Neonode Inc (NEON) 2015 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Hello, everyone. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Neonode's second-quarter ended June 30, 2015, earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions)

Thank you. At this time for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to David Brunton, Neonode's Head of Corporate Investor Relations. David, please go ahead and start the conference.

Welcome and thank you for joining us. On today's call, we will review our three- and six-months period ended June 30, 2015, financial results and provide a corporate update. Our update will include details of customer activities, technology developments, and other items of interest. The prepared remarks will be provided by Thomas Eriksson, our CEO, and Lars Lindqvist, our CFO.

Before turning to call over to Thomas and Lars, I would like to make the following remarks concerning forward-looking statements. All statements in this conference call other than historical facts are forward-looking statements. The words anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, trend, will, guides, confidence, targets, projects, and other similar expressions are typically used to identify forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements do not guarantee the future performance that may involve or subject to risk, uncertainties, and other factors that may affect Neonode's business, financial position, and other operating results, which include, but are not limited to, the risk factors and other qualifications contained in Neonode's annual report on 10-K, quarterly reports on 10-Q, and other reports filed by Neonode with the SEC to which your attention is directed.

Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expected or implied by these forward-looking statements. Neonode expressly disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Thomas Eriksson, Chief Executive Officer of Neonode. Thomas, please go ahead.

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone. Second quarter 2015 was another period where we started to redefine our position as the technology of choice with some of the world's leading computer technology and automotive companies. Our technology is being used or developed in devices ranging from HP printers, Dell PCs, Amazon e-readers, to Garman aviation consoles, Volvo, and 17 other cars, including two self-driving concept models.

During the quarter, we passed all Microsoft Windows 10 tests with our zForce PLUS touch technology. We continue to work with Microsoft to improve the user experience of Windows 10 and now can take advantage of some of the unique features from our technology.

Our customer presence is growing in all of our main market segments. Our printer customers shipped approximately 1 million printers in 2014 and are expected to ship around 8 million in 2015, an 800% increase from 2014. In 2016, we believe our printer customers will ship approximately 20 million printers and this will represent the market share of 20% of the total printer market of 100-plus million units per year.

Our automotive customers started shipping cars with infotainment systems in 2015 and are now on track to ship over 200,000 cars this year. That number is expected to grow to approximately 1.3 million in 2016, resulting in a year-on-year increase of 650%.

Our PC customers are on track to begin production on certain PC devices this year. We know that our PC customers' activities have taken longer than expected, but the exciting part of this market segment is that we now can see the results of our initial product development accomplishment.

Computex in June 2015 was a major milestone for Neonode, as we officially launched and demonstrated our zForce AIR module technology for 10- to 16-inch notebooks. Our Touch-in-Everything focus is gaining momentum and we see zForce AIR implemented -- impact all of our future designs. I will tell you more about this later on.

During this call, I will update you on our main market segments, which are automotive, PC devices, and printers. Plus share some news on our developments in our technology and user interface IP.

Moving on to our PC business, as stated previously, the recent Computex show in Taiwan represented a milestone in our PC business with the successful launch of our single side sensor module called zForce AIR. Response to the AIR module from the Tier 1 OEMs and the ODMs was overwhelmingly positive, with a number of customers highlighting programs for immediate integration.

Based on PC production cycles, we believe we will see notebook devices in the market in 2016. For our PC business, our first AIR module production will be focused on higher volume notebooks; however, we aim to support larger-sized devices, such as all-in-one and monitors as part of our 2016 roadmap.

For notebooks, we are targeting 14-inch and 15.6-inch devices first, where our customers have their highest volume. Our focus in developing zForce AIR was to offer high-performance solution at the lowest cost.

With zForce AIR, the ODM will receive a single low-profile module that can be integrated into any design with minimal impact on development and production assembly schedules. The zForce AIR module allows Neonode to address greater scalability and reduce time-to-market for our customers. We anticipate the zForce AIR module will be integrated into several high-volume notebooks planned for mass production in 2016, with more products being identified as discussions with Tier 1 develop further.

