Q1 2024 InterDigital Inc Earnings Call

Participants

Raiford Garrabrant; Head of Investor Relations; InterDigital Inc

Lawrence Chen; President, Chief Executive Officer, Director; InterDigital Inc

Richard Brezski; Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer; InterDigital Inc

Arjun Bhatia; Analyst; William Blair & Company, L.L.C.

Anja Soderstrom; Analyst; Sidoti & Company

Scott Searle; Analyst; Roth MKM

Presentation

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the InterDigital first-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Raiford Garrabrant, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Raiford Garrabrant

Good morning to everyone, and welcome to InterDigital's first-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I am Raiford Garrabrant, Head of Investor Relations for InterDigital. With me on today's call are Liren Chen, our President and CEO; and Rich Brezski, our CFO.
Consistent with prior calls, we will offer some highlights about the quarter and the company and then open up the call to questions. For additional details, you can access our earnings release and slide presentation that accompany this call on our Investor Relations website.
Before we begin our remarks, I need to remind you that in this call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our current beliefs, plans, and expectations, which are not guarantees of future performance and are made only as of the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from results and events contemplated by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those described in the Risk Factors sections of our 2023 Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our other SEC filings.
In addition, today's presentation may contain references to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the supplemental materials posted to the Investor Relations section of our website.
With that taken care of, I will turn the call over to Liren.

Lawrence Chen

Thank you, Raiford. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today.
On our last call, we provided annual guidance for 2024 revenue of between $620 million to $670 million. This guidance highlights the increasing momentum of our business and the multiple growth opportunity that we have identified and expect to achieve through the rest of the year. Today, I'm pleased to share that we have made significant headwind in achieving our goal and reconfirm our 2024 annual guidance.
Revenue for the first quarter were $264 million, up by 30% year over year and above the high end of our guidance. Our Q1 revenue was one of the highest in our history and an all-time high for our CE and IoT licensing.
Through the quarter, we have made great progress on multiple fronts of our business. We signed seven new license agreements. We enhanced our position as a leader in the application of AI in both wireless and video, and we received several positive court decisions which we believe will help us to advance negotiations with certain on-license smartphone OEMs.
We began the quarter with a new landmark license with Samsung TV business. The agreement covers patents and our joint licensing program with Sony and introduce our own patent across our range of video and WiFi technologies. Samsung is a market leader in TV, and this agreement highlights both the value our value our radio and WiFi innovation and the [tools] we continue to build in licensing the consumer electronics sector.
I want to emphasize that this new agreement is separate to the Samsung smartphone license. We announced at the start of 2023 that Samsung and InterDigital has agreed to renew the licenses for their smart TV to our portfolio. The final term of the smartphone license include how much Samsung must pay us as still the subject of an arbitration hearing, which is on track to be held this summer with a final resolution expected by end of this year.
The seven new agreements that we signed in the first quarter reflect the momentum we continue to see across all our licensing programs and our strength in consumer electronic and IoT, in particular. The revenue and recurring revenue in Q1 from our CE and IoT programs were both record highs.
With Samsung and other agreements that we closed in the quarter, we have increased the cumulative value of contract that we have signed over the last three years to almost $2.7 billion, giving us an incredible strong base from which to drive new long-term agreements and pursue additional growth opportunities.
Speaking on license, we are making significant progress in our effort to ensure that we receive fair compensation for our innovation from on-license smartphone OEMs. Earlier today, a German court issued a very positive decision for us in our dispute with Lenovo. The court ruled that Lenovo infringed one of our 4G and 5G standard essential patents, that InterDigital had acted in a FRAND manner, that Lenovo is an unwilling licensee who engaged in holdout and should therefore be [undrawn] in the German market. The injunction means that Lenovo will be prohibited from selling 4G- and 5G-compatible devices in Germany.
Also, as part of our dispute with Oppo, a German court also ruled that Oppo infringed InterDigital's 4G and 5G standard essential patents, too; that InterDigital has acted in a FRAND manner; that Oppo is an unwilling licensee. The court also awarded injunction against Oppo.
In India, in another file against Oppo, we received yet another positive decision that auto was ordered to pay royalties in the form of a security deposit to the court. The Indian court also heavily criticized and fined Oppo for its delaying tactics during our negotiations and ordered that the trial be concluded before end of the year.
We are encouraged by this recent development in our cases, and we believe we have built significant momentum in our negotiations with both companies. But as I have said many times before, we always prefer to sign a long-term license through amicable negotiations, but we are ready to enforce our patent rights if necessary.
Our strength as a fundamental innovator in critical technology continue to underpin our progress. Our research team has long been recognized by the world leaders in the development of wireless and video technology. And increasingly, our leadership in AI is coming to the forefront.
In Q1, one of our senior engineers was appointed to head the AI and machine learning standing committee of IEEE, the standard development organization which lead the evolution of WiFi.
At this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we showcased two demonstrations which had AI at their heart. One was in partnership with Keysight which use our newer network developed by our engineers to demonstrate the application of AI in a 6G network. And a second combined advanced video compression and AI to significantly reduce energy consumption of streaming video while preserving picture quality.
Also at MWC, we demonstrated cutting-edge immersive video and haptic technology in a specific use case of e-sports and showed our increasing leadership in integrated sensing and communication and emerging technology, which will be a pillar of 6G.
Our research success continue to be reflected in the development of our global patent portfolio. Recently, we were confirmed among the top 25 companies globally that filed the most new patent applications with European Patent Office last year. Our number of new applications filed with the EPO increased by 40% year over year, a clear indication of our success in translating our foundation of innovation into patent assets.
The strength of our innovation and patent footprint give us an excellent platform to drive further growth in our existing licensing programs and in greenfield opportunity such as cloud-based video services. And with our track record for delivering new license agreements with leading manufacturers such as Samsung, we believe we are in an excellent position to reach our financial target for the year.
With that, I'll hand it over to Rich to talk you through the numbers in more details.

