WiSA Technologies Inc (WISA) 2021 Q3 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Greetings, and welcome to the Summit Wireless Technologies third-quarter 2021 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Kirsten Chapman. Thank you, Kirsten. You may begin.

  • Kirsten Chapman - IR

  • Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the Summit Wireless Technologies third-quarter 2021 financial results call. With us today are Summit Wireless CEO and President, Brett Moyer; and CFO, George Oliva.

  • Before I turn the call to Brett, I'd like to remind everyone of the Safe Harbor statement referenced in the SEC filings. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor of certain forward-looking statements, including statements made during the course of today's call. Statements contained herein that are not based on current or historical facts are forward-looking in nature and constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of Securities Act Of 1934. Such forward-looking statements reflect the company's expectations about its future operating results, performance, and opportunities.

  • These forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to the company and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and other factors, including current macroeconomic uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic; our inability to predict or measure supply chain disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and other drivers; our ability to predict the timing of design wins entering production and potential future revenue associated with our design wins; our growth rate; our ability to predict the customer demand for our existing and future products and to secure adequate manufacturing capacity; consumer demand conditions affecting our customers' end markets; our ability to retire -- hire, retain, and motivate employees; the effects of competition, including price competition; technological, regulatory, and legal developments; and developments in the economy and financial markets and others that could cause the company's actual results, performance and prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements.

  • For a more detailed discussion of some of the ongoing risks and uncertainties of the company's business, I'll refer you to the company's various SEC filings.

  • Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Summit's CEO, Brett Moyer. Please go ahead, Brett.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Thank you, Kirsten, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate you taking the time out of your -- the middle of your day to join our earnings call.

  • Two quick slides just for anybody that may be new, right? Summit is two organizations. In the Summit Wireless side, we develop IP ASIC chips that handle multichannel wireless audio. Primarily, you see those being sold into speakers, some TV companies right now. And we have an association called WiSA, whose function is to make sure that when a signal is sent to a speaker or from a speaker or from a TV to a speaker, there's a clean standard on how that signal should go out and how the signal should be received, and you get interoperability for the consumer.

  • So technically, WiSA manages that standard. But from a consumer's perspective, the WiSA brand is a logo that the consumer knows this TV works with that product, these speakers work with that transmitter, right? So when Summit sells a module and a speaker is certified, each speaker will have one of our modules in it, that will make it WiSA certified, and that's our revenue model today.

  • Some exciting news since the last call. Last week, Rolling Stones called the Platin Milan 5.1 Best Home Theater System. And that's pretty interesting when you think it's only $899 of all the systems Rolling Stones tested. So you'll see that obviously show up in Christmas ads, right? We were able to engage with the two leading HDMI executives that launched HDMI back in the day. So one was Eric Almgren and one is Steve Venuti. One ran the HDMI organization, and one ran all the IP licensing. So we brought them on to help drive our next-generation of technology as we roll that out.

  • And then a series of product launches from our customers like LG, Hisense, Toshiba, Harman, Bang & Olufsen, and Hansong. But really, I think the biggest step on this list besides the HDMI guys helping us is, when we last talked, we had just opened up the Amazon WiSA storefront. And today, we now have five stores that are open and two coming shortly. So now there are seven WiSA stores, not all stores have the same WiSA product, depends what products are handled by each retailer and e-tailer. But it does mean that we're starting to -- we're continuing to drive that ecosystem being built out.

  • From a consumer education traffic perspective, we still expect to see 2 million people, plus or minus, come through our websites, which allows us to drive analytics around them whether they visit us once, twice, three times, whether they've been on the sites a long time, a short time. And we believe there's high-value in those analytics, both for our brand customers and our retailers. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that.

  • Revenue is expected to grow 160%. This is slightly lower than our last call as we had a couple customers enter redesigned projects of existing products so they could design out parts that are unavailable or super long lead times. So those will ship in the first half of next year, is what we anticipate.

  • All right. Just briefly, if you think about what did the Rolling Stones just nominate, Best Home Theater System, $899. So for that $899, you get true spatial sound in the front of the room, right? You've got a left speaker, center speaker, right speaker, not a little soundbar. You got rear speakers. You got a subwoofer. Now you compare that $899 versus an $800 soundbar from Sony, Sonos, Bose, and many others actually. It's a pretty big market segment now for a soundbar with $1,300.

  • We think WiSA is ideally enabling great spatial immersive audio for the consumer with simplicity of setup and lower prices. So that's our model. You can see this picture with that logo and probably some promotional pricing around it, you'll see out in the digital media world. But this is powerful for WiSA itself, right?

