Nova Ltd (NVMI) 2010 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Nova Measuring Instruments third-quarter results conference call.

For your information, today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host today, Mr.

Kenny Green, CCG Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator, and good day to everybody.

I would like to welcome all of you to Nova Measuring Instruments third-quarter 2010 results conference call and presentation, and thank management for hosting this call.

With us on the line today are Mr.

Gabi Seligsohn, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr.

Dror David, Chief Financial Officer.

I'd like to draw your attention to the presentation that accompanies today's call.

The presentation can be accessed and downloaded from a link on Nova's website at www.nova.co.il.

Before we begin, may I remind our listeners that certain information provided on this call may contain forward-looking statements and the Safe Harbor statement outlined in today's earnings release also pertain to this call.

If you have not received a copy of the press release, please view it in the Investor Relations or News section of the Company's website at www.nova.co.il.

In addition, during this call, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed.

These are used by management to make strategic decisions, forecast future results and evaluate the Company's current performance.

Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures is useful to investor's understanding and assessment of the Company's ongoing core operations and prospects for the future.

Gabi will begin the call with a business update, followed by Dror with an overview of the third-quarter financials.

We will then follow with the question-and-answer session.

I would now like to hand the call over to Mr.

Gabi Seligsohn, Nova's president and CEO.

Gabi, go ahead please.

Thank you, Kenny, and thank you everyone for joining today's call.

Q3 was another excellent quarter with record performance achieved in all aspects of our business.

Bookings during the quarter were at record high levels, providing us a solid revenue foundation for the fourth quarter, and well into the first quarter of 2011.

As previously mentioned, the extended use of our products by leading manufacturers has deepened our partnerships with them, and we are now part of a larger capital expenditure plan.

This state of affairs provides us with better visibility, enables operational flexibility, and allows us to meet challenging lead time requirements.

During the third quarter, we continued to execute on our strategy of expanding our customer base with a standalone metrology product line, adding two new Foundry customers, and one new Memory customer.

This trend has continued throughout the year and provides an excellent platform for our future growth next year, which I will discuss later in today's call.

On the integrated metrology front, we continued to enjoy leading market share and record level business volumes, with many fabs ordering and installing dozens of tools per fab.

Given the significant challenges experienced by our customers as they move to new technology nodes, the extent to which integrated metrology is being deployed is higher than it has ever been.

The reason for this is that our integrated metrology tools allow customers to control their process much more tightly when combining our tools with process control software.

Customers have come to rely so heavily on integrated metrology that process tools equipped with onboard metrology will no longer run without them.

With three quarters of the year gone, it is clear that Nova's business has scaled to a different level.

Our strategy continues to focus on high value products which are able to generate favorable margins and enable us to continue at present profitable growth.

Today, towards the end of 2010, we are a much stronger company.

Our business has significantly scaled upwards.

Our addressable markets have expanded and allowed us to occupy a much wider portion of the wafer fabrication process.

Our market share is expanding rapidly, and the technology we use is so disruptive that in many cases it is altering the way process control is dealt with.

We have a very strong balance sheet, which provides us with the financial flexibility to further scale our business.

And most importantly, we have built a seasoned global management team which gives me great confidence in our ability to carry the company towards further growth.

In addition to paying attention to excellent execution quarter after quarter, we understand it's vital to also plan long term.

The challenge is to identify opportunities to reinvest profits in high-return projects that will fuel continued profitable growth.

Our recent performance and positive outlook is due in large part to our determination to maintain our R&D commitment at a relatively high level during the down-cycle.

As challenges evolve continuously as the market matures, new initiatives are required in order to be able to capitalize on opportunities.

In the past year, we have spent time and effort assessing opportunities as part of an overall strategy to grow the Company to a much larger scale.

Our approach to the issue has been simple.

First, in-depth discussions with our strategic customers to qualify their current and future challenges.

This is where the breadth and depth of our customer base is so important.

Secondly, narrowing the focus to areas that pose significant process control challenges and require advanced technological solutions; in other words, identify areas that exploit our strength.

