2/2/2022

speaker
Operator

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Aviat Network's second quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Keith Faneron, Vice President of Global Finance and investor relations.

speaker
Keith Faneron

Thank you. You may begin.

speaker
spk06

Thank you, and welcome to Aviat Network's second quarter fiscal 2022 results conference call and webcast. You can find our Form 10-2 press release and updated investor presentation in the IR section of our website at www.aviatnetworks.com. along with a replay of today's call in approximately two hours. With me today are Pete Smith, Aviat's president and CEO, who will begin with opening remarks on the company's fiscal second quarter, followed by David Gray, our CFO, who will review the financial results for the quarter and first half of fiscal 2022. Pete will then provide closing remarks on Aviat's strategy and outlook, followed by Q&A. As a reminder, during today's call and webcast, management may make forward-looking statements regarding Aviat's business, including but not limited to statements relating to financial projections, business drivers, new products and expansions, the impact of COVID-19, and economic activity in different regions. These and other forward-looking statements reflect the company's opinions only as of the date of this call and webcast and involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. Additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made on this call can be found in our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on August 25, 2021. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or make public any revision of these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. Additionally, during today's call and webcast, management will reference both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our press release, which is available in the IR section of our website at www.aviotnetworks.com, and financial tables therein, which include a GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation and other supplemental financial information. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Aviot's President and CEO, Pete Smith. Pete.

speaker
Pete Smith

Thanks, Keith, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us to review a successful quarter. The company continued to execute on our key long-term focus areas of growth, margin expansion, and meaningful bottom line improvements, despite continued supply chain and inflationary challenges. The Aviat team commitment resulted in revenue of $77.9 million, the highest quarterly revenue since Q1 of of fiscal year 2016, driven by international growth of 25% versus last year, EBITDA margins of 13%, continued rock-solid balance sheet and liquidity position, increased pace of share buybacks. These results would not have been possible without the tireless dedication and execution of our operations team, engineering team, and supplier partners in an incredibly challenging environment. Because supply chain has dominated the conversation over the past 12 plus months, let's address the environment from Aviat's perspective. We experienced fewer supply interruptions, but we still experienced interruptions. Lead times did not improve, but fortunately there were no high push outs. This is a sign of stabilization. The semiconductor allocation environment remains. We have invested to design out the most problematic suppliers. We remain subject to the risk of a supplier push-out and decommits late in the quarter. The most significant question, when does the supply environment get better? This is difficult to predict, but we feel that the environment will moderate in the April to June timeframe, and most, hopefully all, of the supply chain problems are behind us at the end of December. Now, let's move to the key highlights of the second quarter, which include our multi-band XD launch, high availability routing software factory acceptance test success, strong and demand environment linked to RDOF, the infrastructure bill, and spectrum options, EMEA growth, share buybacks. In the quarter, Aviat released a new enhancement to our multiband product line. Multiband XD, or extended distance, increases the reach of 10 gigabits per second links over distances up to 20 kilometers to support 5G and rural broadband applications. To achieve comparable performance, competitive multiband solutions require up to four times the hardware, making them costly and impractical for tower deployments. leaving high-cost fiber as the only option. Now, with multi-band XD, operators can significantly lower their total cost of ownership by up to 90% when compared to fiber alternatives. Simply, this innovation makes Aviat more competitive versus fiber. In the previous quarter, Aviat announced release of our new high-availability routing software to improve the reliability of critical networks of all kinds. This quarter, we passed a significant milestone with the successful completion of factory acceptance test, or FAT, with a large U.S. state customer. We replicated the entire state network in our facility in Austin, Texas, and subjected the system to real-world stress and performance testing. The software performed flawlessly. Aviat is one of only a few vendors offering high availability routing, and we have a rapidly growing pipeline of deals for this new software. This opens an additional $300 million of market opportunity for Aviat. The environment for Aviat's offerings continue to improve. Let's touch on the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the infrastructure bill, and the recent Spectrum auction. We remain well positioned for the rollout of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF. As we track the RDOF winners, Avion customers are earmarked for more than $3 billion of funding. In the quarter, we announced a new customer, Whisper Internet, in the space. In November 2021, the US passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation, which appropriates $65 billion for broadband infrastructure deployment. As a U.S. company, Aviat is well-positioned to participate in serving the 42 million Americans who lack broadband coverage or who lack contemporary bandwidth. The FCC recently completed a $22 billion auction, known as Auction 110, for the 3.45 to 3.55 gigahertz spectrum. The second biggest winner was DISH, our previously announced customer. As this spectrum is utilized, Aviat's backhaul business will be positively impacted. Our international growth of 25% was driven by our Europe and Africa regions. In previous earnings calls, we discussed improvements in the team and leadership. We have our first proof point internationally where selling on value and Aviat's differentiation works. Some highlights include a win with an important southeastern European mobile operator, and momentum with a UK private network customer. We see the preparations for several 5G deployments in Africa, and we believe our portfolio has the best value proposition on the market for 5G in Africa. This preparation work suggests the future development of a favorable 5G demand environment. We accelerated the pace of share buybacks during Q2, repurchasing almost two million of Aviat's stock and exhausting the previous board authorization. As announced, the board authorized a further $10 million share repurchase plan, and we anticipate executing on the new plan opportunistically in the subsequent course. Before turning the call over to David, let me provide a couple of additional observations and insights. First, this was a very good quarter and first half of our fiscal year. We remain focused and continue to execute, and those collective efforts are reflected in our financial and operational results. We've continued to demonstrate our ability to grow and to take share of demand. Looking forward, we see three significant drivers, 5G, private networks, and rural broadband. and believe we are well-positioned to capture significant opportunities with our differentiated products, software, and services offerings. With that, let me turn the call over to David to review our financials before coming back for some final comments. David.

