Lumentum Holdings (LITE) Q2 2019 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Oclaro (OCLR)
Q2 2019 Earnings Conference Call
Feb. 5, 2019 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants
  
  See all our earnings call transcripts.

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. My name is Matthew, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the second quarter fiscal year 2019 Lumentum earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.

[Operator instructions] Thank you. Chris Coldren, interim CFO and senior vice president, you may begin your conference.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Thank you, Matthew. Welcome to Lumentum's second quarter fiscal 2019 earnings call. As Matthew highlighted, this is Chris Coldren, interim chief financial officer. Joining me on today's call are Alan Lowe, president and chief executive officer; and Jim Fanucchi from Darrow Associates, who is helping us with Investor Relations.

This call will include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the markets in which we participate, including potential market sizes, trends, and expectations for products and technology, including product development and projected new product releases, purchasing trends and demand for our products, our expected financial performance, expenses and positions in the market as well as statements regarding our recent acquisition of Oclaro. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We encourage you to review our most recent filings with the SEC, particularly the risk factors described in our 10-K filing, which was filed with the SEC on August 29, 2018 and the registrations statement on Form S-4 relating to our acquisition of Oclaro, which was declared effective on May 31, 2018, and in our 10-Q for the second quarter of fiscal 2019, which we expect to file with the SEC later this week. The forward-looking statements we provide during this call, including projections for future performance, are based on our reasonable beliefs and expectations as of today.

Lumentum undertakes no obligation to update these statements, except as required by applicable law. Please also note, unless otherwise stated, all results and projections discussed on this call are non-GAAP. Non-GAAP financials should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to financials prepared in accordance with GAAP. Our press release with our second quarter fiscal 2019 results is available on our website, www.lumentum.com, under the Investors section and includes additional details about our non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation between our GAAP and non-GAAP results.

Our website also has our latest SEC filings, which we encourage you to review and supplementary slides relating to today's earnings release. A recording of today's call will be available by 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time this morning on our website. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Alan for his comments and second-quarter market and product highlights.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be here to discuss our second-quarter results. First, I would like to make some comments regarding our recent acquisition of Oclaro.

On December 10th, after receiving antitrust approval from China and nearly nine months after announcing it, we closed the acquisition. I believe joining forces with the talented employees of the former Oclaro has created the industry's strongest team and the industry's leading portfolio of telecom transmission and transport products. Further, the combined teams' capability in the design and manufacturing of high-performance indium phosphide lasers and photonic integrated circuits is unparalleled. The chemistry, cultural fit, and shared purpose of the combined team is excellent.

I cannot be more excited about our bright future together. I would like to take this opportunity to review key elements of our acquisition's strategic rationale. The first is leadership at the indium phosphide photonic chip level. Photonic chips are of increasing importance to the full range of the world's rapidly expanding communication infrastructure spanning access, wireless, data center, metro, and long-haul networks.

Indium phosphide lasers and photonic integrated circuits are the only practical devices for generating the optimum wavelengths of light for transmission over optical fiber. Customer requirements are unrelenting in their drive toward higher speed, lower-power consumption, smaller size, and lower cost. Our thesis is that the only way to meet the future customer requirements in the optical communication transport -- transmission market and sustainably differentiate ourselves from our competition is innovation and economies of scale at the fundamental indium phosphide photonic chip level. We have employed this same strategy in the industrial and consumer markets with gallium arsenide materials, and we believe our success in these markets validates this strategy.

We further believe indium phosphide could meaningfully penetrate consumer and automotive sensing markets. The second element of our acquisition rationale is to establish a clear leadership position and to improve the industry structure in the growing optical communications market. The world continues to become more reliant on ever-increasing amounts of data flowing through optical networks and data centers. Next-generation wireless and access technology, including 5G, will further accelerate network bandwidth requirements.

The economics of 100G and higher-speed technologies along with [Inaudible] are becoming more favorable every day for network operators. This is accelerating the pace of global, long-haul, regional, DCI, and metro network deployments utilized in these products and technologies. The optical communication components industry has long needed industry consolidation. We believe our acquisition of Oclaro has given us a first-mover advantage in consolidation.

Further, we believe it has catalyzed and will accelerate further consolidation. The acquisition establishes leadership in high-speed transmission that complements our existing transport leadership. With market-leading products and technology, and strong long-term customer relationships in a growing and consolidating industry, we are well-positioned for long-term profitable growth. The final element of our acquisition rationale is to create options to profitably participate in the datacom market.

It is anticipated that growth in hyper-scale data center build-outs and 5G wireless deployments will drive new levels of growth in the high-speed datacom market. Profitability in these markets at the transceiver level is challenging. Hyper competition and limited product differentiation are driving rapid price declines. Though some competitors have left the market, we continue to see new competitors emerge at the transceiver module level though none with indium phosphide chip capabilities.

Combining with Oclaro gives us a differentiated leadership position across a range of photonic chips, on which the datacom, wireless, and access markets critically rely. This creates new avenues to profitable growth through meaningful chip sales and more cost-competitive transceivers. In Chris' remarks, he will provide more details on the acquisition. Now turning to our second-quarter results.

