Universal Display Corp (OLED) 2016 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Universal Display's first-quarter 2016 earnings conference call. My name is Angela and I will be your conference operator for today's call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Miss Darice Liu, Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Thank you, Angela, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Universal Display's first-quarter earnings conference call.

Joining me on the call today are Steve Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sid Rosenblatt, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before Steve begins, let me remind you that today's call is the property of Universal Display. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of any portion of this call in any form without the express written consent of Universal Display is strictly prohibited.

Further, this call is being webcast live and will be made available for a period of time on Universal Display's website. This call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live webcast of this call, May 5, 2016.

All statements in this conference call that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 such as those relating to Universal Display's corporation technologies and potential applications of those technologies, the Company's expected results, as well as the growth of the OLED market and the Company's opportunities in that market. These include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Universal Display's beliefs, expectations, hopes, or intentions regarding the future.

It is important to note that these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause Universal Display's actual results to differ from those projected. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the Company's periodic reports filed with the SEC and should be referenced by anyone considering making any investments in the Company's securities. Universal Display disclaims any obligation to update any of these statements.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to Steve Abramson.

Thanks, Darice, and welcome to everyone on today's call.

For the first quarter of 2016, we reported revenues of $29.7 million, operating profit of $2.5 million, and net income of $1.9 million, or $0.04 per share. Since our last earnings call, the OLED landscape continues to expand from new product launches, capacity announcements, equipment bookings, a robust pipeline of OEM design activities, including much chatter about additional OEMs adopting OLED technology for their smartphones.

The OLED ecosystem is bustling with excitement and activity. Just last week, Samsung Electronics during its first-quarter earnings call announced that its OLED shipments grew quarter-over-quarter and OLED earnings improved.

This was driven by the launch of new high-end OLED products, notably the Galaxy S7. Speaking of which, Samsung's new flagship smartphone was launched to tremendous reviews, including being named by Consumer Reports as the best smartphone it has ever reviewed. The S7 Edge was named its second-best.

At last month's SciTech, during his keynote speech, Samsung Display's CPO discussed OLED's infinite market potential (inaudible) applications such as mobile devices, TVs, virtual reality, augmented reality, automotive, and public information displays.

Samsung added that OLED's potential may materialize through various form factors including foldable, rollable, stretchable, mirror, and transparent. With LG Display, flexible OLEDs and OLED TVs are all the buzz.

With Flex, LG reaffirmed the E5, its first Gen-6 flexible mobile OLED line, will commence operations in the second half of 2017. Additionally, LGD noted that its mega fab P-10, a hybrid of Flex and TV production, is on track for completion by the second quarter of 2018. And to boot, a day after its earnings call, LG Display announced an additional $270 million investment to boost its flexible OLED capacity.

On the TV front, LG Display reiterated investment plans to increase its OLED TV production by 75%, and 34,000 Gen-8 plates per month to 60,000 plates per month by the second quarter of 2017.

We're also seeing OLED TV market activity growing. In addition to reaffirming its OLED TV shipment target of 1 million units this year, LG Display entered into a strategic technology partnership with Danish high-end consumer electronics designer Bang & Olufsen.

In conjunction with their partnership announcement, B&O stated its plans to launch its first OLED TV in 2017. This expands the growing list of OLED TV OEMS, which includes LG Electronics, Panasonic, Philips, China's Skyworth, [Tang Hong], Haier, and Konica.

Outside of Korea, OLED display activity in Taiwan, Japan, and China is progressing nicely. AU Optronics continues to focus on wearable and virtual reality products. Boxcon purchased a controlling stake in Sharp, and according to reports, Boxcon plans to invest approximately $1.8 billion in Sharp towards OLED displays.

Sharp's OLED target is to ramp production capacity to approximately 10 million units of 5.5-inch panels per month by 2019. In late February, BOE Technologies signed a deal with the Chengdu government for the second phase of its new Gen-6 LTPS/AMOLED fab. The total investment for this flexible OLED plant is approximately $3.7 billion for 48,000 monthly plates of capacity, which is expected to be installed in two phases.