  • So this lets us go out and talk about a WiSA system that has been nominated by Rolling Stones as the best out there. But then it lets consumers come into the WiSA ecosystem and think about do they want this one or the next one or the Enclave ones or the Bang & Olufsen ones or whatever their audio preference is, right? So great award. You'll be seeing this floating around the digital world.

  • Now if you remember a couple slides back, we talked about spatial audio. And we've talked about spatial audio for several years in that slide. But what we're seeing is the industry rapidly coming around to our perspective of spatial audio is important. It just can't come from a soundbar. You can use algorithms to simulate it in a soundbar, but there's nothing like using spatial audio algorithms on multiple speakers.

  • And in the Verge, which is a tech rag, you can see Apple, Verizon, Netflix, Amazon, all these articles came out in the last 30, 45 days. So we're pretty excited about the fact that we're moving to a new technology, and the industry is coming around to spatial audio matters. Whether you're listening to music, watching movies, that experience is important. And, yes, algorithms will help it in a soundbar or a small stereo speaker system, but algorithms will do a whole lot more if you got four, six, eight speakers floating around that room.

  • Now we will continue to expand in our next few calls around our next generation. But our vision is that spatial audio is relevant. It's relevant in every room of the house. It can be driven from a phone. You don't need an expensive closed system to run it, right? So WiSA's an open system. You put it on any brand you want. That's our vision as opposed to Sonos or Apple that have closed architectures, right?

  • Three growth drivers still are the same if you've been here before. SoundSend, WiSA Wave headed to 2 million target visitors, and we've got seven national retailers supporting stores and, of course, our next generation of technology.

  • Quickly, we're going to jump right over this, but SoundSend's performing its role. It has given speaker companies confidence that there's a cost-affordable transmitter for WiSA-certified speakers. And it's giving consumers the confidence to know that if they bought, say, Eclipse Hub that's probably now five years old, didn't have Atmos back then. They can go out and keep those great speakers, but buy a SoundSend that does have Atmos.

  • The WiSA Wave headed to 2 million. We think this has broad reach across the industry and lets the brands expose their products. It gives consumers the opportunity to think about spatial audio, immersive audio, and who's shipping what type of products, and lets us create analytics around the marketing for remarketing and resellers to target products too to close sales.

  • When we talk about the analytics, you're going to see WiSA ads, you're going to see -- there's lots of landing pages. You've seen this one before. There's generally a good, better, best selection between brands or bundles. But what we're able to get is demographics, geography, who's shopping, who's spending a lot of time on our sites.

  • And then this allows us to go back and remarket both as a Platin audio brand, but more important to us as an industry leader, right? So with those analytics, one of these retailers and WiSA are currently running joint ads, co-sponsored financially to use the consumer analytics that we have from the Wave and remarket their WiSA products to those consumers.

  • We like the initial results, and we'll continue to expand that. Again, on the right side of this slide, if you think about our positioning on Platin to make sure there's an entry-level for the consumer that competes aggressively against the soundbar. But I got to tell you, we had a director of the company buy the Enclave Pro. He said it's killer audio, which we've been saying for years. So that entry-level and midstream level, those are really great value audio experiences for the money. All right.

  • This current generation of technology, we think, is directly applicable to the soundbar market. We think there's going to be about 42 million soundbars sold next year worldwide. Anybody can run the math, but 5% of those soundbars getting converted into a home theater WiSA-certified system would drive us to $100 million of revenue. That's not what we'll get next year. But to our team, this is a very concrete SAM that we can go out and market around, market against, and deliver revenue for our customers and investors. All right.

  • Gen 2, briefly, we think we are getting close to announcing a solution next year. We think it has a vastly larger market than 42 million soundbars, and it covers hundreds of millions of smart TVs and cell phones and smart speakers and tablets. So we're excited about where we are technically and looking forward to a launch next year.

  • So supporting that launch, you got Eric and Steve. I talked about them at the upfront early in the call, but these are two guys that have been there, done that. So you combine those with the existing Summit team and our technology, and we think we're starting to make great investments for a significant launch.

  • And now I'd like to turn it over to George for our financial review.

  • George Oliva - CFO

  • Thank you, Brett. So Q3 2021 revenue exceeded $1.8 million for the quarter. That's an increase of 198% compared to the same quarter in 2020. The gross margin was 28 points. It's up nearly 10 points over Q3 in 2020.