Thirdly, to further sharpen our focus on differentiated products which support the customers' needs as well as providing adequate returns to support our financial model.

And finally, qualifying and introducing the capabilities through joint development programs with the customers themselves to ensure solutions meet their needs and to secure their commitment.

We have done a lot of homework and I am pleased to say that there is no shortage of high potential projects which merit a commitment of resources beyond our current R&D run-rate.

We have selected those we think will generate the highest return and will be devoting resources in the coming quarters.

As we said at the time of the secondary offering, we are confident that we have sufficient operating leverage being generated by previous strategic initiatives to remain highly profitable despite the need to moderately increase expenses.

Dror will provide more insight into the related increased expenditures in his prepared remarks for today's call.

Meanwhile, we prefer not to give specific details at this point for several reasons, including competitive considerations and our duty to keep customers' plans confidential.

We do want to emphasize that this is -- this moderate increase in our spending relates to new capabilities that customers will want to employ in the 2012 to 2013 timeframe, not to work that is required to sustain our near-term position.

Our excellent results, balance sheet and strong cash position that enable us to invest and grow profitably demonstrates that success does indeed breed more success.

Now, let me turn to the overall market trends as they affect us.

The last few months have demonstrated the importance of the mobile revolution.

The tablet PC market has exploded and reached numbers that far exceed anyone's previous expectations.

Tablets are now the fastest-growing electronic systems of all times and are apparently taking market share away from notebooks and netbooks.

Also growing at an impressive pace are smartphones, which today represent 33% of all ICs manufacturers and are expected to represent 64% by 2014, according to Gartner.

The need for low-power technology to support this trend is evident and has made flash memory into a key component as well.

With this consumer revolution comes a much larger need for bandwidth created by cellular networks.

Today, developed and developing countries lack infrastructure to support user volumes and the expectation is that high-end computing needs will grow as a result.

At Nova, we have been extremely fortunate to play an active role in all these markets.

For example, we have recently calculated that 80% to 90% of all chips contained in the iPhone come from wafers that our tools measured.

This is no coincidence since we are so widely spread within the fab supply chain which manufactures components for the iPhone.

The most significant beneficiaries of this mobile revolution are our key customers, namely, foundries and flash memory manufacturers.

According to Gartner, tablet PC unit sales will reach close to $20 million this year, are expected to double in 2011, and reach close to $100 million by 2013.

Playing a critical role in these manufacturing processes solidifies our ability to grow with this market.

Our belief is that capital intensity will have to continue to grow as product design will shrink and that the need for process control will grow even faster in light of process complexity.

Listening to TSMC's call last Thursday, I couldn't help hearing the statement confirming this expectation when Morris Chang, Chairman and CEO, said that future generations will be increasingly more capital-intensive; 28-nanometer capacity is already twice as expensive as 65-nanometer capacity; 28 is two times more expensive than 65, and this is a quote from his words.

Now, let me turn to our outlook.

In today's press release, we stated our fourth quarter and full-year guidance.

For the fourth quarter of 2010, we expect revenues of $24.5 million to $26 million with net profitability of 26% to 29%.

In terms of the Company's existing 2010 annual guidance of revenues of $78 million to $85 million and net profitability of 21% to 24%, we expect to reach or slightly exceed the top end of this guidance.

Having doubled our standalone customer base during the course of the year, we believe we have laid solid ground for further growth into the future.

We believe the stage is set for a good start for next year given the solid bookings received during the third quarter, and in light of the fact that most of the penetrations with standalone will be recognized early next year.

We believe the adoption rate of Optical Metrology will continue to grow at a pace that will outgrow the overall equipment market.

With several new fabs announced for next year in both the Memory and Foundry segments, we already know the significant role Optical Metrology plays in these plants, which in turn provides us with a significant growth opportunity.

And with that, Operator, let me now turn it over to Dror for a closer view on the numbers.

Dror?

Thank you, Gabi, and welcome everybody to our quarterly conference call.

The last few months have been very exciting for us, shifting gears in each important element of our business, which has led us to present record financial performance in all key metrics.

