As well. Let me just read the safe harbor statement before we get started. Before we get started, I wanna remind everyone that today's call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements related to TTM's future business outlook. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements due to one or more risks and uncertainties, including the factors explained in our more recent annual report on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are based on management's expectations and assumptions as of the date of this presentation. TTM does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any of these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or other circumstances, except as required by law.
Please refer to disclosures regarding the risks that may affect TTM, which may be found in the other reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, the registration statement on Form S-4, and the other company's SEC filings. We will also discuss on this call certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA. Such measures should not be considered as a substitute for measures prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, and we will direct you to the reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures included in the company's press release, which was filed with the SEC, available on TTM's website at www.ttm.com. We have also posted on the website a slide deck that we'll refer to during the call. I will now turn the call over to Tom Edman, TTM's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Tom.
Thank you, Sameer, and let's just make sure we're recording as well. I do want to apologize again on behalf of the company for the issues we had with this call. Unfortunately, it appears that the service provider for these calls was acquired and did not inform us of that change and did not set up the call. My apologies for this. I hope you will bear with us here, and we'll do the best we can to respond to questions at the end of the call. With that, let me just get started. Good afternoon to all, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter fiscal year 2022 conference call.
I'll begin with a review of our business highlights from the quarter and a discussion of our third quarter results, followed by a summary of our business strategy. Todd Schull, our CFO, will follow with an overview of our Q3 2022 financial performance and our Q4 2022 guidance. We will then open the call to your questions. The quarter's highlights are also shown on slide three of the investor presentation posted on TTM's website. In the third quarter of 2022, TTM delivered a solid quarter, with revenues in line with the guided range and non-GAAP EPS above the high end of guidance, despite a challenging supply chain and labor environment and the continued impact that COVID-19 is having on our business.
While the results include the first full quarter of Telephonics, I do want to call out that the rest of the company saw revenues grow 8.3% year-on-year, driven by broad-based growth across all end markets. On a year-on-year basis, we saw significant improvement in our profit margins in Q3 from better product mix, higher pricing, premium revenue, also the addition of Telephonics and favorable foreign exchange rates as the Chinese RMB weakened further against the dollar. I am proud of our employees for delivering solid results this quarter.
As we look into Q4, inventory adjustments and supply challenges tied to some of our commercial customers are contributing to revenue and margin declines, but we will continue to see our business supported by our diverse end market mix, including our A&D business, which, with the addition of Telephonics, now represents almost 40% of our revenues. I would now like to provide a strategic update. TTM is on a journey to transform our business to be less cyclical and more differentiated. As part of this strategic transition, near the end of the second quarter, we closed the acquisition of Telephonics. Over the past several years, TTM has consistently emphasized that a key part of our strategy is to add value to the product solutions that we deliver to our customers, particularly in the Aerospace & Defense market.
In 2018, we acquired Anaren, which broadened TTM's product portfolio into highly engineered RF components and subassemblies, as well as adding critical RF engineering capability and resources. Telephonics builds on Anaren and TTM's customer-driven culture and disciplined approach to engineering and manufacturing. By further broadening TTM's Aerospace & Defense product offering vertically into higher-level engineered system solutions and horizontally into the surveillance and communications markets while strengthening our position in radar systems. The Aerospace & Defense end market will provide growth and stability in a potentially challenging demand environment for commercial markets. In addition, over 50% of A&D revenues will be from engineered and integrated electronic products, with PCBs being less than 50% of the overall contribution.
Telephonics demonstrated strong performance in their first quarter with TTM, and integration is well underway. Adding another element of our differentiation strategy is the current construction of a new state-of-the-art, highly automated PCB manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia. The decision to build this new factory is a direct response to our customers' increasing concerns about supply chain resiliency and regional diversification, and in particular, the need for advanced multilayer PCB sourcing options in locations outside of China. The new facility in Malaysia will assist customers in our commercial markets, such as Networking Telecom, Data Center Computing, and Medical, Industrial, and Instrumentation. We made great progress on the Malaysian facility this past quarter as we completed the 3,900 pilings required for the building, laid the majority of the foundation, and began raising the steel framework.
