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spk12: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Keysight Technologies' physical third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Sierra, and I'll be your lead operator for today. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star zero. This call is being recorded today, Tuesday, August 20th, 2024, at 1.30 p.m. Pacific time. I would now like to hand the call over to Jason Carey, Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk14: Thank you and welcome everyone to Keysight's third quarter earnings conference call for fiscal year 2024. Joining me are Keysight's president and CEO, Satish Janasekaran, and our CFO, Neil Doherty. In the Q&A session, we'll be joined by Chief Customer Officer, Mark Wallace. The press release and information to supplement today's discussions are on our website at investor.keysight.com under financial information and quarterly reports. Today's comments will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, We will also make reference to core growth, which excludes the impact of currency movements and acquisitions or divestitures completed within the last 12 months. The most directly comparable GAAP financial metrics and reconciliations are on our website, and all comparisons are on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise noted. We will make forward-looking statements about the financial performance of the company on today's call. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and are only valid as of today. We assume no obligation to update them and encourage you to review our recent SEC filings for a more complete view of these risks and other factors. Lastly, management is scheduled to participate in upcoming investor conferences hosted by Jefferies, Deutsche Bank, Citi, and Goldman Sachs. And now I will turn the call over to Satish.
spk13: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. My comments will focus on three key headlines. First, Keysight executed well by delivering revenue and earnings above the high end of our guidance in market conditions that were stable and consistent with our expectations. Second, orders of $1.25 billion were slightly above expectations and in line with prior year and growing low single digits sequentially. In a mixed demand environment, we continue to see stability and pockets of growth, particularly in commercial communications. The funnel of opportunities supports our outlook for second half orders to be above first half orders, followed by a more gradual recovery in 2025, barring any further macroeconomic degradation. Third, we remain confident in the strength of our business model and are intently focused on value creation for both customers and our shareholders. Our capital allocation priorities have not changed. First, We're strategically investing to deliver leading-edge capabilities as new technologies inflect and to return the company to our long-term growth trajectory. Second, we're expanding our SAM and growth opportunities through disciplined M&A. And third, we are committed to returning capital through share repurchases. In fact, we returned over $715 million or 78% of free cash flow over the past four quarters. Now let's begin with a brief overview of Keysight's third quarter performance. Revenue of $1.2 billion and earnings per share of $1.57 were above our expectations. And for the second consecutive quarter, we saw relative stability in both orders and revenue. Turning to our business segments, CSG returned to order growth in Q3. While revenue declined 8% year over year, we saw some modest improvement sequentially. Commercial communications orders grew low double digits. Strong growth in wireline driven by AI more than offset the year over year decline in a sequentially stable wireless business. Wireline orders grew for third consecutive quarter driven by robust investment in the re-architecture of data center networks for 400 gig, 800 gig, and terabit Ethernet data rates, AI model training, and network performance. We're benefiting from the investments we have made to position Keysight ahead of this technology inflection. In R&D, we're enabling customers with our design and emulation solutions across the technology stack for key applications including GPU servers, AI workload emulation, and performance benchmarking. In manufacturing, AI cluster and switching deployments drove capacity demand this quarter, and we secured key wins in GPU rack connectivity applications with market-leading customers. Keysight also collaborated with Cisco and Pondute to demonstrate interconnect technologies in AI cluster networks to reduce power consumption. We're also actively engaged with customers in the Ultra Ethernet Consortium to define future network