Total revenues in the quarter were $24.2 million, up 25% quarter-over-quarter and up 112% over the comparable quarter of last year.

Product revenues in the quarter increased by 28% over the second quarter of 2010.

Shipment distribution between customer segments was similar to the previous quarter -- 75% for the Memory segment, and 25% for the Foundry segment.

In parallel service revenues increased another 9% to $3.9 million.

During previous discussions on our P&L model, we mentioned that we are targeting blended gross margin of 55% based on product gross margin of 60% and service gross margin of 35%.

We are pleased to report that we have hit this target in the current quarter.

During the quarter, blended gross margins increased by 203 basis points, quarter-over-quarter, reaching 56%.

Product gross margin increased by 104 basis points to 60%, mainly as a result of higher revenues utilizing existing infrastructure.

Service gross margin increased from 31% to 34% as a result of the increase in revenues, both in service contracts and time and materials.

As Gabi mentioned, we've well-executed on our penetration plan during recent quarters.

As a result, our sales and marketing expenses have significantly increased during the third quarter, and was the main reason for the increase in overall operating expenses to $6.4 million.

We believe this investment is imperative to support further customer penetrations with each of our product lines.

Given the extent of business opportunities we see in front of us and our plans to generate additional growth engines for the Company as explained by Gabi, we will further increase our operating expenses during the coming quarter.

This increase is already backed into our profitability guidance for the fourth quarter of 2010.

Most of the planned increase is expected to be in research and development towards new and enhanced product development projects.

During the quarter, we reported net income of $7.3 million with net margins at record level of 30%, reflecting our high operational leverage, the continued increase in the value we offer to our customers, and the rapid increase in business volumes.

EPS in the quarter was $0.27 per diluted share on a share count of 26.5 million shares.

Operating cash flow came in at $7.9 million in the third quarter.

It is worth noting that the Company generated over $20 million in operating cash flow in the last four quarters, reflecting significant operational leverage and effective working capital management.

Moving into balance sheet key metrics, accounts receivable was $13 million, higher than the previous quarter, while DSO decreased to 44 days relative to 50 days in the previous quarter.

Looking into inventory levels, we saw an increase from $8 million in the previous quarter to $10 million in the third quarter of 2010.

This increase is comprised of two major elements.

First, an increase in inventory to accommodate to market demand.

Second, an increase in inventory of systems, which were placed at new and existing customer sites for an agreed evaluation period.

This increase is comprised mainly of our latest product, the NOVA T500 and the NOVA i500, which are gaining market traction.

Inventory turns came in at 4.8 times a year.

As discussed at a previous conference call, we moved to the direct sales model with additional customers during the first three quarters of 2010.

In some cases, this move changed the revenue-recognition timing of systems from recognition achievement to recognition upon customer acceptance.

As a result, deferred revenues increased sequentially during recent quarters, reaching $6.6 million at the end of the third quarter of 2010.

Capital expenditures and depreciation came in at $0.5 million and $0.4 million respectively, higher than the previous quarter as we continued to enhance our application, demonstration, and manufacturing facilities.

During the quarter, we did not increase our headcount.

Looking forward, we have plans to increase headcount mainly in research and development to support our plans for new and enhanced product development projects.

I will conclude with cash reserves, which increased to $55 million in the quarter.

As Gabi mentioned, this cash level provides us with the needed financial flexibility to execute on our business plans for the coming years.

Gabi?

Thank you, Dror.

And with that, Operator, we'd be happy to take questions.

Operator?

Thank you so much, sir.

(Operator Instructions) We'll pause for a brief moment in order to allow our queue to assemble.

Our first question today comes from Edwin Mok from Needham & Company.

Your line is now open.

Yes, thanks for taking my question, and congrats for a great, great quarter.

Thank you.

Great finish to the year as well.

So first question I have is just in terms of this mix.

So you guys talked about Memory being roughly around 75%.

Do you expect that to change in the December quarter, and also in terms of mix of integrated versus standalone?

Any color you can provide us in terms of how much each piece was in the third quarter and going to be in the fourth quarter?

