Sequans Communications S.A.

Greetings and welcome to the sequence communications third quarter 2022 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Kim Rogers of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Bikram. And thank you to everyone participating in today's call. Joining me on the call today from Sequence Communications are George Karam, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Debra Schott, Chief Financial Officer. Before turning the call over to George, I'd like to remind our participants of the following important information on behalf of Sequans. Sequans issued the earnings press release this morning, which was posted to the company's website at www.sequans.com under the newsroom section. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call contains projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or our future financial performance and potential financing sources. All statements other than present and historical facts and conditions contained in this call, including any statements regarding future results of operations and financial positions, business strategy and plans, expectations for future sales, the impact of COVID-19 on our supply chain and on our customer demand, the impact of component shortages and manufacturing capacity, Our ability to convert our pipeline to revenue and our objectives for future operations are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These statements are only predictions and reflect our current beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and are based on assumptions subject to risk and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. We operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not rely on or place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. More information on factors that could affect our business and financial results are located in our public filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And now, I'd like to hand the call over to George Karam. Please go ahead, George.

Thank you, Kim. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our third quarter 2022 financial results conference call. Before we jump into my comments, there are several highlights I want to emphasize. First, we had a great quarter from a consolidated revenue and profitability perspective. Number two is that the new 5G strategic deal is going very well. Number three, our pipeline for massive IoT products continue to grow, and we are landing design wins with the new and existing customers.

Number four is that Cat1 Calliope 2 is off to a great start, and its future looks bright.

And last but not least, our MCU partnerships are doing very well, particularly Renesas, who is introducing Sequence to the largest brands in the space. Let's start with a quick look at the third quarter results. Third quarter revenue rose by 39% year-over-year and 16% sequentially, reflecting the significant increase in our licensing and services revenue, which included revenue from our new 5G strategic partner for the IP delivered in the quarter. The growth from licensing revenue in the quarter lifted our gross margin to 77.6% and turned the company to non-IFRS profitability of $0.01 per ADS on a fully diluted base. The higher licensing revenue upsets the lower product revenue in the quarter. But as we said last quarter, we expected our product revenue to be impacted by ongoing macroeconomic factors, specifically The lockdowns related to China's zero COVID policy and other supply chain challenges have hampered our customers' ability to ship or launch products on time. In a moment, I will discuss why the delay in our product shipment term will not impact our growth potential. Turning to an update on our new 5G strategic partnership. As expected, we received the first payment of $13.5 million in October, net of withholding tax. The third quarter revenue, we recognized a significant portion of this first payment milestone as revenue for the IP we delivered in September. This caused our licensing and services revenue this quarter to be higher than normal. In the following two quarters, revenue recognition from this deal will be lower, but remains significant. In the future, the licensing revenue will continue at a rateable rate for the remainder of the agreement. Our team and I are closely engaged with our partner, and I'm happy to say that the partnership is very solid, with the potential for further engagement. By