On the lighting front, activity continues to flourish. In March, we announced our OLED lighting evaluation agreement with OSRAM. Later in the month, LG Display announced plans to build the world's first Gen-5 OLED lighting plant which is expected to come online in 2017.

The first phase is expected to be 15,000 substrates per month. LG Display plans to initially focus on task lighting and decorative lighting in high-end retail stores and in luxury hospitality and then expand into the general lighting market. LGD will also focus on automotive and convergence applications such as OLED light panels merged with furniture, architectural materials, electronic devices, and more.

And debuting last week at the Beijing Motor Show, Audi rolled out its 2016 TT RS with optional OLED taillights. According to Audi, OLEDs emit an extremely homogenous high-contrast light. The light can be continuously dimmed, it does not cast any shadows, nor does it require any reflector. Audi added that OLEDs opened the design world from 2-D to 3-D, are efficient, lightweight, and visually impressive.

It's an amazing time for OLED as the level of commercial and developmental activity increases in the both the display and lighting industries. And with the OLED industry continuing to gain traction with consumers and OEMS, the future of OLEDs and our Company has never been brighter.

Now let me turn the call over to Sid.

Thank you, Steve. And again, thank you, everyone, for joining our call today.

Revenues for the first quarter of 2016 were $29.7 million, compared to first-quarter 2015 revenues of $31.2 million. Our total material sales were $24.3 million in the first quarter, of which commercial was $22.1 million. Commercial emitter revenues were up 8% year-over-year and flat quarter-over-quarter.

Commercial host sales were negligible in the first quarter of 2016, compared to $4.4 million in the first quarter of 2015, and $1.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Green emitter sales, which include our yellow-green emitters, were $17.9 million in the first quarter, up 25% sequentially from fourth-quarter 2015's $14.3 million, and up from the comparable year-over-year's quarter of $14.4 million.

Red emitter sales were $4.3 million in the first quarter, down 40% sequentially from the fourth-quarter 2015's $7.7 million, and down from the comparable year-over-year's quarter's $6.3 million.

Material buying patterns can vary quarter-to-quarter. As we saw in Q4, red emitter sales were up but green was down. In this quarter, red was down and green was up. Some of the contributing factors for this include efficiency gains, contractual pricing reductions, and material ordering patterns.

Our first-quarter 2016 royalty and license fees were $5.3 million, compared to $4.4 million in the first quarter of 2015. The quarter does not include any Samsung license fee which is $75 million for 2016, half of which is recognized in the second and fourth quarter of the year, respectively.

Moving along to material costs. Material costs for the first quarter of 2016 were $5.1 million, down year-over-year from first quarter of 2015's $8.6 million due to negligible host sales. The minimal host sales and emitter product mix resulted in first-quarter 2016 material gross margin of approximately 79%, compared to first-quarter 2015's material margin of approximately 68%.

First-quarter operating expenses, excluding cost of materials, were $22.1 million, up year-over-year from the comparable quarter's $20.9 million. For the year, we continue to expect OpEx to be up around 10% to 15% year-over-year, principally from growth in R&D activity.

Operating income was $2.5 million for the first quarter of 2016, compared to $1.8 million for the first quarter of 2015. During the quarter, we incurred an income tax expense of $900,000, or a tax rate of 32%, unchanged from the comparable quarter in 2015.

For the first quarter of 2016, we reported net income of $1.9 million, or $0.04 per share, compared to $1.3 million, or $0.03 per share, for the same quarter in 2015. Shifting to the balance sheet. We ended the March quarter with $396 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments of approximately $8.40 of cash per share.

Moving along to guidance. Our outlook for the year remains unchanged. As we noted in last quarter's conference call, we expect 2016 to be a year of building. We continue to expect our 2016 revenues to be up 15% year-over-year, or around $220 million plus or minus 5%.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Steve.

