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Nordic Semiconductor — Investor Presentation 2019
Jul 11, 2019
3680_rns_2019-07-11_06b39e3f-096c-47d0-96d6-d5a2df1454ee.pdf
Investor Presentation
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Quarterly Presentation Q2 2019
July 11, 2019 (Oslo, Norway)

Disclaimer
The following presentation is being made only to, and is only directed at, persons to whom such presentation may lawfully be communicated ("relevant persons"). Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this presentation or any of its contents.
This presentation does not constitute an offering of securities or otherwise constitute an invitation or inducement to any person to underwrite, subscribe for or otherwise acquire securities in Nordic Semiconductor ASA (The Company). The release, publication or distribution of this presentation in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law, and therefore persons in such jurisdictions into which this presentation is released, published or distributed should inform themselves about, and observe, such restrictions.
This presentation includes and is based, inter alia, on forward-looking information and contains statements regarding the future in connection with The Company's growth initiatives, profit figures, outlook, strategies and objectives. All forward-looking information and statements in this presentation are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about global economic conditions, the economic conditions of the regions and industries that are major markets for The Company. These expectations, estimates and projections are generally identifiable by statements containing words such as "expects", "believes", "estimates" or similar expressions.
Important factors may lead to actual profits, results and developments deviating substantially from what has been expressed or implied in such statements. Although The Company believes that its expectations and the presentation are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that those expectations will be achieved or that the actual results will be as set out in the presentation.
The Company is making no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the presentation, and neither The Company nor any of its directors, officers or employees will have any liability to you or any other persons resulting from your use.
This presentation was prepared for the interim results presentation for the second quarter, held on July 11, 2019. Information contained herein will not be updated. The following slides should also be read and considered in connection with the information given orally during the presentation.
Today's presentation
Business update Financials Business outlook

Svenn-Tore Larsen
CEO
Pål Elstad CFO
Svenn-Tore Larsen
CEO
Business update Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO

Q2 Highlights
- Increased Tier 1 contribution in revenue and backlog
- Nordic Bluetooth design certifications grew by 21% from 125 in Q2 2018 to 151 in Q2 2019, with Nordic market share of 43%
- Major design wins reported during the quarter
- Record high backlog driven by new design wins with Tier 1 customers globally
- Strong gross margin as a result of investments in supply chain
- June production release of cellular IoT products and software
- Managed channel inventory to adapt to market uncertainty
Quarter in line with guidance
Total revenue of MUSD
70.5
Y-o-Y decrease of 0.9%
- Bluetooth: 7.1% y-o-y increase
- 50.1% q-o-q increase
- Revenue impacted by continued market uncertainty
- Maintaining market share
- Proprietary: -25.6% y-o-y decline due to inventory adjustments and weaker non-pc market
- Cellular IoT samples revenue of KUSD 200
- Solid backlog of MUSD 112.0, +39.8% y-o-y
Gross Margin
51.2%
Gross margin expansion +2.2 p.p y-o-y
- Represents a 4 year high
- Higher value nRF52 Series devices continues to be the main revenue driver
- EBITDA* at MUSD 9.8 (MUSD 10.0 in Q2 2018)
- Adjusted short-range EBITDA of MUSD 15.3, which is a record high margin of 21.8%
Financials Pål Elstad, CFO

Operating model performance Q2 2019
| Q2 2019* |
Q2 2018 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue change y-o-y |
-0.9% (MUSD 70.5) |
+21.3% (MUSD 71.2) |
Revenue within guidance in challenging market | |
| Gross margin |
51.2% | 49.0% | (+2.2pp) Continued positive contribution from cost improvements and favorable customer and product mix |
|
| R&D short-range | 15.9% (MUSD 11.2) |
15.3% (MUSD 10.9) |
(+0.6pp) Continued investments to capture growth opportunities |
|
| R&D cellular IoT |
7.9% (MUSD 5.6) |
4.8% (MUSD 3.4) |
(+3.1pp) Increased spending during commercialization stage |
|
| SG&A | 13.5% (MUSD 9.5) |
14.9% (MUSD 10.6) |
(-1.4pp) Maintaining cost focus | |
| EBITDA margin | 13.9% | 14.0% | (-0.1pp) EBITDA margin stable |
Revenue by market*
| Consumer Electronics |
Wearables | Building /Retail |
Healthcare | Others | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MUSD MUSD 27.3 12.7 |
MUSD 12.9 |
MUSD 5.4 |
MUSD 10.3 |
||
| -3.4% +29.2% y-o-y q-o-q |
+7.3% +66.7% y-o-y q-o-q |
-6.0% +60.7% y-o-y q-o-q |
+1.5% +27.3% y-o-y q-o-q |
+2.3% +17.6% y-o-y q-o-q |
*Excluding ASIC's, consulting and other revenue
Fourth consecutive quarter above target