the way, There has been a lot of press recently regarding the expansion of US restrictions on chip exports to China. As it stands today, based on discussions with our advisors and the scope of our deal, we do not anticipate our future revenue stream from this partnership being impacted by the new export control rules. Now let's discuss our massive IUT business. Almost all of our products shipped in the third quarter were related to the massive IUT business, which was impacted by the macro factors I mentioned earlier. The CATAM product family was particularly affected as it represents most of our design wind projects ramping to mass production. Obviously, we'd like things to be happening faster, but most of the elements regarding the timing of product shipments are beyond our control. In the metering segment, for example, where we have over a dozen design wind projects, most of the launch dates have shifted to 2023. In other applications, we had several big projects that moved to production and started shipping in the first half of 2022, only to decelerate because of the manufacturing disruptions. We anticipate that once the road block are removed, we'll see that M resume in 2023 with expected growth over the next three, five years at least. Looking at the trend year-to-date, we can see that CAT-M remains our strongest product category, driven by the success of second-generation Monarch products. And year-to-date, CAT-M has grown 62% despite the delays. Largely, the Cat 1 business category is performing in line with our expectations as we are shipping to a variety of established projects in the US and Japan, one of which is for a metering product. The Cat 1 revenue was down this quarter, but this was related to the timing of some shipments and is expected to return to normal in the fourth quarter. We anticipate this product family returning to growth In the second half of 2023, once we start shipping CaliP2, our next generation of Cat1, enabling a significant product cost reduction with lower power and many other advanced features. Sequence is uniquely positioned in the Cat1 category as the only non-Chinese company that has invested in a next generation product. With the many massive IoT applications, Requiring Cat1 speed and performance, we believe our Cat1 addressable market, which excludes China, will be well above $400 million by 2025. Based on the size and scope of the design wins I will discuss in a moment, we anticipate strong performance from Cat1 in 2024 and beyond, where we expect to capture a significant market share. Let me update you on the growth potential of our pipeline and why we are so optimistic about our future. Our pipeline, representing an expected product revenue contribution over the first three years of each design life, continues to grow, and this has accelerated with the sampling of Kalaipito. We now have a pipeline of design wins and advanced design ins close to $700 million, almost half of it in secure design wins. I remind you that our pipeline does not include services and licensing revenue. The expansion of design wins reinforces our confidence and our outlook. The vast majority of the design wins are for massive IoT applications with the CATM Monarch 2 platform, and we added more this quarter. A strong reception of the new generation Cat1 CaliP2 allowed us to secure our first two significant design wins, representing over $30 million of three-year aggregate revenue. Currently, we are working on about seven additional big CaliP2 opportunities that could add over $100 million aggregate to our Cat1 revenue pipeline. That means in the upcoming two quarters, we could see and acceleration in CalIP2 design wins, adding a new growth level to our massive IoT business. Of our key massive IoT vertical markets, metering remains our strongest segment for design wins, followed by asset tracking, smart home, e-health, and a few other industrial applications. We are confident we'll increase our market share in these growing markets. We are successfully leveraging our technology leadership in the CAT-M and CAT-1 categories in large metering applications, whether electrical, gas, or water meter. Given our engagement with the most prominent brands with the expected growth in these markets and the expected growth in this market, we expect to significantly expand our market share in metering, the largest vertical, from around 10% today to close to 50% market share in the next three years.

