Sequans Communications S.A.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sequence Communications fourth quarter and year-end 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, February 11, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kim Rogers, Investor Relations at Sequence. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you to everyone participating in today's call. Joining me on the call today from Sequence Communications is George Karam, Chairman and CEO, and Deborah Choate, CFO. Before turning the call over to George, I would like to remind our participants of the following important information on behalf of Sequans. First, Sequans issued an earnings press release this morning. You can find a copy of the release on the company's website at www.sequans.com under the newsroom section. Second, 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 release, including any statements regarding our business strategy, cost optimization plans, strategic options, the ability to enter into new strategic agreements, expectations for massive IoT sales, 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 and 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 and 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 included in our public filings made with the Security 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, everyone. I would like to thank you all for joining us today. I'm excited to review our remarkable transformation in 2024, a year that demonstrated our resilience showcased the strength of our cellular IoT intellectual property and product portfolio, and positioned us for sustained growth. The key milestone was the successful completion of the $200 million Qualcomm deal. This transaction ensures the future of our 4G IoT business, an advancement of our 5G REDCap and eREDCAP solutions, while also significantly improving our financial position. Energized by the momentous event, we doubled product revenue in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. We delivered $11 million in total revenue, representing a 9% sequential increase in line with our guidance. Notably, product revenue in the fourth quarter increased to $4.7 million from $2.4 million in the prior quarter and $4 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. Also, we are highly encouraged by the positive response from our customers and partners following the Qualcomm D. The strengthening of our financial position has been a catalyst in securing our design wind pipeline, new customer acquisition, and new project twins. The deal also validates our technology leadership and reinforces the superiority of our products, which are fully optimized for IOT application, where power efficiency, radio performance, and cost are critical factors. I'm gratified to conclude 2024 with the strong fundamentals that position Sequence on a robust trajectory toward growth and sustainable long-term success. Switching gears to discuss the factors we believe will drive product revenue growth over the next two years, let me walk you through the two main drivers. The first is our design win pipeline and how the corresponding project wins. will move into mass production in 2025 and 2026, converting into Monarch 2 and Calliope 2 product revenues. The second is the development of our design-in pipeline with the new opportunities and new customers that we are working on to secure and add to our design-in pipeline. Despite the challenging years, we have maintained most of our existing DesignWin projects and customers. Counting three years of future revenue for each, once they begin shipment, our DesignWin pipeline represents around $250 million. While some of these projects are currently in shipment mode, the majority are still in the design phase and are expected to launch within the next two years. Our design wins spans various IT segments, including smart metering, telematics, security, e-health, and industrial applications. Smart metering, a very successful market segment for us, accounts for over 50% of our current pipeline. The time to revenue for most of these projects was delayed by the inventory overhang. the industry has faced in the last two years, where customers have favored the shipment of legacy products over the launch of new ones. Additionally, the transformation of the design wind pipeline to revenue was impacted by our large percentage in metering, where product qualification requirements are complex, prolonging the time to production. We are confident that our customers remain committed to sequence, and that the launch of more projects in the second half of 25 and 26 will support our revenue growth over the next two years. Cat1Biz Cali P2 is scheduled to start shipping this year and will be a key driver of growth later this calendar year, contributing to the increasing revenue from LTM1R2, our primary product currently shipping. Note that the long-term nature of these IoT projects with life cycles spanning up to eight years ensures sustained revenue once they enter production and will continue driving our revenue growth well beyond 2026. While working on turning DesignWin into revenue, our next focus is on new business opportunities and adding new customers to grow our DesignWin pipeline. This will add another