speaker
Keith

Thank you, Pete, and good afternoon, everyone. During my remarks today, I will review some of the key second quarter and first half fiscal 2022 financial highlights. Noting our detailed financials can be found in our 10Q and press release, both of which were filed this afternoon. As a reminder, all comparisons discussed today are between the second quarter of fiscal 2022 and the second quarter of fiscal 2021 and less noted otherwise. For the second quarter, we reported total revenues of $77.9 million as compared to $70.5 million for the same period last year. An increase of 7.4 million, or 10.4%, driven by international sales growth and continued strength in U.S. private networks. Sequentially, revenue increased by 4.7 million, or 6.4%. As Pete mentioned, our total revenue for the second quarter was the highest since our first quarter of fiscal 2016. North America, which comprised 66% of total revenue for the second quarter, was 51.0 million, an increase of $1.9 million or 3.8% from the same period last year, driven primarily by our private networks business. International revenue was $26.8 million for the quarter, an increase of $5.4 million or 25.5% from the same period last year. We are again pleased that our backlog continues to remain above $200 million, even after recognizing our highest quarterly revenues in over six years. because of our innovative and differentiated product portfolio. Gross margins for the quarter were 36.2% and 36.3% on a gap and non-gap basis, as compared to 38.2% and 38.3% in the prior year. Gross margins remained under pressure from inflationary headwinds and expedite costs related to supply chain disruptions, but improved sequentially from Q1 by 60 basis points. This is consistent with our prior earnings commentary where we noted that price actions to offset inflation would gain momentum as the year progressed. Second quarter GAAP operating expenses were $19.9 million, and second quarter non-GAAP operating expenses, which exclude the impact of restructuring charges and share-based compensation, were $19.2 million. GAAP and non-GAAP OPX were $0.8 and $0.9 million higher than the prior year, respectively. The increase was driven by higher R&D costs incurred to complete the design out of problematic vendors, as well as higher commissions in line with strong orders and sales. Second quarter GAAP net income was $5.7 million compared to $6.6 million last year. The decline was wholly attributable to a $1.8 million higher GAAP tax provision in the current quarter. which were from the release of the U.S. Deferred Tax Asset Valuation Allowance as reported in our fiscal Q3 2021 results. As a reminder, the increase in tax provision year-over-year will not increase our cash taxes paid. The company has over $500 million of NOLs that will continue to generate shareholder value via minimal cash tax payments for the foreseeable future. Second quarter non-GAAP net income, which excludes restructuring charges, share-based comp, and non-cash tax provision, was $8.5 million compared to $8.4 million for the same period last year. Second quarter non-GAAP EPS came in at $0.71 per share compared to $0.74 per share for the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $10.1 million, which was flat to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margins were 13.1% for the quarter. Moving on to the balance sheet. Our cash and cash equivalents at the end of the second quarter were 42.3 million. We continue to have no debt. During Q2, we continued to increase investment in working capital to facilitate higher sales growth and protect ourselves from supply chain disruptions. Our strong balance sheet permits us to amass component supply and invest in international growth projects As a result, accounts receivable and unbilled receivables grew by $12.9 million in the quarter. Additionally, higher international growth typically has longer payment terms than North American customers. Interest also grew by $2.5 million in the quarter as we added more supply chain buffer stock. AR and inventory growth was only partially offset by current liabilities, which grew by $4.0 million in the quarter. As a result of these workable increases and $2 million of stop buybacks in the quarter, net cash decreased sequentially from the first quarter by $5.0 million and by $0.7 million from Q2 of the prior year. We expect this working capital dynamic to moderate in subsequent quarters, returning us to strong positive cash generation. Regardless, our balance sheet remains very solid, leaving us well-positioned to execute our long-term plans. With that, I will turn it back to Pete for some final comments. Pete?