To conclude on this topic, let me give you some more color on our design win pipeline.

The top 10 customers in terms of revenue potential at Furrump represent only about $20 million in 2022, as most are still designing their products. they could generate over $80 million in annual revenue at full round. This is Forex. In addition, this business is highly sticky with a product life cycle of up to 10 years for most of the design wins, even longer in some cases. This level of growth potential from only 10 secured customers gives us tremendous optimism about our future. Shifting to the broadband category. Broadband revenue grew significantly in the quarter, thanks to the increase in licensing revenue, primarily driven by the new 5G strategies. Looking ahead, the broadband product category remains promising, with the Cat4, Cat6 CBRS business expected to grow in 2023, followed by the Taurus 5G launch in 2024. CBRS has yet to meet our expectation this year, partially because our two largest projects did not ship as planned due to the lockdowns in China. In addition to these two big projects, we are pursuing private network CBRS applications with utilities. Last quarter, I discussed a new CBRS module we are designing that offers private networks connectivity with fallback to public carrier networks. This new Cat4, Cat6 CBIRS solution, combined with our Cat1 and CatM and B product categories, positions us with a comprehensive, differentiated offering that reinforces our leadership in the metering segment. The future of sequence broadband segment is our first-generation 5G platform, Taurus, which is in development and our new strategic deal has strengthened our execution capability. This development is progressing as expected, and we are on track to sample the full solution in 2023. Our new 5G licensing deal covers the remaining investment needed to launch Taurus. The Taurus platform will target fixed wireless access, mobile computing, private networks, and high-end IoT markets. is designed and optimized to deliver a cost-effective 5G solution with the performance required for these applications. The tremendous growth we see in connected devices is expected to rise dramatically with 5G IoT, an exciting opportunity for SQL and Torus platforms. We believe Torus will be the only 5G chip optimized for IoT, giving us a significant competitive advantage in a market that could potentially exceed $2 billion by 2025. In addition to the Taurus regular product business, the new 5G strategic deal will expand the 5G SAM to China with licensing and royalty revenue. Beyond this deal, there are other potential strategic partners for our 5G platform in the new market segments that make sense to address via such partners. Discussions are happening, but it's too early to define the longer-term outcomes of these talks at this time. What's important is that there is active interest, and we are following up with interested parties. Our partnerships continue to play a key role in our growth. We are pleased with our MCU partners and the enhanced market access they provide for sequence. Microchip released its Monarch 2 product platform, and this has received very good traction in the market. We see this generating more design win opportunities that will further support the growth next year. Our relationship with Renesas continues to deepen, and they now have a roadmap with all our products. They have launched their first LTM module using our first generation of Monarch, and they will be launching new modules platform with Monarch 2 and later Calliope 2 in the next year. Also, Renesas is promoting all our 4G, 5G broadband portfolio to address a broad range of cellular IoT opportunities. We are engaged with Renesas in ongoing projects worldwide, and they are contributing to our pipeline and design wins. They have strong relationships with the biggest brand in the electronics and industrial space in Japan, the US, Europe, and India. We are successfully leveraging those relationships to secure new design wins. This is a big funnel we can continuously access through our partnership to build a line of business that otherwise would be much more difficult for us alone. We are confident that Renesas' contribution will be another pillar of product growth in our massive IoT ramp starting in 2023. In summary, Q3 was a strong quarter, despite the headwinds on product revenue. Our licensing and service revenue was very strong, helped by the first revenue recognition from our new 5G strategic partner. In addition, this deal has helped us reduce our cash burn and profitability gap this year. I'm pleased with the growth in our pipeline, particularly happy with the reception to Calliope 2. We'll enter 2023 with a strong, massive IoT business primed for growth over many years and a 5G licensing deal that funds our 5G development that will generate future royalty revenue. As a result of our work on this deal, Sequence could develop a 5G licensing and a royalty business for similar deals, another potential growth level. Sequence is leveraging its comprehensive product line, optimized for IoT, our strong brand, and our valuable channel partners to increase market share, grow revenue, and improve profitability. I'd like to thank our global team for their loyalty and hard work. and our shareholders for their ongoing commitment to sequence. I'll now turn the call over to Deborah.