driver of revenue growth in 2026 and beyond. We have strengthened our sales team and focused our sales strategy on increasing market share in high-velocity IoT market segments, where new project wins can generate revenue within two years, typically faster than metering wins. Following our highly productive meetings at CES 2025, we have seen significant acceleration in new customer engagements. This marks a major shift from last year, when our financial troubles limited our ability to win new customers and projects. I'm pleased to say that our design in pipeline, which includes advanced customer engagements, we are working to secure and move to design wins now exceeds $200 million in a projected three years revenue, starting from the launch date of each project. Notably, one-third of this pipeline is spending award decisions expected in the first quarter. With this strong start of today year, we have increased conviction that our $250 million design win pipeline will also grow this year. turning to sequence competitive advantages in the IOT market. Our position as a European semiconductor company is a key differentiator. With increasing restriction on Chinese manufacturers, the number of chips and module competitors outside China is shrinking. We expect this trend to intensify, positioning sequence as a key beneficiary in the evolving market landscape. Additionally, OEM module makers are facing increasing pressure to consolidate or exit the market, such as the recent announcement from uBlocks, validating our business model with sales of both chip and modules. This enables Sequence to offer differentiated customer support in addition to an innovative product portfolio, now well-recognized as best-in-class. SIGWAT has a comprehensive product portfolio that spans the full range of IoT applications, from high-speed Cat4 for real-time video to mid-range Cat1BIS CalIP2 for security and telematics, and down to ultra-efficient LTM Monarch2 for tracking, metering, and other industrial applications. This robust portfolio ensures we can fully support customer demand on existing 4G networks. Looking ahead as the industry transitions to 5G, our customers will seek REDCap and eREDCAP, two emerging 5G IoT modem categories, set to replace 4G Cat4, Cat1BIS, and LTM, positioning sequence at the forefront of this evolution. Our 5G IP expertise, combined with the addition of an expanded wireless IP portfolio and top engineering talent through our recent acquisition of ACP in Zurich, positions us strongly to execute on our REDCap and eREDCAP product roadmap for 2026. This strategic advantage enables us to maintain our technology leadership and competitive edge as we introduce new generation of chips with enhanced 5G IoT support, extended feature sets, and significant advancements in power efficiency, radio performance, and cost optimization. In addition to advancing our cellular IoT business, we are actively pursuing a strategic expansion into new vertical markets. Our extensive IP and product portfolio enables us to offer advanced radio solutions for satellite communication, public safety, and defense. We have already established business leads in these sectors and are focused on further developing these opportunities to drive broader product adoption and value-added services . Similarly, we expect to expand our addressable market through licensing agreements following the successful model we implemented in China. We are confident in our ability to deliver tangible results from these new initiatives over the next 12 to 18 months. Our financial strategy remains focused on achieving non-FRS operating income break-even by 2026, driven largely by the acceleration of Monarch 2 and Kalaipi 2 shipments, which will fuel product revenue growth in 2025. While not all design wind projects are currently in production, our $250 million design wind pipeline represents more than four years of product revenue, equating to an annual average of approximately $60 million from 2025 to 2028. As these projects transition into production in 2025 and 2026, we expect annual revenue contributions will progressively rise, surpassing this average in the later half of that period. Additionally, in 2026, we expect to see revenue contributions from new design wins Secured this year, sourced from our current $200 million pipeline of design-in projects. Last, in addition to product revenue, we anticipate revenue generation from licensing and services through partnerships and strategic initiatives we are conducting. These factors, combined with financial discipline, will ensure we remain on track to achieve our financial goals in 2026. In summary, Sequence is built on a solid foundation for sustained growth with a clear path to future profitability driven by a robust design wind pipeline and a new customer engagement. Our advanced product roadmap reinforces our technology leaderships and our strategic initiatives to develop vertical markets and expand our licensing business position us well for the future. As we continue to innovate and expand, we remain committed to delivering long-term value to our stakeholders while shaping the future of IUD. I'll turn the call over to Debra to review the fourth quarter and annual 2024 preliminary financial results and details.

