Belden Inc

Please stand by, your conference is about to begin. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to this morning's Belden Reports second quarter 2026 results. Just a reminder, this call is being recorded. At this time, you are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your touch tone phone. If you're in the question queue and would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 2. I'd now like to turn the call over to Aaron Reddington. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Belden's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. With me today are Belden's President and CEO, Ashish Chand, and Executive Vice President and CFO, Jeremy Parks. Ashish will provide a strategic overview of the quarter, and then Jeremy will cover our financial results and third quarter outlook, followed by Q&A. We issued our earnings release earlier this morning and have prepared a slide presentation that we will reference on this call. The press release, presentation, and transcript of these prepared remarks are currently available online at investor.belvin.com. Turning to slide two. I'd like to remind everyone that today's call will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risk and uncertainties as detailed in our press release and most recent Form 10-K. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in the appendix to our presentation and on our website. I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Ashish Chand.

Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us. Please turn to slide four. The second quarter was the strongest quarter in company history, and we are well positioned for what's ahead. Our team achieved record revenue of $750 million, up 12% year-over-year, and adjusted EPS of $2.34, up 24%, both above the high end of our guidance. Please note that our results include a net tariff benefit of approximately 25 cents per share related to the expected recovery of IEPA tariffs. Jeremy will cover the details. End market demand is strong with record orders of $836 million, up 19% year-over-year and up 23% sequentially. Our book-to-bill ratio came in at 1.11. Auto strength is broad-based across the end markets and we expect that to continue into the third quarter. Organic revenue growth was 8% for the quarter with discrete process and enterprise growth verticals all up double digits, reflecting a broad improvement in our industrial markets and our AI infrastructure strategy gaining traction with customers. The second quarter also delivered two milestones that I want to highlight as they are proof of our solution strategy executing at scale. First, a contract worth approximately $20 million with a tier one hyperscaler for fiber connectivity inside an AI data center. That order is closed and in production today. Second, a significant specification win with a leading global retailer where Belden has been selected to network autonomous elements across the U.S. distribution centers with first orders already received. This is physical AI in practice. AI-driven, intelligent, autonomous machines operating in real-world industrial environments requiring the kind of ruggedized, mission-critical connectivity that Belden is uniquely built to deliver. Together, these confirm the direction of our business and the execution of our strategy. I will walk through them both shortly. Finally, on July 1st, at the start of the third quarter, Ruckus Networks officially joined Belden. The integration is underway, and we are already in market. Ruckus is immediately accretive to revenue growth, EPS, and EBITDA. Our solutions mix crosses 20% at close. Our 2028 goal achieved three years ahead of schedule. Please turn to slide five. The numbers in this slide tell you exactly what kind of company Belden is today, and they reflect something more than just a bigger business. With Ruckus, we are now a full-stack networking and automation platform spanning passive infrastructure, active switching, wireless, and AI driven cloud software. Our offerings abroad, our solutions capabilities are deep and a competitive position is stronger than ever. Note, these figures are management estimates based on hypothetical full year results for the combined business and are not guidance. The financial profile reflects a fundamentally stronger company. Belden is now a $3.6 billion revenue company. Gross margins improved to approximately 43%, and adjusted EBITDA margins expand to 18%. Our active product mix reaches 35% of revenue, and our solutions mix stands at 20%. From the connector to the switch to the cloud, Belden now delivers every layer of the network from a single source. Please turn to slide six. Let me reiterate what Ruckus specifically brings to this combination, because these metrics reflect real product and market advantages. First, a gross margin profile north of 60%. And it is worth explaining why. Ruckus is not a hardware business. It is a platform business. Wi-Fi access points, enterprise switching, and cloud network management software sold together as an integrated solution. That differentiated product mix, including software and services, is what drives the margin profile. It is structural, not cyclical, and a creative development from day one. Second, Ruckus brings high single-digit growth, and with it, access to one of the fastest growing segments of the networking market. Wi-Fi 7 is the first wireless standard reliable enough for industrial use. and the enterprise upgrade cycle is just beginning. Ruckus sits at the front of that wave. What makes this particularly compelling for Belden is the opportunity to bring Ruckus into our existing industrial customer base. Customers across discrete manufacturing, energy and process industries who are already investing in automation, reshoring and network modernization. We are the only company that can deliver industry leading wireless alongside the full wired OD stack from a single source. That cross-sell opportunity is meaningful and a very powerful addition to the combined business. And third, our solutions mix steps up past 20% immediately. That matters because solutions engagements are larger in scope, on higher margins, are stickier with customers, and structurally more defensible than product only relationships. Every point of solutions mix we add expands the profitability and durability of this business and Ruckus accelerates our solutions trajectory. Please turn to slide seven. I want to show you what this actually looks like in practice because the product stack behind those financial metrics is what makes this combination genuinely differentiated. Belden now runs every layer of the network, both industrial and enterprise, from a single source. Cable and connectors, patch panels, edge devices, routers, OT switches, IT switches, and Wi-Fi 7 wireless access points. The complete