Revenue at $373.7 million contained $29.6 million of contribution from the acquisition. Our prior guidance did not include any acquisition contribution. Excluding the acquisition, revenue came in at roughly the midpoint of our prior guidance. Strength in demand and manufacturing capacity expansions drove [Inaudible] and fiber lasers to new record levels.

Revenue from our telecom product lines grew 21% sequentially, driven primarily by the strong growth in [Inaudible] sales and the 20 days of contribution from Oclaro's telecom product lines. [Inaudible] revenue grew 29% quarter on quarter and 110% relative to the prior year. Demand from our customers for our telecom products is very strong and is spread across a broad customer and geographical base. We continue to add [Inaudible] capacity, but demand will outstrip our ability to supply throughout the third quarter.

Datacom revenue was down slightly sequentially. The previously anticipated decline was partially offset by the acquired datacom revenues in the quarter. In the third quarter, we expect datacom revenue to decline relative to combined company historic levels. We continue to be selective in our sales of transceivers in this margin-challenged product area, and this is impacting revenue.

With the closing of the acquisition, we now have chip sales in the datacom and 5G markets, which we will -- which expect we will continue to grow. Turning to our industrial and consumer product lines, which includes 3D sensing. As expected, second-quarter revenues from industrial and consumer diode laser product lines were down 10% quarter on quarter, driven by softer demand for 3D-sensing lasers. Android customer revenue came in as expected and we continued to make excellent progress with additional Android customers and additional new design wins.

The market for laser-based sensing is still in its infancy. We believe the market opportunity over the long run is tremendous as the applications that use our lasers enhance security safety and new functionality in the billions of electronic devices that people rely on every day. The seeds for this long-term market opportunity continue to be planted. During the second half of calendar 2018, additional customers announced or started shipping high-end 3D sensing-enabled devices.

During calendar 2019, based on customer engagements we have today, we expect new and existing customers will announce and release additional new 3D sensing-enabled products. Several of these opportunities are expected to bring new functionality that could expand our content per device, including world-facing capabilities. We believe these new customer products are the first step to broad incorporation of 3D sensing in lower-priced, higher-volume devices in the years to come. The customer learnings, software APIs, and supplier ecosystems developed in these initial products will enable and allow more rapid adoption of 3D sensing in subsequent product cycles.

We believe our leadership position in the market is sustainable and we will see strong growth in our 3D sensing business over the long run. We have a proven capability that customers around the world know they can rely upon. We have shipped hundreds of millions of devices with unmatched performance, quality, and reliability. The advantage this experience gives us is a valuable attribute and is difficult to replicate and overcome.

Customer requirements for the next several product generations to come require us to further push the edge of laser device technology and manufacturing capability. We believe the same technology differentiation and unique depth of experience that enables our success to date in the current-generation devices will be even more critical to future generations of 3D sensing lasers. Our commercial lasers segment revenue was up 10% quarter-on-quarter and 9% relative to the prior year. During the second quarter, we benefited from capacity expansion and further ramped volumes of our newest fiber laser products to meet strong customer demand.

We again achieved record revenue from our Kilowatt-class fiber lasers, which grew 12% sequentially and 133% relative to the prior year. We are making healthy investments in new laser product development and production capacity, targeting higher-growth material processing applications. In calendar 2019 and over the long run, we have good opportunities for growth, driven by new product design wins in addition to market growth. Throughout my remarks, I've highlighted significant long-term trends that create terrific market opportunities for Lumentum and even more so, with the closing of the Oclaro acquisition.

Further, I've highlighted our strategy to accelerate growth and drive sustainable margin expansion and customer and end-market diversification. These are very exciting times at Lumentum for all of our stakeholders. I will now hand it over to Chris for more details.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Thank you, Alan. I will first run through the second-quarter financial results, add some additional details around the Oclaro acquisition, and then provide our guidance for the third quarter. Net revenue for the second quarter was $373.7 million and included $29.6 million of revenue contribution from the Oclaro acquisition. GAAP gross margin for the second quarter was 33.4%.

GAAP operating margin was 3.1% and GAAP diluted net income per share was $0.08. Second-quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 40.1%, which was approximately flat with the last quarter. Non-GAAP operating margin for the second quarter was 22%. Operating expenses totaled $67.5 million or 18.1% of revenue.

R&D expense was $39.3 million and includes increased investments in new product development in addition to the added R&D expense from the acquisition. SG&A expense was $28.2 million. Non-GAAP net income was $78.3 million for the second quarter and includes $2 million of other income and a tax expense of $5.9 million. Included in the tax expense is a one-time tax adjustment of approximately $2.7 million due to the Oclaro acquisition impacting our full-year estimated tax expense.

Non-GAAP diluted net income per share was $1.15. This includes an approximate $0.04 negative impact due to the aforementioned tax adjustment related to the acquisition and is based upon its fully diluted share count of 67.8 million. The share count includes approximately 2.4 million new shares due to the Oclaro acquisition being in the quarter for only 20 days. Turning to the segment and product line details, our Optical Communications segment revenue at $325.4 million increased 5% sequentially.