We also received multiple deposits from customers with whom we assigned long-term agreements, which provide a business base for over 60% of the planned new capacity in the building. Recent news on increasing export controls to Chinese companies reaffirms our view of the importance of regionally diversifying for our customers' supply chain resiliency needs. Finally, I'd like to say a few words about the overall macro environment. We are aware and understand the investor concerns of an economic slowdown and potential recession, which would mostly impact our commercial business. We will continue to closely monitor global economic influences on our commercial business. We have seen a booking slowdown in parts of our commercial business as some customers focus on managing inventories, while others continue to struggle with supply chain challenges.
Our backlog continues to be robust, however, and we expect the Aerospace & Defense market to provide a strong counter-cyclical element to our commercial business if conditions weaken further. Now I'd like to review our end markets, which are referenced on page four of the investor presentation on our website. The Aerospace & Defense end market represented 38% of total third quarter sales, compared to 31% of Q3 2021 sales and 30% of sales in Q2 2022. A majority of the year-on-year growth was due to the inclusion of Telephonics. Excluding that impact, our A&D revenues grew 7.0% year on year. We continue to experience a positive defense climate with our A&D program backlog at $1.16 billion, including Telephonics.
Excluding Telephonics, program backlog was $871 million compared to $723 million a year ago. This solid backlog was driven by record bookings of $319.4 million for core TTM and $387.8 million, including Telephonics. The solid demand in the defense market is a result of a positive tailwind in defense budgets and our strong pro-strategic program alignment and key bookings for ongoing franchise programs. During the quarter, we saw significant bookings for key programs, including the SPY-6 radar program and a major space program. We expect sales in Q4 from this end market to represent about 40% of our total sales.
The Medical, Industrial, and Instrumentation end market contributed 19% of our total sales in the third quarter, compared to 20% in the year ago quarter and 21% in the second quarter of 2022. Revenues from this market were up 18% year-on-year, exceeding $100 million for the 6th quarter in a row and performing much better than expected, with broad-based strength across all segments. For the fourth quarter, we expect MI&I to be 17% of revenues as quick turn continues to moderate and select customers face component shortages. Automotive sales represented 15% of total sales during the third quarter of 2022, compared to 18% in the year ago quarter and 18% during the second quarter of 2022.
Automotive revenues grew 1.6% year-over-year and exceeded $100 million for the fourth quarter in a row. We continue to see stable trends for automotive PCBs despite the combined impact of supply chain and demand disruptions caused by COVID, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and semiconductor shortages that are all impacting automotive OEM production. We expect our automotive PCB business to contribute 16% of total sales in Q4. Sales in the data center computing end market represented 14% of total sales in the third quarter, compared to 14% in Q3 of 2021 and 17% in the second quarter of 2022. Revenues from this end market were up 18% year-over-year, due primarily to growth from our data center customers.
We expect revenues in this end market to represent approximately 14% of fourth quarter sales as data center demand continues to drive year-on-year growth. Networking communications accounted for 14% of revenue during the third quarter of 2022. This compares to 16% in the third quarter of 2021, and 14% of revenue in the second quarter of 2022. We saw relative strength on a year-on-year basis in networking as compared to telecom, as we continue to allocate capacity for high layer count boards to our data center computing and networking customers. In Q4, we expect this end market to be 13% of revenue as customers manage their inventory levels. Next, I'll cover some details from the third quarter. This information is also available on page five of our earnings presentation.
During the quarter, our advanced technology and engineered products business, which includes HDI, Rigid-F lex, and RF subsystems and components, accounted for approximately 41% of our revenue and now includes all of the Telephonics revenue. This compares to approximately 29% in the year ago quarter and 33% in Q2. We are continuing to pursue new business opportunities and increase customer design engagement activities that will leverage our advanced technology and engineered products capabilities in new programs and new markets. PCB capacity utilization in Asia-Pacific was 78% in Q3, compared to 91% in the year ago quarter and 88% in Q2. Our overall PCB capacity utilization in North America was 45% in Q3, compared to 50% in the year ago quarter and 42% in Q2.