infrastructure stack for AI-driven industrial and enterprise environments. With Ruckus One managing the IT network layer, and Belden Horizon managing the OT network layer. Two purpose-built software platforms under one convert solution with one trusted partner. For customers who want one partner accountable for the complete network, Belden is now that partner. Every additional layer we own lifts the value we deliver to customers through our solutions and deepens our relationship. This is the competitive moat we've been building over the past five years, and Ruckus accelerates that. With that context, let me turn to our data center strategy and the specific wins we delivered in the second quarter. Please turn to slide eight. Over the past several quarters, we have been building our data center presence with purpose, and the second quarter validated that investment. The wins we are reporting are not isolated events. Let me give you the framework for how we think about this opportunity. Enterprise data centers, hyperscale data centers, and physical AI collectively are one of our highest priority growth vectors. And this is not one opportunity. It is three distinct ones, each at a different stage of maturity. is our traditional enterprise data center business. Structured cabling, cabinets, and fiber connectivity for on-prem enterprise and co-location environments. This is our established foundation in the marketplace with an annual run rate of approximately $75 million today. Repeatable, growing, and the base from which our hyperscaler relationships developed. The second is AI and hyperscale data centers. the fastest growing part of a data center portfolio where momentum is building. We established a hyperscaler presence in the gray space, facility controls, cooling, power, and building systems. And in the second quarter, we expanded into the white space, the data hall itself. To put the second quarter activity in context, we booked approximately $40 million in hyperscaler orders in the quarter alone. That includes the $20 million white space win you will see on the next slide, as well as continued gray space wins that demonstrate the breadth of where Belden plays across the data center campus. Combined, this is now $100 million plus annualized business growing rapidly. What makes these wins meaningful goes beyond the contract value. When hyperscalers select Belden, it is because we bring something differentiated. solutions engineered for AI infrastructure, operational scale to deliver under urgent timelines, and engagement model built around solving real problems. We are winning on the value we bring, and those relationships are expanding. The third is physical AI, and this is the opportunity I'm most excited about for the long term. As robots and autonomous systems scale across factories and distribution centers, they require a network that is real time, Deterministic, Mobile, and Mission Critical. Wired and wireless, fixed and mobile, managed by software intelligent enough to handle the complexity at scale. That is precisely what Belden and Ruckus deliver together. Industrial grade wired infrastructure, Wi-Fi 7 for mission critical wireless, and the management layer that ties it all together. No other company delivers the full stack from a single source. Taken together and excluding ruckus, our data center and AI infrastructure business is at an annual run rate of approximately $175 million or more in revenue today. And we are still at the beginning. Enterprise data centers are growing, our hyperscaler relationships are expanding, and physical AI is just beginning to scale. We are not chasing this market. We are already inside it with the portfolio, the customer relationships, and now with Ruckus, the complete solution to win. Please turn to slide nine. In the second quarter, we closed a contract worth approximately $20 million with a tier one hyperscaler for fiber connectivity in the AI data center white space. Orders are closed and in production today with deliveries expected over multiple quarters. You know the AI build-out story. What is harder to see from the outside is what we've been doing internally to be ready for it. Over the past several quarters, we've been making sustained investments in the commercial and operational infrastructure required to compete in this marketplace. That means standardized product architecture designed for speed and repeatability, a supply chain built to absorb volume spikes, and a go-to-market approach built around delivery confidence rather than price alone. is a result of that work. The solution at the core of this contract is high density fiber connectivity engineered for AI workloads and deployed across the racks inside the data hall. What allowed us to win here was not price, it was execution. Hyperscalers need suppliers who can deliver qualified product at scale, on schedule, every time, including when auto volumes spike unexpectedly. That level of operational reliability is generally scarce in this market. We built it organically, quarter by quarter, and this is the model we intend to scale going forward. Now please turn to slide 10 for a second key milestone this quarter, where physical AI meets the real world. A leading global retailer has selected Belden for a specification position in their autonomous network, encompassing talking door automation across US distribution centers. These are vision-intensive, AI-driven systems designed for industrial environments, machines that perceive, decide, and act in real time alongside human workers and other autonomous elements. This is physical AI moving from concept towards production. What this customer required was ruggedized, high-performance, on-machine networking purpose-built for autonomous systems, not standard enterprise networking, which cannot meet the reliability and latency demands of this environment. Our industrial networking heritage, refined over decades across multiple industrial verticals, is precisely what qualified us. First orders have already been received for initial deployments. The full fleet opportunity for the specification win is approximately $20 million over four years across more than 4,500 autonomous installations. As this customer's automation footprint grows, we are positioned as their end-to-end network partner. With Ruckus, we can extend that relationship into the full facility network, wired, wireless, and cloud managed, a natural expansion of what we've already earned. We win on the robot today, and then we earn the right to the wired and wireless network backbone tomorrow. That is the compounding effect of a full stack AI and automation portfolio, and it is a playbook we intend to replicate across warehouse automation logistics and our manufacturing customers. I will now request Jeremy to provide additional insight into our financial performance.

