Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Ceragon Networks Q1 2022 earnings call. Our presentation today will be followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you'll need to raise your hand using your mobile or desktop application. I'd like to hand over the call now to our first speaker today, Ms. Maya Lustig, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you operator, and good morning everyone. I am joined by Doron Arazi, Ceragon's Chief Executive Officer, and Ran Vered, Ceragon's Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I would like to note that this call includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended, and the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviation therefrom will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated.
These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, such risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could affect our results as detailed in our press release that was published earlier today, and as further detailed in Ceragon's most recent annual report on Form 20-F and in Ceragon's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such forward-looking statements represent our views only as of the day they are made and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. Such forward-looking statements do not purport to be predictions of future events or results, and there can be no assurance that they will prove to be accurate. Ceragon may elect to update these forward-looking statements at any point in the future, but it specifically declaims any obligation to do so.
Ceragon's public filings are available on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov, and may also be obtained from Ceragon's website at www.ceragon.com. Also, today's call will include certain non-GAAP numbers. For a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results, please see the table attached to the press release that was issued earlier today. I will now turn the call over to Doron. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Maya, and good morning everyone. We began the year with strong momentum that has built up since beginning of 2021, especially in North America and Europe. We saw exceptionally strong bookings in Q1 2022, the highest in the last four years and on par with second quarter of last year. We continue to make good progress in all three of our strategic pillars together, which constitutes our growth strategy, as you may recall from earlier discussions. Our first strategic pillar has to do with increasing our traditional business which is the best-in-class all outdoor microwave and millimeter wave market segments. With the massive ongoing 5G network rollouts in North America and Europe, we received significant value of orders this past quarter. Our second pillar involves expanding our business into open network architecture domains.
Our IP-50FX disaggregated cell site gateway or DCSG solution launched in the first quarter, uses the best of breed software and hardware to integrate a cell site router and a radio indoor unit offering both in a single solution. This quarter, we already received the PO for IP-50FX from a large tier one operator in Latin America. Our third pillar is strengthening our managed services offering to deepen our relationship with our customers. This offering has garnered considerable attention from operators, private networks and carriers in North America, Latin America, and Europe. In fact, the results of our most recent customer survey, which was conducted in the first quarter, demonstrate that 28% of our existing customers would be interested in our managed services. We are already seeing this interest turn into POCs and orders for NOC support, connectivity as a service, and more across different regions.
Our customer survey also shows that our product satisfaction rate stands at a competitive 85%. That 85% of our customers think our main advantage is us being their "trusted advisor." They rate us among the top three technology leaders in the industry. In addition, a staggering 97% report that they are likely to increase or maintain their business with us. According to them, what sets us apart is our product quality, ease of use, and reliability. These results allow us to confirm our continued confidence in the strong demand for our solutions in 2022. I will now give you an overview per region. In North America, we experienced high demand and received healthy bookings. Based on the current outlook, we anticipate another record year in this region.
As we announced earlier today, we signed a contract with DISH Wireless and started receiving orders worth multimillion dollar. DISH Wireless will leverage our ultra-high capacity IP-50C microwave and IP-50E millimeter wave transport solutions to support its nationwide 5G rollout. We will also provide them with deployment services for smooth rollout and network asset management. DISH Wireless is America's first cloud-native 5G network service provider, and we feel proud to be their partner of choice. Also, in the first quarter, we won a deal with a large North American carrier to provide them with our all indoor technologies. In this region, in addition to accelerated 5G rollout by large operators, we are seeing the ISPs and private networks market expand. In Q1, we enhanced and grew our sales funnel significantly, winning a tender in this domain as well.