Thank you, George, and good morning, everyone. Before we get started, please note that the financial results released today are preliminary. Our final results are subject to finalization of audit procedures and preparation of full disclosures to be filed in our annual report on Form 20F in April. Revenues for the full year 2024 increased 9% from $33.6 million in 2023 to $36.8 million. Gross margin for 2024 remained strong at 75.5% versus 71.8% in 2023, primarily due to a product mix weighted more toward chipset sales than modules compared to 2023. Product gross margin for the year was 35.1% compared to 6.2% in 2023. Over time, we expect product gross margins to be in the mid-40s, as we transition from more module sales to chipset sales. In addition to lowering our operating expenses, we benefited from the $152.9 million gain from the Qualcomm transaction in 2024, which was the main driver behind our achieving an IFRS operating profit of $69.5 million, up from an operating loss of $29.8 million for the full year of 2023. On a non-IFRS basis, our net profit was $77.5 million in 2024 or $2.73 per diluted ADS, compared with a non-IFRS net loss of $30.6 million or $1.36 loss per diluted ADS in 2023. Turning to our fourth quarter results, revenues for the fourth quarter of 2024 increased 130% to $11 million, up from $4.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, and increased sequentially by 9%. Product revenue reached $4.7 million in the quarter and accounted for 43% of total revenues, compared to 83% in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 23% in the prior quarter. Product revenue doubled sequentially and increased 19% from the year-ago period. Licensing and other revenue was $6.2 million, an increase compared to $802,000 in the prior year quarter, and a 19% decline compared to $7.7 million in the third quarter of 2024. This quarter, we recognized $5.5 million versus $6.7 million in revenue in Q3 from partial deliveries of IP under a 5G broadband license to Qualcomm as part of the overall transaction. We expect the nearly $8 million remaining in licensing revenue under this agreement to be recognized over the course of 2025. Gross margin in the fourth quarter of 2024 was 68.1% compared to 82.5% in Q3 2024, which reflected the higher product revenue contribution in the quarter. Product gross margin was 37.6% in Q4 versus 36.9% in Q3. reflecting a higher portion of chip sales, offset partially by the inventory provisions for two products approaching end of life. IFRS operating loss was $5.3 million in the quarter, compared to operating profit of $87.1 million in Q3 2024, and compared to losses of $12.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. As a reminder, the third quarter 2024 operating profit was due to the net gain on the sale of the 4G assets sold to Qualcomm of $152.9 million. Our estimation of the value of the assets sold is $175.4 million. This gross gain was reduced by the net book value of $18.4 million for the R&D capitalized for the Monarch 2 and Calliope 2 platforms and by deal-related fees and expenses. We recorded net interest income in Q4 compared to interest expense in prior quarters due to our investment of excess cash from the Qualcomm deal after repayment of all mature debt and accrued interest in October. On a non-IFRS basis, our net loss for Q4 2024 was $2.1 million, or $0.08 loss per diluted ADS, compared to an $80.5 million profit, or $2.91 I'm sorry, $2.91 profit for diluted ADS in the prior quarter, and a non-IFRS net loss of $13.7 million, or $0.56 loss for diluted ADS in the fourth quarter of 2023. Loss per ADS in prior periods has been restated to reflect the ratio change made on October 9, 2024. Cash and short-term deposits totaled $62.1 million at the end of Q4, compared to $173.6 million at the end of Q3. Subsequent to the end of the third quarter, we repaid approximately $85 million in mature debt and accrued interest. We also paid down overdue supplier accounts, fees and costs related to the Qualcomm transaction, and an initial payment related to the acquisition of ACP. Turning to the outlook for the first quarter of 2025, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $7 to $8 million, with product revenue contributing about 50% reflecting Q1 seasonality. Note that as of the end of December 2024, there's close to $8 million of licensing revenue related to the Qualcomm deal that will be recognized as we make final deliveries of IP technology blocks. The portion that will be recognized in Q1 2025 is expected to be lower than the 5.5 million recognized in Q4. and recognition of the final portion will depend on the timing of the delivery of the last IP components. We are implementing actions to reduce our net cash operating expenses to be below $10 million per quarter on average in 2025. Our net cash operating expenses exclude non-cash expenses such as depreciation, amortization, and equity compensation expense, and include cash received from R&D tax credits and government-funded R&D programs. The cost reduction actions are expected to be implemented over the course of the first part of the year. In addition, we are expecting to receive funding from government R&D financing of around $7 million in 2025. Turning now to some housekeeping items, 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. CCONs will attend the 37th Annual Roth Conference, which is to be held in Laguna Beach, California. George and I will host one-on-ones and a fireside chat with our Roth analyst, Scott Searle, on Tuesday, March 18th. Please contact your Roth representative to register or for more information. And lastly, we expect to file our annual report on Form 20F by the end of April. which is the deadline for foreign filers. We will take advantage of the audit procedures around this to also file a form S8 to register an equity plan and to file a shelf registration statement on form F3. We've always kept a shelf active whether we needed it or not, but the last one expired in November 2023 and we have not had the opportunity to renew it before now. And now I'll turn the call back to George.