Within our Optical Communications segment, telecom revenue at $172.5 million was up 21% sequentially. Datacom revenue at $33.4 million was down 2% sequentially. Industrial and consumer revenue at $119.5 million was down 10% sequentially due to lower low 3D sensing revenues. Optical Communications segment gross margin at 39.7% decreased 60 basis points sequentially due to lower industrial and consumer in the revenue mix.

Our laser segment revenue at $48.3 million increased 10% sequentially, driven by growth in fiber laser sales. Second-quarter lasers gross margin was 42.7% and increased 240 basis points due to higher volumes and product cost reductions. Now turning to more details on the acquisition. The stock portion of the acquisition consideration, excluding unvested stock tranche for continuing employees consisted of 11 million new Lumentum shares.

The cash portion of the consideration was $964.8 million. The cash consideration was funded by the combined company's balance sheets, which at the end of the first quarter, pre-acquisition, had a total of approximately $1.1 billion in cash and short-term investments. The cash consideration was also funded by a new term loan of $500 million. After the paying of $964.8 million of the cash consideration and more than $50 million in fees related to the acquisition between the two companies during the second quarter, our second-quarter ending cash and short-term investments was $684.1 million.

This is only $50.2 million lower than Lumentum's first-quarter levels due to strong cash generation by the business during the quarter. The ongoing annual interest expense associated with the new term loan is LIBOR plus 250 basis points. Today, this results in an approximate interest rate of 5% or $25 million per year in additional interest expense. Since we are focused on similar customers, geographies and manufacturing capabilities and purchase the same types of raw materials, we have strong tangible expense synergy opportunities.

As highlighted when we announced the acquisition, we believe these synergies will be in excess of $60 million per year within 12 to 20 more -- 12 to 24 months from the close of the transaction. To date, we estimate that we have achieved more than $10 million in annual expense synergies. We expect modest levels of new synergies to be attained in the third quarter, and then we expect synergy attainment will accelerate in the fourth quarter and into fiscal year 2020. Work done since the closing of the transaction gives us confidence in our ability to meet or exceed our expense reduction target.

I think it is important to highlight these expense synergies did not include any increased revenue or profit due to new project differentiation or product roadmap acceleration resulting from the combined companies' innovation engine. However, we believe over the long run, it is these types of synergies that will create the most long-term value and underpins our strategic rationale for the transaction. Now onto our guidance for the third quarter of fiscal 2019, noting again that all projections are on a non-GAAP basis and now include Oclaro for the full quarter. We project net revenue for the third quarter to be in the range of $420 million to $440 million with operating margin in the range of 16% to 18% and diluted net income per share to be in the range of $0.76 to $0.94.

These projections incorporate an approximate share count of 77 million and tax expense of approximately $4 million at the midpoint of the range. Note, our third-quarter projections have several million dollars of additional expense related to a reset of labor fringe rates in the new calendar year. Notable quarter-on-quarter changes in product line revenue and our projections include commercial lasers increasing, primarily due to new product growth; industrial and consumer declining due to consumer electronics customer seasonality; telecom increasing, driven by continued market growth and having a full quarter of the acquisition; and datacom increasing to $50 million to $55 million due to having a full quarter of the acquisition. We are providing more clarity on the datacom projections, given the amount of change there has been in these product lines over the past few quarters.

We don't expect to provide this level of detail on an ongoing basis.[Operator instructions]Matthew, let's please begin the question-and-answer session. 

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Samik Chatterjee with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Samik Chatterjee -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Hey. Thanks for taking the question. If I can start off with, one, just relating to the quarter itself, you kind of on the revenue front, you came in, in line with expectation or kind of in line with the guidance that you have issued, but on the operating margins and the gross margins, you were lower. Is that kind of driven by the Oclaro integration? And can you kind of help us with what the starting point for Oclaro in terms of gross margins and operating margins that you're building off?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

I'll make a couple of remarks and see if Alan has any additional. I would say first -- first is the product mix. So, obviously, with the decline in 3D sensing that has an impact to margin. And then further, we're not going to break out any Oclaro gross margin.

There is no Oclaro going forward, those product lines have been merged with ours. But certainly, if you go back and look at prior quarters, Oclaro had been running below -- where our 40% gross margin was in the prior quarter. So, there is some level of dilution of margin associated with the acquisition.

Samik Chatterjee -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

OK. And so, if I can just follow up with the 3D sensing question. You're obviously expecting a lot of product launches from the Android guys, where you have position on those launches. How should we think about the ramp up on those volumes? What are your expectations in terms of when the volumes on Android smartphones for you guys become comparable to kind of volumes with your lead customer? Is it kind of a one-year time horizon or are you thinking about it as a multi-year time horizon before you kind of see more diversification on your 3D sensing customer base?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes. I'd say that we're expecting more diversification throughout this calendar year. It's hard for me to predict when the Android 3D sensing business will -- the half of our 3D sensing business, but there is certainly plenty of potential for that to happen. I think the key to that is moving from the high-end devices that are in the market today to more the mid-range, lower cost, higher-volume products.