Thank you, Ashish. My comments today will cover our second quarter results, a summary of performance across our markets, our balance sheet and de-levering path, and finally our third quarter guidance. As a reminder, I will be referencing adjusted results throughout. Our second quarter figures reflect Belden on a standalone basis. Ruckus closed July 1st and will be included in our results beginning in the third quarter. Please turn to slide 12. Revenue for the quarter was $750 million, up 12% year over year, and above the high end of our guidance range of $735 million to $750 million. Organic growth was 8% for the period. Borders reached $836 million, our strongest bookings on record, an increase of 19% year over year. Book to bill was 1.11, reflecting robust and demand. Adjusted gross profit was $297 million, up 14% with margins of 39.6%. Adjusted EBITDA was $146 million, up 28% year over year with EBITDA margins of 19.5%. Adjusted EPS of $2.34 grew 24% compared to $1.89 in the prior year period, above the high end of our guidance. As Ashish mentioned earlier, during the quarter, the company recognized a net EPS benefit of approximately 25 cents related to the expected recovery of IEPA tariffs, partially offset by the introduction of new tariffs. The net impact was recorded to gross profit. The core business performed well, with our incremental EBITDA margins above 30%, excluding the impact of tariff refunds and copper pass-throughs, reflecting continued operational margin improvement. End demand remains healthy and broad-based, and we are well-positioned heading into the third quarter. Please turn to slide 13 for a look at performance across our market categories. Automation had a strong quarter with organic growth of double digits year over year. Order momentum in this category was particularly strong with orders up 27% sequentially and a book to bill of 1.14. Within this category, discrete and process manufacturing led the way up double digits year over year, reflecting continued acceleration in industrial automation. Smart Buildings orders were up 11% sequentially with a book to bill of 1.08, pointing to healthy demand heading into the third quarter. Our key growth verticals were up double digits organically, led by strength in data centers and healthcare. Headline organic growth was flat versus the prior year against a strong comparable in non-core verticals. During the first half of the year in smart buildings, organic growth was over 6%, which is a better representation of underlying business conditions. Broadband was in line with expectations, with orders up 22% sequentially and a book-to-bill of 1.07. While organic growth in the quarter was flat versus the prior year, We expect improvement in the second half as customers ramp up spending driven by DOCSIS upgrades and share capture related to the launch of new fiber products. Longer term, the broadband landscape is changing in a meaningful way as user behavior is shifting from primarily consuming content to more of a two-way flow of data driven by AI applications and always-on devices. Our customers and products are positioned to capture this opportunity as the impact of AI continues to expand beyond data centers. Please turn to slide 14. Turning to the balance sheet. On a standalone basis, we ended the second quarter with $349 million in cash, net leverage of 1.7 times, and trailing 12-month free cash flow of $212 million. A strong foundation. Reflecting the close of ruckus on July 1st, we expect leverage will increase to approximately 3.9 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA at the end of the third quarter. This is exactly where we expect it to be, and we have a clear path back to our long-term leverage target. The engine that funds that path is free cash flow. Over the next 18 months, we expect the combined business to generate more than $500 million in free cash flow which will be deployed to reduce leverage. Ruckus is a capital light business with strong cash conversion, which means its contribution to the combined free cash flow profile is significant. Our model is built on modest synergy assumptions, which means there is real opportunity to outperform as we execute on cost and cross-sell opportunities. We expect leverage to follow a straightforward path. At or below 3.6 times by the end of 2026, approximately 2.9 times by the end of 2027, our first full year of combined ownership and at our long-term target of 1.5 times by the end of 2029. Please turn to slide 15 for our third quarter 2026 outlook. Demand signals entering the third quarter are strong and our order book supports that view. Our third quarter guidance includes the contribution from Ruckus Networks for the full quarter. Assuming the continuation of current market conditions, revenue for the third quarter of 2026 is expected to be between $950 million and $970 million. Gap, EPS, is expected to be between 69 cents and 84 cents. Adjusted EPS is expected to be between $2.15 and $2.30. representing a 9% to 17% increase over the prior year quarter. For the third quarter, you could assume interest expense of approximately $40.5 million, depreciation of $18.8 million, a tax rate of 20%, and a diluted share count of 39.4 million shares. I will now turn the call back to Ashish for closing remarks.

