Harmonic Inc. (HLIT)
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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Aug 1, 2022

Operator

Welcome to the Q2 2022 Harmonic Earnings Conference Call. My name is Kevin and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to David Hanover, Investor Relations. David, you may begin.

David Hanover
Investor Relations, Harmonic

Thank you, operator. Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Harmonic's second quarter 2022 financial results conference call. With me today are Patrick Harshman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sanjay Kalra, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that in addition to the audio portion of the webcast, we've also provided slides for this webcast, which you may view by going to our webcast on our investor relations website. Now turning to slide 2. During this call, we will provide projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of the company. Such statements are only current expectations and actual events or results may differ materially. We refer you to documents filed with the SEC, including our most recent 10-Q and 10-K reports and the forward-looking statement section of today's preliminary results press release.

These documents identify important risk factors which can cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. Please note that unless otherwise indicated, the financial metrics we provide you on this call are determined on a non-GAAP basis. These metrics, together with corresponding GAAP numbers and a reconciliation to GAAP, are contained in today's press release, which we have posted on our website and filed with the SEC on Form 8-K. We will also discuss historical, financial, and other statistical information regarding our business and operation, and some of this information is included in the press release. The remainder of the information will be available on a recorded version of this call or on our website. Now I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Patrick Harshman. Patrick.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Thanks, David, and welcome everyone to our second quarter call. In the second quarter of 2022, Harmonic again delivered exceptional business results. Revenue was up 39% year-over-year, reaching a record $157.4 million. EPS was $0.16 and adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.5%, with balanced contribution from our two business segments. The cable access segment continues to generate strong sustainable growth with revenue up 62% year-over-year. Video segment revenue grew 20% with the underlying highlight again being SaaS revenue, which was up 69% year-over-year. These results demonstrate growing demand for multi-gigabit broadband and live streaming video, and that our associated products and services are highly differentiated and build value for our customers.

They also demonstrate the resilience of our business model as Harmonic continues to execute despite current supply chain challenges in the macroeconomic environment. Turning first to our cable access segment. We produced strong top and bottom line growth during the second quarter. Segment revenue was $81.2 million, up 62% year-over-year. By quarter end, 79 broadband service providers were deploying on CableOS, and cable modems served grew to 8.5 million, up 159% year-over-year, still less than 15% of our existing customers' DOCSIS footprint. Adjusted segment EBITDA margin was 14.3%, demonstrating good earnings leverage despite product cost headwinds. These results reflect both a healthy market and our strong momentum in this market.

Our current cable customers are global market leaders, and they're leaned into advancing their broadband networks through new multi-gigabit offerings, better analytics, and more flexible operations, all areas where Harmonic's solution continues to be way out in front. During the quarter, we announced and demonstrated groundbreaking new capabilities in support of the cable industry's 10G vision. We announced a new solution enabling customers to leverage legacy Cisco node platforms to deploy our DAA. Several of our engagements with prospective tier one customers moved forward in ways that we find very encouraging. Complementing this excellent work in broadband over cable, we also drove significant progress in our more nascent fiber business area. During the quarter, we received over $10 million in fiber solution orders, advanced trials with additional tier one customers, and grew our fiber sales pipeline domestically and internationally.

We're increasingly convinced that our fiber and converged cable plus fiber solutions are winners, that fiber represents a significant addressable market expansion opportunity, and that fiber will be a key contributor to our longer-range market leadership and growth. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2022 and beyond, we remain confident that our broadband access business is uniquely positioned for sustained growth. We have a very strong backlog, great customer relationships, technology and service capabilities that are truly unique in the market, and we're investing and working hard to stay out in front. As mentioned last quarter, we now forecast that 2024 top-line revenue, EBITDA dollars and EBITDA percentage will be ahead of the plan we communicated to you during our Investor Day in June last year.

We've solidified plans for our next Investor Day in September, during which we'll provide additional color on our view of the market and growth trajectory, as well as updated long-term financial models for both of our business segments. In the meantime, we remain confident about the broadband access market and our ability to continue to deliver industry-leading solutions and compelling profitable growth. Turning now to our video segment. Here also, we delivered another quarter of strong financial and strategic execution. Second quarter segment revenue was $76.2 million, up 20% year-over-year, ahead of our forecast as some business we expected to realize in the second half of the year came in earlier than anticipated.

