first licensing deal for our NeuPro-Nano embedded AI NPU multiple deals for our PentaG2 5G advanced wide access network and satellite communications platform and high-profile smartphone OEM customer for our wheels space, special audio software overall licensing revenue came in at $15.6 million. Up 12% year over year with 10 deals completed in the quarter across all geographies and with multiple OEM customers in royalties, the momentum in the consumer and industrial and markets continued driving 15% year over year royalty revenue growth to $11.6 million and year over year royalty revenue growth for the fourth successive quarter.
Before I provide more color on our business, I want to reiterate that we are stead in our belief that our board IP portfolio is highly synergetic with the most pressing needs of semiconductor companies and OEM as they develop their smart edge products and rely on our unique IP to advance and advance their internal development.
The level of glo global customers engagement we are experiencing today is the highest that I've seen during my time with Za and provide us with tremendous insights and opportunities to partner with some of the world's leading public companies and brands across their short- and long-term road maps.
Our technology leadership across multiple core disciplines and commitment to long term partnership is key to winning licensing deals that garner higher licensing fees, improved royalty rates and overall better economics.
The third quarter provided multiple proof points that our connect sent. An inferred strategy is operating in full flow with Dell signs across our IP portfolio and continued and continuous trends of customers licensing multiple technologies from our portfolio for their products.
In connect, we expanded our market leadership and customer base in Bluetooth, Wi Fi and UWB with new deals across all platforms including our newest Bluetooth Six IP.
More significantly, we signed a strategic licensing agreement with an innovative OEM for its development of the 5G advanced modem based on our PentaG2 5G advanced wide access network and satellite communications platform.
This OEM intends to build a transformative peer to peer satellite network constellation that will enable ubiquitous 5G communications globally and bring cost-effective cellular IOT services to the masses as the only IP provider with a comprehensive modem platform for 5G Advanced Communications.
We are the partner of choice for any systems company, Oom looking to develop advanced wireless communications AI would our leading AIP and deep wireless expertise significantly reduce the entry barriers for the development of these highly complex chip design.
The economics and scale of this deal reflect the trust they have placed with in Civa for this project. And we are incredibly proud to partner with this OEM to help make their vision a reality.
In addition to this strategic view and illustrative of the B board market opportunities we are seeing for our 5G advanced IP, we signed two other agreements this quarter, one with a leader in 5G cellular IOT modem and another with an auto with automotive semiconductor for their next generation V two X vehicle to everything. Communication CHFI these deals combined with the two large deals signed last quarter and our robust pipeline for 5G advanced, it cements' position as the leader in this market.
Our market leadership translates into higher licensing fee per deal, higher royalties per unit and creates sticky long term relationships that are incredibly beneficial to save a business in sense.
We continue to expand the market penetration for our real space special audio software. We signed a new licensing deal with a high profile smartphone OEM to include real space in multiple skews of headphones and PWS earbuds with the first products expected to launch in the first half of 2025.
This OEM specializes in developing smartphone and accessories with incredible details for aesthetic design. While delivering a unique user experience.
Overall, we are experiencing increasing interest in our real estate software in multiple categories of products. Due to the excellent user experience based on our superior special audio and head tracking technology.
Our ability to deliver this software on embedded platforms across multiple architectures and on higher end smartphone and PC platforms is a key driver for this event.
In the case of this OEM our superior solution quality reflected in the tight integration of our special audio rendering and hedge wrecking technologies and coupled with our capabilities to efficiently support the full product integration and tuning, help us to secure this deal.
As I've mentioned previously, the royalties for software license directly to OEM are at the higher end of our overall range and the customers get to market faster than typical semiconductor customers involved in a lengthy chip design columns.
It influences while training neural networks in the cloud is the most practical way of developing new AI models. Inferencing is the path to monetizing these investments.
The preferred way to influence is to process it {H1st }on the smart edge device itself due to the near zero marginal cost of performing each query. In addition to other benefits such as the lower latency in privacy from laptops, smartphones and self-driving cars, scaling all the way down to tiny neural networks on power constrained IOT devices. The industry is experiencing unprecedented demand for power and cost efficient solutions to run AI on device.