Thanks, Sid. Last month, we celebrated our 20th year of listing on NASDAQ by ringing the opening bell. It was a wonderful milestone that we share with our employees, customers, partners, and shareholders.

Looking back for a moment, Universal Display was founded on a vision. A vision of creating energy-efficient OLED technologies for displays and lighting even before flat panel displays were mainstream, and bulky CRTs were still in everyone's home.

We took the Company public in 1996 with just the Princeton University research contract, no full-time employees, and a pending patent. Since our inception in 1994, we have invested over $370 million in research and development to advance our Company from a startup to a leading player in the global OLED ecosystem.

We continue to heavily invest in a number of strategic OLED materials programs for new and next generation red, green, yellow and blue emitters and hosts. As well as expanding our core OLED technology competencies, including phosphorescent, device architectures, and manufacturing processes and equipment.

Since we went public in April 1996, our market cap has grown from $47 million to over $2.5 billion. Since we rang the NASDAQ bell on our tenth anniversary ten years ago, our revenue has grown from $10 million to $191 million, a CAGR of 36%. And this is just the beginning.

With OLED lighting transitioning from development stage to commercial, new applications like automotive emerging in both the display and lighting industries, and with the OLED display penetration at only about 10% of the total consumer electronic display market, we believe that our long-term growth trajectory remains strong.

On that note, operator, let's please start the Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) Jim Ricchiuti, Needham & Company.

Sid, I heard your comments about operating expense being up I think about 10%, 15% for the year. But you're starting off the year, it seems to be, at a lower level. How do we think about OpEx in Q2? Should it be up? Can you give us some sense sequentially how we might think about it?

Yes. Well, I think for the year we still expect it to be up 10% to 15%. I think it will be up in Q2 over Q1, specifically in R&D. And so I think you can add some percentage. I don't specifically know but it will -- we do expect it to be up. We expect to ramp up the R&D and we are ramping up the R&D efforts at this time.

Okay. And then for the year as a whole, the way you're characterizing the year up, it sounds like you're still assuming more of a back-end loaded year? Or maybe if you could just help on that score. Your guidance is 15% and 5% plus or minus. How should -- how do we think about the linearity of the revenues over the course of the year?

I think we should be seeing (technical difficulty) earnings to grow gradually over the year. It is more back-end loaded.

Okay. Is there any way to tell -- last question for me. Is there any way to tell within the revenues at this point the level of activity that you might be seeing from players who are beginning to invest more heavily in the market? Outside of your two core customers.

And then maybe you could just characterize the level of business that you're seeing from customers outside of the two Korean players you work with.

We are seeing some additional activity. If you look at Customer C, it is up actually to 6%. And it is a new customer. It is not the same customer that was Customer C in prior quarters.

So we're starting to see small amounts of activity. And really, once they get capacity on and they start early production and trying to shake out the equipment that you'll see any real increases. And that's not until the end of year and next year.

Okay. Thank you, that's helpful.

Thanks.

Thanks, Jim.

Brian Lee, Goldman Sachs.

I just had two -- these are probably for Sid on the model. If I look at the royalty and licensing revenues, I'm just trying to better understand how the trajectory and cadence works since there's no Samsung impact here.

And if we ferret out what the Samsung impact was in Q4, I would've assumed that the royalty and licensing revenue number would've been much larger, given if you look at your next biggest customer for that line, it's LG.

And their units sold in Q3 of last year, went from 90,000 to over 200,000 units in the TVs in Q4. And that would be the number off of which you're recognizing for Q1. So just trying to understand the interplay between their unit volumes and what you're recognizing in terms of royalty revenue there.

That is a good question and LG Display, our customer -- royalties are based upon the number of units sold. And they priced [to get] per unit. LG Display sells both mobile panels and OLED TVs to -- and they also sell wearables.

It's the reported the sales that you're reporting are Sam -- are LG Electronics. So it's rear -- when LG Display sells to LG Electronics may be different timing than when LG Electronics reports their sale.