The lower rate in Asia-Pacific was caused by a decline in production volumes, while the lower year-over-year rate in North America was due to additional plating capacity added earlier in the year and direct labor shortages in certain regions. Our top five customers contributed 33% of total sales in the third quarter of 2022, compared to 30% in the second quarter of 2022. We did not have any customers over 10% in the quarter. At the end of Q3, our 90-day backlog, including Telephonics, which is subject to cancellations, was $672.9 million, compared to $594.8 million at the end of the third quarter last year, not including Telephonics, and $703.7 million at the end of Q2, including Telephonics.
Our book-to-bill ratio, including Telephonics, was 0.92 for the three months ended October third. The book-to-bill was below 1 due to a decline in bookings in our commercial business as lead times were reduced and customers managed inventories and faced supply chain challenges. I do want to thank our employees for continuing to contribute to TTM and our critical mission of inspiring innovation for our customers. Our business performed better than we expected as a direct result of our employees and our supply chain partners' concerted efforts to support TTM and our customers. Now, Todd will review our financial performance for the third quarter. Todd? Todd, you may need to come off mute.
Hey, Todd, hit star six. You'll be able to come off. Star six.
Okay. Can you hear me now?
Yep, we can hear you.
Great. Well, thanks everybody, and I appreciate your patience today with all of our technical challenges. I'll take a quick review of our financial results for the third quarter, which are also shown on the press release distributed today, as well as on slide six of our earnings presentation that is posted to our website. For the third quarter, net sales were $671.1 million, compared to $556.8 million in the third quarter of 2021. The year-over-year increase in revenue was primarily due to the inclusion of Telephonics, as well as organic growth in each of our end markets. GAAP operating income for the third quarter of 2022 was $49.8 million. This compares to $32.2 million in the third quarter of 2021.
On a GAAP basis, net income in the third quarter of 2022 was $43.5 million or $0.42 per diluted share. This compares to GAAP net income of $21 million or $0.19 per diluted share in the third quarter of last year. The remainder of my comments will focus on our non-GAAP financial performance. Our non-GAAP performance excludes M&A-related costs, restructuring costs, certain non-cash expense items such as amortization of intangibles and stock compensation, and other unusual or infrequent items. We present non-GAAP financial information to enable investors to see the company through the eyes of management and to facilitate comparisons with expectations in prior periods. Gross margin in the third quarter was 19.7% and compares to 17.2% in the third quarter of 2021.
The year-on-year increase was due to better product mix, higher pricing and premium revenue, and the addition of Telephonics, partially offset by higher year-on-year labor costs, particularly in North America, as we raised wages earlier this year to be more competitive. Selling and marketing expense was $19.1 million in the third quarter or 2.8% of net sales versus $15.1 million or 2.7% of net sales a year ago. Third quarter G&A expense was $38 million or 5.7% of net sales, compared to $29.1 million or 5.2% of net sales in the same quarter last year.
The inclusion of Telephonics added $2.3 million and $3.2 million to sales and marketing and G&A, respectively. In the third quarter, R&D was $7 million or 1% of revenues, compared to $4 million or 0.7% of revenues in the year-ago quarter. $2 million of the increase was due to the addition of Telephonics. Our operating margin in Q3 was 10.2%, an outstanding result given the macro challenges we've been facing. This compares to 8.6% in the same quarter last year. Interest expense was $10.4 million in the third quarter, compared to $10.6 million in the same quarter last year. During the quarter, there was a + $9 million of foreign exchange impact below the operating line.
Government incentives and interest income increased this to $10.3 million or a $0.08 impact to EPS. This compares to a loss of $0.1 million in the same quarter last year. Our effective tax rate was 15% in the third quarter, resulting in tax expense of $10.2 million. This compares to a rate of 1.1% or tax expense of $0.4 million in the prior year. Third quarter net income was $57.9 million or $0.56 per diluted share. This compares to third quarter 2021 net income of $36.5 million or $0.34 per diluted share.
Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $102.5 million or 15.3% of revenue, compared with third quarter 2021 adjusted EBITDA of $68.6 million or 12.3% of revenue. Depreciation for the quarter was $24 million. Net capital spending in the quarter was $26.3 million. Cash flow from operations was a very strong $80 million or 11.9% of revenue, exceeding our target of 10%. Free cash flow was also very good at $53.7 million or 8% of revenue. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the third quarter of 2022 were $335.6 million. Our net debt divided by last 12 months EBITDA was 1.8 x, below our target of 2.0x.