In line with this trend, we secured our first licensing deal this quarter for our NeuPro-Nano NPU, which was only introduced in June of this year. A significant milestone for our embedded A I product line.
Embedded AI is a highly synergetic with our connectivity and sensing offerings from the high volume and markets we serve to the customers we work with and through the growing need for connectivity sensing and AI to be increasingly integrated into every smart edge device.
This specific customer is an existing licensee of our Bluetooth dual mode IP which it chips in high volume today in their wireless audio chips.
These customers require a highly efficient NPU to add to their products for audio and other embedded AI processing in order to increase performance and add new AI based features.
NeuPro-Nano was the outstanding choice for them due to a single core, highly efficient architecture that can execute CPU ESP and neural networks work workloads with high performance and low energy utilization or in a small area.
This deal is indicative of our belief that many of our existing connectivity customers will require an NPU for their product road maps and is reflected in multiple opportunities in our pipeline through our proven relationships based on market success. Together, we are very well positioned to capitalize on this and license our NeuPro-Nano IP which leads to higher royalties on each device.
In addition to signing the first licensee in the third quarter, we also achieved other important milestones for embedded AI. We delivered a second higher performance implementation of NeuPro-Nano which is available for customers. Now giving them another option for their NPU requirements.
And we also expanded access for AI developers to rapidly develop train and deploy advanced embedded machines learning applications for the new, for the new for NPU VA partnership with Impulse, whose platform is widely used in the AI developer community for if two devices, these developments are part of our strategy to leverage our significant investment in AI to create a strong growth engine for SA overall, I'm incredibly pleased with licensing performance in the quarter and through the key sign in each domain, we specialize in. There is a clear indication that our strategy is working and resonating with our customers worldwide.
Turning now to royalties, continued trends in consumer industrial and market help us to achieve 15% year over year royalty revenue growth and deliver the second highest quarterly unit shipment in SA history of 522 million units.
The it units were at an all-time record high while Bluetooth and Wi Fi continue to be very robust overall combined shipments of Bluetooth Wi-fi and Federal IOT suppress 400 million units in a quarter for the first time. An impressive milestone for our IOT connectivity product line.
Also, we drove sequential and year over year growth of TV S and PC powered by our sense of use software smartphone shipments volume was down moderately on sequential and year over year basis. And with five GRM shipments reflected the software environment for 5G operator OpEx.
This year of note, we saw several of our customers ship record volume of their silver powered products reflecting a combination of improved demand and continued market share gains particularly in the wireless connectivity space overall, I remain very confident in the resilience of our loyalty business with many different customers and end markets contributing to the fourth consequential quarter of year over year loyalty growth,
our royalty pipeline continues to show strong momentum with a growing number of customers preparing to launch silver power products spanning wireless combo chips, new 5G and cellular IOT use cases, vision and sense of Fusion for a system and special audio software to name just a few.
Now I will turn the call over to your need for the financials.
Thank you, Amir. I'll start by reviewing the results of our operations for the third quarter of 2024.
The revenue for the third quarter was $27.2 million. Up 13% compared to $24.1 million for the same quarter. Last year.
The revenue breakdown is as follows. Licensing and related revenue was $15.6 million, reflecting 57% of total revenue increased 12% year over year, wealthy revenues were $11.6 million reflecting 43% of our total revenue increased 15% year over year gross margin came below our guidance. 85% on GAAP and 87% on non-GAAP basis compared to 90% and 92% on GAAP and non-GAAP basis, respectively. A year ago.
This is mainly due to a strategically beneficial customization work associated with key 5G advanced deals. We signed recently, our ability to provide the most advanced 5G platform. It together with customization expertise to the semiconductor and community is highly compelling and is enabling us to sign deals with higher licensing fees, higher roll rates and create sticky long-term relationships.
Total gross operating expenses for the third quarter were $25.9 million at the higher end of our guidance due to slightly higher equity-based compensation expenses.
Total non-GAAP operating expenses for the third quarter excluding equity-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangibles and related acquisition costs were $21.4 million just over the midrange of our guidance. And in the same expense level as the second quarter, non-GAAP operating margins and net income were 8% of revenue and $2.1 million. 14% and 30% higher than operating margins of 7% and operating an income of $1.6 million recorded in the third quarter of 2023, respectively.