speaker
Pete Smith

Thanks, David. Just a few additional comments before opening up for Q&A. I'm extremely proud of the entire AVIAD team for their significant contributions to our results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2022. We continue to execute well given the constrained supply situation and inflationary environment. Despite these challenges, based on our first half performance, we are raising our full year guidance as follows. Revenue for fiscal year 2022 to be in the range of $290 to $298 million and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $37 to $39 million. Providing our customers with the most advanced, reliable, and best total cost of ownership systems for mission-critical work and our shareholders with profitable growth remains our goal. With that, operator, put it up for questions.

speaker
Operator

If you would like to signal with questions, please press star 1 on your touchtone telephone. If you're joining us today using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that is star 1 if you would like to signal, and we'll pause for just a moment. I know that. It's fine. And our first question will come from Scott Searly with Roth Capital.

speaker
Scott Searly

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Nice job on the quarter. Very difficult operating environment. Hey, maybe just to dive in quickly on the guidance for the fiscal year, it looks like it would probably imply that you're down a little bit sequentially into the March quarter, typical seasonality. Is that how we should be thinking of it, above consensus expectations but down a little bit sequentially from the December results?

speaker
spk09

Yeah.

speaker
Pete Smith

So, you know, we've talked in the past about seasonality. Some years there are seasonality and some not, being a project-based business. And, you know, what drives the seasonality when we have it is year-end buying, principally from our government customers, and we certainly had that this year.

speaker
Scott Searly

Okay. And maybe to dive in on the software component, I think you indicated about a $300 billion TAM on that front. I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit in terms of software contribution, maybe near term, and how you start to penetrate that opportunity.

speaker
spk09

Right.

speaker
Pete Smith

So that's around our routing, right, where we have high availability routing software for a state network and that that project went well, we cited that as a $300 million TAM. And what we'll be selling, when we have those wins, we will have microwave, radio, a router, and the embedded software. And now that we've proven ourselves, our funnel is starting to grow. So when we sell that embedded, that routing software, that'll be as embedded software. With respect to our overall software, we're reluctant to break out the embedded software as a standalone because we can only sell it in conjunction with hardware. And then just to keep going on this, we do have our FAST, which is a standalone software, but it's helped our margins over the past couple of years, but it's not material enough to break out.