Now, I'd like to turn to guidance for the fourth quarter. We expect total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2022 to be in the range of $630 million-$670 million, and we expect non-GAAP earnings to be in the range of $0.36-$0.42 per diluted share. As Tom mentioned earlier, we expect sequential decline in revenues due to macroeconomic concerns by customers in our commercial end markets. Some commercial customers are carefully managing inventory levels, and others are facing supply chain challenges. We expect a sequential decline in margins due to lower revenues and less premium revenues. The EPS forecast is based on a diluted share count of approximately 104 million shares, which includes dilutive securities such as options and RSUs.
We expect that SG&A expense will be about 9.1% of revenue in the fourth quarter, and R&D to be about 1.1% of revenue. We expect interest expense to total approximately $11.7 million. Finally, we estimate our effective tax rate to be between 13% and 17%. To assist you in developing your financial models, we offer the following additional information. During the fourth quarter, we expect to record amortization of intangibles of about $11.7 million, stock-based compensation expense of about $5.4 million, non-cash interest expense of approximately $0.5 million, and we estimate depreciation expense will be approximately $24.5 million. Finally, I'd like to announce that we'll be participating in the Baird Industrial Conference on November 8th and the Bank of America Leveraged Finance Conference on November 29th.
That concludes our prepared remarks, and now we'd like to give an opportunity for questions. Sameer?
Yep. Thanks, Todd. This is Sameer from TTM. If you have any questions for Tom and Todd, please text or email me, and I will call on you to ask your question. When I do, make sure you're unmuted, and the way you unmute your line is star six. First question, Will Stein, can you go ahead and ask your question? Make sure we can hear you. If we can't, do star six to unmute your line.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you, Will.
Great. I figured it out. Cool. Couple questions. First, you described premium revenue a couple times in the call. I suspect that relates to sort of quick turn, less than normal lead time sort of product that may be less important to customers today given the softening demand. Is that the right way to describe it?
Yeah, that's correct, Will. It's quick turn and generally new product introduction. That's where a lot of that work is concentrated. Of late, it's been you know if customers need product well within our lead times, then that would be included in premium revenue. To give you some perspective, you know historically we ran about 9% of revenue in premium.
The most recent. If you think about Q2, which was very elevated, we were closer to 12%. In this most recent quarter, we were at about 10%, so still elevated. What we're expecting in the fourth quarter is to come down, actually below, slightly below that historical average. Really seeing, you know, the pendulum come back in terms of premium requirements.
Got it. As a follow-up, I'd like to ask about wage inflation. This had been sort of an issue in years past where, you know, you couldn't secure enough labor, you know, this was a supply constraint. Then earlier in the year, you talked about raising wages. I think there was a global analysis. You maybe decided to raise wages globally. I think I heard you say that you continue to be constrained by labor in North America. Is it something we should expect to continue to limit revenue growth, or should we think about another potential wage increase on the come? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Will. So, you have a very good recollection. Early in the year, approximately the February timeframe, we did make a very big adjustment in our structures for compensation in North America. We saw that, you know, we were in a difficult labor market, and we also recognized that we had really fallen behind where we needed to be in North America. This was part of a leveling of our entire organization. That was a global leveling project that we did to really get all of our titling, our compensation into a global framework. Huge project that we'd embarked on several years prior.
As part of that project, really the last phase was to make this adjustment in North America. I'm pleased to say that as a result of that, of course, we also did our normal compensation review in mid-year, and that is a global review. As a result of the changes, we really have found turnover rates to come down, and retention has improved. What we're referring to here as an ongoing challenge now is really the recruiting of labor and particularly direct labor in a number of the regions in North America that we operate in. That's been just an ongoing challenge that we've had to face. It's coupled a bit with ongoing absenteeism related to COVID.
Frankly, in some of the jurisdictions in which we operate, we're required to give extra PTO specifically for COVID purposes, and we've chosen to do that as a company as well. Those are the two issues that we continue to be challenged with in North America. I would love to say that the direct labor challenge is going away. You know, I really do think that depends on where the economy goes.