This plays well with our commitment to increase growth and profitability in line with new IP developments and disciplined expense. Schools.
GAAP operating loss for the third quarter of 2024 was $2.6 million as compared to a GAAP operating loss of $2.7 million for the same period. In 2023 GAAP and non-GAAP taxes of $1 million lower than our guidance and affected by the geography of deals signed GAAP that lost for the third quarter of 2024 were $1.3 million and the limited loss per share was $0.6 as compared to a net loss of $2.8 million and the limited loss per share of $0.12 for the same period last year,
non-GAAP net income in the little income per share for the third quarter of 24 increased significantly by 137% and 133% to $3.4 million and $0.14 respectively as compared to a net income of $1.4 million and diluted income per share of 6¢ reported for the same quarter last year with respect to other related data shipped units by Ceva licensees during the third quarter of 2024 were 522 million units.
Up 4% from the third quarter of 2023 reported shipments and 13%. Higher sequentially. This is the second highest quality shipment in Ceva's history of the 522 million unit ship.
72 million units or about 14% were for mobile handset modems.
440 million units were consumer IOP markets up 4% from 398 million units in the third quarter of 2023.
Of note, we revenue for consumer IOT increased 21% year over year due to shipment growth for our higher A SB products.
36 million units were for industrial IOT markets up 50% from 24 million units. In the third quarter of 2023 Bluetooth shipments were 306 million units in the quarter. Down slightly 2% year over year cellular IOT shipments were record all time high of 48 million units up 37% year over year. And Wi-Fi shipment also increased significantly to 47 million units up 100% year over year overall.
A strong mix of shipments across our key end markets delivered year over year role to revenue growth for the fourth successive core as of the balance sheet items. As of September 30 '24 Ceva's cash equivalent balances, marketable securities and bank deposits were approximately 100 and $58 million. In the third quarter, we purchased approximately 186,000 shares for approximately $4.2 million.
Earlier today, our board of directors authorized a new increase of 700,000 shares to our existing 10B-18 repurchase program.
As of today, just over 1 million shares are available for repurchase under the repurchase program. After giving effect to this expansion, we believe in our future business prospects and intend to take advantage of the program to increase shareholders' value.
Our [DSO S] for the third quarter is 61 days better than the 69 days in the prior quarter. During the quarter, we generated $0.4 million of cash from operating activities. Our ongoing depreciation and amortization was $1 million and purchase a fixed asset was $0.4 million.
And at the end of the third quarter, our head count is 431 people in whom 354 are engineers. Most of the guidance for the fourth quarter of 2024 and the full year, as evidenced in the last two quarters, our annual growth plan progressed. Well, also as Amir stated earlier, our backlog and pipeline improved both for the fourth quarter of 24 as well as for 2025.
Therefore, we expect overall revenues for the year to be higher than the last two guidance's we provided earlier and then a new higher range of 7% to 9% growth.
We continue to manage our OpEx closely and implement cost control measures from time to time. This would enable us to double our non-GAAP operating margins and operating profit for 2024-2023 and also generate stronger earnings, power and double or non-GAAP fully diluted EPS.
That's for the fourth quarter. Total revenue is expected to be in the range of $26.5 million to $28.5 million. Gross margin is expected to be approximately 88% on GAAP basis and 89% on non-GAAP basis excluding aggregate of $0.2 million of equity-based compensation expenses and $0.1 million associated with the required intangibles.
This is a bit lower than originally expected due to the higher allocation of engineering efforts to support key 5 G advanced customers get. OpEx is expected to be in the range of $25.2 million to $26.2 million at the average level of the last two quarters of anticipated Operating expenses for the fourth quarter. $3.7 million is expected to be attributed to equity based compensation expense and $0.2 million for the amortization of inquired intangibles and $0.3 million for the expense related to the business acquisitions.
OpEx is expected to be similar to the last two quarters and in the range of $21 million to $22 million reflecting our continued expense control and enabling strongly stronger earnings power.
The interest income is expected to be approximately $1.2 million. Taxes are expected to be approximately $1.4 million deal geography closures, and the share count is expected to be 25.3 million shares. And Jason you could now open the Q&A session, please.
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instruction)
Kevin Cassidy from Rosenblatt Securities.