speaker
Scott Searly

Great.

speaker
Pete Smith

Is that helpful?

speaker
Scott Searly

Perfect. And maybe if I could jump in on the RDOF front. It sounds like some of these RDOF deployments are starting to get underway. I think to date you've seen very little, if any, contribution. I think you articulated a $3 billion opportunity with existing customers. How do you expect that to flow in? And then if you could as well, the infrastructure bill, it seems like it's coming behind it. I'm sure there's some politics probably in terms of the allocations and timelines there, but there's been a big push in terms of American-made, and you guys certainly fit that bill. So I guess how does RDOF kind of flow into the current calendar year, and where do we start to see the benefits from the infrastructure bill starting to kick in?

speaker
Pete Smith

Yeah, so we think that we're not aware of any RDOF spending with AVIAD yet, so it's all yet to come. So that's That's upside for the business. And our best estimate of when we can expect to see an RDOF impact is in the back half of this calendar year. So it's in front of us, all of it. And then the Building Infrastructure Fund, or for the policy, H.R. 3684, There's four steps for implementation. First, the FCC needs to update their maps, and we think that's in the summertime of this calendar year. Then the Commerce Department is creating a process for states to apply, and that application, from what's been published, is May 2022. Then the states will develop their plan for submission, and then they'll be reviewed and approved by the Commerce Department. And we think that that's, you know, the end of 22, the beginning of 2023 for that funding to make an impact.

speaker
Scott Searly

Great. Perfect. And lastly, if I could, international had a great quarter. You're up 25% year over year. It seems like looking at it geographically, Latin America and Middle East and Africa did well. Is that you benefiting from Huawei tearouts or Huawei being less visible in And then on the European front, big opportunities there, I think, in terms of what you're starting to win hasn't shown up in the numbers yet. When do we expect Europe to start to kick in? Thanks.

speaker
Pete Smith

So, you know, when we report our segments, Europe is up, driven principally by the private network in the U.K. But secondly, we did have some good growth in the European region driven by a Huawei share gain. That was the southeastern Europe network operator. And then thirdly, on Africa, we are seeing some share gain from Huawei, and what we're finding is that 5G, a lot of our business in Africa this quarter was around 5G deployment, so getting getting the sites prepped and getting demos done. So we think that that's going to bode well for the Africa region going forward. Great, thanks. Great question. Thanks, Scott.

speaker
Operator

And our next question will come from Dave King with B. Riley.

speaker
Dave King

Thank you. Good afternoon. I guess my first question is, I believe you said regarding the supply chain situation that it should start to ease post-June. So how should we think about gross margin in calendar second half? Does it go back to like 38% or so? Can you just provide some more color, what to expect?

speaker
Keith

Hey, Dave, I would comment on that by saying, yes, we're still on track with what we said previously as far as our pricing actions being able to fully offset the cost increases that we've been seeing by our Q4 of this year. And looking out at that quarter and beyond, you know, we – We still expect the overall inflationary impact to be somewhat delusionary because even though our price actions will offset dollar for dollar, you're also increasing the denominator while holding the numerator steady. So that will have some impact, but we do expect... as the momentum continues to unfold here, that it will be able to hold on to those pricing gains and start seeing some better accretion on the gross margin line.

speaker
Pete Smith

Dave, to just add on that, it'll be a little while before we give guidance for fiscal year 23, and what we'll need to balance is how much traction we have on our software on our, you know, on our innovative new products versus the international growth. So, but, you know, Dave just said one important thing is that we still maintain that we're going to get back to parity from cost price in our April to June timeframe. And then the, so then we're back to where we were before this environment took hold, and then it'll be our margin improvements will be predicated on MIX and capturing more software and more innovation.

speaker
Dave King

Got it. And then my second question is, you talked about having various trials, number of trials last year that you expect. those will go into production this year. Can you just give us an update or some data points, how many trials you had and how many you expected to go into production this year?