Yes, regarding the spread between Foundry and Memory, I will say that Foundry is going to be a little bit up in the fourth quarter.

So I think the ratio may change a little bit.

We had a quarter in which it was 50-50, another one were it was 70-30, now it's 75-25.

I see that Foundry orders are coming back a little bit in the fourth quarter and a little bit beyond that.

So I think Foundry orders will come up.

As far as the breakdown between integrated and standalone, we won't provide those kind of details for competitive reasons.

But what I will say is that the integrated metrology business has come up very, very significantly.

And as mentioned in my commentary, we have customers that are ordering really dozen of tools and installing them.

So I will say integrated metrology was very, very strong in the quarter.

The penetrations continued, and we had press releases during the quarter that spoke about the penetrations with standalone.

And as mentioned, a lot of the revenue associated with the penetrations is going to roll into next year, which is actually we're quite happy about that.

Yes, I want to follow with that.

Based on your commentary, it sounds like a lot of those wins you guys have secured, it's more first half of '11 that you start to see revenue for those products.

Is that how we should think about that?

And the further question also to add is, I think a few months ago you guys had announced a number of customers that you guys are working with both in-house, standalone, in store.

And I think at that time the number was 10 customer that have your stand-alones to in-store.

Also you guys said, I think, looks like at least three of the -- (technically difficulty) -- Memory has turned into actually production order.

I was just wondering how many more customer that you guys are working with at this juncture that has not turned to production yet, and could potentially be growth driver in the coming year?

It's obviously due -- (technical difficulty).

Okay, just to reiterate, so the question was related to the number of standalone penetrations and also regarding the revenues, whether you should see the revenues from the penetrations already happening in the first half of 2011.

Right.

So for the second question, indeed, the revenues are expected in the first half of 2011 from the penetrations already made.

As far as the number of customers that we have penetrated, actually we have exceeded our goal for the year, and have reached the number that we thought we would reach in 2011.

By the end of this year, we're going to have 14 customers in standalone metrology.

Great, that was very helpful.

And then just talk a little bit about application.

I think before you guys -- I think if I go back a year ago, some of your application was more related to copper metrology, and subsequently you guys have penetrated other applications as well.

Just wondering, all these 12 customers that you guys are penetrating, is that still mostly copper metrology, or is it even a lot more diverse?

And would that be incremental business so you can try for each customer given that if they all qualify, one-time profits you might be able to get (inaudible) with the other process as well?

It's actually diversifying which is quite pleasing to us.

What we're seeing is that the copper side is actually moving a lot to integrated metrology.

The move from 4X to 3X technology node is requiring many manufacturers on the Foundry side, and then when I talk about Memory as well to move.

But mostly in Foundry, I'd say to move from start sampling scheme to wafer by wafer measurement which requires integrated metrology.

So a lot of integrated metrology going to copper.

I will say that on the standalone front because in the manufacturing process it's one step after the other.

The next area which is being controlled is the etch area.

And therefore a lot of the optical CD applications are moving in the direction of etch.

And so I see the etch market as a growth segment right now.

We're seeing more and more activity right now on etch, both in the backend, which is related to the copper, but also in the front-end.

And I will also say that we're seeing a lot of high-end thin film applications which are associated with the gate structures that are being used today, for instance in high-k metal gates.

We're seeing a lot of thin-film applications coming to life as well.

So actually the diversity is growing.

Also some work continues in litho, and actually we have a few interactions that are increasing in litho.

So I think it's actually expanding, which is what we were hoping would happen, what we knew would happen because of the long-term joint development programs that have gone on.

And one of the nice things again is this technology.

And that's why we believe it in so much is able to measure things that in many cases are un-measurable on other techniques.

For instance, one of the areas that is becoming very, very difficult to control is silicon-germanium, which is a very, very complicated -- creates a very complicated structure and there's hardly, if at all, any other means to measure it other than optical CD.

So I think overall, this technology is really taking us to many more places in the fab.

It has been part of our strategy to expand into more areas in the fab.

And I'm glad to say that that's exactly the trend that's happening.

