Good afternoon, and welcome to the Knowles Corporation Third Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Harry, and I'll be your operator today. To ask a question during the Q&A, please dial star followed by one on your telephone keypad. With that said, here with opening remarks is Sloan Bohlen, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Harry. Welcome to our Q3 earnings call. I'm Sloan Bohlen, and presenting with me on the call today are Jeffrey Niew, our President and CEO, and John Anderson, our Senior Vice President and CFO. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. By now, you should have received a copy of our earnings release and webcast slides. If you have not received both documents, they are available on the IR section of our website at knowles.com. Our call today will include remarks about future expectations, plans, and prospects for Knowles, which constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under applicable federal securities law.
Such forward-looking statements include comments about demand for company products, anticipated trends in company sales, expenses and profits, and future financial outlook, and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. The company urges investors to review the risks and uncertainties in the company's SEC filings, including, but not limited to the annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, periodic reports filed from time to time thereafter with the SEC, and the risks and uncertainties identified in today's earnings release. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, and Knowles disclaims any duty to update such statements except as required by law. In addition, we have provided both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures this quarter.
All references on this call will be non-GAAP on a continuing operations basis unless otherwise indicated. Please see our earnings release and webcast slides available at our website at knowles.com and in our most current report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC today for a reconciliation to the most direct, directly comparable GAAP measures. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeff, who will provide some details on our results. Jeff.
Thank you, Sloan, and thank you to everyone for joining us this afternoon. The third quarter was above our expectations, but clearly a difficult one for markets and industries around the world. Before I get into the results and market commentary, I'd like to highlight the aggressive stance we have taken in response to this backdrop. As announced on our last call, we are accelerating the strategic repositioning of our MEMS Microphone business to further de-emphasize our exposure to commodity products. We have been very proactive and are already seeing the benefits of this strategy in our second half results. Now let me get into the financials for the quarter. Knowles generated $178 million of consolidated revenue, which was down 24% versus the prior year, driven primarily by very challenging market conditions in the consumer electronics portion of our audio segment.
In contrast, Precision Devices delivered record revenues of $64 million and grew 16% year-over-year as we continue to see robust demand across most end markets. While challenging, Audio segment revenue finished largely in line with our expectations due to factors we cited last quarter, specifically a weak backdrop for consumer electronics demand, excess channel inventory across most markets, and persistent COVID-related shutdowns in China. On a consolidated basis, Knowles delivered against each of our guided performance metrics for the third quarter. Revenue, gross margins, and Adjusted EBIT margins were all above the midpoint, and EPS was above the guided range. Cash generated by operations was near the low end of our range this quarter due to higher than expected inventories and timing of collections.
We anticipate strong sequential improvement in cash flow in the fourth quarter and remain confident in our previously stated view of a faster path to our medium-term free cash flow margin target of 15%-17%. Now I'd like to provide perspective on the current dynamics in each of our end markets. We understand tracking demand of our products is challenging, especially given the diversity of our markets and the crosscurrents, such as inventory corrections and strategic mix decisions like the ones we have made in our MEMS Microphone business. Today, I would like to provide additional color to help understand our business. First, in Precision Devices, we continue to see strong end market demand driven by secular trends across defense, MedTech, and EV.
We still see organic growth in the mid- to high-single digits going forward for an addressable market that is over $1 billion and growing. In addition to strong growth, this segment continues to show resilience in the face of market uncertainty, with bookings in the quarter continuing to exceed expectations. Both of our product categories, high performance capacitors and RF filters, continue to demonstrate our superior technical capabilities, which provide a competitive advantage for Knowles in markets where we have strong tailwinds today and in the future. Now I'll turn to our audio segment. First, the hearing health market continues to be much less volatile in the face of weak consumer demand, similar to the pattern we have observed in previous downturns.
In fact, we remain confident this business will provide 3%-5% annual growth over a cycle and are increasingly optimistic about the over-the-counter hearing aid demand based on recent customer announcements and partnerships. Given these market dynamics and our strong competitive offering for acoustic solutions, we will continue to invest in hearing health and believe it is an underappreciated asset in our portfolio. Now on to our MEMS Microphone business. While we expect sequential revenue improvement in Q4, the growth is driven primarily by new product introductions by our customers as opposed to positive changes in end market demand or sentiment. These headwinds are across most end markets and geographies, including PCs and smartphones. Additionally, inventory in the channel is still being worked through, which presents additional obstacles to resume year-over-year growth.