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Our revenue for the third quarter was $16.5 million, an increase of 39% versus Q3 2021, and up 16.2% sequentially. As George mentioned, our product sales were impeded by shipment and fulfillment delays related to lockdowns in China and other supply chain issues. as well as the impact of our customers continuing to work through their inventory from prior shipments. Revenue from massive IoT product sales in Q3 continued to account for nearly all of total product revenue. Revenue from broadband IoT increased from Q2 and from Q3 of last year due to the revenue recognized from the new strategic 5G licensing deal. As George mentioned, this deal is expected to continue to contribute significantly is somewhat less in Q4, and again, somewhat less in Q1, and then contribute around $3 to $4 million per quarter for the remainder of the term of the agreement. For the quarter, we had one customer and one channel partner that each represented 10% or more of our revenues. As massive IoT design wins and end customers move into production, we still expect to see some concentration of our revenues with our channel partners. Gross margin in Q3 2022 was 77.6%, up from 49.2% in Q3 2021 and up from 60.7% in the second quarter of this year. The year-over-year and sequential improvements were due to higher contribution from licensing revenue. We have quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in our gross margin due to shifts in our revenue mix, but we are confident that the overall gross margin for 2022 will be above 65%. IFRS operating expenses were 11.6 million in the quarter, up from 10.7 million in Q2, and increased from 10.9 million in Q3 of 2021. Non-IFRS operating expenses, which excludes stock-based compensation expense, were $10.5 million in Q3, up sequentially from 9.6 million in Q2. Our third quarter operating income was $1.2 million compared to an operating loss of 2.1 million in the second quarter of 2022 and a 5.1 million operating loss in the third quarter of 2021. Our net loss in Q3 was $2.9 million or a loss of six cents per diluted ADS and included a net non-cash loss of $700,000 from the revaluation of the embedded derivatives related to our convertible debt, partially offset by the non-cash gain on the extension of one convertible note. In the third quarter of 2022, we also recognized income tax expense of $1.6 million, which included $1.5 million related to withholding tax on licensing revenue. In Q2 of this year, we had a net loss of $3.2 million or 7 cents for a diluted ADS, which included a non-cash gain on the revaluation of the embedded derivative totaling $663,000 and income tax expense of $120,000. The net income in the third quarter of last year was $192,000 or 1 cents per ADS, which included a non-cash gain on a revaluation of the embedded derivatives of $7.7 million. On a non-IFRS basis, our net income for Q3 was $424,000 or one cent per diluted ADS compared to a non-IFRS net loss of $1.2 million or a loss of two cents per diluted ADS in the second quarter and a net loss of 5.3 million or 15 cents for diluted ADS in the third quarter of 2021. In Q3, we had a gain on foreign exchange of $1 million, or two cents per ADS, primarily related to the revaluation of Euro-denominated net liabilities on the balance sheet. This compares to foreign exchange gains of $1.2 million in Q2 and $400,000 in Q3 of 2021. Investors should be aware that possible changes in foreign exchange rates related to balance sheet items and the marking to market of the embedded derivative related to the convertible debt can cause significant differences in net income or loss from quarter to quarter. While the impact of swings in the value of the embedded derivative is excluded from our non-IFRS presentation, foreign exchange gains and losses, whether they're realized or unrealized, are not excluded. Cash and short-term deposits total $5.8 million at the end of Q3. compared to 16.8 million at the end of Q2. And in October, we received $13.5 million net of withholding taxes from our strategic partner as a first payment under our three-year agreement. Cash flow used by operations for this third quarter of 2022 was $2.9 million, of which 3.1 million came from the buildup of inventories in the quarter, primarily due to purchases of wafers. In addition, short-term financing I'm sorry, short-term debt from financing receivables decreased to 9.9 million from 12.1 million at the end of Q2. Turning to the outlook for Q4, we expect revenue to be flat to slightly down compared to Q3, reflecting an increase in product revenues offset by a decrease in licensing revenues. However, as the revenue mix should still be weighted toward licensing and service revenue, we expect gross margin to be above 65%. We expect non-IFRS operating expenses to be at least $500,000 higher in the fourth quarter, assuming a stable Euro-dollar exchange rate, meaning we should be close to or at breakeven at the operating level. We expect IFRS interest expense in Q4 2022 to be approximately $2.8 million, but non-IFRS interest expense to be around 1.3 million, meaning that we expect our non-IFRS net results to reflect lower interest expense by 1.5 million. We are not providing guidance on any impact of the revaluing of the embedded derivative, nor possible foreign exchange gains or losses, given this is largely determined by market conditions. Finally, for modeling purposes, the number of ADS outstanding today is 48 million. At the conclusion of this call, we will post a written version of our formal remarks in the investor relations section of our website on the webcast and presentations page, the same location where you will find the audio replay. And now I'll turn the call back to George.

Thank you, Debra. Operator, we are now ready to open the call for Jenny.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will be conducting our question and answer session at this time. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. We have a first question from the line of Scott Searle with Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice job on the results, the strategic and the pipeline that's building. George, maybe to start, Just in terms of supply chain, certainly impacted in the near term, but it sounds like it's starting to get better as well. You're building some inventories from a wafer level. I'm wondering if you could kind of walk us through how you see that normalizing over the next couple of quarters, and in particular on the wafer level as we start to look out to 2023. Can you kind of update us on your early thoughts in terms of how that wafer availability is looking?