And that really is in our customer's hands and we're providing them the technology and capability to announce those products. It's just not clear to us when exactly that will happen, but I think it will happen and it's just a matter of time.

Samik Chatterjee -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

OK. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Henderson with Needham & Company. Your line is open.

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

Great. Hey, I would like to talk a little bit about the Oclaro acquisition post the conclusion of it. Really focusing on what your expectations are in terms of pairing out redundant revenues and much lower margin type products that were in the Oclaro mix. Obviously, it's a pretty nice chunk of change coming in in terms of revenues, but I assume that you're going to pair some of that stuff out.

So it will be helpful to have some sense of what the impact is, both on terms of reduction in revenues from aligning -- consolidation as well as the impact on margins from that.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes, I mean, I think you've already seen part of that in our guide for Datacom, and that's why we were very specific about absolute revenue in the $50 million to $50 million -- mid-$50 million to $55 million in Q3. We are going through the product rationalization as well as fab utilization optimization and we'll be talking to our customers later this quarter and putting them but in place the actions to drive to the lowest cost product or the highest margin product, where appropriate, where there is overlap, but the overlap is pretty minimal and we expect to drive those to conclusion throughout this calendar year.

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

Is it reasonable to think of $50 million to $100 million kind of range for line pairing?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Well, I think if you go back in history and look at the two companies, Datacom business, you will see that there is a good chunk of that already out of our Q3 guide in Datacom. There will be more product rationalization, so it's not unconceivable that we hit that number. I think on the other side, we're focused on driving innovation to grow our healthy new products faster. So we're hoping that that will more than offset the product pairing.

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

And the margins on those are sub-20% gross, is that kind of the right range?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

On which?

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

On the stuff you're pairing?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

There is some that are much more challenged than that that we're taking action with and that's again one of the reasons you saw the guide on Datacom in the short term.

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

One last question, then I can cede the floor. The 3D sensing, obviously, the Apple brought in numbers pretty sharply in the fourth quarter. There seems to be a wide splay of estimates for the upcoming quarter. I assume that what we're looking at here is a supply chain that had 8 to 10 weeks' worth of process that takes time for that to run through.

Hence, I would assume that that would result in a very low number for the March quarter. Is that the right thought process?

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I'll give you my thought, then Chris can add to it. If you remember, it was November 12th when we got the first heads-up, and so there was action taken during the December quarter that was very different than the end of calendar 2017, where the heads-up came very, very late. It's not even into early part of the calendar year. So there was -- there's been adjustments both from our supply chain as well as, I think, through our customer's supply chain and the module integrators to address some of that so that the buildup is not nearly like it was a year ago.

That said, we don't have total visibility beyond what -- beyond our walls, but we are taking a conservative approach with respect to March quarter guide and then whatever's remaining for the June quarter in the numbers we provided. Chris, you have anything?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Nothing further.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

OK.

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

OK. Thanks.

Chris Coldren -- Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Simon Leopold with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Thanks very much. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about the [Inaudible] business, in particular. I'd like to get some updates.

Just my rough math suggest that the quarter you reported was $90 million, $95 million in sales, and I understand you've added capacity. So just sort of trying to get an idea of how you see that particular line of business trending and I'd like you to include in your answer some thoughts on the competitive landscape and how that's evolving. Thanks.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. I don't think your math is too far off, Simon. And I'd say that growing by 30% or 29% quarter on quarter was no simple task. Had we been able to grow another 30%, we would have sold all of that as well.

So, there's still tremendous amount of pent-up demand for our leading edge technology from Twin 1 x 20s to even higher port counts. And now on the MxN product line where I'd say we have, if not years leadership in those kinds of products. So we're expecting and we are seeing continued demand strength across all of the regions from Europe to China, to North America on all of those products. At the same time, we're starting to see continued strength at the low end edge [Inaudible], where historically we had not had such a competitive offering.

We announced a very competitive offering in calendar '18 and that product line is sold out. So, it's a broad range of product demand that our customers are asking us for and I think we -- from a competitive landscape standpoint, we're out in the front and continue to invest to maintain that leadership to continue to have a large share of that market.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Thank you. And just as a follow-up, I wonder if you could give us your perspective on the 3D sensing market, in terms of two opportunities, as I see them: one, world facing; and two, 5G. How either of those could play into the opportunities as we look out beyond calendar '19 perhaps? Thanks.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Well, I'd say from a world facing, we have multiple designs with multiple customers pretty much across the board in the who is who in mobile devices working on time-of-flight, world-facing sensors. And so, we're very confident in our leadership ability to meet the market demand of these products where the technology continues to evolve and get pushed. So, I think that will come into fruition. It's already starting to ship.

We'll see more and more devices throughout calendar '19 as well as into calendar '20. And I think the interesting thing there is that's a whole new set of application use cases that should drive our customers to want to introduce those things sooner. So that's again, out of our hands. We're just enabling the technology and the capabilities.

As far as 5G is concerned, I mean, that's really more of a question for our customers and when they come out with 5G-capable handsets and what they put on those devices. So hard for me to say, but I'll tell you, the carriers are getting ready and investing, so it's coming.

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Thanks for taking the questions.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Simon.