Thank you, Jeremy. Before we open the call to questions, I want to close with slide 16. Belden is a networking technology company built on a deep industrial and automation heritage and extended, with Ruckus, into every layer of the converged ITOD network. From passive infrastructure to active switching, Thank you for joining us. Customer response has been immediate. Across both installed bases, customers are asking for this combination. Our integration team was in place at close, our go-to market is already aligned, and the deal thesis is intact. High single-digit growth, strong margins, and a clear path to 1.5 times leverage by 2029. One month into this combination, the early signals are exactly what we expected and in some cases better. Customers are engaged, teams are aligned, the financial model is performing. We have a clear integration roadmap, conservative financial assumptions, and a free cash flow profile that funds the path forward. We are executing this with the same discipline that has driven our solutions transformation, and the results will speak for themselves. to my approximately 1,700 new colleagues from Ruckus who are now part of the Belden family, welcome. You bring a combined workforce to nearly 10,000 strong and the expertise and customer relationships you carry are central to what makes this combination powerful. Together, we are a stronger company with an exciting future ahead. To close, Belden is a networking technology company built for automation in the AI era. We have the platform, the portfolio, and the team to lead it. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the call for questions.

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, that is star one to signal for a question and we'll go right to Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs for our first question.

Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question and nice to see all the momentum in the business. I'm hoping you can give more context on what led to the fiber connectivity win in the hyperscale market for the white space and the opportunity ahead. For example, was the win driven by a new product introduction from Belden, maybe a different sales effort or changing needs for that customer set? And importantly, if you could also give more detail on the opportunity from here, including the likelihood of additional wins and what that might all mean for how big your hyperscale business could become over the medium term.