In India, the continued high demand is reflected in the strong orders and the bookings we received. Here, we mainly work with the region's tier one operators, helping them with fast site upgrades and network expansion to prepare for the 5G era and deliver uninterrupted connectivity. In February, a leading tier one operator placed orders for our all outdoor 5G ready multi-core solution with delivery scheduled for Q2 and Q3 2022. Countrywide, the 5G spectrum tender is on track. E-band spectrum release for backhauling is on its way, which presents a significant opportunity for us. We believe that our long-time market leadership and reputed name will help us have a decent market share in this domain. In Europe, we had an exceptionally strong quarter. In fact, it was a record quarter in the past two years.
Here, as large operators begin their 5G field trials, we provide them with our latest capabilities and technologies. A leading tier one operator and a third party, DCSG, have tested our RAN, which proved that our RAN software works well with other open network elements. We also finished a successful PoC with a tier one global operator as part of their TIP activity. In addition, we acquired a new tier one customer. Sorry, a new Tier 2 customer. We will be supporting them with their nationwide 5G projects. In APAC, we saw an improvement in the business environment compared to the last quarter. Post-COVID, countries are opening up, and the market is working its way back to normal, except for China. This past quarter, we acquired two new private network customers in this region. Bookings were strong.
In Latin America, we experienced a very strong start to the year, thanks to strong bookings. The pandemic seems to be behind us and business recovering. Despite some political instability, which has an impact on business decisions and ongoing projects, investments are beginning to increase in several different countries. We received POs for our IP-50FX from leading Tier 1 operators in Paraguay and Argentina. In Africa, we had a slow quarter in line with our expectations due to seasonality. On the delivery and gross margin front, this quarter, we continued to experience the challenges we spoke about in our previous call. These challenges caused our revenue to be somewhat lower than our expectations, so was the gross margin. This quarter, an issue that stood out was shipping costs relative to our expectations.
We have been analyzing the main reasons for this specific cost increase in order to take action where we can and to get a better control of it. As stated in our previous analyst call, we believe that these challenges are temporary. Improvement in our gross margin is expected only during the second half of the year, assuming gradual improvement in our supply chain and shipping constraints and costs. Our main goal is to continue to meet the increased demand we are seeing from our customers and maintain and expand our market share. That said, we are doing our utmost to improve our gross margin via short, mid, and long-term cost reduction initiatives, as well as price increases where applicable. Looking ahead, we feel confident about our core domain products as well as our newer products such as IP-50FX, which help us leverage the fast-growing open network trend.
We believe that our positioning as best-in-class providers for microwave and millimeter wave technologies, as well as a leader in the new disaggregated market. We continue to drive positive returns. As I mentioned earlier, these two areas cover the first two pillars of our growth strategy. In addition, expansion in the third pillar, which is managed services, will bring us more recurring business and revenues and improve our gross margin. Our belief is that together, increased activity in all three pillars will help us achieve margin expansions, which is our core aim. The bottom line is that demand looks strong, and we see opportunities to increase our market share. Thus, in spite of the challenges associated with deliveries and cost increases, we are optimistic about the future. With that, let me now turn the call over to Ran to discuss the financials for the quarter. Ran?
Thank you, Doron, and good morning, everyone. To help you understand the results, I will be referring mainly to non-GAAP numbers. For more information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations of these measures, we refer you to today's press release. Like Doron mentioned, during Q1 2022, we saw strong bookings coming from North America, Europe, India, and Latin America. We see strong continued demand overall. Let me now review the actual numbers with you. Revenues for the first quarter were $73 million, up by 2.9% compared with $68.3 million in Q1 last year, somewhat lower than expected. In Q1, we experienced several challenges which included delivering some of our products on time due to component shortages and supply chain disruptions. That said, as I mentioned earlier, demand continued to be high.
Our strongest region in terms of revenues for the quarter is India, with $15.6 million, reflecting ongoing deliveries for our main customers and in line with the strong demand we see in this region. Our second and third strongest regions in terms of revenues for the quarter were Latin America and North America, with revenue of $17.9 million and $17.3 million, respectively. As Doron mentioned, in Latin America, the pandemic seems to be behind us and business is recovering. We had two above 10% customers in the first quarter. Gross profit for the quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $19.5 million, giving us a non-GAAP gross margin of 27.7%, lower by almost 2% than the first quarter of 2021.