Operator

[Operator instructions] And our next person is Michael Genovese with MKM Partners. Your line is open.

Michael Genovese -- MKM Partners -- Analyst

First question, on the [Inaudible] demand, specifically in China, can you discuss from your perspective the evidence that these are real tenders turning into real deployments by multiple carriers versus whether there's inventory build going on. So what's your view on that?

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I mean, we have direct interaction with the carriers in China and they have -- this is beyond those private-type of deployment. This is real deployments that are happening today. And so based on the constant pressure from our customers, executives, across the globe, including in China, I have to believe that there is not a tremendous amount of inventory buildup but again, we don't have full visibility to that.

I will say that we know that the product we ship into our network equipment manufacturers in China are ending up being deployed in the field. And so that gives us confidence that these are real demand that our customers need and are deploying and it's verified by the carriers in China.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes, I'd add that our engagement with our lead customers as well as the carriers in China date back several years and -- but we don't, as Alan said, have great visibility per se into inventory levels on our customer. At least the sort of rate of deployment that was advertised when we kicked off these programs between our network equipment manufacturing customers and the carriers seem to be what's coming to fruition. So they're not -- it's not a recent surge, if you will, we've seen in [Inaudible] sales, out of the blue. It's very consistent with the several year roadmap that we've had between the equipment manufacturers and the carriers.

Michael Genovese -- MKM Partners -- Analyst

OK. Thanks for that.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I think the other thing, Michael, is that with these higher port count [Inaudible] and more complex [Inaudible], the average selling price is substantially higher than a 1x9 edge [Inaudible] that we sell and have been selling for many, many years. So part of the uptake in [ROTEM] revenue is average selling price in these twin 1x32 type devices where it's multiple factors of higher price compared to a normal one [Inaudible] that many of our competitors sell.

Michael Genovese -- MKM Partners -- Analyst

OK. Great. And then as a follow-up, this strength, when you talk about 100% year-over-year growth, it does seem to be concentrated in the [Inaudible] area, you're probably also seeing it in pumps and amps, some other type of very high double-digit growth rate, but what about the pull-through to transmission, and specifically the Oclaro portfolio? Are we going to see specifically for these metro builds -- are there regions like China or other regions where the Oclaro demand is still in front of us that's going to catch up with this strong [Inaudible] demand we are seeing? Or I guess, another way of asking is, why is it so concentrated in [Inaudible] and will it broaden out at some point?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes, I would say there is a couple of pieces to that, Mike. First is, certainly we expect [Inaudible] as a [Inaudible] and pumps and other transport products is a leading indicator if you will of future transmission deployments given you need to put the [Inaudible] and the amplifier infrastructure in generally ahead of the transmission infrastructure. I would say though that we are seeing disproportionate growth in the transport and particularly [Inaudible] space, simply because previously there were not significant deployments in China that were [Inaudible]-based, but there were 100 gig, 200 gig ports deployed whether that be in long-haul and then switching to regional. So we expect to see great growth in the transmission, as you said, using the word pull-through, but I think the [Inaudible] piece is a bit more pronounced, given from a geographical standpoint, China not being a large consumer domestically at least that is [Inaudible] in the past, and now -- now they are.

Now with that said also, China's consumption, at least our Chinese customers there, if we summed up all of the [Inaudible] consumption, it's still below their share of the world's networking market and, therefore, we continue to believe there is continued growth above market growth in bringing our Chinese customers up to the levels that they should be purchasing [Inaudible] at.

Michael Genovese -- MKM Partners -- Analyst

Great. Thanks so much for the very thoughtful answers.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Meta Marshall with Morgan Stanley.

Meta Marshall -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. I wanted to dive into a couple of things. First on the industrial laser business, I know that you guys have tried to expand capacity to be able to meet more than the needs of just you're kind of one major customer. I just wanted to get a sense of, are you selling to multiple customers at this point, would you expect to kind of by the end of the fiscal year.

And just what -- if you're not, kind of what level of revenue should we think of as being the level -- the threshold to meeting other customer needs. And then maybe just a second, more logistical one, on splitting the -- if we can get a split of the $29.6 million for Oclaro between telecom and datacom for the quarter?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes, maybe I'll start with the latter first and then I'll let Alan answer the former. The $29.6 million was approximately equally split between datacom and telecom.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And as far as our Commercial Lasers business and record revenues in fiber lasers, that's still our primary fiber laser customer and we still have some catching up to do. So, we still have not met their overall demand. We're getting closer this quarter and once we do that and satisfy their needs, we'll look at penetrating outside of that customer. So, I wouldn't expect meaningful revenue this fiscal year.

I think it will be more into fiscal 2020.

Meta Marshall -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tejas Venkatesh with UBS.

Tejas Venkatesh -- UBS -- Analyst

Thank you. With the acquisition of Oclaro, you will now obviously have a deep presence both at Huawei and ZTE. Both of those systems' customers have been in the news quite a bit recently, so hoping you could characterize overall Chinese demand to the extent you can on these two customers.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, as we said earlier, the [Inaudible] demand in China because of it being non-existent a year ago for domestic deployments is quite strong today at all of the leading network equipment manufacturers in China, including the two you mentioned, but there are others. I would say [Inaudible] is very strong. I can't control what's going on between the two countries. I wish I could, but I'd say that at this point in time, we're working with them closely across the range of products from telecom, transport, next-generation [Inaudible] through the next generation of transmission from ACOs to DCOs and 400 gig.