  • Our OpEx was approximately $3.4 million, which included $400,000 of noncash expenses, primarily stock compensation expense and a small amount of depreciation. That compared to $3.1 million, including $700,000 of noncash expenses in Q3 2020.

  • The loss for the quarter was $2.1 million. That reflects a benefit of nearly $900,000 relating to the forgiveness of the PPP loan that we received in 2020, and that compared to a $3 million loss in Q3 2020.

  • With respect to the guidance for the rest of the year, we adjusted the guidance down to between $6.3 million and $6.5 million for the year. That continues to be an increase of 160% compared to the prior year. The reason for that was very recent information where we had customers who are rescheduling delivery of approximately $450,000 of modules that have been moved out due to their redesign of components that were problematic in the supply chain.

  • So the gross margin for the year continues to be expected between 28 and 30 points. OpEx, we've revised slightly to $13.4 million for the year. That reflects $1.4 million of noncash charges. That represents a $600,000 increase in anticipated spending. The reason for that is attributable to the strategic marketing and engineering relating to the future launch of the next-generation technology. And as Brett mentioned, HDMI team members that we brought in to help ensure a successful launch.

  • The balance sheet continues to be very strong. Cash and cash equivalents for the quarter end was $16.1 million. We're targeting to finish the year at $13 million, and we believe that we're well capitalized for the balance of the entire 2022 year. And that's all I have. I'll give that back to you, Brett.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • All right. Thank you, George. So when we wrap up and think about where we're at, we think the industry is coming around to focus on immersive or spatial audio, and we are the leaders in that space. It's a large market. We've got increasing adoption around WiSA with some really strong marketing around it from our partners.

  • Before we take Q&A, it wouldn't be a call without -- in the holiday seasons without letting everybody know, you could take WiSA $100 and use that at Platin Audio to test out the technology you're making an investment in.

  • And with that, operator, we'll open up the call, but I'm going to let this slide hang. So everybody gets the message.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) Jack Vander Aarde, Maxim Group.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • Great. Good morning, guys. Appreciate the quarterly update.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Good morning, Jack.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • I'll start with a question for you, Brett. So just regarding this -- obviously, it's no secret, the global supply shortage is impacting companies in every industry. It's interesting because it's not having that much of an impact on your revenue outlook for this year now, but it is, nonetheless. So just curious, when you say your customers -- these particular customers are redesigning the products for rescheduling at a later date, what does that mean exactly?

  • Are there other components that suffice that they're replacing whatever component was in shortage? Or do you have any insight there? Is it that flexible where they're just substituting certain components or redesigning an entire product altogether? Just any insight there would be helpful.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes. It's not -- say, if you take a speaker design, you're not redesigning the whole cabinet and drivers and speaker, right? But if you have -- just take an example, a DSP processor in there and you got 50-week lead times, but there's another one that maybe has 15-week lead times or 20-week lead times, that's a substantial change. So it will take time to retune the speaker. But from a hardware perspective, other than probably that one component, it should be -- it will be the same. To the consumer, it will look exactly the same.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • Okay. And then an estimated impact on your revenue of, call it, $450,000, as George said, is that -- does that roughly imply 40,000, 45,000 units, system units that you're expecting would be sold before the end of this year just based on your module kind of ASPs?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes, using $10, that's what it would apply. 40,000 modules, give or take.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • And then how much, given it is kind of -- we're halfway through the quarter almost. In your range for revenue for the year now, it's a pretty tight range, which to me suggests you have pretty strong visibility at this point, especially with the holiday season coming up. I'm sure a lot of the orders have already been placed to stock the shelves and whatnot. So can you just talk about your visibility levels at this point? And then also, any signs of what you expect for maybe the first half of next year given the supply chain?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Well, we have visibility to orders on books, right? We don't have visibility to, as in the case of the adjustment we just made, to other people's problems with other parts until they indicate that through adjustments on the PO delivery dates, right? But we're not aware of any other adjustments to the orders are on the books. So when we look at the Q4 guidance that we gave you, that's around orders on the books plus an estimate of what holiday sales will be for Platin audio.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • Got you. Okay. And then maybe just a last question for me is, it's pretty great to see all these new storefronts and see the WiSA logo being very -- I imagine it's being broadcast now. It's being well received by customers. It's obviously getting great attention from like Rolling Stones and getting good reviews.