Hi, Scott. Yeah, I mean, on the supply, you know, on the macro, you know, all what you are hearing, and I believe you get all this news and all this discussing with the SMC, you know, we're on the other side of the cycle, I tend to say, and there is some relief in terms of supply. But, you know, it's not like normalized. You still see some tension here and there, some component missing here and there. On the other side, you see some extra inventory in some situations. So, It's a kind of still, I believe, not really normalizing back to normal, but it's in the right direction. Now, if I look at the sequence, for us, it was very important to secure because we have a lot of demand for next year, and we didn't want really to miss and rely just only on some projection for next year. So we are building inventory a little bit more than usual. Also, you know, you have some price increase which is happening beginning of the next year and obviously this inventory is cheaper if you want for us buying things in Q4 to sell it in Q1, you will make some better margin, I would say, for the company. So the two combined, you know, forced us a little bit to take our capacity this year and not neglected. And if I look to 2023, I believe we are in good shape. I'm not nervous. on the supply as we are speaking today, for us at least.

Great. Very helpful. And maybe looking out then to the pipeline in 2023, it sounds like a lot of good things are ongoing. I think last quarter you talked about a full ramp in 2023. There would be $70 million in product opportunity, but that's going to ramp over the course of 2023. It sounds like you're continuing to add to that, particularly with some Cat 1 design wins. So I'm wondering if there's an updated number on that front And then as well, the pipeline of opportunities as it relates to Cat 1, I believe you said $700 million. I wanted to confirm that again and kind of how you're defining that. I think historically when you talked about the $300 million design wind pipeline was about three years. Are you using the same metrics on that front? Because I know some of the Cat 1 deals run over a longer time period but still big numbers. And lastly, the $400 million TAM that you're talking about for Cat 1 in 2025, I'm wondering if, you know, the share figure we should be thinking about for you is 50% kind of given how the design when ramp activity is going.

Yeah, I mean, say what about the pattern, you know, first of all, just to go on the basic number, we're still using the same metric, which is by the way, when you compare to other companies. Some other company in the IT space or industrial, they use a metric, which is five years revenue. Sequence use three years. So, you know, it's very, and we didn't change this and just only, we don't want to lose the reference also. So we're still counting only three years. And you know, those projects are typically for seven years, I would say, and often more than 10, you know, because when you talk about metering, definitely it's 10 years. And the pipeline here is 700 million dollars. So indeed it's, It counts their design win secured, which is, we said, almost half of it. So somehow $350 million in design win, three years revenue design win. And the remaining $350 million are really advanced projects that we believe we have very high likelihood, I would say, to turn them from design in to design out. So this is really when I speak about the time. Now, I tried to give you as well a picture, which is an interesting way of looking to the pipe, which is I put this in my script really to give you more color. And I, you know, it's like, because I know that many of the investors can say, okay, George, if you have $350 million potential product line, so over three years, divide this by three. So on average, we have more than $100 million. Why you don't have $100 million product revenue now or next year and why this is not happening now. In reality, you know, I wanted to share with you just only I picked 10 customers, just only 10 customers that they have. I consider them the highest potential in terms of three years revenue. Some of them, they are doing zero with us this year, just to be clear on this. And if you look how much all those guys they do this year, they do around 20 million. If I say how much they do at full ramp, in other words, when I consider the pipe, is 80. So you see 20 million multiplied by four at full ramp. So the question is, when does full ramp happen? For me, definitely it's happening. I mean, there is no doubt about it. I have zero doubt about any projects in the pipe in terms of design length. Doubt in terms of the potential or if it's happening or not, because many of those customers, they give us more projects and we win more projects with them because they select the sequence as a key platform for IoT. The point which is, I call it what I don't like, but this is the reality of the IUT in general, that thinks the project takes longer to go from design wind to mass production and generate revenue. And you add to this the headwinds we have in China and other supply chain challenges adding more complexity for us in terms of that. But when you take those $80 million, sooner or later, they will be on full year revenue, another part of this pipe. So this is It's very important, you know, to give you the color on this. Specifically, I mentioned the Cat1 success. This is indeed, I'm very excited, and this is one of the key message of this quarter. I was positive already previous quarter, you know, things were looking well, but I can say today and clearly that I have secured two big guys. I can say one in the US, one in Europe, all on this new product. So in other words, they appreciate a lot the value of this product, positioning, pricing, and so on. It's really exciting. Each one of them, I mean, they will do more than $30 million, the two in terms of design, you know, in the pipe in terms of design win. And when I look to the pipe of Cat1, I have, like I said, seven other big deals. All of them are big, you know, so we are very positive on Cat1. And today Cat1 didn't catch up in the pipe when you compare Cat1. I mean, Cat1 is still lagging in terms of design. Size, if you want, versus CATM, because you need to keep in mind that the CAT1 is smaller in quantity than CATM, but higher ASP. So over time, maybe we could end by having 50% of the design wing CAT1 in dollar amount and 50 are CATM. So this is what my target, I would say, what I would see. And there we see ourselves in very good position. I spoke about $400 million addressable market for us in 2025. This is almost counting, you know, like somewhere chips a little bit more than chips. If we sell a module, the number will be bigger. You know, you can double it. So the number could be around half a billion dollars. If you make it a mix, assuming that we'll be doing half of our business chips, half of our business module, we could be above half a billion dollars. And we are targeting on the new deals, to be honest, to be well above 50% on the new deals. Now, if you project this in 2025, are we going to be at 50% market share? Maybe not, if there is some older project still shipping. But the trend will be to be above 50% in Cat 1. And we are in good shape on this, as I said.