We feel validated in our decision to move quickly to reposition the MEMS business for the future by further de-emphasizing the commodity portion of this business. I'm pleased to see the impact of our strategy show up in our second half results, and I am confident the MEMS Microphone business is well-positioned to improve our revenue and profitability when the market recovers. On that point, let me speak to the drivers and considerations that went into our strategic reposition, and why we believe it will add significant value for shareholders in the quarters and years ahead. Over the last few years, we have taken the challenging global market conditions to accelerate our transformation. This transformation is already delivering results with more than 60% of our revenue coming from products with above average corporate gross margins.
The strategy to focus on higher value products and markets has been coupled with strong execution and dedication from the Knowles team in the face of significant macro challenges caused by the pandemic and its unpredictable aftereffects. I want to thank everyone in the organization for their hard work and execution in the face of these challenges. Our strategy is working, which gives me strong conviction in our ability to achieve the midterm financial targets we introduced last November sooner than expected. With that, let me turn the call over to John to provide more detail on our quarter.
Thanks, Jeffrey. We recorded third quarter revenues of $178 million, in line with expectations and down 24% from the same period a year ago, driven by weak demand for microphones, partially offset by continued strength in the Precision Devices segment. Audio revenues of $114 million were down 36% from the same period a year ago, due primarily to weak global microphone demand for consumer electronics, continued COVID-related lockdowns in China, and excess PC and smartphone channel inventory. In addition, Hearing Health market demand was lower in the quarter as our customers pulled forward orders into the first six months of the year. The Precision Devices segment delivered record revenues of $64 million, up 16% from prior year, with growth driven by increased demand in defense, MedTech and EV end markets.
Third quarter gross profit margins were 38.5%, above the midpoint of our guidance range and down 330 basis points from the same period a year ago. Audio segment gross margins finished 670 basis points below 2021 levels, driven by lower factory capacity utilization and unfavorable mix in our MEMS Microphone business, partially offset by lower factory spending and favorable foreign exchange rate impacts. Precision Devices segment gross margins were 47.5%, up 50 basis points from the prior year, driven by favorable mix and productivity gains. R&D expense in the quarter was $17 million, down more than $3 million from the prior year, driven by lower incentive compensation costs, restructuring savings, and timing of project spending in MEMS Microphones. SG&A expenses were $26 million, $1 million lower than prior year levels, driven by lower incentive compensation costs.
For the quarter, Adjusted EBIT margin was 15.8%, 280 basis points above the high end of the guided range, driven by the timing of project spending, favorable foreign currency impacts, and higher than expected savings from the restructuring program we announced early in the third quarter. EPS was $0.25, which was $0.04 above the high end of our guidance range, driven by higher EBIT and a lower than expected share count. Now, I'll turn to our balance sheet and cash flow. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $42 million at the end of the quarter. Cash from operations was $19 million, near the low end of our expectations, primarily due to higher than expected net working capital. Capital spending was $11 million in the quarter, and we repurchased approximately 1.1 million shares at a total cost of $18.6 million.
Year to date, we've repurchased 2.3 million shares at a cost of $44 million. Moving to guidance for the fourth quarter. We expect total company revenue to be between $200 million and $220 million, up nearly 20% sequentially, driven by growth in both the Audio and Precision Devices segments. Precision Devices segment is expected to deliver another quarter of record revenues and be up more than 3% sequentially, driven by continued strength in MedTech and defense. Audio segment revenues are expected to increase 26% sequentially, driven by the timing of our customers' new product introductions and typical seasonal patterns in Hearing Health.
We estimate gross margins for the fourth quarter to be approximately 36.5%-38.5%, down 100 basis points sequentially, driven primarily by lower factory capacity utilization and a higher proportion of microphone sales in our Audio segment, partially offset by benefits of the restructuring program announced in the third quarter. R&D expense is expected to be between $16 million-$18 million, and selling and administrative expense is expected to be between $25 million-$27 million. We're projecting adjusted EBIT margin for the quarter to be approximately 17% and EPS to be within a range of $0.31-$0.35 per share. This assumes weighted average shares outstanding during the quarter of 94 million on a fully diluted basis. We're forecasting effective tax rate of 12%-16% for the quarter.
For the fourth quarter, we expect cash generated from operations to be between $40 million and $50 million, capital spending to be $10 million, and we expect to exit 2022 with $0 net debt. I'll now turn the call back to our operator to open the line for questions. Operator?