The relatively low gross profit is mainly due to expedited costs derived from component shortages and increased shipping costs. Operating expenses on a non-GAAP basis for the first quarter were $20.1 million, in line with our expectations. Research and development expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $6.8 million, lower than in Q1 2021. We expect an increase in our R&D expenses in the next quarter as part of the continued productization efforts of our new chip. Sales and marketing expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $8.5 million compared to $8.2 million in Q1 2021. General and administrative expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $4.8 million, same as our expectations.
Financial and other expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $1.2 million, lower than our expectations. Our tax expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $0.1 million. This is in line with our expectations. Net loss on a non-GAAP basis for the quarter was $1.2 million or $0.02 per diluted share. As for our balance sheet, our inventory at the end of Q1, 2022 was $58.1 million, up from $48.5 million at the end of Q1, 2021, but lower than Q4, 2021. The level of inventory still reflects our need to stock long lead and strategic items as a result of increased customer orders as well as the ongoing component shortages.
We strive to keep our inventory levels lower, but given the current environment, sometimes the need to stock key and long lead items arises. Our trade receivables are now at $120.7 million, up from $106.7 million at the end of Q1 2021. Our DSOs now stand at 150 days, higher than the 141 days in Q1 2021. This quarter, we were able to better control our cash flow from operations and investing activities compared to Q4 2021. We have a strong balance sheet, including $25 million of cash and have available unused credit facilities of $23 million. Net cash used in operating and investing activities for the first quarter was $4.5 million.
Net cash provided by financing activities for the first quarter was $12.2 million.
Looking forward, we see strong operator demand. As the year unfolds, we also see the global component shortage, supply chain disruptions, and shipping issues continue to create business challenges as well as fluctuations in our gross margin. Although the situation remains volatile, we are constantly taking measures to counter the challenges and are well-positioned to take full advantage of long-term opportunities. We continue to target revenue growth in 2022. Assuming an improvement in the components, supply chain, and shipping drawbacks, we now expect yearly revenue to be between $300 million and $315 million. Improvement in our gross margin is expected only during the second half of the year, assuming gradual improvement in our supply chain and shipping constraints and costs. With that, I now open the call for your questions. Operator?
Thank you. As a reminder, in order to ask a question, please raise your hand using your desktop or mobile application and wait for your name to be announced. Again, in order to ask a question, please raise your hand using your mobile or desktop application and wait for your name to be announced. Our first question today will come from the line of Alex Henderson from Needham. Please go ahead.
Great. Can you hear me?
Hi, Alex.
Hi, Alex.
Couple of quick questions. One, if you were not supply constrained in the quarter, what kind of revenue could you have produced? Two, on the gross margins, how much of the pressure was a function of the inflation in shipping costs and parts that might be mitigated in future periods? In other words, do you expect the parts prices that are increasing to stay up at these levels? If that's the case, then don't back that out. But if you expect some improvement in parts that you're not expediting, do back that out.
Yeah. Let's start one by one. First of all, our plan at the beginning of the quarter was to generate $75 million or even more. In terms of the impact of the shipment costs and the expedite fees that we are paying for components, the impact in terms of percentage on gross margin this quarter was something between 3%-4%.
Okay. Just going back to your comment about $75 million plus, to be clear, that still was a supply-constrained guide. Had you been fully available to buy any part you wanted to and ship anything you wanted to, I assume it would have been higher than the $75 million. Is that correct?
Yeah.
I'm just trying to get a gauge of what the true underlying revenues would
Yeah.
have been had it not been for these supply constraints.
