NI Reports Record Orders for a First Quarter, up 27 Percent Year Over Year

Company shares new three year model for margin expansion

Q1 2022 Highlights

• Revenue of $385 million, up 15 percent year-over-year in a challenging supply chain environment
• Record orders for a first quarter, up 27 percent year over year
• Strong double digit order growth across all business units and regions
• Diluted GAAP EPS of $0.19 and diluted non-GAAP EPS of $0.41

National Instruments Corporation (Nasdaq: NATI) today announced Q1 2022 revenue of $385 million, up 15 percent year-over-year, a record for a first quarter.

For Q1 2022, the value of the company's total orders was up 27 percent year-over-year. For Q1, year-over-year orders in the Americas region were up 40 percent, in EMEA orders were up 22 percent, and in APAC orders were up 17 percent.

In Q1, GAAP gross margin was 69 percent and non-GAAP gross margin was 71 percent. GAAP operating expenses were $235 million, up 2 percent year-over-year. Total non-GAAP operating expenses were up 3 percent year-over-year at $208 million. GAAP operating margin was 8 percent in Q1, with GAAP operating income of $31 million, up 220 percent year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating margin was 17 percent in Q1, with non-GAAP operating income of $66 million, up 28 percent year-over-year.

GAAP net income for Q1 was $25 million, with diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.19, and non-GAAP net income was $54 million, with non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.41.

“Demand exceeded expectations in the first quarter with record orders for a first quarter up 27 percent year over year. Orders serve as the leading indicator in our business and a direct result of our strategic initiatives,” said Eric Starkloff, NI president and CEO. “Our focus on high growth areas such as electric and autonomous vehicles, wireless communications, and new space technologies, brings us confidence in our ability to grow faster than the overall market. The flexible, modular test solutions we provide are built on our leading interoperable software that enables customers to automate their test processes to bring their products to market faster and with high quality."

“We continue to strengthen our competitive advantages and make our business more scalable. Our strategy proved to be resilient as we navigated lack of component availability and the widely publicized logistics challenges facing our industry in the first quarter,” said Karen Rapp, NI CFO. “Given the current supply uncertainty, we are widening our 2022 target to 12 percent to 18 percent revenue growth year over year. We remain focused on margin expansion and are targeting an increase of our non-GAAP operating margin by 100 bps each year starting this year through 2025.”

As of March 31, 2022, NI had $143 million in cash and cash equivalents. During Q1, NI paid $37 million in dividends and repurchased approximately 772,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $40.74 per share. The NI Board of Directors approved a dividend of $0.28 per share payable on May 31, 2022, to stockholders of record on May 9, 2022.

The company’s non-GAAP results exclude, as applicable, the impact of purchase accounting fair value adjustments, stock-based compensation, amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, acquisition-related transaction and integration costs, taxes levied on the transfer of acquired intellectual property, foreign exchange gain/loss on acquisitions, restructuring charges, tax reform charges, disposal gain/loss on buildings and related charitable contributions, tax effects related to businesses held for sale, gain/loss on sale of business, impairment losses on equity-method investments, and capitalization and amortization of internally developed software costs. Reconciliations of the company’s GAAP and non-GAAP results are included as part of this news release.

Q2 2022 Guidance

• GAAP revenue to be in the range of $370 million to $410 million
• GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of $0.01 to $0.15
• Non-GAAP diluted EPS expected to be in the range of $0.25 to $0.39

Conference Call Information

NI management will discuss Q1 2022 results today, April 28, at 4:00 p.m. CT at www.ni.com/call or dial (855) 212-2361 and enter confirmation code 4984403. The call and an accompanying slide presentation will be webcast on the investor website, www.ni.com/nati, under “Events & Presentations.” Replay is available by calling (855) 859-2056, confirmation code 4984403, shortly after the call through May 3, at 11:59 p.m. CT.