The world of monitors is changing, with growing demand for touch and new designs like curve displays, which already have a 5%-plus market share in the 100 million monitor market. Our zForce EDGE solution for curved monitors and all-in-ones has placed us in a very unique position for this growing market.

zForce EDGE specifically addresses the OEMs' requirements, such as no-glare, edge-to-edge industrial designs, low-cost and high-performance touch user experience. The result is that we are in discussions with several PC OEMs and ODMs implementing our technology into their devices.

We also are working with a number of Tier 1 OEMs on alternate ways to interact with PC devices. For example, we are collaborating on designing slim notebooks that do not have a traditional mousepad below the keyboard on which to use the mouse and gesture control. With our solution, the full keyboard would now support both touch and mousepad function.

Not only will this enable notebooks to be much smaller in size, but it will also represent a major cost savings for the PC companies. Furthermore, it will enhance the user experience, which all the OEMs are looking to offer as a differentiation.

For Neonode, this will increase our revenue opportunities from just touch screen touch on keyboards and gesture functionality. zForce PLUS and zForce AIR complement Microsoft's strategy with Windows 10, overseeing a platform across multiple devices. Through Neonode's technology, OEMs can offer consistent touch user experience across more devices with the same look and feel as non-touch devices at nominal cost levels.

Finally, with our proven technology offering and our Taiwan team in place to support our growing base of customers, we anticipate conversion of a great deal of business in the coming months.

And now over to our automotive business. This was a very exciting quarter for Neonode automotive, coming hot off the success of the Shanghai Motor Show, where we were in 17 models offered by 10 OEMs. I listed these cars on the last conference call.

We estimate that a total of 1.3 million cars using our technology will be sold in 2016. Some of the notable brands include Suzuki Vitara for the global market and the Chevrolet new Cruze and the Buick Excelle XT for the Asian market. We are gaining a great deal of momentum with leading car brands on the back of the success of the all new Volvo XC90, which is now the industry benchmark for quality, cost, and performance.

Our zForce DRIVE steering-wheel technology achieved some important milestones, successfully completing a handover process where the driver gives control of the car to the computers of the autonomous drive vehicle. The driver stays to regain control using our embedded sensors in the steering wheel.

Also, this is early testing -- I and our partners doing the testing believe this is a huge leap forward. The response from the automotive OEMs has been extremely encouraging and prompted us to place greater resources to handle opportunities in front of us.

For our automotive business, we are focused on increasing our footprint within each car by offering touch sensing for sensor controls -- sensing on the steering wheel as well as door handles and tailgate sensors. In total, all our various solutions for the automotive segment represent a very lucrative opportunity in a market of 100 million cars per year.

And now I would like to move over to our printer business. During the quarter, we signed a license agreement with Samsung for their printer business. We feel this is a significant win for our Company, not only because Samsung is one of the largest electronic companies in the world, but more importantly, we see many opportunities to work with them on devices in other product categories. We have a long history of working with Samsung on technology licensing going back all the way to 2006 and we expect to expand our great relationship going forward.

We now have agreements and are working on deploying our technology in printers from four of the top five global printer OEMs companies. Our printer customers combined sell almost 87 million of the estimated 106 million [global] printer sales. This is a testament to the strength of our technology on all levels, including performance, user experience, price, scalability, high production yield, and industrial design.

HP is on plan and continues to release new models of printers to the market each quarter. In addition, our other printer customers are fully engaged in product development and are expected to release products in 2016. We see a very solid licensing business coming from the printer segment in the coming years as more printers are designed with touch, replacing buttons.

And now I'd like to move on to technology development updates. Neonode places great focus and investment on ensuring our technology is evolving to offer market touch and proximity solutions for the best performance and price. Two perfect examples are zForce PLUS and zForce AIR.

We've worked closely with Microsoft to ensure Windows 10 can also take advantage of the many attributes of zForce PLUS. Previous operating systems, such as Windows 8, were designed with capacitive touch in mind, but with Windows 10, as Neonode was involved, optical touch is fully endorsed by Microsoft from the initial design process. And this has resulted in PC OEMs having greater source of touch technology on their devices.