Thank you, Deborah. Operator, we are ready to open the call for Q&A, please.

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, you may press the star two. Once again, please press the star one to ask a question. And your first question comes from the line of Scott Sherrill with the Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice to see the design activity starting to re-accelerate. George, maybe to just dive in on the $250 million pre-existing wins, I thought I heard you say $50 to $60 million of that should start to be the annualized number as we get out into $26 and beyond. Just wanted to Just wanted to clarify that. And then in terms of the ramping pipeline leading up to CES and post CES of 200 million plus, can you give us an idea in terms of some of the applications that you're starting to see that inbound interest on? It sounds like they are faster turn design cycles. So maybe if you could talk a little bit about, you know, some of the applications, some of the design cycles, as well as the technology implementations right now, is it, Is it mostly cap one this, or are you starting to have those red cap discussions?

Hi, Scott. Thanks for the questions. Starting, you know, on the 250, your understanding is right. I mean, we're talking about because, you know, the pipeline of $250 million, as we said, represents three years' revenue for each project from the launch date. As all of them are not in production, so we cannot talk about $250 million to do over three years. In reality, it's more than four years if you look to the detail of the project. And I mentioned that more than 50% of this is coming from metering, and those are projects that they tend to have quite long time to revenue, I'll say, around. So as such, you know, if you divide 250 over four years, four years plus, we're talking about an average of 60, which obviously we see it in the second half of this period of four years, which means you know, our planning, you know, and again, I'm giving those guidance to help investors understanding how the company, why we are confident about our financial goal for 2026. Essentially, the design went in hand, which is very solid and customer committed, and we sold ups and downs with sequence. We are on it, and they are real. Unfortunately, it took longer than expected for many, many reasons that I explained. But they are happening, and once they turn to production, they will be there for many, many years. And on this basis, if you compute all this, you will see, like, the company has an average $60 million over four years. Obviously, we are not there today. We'll be there in, you know, approaching in 2026, and we'll exceed it beyond 2026. That's what I was saying. And obviously, this helped one input, I would say, for the breakeven point. The other one is the one you were mentioning. So far, you know, in the last two years, I could say almost our design in pipeline, seriously, I could not talk about, you know, few tens of million dollar with some customers still fighting on to win them. Things has changed extremely well, and I'm extremely pleased by reception of the customer to the story of SQL's post Qualcomm deal. They understood it, they got it, they saw the world, the competitive landscape, what's happening. And they saw the value of the technology of SQL and the value of the offer of SQL as a customer support. This attracted many customers, and almost in a couple of months, we are talking about $200 million pipeline. Many of them, I said like almost one-third of them will be decided soon. So maybe in six months, we'll be giving more clarity on what we have there. But indeed, the point you were mentioning, we had a very big win in metering, and metering is not like we're stopping. We keep working on this. We want to win more projects. But there are, like, time to revenue of those projects could be even four years, while many other areas, you know, when you go, for example, to telematic, to security, to industrial, some industrial applications, they tend to be, you know, two years will be okay timeline. I mean, sometimes it could be 18 months to two years. So these are the applications we are seeing. And we are seeing a lot of traction around our Cat1Biz product. As you know, this is a kind of unique chip outside of China because no one has invested in it. and we have almost no competition other than Qualcomm who get this technology in hand and obviously in the future will be competing with us with the same product. But at least as we are speaking today, everyone understand that only Sequence has it, and this is attracting a lot of customers. And part of the eRedCap story is really customers want to hear this for the future. So it's not like you need it now. It's not we need this to sell and make revenue, but we need this really to support our customer transitioning for the future. And that's why we're investing in this, to be ready in 2026 to bring an evolution from CatLineBiz to E-RedCap with those customers.

Thanks. That's very helpful. And, George, if I could follow up on your comments both on China and uBlocks, I'm wondering how many of those conversations are a direct result of the geopolitical environment with China. And as it relates to uBlocks, Is the opportunity there for you to pick up those design wins going forward from a module perspective, or are you looking to attack it from a couple of different angles with your existing module partners?