  • With the seven retail stores, online retail storefronts from zero last year, just what does this do? I mean that's six incremental new storefronts there from just last quarter. Just what does this do for your revenue momentum or at least your sales momentum in your view? I imagine it's going to accelerate it, but are all these -- are all seven retail store fronts? Do you have -- are you -- do you have high aspirations for all of them? Or is it just the more, the merrier? How are you viewing that from an economic standpoint?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Well, this is seven more than Q2, not just last year, right? So from our point, look, we think these storefronts are very fundamental to building the WiSA category in the consumers' mind and in the e-tailers mind, right? It's hard to do that during COVID. So that's why we've been working on the Wave initiative. We think if you look at some of those e-tailers, and we don't have control over the non-Amazon ones -- since we control Amazon we could do what we wanted.

  • But you -- I know probably half of the others, they now have WiSA listed up there with Samsung and LG as a brand that has to be promoted as a Tier 1 brand. That's invaluable. I think how it drives revenue. I certainly think it drives a lot of revenue next year, some revenue for the WiSA brands this year. But really critical, it sets up the marketing for next year's revenue increases for our customers as soon as they get over their part shortages, right?

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • Got you. And I said that was my last question. Just one more. I think in 2019, you were shipping six brands with WiSA products or there are six brands shipping WISA products. You're on track for 2021, I believe, to ship -- over 25 brands will ship WiSA products. Do you have a number, an expectation for -- or maybe just directionally, of how many brands you expect to be shipping WiSA in 2022? Is it similar? Has that changed? Just curious there.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • What I think -- well, we will -- we are always adding brands, but also, we're always adding more designs with the existing brands. So I think both impact next year.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • So do you think both, it sounds, are likely to increase in terms of brands and the number of systems from each brand?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes.

  • Jack Vander Aarde - Analyst

  • Excellent. Okay. Great. I'll hop back in the queue. I appreciate the update.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Okay.

  • Operator

  • Kevin Dede, HCW.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Hi, Brett. Hi, George.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Good morning, Kevin.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Thanks for taking my call. So I wanted to peel the onion back a little bit more on where Jack was going. Could you -- I mean, you mentioned both brands and designs. And I imagine you just mean specific products. But could you just sort of give us the comparison, audio brands, TV brands, end products, year-end last year and where we are today? I mean, to me, it's about adoption, right? Granted, you've got your HDMI guys, but you've done pretty remarkably without them thus far. So I was just hoping you could dial in on those numbers for us?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Well, so when you're talking about the HDMI guys, you're talking about the next-generation technology, right? So we are anticipating announcing that next year in the first half. We -- but then there's a whole design cycle. So what you're more likely to hear us talk about, say, this time next year is projects in design versus launch because that's a vastly bigger market, right? So they're going to -- the next-generation technology will add to both designs and designs within a brand is what we think. As compared to -- did you ask for comparison to last year?

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Yes. I just -- just in marking your progress. You got the (multiple speakers) stores just since last quarter. That's impressive. Just curious where you are with brands and products year-over-year, both on the audio side and the visual side? If you have that in front of you? If not, you can --.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes. Well, so look, the -- on the TV side, there was LG and B&O. So it's two to five announced with a sixth one coming. On the speaker side, this is totally off the top of my head because my challenge is the brands we're showing you that are shipping or launching this year. I mean, I've seen those brands for two years, right, on the active list. But I would guess, from a speaker side, it's up 100%.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Brands or products, Brett? You lost me.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Brands. Brands.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay. So now what about the products themselves, right, because each brand has multiple?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • I don't know that off the top of my head when you go year-over-year.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. So your press regarding -- I mean, you started this -- your response off with HDMI, that executive team. But your initial press about a month ago, I guess, right, had three gentlemen, but (multiple speakers). Okay. So do you still have three?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • The third one is Roger Isaac, and he's available for us. We brought him on to do a deep dive on the WiFi chips in the pipeline from competitors. And he is still available from a technical reference perspective to help with either competitive research or standard writing. But from a marketing and launch perspective, this is primarily the Eric and Steve Group.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay. And again, you're not really expecting that to kick in for another 12 months. I think that's the way to look at it?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • But we'll announce more next year.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Then, of course, the big one is a little bit more on logistics side given shipping issues. Granted you spoke to module and components for that, but I'm just sort of wondering how you think stuff is getting to consumers this year? And what sort of impact that's having? Just in general versus not that particular module per se?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes. So let's just be clear. On our side, supplying modules, we are fully able, right? And have been all year. So we've managed the shortages with our suppliers. From an industry perspective, if you're asking a broader perspective, I think consumers will find tight supplies at Christmas.