Thank you, Bob. So this specific opportunity was a large contract with one hyperscaler. Now we've been working with multiple hyperscalers over time because we have an active enterprise data center business that leads to these conversations. This particular opportunity was around a product bundle. It was not a full solution the way we like to think of it at Belden. but it leads to a conversation with the same hyperscaler where we can offer them a solution that spans the white space and the gray space. We've done that in the past for smaller opportunities. This is a massive introduction to one particular account and allows us to scale. In general, we've been very selective about our hyperscaler activity. We've focused more on Differentiated higher margin opportunities. We've not really looked for big volume spikes at lower margins. And I think this is basically the differentiator for us. So we have very standardized architecture. We've got a very reliable supply chain, and that's appealing to a number of customers at this point because they're facing all sorts of issues. from our competitors. Here, it is really about very high density MPO connectors and fiber. This is 144-288 fiber strand count products, so more complicated. Now, if you think about our broader data center business, so first of all, this business is up over 40% versus the same quarter last year. So this is really growing. It's really our fastest growth business. We think of this as a combination of our basic enterprise data centers plus the hyperscaler engagements we talked about. and then interestingly, this is all leading to the broader physical AI, which is, you know, which is not even really started that particular conversation because the same hyperscalers are also providing support to the broader industry as they deploy their own, you know, AI in factories and premises. So, so yeah, high growth, You know, very, very differentiated in terms of product execution. And we're being very selective about where we go. So I feel very, very, you know, positive. And I think the momentum on this part of a business is going to build up a lot. It's still in low single digits of our total revenue. I think it can go to a point where it becomes double digit and that will take some time.

It's all very helpful context. You mentioned trying to be thoughtful on margins and your answer is just there. Could you clarify a little bit more on the margin profile of this market, maybe both near term and how you see that evolving? And as you're selling some of these solutions, are these coming in at the kind of incremental margins built in targets?

Yeah, so in general, the gross margins on all of these uh hyperscale slash data center opportunities tend to be well above our current blended gross margin and uh certainly you know helps us with our incrementals uh maybe Jeremy you can add some color on that yeah I would just say so this opportunity is primarily fiber connectivity products and the pricing on

This deal is such that it's at the high end of what we would typically see on fiber connectivity. So very healthy margins in line with what we're trying to achieve from an incremental standpoint. Very positive, not quite at the margins you would expect for a solution where we have active components involved, but very, very healthy business for sure.

One more for me, if I could, please, and then I'll pass it on. Can you share any more feedback from customers about Ruckus, including any examples of interest in using that broader set of solutions spanning both traditional Ruckus and Bellden products, either in industrial or enterprise applications? And then as you're including Ruckus, Jeremy, I don't think I caught this, but what are your assumptions for Ruckus in the third quarter, both to revenue and EPS? Thanks.

So maybe I start off with a little bit of customer context and then Jeremy can talk about some of the financials. So yes, this is super exciting. A lot of our customers are actually demanding that convert solution. So if you think about convergence from a customer standpoint, they would like to see, first of all, IT and OT simplification. Whether the data originates on an IT asset or an OT asset, They want it all seamlessly connected. They would like to see wireless and wireline convergence, and they would like to see edge and cloud compute convergence. And this is something that's really hindering. The lack of this convergence is hindering better operational outcomes for customers across manufacturing, warehousing, healthcare, hospitality, et cetera, et cetera. So I think generally there was an underlying demand for convergence. Now we've gone in with selected customers and started talking about a combined solution offering. There's a lot of excitement. The biggest excitement I see is in the area of venues, so sports venues and other such campus-type infrastructure. I don't know if it was the backdrop of all the sporting events we've had recently. you know in the country or all the other you know large format events where artists come and perform at these same venues but there's a lot of momentum there so we have some very active cases in the pipeline right now that we should be able to talk about within months but there's also a lot of interest and activity going on with both warehousing and discrete manufacturing because There are genuine challenges in those markets that people are trying to solve. So if you think about the physical AI case we talked about on this call, that is an example where it's very ripe to bring in Wi-Fi 7. So we've solved for their talking to automation system, and they have requested us now to also solve for Seamlessly connecting all the AGVs and robots that they use in that same environment. So that's an active conversation that's going on right now. And similarly, there are active conversations in the street. So very exciting. In fact, on a lighter note, we actually had to hold back a little bit our people because we wanted to be cognizant of any regulatory barriers to You know, working with Ruckus pre-close, but the level of excitement was so high that we literally had to lay out rules for, you know, how do you navigate that? But now, of course, that the close has happened, everything is well aligned. We had a very strong integration team ready to go from day one. And so, yeah, very soon you should see us talking about wins in that combined manner.