Kevin Cassidy
Yes. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on the great results. Just to maybe clarification or maybe restate it on the gross margin, the drag on gross margin. This is, you know, engineering time you're spending making a custom 5G modem platform and this extends a little bit into next quarter. Is that, is there going to be extension further? And also yeah, I just want to understand is this platform then become a standard device that you license to other companies?
Sure, good morning. Thanks for the question. So I in our cost of revenues and it business, you do bring up R&D resources when you do some customization works for your customers and this is a very strategic large deal. We have few already, two of them in the modem 5G space earlier in the year.
And now this is the third one that we sign now in the third quarter, to two of these deals, we have some work that are associated with them and these are special requests to change specific things for, these specific customers. Of course, the knowledge and the know-how and the capabilities of doing things like this in the past in the future remains with Ceva and this could drag one quarter or so the two quarters the margin the loan.
But down at the end of the day, allocation of R&D cost to cost of revenue, it's not an increase in the overall expenses. And when you look at an annual basis, this year, we are still looking at 89% 90% margins non-GAAP. So nothing has changed dramatically. Just a little bit more effort on the on the top line versus our.
And Kevin, I would add to that also more on the strategic view of how we are driving the company and the business. If you recall, when I talked previously, long term, what we would like to achieve is basically to be a truly partner of our customers and driving better economy and value to our customers of the technology that we provide. In this case with the 5G advanced platform.
Basically, we bring up a complete platform that started with the so-called DSP and processing technology. But now a complete L1 modern technology hardware and software.
This is the IP that we are building and we will go and expand our IP across all our customer base. In this specific case, including the other days through the year. There's a also additional so called customization and support that we provide to our customers. But they drive the long term economics of better licensing and warranty moving forward. As we continue to build the connectivity IP portfolio that we have.
Kevin Cassidy
Okay, great. Thanks for that clarification. And you know, maybe it's as you're designing with this platform, is there an opportunity for Wi-Fi in in the platform overall?
That's Kevin, that's a great question. So in this specific case, we are starting with the 5G advanced platform, but we have multiple customers that are looking to add to this platform Wi Fi and Bluetooth and other technologies. And so definitely on, on top of what I said, strategically, more value and economics per deal is really creating and adding more content of the different wireless connectivity.
And on top of that, moving forward, also what we will see is adding AI on your network capabilities in terms of the processing that we provide in this type of connectivity platforms. And we have the NeuPro-Nano that we talked about today as well as the other MPS that we have in our portfolio.
So definitely what we see is that and I'm very happy with how I see the strategy that we put in place that we, are executing that exactly to our plan and driving more and more value and with that economics of the deals to our customers with the multiple connectivity technologies. And then on top of that AI
Kevin Cassidy
okay. Great. Thanks.
Operator
Tavy Rosner from Barclays.
Tavy Rosner
Oh, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about the licensing deals. You announced 10. I think it was on the press release. It's a little lower than your run rate for previous quarters. I'm just wondering, is that significant or reflecting maybe some deal slippage into next quarter? Anything you can speak to that?
Yes, definitely. Thanks for the question, please. First quarter by quarter, the numbers can change a little bit as we know with licensing the business. It can vary between quarters but overall and we are very satisfied with the number of deals that we have and the type of deals that we have, which is even more important and, and, and the mix can, can vary in each quarter.
And in this case, we have several deals with multiple OEM's which will drive better economics moving forward as well as our advanced wireless connectivity solutions. And so then the number of deals is, you know, we talked about it roughly on, on an annual basis, we typically about around 50 deals a year or so. So it can vary quarter of the quarter. But for us, it's more the quality of the deal than the quantity of the deal and overall how we is our technology basically adopted by our customers.
Tavy Rosner
Got it. And just on the backlog and pipeline, you mentioned the improved momentum. So how would you describe it now versus at the beginning of the year?
Yes, a few things on that one. First on the pipeline that I highlighted as well in the prepared remarks, the pipeline that I see today is the highest that I've seen since I joined the company at the beginning of 2023. And that goes back to, we really see that our strategy fitting very nicely with the market needs to call us all our technologies of connections and infer and through the key end market, which we are targeting is part of the smart edge and in terms of the backlog this quarter, for Q4, we are basically in a position right now that the backlog is strong.