architectures for AI and high-performance workloads. In wireless, demand has been stable for the past three quarters, albeit at a lower level on a year-over-year basis. While customer spending remains cautious, the breadth of our solutions portfolio is enabling us to capture ongoing R&D investment in non-terrestrial networks, open radio access network deployments, and released 18 of the 3GPP standard. Customers are also investing in scaling 5G and evaluating next-generation technologies. For example, at the recent IEEE International Conference on Communications, Keysight showcased early 6G technology together with Ericsson. Government incentives, particularly in US, Europe, and Japan, are driving development of a robust ecosystem to commercialize open radio access networks. This quarter, Keysight's open radio access network solutions enable state-of-the-art open testing and integration centers across the globe from Europe to North America to Asia. Turning to aerospace defense and government, revenue and orders were down year-over-year but sequentially flat. The prolonged U.S. budget approval process has caused delays in appropriation of funding for new projects which we expect to filter through over the next few quarters. In the interim, spending on defense modernization remained steady with healthy demand from U.S. primes and allied governments. Keysight recently expanded its engagement with U.S. government through joint cyber defense collaborative to enhance cybersecurity resiliency. In the quarter, we secured key wins with U.S. and European primes for spectrum operation applications. We also expanded our quantum footprint with a multi-hundred qubit application win with a key government customer. Turning to Electronic Industrial Solutions Group, revenue continued to normalize from a strong prior year, declining double digits as expected. Customer spending and market conditions remained muted, but we saw relative stability in orders and revenue on a sequential basis. In semiconductor, revenue was also down year-over-year versus an all-time high in Q3 last year. Orders increased low single digits and were up strongly on a sequential basis. While certain segments of the market continue to work through excess inventory, higher performance requirements for AI workloads drove spending in advanced nodes, high bandwidth memory, and silicon photonics technologies. The investments that we have made Specific to these market opportunities resulted in increased demand from foundry and memory customers for our parametric wafer test solutions. In automotive, orders and revenue declined double digits. Lower auto manufacturing activity remains a headwind in the near term. In new mobility, EV orders were lower as demand for some battery tests and charging infrastructure investments were delayed. while AV orders grew mid-single digits on a sequential basis. The opportunities in R&D continue to grow as customer engagement in transition to software-defined vehicles ramps. As an example, Riscure successfully completed the first car connectivity consortium digital key certification in conjunction with NXP. This certification strengthens trust in security of next-generation vehicles. It also further expands Keysight's security evaluation offering for the automotive industry. In general electronics, customer spending remains constrained, particularly in manufacturing, China, and the distribution channel. There were pockets of growth in digital health and advanced research, but orders grew low double digits. Software and services revenues are resilient and grew this quarter while accounting for 39% of total Keysight revenue. Annual recurring revenue from software and services also increased year over year and in Q3 accounted for roughly 29% of overall Keysight. Our eggplant software test automation platform is expanding with multiple consecutive quarters of double digit growth. We're also gaining early traction in sales channel leverage between ESI and Keysight to expand into select accounts and geographies. The collaboration resulted in a key win in the satellite communication space. Lastly, Keysight's design engineering software platform continues to grow. This quarter, we launched new releases for virtual prototyping and simulation capabilities, which address high-performance use cases across our communications, aerospace and defense, and automotive and markets. In summary, the strength and differentiation of Keysight's business model is enabling us to outperform in a variety of economic conditions. We're well positioned to capitalize on technology inflections ahead of us and remain laser focused on value creation for both customers and shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Neil to discuss our financial performance and outlook.
