Earnings Labs

Universal Display Corporation (OLED)

Q3 2008 Earnings Call· Mon, Nov 24, 2008

$89.62

-1.76%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Michelle and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Universal Display Corporation’s earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions) Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Paul Johnson on behalf of Universal Display Corporation. You may begin the conference.

Paul Johnson

Management

Thank you and good afternoon everybody. Thanks as always for joining us today. With us today are Steve Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Sid Rosenblatt, Chief Financial Officer of the Universal Display Corporation. Let me start as always today by reminding you that this call is the property of Universal Display. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the express written consent of Universal Display is strictly prohibited. Further, as this call is being webcast live it 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, November 6th, 2008. 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. 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. Universal Display disclaims any obligation to update any of these statements. With that said, I would like to turn the call over to Steve Abramson, CEO of Universal Display Corporation. Please go ahead, Steve.

Steve Abramson

President

Thank you, Paul, and welcome everybody to today’s call. This quarter’s call will follow our traditional format. I will review highlights for the third quarter and provide some comments on the state of our technologies in the OLED industry. Sid will then review the financial results for the quarter and nine months in detail, followed by your questions. I would like to begin this quarter’s call by addressing something on everybody’s mind, the state of the global economy and markets. Obviously, there have been significant developments since the last time we talked in August. I am not going to go into detail. We all know the headwinds that this economy is facing; however, I do want to put you at ease with regard to Universal Display and our position in the market. While we are not immune to the current economic environment, there are many reasons to feel confident about Universal Display as a company and an investment. We have always understood the strong capital position was an absolute must for us in both good and bad markets. For this reason, we chose to raise capital when we did not necessarily have to do it. That decision was a prudent one giving us the necessary reserves and resources to continue on our current path of growth, seek new innovations in our Universal PHOLED and other proprietary OLED technologies, and gain increased traction in commercial licensing and material sales for small- and large-area OLED displays as well as OLED lighting applications. The core reason to be a Universal Display investor remains as evidenced by the wide array of new products on display at the FPD Show in Tokyo last week. Manufacturers continue to be bullish on OLED for the future. As of many things about the current economic situation, it is…

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Steve. And again, thank you everyone for joining us today. I will begin today with the review of Commercial revenue and developmental revenue, and then discuss the specific components of each category in the quarter, commercial chemical, royalty and licensee revenue on the commercial side; contract, research, developmental, chemical, and technology development revenue on the developmental side. Revenues for the quarter totaled $2.6 million compared to $3.1 million for the third quarter of 2007. Total commercial revenue during the quarter was approximately $1.3 million compared to $1.4 million for the third quarter of 2007. Commercial revenue stayed relatively constant between the two quarters because commercial revenues from Samsung SDI, now Samsung Mobile Display were essentially the same. This is a result of the Samsung’s production capacity remaining constant over these two periods. Commercial chemical revenue and royalty and license fee revenues for the quarter were $1,025,000 and $276,000 respectively compared to $1,185,000 and $183,000 respectively for the third quarter of 2007. All of our commercial chemical revenues for the third quarter of 2008 were attributable to sales of our Universal PHOLED materials to Samsung. During the same period in 2007, the majority of our commercial revenue was from the sales our material to Samsung. In the third quarter of 2007, we also sold small quantities of our materials to two other commercial chemical customers. Royalty revenues were received under our patent license agreement with Samsung. Under that agreement, we received royalty reports at a specified period of time after the end of which in a quarter royalty bearing products are sold by Samsung. Consequently, the royalty revenue from Samsung for the three months ended September 30th, 2008, reflects royalties for products sold by Samsung during the second quarter of 2008. Royalty revenue was $128,000 [ph] for the third…

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti of Needham & Company. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Good afternoon. Steve, in your opening remarks, you alluded to AU Optronics planning to restart their activities in the OLED market. You guys have had an agreement with them in the past, I wonder can you talk a little bit about how that relationship could unfold? Are they still a licensee?