Microsoft is positioning the Windows 10 operating system platform as a single platform across multiple devices. This strategy is perfectly complemented by Neonode's Touch-in-Everything vision. Neonode can complement and enhance the Windows 10 user experience by offering high performance touch experience across all PC devices. This means more devices can offer the full Windows 10 features and user experience as intended by Microsoft.

Moving on to zForce AIR, our focus and development around zForce AIR module is now geared toward mass production with our manufacturing partner. We expect that our partners can deliver volume to our customers for the first quarter 2016.

With zForce AIR module, we have made the technology lead and this involves not only inventing and developing the technology, but inventing and production process, which is proprietary to Neonode. Furthermore, in developing the technology and the production process, it has been done for the sole purpose of ensuring high-performance, low-cost, and unlimited scalability.

The zForce AIR module is now sampling to our best customers, but once in production, zForce AIR will be unlike any other technology offered in the market and opportunities and application are limitless. Keep in mind that with AIR, OEMs can offer touch sensing, gesture sensing, and proximity sensing, too.

According to recent article in the Harvard Business Review, gestures will be the key form of input for Internet of Things. We believe that Neonode's mission of Touch-in-Everything and Internet of Things go hand-in-hand.

With zForce AIR, OEMs can offer intuitive user experience at very, very low cost. It can be touch or sweep in the air or even drawing letters in the mid-air of our device. zForce AIR is the solution for that.

ZForce AIR can also operate completely standalone, transferring touch and proximity data with low energy due to its connection. This technology also enable OEMs to design with greater freedom, as the AIR is a wafer-thin module that can be integrated into any design. And design was not a key feature that Neonode wanted to address when developing this technology. Our AIR module will initially be targeting notebooks and printers and move on to automotive solutions, e-readers, and Internet of Things.

Finally, I would like to update you on the growth of our patent portfolio. Since the beginning of 2015, we have received 29 new issued patents, bringing the total number of issued patents to 89. Just last week, we received US patent number 9092093, a type of steering wheel user interface which covers the steering wheel product we are currently developing with Autoliv. This is our fifth steering wheel user interface patent to issue so far.

I would like you to know that all Neonode products licensed by our customers are covered by numerous patents. As an example, the Neonode license technology in HP printers is covered by 14 patents worldwide and the Neonode licensed technology in the Volvo XC90 in-car entertainment system is covered by 17 patents worldwide.

We have over 100 additional patents pending, so we expect this number to continue to grow. Furthermore, I would like you to know that after substantial investigation, Neonode will be actively pursuing license agreements and royalties for devices that are using the base IP.

While the details cannot be discussed, I can inform you that we believe there is substantial value associated with our user interface IP and we are now in a position to ensure that we are effectively rewarded for their use. With Neonode being a technology licensing company, we will seek royalties, as we do for our touch and proximity technology for their use. Investors interested in our patents are welcome to visit the patent marketing webpage on our corporate website, neonode.com. Click on about us and click on legal.

And now Lars will talk about financial.

Thanks, Thomas. You can find the Form 10-Q and the second-quarter earnings release available for download from the investor section of our website at neonode.com.

Our second-quarter revenues were approximately $2.8 million compared to approximately $900,000 for the second quarter last year. Our revenues for the quarter includes $1.5 million of licensees and $1.3 million of NRE fees compared to $400,000 of licensees and $500,000 of NRE fees for the same quarter last year.

The increase of 221% in net revenues for the second quarter 2015 as compared to the same period in 2014 is primarily due to an increase in license fees of 75% from e-reader customers, including Amazon. And 795% increase from printer sales and sale to $200,000 for our automotive Tier 1 customers' supplying systems to OEMs, including GM, Suzuki, and Volvo, plus NRE revenues from customers.

Last quarter, I talked about an agreement that we entered into with Autoliv to further develop our steering wheel sensor, zForce DRIVE. During second quarter 2015, we received initial payment of $1.5 million and completed the first development milestone. And as a result, recorded $875,000 of revenues.

The licensee revenue distribution per market for the second quarter 2015 is 51% for printers, 11% for automotive, and 38% for e-reader and tablets compared to 80% e-readers and tablets and 20% printers in the second quarter 2014.