Okay. No, that's helpful. Second (multiple speakers) question --

-- in there. We do have some other customers that are in that line, also.

Of course, yes. Fair enough. And then second question was just on the margins. So I think there was a lot of consternation last quarter, if I recall, with your gross margins on materials coming down.

And then this quarter, obviously, it's bounced right back up into the high 70s. So as you guys were mentioning during your prepared remarks, last quarter red was up, green was down. Gross margins were down. And this quarter, red is down and green is up and now margins are back to the high 70s.

So just wondering if you can talk us through the interplay of mix and the impact on margins.

Yes. It's, as with revenue, it's difficult for us to predict quarter to quarter based upon product mix. And whether we introduce new materials into a quarter or whether it is existing materials where you may have some contractual pricing declines that have kicked in.

So it's not really related to color. It's really -- it's our emitters and we think that emitter margins, as we said, are 70% to 80%. They are different per color. But we just blend them all together.

So and not having any host in this quarter, even a small amount of host, affected the margins in the prior quarter. Because the margins on a host are much lower. So we still expect it to be between 70% and 80%. Will it be 78% or 79% next quarter? I would say more than likely it'll come down a little bit.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Brian.

Osten Bernardez, Cross Research.

Just to begin with, would you be able to comment as to whether you think or are assuming as you do long-term modeling for the Company as a whole that your -- at least your two largest customers, LG Display and Samsung Display, go -- will be able to, I guess, start up their new production that's anticipated later this year and early 2017 more efficiently than they have historically?

I.e., do you assume that their knowledge base in terms of being able to start up production has increased to the point where there will be less waste when they start production? Or do you assume that start up yields were always challenging, regardless at this point in the --

I think they have -- they are manufacturers and they are getting more and more experienced. And I think start up efficiencies are probably better. But if you just want to look at our -- looking at just the start up piece of it, I do believe that they are probably more efficient and better when they just add lines.

I think they know what they're doing. And it's -- you're not wasting a lot of material when you do that. And there's a number of variables that impact our material consumption, as you're well aware, which includes the recipes.

Whether using new colors or older colors, doping concentrations, manufacturing process, [stack] composition, common layers. There's all kinds of things that impact our materials.

Got it. And then I just want to clarify a point to -- with respect to an earlier question on the timing of licensing fees received from LG Display. They will be, in my understanding, for instance, last quarter for -- in the first quarter, they shift about.

LG Display noted that they, themselves, shipped almost about 200,000 units. And so is -- so I presume that we would see the benefit from a licensing standpoint for you. Do you see sometime within -- if I'm not correct -- mistaken, in the second quarter? Is that correct?

And if so, will we see that -- the differential in non-Samsung related licensing fees sort of increase on a like-to-like basis?

Yes. It is -- there is a quarter lag. So in any given quarter, we won't report that till the subsequent quarter. And --

Okay.

LG sh-- they're not -- you're talking about LG. It is TVs, wearables, and mobile.

So we won't -- so we should see that incremental (inaudible) increase in that --

Yes. And --

-- line item. Okay.

And just -- the -- one caveat. I don't know what the answer is, but it is pricing. So they may have shipped more units but as their volumes go up and as they get more efficient, and as you've seen pricing on the TVs coming down, there are pricing declines. So it is a formula based upon price times the royalty rate.

And at this point, should we just assume no more host revenue going forward?

I don't think you should assume much host revenue in 2016.

Thank you.

Thank you, Osten.

Hendi Susanto, Gabelli & Company.

You mentioned that LG OLED displays contains a wearable, TV and mobile displays. If I look at the revenue figures in the 10-Q, can you help me understand the significant increase in revenue at LG?

I would assume that the biggest driver at LG is OLED TV. But as far as I know, there's no major OLED TV launch in Q1 or in Q2. Would you please share some color on that?