Segment EBITDA was 16.7%, highlighting continued strong financial execution. Strategically, the biggest highlight of the quarter was achieving streaming SaaS revenue of $8.6 million, which was up 69% year-over-year. As a reminder, our video business strategy has two elements. Taking a leading position in the growing streaming SaaS market, particularly for live sports, and maximizing profit from the flat to declining traditional video broadcast market. Our results through the first half of 2022 demonstrate continued execution of this plan with important strategic SaaS wins, top line growth, gross margin expansion, and continued segment profitability, despite ceasing sales in Russia with estimated lost revenue of approximately $6 million.

As I mentioned earlier, the highlight of the quarter and year to date is streaming SaaS growth, which was driven principally by our larger media customers who are expanding their consumer footprints, content rights, and usage of our service, particularly for high-profile live sports events. We also secured several important new tier one SaaS customer wins, spanning North America, Latin America, and EMEA. Live sports streaming is an increasingly active and opportunity-rich end market, and our experience and reputation for enabling best-in-class live streaming continues to grow. Considering our strong first half SaaS results and our robust sales pipeline, we continue to expect our streaming SaaS revenue will grow over 50% in 2022.

Looking further ahead, we remain confident that our transformation in video to streaming SaaS is working, and that we remain on track to achieve the 2024 streaming SaaS targets that we laid out for you in our Investor Day last June. As with our cable access segment, we plan to provide you a more detailed update on video market dynamics and our forecasts in September. With that, I'll now turn it over to you, Sanjay, for further discussion of our financial results and outlook.

Sanjay Kalra
CFO, Harmonic

Thanks, Patrick, and thank you all for joining us today. Before I discuss our quarterly results and outlook, I'd like to remind everyone that the financial results I'll be referring to are provided on a non-GAAP basis. As David mentioned earlier, our Q2 press release and earnings presentation includes reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP that are discussed on this call. Both of these are available on our website. For the second quarter of 2022, we delivered strong financial results that were ahead of our guidance. These results demonstrate the strength and resiliency of our businesses, which continue to perform well in today's macro environment, due largely to the strong demand we continue to see for our distinctive solutions. Before I review our quarterly financials in detail, I'll briefly review the key highlights here on slide seven.

We reported record second quarter revenue of $157.4 million along with solid gross margins of 52.8%. Adjusted EBITDA margins of 15.5% and EPS of $0.16. Our balance sheet continues to be healthy with a cash balance of $121.8 million at the quarter end. We continue to maintain near record backlog and deferred revenue, which was $477.8 million at the quarter end, positioning us well for the second half of the year. Taking into consideration our second quarter performance and the positive market trends Patrick mentioned earlier, we have raised our full year revenue, adjusted EBITDA and EPS guidance once again. Now let's review our second quarter financials in more detail.

Turning to slide eight, as I just mentioned, total company Q2 revenue was $157.4 million, up 6.8% on a sequential basis from Q1 and up 38.8% year-over-year. Looking first at our cable access business segment, revenue for the quarter was $81.2 million, consistent with our strong performance in Q1 and up 62.2% year-over-year, reflecting both the continued ramp of existing customers and newer customer launches. In our video segment, we reported Q2 revenue of $76.2 million, up 15.8% sequentially and 20.3% year-over-year. This growth was driven by both strong broadcast and SaaS demand.

Our revenue outperformance in video versus the high end of our original expectations was partly due to approximately $3 million of appliance shipments that we had previously forecasted would ship in the second half of the year. In addition to these shipments, our video revenue included SaaS revenue of $8.6 million, up 68.7% from the prior year, ahead of our expectations. We had two customers representing greater than 10% of total revenue during the quarter. Comcast contributed 37% and Intelsat contributed 11% of total revenue. Total company gross margin for Q2 2022 showed a 550 basis point sequential improvement to 52.8%, compared to 47.3% in Q1 2022, and decreased slightly by 110 basis points versus Q2 2021.

The year-over-year decline was due to both an increased mix of cable access segment revenue and an increased hardware mix within the cable access segment. We achieved cable access gross margins of 43% for Q2 2022, which was within our expectations compared to 38% in Q1 2022 and 47% in Q2 2021. Consistent with the expectations stated on last earnings call. Cable access gross margins improved sequentially as certain non-recurring premium costs that were recorded in Q1 were not present in Q2. The comparative year-over-year softness in cable margins was primarily due to increased hardware mix. Video segment gross margin was a record 63.2% in Q2 2022, up 440 basis points sequentially, and a 390 basis improvement over last year.

