National Instruments Corporation (NASDAQ:NATI) Q3 2020 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2020 National Instruments Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I'd now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Marissa Vidaurri, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our Q3, 2020 earnings call. I'm joined today by Eric Starkloff, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Karen Rapp, Chief Financial Officer. We will start with an update on our performance in the third quarter and share our outlook for Q4 before opening up for your questions. Our discussion today will include forward-looking statements, including statements regarding future growth and profitability, our focus, plans, objectives, targets, goals, position, capital allocation plans, dividend, expense management plans, charges, revenue guidance and our outlook.

We wish to caution you that such statements are just predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially and to be negatively impacted by numerous factors, including any uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic and further economic and market disruptions resulting from COVID-19. Any further weakness in the global economy and changes in the current global trade regulatory environment.

We refer you to the documents that the company files regularly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed on February 20, 2020, and the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed on August 4, 2020. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in our forward-looking statements.

We assume no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in our expectations. A reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures disclosed in this call to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures or related disclosures are contained in our press release and on ni.com/nati. NI management will be hosting meetings at the Baird, Stifel and RBC conferences next month. For dates, please visit ni.com/nati.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Eric Starkloff.

Thank you, Marissa, and good afternoon. I appreciate everyone joining us today and hope you and your families remain safe and well. We were pleased to come in above the midpoint of our guidance for revenue and earnings. We're also pleased that despite remaining challenges to the global economy, we did see some improvement in key parts of our business during the quarter. Karen will discuss more details on our results later in the call.

We also continue to make significant progress on our long-term growth strategy, and I will discuss details of that progress now, as well as provide some color on our third quarter industry results before handing it over to Karen. At a recent investor conference, I shared our ambition to disrupt our industry once again, redefining the way our customers approach test and measurement. Software is absolutely critical to this ambition. And test data is also an important ingredient. It is uniquely valuable