Thank you very much. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please dial star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our first question of the day is from Anthony Stoss of Craig-Hallum. Anthony, your line is now open.
Hi, guys. Nice results, all things considered. Maybe, you know, let me start with John. I'm curious just the moves you're making strategically. Can you give us a glimpse into what you think gross margins might look like in 2023 or just, you know, a range of how much they might be up kinda year-over-year? After that, Jeffrey, I'd love to hear kind of your view on the PD division, the visibility you have for 2023, lead times. Anything on, you know, order cancellations, et cetera, would be helpful.
Sure. Why don't I take the first one first? If you don't mind, I'll take the PD question first. You know, I would sit there and say, you know, right now, if you look at, what's been happening, the bookings are still exceeding expectation. Obviously, you know, the bookings can be canceled in some cases, but the reality is a lot of our business in defense and MedTech are custom products. So when we receive these orders, these are like, they're non-cancelable orders really. They may be, like, slightly pushed out. We're not seeing really anything in that going down. EV, I would sit there and say, the bookings have been very strong.
The deliveries have probably been a little less strong, and it's been, we think, but we're hearing a lot of still some chip shortages that are still holding back the demand. As I look into 2023, you know, our design pipeline for EV looks very good for 2023. I'd say the only market I would say that we see, you know, I would say a little bit of weakness is kind of like, you know, I would say our catchall, you know, which is kind of, we call it non-industrial, which is kind of really other. I wouldn't say it's dramatic at this point. Like, we're not seeing, like, a massive drop-off. We're just seeing it.
Look, it's not growing at the rate that, you know, we'd seen, like, earlier in the year. You know, overall, you know, if I think about, you know, the way bookings are with PD and going into the fourth quarter, you know, I feel very comfortable, you know, at least, yeah, at this point, you know, through the first quarter and probably even the second with where things are headed, based on the backlog that we have.
Yeah. Yeah, Tony, in terms of gross margins, you know, we reported gross margins of 38.5% in Q3. The guide, the midpoint of the guide is 37.5% in Q4. You know, those are lower than we had prior year. The delta is really related to our MEMS microphone business capacity utilization. You know, we're working down inventory. We're actually, in Q3 and Q4, we're running at close to 50% capacity utilization. If you went back to a more normalized level, it'd add 200- 300 basis points to the total company gross margins. You'd see in both, in both quarters slightly above 40%. That's really the biggest item, and I see that continuing at least in the first quarter of Q1 2023. And just outside of the MEMS microphone, I mean, you can see the PD margins are holding steady.
Last five quarters, they've been above 45%. I see that continuing and maybe even some potential improvement there. You don't see it, but our Hearing Health margins too, well above the corporate-
Stable
stable and well above the corporate average.
Yeah, I think.
Hopefully that provides some clarity.
that's good color. You know, if I just would add, you know, one more thing. You know, I think as John kind of said, you know, you know, our sales are higher than our capacity would reflect, or units sold are higher than our capacity might reflect. You could see in our balance sheet that inventory has grown. You know, we felt it was, you know, pretty prudent for us, you know, right now and into the first quarter to really kind of slow down production and work on the inventory situation.
In our MEMS business.
In our MEMS mic business.
Right.
Got it. Maybe one last one for John. When you look at OpEx, say, exiting or the December quarter of 2023, what's the rough kind of quarterly OpEx ballpark that you guys have?
Yeah. I mean, actually, Based on the guide I provided today, you know, we're kind of in that $42 million-$43 million level in Q2, in Q3 and Q4. You know, in Q1 we will have normalized incentive comp levels. We'll have some merit increases. I would say, like, the $45 million range is a good starting point for a run rate going into 2023, and that should be fairly stable over the course of the year.
About $45 million, you're saying? It's up year-over-year, not down?
No, roughly $45 million. What's that, Tony? Sorry.
Not down year over year. I thought you guys were making some moves to try to cut costs.
Well, the incentive comp is the biggest.
Yeah.
We're very clear that, you know, the incentive comp is not gonna pay out that well this year. You know, we're gonna be below plan, and we're gonna take that back up to the plan in 2023. You know, that's why you're seeing kind of this little bit of a rise.
I still, like, kind of in that $45 million run rate is a good range given, you know, we will have some merit increases and going back to a more normalized level of incentive comp costs.
Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Yep.
Our next question is from the line of Bob Labick of CJS Securities. Bob, your line is now open.