The sequential and annual improvements reflect a more favorable software mix within our appliance category and strong growth in our expanding SaaS business. Moving down the income statement on slide 9. Q2 2022 operating expenses were $61.7 million, net of foreign exchange benefit of approximately $1.3 million as a result of the strong US dollar during the second quarter, compared to $58.4 million in Q1 2022 and $54.6 million in Q2 2021. The increase was primarily due to increased research and development to support the growth of our cable access business and the ongoing transformation of our video appliance business to SaaS. Operating expenses represented 39.2% of revenue in Q2 2022, compared to 39.6% in Q1 2022, and 48.1% of revenue in Q2 2021, demonstrating additional operating leverage as revenues continue to ramp.

Adjusted EBITDA for Q2 2022 was 15.5% of revenue at $24.3 million, comprised of $11.6 million from cable access and $12.7 million from video. This compares to an adjusted EBITDA of $14.5 million or 9.8% of revenue in Q1 2022, and demonstrates significant year-over-year improvement compared to $9.5 million or 8.4% of revenue in Q2 2021. This all translated into Q2 EPS of $0.16 per share, compared to $0.08 per share in Q1 2022 and $0.05 per share for Q2 2021. We ended the quarter with a diluted weighted average share count of 109 million, compared to 110.6 million in Q1 2022, and 103.8 million in Q2 2021.

The sequential decrease was primarily due to a reduction in convertible debt dilution of 1.4 million shares, and a reduction in the dilutive effect of outstanding RSUs and options by 0.8 million shares, both resulting from a decrease in our average stock price in the quarter. By the share repurchases of approximately 324,000 shares in the quarter at an average price of $8.86, partially offset by issuance of 0.6 million shares to employees for vested RSUs. The year-over-year increase reflects the dilution of our convertible debt by 1.2 million shares and the dilutive effect of outstanding RSUs and options by 0.5 million shares, both resulting from an increase in our average stock price during the year.

3.8 million shares from the weighted effect of stock issued to employees for vested RSUs and exercised options, as well as ESPP shares, offset by the impact of repurchase of approximately 557,000 shares. Turning now to the order book. We reported solid new bookings. Q2 bookings were $140.9 million, compared to $205.5 million in Q1 2022 and $186.9 million in Q2 2021. Over the last two quarters where we reported record bookings in Q2 were in line with our expectations for the first half overall. The book-to-bill ratio was 0.9 in the quarter, compared to 1.4 in Q1 2022 and 1.6 in Q2 2021. Our year-to-date book-to-bill ratio is 1.1. Turning to slide 10.

We now discuss our liquidity position and balance sheet. We ended Q2 with cash of $121.8 million, compared to $100.7 million at the end of Q1 2022 and $115.2 million in Q2 last year. The $21.1 million sequential cash increase is primarily comprised of $21.8 million of cash generated from operations and $7.8 million of cash from an investment liquidation event. These were partially offset by $2.9 million used for share repurchases, $3.1 million used in the purchase of fixed assets, and a foreign exchange rate impact on cash of $4.7 million. The investment liquidation proceeds of $7.8 million was from a $3.6 million investment that we made during 2014 in Encoding.com, a privately held company.

This investment generated a gain of $4.2 million for Harmonic, which we reported on a GAAP basis for the quarter, but was excluded from our non-GAAP results as it is a non-recurring event. Turning to days sales outstanding. At the end of Q2, DSO was 61 days, compared to 71 days at the end of Q1 2022 and 80 days in Q2 2021. Collections, and thereby accounts receivable, improved in Q2. Our days inventory on hand was 100 days at the end of Q2, compared to 95 days at the end of Q1 2022 and 74 days at the end of Q2 2021, reflecting continued investment in inventory as we prepare for heavy shipments during the remainder of the year. We continued to build inventory at higher than normal levels to proactively manage our supply chain. Regarding capital allocation, our priorities remain consistent.