And with that, you know, overall, we raised the GUS for annually as well as to some degree for this quarter. And so we're in a good place and I'm very happy with how I see the execution coming together.
Tavy Rosner
Great, thanks for that. That's it for me.
Thank you.
Operator
We have a question from Gus Richard from Northland. Please go ahead.
Gus Richard
Yes. Thanks for taking the question. Just real quick. There's been a little bit of a shift obviously from spending to gross margin as you customize for do some customer customers is, is that the way we should think about the models is gross margins and 25 coming into the high 80's and, and a little bit lighter on the R&D line.
Hi, good morning. I'm not sure we're not talking about yet, the 2025 model for this year and the guidance for Q4 and if you plug that in, you will get the year around the 89% to 90%. So in line with the nine years that we've been around for a long time, we're not changing our model. You know, it's not becoming a service company.
It's just specific, very specific deal in very specific areas that because of the offerings and because of the excitement of 5G Advanced, we won three consecutive deals in the last two quarters, so very strong execution on that and it happens to be that some of them need some more work so that the one of those deals that we signed now in Q3, we'll have a few more quarters of, of work and support for that specific customer.
But we're not changing the model, we're not changing and we're still an it company. It should be the [nineish], you know, 1 2% up or down is not changing anything majority in the, in this, in the modelling aspects.
Got.
Gus Richard
It. And let me just try asking the question another way. Are you seeing increased demand for customization beyond 5G advanced? As more OEM's get into the business of building their own chips, They don't have the design expertise.
And I'm just wondering is you're not going to be design services company but OEM's need more help than a semiconductor company, let's say, and I'm just wondering if, if, if that's giving you an opportunity to do a little more customization work and you know, obviously drive higher licensing and loyalty down the road, you know, but paying up front and a little bit more, a little bit lower gross margin. That that's the nature of the question.
Amir Panush
Yeah, our device that it's a good question and the way we look at basically frame it is that when we look at the different deal and what we offer to our customers for us, it's less about so called. The level of customization is the value that we offer them definitely with the multiple connectivity technologies and ability to put them together as a so called pretested, pre-integrated with the software stack.
On top of that, we are bringing more and more value to our customers and that resonates very, very well with OEM or large semiconductor companies that have those gaps that you alluded to or mentioned. And so definitely we see us as a better fit to drive higher value type of deals both on the licensing and the long-term royalty that that can bring.
And we are very happy that that strategy now getting executed and resonates very well with the customer base.
And with that for the most part, most of our customers, because we are doing the pre integration and software, the integration to the platform by ourselves in advance, it will be an IP that is offered off the shelf and will increase more and more in value and capabilities here and there.
We have the opportunities to get and, build expansion of our IP and into new markets and with new customers and we will see here some customization on support and, but that's part of at the end of the day, our IP offering as we provided to OEM and semiconductors, which really have those goods.
I guess I'll add to that that if you try to quantify this, you know, we sign 40 to 50 deals a year. It's less than a handful, you know, deals per year that need to be we need some support and these types of customizations, the bulk of the business is off the shelf. I believe that we and then the license as in so it's really sporadic deals over, here and, and it's two or three falling in the same time we frame of one or two quarters.
Then this is why we saw this 87% this quarter versus the [nine years] that we really see on a, on a normal quarter.
Gus Richard
Got it. I, I understand. Thanks so much.
Amir Panush
Sure. Thank you.
Operator
Martin Yang from Oppenheimer.
Martin Yang
Thank you for taking my question. My question is on Wi Fi a very strong shipment quarter. Is there any additional color you could provide on only markets or products that contributed to the Wi Fi? That's the first question. Second question is, do you think this level of shipment is sustainable versus roughly an average of $30 million in the pre preceding quarters?
Amir Panush
Yeah, Martin good questions. And first, I would say that overall, not just Wi-fi cause the Bluetooth Wi-fi and combined. Definitely, this is a record quarter for us and illustrating the, the strategy and the decisions that we have been driven for a while to penetrate and create a leader and the connectivity, smart edge market. So we are very, very happy with where we are and how we see the royalty moving forward and so forth specifically on Wi-fi.