Thanks. Yeah, good afternoon and congratulations on strong operations in the face of a tough market.
Thanks.
Thanks, Bob.
I wanted to just maybe dig in a little further on this question in terms of give us a sense of, you know, inventory versus end market demand, kind of when you see the balance and how much, you know, impact is kind of built into expectations for Q4. I think, John, you just said maybe there'll be still a little bit of a headwind in Q1, but give us a sense of, like.
Yeah.
When do you see this becoming in balance?
Yeah. Let me kind of like, kind of talk about this. I guess I would focus a little bit probably back into the PC market, 'cause that one's got the data that's most readily available, and I think it's, you know, somewhat representative, although some things may be a little bit worse, some things may be a little bit better. You know, I think if you look at what the market is saying right now, the PC market itself, end unit demand, it's going to be down a little over 20% now. That's what people are saying. You know, remember, when we started this year, the PC market was planning for 5%-10% growth, right? They were buying, and we were ordering and buying for 5%-10% growth.
You know, our estimate is, you know, there's somewhere probably in the neighborhood of four to six months of excess inventory out there, and it's clearly starting to be worked down. But, you know, to say the exact date, it all depends on demand. Yeah, I guess what I would sit there and say for right now, what we see is it's probably gonna continue through Q1, this inventory overhang. That's, again, our customer's inventory overhang. Now, I'll let John comment, because, you know, our inventory overhang's a little bit different, but why don't you comment on that?
Yeah, Bob, as you end up and you probably haven't had a lot of time to see our Q, but our inventory actually increased about $40 million from the end of 2021. We're $150 million up to about $194 million at the end of Q3. We do expect some reductions to inventory in Q4, so our selling volume is gonna be higher than our production volume as we kinda work this inventory down. That should be a little tailwind for us in Q4 in cash flow. I would expect, you know, as we go into 2023, we won't have the headwind on inventory that we had this year.
Again, we had a $40 million built-in headwind in the first three quarters of this year, and it's really given that, you know, pretty abrupt demand drop starting kind of in the mid-second quarter. On top of that, we have commitments with most of our material suppliers, and we were unable to cancel those commitments, so we still had material coming in. Again, we do expect reductions in inventory beginning this quarter.
Again, I'd just highlight again, I know it's the last question, I think it's an important point that if we were not dealing with this inventory situation and running our capacity at a more optimized level, you would have seen our gross margin as a company well over 40% in Q4.
Got it. Okay, great. I know we can't really kind of dig in and see this entirely, but maybe give us a sense of the kind of the demand expectations for Hearing Health next year and also in, I know they're different, but similar in truly wireless. How's that market kind of evolving, and what do you see, you know, for it as well for next year in general?
Yeah. Just to be clear, on the true wireless, you're talking about the balanced armature receivers in the true wireless, correct? That's what you're referring to?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. First on Hearing Health, you know, I'm not prepared to give the exact number for Hearing Health, but I think, you know, we look at the data pretty regularly, and, you know, what I would sit there and say is, you know, if you go back, and I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but if you go back to 2018 and you look where we're gonna finish in 2022, the Hearing Health business has been growing at a CAGR of about 3%, and that's through the pandemic, right? You know, I'm not gonna sit there and say it won't be. It could be 4.5. It could be 2.5. It depends on inventory and channel. You know, there's like, which new products go to production. But I just.
We keep saying, you know, that this is a GDP plus business over a cycle, and that's how we view it.
It's very resilient.
It's very resilient. You know, I make the comment, you know, I spend a lot of time with the hearing aid customers. Their expectations for this year have come down a little bit. To kind of give you an idea, when I talk to our customers, they expected, you know, 4%-6% unit growth this year. Now they're expecting maybe 2%-3%, right? That's the kind of, you know, what we're talking about in terms of instability due to market conditions. Yeah, GDP plus, that's kind of what we think about. On the OTC market also, though, I think this could be an upside. You know, I don't know if you saw, there's been a lot of recent announcements, Walmart, Best Buy, Sony.
You can look up some of these announcements, but more and more people are starting to look at this market. We'll see how it develops, but I'm incrementally more optimistic about the, and that's why I say GDP plus, when it's grown at GDP in the past. Last question on the true wireless. You know, I think you know where we are here is, we've got a number of things in production. You know, next year, we're focused on trying to fill its capacity, but we're also focused on making sure we keep ASPs high, and that the gross margin on the balanced armature speakers for the true wireless headsets are high.