Great, that was helpful.

And one last thing just to draw, I -- if I look at your guidance right, basically your net margin for your guidance is lower than what you guys put up on the September quarter.

And I understand, as you said, part of it is the increased operating expenses which you were planning to do that anyway through an increase in R&D expense.

However, is that -- am I to assume that gross margin will stay at this 55% to 56% range and just all the increase will come from operating expense?

Or is there some moving parts there that could lead to a more conservative guidance in the coming quarter?

Well, in general, we do expect gross margins to stay at these levels.

Evidently, it depends on the mixture of products.

But in the coming quarter, we expect it to remain at the same levels of 56%.

Hence, the change in the net profitability relative to the third quarter is mainly related to the increase in operating expenses.

I see.

And then on -- actually it increased quite sequentially already, right?

This $3.6 million, I think your comment is that increase on OpEx, a lot of it comes from R&D.

You guys kind of look longer term, do I think that -- should I assume that SG&A probably can stabilize at that high $3 million to maybe $4 million range or do you think that maybe it can still be -- can be more increase in SG&A assuming that obviously you guys continue to do a top line [raise]?

I think we should expect and our plan is to keep SG&A at the same levels except expenses which are related directly to revenue volumes.

So in general, SG&A should remain at the same level.

Great, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Edwin.

Ladies and gentlemen, our next question today comes from Arnab Chanda from ROTH Capital Partners.

Your line is now open.

Thanks very much.

Several questions.

First, Gabi, if you could talk a little about -- there has been a -- some of the fabless companies have reported slowdowns for Q4.

If that has had -- what you see in terms of capital spending both on the capacity as well as on the technology side from some of your Foundry customers?

And then if you also could talk a little bit about what's happening in your Memory side with NAND and DRAM where there's obviously been some -- there's been some talk about pricing coming down as well as there's obviously the market share of some DRAM guys are starting to -- trying to regain market share.

So if you could talk qualitatively about those kind of trends, that would be great.

Sure.

So regarding Foundry and indications from fabless companies, I think that there are few things that are driving what's going on in Foundry right now.

Part of it obviously is capacity-related, and we know the plans for capacity increases which are still moving forward at several of the foundries.

But I will say also at the same time, what's going on is that there is a transition which is moving at a faster pace than before to qualify 28 or 32-nanometer devices, and at the same time develop 22 nanometers as well.

We have frequently spoken about this war that's on right now, between the top three in the foundry space, namely TSMC -- or top four I'd say, with TSMC, UMC, Global Foundries, and Samsung.

And we play in all those cases.

And what's going on right now is there is a real race on yields and qualification of these processes in the next technology node.

So we actually see tool orders that come both from continued capacity increase.

Albeit, I will say that capacity increase at the current technology node of 45 and 65 has already slowed down.

But we already see that actually there's deployment coming in at the 3X, or the 28 or 32-nanometer technology node.

So actually I think that the foundry space is actually having to invest significantly into technology because of this race that's going on.

Those words I brought from Morris Chang, I think, are a good indication of how they look at capital intensity and how much money needs to be spent in that area.

Regarding flash and DRAM, 2010 has been a huge DRAM year for us, no question about it.

And also quite a bit of shipments into flash.

We also see what everyone sees on the DRAM side, where after several quarters of ASP improvements things have slowed down and ASPs are coming down on the device level.

And therefore, I think that DRAM is slowing down.

There's still orders coming from that direction, but it is slowing down a little bit.

On the NAND flash side, I see quite -- I see robustness looking forward, and I think the order volume is quite good still.

So that's kind of a summary of what we see in the market.

Hopefully, that helps you understand how we see things.

Yes, thank you.

And maybe a couple more questions if I could.

First is for Gabi; if you could talk a little bit about 2010 year, maybe not by quarter, just by year, qualitatively where you see that -- how do you see the year shaping up?

Because obviously coming from the trial times of 2009, you've seen a lot of products increase.

What do you expect to be driving that?

Is it capacity in Foundry?

Is it the technology in foundry?

Is it memory?