Non-GAAP Presentation

To supplement NI’s financial statements presented on a GAAP basis, NI has provided non-GAAP financial information, including non-GAAP revenue or net sales, gross profit, gross margin, operating expenses, operating income, operating margin, provision for income taxes, net income, net margin, EPS and diluted EPS and non-GAAP guidance for diluted EPS. A reconciliation of the adjustments to GAAP results is included in the tables below. The company is not able to provide guidance on its GAAP tax rate or a related reconciliation without unreasonable efforts since its future GAAP tax rate depends on its future stock price and related information that is not currently available. Non-GAAP financial information is not meant as a substitute for GAAP results, but is included because management believes such information is useful to our investors for informational and comparative purposes. In addition, certain non-GAAP financial information is used internally by management to evaluate and manage the company. The non-GAAP financial information used by NI may differ from that used by other companies. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, and not as a substitute for, the results prepared in accordance with GAAP.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 including without limitation those statements about our expectations of accelerating growth and progress to meet or exceed our 2022 financial targets and long-term financial model, our ability to grow faster than the overall market, our continued momentum across regions and business units, our opportunities to drive growth, profitability and efficiency in our business, confidence in our software strategy, confidence in our strategy and the strategic changes made to our business, including the transition to subscription-based licensing model for software offerings, our ability to successfully integrate acquisitions and execute our growth strategy, our ability to drive customer demand through focus on high growth opportunities, the impacts of war in Europe, COVID-19, including pandemic-related shutdowns, supply chain constraints and software licensing model transition on our financial results, and our guidance and expectations for our Q2 2022 revenue, diluted EPS and non-GAAP diluted EPS, and future operating expenses, backlog, lead times, gross margin, operating margin and tax rate. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include without limitation: the global shortage of key components; effect of the global economic and geopolitical conditions; our international operations and foreign economies; adverse public health matters, including epidemics and pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic; our ability to effectively manage our partners and distribution channels; interruptions in our technology systems or cyber-attacks on our systems; the dependency of our product revenue on certain industries and the risk of contractions in such industries; concentration of credit risk and uncertain conditions in the global financial markets; our ability to compete in markets that are highly competitive; our ability to release successful new products or achieve expected returns; the risk that our manufacturing capacity and a substantial majority of our warehousing and distribution capacity are located outside of the U.S.; our dependence on key suppliers and distributors; longer delivery lead times from our suppliers; risk of product liability claims; dependence on our proprietary rights and risks of intellectual property litigation; the continued service of key management, technical personnel and operational employees; our ability to comply with environmental laws and associated costs; our ability to maintain our website; the risks of bugs, vulnerabilities, errors or design flaws in our products; our restructuring activities; our exposure to large orders; our shift to more system orders; our ability to effectively manage our operating expenses and meet budget; fluctuations in our quarterly results due to factors outside of our control; our outstanding debt; seasonal variation in our revenues; our ability to comply with laws and regulations; changes in tax rates and exposure to additional tax liabilities; our ability to make certain acquisitions or dispositions, integrate the companies we acquire or separate the companies we sold and/or enter into strategic relationships; risks related to currency fluctuations; and provisions in charter documents and Delaware law that delay or prevent our acquisition. In addition, our ability to declare and/or pay declared dividends is subject to compliance with the terms of our existing credit agreement. The company directs readers to its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and the other documents it files with the SEC for other risks associated with the company’s future performance. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements. All information in this release is as of the date above. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company’s expectations.

About NI

At NI, we bring together the people, ideas and technology so forward thinkers and creative problem solvers can take on humanity’s biggest challenges. From data and automation to research and validation, we provide the tailored, software-connected systems engineers and enterprises need to Engineer Ambitiously™ every day.

National Instruments, NI, ni.com and Engineer Ambitiously are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. (NATI-F)

The following tables provide details with respect to the amount of GAAP charges related to stock-based compensation, amortization of acquisition-related intangibles and fair value adjustments, acquisition-related transaction costs, capitalization and amortization of internally developed software costs, disposal gains on sale of business, impairment losses on equity-method investments and restructuring charges that were recorded in the line items indicated below (unaudited) (in thousands):

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