We are very secure in our need for direct labor going forward and with such a strong defense business in North America that, you know, we're seeing, we will see a need for TTM employees and continuing to build on our strong base of employees certainly for the foreseeable future here in North America.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question.
Yep. Thanks. Next question, Mike Crawford, you can go ahead and ask. You can do star six to unmute your line. Yeah, thanks, Mike. We can hear you.
Excellent. Based on the guidance that you've given for Q4, is it safe to say that you're expecting gross margins may be a tad over 18%?
You're good at reverse engineering, Mike. I'll give you credit for that. Yeah, you know, we're still gonna have good margins. They just won't be as strong as our current quarter here, Q3. We'll still have a good performance. If you do the reverse math, yes, you're gonna probably come up with gross margins greater than 18%.
Okay. Thank you, Todd. If I heard right regarding Malaysia, perhaps you already have commitments for what would represent 60% of the capacity of that facility. At what level of capacity do you hope to be operating that facility in general? Would you say that where you are with that foundation and the steel raising that you're on track or ahead or behind kind of schedule to get that up and running?
Sure. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, so you're correct. 60% in terms of commitment to what would be our plant capacity. That planned capacity will be about $180 million of capacity for revenue. Of course, that will move around a little bit depending on pricing at the given moment, what the product mix is. That's an approximate number for you. From a production volume standpoint, about slightly over 60% already committed to with a long-term agreement. That's where we sit in terms of the customer side. We're continuing to work that by the way. We continue to have some very fruitful discussions. Hopefully that percentage will move upwards.
In terms of progress, I think we're, you know, very much on schedule at this point. One of the benefits in terms of the site planning that we've done in our operations team has really put in place in terms of planning. Early on, they went with a steel frame construction for this building, and that's a little bit more expensive, but it involves less labor from a construction standpoint. Malaysia, like so many countries, is dealing with labor shortages. The fact that we've got a relatively simple and efficient construction framework is going to help us, and we certainly hope to remain on schedule. To date, we are.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mike.
Next question, Jim Ricchiuti from Needham. Can you just check your audio real quick and unmute if you're on mute by star six? Jim, we can't hear you yet, so you might.
Yep. I think you can hear me now.
Yeah, we can hear you now, Jim. Thanks.
Wonderful. Hey, Tom, I just wanted to drill down into, not surprisingly, some of the comments about the softening you're seeing in some of your commercial markets. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that. Which of the verticals and, you know, how did that play out over the course of the quarter? What are you seeing?
Sure.
You know, thus far in Q4?
Okay. Sure, Jim. Yeah, let me, I'll give you a bit of a ranking, here. I'll start with, you know, the areas of what I would call a softening that we're seeing. The second I in MI&I, which is instrumentation. The semiconductor capital equipment side of our instrumentation business, which roughly, you know, a little bit less than half of the instrumentation piece of MI&I, we are seeing softness there. We are seeing softness in computing, which for us is semiconductor. The burn-in test and burn-in board area, we've seen some relative softness there. Telecom, we've seen softness there.
Now customers in that area are referring to inventory control, but we're believing that that also is an indicator of a little bit of softness. 5G build-outs right now are alive and well in India, but other countries seem to have slowed down. And then commercial aerospace continues to be weak, relatively weak. That's an ongoing story until, as we see passenger traffic come back, as we see jet builds restart, and as we see customers work through inventory, that situation should improve.
On the watch, I'll just say watch list, meaning customers referring to supply chain management and inventory controls, I would put data center and networking, both areas where customers are still pointing to demand strength, but they are certainly looking at, you know, short-term inventory controls as they see their supply chain situation gradually improve. So those areas. Medical, I referred to a little bit of less medical premium work, which is indicative, I think, of certainly more inventory control going on in that area as well. So that's sort of a middling area. Where we're still continuing to see strength, industrial, we're involved in downhole areas, industrial robotics, big areas for us, still doing very well. Automotive, solid.
Automotive demand continues to be solid from our customers. Of course, defense very strong. A mix there of businesses. I think, you know, if you, if you listen to that, you can see that, on balance, the markets are continuing to be good, with areas of softening. Those are the areas that we're watching closely.