We will continue to invest in building inventory, which enables us to better control inventory acquisition costs, meet the strong demand we are experiencing, timely fulfill orders, and drive our future growth. We will also continue to be opportunistic in buying back stock when market conditions merit. As mentioned earlier, during the second quarter, Harmonic repurchased 324,000 shares at an average price of $8.86 per share, for $2.9 million. Year-to-date, we have bought back 557,000 shares of stock for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $5 million. Given the current macroeconomic environment, we expect to continue repurchasing shares in a responsible manner, taking into consideration strategic inventory investment to support our future growth, broad equity market conditions, the importance of maintaining a strong balance sheet, and our future debt obligations.

This includes our upcoming debt repayment of $37.7 million in December 2022. At the end of Q2, total backlog and deferred revenue was $477.8 million, marginally down sequentially from a record $497.3 million at Q1 2022, and up 38% year-over-year from $347.2 million at Q2 2021. This large backlog and deferred revenue reflects continued growing demand from our large cable customers and increasing video streaming SaaS commitments. Note that more than 80% of our backlog and deferred revenue has customer request dates for shipment of products and providing services within next 12 months. As mentioned on previous calls, not included in our backlog is additional contractually agreed CableOS business with two of our initial tier one cable customers.

At the end of Q2 2022, this incremental amount was approximately $96 million, down from $98 million last quarter, as approximately $2 million went through the purchase order process and therefore moved into bookings. Taking these CableOS contracts into account, we have total future contracted revenues of approximately $573.8 million, which continues to provide us with a very solid base as we move forward through the second half of 2022 into 2023. Now I'll turn to our revised non-GAAP guidance for 2022, beginning on slide 11. I will also give brief commentary on key changes from our prior annual guidance we gave in April. For the total company for the full year 2022, we now expect revenue in the range of $607-$627 million.

The 2% midpoint increase from our prior guidance was driven by an increase in expected cable segment revenues. Gross margin in the range of 49.4%-50.7%, up 40 basis points at the midpoint versus prior guidance. Gross profit to range from $300 million-$318 million, up 2.8% at midpoint versus prior guidance. Operating expenses to range from $239 million-$248 million, down 0.4% at the midpoint of our prior guidance. Adjusted EBITDA to range from $72 million-$82 million. This represents a 14% increase at the midpoint versus prior guidance, driven by expected increase in cable revenues discussed previously. An effective tax rate of 13%. A weighted average diluted share count of approximately 109.6 million.

A decline in 1.2 million shares from prior guidance. This is primarily due to reduced dilution on debt given softer average stock trading price. EPS to range from $0.44-$0.52 per share. At midpoint, this is a 20% increase versus prior guidance. Finally, cash at the end of 2022 is expected to come in between $95 million and $105 million. The reduced guidance in cash primarily reflects additional working capital investments, especially inventory, planned for the second half of 2022 to prepare us for 2023 revenue growth. Turning to slide 12, I will review our total company outlook for the third quarter of 2022.

We expect revenue in the range of $147 million-$157 million, gross margin in the range of 48.9%-50.5%, gross profit in the range of $72 million-$79 million, operating expenses to range from $60 million-$63 million, adjusted EBITDA to range from $15 million-$19 million, a weighted average diluted share count of approximately 109.5 million, EPS to range from $0.08-$0.12. At the end of Q3, cash is expected to range from $110 million-$120 million. On slide 13, I will first review guidance for both the full year and third quarter of 2022 for our cable segment.

For the full year 2022, based on our progress to date, we expect cable access to achieve revenue between $335 million-$345 million, a 5% increase from midpoint of prior guidance, implying a full year revenue growth of 56% at the midpoint. Given our success navigating capacity constraints through the first seven months of the year, we are comfortable expanding the high end of our outlook. Gross margins between 42.1% to 43.5%. This marginal 10 basis point improvement from prior guidance is due to increased expected software and services contribution. Gross profit between $141 million-$150 million, up 5% from prior guidance at the midpoint. Operating expenses between $94 million-$100 million, flat from prior guidance at the midpoint.

Adjusted EBITDA $53 million-$56 million, up 16% from prior guidance at the midpoint. For our Cable Access segment in Q3, we expect revenue in the range of $85 million-$91 million. Gross margin in the range of 43%-45%. Gross profit in the range of $37 million-$41 million. Operating expenses in the range of $24 million-$26 million. Adjusted EBITDA to range from $14 million-$16 million. Moving on to slide 14, we will review full year and third quarter 2022 Video segment guidance. Currently for the full year, we expect revenue in the range of $272 million-$282 million, a 1% decrease from the midpoint of prior guidance, reflecting a decrease in appliance revenue, partially offset by an increase in SaaS.