So I'd say that the relationship engagement is broad and very strong at this point in time.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes. I would say our aggregate exposure between those two customers is still less than their exposure, if you will, to their markets, which I know, you can argue as a good or a bad thing. It's a bad thing and that we want to grow that ultimately over the long run, but vice versa, there's concerns about any interruption of business with them. Yes, we have exposure and that would be very painful to lose that business, but we're not over-exposed to it relative to most other participants in the market.

Tejas Venkatesh -- UBS -- Analyst

Got it. And with respect to your lead customer, lead 3D sensing customer, any change in the competitive situation as you look out into the phones launched into the -- in second half of 2019. I assume, by now you have a fair sense of what that could look like?

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I mean, I think we're still very happy with our share of the production shipments that we have today. And I would say that we're very happy with where we are positioned for next generation, new designs, whether that be front facing and world facing across the product and customer portfolios. So as I said in the prepared remarks, the next generation of device is pushing the technology for higher densification, higher wall plug efficiency, and things like that that don't allow people just to catch up because they have the capability today to make yesterday's product.

So we're pretty excited about where we are and how engaged we are with many, many customers, R&D development efforts as part of their -- extension of their development. So, I couldn't be happier with where we are.

Tejas Venkatesh -- UBS -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Kelleher with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Mark Kelleher -- D.A. Davidson -- Ananlyst

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to go back to the Datacom side. Could you just kind of clarify what your strategy is to differentiate on the Datacom side? Is that a market you're leaning too? Is that something that faster speeds will lean into your strength? What exactly are you thinking about on the Datacom side?

Chris Coldren -- Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President

Yes, so from a Datacom standpoint, we're very excited about the market opportunity because there's an awful lot of volume that ships in that market, both between Datacom and wireless. The real challenging puzzle to figure out has been profitability, particularly at the transceiver level over the past several years. So what we think the Oclaro acquisition brings to us is a couple of things. First is meaningful chip sales, which is a -- operating at a different level in the sort of ecosystem or food chain, if you will, where it may not have the same kind of rapid price reductions, etc.

that are occurring at the transceiver level because there's fewer competitors than there are the transceiver level. There's also much more significant barriers to entry and a much more focus on leading-edge technology. So as you said, as we look to higher and higher speeds or lower -- power consumption at a given speed or wider environmental operating range, those are all things that play into now the combined companies' strength. With world-class chip capabilities, if there is a way to make money at the transceiver level, then we expect with that chip capability, we would be in the running as fast as anybody else could be at the transceiver level.

That remains to be seen, obviously, because we also have to see what the competition is doing and where prices land much in that space. So again, our strategy is to focus on where we have the best technology, lead with that, and then choose where to play in the market where there are an ability to make money.

Mark Kelleher -- D.A. Davidson -- Analyst

OK. And then as a follow-up, what chips exactly are you thinking about? Are those photonic-integrated circuits, are those DSPs, what...

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

So, these are lasers, so either directly modulated or EMLs or electro-absorption modulated lasers as well as some receiver products to transmit and receive indium phosphide chips.

Mark Kelleher -- D.A. Davidson -- Ananlyst

OK. Great. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Rod Hall with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Rod Hall -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Yes. Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. I guess, I wanted to start on lasers margins and just the -- I know you've said that you think that eventually could get to 50%, but could you just comment on kind of whether that's still reasonable to think it eventually gets there and what sort of trajectory it might have? And then, I have a follow-up to that.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, Rod. This is Alan. Yes, I think that there is a clear path to 50% gross margin on lasers. Part of it has to do with volume, obviously, but part of it also has to do with the mix between fiber laser and our micromachining business, where typically in the fiscal Q1 and Q2, the micromachining revenue is low and as that comes up and has higher-than-average lasers gross margin that will pull up the the gross margin of lasers overall.

I'd say that, as we continue to move more and more of our laser diode packages into our own factory in Thailand, we are seeing cost reductions that you saw part of the benefit in the gross margin improvement in fiscal Q2. We're going to continue to see that as we drive costs down that will also help our gross margin. So, I think that the combination of driving cost down, fiber laser as well as a mix toward additional micromachining should get us there before the end of the fiscal year.

Rod Hall -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

OK. Thank, Alan. And then I want to do -- come back to 3D sensing in the guide and just check the pricing situation. I mean, we would anticipate like 10% year-over-year declines.

Is that sort of in the ballpark of what you're seeing or is pricing, in particular, big VCSEL we're interested in, what's happening with the pricing trajectory and I'd also be interested in your thoughts on inventory like how much model inventory might be out there? Is that perturbing the guide? Thanks.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I'm reluctant to be talking about our 3D sensing pricing, given that I'm sure our competitors are listening to this call. So, you can imagine, prices go down over time and whether that's low single digits or in the double digits, I'll let you be the judge of that. As far as module inventory, we really don't have much visibility of that, both at the module integrators as well as the next step in the process. So I will say that we're shipping units today and so it gives me visibility that they're continuing to build new modules, but that it's hard to extrapolate anything else other than that.

