Event information
Before entering the silent period preceding the announcement of first-quarter results, Nordic Semiconductor has scheduled a group pre-close call with analysts on March 27, 2025, at 13:00 pm CET. The silent period begins on April 1 and the results for the first quarter 2025 will be announced on April 29. The call is intended as a service for analysts and we will not disclose any new material information.
Nordic would like to remind analysts and investors about certain publicly known factors from our previous financial reports and earnings calls which might be relevant to consider ahead of the Q1 report:
As noted in the financial report for the fourth quarter, revenue in Q1 is expected to fall within the range of USD 140-160 million with a gross margin of around 50%. The strong year-on-year revenue growth outlook for Q1 reflects both higher demand and significant inventory adjustments in the first quarter 2024, and orders from individual customers are set to offset the typical seasonal demand downturn in Q1.
In the fourth quarter 2024 revenue amounted to USD 150 million, which marked both a sequential increase and a return to year-on-year growth on a quarterly basis. The year-on-year revenue increase in the fourth quarter reflected a gradually improving underlying market and inventory adjustments in the fourth quarter 2023, whereas the sequential decline from the third quarter was explained by normal seasonal demand patterns.
During Q4 2024, Nordic executed a strategic resource realignment including a global workforce reduction of approximately 8% of the company’s total workforce. As communicated in the Q4 2024 interim report, total expenses of USD 3.2 million related to this were accounted for in the Q4 numbers, whereas the full effect of the headcount reduction would not be visible until Q1 2025. The projected cost savings from these efforts were included in the company’s previously communicated target to retain a flat cost base in 2025 compared with 2024.
Nordic's Short-range business is the by far largest business unit, and the ambition for this area is to grow faster than the addressable market over time, driven by new product launches. Nordic successfully launched the first products in its new nRF54 Series during the fourth quarter and expects this new product series to become a gradually stronger growth driver over the years to come. Allowing time for customer design-wins and commercial scaling, Nordic sees limited revenue effect of the nRF54 launch in 2025 and expects accelerating growth from 2026 onwards.
Nordic’s longer-term financial ambition on the Group level is to deliver average annual revenue growth above 20% through the decade, and to move towards its operating model profitability level of ~25% EBITDA margin within five years.
To avoid speculation about the performance of individual customers and protect the integrity of its customers and customer relationships, the company will change the reporting of its end-user markets with effect from the first quarter 2025. Industrial and Healthcare will be combined into one reporting unit, which in 2024 would have had revenue of USD 158 million and accounted for 31% of total revenue.
Nordic commenced the practice of hosting pre-close group calls during 2024, in response to ESMA’s Statement on Pre-Close calls dated May 29, 2024. While appreciating Nordic’s efforts to comply with ‘best practice’, the response from the majority of analysts is that these pre-quarter group calls are unnecessary. Nordic will hence discontinue this practise with effect from the next reporting period, for Q2 2025. Nordic will continue to post pre-close comments, such as this document, on the IR web before entering silent periods ahead of interim reporting.