Richard Brezski

Thanks, Liren. Q1 was another outstanding quarter for InterDigital, as our strong revenue growth drove both non-GAAP EPS and adjusted EBITDA to the high end of our guidance range. This growth was powered by new licensing agreements, most notably Samsung TV. These results support our long-term objective of delivering consistent revenue growth, combined with strong margins.
Total revenue increased 30% year over year, with CE and IoT leading the way. Based on new licensing agreements reached in Q1, recurring revenue for CE and IoT reached an annualized run rate of almost $90 million, an increase of 57% year over year and has roughly doubled over the last two years. When combined with catch-up revenue of $160 million, CE and IoT total revenue for the quarter reached an all-time high at $183 million. This performance highlights our ability to deliver significant growth beyond the smartphone market.
Our adjusted EBITDA for the quarter of $130 million equates to an adjusted EBITDA margin close to 50%, consistent with our guidance. These results demonstrate the power of our business model. Our investments in fundamental technologies drive top-line growth, while the reuse of those technologies across multiple verticals delivers high margins and drives cash flow.
Our strong performance in Q1 produced cash from operations of $51 million and free cash flow of $41 million. This strong cash flow, combined with a cash balance of nearly $1 billion, supports our continued return of capital to shareholders.
In Q1, we repurchased approximately 300,000 shares for $29 million. We repurchased another 200,000 shares in April for a year-to-date total of roughly 0.5 million shares.
Since we first paid our dividend in 2011, we have now returned approximately $1.8 billion to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. In that time, we reduced our shares outstanding share count by almost 45% from more than 45 million shares to just over 25 million shares. And with $246 million left on the current buyback authorization, we're not done yet.
Looking forward to Q2, we expect recurring revenue will include $93 million to $97 million of revenue from existing contracts plus any amounts we recognize from any new agreements we may sign over the balance of the quarter. Based only on existing contracts, we expect an adjusted EBITDA margin of about 38% and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.70 to $0.80. Any additional agreements would be additive to those totals.
Our strong first-quarter results have us on track to meet our full-year 2024 targets, and we are reaffirming our prior guidance of revenue in the range of $620 million to $670 million. We continue to expect an adjusted EBITDA margin of roughly 50% for the full year 2024 and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $7.45 to $8.76.
Before I conclude, I'd like to mention that we'll be attending four conferences over the remainder of the second quarter. The Bank of America Global Tech Conference in San Francisco on June 4, the William Blair Growth Stock Conference in Chicago on June 4, the IDEAS Investor Conference in New York on June 12, and Roth 10th Annual London Conference on June 26 and 27. Please check with the representatives at those firms if you'd like to schedule a meeting.
With that, I'll turn it back to Raiford.