Steve Abramson

President

No, our relationship with AU Optronics in the past was that we sold the material and we recorded material sales revenue and license fee. During this hiatus, we have obviously maintained a good relationship with the company and we continue to have a good relationship with the company now that they have restarted their efforts. They are obviously one of the largest flat-panel display manufacturers in Taiwan and their re-entry into the OLED business is, I think, a very good sign. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: A question on the – on royalty and license revenue in the quarter, it is down sequentially and I just – we have seen reports – I am sure you guys have as well of Samsung SDI showing some softer shipments in Q2, so if that in fact were true, would that explain the sequential decline in you royalty revenue in this quarter?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

The royalty revenue, I believe, is up. It is the license fee revenue that is down. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Okay, thanks for correcting me.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

The royalty revenue was up, so – as compared to that and that would be for the second quarter. When we have a commercial supply agreement such as the one that Steve alluded to with AUO and some others, when we sell material we record commercial chemical sales to them and included in that is a license fee. So, the reason that it is down, we only sold commercial materials in this quarter to Samsung SDI and we did not have any commercial materials which we would also record a portion of as license fees to others customers that that commercial supply agreement, so it is the license fee portion that is down because the commercial chemical sales to customers other than Samsung are down. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

You are quite welcome.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Darice Liu of Maxim Group. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: Good afternoon guys. Steve, in your prepared remarks you had mentioned that there were some ongoing evaluations for your green material with a number of your customers, can you provide a bit more color what stage of the trial runs you are at, and when do you believe we will start seeing your green material in commercial products?

Steve Abramson

President

Well, we are at various stages with various customers trying to move the green materials and technology into their products. I suspect that we will be seeing green phosphorescent in 2009. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: And should we expect to see it in more than one customers’ product?

Steve Abramson

President

We are working with more than one customer and I would hope that to be the case. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: Okay, fair enough. And then, in terms of the industry landscape, you had mentioned that there is still ongoing activity in spite of the macroeconomic growth, but are you seeing any terms of slowdown in capacity spending or are folks still trying to ramp up just because the industry is so nascent?

Steve Abramson

President

Well, we are watching very closely. Thus far, we have not seen any – or we have not heard of any delay to orders or any deferred capital expenditures, but we are watching that very closely. What we are seeing so far is that the development activities and the commercialization activities are still moving forward very nicely. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: And are you seeing any new players coming to the game in terms of either wanting just to try out the technology or actually planning to go into this area as a special buyer?

Steve Abramson

President

Well, AUO is, I guess, we can describe them as a new player. At the flat-panel display conference in Japan, there were some new players involved in OLED lighting that were showing some OLED lighting, so we are starting to see some interest from some other players as well.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

And to add to that, there is – you can see an increase in this quarter in developmental chemical revenue compared to the prior year by a significant amount, so it is still the same number of customers, but there are two customers that we mentioned that purchased a significant more amount of materials in this quarter than in the past, so I think that is a precursor looking at the commercialization. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: Fair enough, and then in terms of Samsung, now that they are officially merging with their sister company Samsung Electronics that has a much larger treasure chest, does the mechanics of the relationship change in anyway?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Currently, we see no change. They are integrating the companies together and our agreement with them will run through 2010, and we have seen no change in that, and relationship is still very good. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: And the last question, just a quick housekeeping question, Sid in terms of R&D, should we be modeling a slight sequential increase or are we staying around this area?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Well, I think this area is probably good. What we have included in there is cost of patents and that in this period are a little bit higher than in the past, but I do not think you need to model anything significantly different than you have seen in this quarter. Darice Liu – Maxim Group: Okay, thank you guys.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Sure, thanks Darice.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jed Dorsheimer of Canaccord Adams. Jed Dorsheimer – Canaccord Adams: Hi guys, thanks. I guess I have one main question, but three different parts. The first is, if I look at OLED, if we look at some of the challenges, it seems to sort of narrow into three different categories, the first being in display applications, the backplane with amorphous versus low temp, and then the second being scaling whether or not you are going to use a pattern RGB or using RGBW, and the third is in terms of a physics issue with the lifetime of blue, and I was wondering if you could update us on each of those three challenges because it would seem as if many of the companies are dabbling just to – for lack of a better word, keep a hedge on the position of OLED, but the commitments are few out there and there seems to be some fundamental challenges still and trying to figure out whether or not we have actually hit some physics road blocks in each of those, thanks.