Got it. If I could squeeze a follow-up, just with respect to Telephonics, and I may have missed it, Todd, I think you had talked about it, contributing something on the order of $0.04 in earnings. I don't know if that was the case in the quarter, and whether the synergies that you've talked about, is that timeline still intact, or it's early days? I know.
I'll answer the latter first and then follow up. In regards to synergies, as Tom indicated, we are in the process of integration, and we're making good progress.
When we announced the acquisition, we talked about our plan to achieve $12 million of run rate synergies by the end of 2024, and we are on track to deliver that. We're feeling really good about that as we get into the weeds and start, you know, being very specific in what actions to take. That's moving nicely and consistent with our earlier expectations. In terms of Telephonics contribution to the quarter, you're pretty close. Revenue for the quarter was about $68 million. Keep in mind that the calendar Q3 quarter is traditionally the peak quarter for Telephonics as that used to be their fiscal year-end. All their programs drive towards that end date. Profit performance came in pretty good.
As you noted, we give some indication we were expecting about $0.04 of contribution. You know, maybe we got a little bit more than that. So it was slightly favorable, maybe $0.05, but it was in that neighborhood. They surprised on the upside a bit there. A good first quarter, but we are expecting things to be a little lighter in calendar Q4 as that's traditionally coming off their peak for their traditional fiscal year.
Got it. Thank you.
Thanks, Jim.
Yep. Next question, Tyler from Craig-Hallum. If we can't hear you might have to unmute your line here. Yeah, hitting star six.
Can you guys hear me now?
Yeah, I can hear you, Tyler.
Awesome. Great. Thanks for letting us ask a question or two here quick. I guess I wanted to follow up on, you know, some of these commercial market weaknesses you're seeing. You know, I just wanted your thoughts as it relates to looking into next year, you know, would it be fair to expect some of these headwinds to persist into next year? It would seem that, you know, often these type of challenges and the inventory corrections and adjustments that go along with them are not usually just one quarter in nature. Is that a fair way to think about as we head into the first half of next year or anything to call out there?
Yeah. Thanks, Tyler. I think you characterized it well. If you go through those lists of areas that I talked about as softer, commercial aerospace should turn into a tailwind here as we go through the course of the next year. We've been bumping along the bottom as customers work through inventories, and I expect that we'll start to see real demand come back there. I would say the same for telecom. Generally, 5G build-outs are gonna continue. We should still see strength come back there.
You know, I think really the semiconductor and semiconductor capital equipment side, those are just two areas I point out as being areas that could be weaker in next year. You know, the other areas, I think the jury is still out. Certainly, data center and networking, our customers are indicating that for them, it's really a matter that their programs are strong and that they just need to work through supply chain issues. Good indicators there, at least from the customers. Medical, certainly expect that area to come back as well. I mean, they're working through inventory, but I really do believe that's more of a temporary issue than anything else.
On balance, you know, again, it's wonderful to have a diverse set of end markets that we're serving here, particularly in these times when, you know, certainly some areas may soften a bit, but also having that strong defense business that works on a very different cycle. I like where we sit right now going into 2023.
That sounds great. One more quick one, if I can, for Todd, probably. On the margins, again, gross margins specifically, probably, you know, could you either maybe give us what a normalized gross margin might look like at this level, you know, absent some of these headwinds that we called out, or what kind of impact you might attribute to the gross margins in your Q4 guide, just so we can kinda get a baseline as we go into next year?
I'm not sure I quite understand the question. Are you asking about Q4 guidance and expectations? Or are you talking?
Yeah. I guess the Q4 guidance, and you said, I think margins were gonna be down, you know, due to some of the same kind of macro headwinds and concerns that some of these markets we talked about. I guess, is it just a volume thing with those markets being down? Is there, I guess anything else to call out on the margin front that we should be aware of?
No, I think we made the comment in the script, but it's really fairly straightforward. You know, we have some revenue decline in Q4 compared to Q3 and, you know, really coming from some of those commercial markets as Tom has commented on. That hurts us in volume. I would say if you look at our margins overall, and we tend to look more at operating margins, but it's the same explanation for gross margins. You know, if you do the reverse engineering off the EPS guide that we gave, you're gonna get a number somewhere around 9% in terms of operating margin, and that's down from the 10.2%.