Great. Thank you. Really appreciate the color and the detail. Very exciting what's going on. And just lastly, if I could. On the 5G strategic front, you got the China deal done. It sounds like there's other activity going on in the pipeline. Could you just give us some more thoughts and details on that front? Are these similar types of deals that we could see? Are we thinking about 2023, or is it something on the longer-term horizon? Thanks so much. Nice job on the quarter.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, the strategic deal, as I said, is moving very well. I know that... Maybe some people, they have some doubt or whatever. I mean, the deal is really happening very well. Great relationship. And the parties are respecting the terms and we are moving very well. And there is maybe more things to do together on this partnership. I mean, I don't want to comment more on this, but we feel very positive on it. And obviously, this really strengthened our position in a model where we can get licensing and royalty to address some segment in the market where CIPOS is not playing today. and maybe other partners, potential partner, most of them, and I should say are missing cellular, because you know, if you need cellular, it's very hard to get for you to get 5G technology, and SQL 3D will be the ideal partner there. Yes, we have discussion. with more than three guys, I said, and progressing very positive. I'm very optimistic about this. I'm optimistic if you say that I will land maybe a deal next year, but I don't want to comment more if you want, because I believe with the number of engagements we have there, the great position we have, the fact that we are moving to have product in hand, fully working, all this is converging to reinforce our position for those partnership. And many people are missing this 5G technology, and they have no other option, if I say, other than partnering with Secon. So I'm very optimistic on this.

Great. Thanks so much. Thank you, Scott.

Thank you. We have next question from the line of Craig Ellis with B. Reilly Securities. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking the question and echoing the congratulations on getting the The new strategic deal and the income statement and and your color for the outlook Deborah I wanted to follow up on that point it was real helpful to get your view that. That the new deal could be three to 4 million and quarterly revenues beginning next year, but the question is, is, can you help us with the specific number that refract in the third quarter and and what is the specific expectation for the fourth quarter.

We're not, we haven't been giving the specific number. I really just wanted to give the color once we're through sort of these initial three quarters. It was clearly a larger, a large contribution to the third quarter. We're expecting it to be slightly less in the fourth quarter and slightly less again in the first quarter. But in all quarters in excess of the then run rate, we're expecting to be three to four million.

Okay, got it.

Obviously, Craig, when you look to the licensing component, I mean, you have it, obviously, the licensing, and it's separated as a business versus product. And obviously, it's not the only deal. You should remember that we have other deals there. In this quarter, it's a big portion of the revenue recognized this quarter is coming from this. So when I say, let's say, about 70% from what you see there, is coming from this need. This will be a little bit lower in Q4, as Deborah said, than Q1, and then we'll go down to $3-4 million per quarter.

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then, George, following up on the supply dynamics as we look to 2023, so clearly, yeah, we're on the favorable side of the cycle, and I think that shapes all of our views for what's possible with TSMC and Cognizant, that there's still supply chain issues out there. My question is more on what we might expect with Renaissance's contribution to the company's supply and revenue capability next year. Can you just provide some color on how that might trend through the year and what's possible as you look at the funnel that's developing based on your collaboration with that team?