spk03: Thank you, Satish, and hello, everyone. Third quarter revenue of $1,217,000,000 was above the high end of our guidance range and down 12% or 13% on a core basis. Orders of $1,249,000,000 were essentially flat or down 1% on a core basis. Backlog at the end of the quarter grew $30 million to finish at $2.3 billion. Looking at our operational results for Q3, we reported gross margin of 64%. Operating expenses of $484 million were up 1% year over year. Excluding acquisitions, SG&A expenses were down 7%, reflecting our cost flexibility and actions taken to date. Q3 operating margin was 24% or 26% on a core basis. Year-to-date core operating margin is down only 400 basis points, continuing to outperform Keysight's down cycle model and demonstrating the financial resiliency of the business. During the quarter, we amended our tax returns from 2020 onward to reflect an amortization deduction related to a prior period corporate restructuring. This change reduces our effective non-GAAP tax rate from 17% to 14%, or 300 basis points, for fiscal year 2024 and going forward. Turning to earnings, we achieved $275 million of net income and delivered earnings of $1.41 per share, excluding the impact of the tax rate change. This tax change added an additional 16 cents to earnings per share, of which 11 cents relates to the first half of FY24 and 5 cents to Q3. All in, we finished the quarter at $1.57 in earnings per share. Our weighted average share count for the quarter was 175 million shares. Moving to the performance of our segments. The Communications Solutions Group generated revenue of $847 million, down 8% on both the reported and core basis. Commercial communications revenue of $572 million declined 6%, while aerospace defense and government revenue of $275 million was down 10%. Altogether, CSG delivered gross margin of 67% and operating margin of 26%. The Electronic Industrial Solutions Group generated revenue of $370 million, down 20% or 24% on a core basis. EISG reported gross margin of 58% and operating margin of 20%, an increase of approximately 100 basis points versus the prior quarter on slightly lower revenue. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the quarter with $1.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents. generating cash flow from operations of $255 million and free cash flow of $222 million. Share purchases this quarter totaled 1.07 million shares at an average price per share of approximately $140 for a total consideration of $150 million. Now turning to our outlook. We expect to finish the year slightly better than anticipated, with fourth quarter revenue in the range of $1,245,000,000 to $1,265,000,000, and Q4 earnings per share in the range of $1.53 to $1.59, based on a weighted diluted share count of approximately 174 million shares. In closing, in an uncertain macro environment, we are executing on the dimensions that we control, capturing the current market opportunities, positioning Keysight for success as markets recover. With that, I will turn it back to Jason for the Q&A.
spk14: Thank you, Neal. Ciara, could you please give the instructions for the Q&A?
spk12: Absolutely. If you would like to ask a question, press star 1. We ask that you please limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. To withdraw your question, press the pound sign. We will hold while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
spk05: Yes, good afternoon. Thanks very much for taking my question. Orders were up slightly both sequentially and year on year after being down year on year for the prior six quarters. Maybe you can help us better understand how meaningful you think the pickup in orders is as a sign that the cyclical environment may be changing.
spk13: Yeah, hi, Mark. Thanks for the question. Obviously, we're encouraged by the continued stability that we see in our base business, inflections that are material in our wireline business, some signs of rebound in semi, although it's too early to call it. And then there's some incremental weakness in the automotive sector. So we put it all in the blender and say, In this current environment, we're encouraged by this returning to slight year-over-year growth, as we've seen, but it might be too soon to call a recovery at this time. And the key point is we're executing well, and we feel good about our own portfolio and its differentiation and the investments we have made to continue to keep that going.
spk05: Thanks for that, Satish. My other question was a follow-up on the orders. You mentioned AI as a positive contributor yet again to commercial communications. Maybe you can help us better understand what percentage of commercial communications orders are tied to AI at this point, and how impactful might AI be for revenue within commercial comms as you look out over the next 12 months or so? Thank you.
spk13: Thanks, Mark. Yeah, we're quite pleased that commercial communications orders grew double digits this quarter. Again, as I mentioned, we have a pretty diverse portfolio that caters to the entire communications ecosystem with solutions. So you can think of wireless and wireline, and the wireline ecosystem represents roughly about 40% to 45% of our commercial communications business, and it's inflecting driven by the AI spend. Now, when you think about how big this could be longer term, I think the answer is becoming quite clear that AI is going to be a pretty transformational technology that's going to lead to evolutions of multiple underlying waves of standards and technologies, but it's not yet played out. Today, the state of the affairs is it's a highly concentrated opportunity set driven by the big investments made by the hyperscalers. And it is a constricted sort of constraint, I should say, sort of environment from a supply perspective. So there are some challenges that the customers are working through. So we're seeing and we're picking up some of that capital investments that are playing out through our manufacturing business that is rapidly expanding. But equally, we're making good progress, I would say, in engaging with standardization across the entire stack, and in making meaningful contributions in R&D across compute, power and thermal, networking, protocols, and memory, all aspects of innovation that customers are playing into. But again, the ecosystem, I believe, will broaden over time, and our goal has been for the last 18 months to intercept this opportunity, feel good about our market position. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question today comes from Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.