Yeah. Let me kind of back up for a second. Our backlog is great. It's huge. What's holding us is all these constraints. Originally, we planned in our AOP for even higher revenue than the $75. Once we, you know, moved forward and had to provide with our projection in the previous call, we took some prudent steps and said, "Okay, let's reduce a bit." Then we reached to $75, and even that was not able to be achieved only because of the constraints that we have in terms of our component shortages.
Obviously, even the part that we're able to overcome, the shipment cost went up dramatically because we wanted to supply to our customers on time, and we had, in some cases, to use more air than sea.
Alex Henderson, just to comment on Doron Arazi, if I may. The part of the erosion in the gross margin derives from our decision to expedite shipments in order to satisfy the customers. I will say that part of it is in our control in order to make sure that our customers are provided with the equipment as part of their deployment plan, and it's in our control. Yes, it costs us money, but we think that we're taking the right decisions because we know in this market the cost of gaining new customers is by far higher than maintaining customers.
With our tier one long-standing customers relationship, we thought that this quarter it's the right decision to pay these expedite fees in order to maintain our market share in these customers.
Yeah. That's a great point. I want just to add to it. It's not that we are blindly doing that across the board. We are making decisions on the spot, and obviously it's very difficult to see the end result picture of the quarter while you are
Within the quarter, making decisions day by day, but we're making a very, I would say conscious decisions where we want to spend the extra amount to keep and maintain our market share, in some cases even increase it, as opposed to the option of losing customers to the competition.
Couple of quick questions. Any exposure to Ukraine, Russia as a result of the war? Second, has there been any change in the demand, as a result of that, particularly in EMEA or other markets that might be impacted by the economic consequences of that war?
I will pick up the first one, Alex, and would either want to comment on the second. Almost, I will say zero impact of the war in Russia and Ukraine. Both, I will say on the business side of things and also on the balance sheet, because we have a negligible amount in our AR in regard to these customers and the level of activities we have is also very small. I will say almost zero impact on these customers in relation to Russia and Ukraine.
Regarding your second question, Alex, so far, we haven't seen any impact. Actually, Europe this quarter came very strong with a record booking quarter for the last two years. So far, we don't see the impact on rest of Europe.
Okay. One last question, and then I'll cede the floor. The DISH win, obviously, congratulations. That's great news. Can you give us some sense of the scale of that, on an annual basis, as you're rolling out that program? What it could be this year, what it could be, say, three years or four years from now? You know, what's the size of this transaction?
Based on what we've seen so far and the initial orders we have started receiving, I think this year could probably add something within more or less two-digit million dollars of bookings this quarter. I think that it's also yet to be seen because this is just the first stage. It's very unclear how things will play out later. If you ask me, I would assume double-digit amount of millions dollars, you know, low double-digit.
Just to be clear, the gross margins in the U.S. tend to be higher. This should be consistent with that. Second, are you the lead supplier to DISH?
To the best of our knowledge, we are the lead supplier. Actually, we have the lion's share on the equipment, and in this round, probably, 100%. We are leading the installation and providing with the services, as well as managing all the boxes using our NMS system. That is where we are at this point. In terms of the margin, generally speaking, you're right. U.S. margins are higher. Just bear in mind that with the services, since we are in a ramp-up stage, because up until now, we did not have a significant services business in the U.S., the fixed part of our cost is probably going to be a little burden on our gross margin in the near future.
We do see some more opportunities of this kind of services, both to other tier ones as well as tier three, tier four, and the critical infrastructure. As we move along, the services part will increase. As a result of that, the fixed cost will basically become a lower portion, improving our gross margins.
Got it. Thank you very much for the response. I'll get back in queue. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thanks, Alex.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of George Iwanyc from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Hello, Doron and Ran. Can you hear me?
Hey, George.
Yes. Hey, George. How are you?
All right. Thank you. Kind of picking up on Alex's questions. When you look at the supply chain and visibility as the year progresses, it looks like, you know, your adjustments to the annual guidance is mostly related to the first quarter. Do you see improvement in the second quarter, or is most of the revenue growth anticipated to come in the second half of the year?