Our total operating expenses for the quarter were $3.8 million compared to $4.3 million for the same period last year. The 12% decrease is due to several factors, including lower legal expense related to patent filing, lower non-cash stock option expenses, and some one-time expenses in 2014.

Our net loss for the second quarter was $1.8 million or $0.04 per share, a 54% decrease as compared to a net loss of $3.9 million or $0.10 per share in the same quarter last year. For the 6 months just ended, revenues were approximately $5 million compared to approximately $1.9 million for the same period in 2014.

Our revenues for 2015 include $3.3 million of license fees and $1.7 million of NRE fees compared to $1.3 million of license fees and $600,000 of NRE fees for the same period in 2014. The increase of 168% in net revenues for the 6-month period in 2015 as compared to the same period in 2014 is primarily due to the same reasons as discussed for the second quarter.

Total operating expenses were $7.8 million for the 6 months just ended compared to $9.1 million for the same period in 2014. The 15% decrease in total operating expenses is due mainly to the same reasons that were discussed for the quarter. Our net loss for the 6-month period 2015 was $3.9 million or $0.10 per share, a 51% decrease as compared to a net loss of $7.9 million or $0.20 per share in the same period last year.

Everything I've been talking about here is about execution on our operational plan. Our revenues are increasing across our core markets and our expenses are on plan. So there is (technical difficulty) our cash balance is decreasing as we move towards cash flow breakeven.

For the second quarter, our net cash used by operations were $1.2 million compared to $3.3 million for the same quarter last year and $1.6 million for the first quarter 2015. The [figulance] figures for the 6-months period are $2.8 million for 2015 and $6 million for 2014. As of June 30, 2015, we had cash of approximately $3.2 million and $700,000 of accounts receivable. In other words: $3.9 million of cash equivalents.

Now I would like to turn the call back over to Thomas for some closing comments.

Thanks, Lars. This concludes our prepared remarks and we'll open the call for questions. Thank you very much.

(Operator Instructions)

Cody Acree, Ascendiant Capital.

Thanks, guys, for taking my questions. Thomas, could you possibly give us a little more detail on your expectations for the PC market? You mentioned that that was a bit behind expectations through this year, but you are now looking for something in 2016. Could you maybe talk about your expectations for timing? And then any help with volumes?

Hello. We were a bit disappointed that we didn't see PC products on Computex with our technology. But on the other hand, we had a great show at Computex. There is huge interest for our technology from the OEMs and the PC partners. And I'm also very excited about the fact that we are working now with Dell as a customer and expect to have a very fruitful relationship with them going forward.

However, we are not in charge of Dell's production schedule. We believe these projects are scheduled to be in production this year. This is kind of all-in-one devices.

And in general, Computex was the most successful show for us we've ever been in. I think you should have been there. We met all the OEMs and ODMs and they showed a lot of interest and resulted in actually several new projects that we already started, primarily notebook type of devices. We also showcased our curved and flat touch solution for all-in-ones and monitors with great success. This is really exactly what the monitor guys want: start adoption of touch on all monitors.

And we also demonstrated our new low-cost solution for notebooks called zForce AIR, which is a solution for notebooks that also can support proximity and other type of functions, as I said on the call.

I think everyone also understands it important to touch-enable all the Windows 10 devices so the user can really enjoy the functions you have in Windows 8 and Windows 10, so we are working on that with Microsoft. This module also makes it possible now for ODMs and OEMs to put touch in all of their devices. I think you can see a lot of Windows 8 and Windows 10 devices without touch and that's not really following the strategy from Microsoft to utilize that operating system.

The primary interest for this technology is that we have cut the cost now, so we are down to about $0.25 to $0.50 per inch display compared to, let's say, capacitive touch that sells for $1.50 to $2 dollars per inch. So we have very, very competitive offering now for 2016, primarily for notebooks. But we are also working on products now with monitors and all-in-ones, but they are a bit delayed, unfortunately.

Thomas, so it sounds like Dell will have some possible revenue contribution this year. Is that the way to read this? Maybe with the delay in revenue recognition, it pushes it into next year. But are we to expect notebooks, monitors, some of these other partners that you've been working with in the first half of 2016 or can you just help us with the timing?