You know, I think the modest expectations are probably modest relative in size to the ability to be, you know, pretty accretive in terms of adding to our gross margin.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Tristan Gerra of Baird. Tristan, your line is now open.
Hi, this is Tyler on for Tristan. Thanks for taking the questions. Digging a little deeper into the OTC market, should we expect a potential inventory ramp for retail over the next few quarters?
Yeah, I mean, I would sit there and say, there may be some, but I think the level may be different than you think of, like, you know, a traditional consumer product. We do expect, you know, as we look at the people who are introducing over-the-counter hearing aids, we think we have, you know, probably higher share than we even have in our hearing aid business based on the design wins that we know about. The content is very similar to what it is in our hearing aid business. You know, we don't see a difference in ASP or gross margin. But yeah, there will be a modest, I would say, inventory ramp in next year.
I think we just have to watch how this develops and how customers take to these over-the-counter hearing aids. You know, I think one of the things you see on the positive, of course, you don't have to go to an audiologist, so it's easier for someone to get access. On the reverse side, you could sit there and see like the hearing aids are being introduced somewhere in the neighborhood of a pair for $799 all the way we've seen $1,199. You know, these aren't at a tremendous discount to what you could buy a couple hearing aids at from an audiologist at, say, a Costco in the retail channel.
Great. Thanks. As we think about more the longer term, how should we look at the potential for M&A?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you know, we've shown a definite desire to do M&A through action in our PD organization, our PD group. You know, we've done I think now five acquisitions in 2017. Our last one being about a year and a half ago, you know, we acquired IMC and our filter company in Concord, California. I would sit there and say, you know, the valuations have been very high, and we wanna be very disciplined about what we do. It is a target-rich environment, and we are continuing on a regular basis to assess.
If we find something that makes sense strategically for us, it fits either expanding our product portfolio, moving us into new markets, we're gonna be active. I temper everyone's expectation that, you know, we're going to be disciplined in what we buy and making sure that it makes sense from a multiple and, you know, it fits our profile of what we're looking for.
Yeah. Tyler, I just add that, you know, as I mentioned in my script, we're gonna exit 2022 with essentially no net debt. We've got very strong expectations for cash flow in 2023, so we can continue our stock repurchase program and make strategic acquisitions.
Yes.
This isn't an either/or.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. I think, you know, because of the fact that we really kept the balance sheet clean, we've got a fair amount of dry powder here to do M&A. Again, that doesn't mean we should. We got to find the right opportunities.
Great. I appreciate that, guys.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please dial star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our next question is from the line of Suji De Silva of Roth Capital. Suji, your line's open.
Hi, Jeffrey. Hi, John. Hey, guys. In the audio microphone business, can you remind us the gross margin mix dynamic that was unfavorable this quarter? I figure with the restructuring, you're gonna structurally improve the mix. Can you talk about what the near-term audio mic mix impact was?
Yeah, there is some mix, you know, that's impacting, you know, the business. But I would say the overwhelming thing that, you know, we're really looking at here, and again, it would, the company gross margin would have been over 40%, close to 41% without the capacity utilization issues. You know, Suji, when I think about this, you know, we're starting to see some of the benefits, of course, of the restructuring. And the majority will be in there. But, you know, when you're running 50% of capacity, you know, it's very difficult to be super efficient with, you know, your fixed overhead. And so, you know, again, we're selling a lot more mics than that 50% of capacity.
You know, I think, again, this will go probably into the first quarter as we try to work on inventory. You know, once this is done, I think, you know, we will pick up where we kind of left off in terms of, you know, having the right mix, focusing on higher margin business with new products, and we'll have a cost structure, you know, that fits that we think we can keep relatively full the whole year.
Just to add just a little bit of clarity. The mobile business, mobile mic, MEMS microphone for mobile, we expect to be below 20% of total revenues in 2022.
Got it. Okay. Switching over to PD, the automotive end market, I'm curious if the nature of customer engagements there are multi-year sort of commitments or whether you kind of have to go year by year and if you can start to see programs and pipeline layering on there for visibility, multi-year visibility?
Yeah. I would sit there and say you know, I think it is platform-based, so they are kind of. I think the difference you think of you know, these multi-year visibility, it is a lot more challenging in the EV market than it would be in the traditional combustion engine market. I'll tell you why, Suji. You know, you sit there and you see all the platforms we are working on, you know, and it is a who's who of the automotive industry. The question is, who is gonna be the winners in three or four years? Like, who is gonna be selling a lot of these EVs? It is much more difficult to predict that right now. You know, our goal as we view this is greenfield.