At this point, because we are in the midst of the storm, we assume we are very prudent. We're trying to kind of be very careful. We assume that the second part of the year is where we are going to see a bigger portion of the growth.
Okay.
As well as improvement in the gross margin, of course, as a result of that. Yes.
Yeah. When you have discussions with your suppliers, what kind of visibility are they giving you into the timing of availability?
Yeah. Let me explain to you the situation. You get, I would say, a reasonable visibility, and we thought it's improving. However, there's two things that are impacting this visibility and can create surprises to us, and this is why we're very cautious. One, even if the component vendors commit to a certain specific day, they may decline this commitment sometimes as late as two weeks before delivery date. Now, we are working primarily with a contract manufacturer in Singapore that buys most of the components, the regular components for us. If he faces this kind of situation, he has nothing to do with it. He just can let us know that this is happening, and that's it.
We think that they can improve the visibility as opposed to what we have seen in the last couple of quarters. By the way, one of the goals I have is to meet with them this quarter and discuss how we can improve the visibility coming from them so that we can come up, I would say, with better estimations about the revenue we'll be able to generate.
When you look at the pricing environment and, you know, the expedited, you know, extra costs from, you know, a shipping perspective, how much are you able to, you know, either transfer some of those costs or, you know, have discussions with your customers on the, you know, the potential to, you know, raising prices and/or, like, temporarily offsetting some of the shipping costs?
I would say that this is an ongoing discussion with all of our customers. As you can understand, every day is a new day. You know, just looking on the graph of the increase in air freight and sea freight, just in the last couple of months, you can understand that the environment is very, very volatile. I can tell you that we have successes, almost in each and every region, we have successes of either increasing prices or doing some changes in shipment terms.
It's not a walk in the park because let's not forget, 70% of our business is coming from tier one operators and tier two operators, which are by far a bigger and their leverage and commercial power over Ceragon, and not only Ceragon, is big. Obviously the competition is waiting aside, and I've not seen a very intensive price increase coming from the competition, so we are doing it one by one. I can tell you that I'm quite satisfied with the progress we have made. Now after seeing the shipment and cost increase, we might make a decision to go back to our customers for a second and a third round.
All right. Doron, can you give us a bit more of an update on the 5G side, whether you added any incremental design wins? Then from a productization standpoint from the new chipset, you know, where are you? What kind of timetable should we expect?
I mentioned on the conference call, actually the interest we've seen with our new IP-50FX and the RAN, which is basically the software, is basically a virtual indoor unit, is amazing. We were very surprised by the level of traction. We are making a lot of progress with some of the biggest players, customers, potential customers, actually, in Europe. In terms of other areas, also this particular disaggregated cell site router is getting a lot of interest in Latin America. To a certain degree, we are considering launching a lower cost of this product in the future, and this also gets a lot of traction in India.
This product is showing very, very strong initial signals of success. Obviously, it's yet to be seen. As for the chip, generally speaking, we are moving forward more or less in accordance with our plan. We're in the productization phase. We're about to start all the validation test soon. We do hope to finish the productization phase at the end of 2022. Basically, this part is competing with many other chip designers on a substrate, on a manufacturing queue and so on and so forth.
I'm saying that very carefully. I hope to really finish the productization in 2022, but the situation in the component in the chip market could create some delays, which we hope will be minimal. Obviously, once we're in a position where we can start working with the chips and move forward fast with our new 100 series, we will do that. At this point, it is our estimation that we'll start basically launching our new products under the 100 series probably at the beginning of 2024.
Okay. Two more questions. Ran, you mentioned that R&D is expected to increase in the next quarter. How do you look at your overall OpEx spend? Are you able to, you know, maybe save a little bit on the G&A side?