  • So when we look at the Milan perspective, from the Platin audio line, we will do some promotional around Milan around Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday for a brief period, but unlikely to do much more on Monaco, just as we look at the supply timeline coming in on product. So this WiSA $100, that will be the best deal you'll be able to get on Monaco during the Christmas season.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay. Good to know.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes. But I mean, there's going to be -- there'll be shortages for all brands. I mean I think Sonos has talked about it, quite a few have talked about it. We have brands that are strong internationally have not launched in the US because they can't get the pipeline inventory to launch.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • All right. So then the next question is, how do you see that straightening itself out?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Well, that's a million-dollar question.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • No, no, just 64,000, just 64,000.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Well, it's a pretty multifaceted issue. I think post Christmas, the influx and the urgency of the influx of the products will ebb, which helps shipping companies rebalance trucks, containers, railcars, et cetera. I think from a demand perspective, there's two opinions out there. Is the consumer going to continue to spend like they are, in which case brands are going to continue to chase production? Or will there be other events that drive the consumer to back off a little bit?

  • And that's -- to solve the logistics problems, you need the consumer to back off a little bit and you need to get out at Christmas.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • But we know, just to give you a perspective, I mean, a month ago, we had an ODM tell us on around the Platin line that he wanted 50-week lead times.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • 50-week lead times.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • 50-week lead times. That's how tight it is today. But --.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Was that for module manufacture or end product manufacture?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • No, that was for Platin. So that was systems -- speaker systems.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Yes, an ODM, right?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes. Yes.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Wow. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about what you plan on doing at CES?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes. So WiSA traditionally has had -- been in the show, in the booth, in the Venetian. This year, we will have two suites at the Embassy Suites next to South Hall. We will not be officially in the show. We did that largely because when you had to make the decision back in the summer, it was highly doubtful that the -- there'd be a large contingency coming to CES out of Asia. You might have -- and I still think that's true.

  • I can see a small contingency coming, but the reentry going back to Asia is pretty hard for those people. And the value to us as WiSA was being able to, take an example, Sony. We would have five different waves of visitors from a brand, a company, right? And so you've got management, you've got product management, you've got engineers.

  • And if you don't have that, it's smarter, I believe, for us to continue to drive the expansion of the WiSA category through the Wave versus spending a lot of money on being inside the CES trade show. We will have a next-generation demo in those suites for NDA-only visitors.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay. Would you -- you mean the Gen 2 demo, that's what you're --?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Correct. Correct.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Okay. Can you just -- can you speak a little bit to the advantages there given NDA potential here is slim to none?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • So if you think about Gen 2 versus Gen 1, I think the first -- the first 5 gigahertz product will be already a substantial -- substantially lower price. As we've said, there will be some performance softening. But that performance softening will be within the requirements of, say, Dolby and the main brands.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Well, I thought one of the other advantages, too, Brett, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you get eight channels out of that or more?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • We've got eight channels now, right? We've got eight channels now. And we have not launched a product, Kevin. So we're not really going to go much further down this conversation until we're ready to launch a product.

  • Kevin Dede - Analyst

  • Fair enough. Message understood. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you, George.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Thank you, Kevin.

  • Operator

  • Ed Woo, Ascendiant Capital.

  • Ed Woo - Analyst

  • Yes. Congratulations on managing the chip shortages pretty well. You said you guys haven't really been affected this year. Do you have enough visibility to know if you guys will be impacted next year if the chip shortages continue into 2022?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Well, so actually, look, we have not been affected until this call by the shortages in terms of guidance that we've given you, but it certainly has capped our growth this year, right? You just didn't see it because we didn't -- we managed expectations, all right? So let's be clear. We -- if there would have been part shortages, our revenue numbers would have been, I think, significantly different.

  • In terms of next year, the challenge is not my supply chain into me, the challenge is my customers, and it's very hard for us to know their problems. But the fact that we see a couple redesigning out of some known problem parts is optimistic for me because that means their volume drops out of those problem parts, and those parts then should become available for other customers.

  • Ed Woo - Analyst

  • Great. And then another question, we're beginning to see a lot of inflation in various places out there. Has inflation been an issue for you? And is it going to impact possibly having to either raise prices or take lower margins?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • It has been, it is, and it will be. So we did increase prices on September 1. There's likely to be additional price changes in Q1. We're trying to sort through what's transitory versus permanent. It's pretty hard. On the audio products, so the Platin product line, brutal price changes on that. So as the new inventory comes in in Q1, there will be price point adjustments.