Jeremy? In terms of the guidance, Mark, so I don't think we're looking to guide on a revenue on a segment or a business unit basis, but I can tell you that the third quarter revenue guidance reflects six to eight percent organic growth for Belden on a year-over-year basis, so you can do the math on what that means in terms of revenue. From an EPS standpoint, The net impact is about 12 cents in guidance right now. That is net of the interest expense on the new debt that we just placed.

Thank you. Sure.

Once again, if you find your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. We'll move next to William Stein with Truist Securities.

Great, thanks for taking my question and congrats on the good results and all the details in data center and AI, which is helpful, I think. But I'd like to ask about the strategy in AI data center. Previously, I believe you had been quite focused on gray space wins. Now you're talking about this win in the white space, but I still, Maybe it's just not clear to me what the strategy is. Is it to grow both together? Do they complement each other somehow? Maybe just talk about what your advantage is in this space relative to the competitors that I think have, well, just had more history and experience and size. in this end market. Yeah, that's the question.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. The strategy we've always articulated is that our differentiation lies in that we can offer solutions that straddle both the white space and the gray space. So when we think of a data center, we think of all the different elements around that, you know, data hall itself, whether that is part of the substation automation around the power supply, whether it's some of the security, whether it's HVAC control, et cetera, et cetera. So really our strategy always is that we want to take any conversation we have and then elevate it to that combined white space, gray space solution discussion. Now, the point of entry into that conversation could be from either side. So in the past, the reason we highlighted some gray space opportunities was because they were bigger and kind of more strategic in nature and some of our white space opportunities were smaller. This time we talked about a white space opportunity because of the relative size as well as the customer being very strategic and very long term in nature. They have a lot of growth planned ahead of them and we can partner with them for that. But nevertheless, the strategy is No matter how we enter, so we might enter through a product offering for cooling control or substation automation, or in this case for fiber connectivity bundles, but we want to then leverage that position and having established that reliability as a supplier, we want to take it very quickly to the second stage, which is How do we help them with a backbone that straddles both those environments? And I will say this, at this point in time, our conversations on those combined offerings for hyperscalers across the white space and the gray space, those conversations are at a level that we have not seen before. So it's both because of the market, but also because of how we've built that capability those conversations that pipeline is really large at this point. And I think to answer the last part of your question. So if I think of our competitors, they tend to be very strong in individual product categories. There isn't really a competitor out there that's going in and saying, let me help you design a backbone that can efficiently and reliably address challenges across both the gray space and the white space. So I think that's the differentiation, and we've proven that on the automation side with some of our large manufacturing clients, and we're starting to prove that now on the AI data center side.

Maybe if I can turn to Ruckus for a moment. First, can you discuss with us where Thank you so much for your time. mid-single-digit sales growth, 10% to 12% EPS growth, and 25% to 30% EBITDA contribution. Should we update those metrics at all? Thank you.

Yeah. In terms of Wi-Fi 7, you know, Ruckus is kind of, I would think about it, it's in the middle when it comes to more enterprise-type markets like hospitality, healthcare, education. and I think it's still at the early stage when it comes to markets that are more industrial in nature. So there's a big opportunity. I think the real opportunity with Ruckus is when you combine that whole portfolio into the Belden solution and you take it to some of these markets that have traditionally not embraced wireless to that extent, right? That's really where, that's the real differentiator. So I think in terms of technical capability, maturity of the solution, maturity of the platform, I would say Ruckus is fairly, I think it's ahead of competitors. By the way, Ruckus was the first to really have, the first player to have a commercially available Wi-Fi 7 solution. But again, the opportunity on the more industrial grade verticals is still early. So I see it as a big growth opportunity for us. In terms of the model itself, the model doesn't change substantially. However, we see the organic growth you know going up from the mid single digits towards the higher single digits and we will at some point articulate a more you know complete model but I think at this point we should think of that same model with more growth.

Thank you.

We'll move next to Stephen Fox with Fox Advisors. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. A couple questions for me. I guess first off, Jeremy, on the incremental margins going forward, it seems like there's a ton of opportunity to get higher incrementals in the business given the ruckus has higher margins given how you are looking at more project business. Can you just sort of give us maybe some breadcrumbs to whether that's you know that could be the case and then I had to follow up.