speaker
Pete Smith

I'm struggling with a little bit what I meant by the trials, but let me give you the one that I'm ready to We talked a lot about multiband, our XD, our new product that's opened up another 50 million of TAM versus fiber. We're in two trials with lead customers. On the high availability software, we've passed the FAT with a state network customer, and we've sold that to... maybe a half a dozen other customers, and the pipeline on the high-availability routing software, we have another five or ten customers behind there. So when we think about our pipeline, we kind of parse it out by the innovative products, and I think to be as responsive as possible to your question, On the multiband XD, we have two. We have more customers on the high-availability routing software, and we have about a half a dozen that are queued up for trials.

speaker
Dave King

Got it. And my last question is on OpEx. It was up approximately, what, $1 million sequentially to $30 million, or excuse me, SG&A. How should we think about... OPEX going forward?

speaker
Keith

Well, I think it's safe to say that we believe that our Q2 is probably the high watermark for OPEX in this fiscal year. Some of those extra expenses that were noted in the earlier comments, should not recur, so they should moderate somewhat in the back half. That will also be balanced against some modest seasonality that typically exists in ONOPX, but it should fall back a little bit and be more in line with what we've seen in previous years.

speaker
Dave King

Got it. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And our next question will come from Tim Savage with Northland Capital Markets.

speaker
Tim

Good afternoon.

speaker
spk09

Hi, Tim.

speaker
Tim

Hey, how's it going? I'm trying to think about how to frame this question. I'll just start kind of with a gross margin approach. And, you know, mixed U.S. versus international is typically an important factor. And so I want to think about that both short-term and long-term. In the quarter you just reported, I think you were able to increase gross margins on what you said, 60 bps, despite a much higher international mix. So I guess start, you know, question one, how did you do that? And David, I wonder if you could specifically frame the supply impact on that, whether that's a couple hundred basis points or what have you. And then longer term, a lot of what you're talking about opportunity-wise appears pretty U.S.-focused, right? Ardoff, Dish, other state level. And so should we think about that U.S. mix increasing and bringing gross margins up with it, or are there other dynamics at play here as we go through the rest of the year?

speaker
Keith

Okay. I'll speak to the gross margin first, and then – you can talk to the international versus domestic mix. So for the quarter, the cost increases impacted our margins by roughly 340 basis points negatively. That was offset partially by our price recovery actions that added about 230 basis points. That's about two times what we reported in our first quarter. And then You're right, the international strength did have a bit of a dilutive effect by about 80 to 90 basis points in the quarter. So that kind of is a walk year over year from a margin perspective. And then, you know, we, again, continue to expect the pricing actions to gain traction in the future quarters to help offset those inflationary pressures that we've seen.

speaker
Pete Smith

Thanks. So, Tim, on the mix, right, we've said that our long-term target gross margin is 40%, and the way we were planning on getting there was through hardware innovation and software. And as we've gotten traction with the international team, we think that there's – good growth opportunity there that we're digging into, but we have our first proof point. I think your question is when the RDOF kicks in and the infrastructure fund kicks in, will that drive more growth in the U.S. side? Yes, that is more margin accretive. I gave my best estimates on when that funding will will hit, and we want to keep our regional mixed model the same, two-thirds North America, one-third the rest of the world, and we will revisit that as that funding starts to flow, but there's no denying that when it does, it'll be margin accretive for us. Sorry.

speaker
Tim

I'm on mute. I'm sorry. Go ahead. It was a really interesting question, too. Too bad. No. I'm going to stick with RDOB. And so you mentioned you'd won awards, I think, backed by three – with carriers who are backed by $3 billion in awards. And historically, I want to ask about you at one time estimated kind of a TAM – range for Aviat in the 2% to 4% range based on that network build cost or maybe even based on those awards. As you have more experience with these deals and are winning a lot of them, is that still a reasonable range? Any bias toward the high and low end or any update in general on how you see your market opportunity out of those award funds?