Yeah, I mean, it's got definitely, you know, it's always hard to say, you know, why a customer is coming to you, but the dynamic around China and the dynamic around uBlock. So I call it like the limited number of OEM, or let's say even, The sustainable business model of those guys, where they are stuck a little bit between the chip price and the EMS and the value that they can offer to this, is positioning Sequence really in a unique position. And customers understood that they need to play with Sequence to have a real double-sourcing strategy, if I have to call it like this, or at least an angle of innovation and flexibility of what we are providing. Yeah, definitely on the deals we are talking, it's not like they are a new customer and we didn't know those guys, but the tension around it and the position of sequence and the shortlist and so on, obviously it's influenced by what's happening around or helping us. So I don't want to cry victory before getting them in DesignWin, but we feel very good about this and this is helping us.

Great. And maybe lastly, if I could, licensing issues. It sounds like there are discussions cropping up on that front again, and not to get too far ahead of any culmination of new relationships, but REDCap puts you guys in a very unique position going forward versus the competitive landscape. How are licensing deals progressing on that front? How is REDCap doing in general? I think it's very important in terms of the product and differentiation roadmap for you guys, but it sounds like customers are responding to that. And lastly, Debra, from a cash flow perspective, It sounds like you guys are tightening up a little bit. Just want to get your thoughts in terms of cash burn until breakeven in 26. Thanks.

Okay. Scott, I mean, obviously, you know, this is a very important element for us. And I'm talking even beyond licensing, you know. We'll develop this more, you know, as soon as we have, you know, more technology. I would say we'll be in the position to talk about it. But we're attacking, you know, we did very good deals in the past on vertical and licensing, and we are really learning from our lesson to make it much more sustainable and stable there. So definitely we are progressing on this front, and we'll have more to, you know, to say to the market this year about the results hopefully we'll be able to achieve. That helps, obviously, Not only, you know, the cash burn, but help us, as I said, we have market that we do know how to address it or segment market we do know how to address it today other than through partnership. And we have technology that can go to a market which is not the cellular market where customers are happy to pay customization of the software around it and buy the product because it's not only licensing by chips and modules at high ASP or higher margins. So this is something definitely we want to develop to create like a second leg for the company that obviously will help our break-even points, if you want, going forward and the growth of the company down the road. And obviously the fact that we have a red cap, you know, you need to keep in mind that all our investment in 5G that we have done in the past, 5G broadband, we didn't throw this away. I mean, we have this IP and we own it, and this is really our red cap. but also, you know, what the acquisition of ACP helping us to accelerate mainly the RF investment IP, but other IP as well, to bring eRETCAP in an efficient way to market, I would say, right on time, but also with minimum effort and R&D spending. So all this is really very positive, and I'm very, you know, optimistic about, you know, bringing good news to market with those elements.

Yeah, on the cash, so Scott, we've sized the company in the operating structure so that we feel comfortable that even in a conservative scenario, we have adequate cash to take us to the break-even point, even if that is in the second half of 2026. As I mentioned, we're looking now at an operating cash structure that's less than or on average 10 million per quarter. We also have, you know, continue to have good financing coming in from the government projects and expect that in 2026 as well. And we're also expecting to collect all of the escrow amount from the Qualcomm deal at the end of September, which is $10 million coming in as well. So I think we feel pretty comfortable about the cash position.

Great. Thanks so much. Look forward to seeing the product revenue continue to ramp. Thanks so much. Thanks.

All right.

Thank you. And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to our CEO, George Karam, for closing remarks.

So thank you again for joining the call, all. We remain confident, as I said, in our ability to achieve operating income break even by 2026. Our optimism is fueled by key design wins in our pipeline moving to mass production, as seen in Q4. and the addition of new customers in 2025. We are focused on increasing our market share in under-penetrated IET markets with faster time to revenue. We are developing new vertical markets and delivering the best next-generation products. This strategic focus on product differentiation, innovation, and market expansion will drive growth in the years ahead. I extend my heartfelt thanks to our team, partners, and investors for their unwavering support and dedication. Thank you very much, operator. We can close the call.

Thank you, presenters. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.