Gross margin 51.2% +2.2pp y-o-y
- Continued positive contribution from cost improvements and stable yield on nRF52 Series
- Increased revenue on high end products
- Quarter to quarter fluctuations to be anticipated due to change in product and customer mix
Cash operating expenses*)
Cash Opex MUSD

- Continued cost discipline during the quarter
- Q2 cash operating expenses increased 0.2% compared to last quarter
- Compared to last year, cash operating expenses increased 4.9%
- The increase is driven by new product releases and headcount growth of 14.0% from 629 in Q2 2018 to 717 in Q2 2019
- Continued investments to capture future growth
Maintaining cash

Cash flow Q2 2019 Seasonal Cash outflow during the quarter
- MUSD 10 in cash outflow during Q2 2019
- Driven by increase accounts receivables
- NWC/LTM at 25.6% (21.9% in Q1 2019), down 1.1 p.p. y-o-y
- Capex of MUSD 4.1 test equipment for production releases on high-end nRF52 and nRF91 Series.
Continued disciplined cash strategy
Tight cash management and optimized cash generating ability
Business outlook Svenn-Tore Larsen, CEO

New Nordic powered products

Close to 40k kits shipped in H1 2019

Yet another record half year + 33% y-o-y for H1 2019 Significant contribution from nRF52840 kits nRF91 Kits at 2 700 during 1H
Leading indicator of market growth
Continued strong diversification
Leading indicator of our position
Attractive and competitive solutions
Record quarter for Nordic Certifications
Bluetooth Low Energy end-product certifications*

*Source: DNB Markets
Commercial Asset Tracking Applications
Tags:
- Smarter assets
- Sensor monitoring (temperature, light, moisture)
- Safety, inventory, and security

Tracking Gateways:
- Indoor location tracking
- May support mesh protocols (Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread)
- Triangulation technologies
- Potential backbone to Cloud using nRF9160

Stand Alone Asset Tracking Applications
nRF52xxx BLE Tracker:
- Long battery life
- Crowd / Community network
- Last known location reporting


nRF9160 Cellular GPS Tracker:
- Containers, Pets, Livestock etc.
- Direct cellular connection with 2-way communication
- GPS location

Asset Tracking Press Releases

Tile Platform Win with SDK support
H&D Wireless nRF52840 + nRF9160
Quuppa Design Partnership
Qualified Amazon FreeRTOS for nRF52840 available now

- The nRF52840 SoC and the nRF52840 development kit are now qualified platforms for working with Amazon FreeRTOS using Bluetooth Low Energy.
- Connectivity is based on Nordic Semiconductor's S140 SoftDevice, a high-performance protocol stack offering up to 20 simultaneous connections and full Bluetooth 5 support.
- The S140 is RTOS agnostic and easily integrates with Amazon FreeRTOS.
- The Amazon FreeRTOS SDK integrates software from the Nordic nRF5 SDK for specific device drivers and feature support for peripherals and management of memory.
https://aws.amazon.com/freertos/ https://docs.aws.amazon.com/freertos/latest/userguide/getting\_started\_nordic.html
nRF9160 Production Status
| Hardware | Supported features |
Dec 12th, 2018 |
May | June | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nRF9160- SICA |
LTE-M/NB IoT/GPS |
Public Sampling of HW and LTE M SW |
Production of HW. Public sampling of GPS and NB-IoT SW |
LTE-M, NB IoT, GPS SW production |
|
| nRF9160- SIBA |
LTE-M | Production of HW |
|||
| nRF9160- SIAA |
NB-IoT | Public sampling of NB-IoT SW |
Production |
Certifications in place for both LTE-M and NB-IOT

Supported LTE Bands:
- LTE-M: 1,2,3,4,5,8,12,13,14,17,18,19,20,25,26,28,66
- NB-IOT: 1,2,3,4,5,8,12,13,17,19,20,25,26,28,66
nRF9160 design-in with Telespor

Radiobjella – product for livestock monitoring
- Reports GPS position at predefined intervals
- Tagging individual animals
- Two-way to configure device remotely or set alarms no movement etc.
- Helps farmers fulfill legal requirement for livestock monitoring and wellbeing
Guidance Q3 2019
| MUSD | |
|---|---|
| Revenue | 78-83 |
Continued market uncertainty resulted in low growth rates in Q2 2019, although we achieved a 7.1% growth in Bluetooth. Uncertainty in the market is expected to continue in Q3 2019. Based on the current backlog, guidance for Q3 2019 revenue is MUSD 78-83
Gross margin ~50%
Continued strong gross margin
Other Capex MUSD 4-5
Increased capex related to investments in lab equipment to secure future growth in cellular IoT and Tier 1 customers' requirements transferred partly from Q2
Capital Markets Day
- Nordic Semiconductor will host a capital markets day following the Q3 2019 quarterly presentation on October 22, 2019
- The event will include presentations by top management focusing on:
- Deep dive into sales model and go to market strategy for both short-range and long-range
- Detailed update on progress with long-range business (e.g. certifications, services, etc.)
- Technology / R&D roadmap
- Further details will be provided during September