speaker
Pete Smith

Yeah, I would say we're the same, right? So the reason we put the $3 billion number in last time was, you know, you asked a question that we didn't have last time was, of your winners, how much does it represent of opportunity? $3 billion. We would stick with the 2% to 4% of the funding goes to microwave. And, you know, in our investor presentation, we've you know, we think that we have 38% share, and, you know, I wouldn't say that any of that's materially changed. So as you kind of model our potential upside when you are not funding, I would say that the numbers are the same.

speaker
Tim

Great. And that, you know, that $3 billion number is pretty much the total amount of awards to fixed wireless carriers. Is that coincidental or... Is there anything outstanding there or have we kind of won them all?

speaker
Pete Smith

Let me check if that's a coincidence or a fact. I didn't do that totaling, but we'll get back to you on that. But we've got to be pretty close to winning them all.

speaker
Tim

Yeah. Well, I'm just saying your share sounds anecdotally higher than 38, but it really hasn't started to roll yet. And I figured there was limited impact looking at the flat sequential U.S. numbers from RDOF. You know, as you look at the state level, I don't know if you're seeing any funding or opportunities, you know, not for state networks, but coming out of state-level funding. And I'd ask you the same question on DISH in terms of, you know, it doesn't seem like that started to be material yet. What's your expected timing on that?

speaker
Pete Smith

Yeah, I think, you know, the... The state funding environment is pretty stable, and the positive catalyst is the infrastructure fund. And then there's one bit of legislation that I don't know that we fully understand with the conversion of the leftover CARES money. That could be a positive catalyst, but we don't know specifically about that. And then on DISH, it hasn't been... but we're seeing signs that it will have some positive impact, let's say, in Q4 of our fiscal year.

speaker
Keith Faneron

Great. Thanks very much. You're back on mute.

speaker
Pete Smith

Yeah.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And our next question will come from Theodore O'Neill with Litchfield Hills Research.

speaker
Theodore O'Neill

Yeah, congratulations on the quarter. A couple of questions for you. Could sales have been higher if you hadn't had the supply chain issues in the quarter? And if they could have been, do those sort of come later, or do they just get taken up and consumed by competitors?

speaker
Pete Smith

Well, Theo, I'm pleased to report that we didn't miss any demand due to supply chain issues in the quarter. And if you go back the past couple quarters, we said we'd missed a million or two million, but our supply chain team performed well, and we didn't miss any demand. And I think that's the first time that that's been the case in three or four or maybe more quarters. So that's another sign that the environment is is stabilizing, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that maybe the supply environment is moderating.

speaker
Theodore O'Neill

That's terrific. And, Pete, on the last quarter, you said that you're now supplying 15 of the top 30 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund winners and are in advanced discussions with five of the top 30. How is that going?

speaker
Pete Smith

Yeah, I would say we've gone one out of the five, so let's go for 16 of the top 30.

speaker
Theodore O'Neill

Great. And it was noted earlier, but your sales in the Africa and Middle East segment were up 30% sequentially, and I think they've been flat for many quarters since. As we sort of model out our own projections, should we consider that sort of be stable at this new level, or how should we think about that?

speaker
spk09

You know, so we think that, look, it was an exceptional quarter, Q2.

speaker
Pete Smith

Okay. And we, you know, and, you know, if we want to kind of do that, our North America quarter, business was not growing as much and international was growing more. And we would say that, you know, the way to look at our revised revenue guidance and just use the two-thirds North America, one-third split. So I think that's about the color we can give. But I would say on the Africa side, as though the 5G prep work, is completed, then you could imagine later this calendar year this having a positive impact. But to hedge back on that a little bit, we still see the two-thirds of North America one-third, and we want them both to grow. So that's where we're at. It's a good question.

speaker
Theodore O'Neill

Fair enough. Thanks very much.

speaker
Pete Smith

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

And once again, if you would like to signal with questions, please press star 1 on your touchtone telephone. Again, that is star 1 if you would like to ask questions. And our next question will come from Aaron Martin with AIGH Investment Partners.