Gross margins in the range of 58.3%-59.5% with a 125 basis point improvement than prior guidance at the midpoint. Gross profit in the range of $159-$168 million, up 0.7% from prior guidance at the midpoint. Operating expenses in the range of $145-$148 million, 1% better than prior guidance at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $19-$26 million, a 12.5% improvement from prior guidance at the midpoint. For our Video segment in Q3, we expect revenue in the range of $62-$66 million. Gross margin in the range of 57%-58%. Gross profit in the range of $35-$38 million. Operating expenses in the range of $36-$37 million.

Adjusted EBITDA to range from $1 million-$3 million. In summary, we continue to execute and drive strong momentum in both of our business segments during the second quarter. As a result, we ended the first half of the year with near record balances of both backlog and deferred revenue. We believe this sustained momentum positions us well for the balance of 2022 as we continue to execute on our long-term model. This confidence is reflected in our updated full year guidance. Lastly, I will invite everyone to mark your calendars. On September 15th, we will be hosting a virtual investor event similar to the ones we held in June of last year. During this event, we will provide multi-year updates for both our Cable Access and Video business segments. Please stay tuned for additional details as we get closer to the date.

Thank you everyone for your attention today. Now I'll turn it back to Patrick for final remarks before we open up the call for questions.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Okay, thanks, Sanjay. I would like to conclude by summarizing our strategic and execution priorities as we enter the second half of the year. For Cable Access business, it continues to be all about working with our existing customers to enable ramping deployment success, winning and launching volume deployments with the tier one operators we've not yet secured, and leveraging our fiber solution to expand our addressable market and create additive revenue growth and value. For Video business, we continue to focus on growing our streaming SaaS brand and customer base, further extending our streaming SaaS capabilities, particularly for live sports, and leveraging the traditional broadcast appliance business to profitably enable these transformations. In each of these areas, our execution results in the first half of the year were excellent. We're looking forward to the rest of 2022, and we appreciate your continued support.

With that, as Sanjay just said, we'll now open up the call for questions.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment while I compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Simon Leopold with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Simon Leopold
Managing Director, Raymond James

Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to get your thoughts on what's going on in terms of the cable TV industry, the marketplace and potential implications for Harmonic in that this was a quarter where the largest cable operators reported declining subscriber metrics, and it wasn't just loss of linear video subscribers, but now broadband subscribers. I'm just wanted your sense of what was your take on the most recent reports as an industry observer, and then what do you see as the implications of these new trends or this inflection on Harmonic in the longer term? Thanks.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Well, thanks for the question, Simon. Look, we're not in the details of our customers' numbers, but at a high level, we're not too surprised. I think we've been talking about for a while increasingly competitive playing fields around broadband services for our customers. In fact, this heightened level of competition or coming competition from technologies like fiber I think is part of the reason, a big part of the reason why we've seen some of our customers really lean into investing in developing deploying next generation multi-gigabit services. I think we're really seeing play out what most in the industry expected. I think we can debate about what timing was anticipated, but at the top level, not a concern.

Frankly, you know, we look at it as constructive. There is a consumer thirst for even greater broadband speeds and access capabilities. We think that service providers in general will be fighting over the consumer and investing to build the highest quality network, the networks that can deliver the highest quality of service. Our strategic objective is to really be a key partner in terms of providing enabling technology. The work we've done to date is really, I think, in anticipation of this next phase of heightened competitiveness between service providers.

Simon Leopold
Managing Director, Raymond James

As a follow-up, I wanted to see if your international business is feeling any effects of foreign exchange rates given the strong U.S. dollar. I guess two parts to my question. I've assumed, I don't know if this is correct, you write your contracts in dollar terms, not in local currency, and therefore your products would be more expensive for customers who may be budgeting in a local currency. Could you discuss what, if any, impact you've seen from the shift in exchange rates?

Sanjay Kalra
CFO, Harmonic

Well, Simon, definitely this quarter, the U.S. dollar was very strong. Overall, it benefited, as I pointed out in my OpEx. To your specific question on customer contracts, majority of our customer contracts are in U.S. dollar. There are some which are not in U.S. dollars, but they are like kind of, we have an inherent hedge in terms of FX as our expenses are also in euro. We don't expect a significant change or a significant shift in the way we expect, this to impact us in case, exchange rate goes more stronger for U.S. dollar going forward.