Raiford Garrabrant

Thanks, Rich. At this point, operator, we are ready to take questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Arjun Bhatia, William Blair.

Arjun Bhatia

All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you taking the question. To start, Liren, maybe a couple of questions on the Samsung side. More on the smartphone side; not necessarily on the TV side.
But as you think about just going through arbitration here over the summer and looking at a potential outcome later this year, how should we think about maybe the range of outcomes that you're considering that could result from that arbitration? And is there a possibility that some prices are going up? And maybe how do you -- or your royalty rate is going up and how do you handicap that?
And then for Rich, the same thing on the Samsung smartphone side. Can you just remind us how you're accounting for the license revenue in recurring -- in the recurring line from Samsung thus far? And might that be something that's contributing to the decline in smartphone recurring revenue? Thank you.

Lawrence Chen

Hey. Good morning, Arjun. Thanks for the question. So on the Samsung smartphone arbitration, as we have discussed in the prior call, Samsung had been a customer for the smartphone side for actually a long time since 1995 and before they released the Galaxy phone.
The last contract was a 10-year agreement, which powered, frankly, the previous generation technology and not including very valuable assets like 5G and a lot of the advanced video technology we have done. So that agreement expired December 31, 2022. And both party has agreed, through negotiations, that they will be new that we without disruption.
And we, frankly, couldn't get a pricing agreed upon lead times, so we both agreed to do a binding arbitration that started January 1, 2023. And we are, frankly, well into the process. The panel has been assembled. And hearing has been confirmed this summer and will be decided before end of the year as our current projection.
So regarding valuation, for multiple reasons, we feel very confident that the value of portfolio has gone up, that Samsung has benefited more through the years compared to the time of the last agreement. So that -- obviously, we still need to have the arbitration to go through to confirm our belief. And I'll hand it over to Rich to comment on the revenue recognition side.

Richard Brezski

Yeah. Thanks, Liren. Yeah, on the rev rec, we've been recognizing since the first quarter of last year at level with the prior Samsung agreement, which is just shy of $80 million a year. That's what we believe is a conservative estimate.
We have effectively a license in place with Samsung, and we're just estimating what the ultimate outcome will be on a conservative basis. But because of the conservative nature of the GAAP requirement, we're certainly hopeful that we'll have a positive true-up when it's ultimately concluded.
And as to the question on the decline in recurring revenue, I presume you mean '23 going into '24. So based on what I just said, it's not because of Samsung; but rather, expiration of other agreements, most notably Huawei, which expired at the end of last year. And of course, we're working to --.

Arjun Bhatia

Yeah, perfect. All right. Thank you. One more, if I can.
It was interesting to hear the injunction against Lenovo and Oppo. And I'm curious, in the past, Liren, to the extent you have experience with this injunction. How do you think they -- or how have they maybe changed the behavior of some of these manufacturers in the past?
I mean, is that enough of an incentive to bring them to the negotiation table and say, hey, we want to strike a deal? How punitive can those injunctions be for these companies to get them to strike a deal with you?

Lawrence Chen

Yeah. Hey, Arjun. As we announced in a separate press this morning, the Court in Munich has issued that decision. In that decision,
Basically the court decided that InterDigital has consistently act in good faith under the FRAND obligation at all times. The court also said Lenovo had systematically, after being called out, (inaudible) not in compliance of the FRAND obligations.
So at the read-out, the court has issued the injunction of a patent that's standard essential for both 4G and 5G. And unless something happens, Lenovo will be prohibited from selling devices with those features in German market.
Regarding how the company may behave, I don't want to speculate on Samsung -- Lenovo, how they holiday will proceed from here. All I can say is Germany is obviously a very major market, and this injunction applied to a pretty wide range of devices [out there] beyond just cellphones.
So I hope, with this decision, that Lenovo will come back and, frankly, take a licensing under FRAND and fair terms from us. And I'm definitely hopeful.

Arjun Bhatia

All right. I appreciate the color. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you Anja Soderstrom, Sidoti.

Anja Soderstrom

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Can you just -- you talked about this in the past, but maybe go over again the different opportunities you have to issue guidance for 2024.