Well I certainly think Steve there's opportunity there because like you mentioned their variable margins are so high. I think at this point we're not we're not changing the guidance 25 to 30 percent although I would say it's realistic to think that we could be higher closer to the high end of the range than the lower end of the range. Maybe we'll update that guidance at some point but For sure, it's incredibly accretive for Belden when Ruckus grows organically.

Right. And like you said, you're still looking for high single digits, like you said, when you first announced the deal from Ruckus.

Yeah, correct.

Yep. Yep. All right. That's helpful. And then as a follow-up, Ashish, so, I mean... The markets where you're talking about sort of these new run rates within the data center strategy, I mean, you literally went into them like just a few quarters ago and you're scaling pretty quickly. So I understand you detailed on the AI side specifically, but on the physical AI side, starting with $175 million annual run rate of business before you even get to a Wi-Fi 7 upgrade cycle. like what is the potential there and how well I guess I'm concerned about how much growth you can handle in the business and then secondly how you sort of direct it to make sure you're focused on the right areas.

Yeah so I think if you think of our customers that are looking for so a lot of our customers are basically at the stage of Fundamental digitization plus some automation at this point, right? And many of those customers now want to go from that stage to what we think of as autonomous operations. That's another way of saying physical AI. But there are multiple impediments to that, right? First of all, they need to upgrade some of their basic systems, their culture, and of course, as part of that, their network backbone. And I think this cycle will take, you know, at this point, Steve, maybe two to three years at least before you start seeing, you know, it's reaching that point of inflection where you say that, you know, physicality is actually happening. So it'll happen first with certain verticals that are more mature. I think there are portions of discrete manufacturing. There are portions of warehouse and automation material handling. There are portions of process manufacturing where there's more readiness right now. And I think we are very aligned with those sub-verticals. We have teams right now working with those customers, talking about how to think of the network for autonomous operations. My feeling is that that whole physical AI business would become maybe somewhere like, you know, 15, 20% of our, you know, our base, our revenue over the next couple of years. But obviously, this is something that, you know, it's not like a zero one. It happens in grades, right? So they will... first have autonomy for certain portions of their operations, and then they will keep adding to that. So I think we are well set for that increase in terms of capacity. Now, overall, what does the market for physical AI mean? That number runs into multiple billion dollars, but that's beyond the network. It's not just the network. I think right now we think of it more as how do our existing automation customers take the next step. And again, I think our pipeline looks pretty good. Our customer discussions are pretty encouraging. And I think we are well resourced for that increase.

Great. That's really helpful. Sounds like a great opportunity.

Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Piyush Avasthi with Citi. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Good morning.

Ashish, maybe, you know, if I'm thinking about, like, you know, you kind of, there was a comment on the slide deck saying that you, like, for solution mix crossing like 20% like you achieved it today. I don't know if you want to set a new 2028 target for your solutions mix. Maybe you do, but it would be helpful to learn how you're thinking of your solution mix going forward and how Ruckus contributes to the conversations now.

Yeah, so we haven't yet formally laid out a target and we'll do so shortly, Piyush, but I would be I would feel disappointed if we don't keep growing at the same rate at least and get towards that 30% odd mark by that point. And I think Ruckus meaningfully helps us with that growth. So you're right about the Ruckus contribution.

And one for Jeremy. Can you help us with your expectations for margin and incrementals in 3Q? I think there is some benefit sitting in the 2Q margins from the tariff benefits. So maybe if you can parse for us a little bit more on what you expect for 3Q. I don't know if there's more of these benefits coming in 3Q or what you got in 2Q was...

Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. There's lots of moving parts as we move from second quarter to third quarter. So if you look at the second quarter, EBITDA margins excluding the tariff benefit were about 17.5%. The guidance that we've given for the third quarter has EBITDA margins in that same range, 17.6, 17.7%. Now you get Ruckus, which is a higher margin business, although I will say in the second half of the year of 2026, we are in integration mode. And so we do have some temporary inefficiencies from TSAs as we move them off the shared service of their prior owner and to the Belden shared services. So there's a little bit of temporary inefficiencies there, but that'll get wrapped up in short order within a quarter or two. The other dynamic that you have sequentially is that we're coming off a very strong quarter in industrial or the automation business, which is our highest margin business. So as you walk sequentially, we expect another strong quarter in industrial or automation, but the growth in the legacy business on a sequential basis will come more from the smart buildings and the broadband businesses, which are slightly less margin. So you have a little bit of an unfavorable mix impact sequentially, just driven by growth in enterprise and broadband and a little bit of temporary inefficiencies related to the integration of Ruckus. But overall, I think very solid, and if you do the math on a year-over-year basis, the incrementals, including Ruckus, are something like 35% or higher. So I think they're relatively strong.

Gotcha. Helpful. If I could speak one more, just on like automation, the double digit, like you kind of mentioned, like smart buildings and broadband will start to contribute in the second half. But if I'm thinking of just automation, double digit growth, like book to bill was pretty strong. So does that double digit growth continue? Like maybe it's sequentially coming down, but do you still expect like automation to do double digit in 3Q?

Yeah, I think automation has been pretty steadily right around 10% year over year. And I think that's a decent expectation when you look at the third quarter for that business. Got it. Helpful. Thank you. Yep. Yep.

Once again, that is star 1 to signal for a question. And we'll go next to Chris Dankert with DA Davidson.

Hey, morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess just to stick on Ruckus here, certain market participants have been critiquing Ruckus, specifically the need for more access points and NDDR4 memory kind of relative to some of your competitors. Maybe you could just give a response here and say whether that's a strategic choice, is that a concern, is memory availability an issue? Just any comments would be really helpful.

So, Chris, I'll take that one. From an availability standpoint, I think we're in fine shape. It's obviously the market is tight right now, but we think it's relatively manageable. There is inflation. Obviously, it's been going up in price, but we've reflected that in the guidance. And I think we're more or less locked in at this point for the second half. So it's not a major concern of ours. Obviously, it's a dynamic environment, but there's nothing specific to inflation. Thank you for joining us today.

the Juniper HPs, the Arubas of the world. My understanding is, you know, Ruckus is a more niche solution for where high fidelity matters, where low latency matters, but maybe how conceptual does the team think about where Ruckus fits in the market?

Yeah, no, so all of those are great companies, you know, and we compete with all of them. To be fair, you know, with some of them we compete even through our automation portfolio with the Hirschman brand, right? So it's not like Ruckus is uniquely, these are not new competitors for us. But having said that, I think Ruckus is basically, as you said, engineered for very high density, high interference environments, venues, hospitality, healthcare, education, and then of course, industrial sites. I mean, you can't think of more high interference than in a typical manufacturing environment. And I think our RFN antenna technology that we have with the Ruckus portfolio, it's been validated in third-party testing and it's a complete differentiator versus those brands in terms of performance and total cost of ownership. We are not really focused as much on price and I think this is why the combination is great. It really supports the quality for revenue and our margins. Some of those brands are strong across the broader enterprise campus. We are not really going head to head versus those brands on those opportunities. We really focus on the more specialized High Value Verticals, and I think therefore the real differentiator here, Chris, is the combined Belden-Ruckus offering for ITOD networks, right, where we have a lot of presence and recognition. And if you take that Belden industrial-grade infrastructure combined with the Ruckus wireless switching and the cloud-based AI-driven operations, that's really a full end-to-end solution for our industrial grade customers. And when I say industrial grade, I include here customers in hospitality, health care who operate like, you know, industrial grade customers. So that's that's really the way to think about it as differentiated from the typical Wi-Fi in a broader campus type situation.

That's really helpful color. She thinks thanks so much for kind of digging into that a bit. and just one quick clarification if I could. Jeremy, I think you mentioned that we're still expecting kind of high single digit organic growth from Ruckus. Is that what the order book is suggesting right now and did I hear that correctly?

Yes, correct. Perfect, thank you. Sure.

At this time, we have no further questions. I'll turn the floor back to Aaron Reddington for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. If you have any questions, please contact the IR team here at Belden. Our email address is investor.relations at Belden.com. Thank you very much.

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