Yeah. Thanks for the question, George. The answer, the simple answer is yes. We are going and we already take a re-look on our OpEx expenses and try to be, I will say, a more disciplined in terms of OpEx spending, mainly on the G&A side of things. We are going to keep it for the next quarters, especially with the volatile market in terms of our gross margin. We are going and we already do some more discipline OpEx expenses, in particular, on the G&A side of things.
Okay. Last question. Ran, you know, thank you for the conversations and, you know, all the work over the years. I wish you well. Doron, you know, how is the CFO transition search going? You know, can you give us an update on, you know, what you're looking for?
Yeah. We have basically obviously in the midst of the process of the search. I think we have identified a couple of very good candidates. Obviously, it's a process that it's not only me who is involved, also some of our directors from the board of directors will interview the candidates. I hope that we are relatively in the last, I would say, stages of this process, but yet it may take us some more time.
Generally speaking, the profile is of people who have business experience and are not just very much focused on the accounting and financial because people who know Ceragon know that the impact of finance on the success of the business is very significant. We're looking for this kind of profile. Obviously, if this person also is coming from some experience, in particular in the telco industry or vendor or equipment vendors to this industry, that would be nice to have.
Can I comment just for a second? George, first, thanks for the warm words. Just two more comments from me on that. First, I may leave, but I have a very strong team. Some of them I recruit myself, some of them Doron recruit on his previous role here as a CFO, and we're able to maintain them. Second, even after my departure, I have my commitment to Doron and the board to have a transition with a new CFO. I guarantee a smooth transition on that respect as well.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. As a reminder, in order to ask a question, you will need to raise your hand using your mobile or desktop application. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson from Needham. Please go ahead.
Great, thanks. Clearly, the supply chain issues have been a big problem in the rearview mirror, but looking in the headlights, there's a lot of risk coming out of China these days, locking down, I don't know, what is it? $400 million in Shanghai, and now they're doing Beijing. I don't know whether they're gonna lock down $800 million or what, but I can't imagine living in an environment where somebody from the government comes and padlocks you into your office or your apartment. Those points aside, what's the impact, do you think, of this on you, and how much have you been able to diversify away from that risk?
I need to distinguish between a direct impact and an indirect impact. When I'm saying direct impact, I refer to some Chinese vendors who are supplying to us certain elements of our solution directly. In this respect, the exposure at this point is low. At least one of the vendors have two sides, one of them is out of China, and we were able to remove most of the activity to the side that is out of China. With the other one, we have started and embarked a process of alternate solution outside of China. At this point, assuming the lockdown is not going to linger forever, the direct impact is not big.
The indirect impact is something that we cannot assess, and I will explain to you why. If our contract manufacturer buys certain component from the Chinese market, we are not aware of each and every nitty-gritty element and component in our solution, and it could be that they may have some, I would say, challenges. So far, we haven't seen a big deterioration coming from the CM, and based on that, we assume that the impact, if any, is already included in their estimations.
If it sounds like the exposure on parts is lower. What about on the travel side of it, the freight side? Do you expect the freight costs to start to trim down, or do you expect the problems in Russia slash China to cause freight to stay, you know, a big problem through the second quarter, at least?
Frankly, it's very hard to tell. I can tell you that, for example, we've seen an increase in the freight cost to India in the first quarter, and now it looks like there are certain relaxation in this cost. The rest, it's very difficult to say. Our assumption at this point, and based on that, we gave our revised, so to speak, outlook for the year, is that this situation will continue for a while, and the relaxation will come later in the year, but not in, I would say, steep improvement.
On the T&E side, three weeks ago, I hadn't traveled in two years, now I've got 10 trips scheduled over the next quarter. I assume that you guys have similar kind of, you know, improvement in or cost increase to cope with, but also, hopefully, productivity generated from that. Can you talk about what your assumptions are for the year in terms of, you know, T&E rebounding? Is it, you know, 60%-70% of where it was 2019? Is that the new normal? How do we think about that?