It's a brand-new high voltage application that has not existed even in, you know, older versions of EVs. We're trying to, you know, again, capture as much of the greenfield as we can in terms of design wins. I will say one other piece is we also have different levels of content per platform as well. It's a little bit more challenging to look at and say what this my business will look like. You know, again, it's gonna be a little north of, you know, $15 million this year. You know, if you go back, you know, a couple years ago, it was half that.
We think it can double again, you know, in the next two to three years, and I think that's probably on the conservative side.
That's based on existing designs.
That's based on existing designs. You know, I think if, you know, if we win with the winners. You know, this. It could be a lot bigger and, you know, but I think, you know, doubling that business in the next two to three years is very realistic on the conservative side.
Okay. Helpful color. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Christopher Rolland of Susquehanna Group. Christopher, your line is now open.
Thanks. I'll just piggyback on Suji's question for a second. In Precision Devices, you just gave us EV, but I was wondering if you could talk about kind of the size of defense and MedTech and their relative growth rates for each and how you see it over the next year or two.
First on defense, the defense is becoming a, you know, larger and larger portion of our business. You know, I think, you know, it's gonna be approaching.
40% maybe.
Yeah.
40%.
40% of PD, about a $100 million business now. That's up pretty significantly since 2020. The data I have here, you know, it was a little over $70 million a couple of years ago. That business has been growing at a pretty rapid rate. In combination there is, you know, one acquisition in there, but it's also organic. It's organically growing pretty rapidly too. I'd say, you know, just generally speaking, Christopher, is that the defense market is looking very positive for the type of products we sell, which are radio frequency filters for radar, jammers. I mean, it's looking very positive. As we look in the next year, we see another strong organic growth year for defense.
I would say, just from my perspective, this is pretty banked. This is not like there's a lot of risk that these orders are gonna come in. We feel pretty good about that. On the med business, not counting Hearing Health, you know, I think this is another business that's been growing pretty rapidly. Now, I'll caution you, these growth rates are probably a little higher than they will be in the future, because remember, we kinda had this downward pressure on the business, you know, during COVID, that kind of brought that business down. But you know, this was a little over a $20 million business in 2020. It's approaching $40 million in 2022. You know, I wouldn't expect that growth rate going forward.
You know, you could see 5%, 6%, 7% growth going forward, based on the design wins we have and where we're at. I think it's very positive, the MedTech business portion of PD.
I'd just add, too, Chris, the defense and medical, attractive gross margins.
Yes, very attractive.
For sure. Yeah, PD overall is excellent. Thanks, guys. As a follow-up, first off, a clarification, you talked in the MEMS microphone business about new product introductions. Wanted to know what the deal there is. Is it just, you know, higher SNR, or is there something else, and are there better ASPs with that? Any details there would be great. Just a bigger picture question, you know, what's the kind of next big thing for you guys? I mean, previously, we've talked about, you know, balanced armature speakers or OTC hearing aids. You know, if there was any upside, to call it street models or something like that from next year, is there a product or something like that could accelerate growth for you guys?
Yeah. You're talking specifically in the MEMS microphone business. You know, in the MEMS microphone business, I was gonna say we have a constant introduction of new products. When I was referring to new product introductions, actually, Chris, I was referring what was driving was our customers' new product introductions as opposed to-
Oh, okay.
our new product introductions. You know, I mean, I would just say, you know, in terms of new products, I don't wanna get too far ahead of ourselves. We've got some, you know, exciting developments, you know, in terms of different types of microphones. I'm not sure we're ready to discuss this yet, but we got some exciting stuff that we're working on that I think hopefully next year we'll be able to begin talking about. It's a different class of microphone than anything that we do today. We're working on this very hard in our R&D group. I would say that's probably of interest.
You know, the other one is we still think that there's gonna be some opportunity over the next two to three years to grow in, you know, AR/VR-type applications. They are requiring microphones, and they are, in some cases, requiring, like, a different type of microphone. I think that might be an opportunity for us to have some growth in the MEMS microphone business, you know, at, you know, I would say, hopefully, very good gross margins.
That's exciting. Thanks, guys.
Yep.
Great. We have no further questions registered for today. This concludes the Knowles Corporation third quarter 2022 financial results conference call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect your lines.