That decline is really driven by two things, one, volume, and the other one is a further decline in premium revenue. Tom talked about earlier in the call that our premium revenue in the third quarter was still pretty good. It was better than we were expecting in our guidance, and that helped on the upside, but it is definitely declining from its peaks. That's really a reflection of some softening that we've been talking about.
When you look at the impact in our guidance for Q4, the reason for the decline in margin is really split 50/50, lower volume and less premium revenue expected.
That's perfect. Thank you. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.
Thanks.
Yep, thanks. Next question is Matt Sheerin from Stifel.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the call and appreciate you guys staying and providing all these details. Just one question. I just wanted to drill down on the automotive outlook. You're still trending down year-over-year, even with the sequential growth in December and, you know, I understand the issues, you know, at your customers. But as you look at, you know, your backlog and visibility into next year, are you expecting kind of a nice rebound in growth next year?
Thanks, Matt. Yeah, and appreciate your patience more than anything. Automotive, for us, you know, year-over-year, if you look at the fourth quarter, we'll be down sequentially, maintaining very solid position. I'll just remind, you know, last year in the fourth quarter was really when we were in the midst of a really strong rebound and customers were building, you know, rebuilding inventory positions. Q4 last year was particularly strong. You know, as we go through the balance, you know, we look into next year, and of course, everyone has their crystal ball. What I'm encouraged by is number one, the overall macro trends from an automotive standpoint are gonna continue to lean on electronics content.
We're gonna be looking at, you know, PCB content moving from where it was at the end of last year at about $100 PCB content per vehicle upwards to, you know, let's just say, I think the forecasters are calling for $150-$160 by 2025. That trend is encouraging. I think we're in the right areas as we focus on ADAS build out, as we focus on EV support. Our team's done a really good job in terms of program placement. So I'm encouraged by that. I think that will certainly help TTM overall and our positioning in the marketplace.
As far as unit volumes in automotive go, you know, I think that's going to be a case of when the supply chain catches up, and hard to predict. Right now our customers are still dealing with shortages. Over this last quarter, we continued to see PCB demand really robust, particularly in Europe and North America. Where we saw weakness was in Asia, China, and Japan. And again, I think if you look at the economics, some of the challenges in both of those economies, you know, it makes some sense. So as we go into 2023, I think it's gonna be a case of at what point does really automotive production catch up with demand.
Then at that point, we'll see what real demand across our geographies is. you know, I think we're gonna be, I would say, certainly in the first part of the year, we're in a solid position in automotive. we'll see what happens again when the supply catches up. I just can't really predict when that will happen. and just while we're talking automotive, usually the question comes up, so let me address new program wins in automotive this quarter.
As well, we won a program value of about $125 million in the quarter off of 19 automotive designs, and that's pretty comparable to where we were last year at this time. Positive to see customers releasing packages again for new designs. That's encouraging, particularly as those packages start to build on a strong EV story for the industry.
Okay. That was very helpful. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Matt.
This is Sameer. I don't believe we have any more questions in the queue at this point. I wanna give everyone a last chance to ask any questions, if they would like. Star six if we can't hear you and you need to unmute your line. Okay. It doesn't look like we have any more questions, so I'll hand it back to Tom for any concluding remarks.
Thank you, Sameer. Let me start out by thanking Sameer acting as operator and investor relations and dealing with a very challenging vendor situation today. Thank you, Sameer, for that incredible job. Again, I'd like to thank all of you for your patience and your willingness to get on this call on such short notice. Let me just close by summarizing the points I made earlier. First, TTM delivered revenues in line with guidance and earnings above the high end of guidance. Second, our end market diversification enabled strong revenue growth of 8.3% year-on-year. That's not including Telephonics. Third, we generated strong cash flow, and we're now down to a net leverage of 1.8 x.
Fourth, we're well-positioned for whatever comes our way here, in terms of the commercial markets with an Aerospace & Defense business at 40% of revenues. In closing, I would just like to thank our employees and our customers, and of course, you, our investors, for your support and your ongoing support. Thank you very much. Hope you have a good rest of the day.