spk04: Yes, thanks for taking the questions. I want to go back, you know, it's been a little while, but at the analyst day, you know, a little over a year ago, you had outlined a revenue figure of 5% to 7%. I'm curious as we kind of see the stabilization of orders, we think about, you know, the return of growth here. Is there anything that's changed as we start to think about the next fiscal year that you would put out there for us to think about relative to that 5% to 7% growth rate? And if so, I mean, you know, why wouldn't we expect even a stronger growth rate just given the easy comps that you're looking at?
spk13: Yeah, thank you, Aaron. Obviously, you know, our long-term view of the opportunities and the underlying drivers remain unchanged. And so we would expect the business to trend back to those levels. That's point number one. However, you know, look, 21 and 22 have been outsized years for our markets. And 23 was a flat year, a flattish year. We continue to deliver value and 24 is a down year for the market. And so our first priority is to say that we can, with the business conditions have stabilized. That was our sort of first milestone, I should say. And as a sign of that, we feel good about what we had shared with you last quarter, which is that the second half orders would be greater than the first half. Okay, so that's the first thing. Second is, you know, the shape of the recovery, as we've seen, it's still a pretty mixed environment. And, you know, we're not at this point factoring in an in-phase recovery, if you will, across all our multiple end markets. And therefore, you know, You know, we would at this point say, you know, we're thinking about this as a slow, gradual recovery in 2025. However, the actions that we're taking in terms of things we control are innovations, engagements with customers, are all with an intent to maximize. And I feel good about Keysight's position. Obviously, we want to see some more progression in the funnel dynamics, which are trending positive, but you'll hear more from Mark later. We want to see that progress a bit more before we can talk about what those growth rates might be for 25.
spk04: Yeah, very helpful. And then just as a quick follow-up, I'm curious as you, Neil, I think a quarter or two ago, you talked about longer dated backlog build or orders. I'm curious, any update on that and what you're seeing in the market today?
spk03: Yeah, the incoming order rate remains reasonably stable in that upper single digits level of mix. And on the revenue side, we are trending in that direction. We're not yet to the point where the revenues are at that level. But in the next quarter or two, we'd expect to achieve that. Yeah. Thank you.
spk04: Thank you.
spk12: Our next question. Apologies. Our next question comes from Matt Nickman with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.
spk10: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. This is Michael Allen on for Matt Nixon. I was just wondering if you could dig a little more to the aerospace, the ADG segment. Are these delays just kind of pushing more into the next quarter, or is this kind of a slowdown of when you expect to see more of year-over-year activity? growth rates or just any more color on that?
spk13: Yeah, thank you. I'd say the overarching trends, given the geopolitics that we're under, are positive. So that's number one. There is bipartisan support for budgets in defense in the United States and increasing support for raising budgets around the world. Japan just announced An increase and and Europe is also focused on that and I feel good about key sites focus long term focus we've had in defense modernization. With quantum solutions with solutions for electromagnetic spectrum operations space and satellite they're all aligned with the right priorities. Having said that you know the budgets and appropriation timing does have an impact really hard to predict on a quarterly basis. But we like the pipeline that's building. The prime contractor's backlog increases are also something we monitor in the U.S., and we feel good that those will all eventually flush into orders for us. This year, obviously, we're lapping a full year of 2023 of record levels for order and revenue for the aerospace and defense business. So you'll see the revenue levels are down. And to the point about the elongated backlog, We have won some large systems businesses last year and this year, which will also convert into revenue next year. So, you know, I would say that the drivers are remaining intact, our position remains solid, and the pipeline is strong. Thank you.