Actually even in the first quarter, we are seeing some signs of recovery of the T&E. However, not at a great extent. Even when I see the projections of travel, it's by far less than the level of 2019. If I want to give you some ballpark, more than 50% less than the level we had in 2019. Even that is, you know, when we see, it's mainly the main factor of our travel is actually travel in continent for installations, for training, for knowledge transfer. Less travels we see for internal meetings and things like that.
This is still not something that is happening at this point.
Is that a new normal, or what do you think the new normal?
Yeah.
is gonna be?
When we planned 2022, my guidance to management was, "Guys, we got used to close deals via Zoom, via Teams." I'm not saying that we should stay contained in our rooms forever, but this is a very effective tool. Yes, there's no substitute to physical proximity. Obviously, the more important parts of meeting, closing deals and so on and so forth, could and should be done face-to-face. The budget that was instructed is more or less 50% less than the level of travel expenses we have seen in 2019. I think that Ceragon has proven itself, especially on the OpEx, to be a very disciplined company, and this is what I expect from the management and the employees.
Kind of a new normal is a much lower level on it.
Yeah.
Going to the exchange rate, can you remind us where you are on the hedging? I mean, the shekel is certainly helping things at this point.
Yeah. Unfortunately, Alex, on the expense side, I say unfortunately, because we already hedged 2022 at an average rate of 3.15%, something like that. Since the US dollar is strengthening against the shekel, you know, we are already hedged. It does help us, I would say on the balance sheet items that are not hedged and are denominated in shekel. This is why you see also the financial expenses this quarter were much lower than in the previous quarters.
One more question then I'll cede the floor, again. Churn, staffing churn, and wage inflation, what are you seeing?
First of all, I'm happy to announce that in the first quarter, especially in R&D, we have seen some relaxation in the attrition and the ratio between recruitment and attrition has improved very significantly. Obviously that's good news to us. There are some new, even I would say, articles talking about a spike in the demand side for workers that is being noticed. This gives us some sort of a hope that this very challenging situation will start calming down, and obviously as a result of that also salaries will get to something that is more reasonable. I don't think it's coming very soon.
I still believe that this year will continue to be a bit difficult. In other main locations, primarily Romania and India, I think we have seen similar situation. In India, we've seen a lot of turnovers. By the way, not only in Ceragon, across the industry, and people are just trying to improve their terms. is in Romania to a certain degree. At this point, I think that we're managing this situation very well. It's a combination of sometimes salary increase coming with some efficiency measures, making sure that people are really doing 100%, so to speak, productivity.
So far, this helps us to contain or to keep our budget in accordance with what we planned.
Just one more last question. I apologize, I forgot to ask. Most of my companies in the networking and telco space have been talking about the magnitude of their backlog on a full year basis. For instance, Ciena is running a backlog that's equal to roughly 100% of its annual product sales. Juniper's well over 50%. You know, this has become kind of a standard comment. Are you willing to give us some gauge of what your backlog is relative to you know, the full year product revenue guide?
Alex, you ask this question so politely, I cannot deny or refuse to answer this. I would say that it's above 50%, and I would say no more.
Well, that's very helpful. Thank you so much for that. Ran, I understand you've got a great new gig. Congratulations. Look forward to maybe working with you wherever you end up. Thanks.
Thank you, Alex. It was a pleasure working with you as well.
Thank you. You have no further questions. Please proceed.
Thank you. In closing, we will continue to stay focused in the areas that add value to our business and market leadership in the medium and long term. We will continue to sharpen our competitive edges, which are our technology leadership, our growing managed services offering, and our reputation that spans over 25 years. Our latest product, IP-50FX, our newest customers, orders, and bookings, are all testaments to our strengths and to the trust our customers continue to place in us. As 2022 unfolds, we will continue to build on and amplify these distinctions through our growth strategy and by focusing on the best opportunities in each region. I look forward to updating you further on our next call. Have a good day, everyone.