Harmonic touted growth in its broadband business for the fourth quarter, as revenue in the segment increased 20% year on year to $115.2 million. The number of customers using Harmonic’s CableOS broadband platform grew to 108 customers worldwide, serving 26.3 million cable modems.
Executives on the earnings call noted both Comcast and Charter contributed more than 10% of overall revenue, with Comcast accounting for 41% of total revenue and Charter 15%.
“While at different places in their respective DAA architecture deployment journeys, we're grateful to be working with both of these industry leaders and are incredibly focused on supporting their respective strategic initiatives,” said CEO Patrick Harshman.
CableOS is Harmonic’s virtual cable modem termination system (vCMTS) software. Dell’Oro Group VP Jeff Heynen previously told Fierce Harmonic is the incumbent vCMTS supplier for Comcast and also supplies Remote-PHY hardware for the operator.
Charter last year also inked a deal with Harmonic to use its Remote-PHY tech and the CableOS core platform.
Harshman added Harmonic marked “several new customer wins” in Q4, including a “top 10 North American operator for whom we made initial shipments.”
Without giving away any names, he said Harmonic expects at least one “key” customer to “make a big move to DOCSIS 4.0 enabled edge devices during 2024,” resulting in a slower deployment pace for that customer in the first half of the year.
Harshman also commented on trends Harmonic’s seeing with operators and their network upgrades. Specifically, he pointed out each of Harmonic’s tier-one customers “is moving forward with different set of priorities, different paces.”
“Frankly, out of the two biggest names, I think the pace has been a little bit slower than we would have expected if you roll the clock back to a year or two ago, but we see growing signs of that improving,” he said. “One of the things that's kept some folks on the sideline, as you know, has been a question about DOCSIS 4 and different variants of that technology.”
Some prospective customers, he said, “are kind of waiting for the right stepping off point.”
Financials
Consolidated revenue of $167.1 million was up from $164.3 million in Q4 2022. Broadband segment revenue rose year on year from $96 million to $115.2 million.
GAAP net income was around $84 million, compared to net income of $6.1 million in the prior year period. Non-GAAP net income dropped year on year from $19.9 million to $14.7 million.
At the end of Q4, the company reported $653 million in backlog and deferred revenue, which Harshman said positions the company “well for 2024 and the coming years.”