spk10: Awesome. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from David Ridley Lane with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
spk07: Thank you. Yes, just on the automotive, I mean, I think, you know, the broader weakness in the EV market is well known. But, you know, I saw you mentioned clients delaying projects. Are they looking to kind of restart maybe at the beginning of calendar 2025, just sort of getting a sense of the tone in those customer conversations?
spk02: Yeah, David, this is Mark. You know, it's hard to predict when the timing is for some of these projects. Some of them have very long processes associated with the procurement process, including proof of concepts, and then the projects themselves last many quarters. It falls into this category of some of the long-dated business that we've been talking about for quite a while. What I think we are seeing, though, is the continuous focus on innovation with our key automotive customers. The AV side and software-defined vehicles that it's now migrating toward continue to show growth in the quarter sequentially. We are continuing to work with customers in all regions. So this is a global situation that we are well positioned for. And what I would look for in 2025 is some of the moderation of the slowness that we've experienced for many quarters around manufacturing as capacities are required to increase. And then I think given the regulatory situation, the political climate, and the long-term commitments to e-mobility, I would expect the pause that we're seeing right now in some of these battery test and EV projects to begin gaining some momentum in the next several quarters.
spk07: I understand. And then a quick one for Neil. Just to check, when you said 14% tax rate going forward, that's a good baseline modeling assumption for next fiscal year?
spk03: Yeah, for next fiscal year, we actually would expect that tax rate to hold for multiple years. The next thing that we're aware of is the U.S. GILTI tax rates. That's a tax on offshore profitability is scheduled to increase in 2027. So we'll need to evaluate the impact of that on Keysight once we get closer to that implementation date. And then the only other thing I would add is both of the current presidential candidates have prioritized tax legislation for the first year of a new administration. Obviously, we don't have any way to assess what those programs would be like, and so this doesn't account for anything that could be passed as part of a new presidential administration. But the status quo through 27. Got it.
spk07: Thank you very much.
spk12: Our next question comes from Metta Marshall with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
spk01: Great, thanks. A couple of questions, maybe on kind of the communications business and what do you see as catalysts for improvement in fiscal 25 in that business, even if they are gradual? And then just maybe as the second question, really it's probably limited updates, but any update on Spiron acquisition? Thanks.
spk13: Yeah, I would just say, you know, from a Spiron, I'll take the second one first. You know, obviously I'm going to be um, limited by what I can add, but I think an update to the situation is that we've received, uh, the shareholder approval, uh, spider and shareholder approval for the transaction. And we're working through the regulatory, uh, regulatory process. And at this point, um, as we have stated before, we expect the transaction to be completed in the first half of fiscal 25. As far as the original question, I mean, it is quite exciting to see tremendous demand and inflection in the wireline business. As I mentioned before, it is concentrated and it is in a supply-constrained environment. So it remains to be seen how long the manufacturing build-outs go. But that's a near-term dynamic, and we're capitalizing on it. I think the R&D opportunities associated with the multiple areas that I touched upon, the key sites engaging with customers on, we feel like it gives us a good pipeline to go execute for the next three to five year horizon, because there is going to be a bigger wave. And with any of these technology trends, hard to really see it until it happens, but we're engaged and we're making meaningful contributions for customers. But I would expect stability in wireless to continue and some increase perhaps in deployment activity across the globe, which would give further some signs of growth to our component test business there. And then as I think about the wireline side of the business, continued investments in R&D, maybe some moderating manufacturing investments in the second half of next year. So that's sort of our are thinking at this point.
spk12: Great, thank you. Our next question comes from Mehdi Husseini with SIG. Your line is now open.
spk09: Yes, thanks for taking my question. A couple of follow-ups for me. Thanks for color on the working trends into the October quarter. But if I were just to take a look into the Q1 fiscal year 25, historically, Q1 has been seasonally down in terms of looking. And is there anything with the start of a new fiscal year that would make this year any different than prior years? And I have a follow-up.