Actually, I would say we are early in the in the rent sector. And as we pointed already during the analyst day, last year, Wi-Fi shipment volume and in terms of the potential warranty ramp and overall volume shipment is still a significant growth area for us.
What drives it is we are penetrating more market share by our customers that license our technology really reaching the production. And once they reach production, they're also reaching more platform. And with that increased volume of shipment volume as time goes by.
And so definitely our expectation in the long run as we look at 2,567 as we shared during the day and as of last year, we expect the Wi Fi volume to increase significantly and with a good success as we have seen in our, with our group of technology and now it can vary quarter over quarter, depends on the market condition.
But overall, the baseline that drive the tailwind, which is the 30 more customers that already license our Wi-Fi six, we expect those customers to go more to production, more platform that they're shipping into and with that increased volume over time.
Richard Kingston
Hi Martin, this is Richard here just to add on another couple of points to Amir's answer there. So one of our customers who showed quite a big jump in shipments in the quarter indicated that some of their customers are starting to a new inventory restocking process.
And I think this was backed up as well by TSMC's earnings report recently where they talked about the strength of IOT. So there's definitely a move to a big volume of IOT chips with connectivity coming into the market right now.
It's been seen at the, at the fabs and also in the supply chain as well. So that definitely bodes well. And with the our large customer base there that Amir alluded to, we can see that to continue to grow, obviously quarter quarterly, we don't have any control over, but the trend is, is definitely heading in the right direction.
Martin Yang
Got it. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Amir. That's it for me.
Operator
Warren Derelict from D.A Davidson. Please go ahead.
Warren Darilek
Yes. Congrats on a great quarter. The question is for someone like me that's followed you guys for approaching 20 years. It feels like a new secular growth phase you're entering. My question is involving the cash hoard you have in the bank. Are there any complementary companies out there that might play into the new focus you have going forward that you all are considering or would consider? Are there candidates at present that you all, are you actively shopping or looking?
Amir Panush
So, yes, thanks for the question. So, first last year we acquired real space, our real space technology and now we are seeing that actually ramping up with the new customers like the OEM that we mentioned today on the call. And we also invested more in overall our IO people's photon connectivity portfolio with the expansions of more technology and the things that will come and we will be able to talk more in in the coming few calls.
And in addition to that, of course, as you pointed out, our balance sheet is very strong. And we are definitely looking how to deploy that into different type of M&A opportunities and we definitely there are opportunities out there and this is reasonable to expect that as we go into the next year and we will continue our acquisition to build more momentum acro across our wireless connectivity portfolio and overall the IP that we can offer.
Richard Kingston
Morning, we add on top of that, we also increased the buyback offering today. So that's also something that we have done in the past and we'll continue to, to use our access cash for that as well.
Warren Darilek
Fantastic. Thanks.
Guys.
Richard Kingston
Thank you.
Operator
There are no more questions in the queue. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Amir Panush for any closing remarks.
Amir Panush
Thank you on behalf of Ceva team. Thank you for joining us today. We delivered another strong quarter on the back of continuing business momentum and increased demand for our it, the semiconductor industry has returned to good growth driven by AI and through our tailored customer base, we are already seeing this growth through our royalty business with four consecutive quarters of year, over year growth and with our leading edge portfolio of technologies that enable smart edge devices to connect sense and infer data.
We are realizing many licensing opportunities with the world's leading semiconductor companies and OEM's that ensure we are well positioned to meet to meet our long-term growth objectives.
We look forward to meeting many of you during the fourth quarter on the road at investor conferences and non-deal Roadshows which are I will hand over to you to wrap it up.
Richard Kingston
Thanks Amir. As a reminder, the prepared remarks for this conference call are filed as an exhibit to the current report on form 8-K and accessible through the investors section of our website.
With regards to upcoming events, we will be participating in the following conferences, the 13th annual Roth Conference technology Conference, November '20 in New York, the Barclays 22 annual Global technology Conference December 11th in San Francisco, the Northland Growth Conference 2024 2.0 on December '12 being held virtually, we will be at CES 2025 from January 7th to 10th in Las Vegas. And the following week, we will be at the 27th annual Needham Growth Conference. January 14 and 15 in New York.
Further information on these events and all events we will be participating in can be found on the investors section of our website. Thank you all and goodbye.
Operator
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