I mean, to be honest, the relationship with Renaissance is really great. I don't want to stress this more than this, but I believe it's clear This partnership was very, very successful for Sequence because it developed from many projects and it moved in the go-to market as well into the manufacturing. Today, by the way, I can tell you that Rhesus is able to produce Monarch 2 completely. And they already produced, I would say, what we call the kind of pre-production unit just to test a dozen of wafers and see that all the process is under control. And so far, all this is positive and we should end the year with Renaissance capable of producing more act two. That gives us obviously by definition, because this is what the demand will be coming is on this, these kinds of wafers to leverage, I will say that some of the capacity of Renaissance, if there is a need for this next year. So this is really going well and I'm happy about it. And honestly, I don't see today It's not my, if you asked me last year at the same time, my first priority was really the supply. Today, it's not my first priority even. It doesn't mean it's not an issue anymore, but I feel more comfortable on this. It's coming, that number one, number two, that worry me, but obviously I keep an eye on it and we are watching this and it's under control. But the other angle as well with Renaissance that you mentioned is really the success of Their contribution to the funnel, to be honest, you don't need to commend that going to Japan and selling to tier one customer in Japan is very complicated if you are not Japanese with good relationship and established network. And no doubt that Renaissance has all this easy, I should say. So this is developing very, very well, the pipe there. But it's really beyond Japan. We have a big deal with them closed in the US, very big one. And we have in the pipeline a couple of them that are big in the US and Europe. So it's developing very well. The relationship with their sales team, marketing team is very smooth. So it's not a relationship only at the top level of the company and when you go down In the field, you don't see the people talking. No, it's working very well, and it's really a great partnership. And we believe that will represent nice revenue for us next year. But even in the pipe over time, this will keep building up and adding more potential to us through analysis.

Got that. And then on longer-term revenue dynamics, I think in the past we've talked about the potential for around 50% year-on-year calendar 23 through 25 revenue growth and massive IoT share expanding from where we are now, 12% up towards 30% and 40% Sam Caker there. Are those still the right macro numbers to look at for the bigger opportunities that the company has? And then, Debra, I think in the past with the new deal, we thought that cash self-funding was could be possible in the second half of 2023. Can you just update us on the prospects for that, especially given the level of revenues that we can expect from the new strategic deal? Thank you.

I mean, in terms of the growth potential, we are in the average still in the same number, so nothing has changed in terms of Kager and average, whether the market, our market share keeps building. And just again, if you go back to this example, when I consider 20 customers, the 10 customers, sorry, doing 20 million and their potential at full run is 80. So you could argue that will not reach this next year. They will reach it the following year. or let's say they were issued at 80% the following year, whatever it is, this gives you that we are really in the cat M on a growth potential more than 50% if you take the cat M alone. Now, obviously, when you combine it for the existing business and so on, we are targeting an average of 50%, which remains our target. The challenge we have is really the timing of those products, those projects, moving them from design phase to really full production. And this is really... where we have the challenge when you compare year over year. And we have already, we suffered already with this year. So hopefully all those roadblocks move away and we start going back to normal. But the trend is this.

Yeah. And so, yes, we're still expecting that the new 5G deal fully funds our 5G development. And, you know, really it's the revenue trend for next year is you know, as we expect, then that, you know, we can really target for that operating cash flow break even in 2023. Great.

Thanks, team. Thanks, Craig. Thank you. Thank you.

We have a next question from the line of Nicholas Doyle with Needham & Co. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. This is Nick. I'm on for Raji Gill. Thanks for taking my question. I know you guys talked about regarding the China export rules that you don't anticipate the future revenue stream will be impacted. But could you be more specific on why Taurus as a sub 16-annum product won't need a license or won't be impacted? And then just more broadly, why do you think that your 5G technology just will be allowed to move forward in China?