And then second question would be for Dror; if you could talk a little about -- if you look at your margins have actually come quite nicely up and you're talking about almost a 30% operating margin for Q3.

Do you think that's a sustainable level or do you think that's basically kind of -- that you're basically at your model and we should have seen revenue growth is going to be the driver for earnings from here on?

Thank you.

Okay.

So I'll try to -- in your question, you mentioned 2010.

But then I understood you're talking about the outlook for 2011, as far as how we see things shaping up.

Clearly, the way we see things is both the foundry and the flash memory space, are the ones that continue to be strong next year.

And it's really for the reasons that I mentioned earlier on, foundries first of all -- because there's huge demand, I mentioned obviously the tablet market and the smartphone market, we're driving quite a bit of that growth.

And then flash, of course, is impacted by that directly.

So I think that the foundry and the flash memory side is where the health continues.

As we have always said, we are exposed to Foundry and Memory, all types of memory.

And when things go on in that market, we enjoy that.

As far as what all this works up to, and as far as we're concerned, right now we believe we're well-positioned to continue to grow in to next year because of the exposure to the right market, because of the fact that optical CD is displacing more and more technology and going to more places in the fab.

And again, as we have said before, these penetrations which we have succeeded in are expected to generate repeat orders.

And we see the level of design in and the incremental orders that come as a result of it which lead us to the conclusion that we're well-positioned to continue to grow next year.

Dror, maybe you want answer the other question.

Yes, hi Arnab.

With regard to the net margins, evidently the increase to 30% net margin is related also to the steep growth in revenues.

As you can see in our guidance for the fourth quarter, we guided between 26% and 29% because of the need to increase operating expenses.

In general, we feel comfortable with net margins at around 25%.

And as Gabi mentioned, we are committed to profitable growth, and evidently to again reach 30% net margin will require higher revenues.

Thank you, Dror.

Thanks Gabi.

Thank you Arnab.

Our next question today comes from Robert Katz from Senvest International.

Your line is open.

Hi Gabi and Dror.

Great quarter, guys.

Hello.

Congratulations.

Quick question about the OpEx.

Can you give a little more clarity on how much you expect R&D to grow over the next few quarters, and does it level off at a certain point?

Yes, definitely.

Well, as I said, the increase is baked into our guidance for the fourth quarter, and this increase should bring us to between $7 million a quarter to $7.4 million.

And this is already, as I said, baked into our Q4 guidance.

Most of this increase, if not all, will be in the R&D.

So we do expect significant increase in the research and development in the coming quarter.

And looking forward, as you can imagine, we are in the process of designing our plans for 2011 and we will share with you our plans in the coming conference calls.

So just to clarify, your OpEx in Q4 will be in the $7 million to $7.4 million range, up from $6.4 million?

Yes.

This quarter?

Yes.

And then you expect R&D to level off there at that level?

Yes.

Okay.

And secondly, is there any way to categorize how much of your revenues now are coming more from a capacity spend versus a node migration?

There is a way.

I don't have the number in front of me right now.

But we definitely understand when things happen, what they're related to.

I will say that a lot of it or even most of it is node migration.

But I'm happy to say that node migration happens with capacity increases these days because, the speed in which manufacturers need to turn things around from moving to new technology nodes to actual capacity is very, very short.

And so I say sometimes these two categories combine with another.

But everything we do almost these days is at the very highest end.

And therefore, a lot of it or most it is technology driven.

Right.

And finally a question about the -- I know you -- it was asked earlier, the breakout of revenue streams standalone and integrated.

But maybe there is another way you can talk about that in terms of what the future looks like for the Company; in terms of what role standalone will play in terms of revenue growth over the next year or two?

I think our long-term model, without referring to when that's going to be, is to try to have the Company in a situation where with the current products it's about 50-50.

That's the long-term plan as far as revenues are concerned.

Of course, unit numbers would be different because of the ASPs which are completely different from one another.

But that's our long-term plan.

As to when that actually happens remains to be seen.

But I think that with the number of customers that we have penetrated, many of which are actually at the top ends of semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, they have spending power to allow us to get a lot more business in the future.