Lawrence Chen

Yeah. Hey. Good morning, Anja. This is Liren.
So we have multiple patents on the smartphone side. Just for example, we have Oppo negotiation. We have Vivo, as Rich just mentioned here, probably has expired, which we are bringing a renewal discussion with them. And then Lenovo was licensed through the UK court decision for the cellular side until end of last year. Now they unlicensed.
As we announced this morning, we receied court injunctions. And we hope to be able to, frankly, sign a long-term agreement with them. So that's just on the smartphone side.
On the (inaudible) side, as we mentioned in the prepared remark, we signed the Samsung TV, which is the largest vendor in TV space. We are working diligently on the next multiple layers of TV vendors, include LG, TCL, and Hisense.
So on top of all the stuff here, we are also working on the Samsung arbitration. And we expect that to be finished before the end of the year. And if we are able to get a favorable adjustment beyond the revenue recognition, that will be a positive.

Anja Soderstrom

Okay. Thank you. And in terms of Huawei, how constructive are those discussions, given you fairly recently, signed an agreement with them?

Lawrence Chen

Yeah. Our Huawei negotiations is proceeding according to plan. And our last agreement expired end of the year. And frankly, 'sHuawei business has gone through a certain amount of period of up and downs. So we are currently in negotiation with them, and we are hopeful that we'll get a long-term deal done with them.

Anja Soderstrom

Okay. Thank you. That was all for me.

Operator

Scott Searle, Roth MKM.

Scott Searle

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I apologize in advance. I was on the call late, so if you've already covered this. But Liren, in regard to the Lenovo injunction, what is the actual process and procedure there in terms of how that's going to be implemented? And are there additional costs associated with? I believe that there is an appeal period from their standpoint. So could you walk us through the milestones, the time line, and the cost element?

Lawrence Chen

Yes. Hey, Scott. Good morning. So we have -- I'm not certain you were on the call when we were describing it earlier. So basically, the court has decided that we have acted in FRAND manner consistently, all the time; that Lenovo has systematic conduct in hold-out and in they are not in FRAND obligation; and they are frankly unwilling licensee. So as a result, the court has issued an injunction against them that covers devices with 4G and 5G features built-in.
So there will be some procedure, Scott, which we are frankly working through. And our intention is to enforce this injunction as quickly as we can. And you also [track this as a], what they call, (inaudible) decision, which is automatically appealable. So I don't want to speculate on Lenovo's legal strategy, but that's frankly up to them.

Scott Searle

Got you. And Liren, just to quickly follow up on that front, this is in Germany. Will that extend to the rest of the EU? Or what is the plan there in terms of how you implement across the pan-European marketplace?

Lawrence Chen

Yeah, Scott. This is a case that -- this is a German patent and it's a German court. So the decision will be limited to the German market. As you are aware, Scott, we do have other cases, including our [PC and ITC] in US against them in different technology area. But these particular decision's Germany only.

Scott Searle

Got you. And two others, if I could. Just the latest update in terms of video IPs licensing into the streaming and services model. Are there any updated thoughts, time lines, in terms of how that's evolving and the impact in '24 and '25?

Lawrence Chen

Yeah. Hey, Scott. We do view the radio cloud service licensing as a very, very good greenfield opportunity. We are proceeding according to plan. We believe they're very valuable IP assets and, frankly, very strong technology leadership.
Regarding a direct financial impact, as of now, we are not projecting material impact to 2024. And if we have more update, we will share with you timely.

Scott Searle

Got you. And lastly, if I could, you've maintained the guidance range for the year of $620 million to $670 million. I'm wondering if some things have moved around in terms of higher probability versus lower probability? I'm not sure if you can address it, but just -- I know there are multiple paths to get to that range if there are certain things that have materialized and become a little bit more confident about? Thanks.

Lawrence Chen

Yeah. Hey, Scott. As I said in our in my prepared remarks, when we issued the guidance beginning of the year, we feel very strongly that our business momentum has increased. And we have identified multiple paths to [restart without].
And now, we have delivered, frankly, a resounding strong quarter in Q1 for both the top line but also adjusted EBITDA and EPS and especially in the (inaudible) and our key space. So we feel very good about where we are, and we are on track to deliver the read-out. And as of now, we are not able to predict the rest of the quarter and we -- other than we feel very confident about (inaudible) deliver for the year.

Scott Searle

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn it to Liren Chen for closing remarks.

Lawrence Chen

Thank you, operator. Before we close, I like to thank all our employees for their dedication and contribution to InterDigital as well as our many partners and licensees for our outstanding start to 2024. Thanks to everyone who joined our call today, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.