spk03: Yeah, I think as it relates to FY25, I think, you know, given visibility, it's probably a little bit premature for us to give too much guidance. As Satish said, we are expecting a moderate recovery into 25. I think, as you have just noted, in Keysight's core business, we do typically see a sequential decrease in the mid-single digits orders and revenue as we move from Q4 into Q1. The one thing that you will need to account for, however, is the ESI business has kind of the opposite seasonality, recognizing about 45%, 40 to 45%, of their revenues in the first quarter of Keysight's fiscal year. History would suggest you have the Keysight business sequentially down and ESI sequentially up. And we'll have to see how that plays out given the market environment.
spk13: And maybe Mark can make a comment on the funnel dynamics.
spk02: Yeah. So the funnel, as we said before, is trending positive, I would say. And as I look at where we are today versus three months ago, so this is kind of a sequential trend. We're seeing more funnel intake, so that's new opportunities coming into our pipeline. And we're seeing speed or the velocity at which some of those deals are going through the funnel and closing increasing as well. So that gives us a short-term funnel that supports our guide for Q4.
spk09: and we'll continue to watch this carefully but there are improving pipeline dynamics that we're seeing in the in the business great thanks for all the details if i may just have a follow-up on that as you look into uh next fiscal year calendar year is there anything with wireless infrastructure anything that would uh help with some technology upgrade would would and i mean like would with existing base stations would need to be upgraded from not a standalone to a standalone? Or is there anything else that is out there that would also help with the upgrade? Or is the recovery in the core telecom, the wireless telecom, going to be driven by just a capacity expansion?
spk13: Yeah, it's a really good question, Mehdi. I think the thing about our business is we tend to be more on the R&D side know labs of our customers so we're on the front end so towards the end we see continued progression of standards release 17 release 18 release 19 coming in and new teams such as ai in the context of rand becoming real open rand deployments or open rand interoperability labs around the world are scaling so all those are you know i would say positive trends uh you know from a sequential basis and obviously We're down from the peak as the CapEx cycle from telcos are down, but the stability in the business is good. We feel good about our engagements around these next generation teams that I mentioned. And then some early activity around 6G is picking up, which we're making contributions to. But again, I would expect that the 5G business will have some stability. because there's more deployment activities around the world and that should provide some more stability until 6G arrives.
spk09: Thank you.
spk13: Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from Adam Thalheimer with Thomas Davis. Your line is now open.
spk08: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Nice quarter. Thank you, Adam. Sorry if I missed this, but the sequential revenue growth that you're looking for in Q4, is that weighted more towards communications? Like, do you expect both segments to be sequentially up?
spk03: I got one moment. But, yeah, so this is the seasonal growth. Uptick, obviously, we see in both businesses. It's probably going to skew a little bit more towards the comms business than the industrial business at this point, given some of the pressure that we continue to see in manufacturing and automotive that Satish has just shared.
spk13: And typically, end of the year, Adam, we would expect a seasonal uptick in our aerospace and defense business, which has always been the case. So that's another contributor as well. okay and they're they're on the semiconductor side last quarter you talked about uh fabrication delays i think you said might come back late q4 or 2025 can you just give an update there yeah on the semi side i'd say that uh the project activities are returning and we were we we started to see some sequential growth uh the pipeline remains solid and especially around you know, memory, which is stronger, and technologies such as silicon photonics, where we had invested with customers, and now AI is driving a higher sense of urgency to pull the trigger on those activities. Some parts on the logic side still, you know, it's still a mixed environment on the logic side, but we feel good about sequential recovery in that business. Great. Thanks, Gus. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from Rob Jameson with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.
spk06: Hi there. Yeah, just a quick question on the auto exposure here. I know you talked about the EV weakness and some of the political, you know, headwinds there. But on the autonomous vehicle side, just would love to kind of have you expand a little bit on how that leans on your core competencies of communications and maybe some color around what that opportunity might look like in the long term and how much as a percentage of total orders that is for that business.