  • Ed Woo - Analyst

  • Great. And the guidance for this quarter of gross margins of 28% to 30%, that's already incorporated the inflation that you've already seen?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes.

  • Ed Woo - Analyst

  • Great. Then my last question is, thanks for talking about Gen 2 and giving us anticipation for next year. How long is the lead time from when you announce it to when consumers can expect to see the products on the shelves?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • So here's what I'll say about that. Part of the reason we launched the Platin line is so that we would have an early adopter of next generation. So when we announce the next-generation product and timelines around it, I would expect that you'll see the Platin line launch a product, using it, let's just say, within four or five months.

  • Because it helps the sales cycle, right, to be able to tell prospective customers that this technology is in the consumers' hands. And Kevin Dede, thank you for that order and taking advantage of the WiSA $100. I'm sorry, I just saw that order come through. So that's what you'll see first. From a normal design cycle, it's probably 12 months, for a big company, right.

  • Ed Woo - Analyst

  • Great. Thanks for answering my questions. Wish you guys have a great holiday, and wish you guys good luck. Thank you.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • All right. Thanks, Ed.

  • Operator

  • Marty Elbaum, Horizon Networks.

  • Marty Elbaum - Analyst

  • Congratulations, Brett and your team. I think your company is very exciting. It's unfortunate that a lot of the financial community really doesn't know about the company or supporting what you guys are doing. One of the problems that I have, one of the issues I have, maybe you can give us some clarity on this, when will this company become profitable? When do you see that happening? And that's very important because if you keep losing money, not a good situation. So when can we see a turnaround and the company turning profitable?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • So profitability is one component of valuation. The other component is value of the business opportunity, right? So if you think about now through the next 12 months, well, we have said consistently that margin generated from the Platin sales would be used to drive the WiSA Wave in the category for the whole WiSA ecosystem.

  • So that's why if you look at our P&L, you see our OpEx has gone up, but so has gross margin. So our burn has still stayed roughly in the mid-2s, right? Yes. From a -- so that's on the current generation technology. We're going to use that margin to drive the category on our next-generation technology that will require continued investment until probably late next year.

  • So just to give you perspective, Marty, the value of the company is going to be first built by announcing a second-generation technology at a much lower cost and a much broader market into the WiSA ecosystem that we've been establishing the last two years. That's going to be the first. That will be a bump in valuation regardless of our P&L. Following that, as design wins come in, you'll see the P&L positively impacted.

  • Marty Elbaum - Analyst

  • Okay. Clarify this, maybe I misunderstood or misheard you. Did you say that generation 2 could do $100 million? Was that a number you threw out before earlier in the conference call?

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Earlier in the conference call, what we talked about was the SAM for our current generation product, right? And that was -- which is on the screen now, I've gone back to it. There's about 42 million soundbars. If 5% of those got converted to Enclave Audio or Klipsch or Harman or Platin audio or Bang & Olufsen audio, right? That would drive about $100 million revenue for us.

  • So we think the current generation, not -- we think the next-generation of technology is a massive market. But we think there's -- given where we are today at $6.5 million of revenue projections, we think just the current technology has a lot of legs to drive revenue for us over the next several years.

  • Marty Elbaum - Analyst

  • That would be unbelievable. If you did $100 million, your company would be very profitable. That would be unbelievable. You'd have a story -- unbelievable story.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes, we're not going to get there next year, but we're going to chip away and grab that market and convert soundbar people to immersive sound. But that's the short term. And, yes, two years from now, three years from now, the next-generation technology that we'll talk about next year in the first half, yeah, then you have an even bigger market. But it will be a bigger market with an established WiSA industry category.

  • Marty Elbaum - Analyst

  • I think it's very exciting what you're doing with the WiSA brand and building the structure of the company. And certainly, it takes an investment. But I think you're going in the right direction. I think you're building a company for the future, which we're excited about. And we're supporting. And we like (technical difficulty) a lot. And I think the future looks very bright for you, and I think you're doing a great job. Keep up the great work and congratulations.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • We appreciate the support. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Brett Moyer for any closing comments.

  • Brett Moyer - CEO, President and Chairman

  • Yes, I'd like to thank everybody for the Q&A discussion, for participating. Certainly, I'm available if you have other questions. It's an exciting time of year for us, both for marketing our customers' products through the WiSA Wave and moving into next year and a new technology launch.

  • So I will remind people, you can use the WiSA $100 save on Platin audio. It's got a limited number of uses, so jump on in there. And personally, I'd buy the Monaco over the Milan, but the Milan is cuter, and it sounds great. All right. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.