Yeah, I mean, Nikhai, as you know, the subject is very complicated and sometimes confusing. If you look to the rules, first of all, when you talk about the geometry, you know, how small it is, this is going for manufacturing tools. The sequence is not playing in manufacturing. Our partner is a fabulous company. So it's completely clean. All the chapter where they talk about the fin fat restriction to China and so on, we're not playing there. By the way, our partner will be buying from TSMC from outside China. So somehow Taurus, if it's sold by our partner, it's in the contract. They'll be buying wafer from TSMC outside of China, and all this is clean like any other Chinese buying from TSMC. Now, obviously, it's very hard for me to project what will happen in the future. I mean, you could maybe in two years or in one year, whatever, restrict the Chinese to buy anything from TSMC. Then they will be stuck, or my partner will be stuck. But today, there is nothing related to this or conflicting with Sequence. And the 5G as such as a technology is not touched. I mean, we are talking about military application and if you can use this for military. So whether the manufacturing for smaller geometry manufacturing, this is out of the scope completely. Sequence is not playing there and our partner is not playing there. And if you talk about the technology 5G, we're not there. I mean, again, as we are speaking today. If tomorrow we have rules saying you cannot sell 5G to China anymore and no one can touch anything and so on, then obviously it will be impacted. But Qualcomm will be impacted. And I can tell you the whole world will be impacted largely. And I don't know what will be the situation. But very honestly, today I feel good on this. You have also other angles, just to give you more feedback. that the fact that sequence is not developing, the R&D is not in the U.S., and the R&D is really in Europe and nothing in the U.S. So this gives us another safety. It doesn't mean that it will not be impacted, you know, because the French or the European, they can follow the rule and so on. But at least from a technology point of view, it's not built in the U.S., and this gives us another safeguard, if you want, another level to go there. And there is the third one, which is very important. It's an IP deal. This means... If you sell something and you deliver the IP, it's not retroactive. In other words, whatever I'm doing today, even if tomorrow there is a deal, my partner has this account. So if you build a chip, you build a chip with this and he can use it. So because it's not retroactive, obviously the money will remain due for me because he's using our IP and will not be shipping any more royalty in the future. So these are some angles. I know that the subject is very complicated. It's never 100% sure about anything. But at least where we are today, we are in the green. And I feel like we have many elements that let me feel we are not the first guy risky for this. Now, obviously, if tomorrow there is a huge problem between China and U.S. and this is taking over everything and every component and most of the things, then we'll be treated like others and we'll be suffering like others. And it will be a new story.

Thank you for that. Very helpful. Could you just talk a little bit more about the product declines in the quarter and the guide? I understand the supply chain, some inventory burning and the macros impacting, but do you kind of expect, and I understand we have some new products ramping next year, but do you expect a kind of bottom in product revenue growth to be next quarter? We could see that moving on to 1Q and 2Q. Thanks. Absolutely.

Nick, I mean, we see the product getting up next quarter. So we're expecting Q4 to have better product than Q3 if I have to give another guidance. I was saying in our number, even if we're not specific in general, our guidance. But indeed, Q3 was a bottom. And as I said, you know, the issues that we have, mainly really for sequences, really, we have many products, all are nascent, if you want. Like customers, whether they start, they bought the first product, a few hundred thousand units and they moved them to production and somehow the production didn't move on time, impacted by what's happening in China, or some projects in design phase and the guys were planning to launch them now or launch them in September and finally are launching them in January. So again, I can assure you, none of those projects has an impact in the sense canceled or disappearing or everything is aware, talking about delays, simple delays, Sometimes, you know, a couple of months or three months and sometimes maybe six months, but all are delays. And that's why they remain in our pipe. And that's why we remain optimistic about renewing with the growth of the product.

Okay. Right. Nick, do you have any further questions? Yeah, that's all. Thank you. Thanks, Nick.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session, and I'd like to turn the call back over to Dr. George Karam, President and CEO, for closing remarks. Over to you, Dr. Karam.

Thank you, Operator. Thank you again for joining the call. All of you, please note that we are participating in the Needham Growth Conference in New York City on January 10th. We also plan to attend the Roth Capital Conference in Orange County, California in mid-March. We hope to speak with you soon or meet at one of these upcoming events. Thank you very much for all of you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.