I -- LG is Customer A in this quarter. They are the largest customer in this quarter. And it is based upon TV production, I think would be the largest thing -- the largest amount that they purchased materials for.

If I interpret that, there's -- let's say there's no major OLED TV launch in Q1 or Q2. Can I assume that they may stock up your emitter materials in their inventories?

That we don't really know, to be honest. I don't -- we can only speculate on what their inventory management systems are. I don't know anything for sure.

Okay. And then there's been some speculation that one big major consumer electronics would adopt OLED display in 2017. Would you refresh our memory about your two PPG facilities, what the scale at this point? And whether there's any plan to increase it?

We're constantly looking at our needs for the future. We have -- we added capacity at PPG in Barberton, Ohio. And we are in no place near at our max capacity at this time.

We are doing long-term planning because, as you're -- as Steve stated and we're all well aware, that there is a lot of additional capacity coming on in 2017. And we want to ensure that we are ahead of the curve. And that we will add capacity in advance of when we need it. So we are constantly assessing that.

I see. And one last question. Steve and Sid, you say that R&D will be higher this year. Any update on the progress of blue emitter materials?

We continue to work very hard on the blue materials. It's a work in progress but we have nothing to announce at this point in time. That's --

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Jed Dorsheimer, Cannacord.

I guess just first, I don't mean to belabor a point that's been asked a few times. But just with respect to the LG recognition of the royalties and LG Display versus LG Electronics.

Why would the -- would it delay longer if it's LG Display versus what LG Electronics is reporting? Wouldn't it be the other way around that LG Display would be shipping the product and recognize that to LG Electronics before LG Electronics reported that?

Yes, there's no doubt. If I led you or if I stated that was not the case, they obviously have to ship them to LG Electronics so that they can sell them.

So the question then is, if we look at the ramp from the 90,000 to 200,000 with respect to the TVs, we should've seen that this quarter. So just from a magnitude perspective.

I guess that, I think, is the point that certainly I know our investors are going to be asking. Our clients will be asking tomorrow. Could you help clarify that?

Well, I -- we're not taking account the fact that it is a total revenue that we'll receive from them, which is for TVs, wearables, and mobile. And whether there are pricing declines, and I believe as they continue to grow, as you're seeing pricing declines on the TV side as for the consumer, I suspect that there are pricing reductions from LG Display to LG Electronics.

And I think in the wearable market, there's probably declines, also. So you have to take into account everything to get to an apples to apples analysis.

Got you. So in the event that LG Display, for example, was taking a loss to or reducing -- whatever their pricing scheme is to LG Electronics, that's what it's based on. Not on what we see in terms of the end product in the market in terms of that pricing.

That's correct. That is --

Okay.

-- that is correct.

That helps. I guess just with respect to the red emitter materials, your largest customer every year changes its formula or recipe. This year I think we're on the M-7 structure.

And it would seem that volumes pricing schemes of your business is somewhat tied to where we are in that phase. When I look at the green materials versus the red materials, is that a greater function of simply timing of -- or in order of red that either didn't go into this quarter? Or is it a better indication of what that structure looks like?

In other words, if I look at the difference, as your customer changes the thickness, for example, of how much green versus how much red and how much blue, is that what we're really seeing here with respect to the red or green?

Well, the one thing that I'd just like to add that our green emitters include our yellow-green, which you know what it's used for. So the fact that it's just not apples to apples, it's not all just the one customer.

So and yes --

Okay.

-- they always are adjusting their recipes and looking for more efficiencies. There's no doubt that they will continue to do that. But in our green, it includes an increase, as we said, in our yellow-green emitters.

Okay. And I have two more questions, if I could fit it in. So if I look at the way in which the contract with Samsung, the parts that -- or from what's available to the public, what's not redacted out.

It would appear -- I guess, my question is whether or not I'm looking at this correctly. But it appears to me that Samsung is -- cannot use any other -- anyone else's emitter materials, if those infringe on your patents, until 2018.