Rod Hall -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

OK. Great. Appreciate it.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of John Marchetti with Stifel. Your line is open.

John Marchetti -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Thanks very much. Maybe just a quick follow-up on that inventory side. You had obviously a big jump in your inventory levels at the end of the quarter. Curious as to how much of that maybe comes from the addition of the Oclaro business coming in and then how much of that is 3D sensing or VCSEL inventory that didn't sell through, given some of the cuts that you've seen at your big customer?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes. So, John, this is Chris. There is very little or immaterial change in 3D sensing inventory on our balance sheet. What you're seeing is a combination of both the Oclaro inventory as you would think about it coming over as well as the accounting associated with the acquisition where that inventory stepped up in value.

So, that causes the inventory value to swell a good bit.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I'd say the only inventory build that we're having is, as we wind down our Chinese-based contract manufacturer, we're building up some inventory to be able to move that equipment into Thailand and not disrupt the ability to supply our customers. So, there was high single digits of inventory growth, but done on purpose to make sure that we make an orderly transition to our factory in Thailand.

John Marchetti -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Got it. And then maybe just as a follow-up real, Chris. How should we think about sort of the normalized OPEX levels here as we look to the back half of the fiscal year. Just trying to get a sense for -- obviously, we had a partial contribution in the December quarter, but just trying to think of -- sort of where we are from an expense perspective as we start to think about the second half of the fiscal year.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes, so we really only guide one quarter at a time and, obviously, as we look to attain synergies, which will bring down our operating expenses. So I think you can impute from our guidance what the operating expenses are and then you have to make some assumption around ground synergies for the next quarter. So we don't have a good answer on being able to provide guidance for operating expenses out in Q4 and beyond.

John Marchetti -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

OK. Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jun Zhang with Rosenblatt Securities. Your line is open.

John Marchetti -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Thanks. So could you talk a little bit about VCSEL content, existing clients and the potential android clients? And also could you share with us about VCSEL competition landscape in the Android market? Thanks.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

In the what market?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Android. In the Android market?

Jun Zhang -- Rosenblatt Securities -- Analyst

In android.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, it varies dependent upon what type of 3D sensing and whether it is world facing, front facing or both. So I would say that in the Android environment, it ranges from single-chip content to what I would expect in calendar '19, two to three potential chips that could drive additional content per device or additional dollar content per device. From a competitive landscape standpoint in the android market, it's a little bit different as we see the [Inaudible] of people that claim they have volume 3D sensing at the android customers. It's a little bit different than we have with our lead customer.

But I mean, they're all capable, I think eventually will be able -- I think the key to our differentiation is pushing technology and allowing our customers to do something unique that they couldn't necessarily do with last year's technology.

Jun Zhang -- Rosenblatt Securities -- Analyst

Sure. So you mentioned that some of your existing clients might -- you might see a content growth this year. So, do we expect a meaningful change in the content this year or can you do it next year for your existing client base?

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think based on our design work with our customers, there are many that are working on world-facing time-of-flight high-powered VCSELs that -- when they announce them in the products that will increase the content per device. I can't tell when they are going to do it or what models they're going to do it or if they're going to do it on a single high-end model or if they're going to put it on a range of products. We're just focused on making sure that when they do announce the product it's with our VCSEL and with our solution that gets them something that's unique.

Jun Zhang -- Rosenblatt Securities -- Analyst

Great. Thanks a lot.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure, Jun.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tom O'Malley with Barclays. Your line is open.

Tom O'Malley -- Barclays -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I guess, to start with the organic like data service. It was down 45%, then it's guided down again.

You've got to talk about some strategic decisions with the business; can you first update that? And then further, could you see some gross margin uplift, from the product pairing with Oclaro and what does the profitability of that segment look like at these levels or where it could go in the future?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Hey. Tom, can you clarify -- are you referencing the datacom business?

Tom O'Malley -- Barclays -- Analyst

The datacom business.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes. And for clarity, our -- the just reported Q2 was Oclaro plus Lumentum datacom business, not just the organic business. But to your question, they are both going down quarter over quarter.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And the second -- sorry Tom, go ahead.

Tom O'Malley -- Barclays -- Analyst

Yes, go ahead. Just following up on the gross margin uplift of that business.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

So, yes, these products are low-low gross margin, so certainly any -- either improvement through having a better product and replacing the low-margin products or pruning out low-margin products is going to result in gross margin uplift overall for the company. With that said, that's obviously got to be balance with insuring that if we were to prune products that we don't leave any overhead -- overhang of overhead, if you will, but I don't think that's going to be a challenge but that's something we're just best keep an eye on.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think just to add to that, I think as we continue to grow our chip business that will be a good bump to gross margin at datacom. And then we're continuing to work on driving lower cost, 100 gig transceivers and 400 gig next-generation transceivers to the market. So the combination of bringing in new products and driving higher levels of chip sales should drive gross margin on the datacom business in the right direction.