spk13: Yeah, so thank you. You know, as you rightfully noted, you know, the automotive business and the automotive marketplace is transforming, right? And I think for Keysight, historically, very low exposure in that area. And as we have said before, we have grown the business to 500 million almost from a very small base. And a big part of that was really manufacturing. One third of the business is manufacturing and productions where we are engaged in the electronics manufacturing of it. And we have a differentiated position there. Two-thirds of the business, obviously, is all new mobility, EV that Mark Wallace talked about earlier, and AV as well. And it's a marketplace that continues to transform. On one dimension, you have Chinese battery, call it commoditization pressures that customers are feeling. And yet the regulations around batteries and their safety needs dictate more testing there in region. And on the other side, I think the commercial ecosystem is starting to engage directly with automakers. And that's what Mark defined as the software defined vehicle opportunity set with silicon software combining, and it really plays to Keysight's traditional strength. And it's more a extension of what we do for traditional comms customers And we're able to take those and go to market for them. Mark, anything further?
spk02: Yeah, no, you hit on the last part. I was going to point out that this crosses over many parts of our business going back many years from our semiconductor and our comms EDA design tools to more and more our security and cyber types of tools that go into these environments with silicon. They obviously leverage our strengths in commercial comms, which we've been capturing for many years with communication standards, connecting vehicles to everything, into the components that are used to sense, as well as the computational capabilities and the standards that go within the digital standards and the optical standards that go within the vehicle itself. So that's the, from radar to connected cars, this is crossing over multiple areas where Keysight has a leadership position. And that's why we continue to see such an active customer landscape.
spk06: That's really helpful. Perfect. Thank you. And then I guess just one last one. You know, I know there was a lot of volatility in the end of July, but just curious on demand trends through maybe the back half of the quarter and early look into, you know, August, you know, was there any material changes or you know, is it just kind of like plodding along or, you know, any positive negatives that we should be aware of?
spk02: Well, we saw a ramping in the quarter for month to month, but it wasn't necessarily unusual. We ended our first half in May and that typically pulls some business in because we, most of our sellers are on a six month quota. So we had to start a little bit with a, with a depleted funnel, but then we quickly threw that in. As I said, what we've seen throughout the last three months, is the positive funnel dynamics, which is more funnel intake and then moving that business through the funnel. So I would say it was a fairly typical seasonality to the quarter, and we're two weeks into Q4 now. Great. Thank you.
spk13: Thank you. Thank you.
spk12: Our next question comes from Sameek Chatterjee with JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
spk00: Hi. This is Priyanka Thapa on for Sameek Chatterjee. Just one question. You stated that you have a huge opportunity set because of hyperscaler investments. Are these hyperscalers direct customers for test equipment relative to the AI data center equipment testing? And which kind of areas can you potentially see this exposure to hyperscalers broadening out over time? Thanks.
spk13: Thank you, Priyanka. So what I stated was obviously the hyperscaler investment in digital infrastructure upgrade and the capital equipment being deployed to upgrade the networks to be more AI ready, if you will, is proliferating to the ecosystem and the large supply chain. And we're benefiting from the manufacturing exposure there. So that was point number one. But we're increasing our exposure as some of the hyperscalers entering into silicon programs and build their own organic capability, that's a growing customer base that we're continuing to expand into. We're also participating in consortiums for more open standardization that some of the hyperscalers are leading. So we're making a growing contribution there. And we feel good about our ability to take the physical and protocol layer assets into this marketplace and provide total solutions for customers, not only in traditional areas you would expect us to in computation or connectivity, but also into emulating training and inference schemes so that AI can scale effectively.
spk01: Thanks.
spk10: Thank you.
spk12: Thank you all for your questions. That concludes our Q&A session for today. I would like to turn the call back to Jason Carey for any closing remarks.
spk14: Well, thanks, Ciara, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming conferences this quarter, and have a great day.
spk11: This concludes our conference call. You may now disconnect. This concludes our conference call. You may now disconnect.
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