Simon Leopold
Managing Director, Raymond James

Great. Just one last one. In terms of what you're seeing on supply chain constraints, just your latest view on sort of the trajectory and timeline for normalization. Thanks.

Sanjay Kalra
CFO, Harmonic

Simon, definitely supply chain is something we've been very cautious about right from the beginning of the year. Our experience to date, since the last two quarters, has shown us that things have not significantly changed. We are still battling with the same challenges. You know, we still see decommits, we still see cost premiums, we still see surprises on prices. We planned our year in a way, you know, that addresses those risks. As you would have noted, our gross margins are very consistent with what we guided earlier. Yes, the challenges are continuing, and we don't think that they will be completely behind us. You know, certain costs go up, and they never go down. Overall, as macroeconomic factors improve, we do expect some improvement in certain areas.

Overall, our experience in the last two quarters has shown us that things are kind of similar to what we expected.

Simon Leopold
Managing Director, Raymond James

Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ryan Koontz with Needham. Your line is open.

Ryan Koontz
Managing Director and Research Analyst, Needham

Hi, thanks for the question. Great quarter on both your segments there. If you could comment, Patrick, on the composition of backlog here, kind of given the softness Q-over-Q. Is this a new seasonality? Can you comment any kind of mix changes there? Is some of this kind of bookings weakness coming more from the video side? How should investors think about that? I have a follow-up, please.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Well, Ryan, year-to-date, book-to-bill is about 1.1, which is consistent, you know, if not strong relative historic trends. Now, we did see a couple of quarters that had extraordinarily strong book-to-bill. But as we called out, in part, this was some customers really trying to get ahead, contemplating the supply chain issues that we just spoke about and really trying to order further ahead. We saw that effect. We never anticipated it to be that long-lived. What we're seeing now is that some of those orders, in many cases that extend out 12 months, are in place. We see more of a return, I would say, to traditional book-to-bill ratios, which again is still greater than one.

I think that there's no, we don't see any particular change, certainly no broad trend in terms of softness. We're from a backlog and book-to-bill point of view, if we look at the last several quarters in aggregate, you know, we're about where we expected to be.

Ryan Koontz
Managing Director and Research Analyst, Needham

Great. Thank you. On the sounds like some great news there on your fiber to the home trials and the strong bookings in the quarter. Can you comment on that? Sounds like there was a tier one trial that you have now.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Yeah, we've got a great solution, to be frank. It particularly resonates with cable operators of all sizes, tier ones down to small ones. There's a really powerful kind of hybrid or unified solution for both fiber and cable, which offers, I think, tremendous operational cost and customer responsiveness advantages. We're seeing good traction with that really across the board. We've got advanced trials going on with several tier ones as well as with smaller customers, and we've seen good order input from early tier ones as well as smaller customers. The bookings result, which was a record for us, this quarter really represents fairly broad strength.

That mirrors the pipeline that we're seeing both domestically and internationally.

Ryan Koontz
Managing Director and Research Analyst, Needham

That's great. Congrats again.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Oh, thank you, Ryan.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Tim Savageaux with Northland Capital Markets. Your line's open.

Tim Savageaux
Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Hi, good afternoon, and congrats on the good results. I wanted to follow up on the PON side, and you mentioned the $10 million plus in orders. I wonder if you might be able to quantify that a little bit more, which is to say, how should we think about that relative to the pipeline that you're looking at? You know, I guess I'll ask specifically, were any of those orders translated into revenue, including with your top customer? As you look at the size of that opportunity both there and elsewhere, how does that pipeline compare to the $10 million that you mentioned from an order standpoint?

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

The pipeline is substantially larger, I guess, in short. Ultimately the opportunity is much larger. I mean, look, you know, relative to the scale of the cable or the DOCSIS side of the business, this is still the smaller piece of what's happening. But the slope is starting to become interesting and we're spending more and more time on it. The pipeline that's bigger than what was ordered this quarter. That being said, Tim, we're still relatively early days. You know, I might expect some up and down in the coming quarters in terms of the amount booked.

I think that the results that we've seen in terms of early orders, and the pipeline that we have tell us that, you know, over the next several quarters, certainly over the next year, this is gonna become an important additional growth vector for us. We'll again talk more about it in the Investor Day we're talking about in September. I think that what we previously shared in terms of multiyear ambitions around fiber to the home, we feel increasingly confident about, both because of the market opportunity and the resonance our solution seems to be having.