Tom O'Malley -- Barclays -- Analyst

That's helpful. And then just as a follow-up, your guide implies I think a slightly higher tax rate than expected, I think about 6%. I mean, you kind of walked us through the moving parts there. Can you talk about the expected run rate there for June? And do you still expect that rate to move up slightly into '19?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

I think the rate might be a little lower than -- but that's in the zip code. I would not expect on a relative basis that to change going into the fourth quarter.

Tom O'Malley -- Barclays -- Analyst

Thanks, guys.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Tim Savageaux with Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Tim Savageaux -- Northland Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. Thanks. Good morning. You had mentioned briefly with regard to China, I think, that obviously there's applications across the board the ACO platform, which historically is a pretty important part of the Oclaro franchise.

I wonder if you could talk about kind of trends in that product line, both focused on DCI and retro markets? And then maybe step back to address the overall cloud opportunity, maybe differentiating between data center interconnect, trends that we're seeing basically inside versus outside the data center, both your exposure to those by the ACO platform and how that might evolve heading forward?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Yes. So, Tim, I would say the way we think about it is the following: that the ACO platform that you referenced, certainly as a lot of customers today either buying mostly at the module level and some cases at the component level. The product roadmap though is to aggressively ramp DCO products across the existing ACO customer base, as well as many other customers that have not adopted ACOs. ACOs certainly are a little bit more complex for a customer to adopt in that they have to have a DSP and integrate the DSP with the ACO.

So, we see the industry and that shifting toward DCO over the mid-term to long-term, and we're well very positioned both with the lower speed 100 gig, 200 gig, as well as 400 gig looking forward to -- over the next few years. In terms of -- I said, throughout the customer base, thinking generally of the telecom NIMs but as you've highlighted certainly the cloud customer base we very much look to DCO modules as they -- a great way for them to get their coherent solutions without having to be experts in integrating DSPs and ACO modules or building modules themselves, buying components. And so there is definitely an emerging market here between the cloud guys, primarily for DCI.

Tim Savageaux -- Northland Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. If I could follow up, just to wrap up. We've covered kind of overall demand trends in China on the telecom side. They look, I guess, perhaps surprisingly strong.

I wonder if you could make sort of any similar comments about the more carrier, metro, long-haul focus markets outside of China, and your North American and European OEM customers whether you're seeing similar trends relative to some of the growth you're looking at in China or how you would characterize that relative to your overall telecom growth?

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I'd say that we're seeing broad demand growth in North America, Europe, and anecdotally, throughout Middle East and Africa with respect to the products where we have clear leadership ROADMs, next-generation transmission components and ACOs and DCOs. So it is a broad range of demand that -- I think it's a combination of just pure market growth. But in addition to that, I believe we're gaining significant share with our leadership capability and the things that we talked about earlier. So I think the combination of the two are driving our top-end -- our top-line telecom, transmission and transport to new levels.

Tim Savageaux -- Northland Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Troy Jensen with Piper. Your line is open.

Troy Jensen -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for sneaking me in. Just a follow-up on that last question, Chris. Could you give us a timeline for when you guys expect to have the DCOs generally available?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

We expect to be ramping those this summer.

Troy Jensen -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

Is that shipping samples or generally available?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

I would say generally available.

Troy Jensen -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

All right. Perfect. And just a follow-up on that, can we expect to hear you use multiple DSP partners or you'd be standardizing on just one?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

We have multiple DSP partners. Certainly, we've got a lead partner. That's a very public relationship.

Troy Jensen -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

All right. Then my last question to you, it's been while just we've got an update from Oclaro in their 400G lasers. In the same question line, when do you expect the lasers to be generally available?

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

I don't think we want to talk about -- that's a competitive product, for sure, but it's something that we expect to be a leader in. I'll leave it at that.

Troy Jensen -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

All right. Understood. Keep up the good work.

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Thank you.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Troy.

Operator

And no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Alan Lowe.

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Matthew. I want to thank our customers for their business and partnership. I also want to thank our employees for their hard work and putting us into an excellent position for long-term growth. We regularly discuss our business at Investor Relations events.

These events are listed on our website in the Investor Relations section and are regularly updated. This concludes our call for today. We would like to thank everyone for attending and we look forward to talking with you again in another few months. Thank you.

Duration: 65 minutes

Call Participants:

Chris Coldren -- Chairman and Senior Vice President

Alan Lowe -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Samik Chatterjee -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Alex Henderson -- Needham and Company -- Analyst

Chris Coldren -- Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President

Simon Leopold -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Michael Genovese -- MKM Partners -- Analyst

Meta Marshall -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Tejas Venkatesh -- UBS -- Analyst

Mark Kelleher -- D.A. Davidson -- Ananlyst

Rod Hall -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

John Marchetti -- Stifel Financial Corp. -- Analyst

Jun Zhang -- Rosenblatt Securities -- Analyst

Tom O'Malley -- Barclays -- Analyst

Tim Savageaux -- Northland Capital Markets -- Analyst

Troy Jensen -- Piper Jaffray -- Analyst

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