So I'm quite confident that these penetrations really do lay the solid foundation that I keep referring to looking forward and that I -- therefore I do believe that we will reach this long-term model.

Obviously, the hope is obviously at much higher revenue levels.

And will the standalone ever become an in-process tool or is it more of a back sampling tool?

It's actually completely in-process.

I mean, this is all inline monitoring where the standalone stands between process equipment and actually takes and measures samples of wafers as they're being processed in a particular process step, be it CMP, etch, litho, CVD.

So it is actually inline.

What I will say is that customers change their sampling scheme based on the variability of the process that they're dealing with.

And so you will see customers that only measure three or five wafers per cassette of 25.

And in some cases and certain critical layers, they will measure all the wafers.

So our strategy has been to provide a product that's able to deal with all different types of scenarios.

And therefore, indeed this is an in-line monitoring tool and completely associated with the manufacturing process as it takes place in real time.

And just one more question.

The increase in R&D, is that related to a new tool that addresses a new market for you or is it just more of a roadmap for existing tools?

Does it expand your market, addressable market, or is it just something that you have to add more features to be competitive?

It's a combination of the things that you had mentioned and therefore the idea, and that's why I mentioned that quite a bit of the investment going forward will be for things that happen in 2012 and 2013.

Some of it is associated with expanding the addressable market.

Some of it is associated with delivering more capability to the existing market.

And will you be able to charge up for those new capabilities?

Charge up, meaning?

Oh, you mean increase the average selling prices?

Yes.

Indeed, I mean, our focus is to look at capabilities that offer more value to our costumers.

And our industry is very, very much focused on analyzing the return on investment on anything that they do.

And therefore, indeed, the idea is to add more content and more capability, and as result of it see the ASPs on a continuous increase.

Right.

Thank you, guys, and best of luck.

Thank you.

Thanks.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question today comes from Greg Weaver of Invicta Capital.

Your line is now open.

Good afternoon, and nice job.

How much is the shekel increase impacting the OpEx numbers?

Well, in the last quarter, we have seen depreciation of around 4%.

Because we are hedged around six to eight months forward-looking, we did not see any impact in the current quarter, and we will not see any significant impact in the fourth and probably the first quarter.

In general, 4% depreciation in the exchange rate is equaling around $0.5 million a year.

So it's not a significant impact at the current rate.

So, is that a rolling hedge?

Yes, we have a rolling hedging policy, and we are currently hedged on the previous higher exchange rates until approximately the middle of the first quarter.

Right, and you keep rolling that forward, okay.

And so in terms of the R&D increase here, so it's about 25%-35% sequentially depending.

And is that a function of headcount or are you spending other money on tooling?

Can you give us a sense of your hiring there?

Yes, definitely.

It's a combination of headcount and additional tooling and materials for the development.

Any sense of many folks are in R&D today, and where do you see that going?

Well, I think we have around 70 people today in R&D, and we expect to increase that by around 15% to 20%.

Okay.

Over what timeframe?

The coming quarters.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Greg.

Our next question today comes from private investor, [George Marimar].

Your line is now open.

Great execution this quarter, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I've got a couple of questions.

The first one is, what do you guys estimate as the total market size in 2011 for standalone, in dollars?

2011 total standalone market opportunity is probably about somewhere between $120 million to $170 million or so.

Okay.

And if you look out to 2011, at least as what you can say publicly, how do you feel about your technology leadership, and what would be the risks, the main risks you see to growth in 2011?

Well, as far as technology, I think that the number of penetrations we have made are very strong indication that we offer leading-edge capabilities and the customers are quite happy with what we're able to offer.

As far as technology-associated risks, I think that the way to deal with that is to have an aggressive roadmap and keep developing capabilities that actually outperform what other competitors are able to offer.

So that's how we look at it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) As we have no further questions at this time, I would like to hand back over to your hosts for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you everyone for joining today's conference call.

Look forward to speaking to you on the next call.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today's conference.

Thank you for your participation.

You may now disconnect.