Tim Savageaux
Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Right. I was just gonna follow up right on that, which is, you know, I think you said last year at the analyst day, you felt like this could be a $100 million business or pretty close in 2024. Those are the type of targets that we're talking about. Final question on this topic for me. I mean, in terms of, you know, what we've seen, kind of yet another increase in Cable Access revenue guide for this year, does fiber contribute to that in any meaningful way?

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Very modestly, I think is the best way to think about it. I think we're still really in creating the business. We wanna create a good backlog. Certainly, there'll be maybe modest revenue, but it's not a material contributor to our guidance.

Tim Savageaux
Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Okay. I wanted to follow up on the gross margin side. You did have a pretty, you know, significant increase in appliance gross margins in the quarter, and I think you mentioned the video drivers there. It does seem that Cable Access saw a stronger mix of router or headend-based activity also contributing to that margin strength, although you did call out component costs, so maybe it's that.

Yeah, am I right about that, I guess, on the one hand, and what does that portend for your business going forward to the extent that you might be seeing a little higher appliance versus node mix in Cable Access?

Sanjay Kalra
CFO, Harmonic

Tim, you're definitely right on the video side that, you know, the software mix is better and hence the margins were kind of record this quarter. In terms of cable, there is no real change in the mix versus the way we expected. The margins came right at the midpoint of what we were expecting. They came at 43%. Our expectation was 42%-44%. It's a confluence of, you know, mix, supply chain impacts and whatnot. Overall, it's not the mix changing of any hardware as you mentioned.

Tim Savageaux
Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Okay, thanks very much.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

All right. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Greg Notter with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Kyle McNealy
SVP of TMT Equity Research, Jefferies

Hi, that's Greg Notter. This is actually Kyle on for Greg Notter. Thanks for the question. This is also around gross margin, a little bit more specifically, on Cable Access. It sounded like overall gross margin upside was driven by mix. It's probably largely in video, but you also mentioned certain period costs in Q1 that didn't repeat. Would you give us a sense for how the gross margin you're getting on optical nodes is coming in and whether that's improving, driven by either better costs or better pricing? Are they still generally in line with what they've been over the past few quarters and your expectation, or are they improving based on supply chain? Thanks.

Sanjay Kalra
CFO, Harmonic

Yeah. Kyle, as for the first part of the question, which is, you know, why the margins improved in Q2 versus Q1 for cable. The margins improved basically because we had one-time premium costs for certain components, which we paid last year.

They were amortized in Q4 and Q1. In Q2, we didn't see them. This is exactly what we said in the last call. We expect those premium charges to be behind us in Q2, and they were behind. That's the biggest reason why margins are up in Q2 versus Q1. Now on the second part of the question regarding the nodes margins, they are in line with what we were expecting. There's a trajectory plan for the year. They are going in accordance with that trajectory. We do not specifically call out margins of certain product lines, but overall, they are within our expectations and nothing significantly changed beyond that.

Kyle McNealy
SVP of TMT Equity Research, Jefferies

Okay, great. Thanks. One follow-up, if I can. What's your general sense for the trajectory of supply chain? You did better this quarter and reduced backlogs somewhat. Will supply continue to get better from here, or could there be some ups and downs? Again, in other words, are we past the peak in backlog in your mind, given you have a good inventory position and book-to-bill was a bit below one, in this quarter specifically?

Sanjay Kalra
CFO, Harmonic

Kyle, we increased our guidance for cable. You know, the first two quarters, we did not really have a very good view of what the supply chain would entail in terms of supply, how much we can get from our manufacturers. The experience of past seven months tell us that, yes, we can generate the products which we have to ship. Demand was definitely there. Could we supply? The answer is yes. That's one of the reasons we are raising the guidance on the supply. Yes, while there are risks, but we feel confident, what we've achieved so far, we can continue for the next two quarters.

Kyle McNealy
SVP of TMT Equity Research, Jefferies

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your touchtone telephone. I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to our host for any closing remarks.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining us today. I hope it comes across, we're very encouraged by our results for the first half of the year. We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. We're executing against that opportunity. We're looking forward to the second half of this year. We're looking forward to going after our longer range plan and to speaking with all of you in September. Until then, thank you very much and have a good day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen.

Patrick Harshman
President and CEO, Harmonic

Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect, and have.

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