First of all, we expect Dell's products will be in production this year. The exact date of that when this product is going to be on the market, we can't talk about. We are working on several other products with them as a customer. Also with HP and other PC companies. That includes notebook devices, all-in-one, and monitors.

Exact when these products are going to be in the market, we can't really say. But we are actively engaged with these companies developing devices right now.

And I guess with the delay versus maybe some of the original expectations several quarters ago, could you just characterize what do you -- how would you, I guess, think about those delays? What were the causes and what is it now that's helping to accelerate those?

I would say, of course, when you develop products, there's always all possible kind of delays. I would say that has nothing to do with us. And their launch plan and what kind of technology they want to put on the market is not our decision.

What I can say is that our relationship with these customers is great. It's evolving and we are developing new products as we speak. And when this product is going to be in the market, we can't really say.

With the launch of now PC business with the ramp of autos, as we look into -- maybe through 2016 and into 2017, what is your revenue mix expected to look like?

Well, it is basically a type of guidance question. But to match these three segments, we had printer segment that is moving on nicely. And we also then expect the other customers we signed up within the print segment to come up with product 2015.

I would say that we will see nice growth in that piece and we deflect growth in the e-reader; automotive continue ramping and PC will take off fully in 2016. Exactly distribution, wait and see.

Lars, what would you expect, though, would be your largest contributor at the end of 2016?

Well, I would say that I would expect the two biggest launch 2016 will be printers and PC.

Perfect. And lastly, Lars, on your liquidity position, could you just talk about your possible inflows of cash? You are getting closer to breakeven; you are not there. You are still burning cash. You've also talked about possibly going after some possible license infringements. That would obviously consume some cash. So maybe just talk about liquidity trends?

Well, I think we had another nice development that we also presented for this quarter that so we can see that the cash burn is decreasing. And we believe based on our cash [flow actions] will be sufficient to operate the Company going forward. And very much built on that confidence we have about the projection we see in the printer, the e-reader market, as well as the automotive that's growing for every quarter, taking bigger share.

We have significant NRE payments that will continue to find us development projects. We have PC customers on the market already late this year. And on top of that, I would like to add that we also have the new technology, zForce AIR, that we think will generate a significant NRE number going forward.

Excellent. Thank you, guys.

Rob Stone, Cowen and Company.

Hi, guys. Lots of great details so far; thanks for that. I wonder, Lars, since you are breaking out now the contribution of the various segments to the royalty revenue for Q2 this year and last year, if you could give us the same percentages for Q1?

Sure, I can do. For Q1 2015, they have printers 34%, e-readers 61%, and automotive 5%. And if you sum up the first 6 months, you will have printers are 42%, e-readers 51%, and automotive 7%. So you can easily see that the printer and automotive is gaining share in the more flat e-reader market.

Okay. And a question for Thomas about the automotive activity. You mentioned there were 17 models at the Shanghai show. Is the timing for the ones that are not in production typically going to be in the fall time frame -- September or something like that? When generally do you expect these cars to start shipping?

Yes, we expect them to start shipping -- some of them this year and the rest beginning of next year. We already have some of the worldwide cars, like the Suzuki, for example. All of the shipping -- we have the Volvo XC90 shipping, for example. And both of these cars are available globally.

There's a couple of cars also that we talked about specifically for the Asian market and so on. So they will come one by one here. And there are already some of them already on the market.

Okay. A question for Lars again on operating expenses, which were down sequentially as well as year over year. How do you see the run rate for operating expenses in the second half? And does your -- the comments in the prepared remarks about pursuing user interface licenses imply that legal expense, for instance, is going to go up?

Well, first of all, we expect, as I also mentioned, other costs to be -- have it be at the $4 million level per quarter when it comes to expenses. That is the range we seek, we feel. We have it very tight under control; monitor it on a basically daily basis. So I will not go into discussing this amount at this time.

Rob, this is Dave Brunton. On the user interface stuff, the way we are structuring it right now we don't expect to see significant legal expenses on it. I mean, that's not in the plan. So just an FYI.