speaker
Aaron Martin

Hi, guys. Congratulations on the next quarter and appreciate the continued execution on the buyback. Going back to the AR, would that increase their related to the shift in revenue, international, anything related to there, or what else do you do? Because it's been a nice little creep up.

speaker
Keith

Yeah. This quarter, it was almost entirely due to international growth. You know, if I look at the regional breakout of our AR, and, you know, so that was definitely a driving factor, you know, which, you know, we typically have longer payment terms with international customers in addition to the strong growth. So those are the two biggest contributing factors that, again, we expect that to start to come back in subsequent quarters.

speaker
Aaron Martin

And then, you know, as I think you talked about the backlog still being over 200 million, was it up sequentially or

speaker
Pete Smith

So we don't break out backlog on a quarterly basis because of the project nature. The other thing we would add to give you a little more insight is our book-to-bill ratio remains above one.

speaker
Aaron Martin

Okay. And then as I look at that on the higher backlog, is any of that a function of longer lead times and your customers having to order ahead for a little longer time? or is that really emblematic of true demand?

speaker
Pete Smith

So we, you know, our private network business is long cycle, so we don't see very much acceleration of demand in that segment, and we certainly haven't seen the mobile network operator space, so we, if that's going on, we're not aware of it, so I wouldn't say we we have any acceleration of demand. So it's really true demand.

speaker
Aaron Martin

Got it. As I think about growth over the next six, 12, 24 months, what's a more important driving factor? Is it rural broadband? Is it 5G roll-ups really happening? What are the bigger factors in terms of whether the growth will show up and how strong it will be for you guys over that time frame?

speaker
Pete Smith

So we have three drivers that we talk about, private networks, which is about two-thirds of our business. So that's really important. And I think that's going to be a steady grower for us. And when the infrastructure fund kicks in, that should be a growth accelerant. Rural broadband would be a growth accelerant. And 5G, we think we're in the early innings. We're really happy to see the developments, particularly in Africa, and that would be a growth accelerant. So if you look at the, in terms of the core company, the private networks is most important. But in terms of accelerating growth, the 5G and the rural broadband should be pleasant developments for us, say, one to two years out.

speaker
Aaron Martin

Got it. And then you talked about a multiband, how the customers are very excited at the release. I think you said it enables a $300 million TAM expense for you. Can you talk a little bit about your initial, I guess, test? I don't know if you've taken any orders yet, particularly for multiband and, you know, any quantification around the initial rollout of that product.

speaker
spk09

Yeah, so the $300 million TAM extension was with our high-availability routing software.

speaker
Pete Smith

So the multiband XD makes our microwave radios more competitive versus fiber, and we think at that distance we've opened up to $50 million more of TAM. So that would be share gain versus fiber. And we are in trials with two lead customers, and where these lead customers are is when, you know, where they're using fiber, and the total cost of ownership of the fiber increases dramatically with link distances. So think about, you know, mountainous terrains or, you know, kind of island-based nations where there's a lot of water. Do we think that this is... improves the value proposition for microwave, and we're really excited that we have two significant customers that are in trials.

speaker
Aaron Martin

Okay. And then on the new 10-gig, very long-distance radio, where are you with that? Are the customers, do they care about the additional capabilities and or, you know, the competition catching up, or what can you tell me there in terms of

speaker
spk09

All right, so the 10-gig radio and the multiband XD are the same.

speaker
Pete Smith

So that commentary is related to the multiband XD radio.

speaker
Aaron Martin

Okay, thank you very much.

speaker
Pete Smith

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you, and that does conclude the question-answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to Mr. Pete Smith, for any additional or closing remarks.

speaker
Pete Smith

I'd like to thank everyone for your support and attention and interest in Aviat. Everybody stay safe and healthy. We're looking forward to giving you an update on our progress in 90 days. Thanks, everyone.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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