And I ask this question because there are other platinum- and iridium-based materials out on the market. They certainly don't have the same efficacy as your materials. But based on that contract, your largest customer could not use any competing materials to yours, at least until that expires. Is that correct?

Well, they've agreed to purchase -- we have guaranteed minimums of our materials that they've agreed to purchase. And they cannot buy materials that would infringe on our IP.

Okay. And then I was wondering if you could help maybe just in order of importance, ha-- as you're looking at this, as we look at the landscape that's unfolding with respect to the purchase of Foxconn's Sharp business and other Chinese companies that are looking to get into OLEDs. As well as Japan Display, there certainly seems to be a lot of potential licensees that are out there for you to sign.

But as we start to approach to the expiration of Samsung the end of 2017, it would seem like still your revenues are mainly tied to that one customer. And so from a level of importance perspective, is there anything that you could -- is Samsung just the primary focus right now in terms of inking a longer-term deal with them? Or any color or commentary I think would be useful.

Jed, we're focusing on all of our customers and our (technical difficulty) potential customers. Because we think we're really only at the beginning of a long growth cycle of this OLED -- in this OLED space.

So you not only have the two Korean companies, which are the bulk of our revenues today. But moving forward you have the Chinese companies and the Japanese companies that you had mentioned that have expressed a lot of interest in getting into this market over the next few years.

Okay. Thank you, guys. I'll jump back in queue.

James Medvedeff, Cowen and Company.

So most of mine have been answered. I'll -- okay. So on R&D, can you -- and that looks like it's going to be a significant influence -- sorry, increase quarter-to-quarter through the year. What are you spending that on? What is the focus of R&D this year?

We're focusing principally on new material development both on emitters and hosts.

Hosts as well as emitters?

Right.

Okay. Also, just looking at the numbers, there appears to be a couple of million dollars unidentified of emi-- of material sales. 17.9 is green, 4.3 is red, something minimal for green hosts. That leaves about $2 million. Could you -- are you able to say what that is?

They're devome-- developmental. We always just talk about commercial material sales. But we still have developmental sales. And we only break out the breakdown between the commercial material sales. So we do still sell developmental materials in developmental quantities to customers.

Okay. And just for clarity, developmental is not based on the fact that you're developing them, it's based on the fact that the customer is using them for development of product. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. Finally, there's -- I just noticed in the balance sheet, a $14 million jump in other investments. What's that about?

That's actually some cash that's invested in long-term -- more than one year. There are some (multiple speakers) --

Oh, I see. So that's (multiple speakers) --

There are some rates that were advantageous. So we put some cash in those.

I see.

Some are (inaudible). They're short-term investments and long-term. So in this quarter --

Understood.

-- we actually just put some into some stuff that was more than 12 months.

Okay. Finally, the license and royalty line that people have been asking about, are there any new customers in there this quarter?

Yes. There's -- well, they're customers we've been working with. And we do have a -- we did report some from a new customer in this quarter.

Okay. All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Andrew Abrams, SCMR LLC

Most of my questions have been answered. But I just wanted to kind of walk through red again. Red has been pretty steadily increasing on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

It -- is the function here more oriented toward an over-buy, which is fairly typical in fourth quarter? And then an under-buy in first quarter? Or are there other major factors involved other than what we normally would consider efficiency and mix and things like that?

I think based upon it being up in Q4 and then down in this quarter, I think it's more what you said. That's what I believe, that they over-bought in Q4.

Right. And on the green side, the -- I know you can't tell us directly. But the incremental difference between kind of the run rate that you were going at in first and second and fourth quarter and this run rate. Can you quantify that in terms of green, new green materials, or yellow-green?

Yes, we -- as you know, Andy, we don't break them down between yellow and green and new and old materials. We just give you the totals.

Okay. Thanks.

So --

I tried. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Andy.

This now concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back to Mr. Sidney Rosenblatt for any additional or closing remarks.

Everyone, thank you for your time today. We appreciate your interest and support. And we wish you all a good night. Thank you.

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