Okay. That's helpful. And finally, lots of questions about PC stuff, but I have one more. PC was one of the segments that contributed to NRE revenue in this quarter. Any color you can provide there would be helpful.

And then you mentioned that you see significant opportunity for NRE with respect to zForce AIR. Help us understand if that's a modular technology that can go into lots of different models. How do you see the NRE opportunity there?

ZForce AIR -- it's a module and that greatly simplifies us to be more scalable as a company. And it can be designed for different sizes and can be integrated in all kind of products. Not only notebooks, but we're looking at this going forward also going into automotive and white goods and Internet of Things kind of applications.

And this type of module you can say is in a cost level where we are really, really much lower than competition. So as I said, we are looking at about $0.25 to $0.50 compared to capacitive solution of about $1.50 to $2. So it's completely new technology for us.

So in what sense are the PC OEMs likely to pay NRE for projects using zForce AIR? Is that in some way to get priority access to your design resources? What is it that would generate the NRE fees there related to zForce AIR?

Because it's sort of a disruptive kind of product. And of course, everyone wants to have touch in their devices. Windows 8, Windows 10 is designed for touch. So of course, this is something everyone is looking for. But at the moment, touch functionality is priced too high and they have to have two different kind of devices and they will look completely different.

This type of technology open up that opportunity. But also similar to, let's say our steering wheel, there's a lot of companies obviously that want to have this into their products quickly and there's opportunity for us to charge quite high NREs.

We have done that before and we continue to do that. But of course, you have to have a technology that is something special. It cannot just be a 10% drop in price; it has to be significant. And I think zForce AIR is something that's significantly lower in price than everything else.

Okay. And finally, Lars, if you could just remind us what you see in terms of NRE payments coming in the second half from the Autoliv arrangement?

Well, from the Autoliv, I think we even disclosed that earlier. You know in total $3 million, of which $1.5 million was an initial payment and that is something that is paid already. But it is -- it recognizes revenue over a couple of milestones, with the final milestone being Q1 2016.

So basically what you have today in the queue to report is $875,000 of NRE revenues, of which $375,000 is related to the initial payment. The rest is related to the development project that has been performed in a very good way so far since we met the milestone -- first one.

Okay. So with roughly $400,000 of NRE in Q2 not coming from Autoliv, roughly how much did PC contribute to that?

I would say that roughly half of it, it is combination of PC and printers. Maybe half of.

Great. Thank you very much.

(Operator instructions) Mike Malouf, Craig-Hallum.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. If I could, Lars, just get a little bit clarity on the cash as we go forward. So we ended the quarter close to $4 million in cash if you include the receivables.

I know that I think you had a target of not going below $4 million, so I'm just kind of wondering as you look into the third quarter, should we expect that quarter to be cash flow neutral? Or are we going to dip down a little bit further than you thought and perhaps the December quarter will be that positive quarter. I'd just like some clarity on that. Thanks.

What we have said is that we expect a breakeven due in this year. Exactly when that will happen, I can't really go into any details. But -- and that piece of it basically what I said earlier. That is that we have a very good confidence in the projections we have now with the automotive, with the printer, with e-reader, and so forth. And naturally with also the NRE projects. All that together really give us good feeling, a good understanding of the projections around the Company.

And when you look at the NREs for the second half, in total or maybe even in a range that would be helpful, what kind of total NREs in the back half are you expecting?

Well, what I think I said last call in the range of $3 million to $5 million for the year. And you can maybe say that we are good way to move up that range.

So maybe on the high end of that range, is that what you are saying?

Could be reasonable to -- yes, could be a realistic assumption.

Okay. Great. And then just a question on the autos. Are you still looking at around $3 to $4 dollars on average for license fees on a per-unit basis?

Depends on the volume, but, yes. We also looking at potentially higher numbers on, for example, steering wheel application. On different sensors, it might be a bit lower. For example, door entry sensors is a bit lower. So yes, in average, yes.

Okay. Great. That's what I had. Thank you.

And we have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks for everybody for being on the call and we will talk to you next time. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.