Steve Abramson

President

I will take it one at a time, although we are not backplane experts, from what I am hearing out there, they are making some significant progress on the backplane issues, Samsung SDI for example, they had excellent progress and they are producing displays, LTPS, with good commercial yields, and the companies out there are making some good progress, so it does not seem like there is any physics road blocks there. People are looking very seriously at large scale patterning issues whether it be white with color filters or shadow mass, or some type of solution processing or printing technology, and again we are seeing some increased activity there both within our company with some of the other people in the industry as well as the manufacturers, so people are – I think they are looking even more seriously about these issues of how are you going to get generation 6, 7, and 8 OLED displays into the marketplace both from a patterning standpoint and a backplane standpoint, and lastly we are seeing some very nice progress in understanding phosphorescent materials and lifetime, and we look at our lifetime charge, you will see significant improvement quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year in the lifetime, and I do not think we are hitting any physics issues to that extent. I think we are still just at the beginning and making significant progress on this front.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Okay, Jed are you still there or –? Operator we will move on to the next question.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bennett Notman of Davenport & Company. Bennett Notman – Davenport & Company: Good afternoon. It seems like the focus of the industry is shifted somewhat from the small-panel market to the TV market, I realize a lot of that is just sort of hype in consumer focus, but what is going on in the small-panel market that we are not hearing more about developments there or wins or rollouts or other things that would bring that market to the floor?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

On the small-area display, Samsung has stated in this quarter that they are going to double their capacity. I think they are getting – Steve went through a few of them. We do not see a significant change. I mean, Samsung, I think is the guy who is focusing right now on the small-area display market. We are hearing TVs from Samsung and from others, but I do not think that is going to cause the small-area display market to go away. We are hearing that power and efficiency from the handset manufacturers is still very, very important and that is why we are working hard to get more than one phosphorescent color into these customers, so that they can then take advantage of this power benefit, but – clearly big TVs are sexy, and you are correct, you do hear that a lot.

Steve Abramson

President

And everybody likes to demonstrate the big area TVs, but when you walk around the trade shows, you will see a lot of small area portable products and prototypes that people are demoing and using. Bennett Notman – Davenport & Company: So, what type of visibility do you guys have into the product flow that will come to market using Samsung’s panels through Nokia, or whoever else, I mean do you feel confident that the design activity is there and the product flow is there to show some growth in that activity in 2009?

Steve Abramson

President

Yes, we think that there is a lot of activity there with the ultimate customers as well as the manufacturers, and again from an OLED standpoint not looking at the macroeconomic issues, we think that the demand pull is there and we think that the manufacturing capacity will be in place. Bennett Notman – Davenport & Company: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti of Needham & Company. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: The question on the opportunity in the lighting market, if you go back and look at that market, say a year ago versus today, are you more bullish about the outlook for that market and when might you see that begin to move toward commercialization?

Steve Abramson

President

Jim, I would probably say the OLED lighting market has moved quicker than I would have expected it over the past year. And Osram has put out a designer lamp that costs, I think, EUR15,000. It is a collector’s item. It is not really a product, but I think over the next few years, you are likely to see OLED lighting products into the marketplace. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Steve, you talked a little bit – you have talked a little bit about the big increase in development chemical revenues, were those both display related customers?

Steve Abramson

President

They – no, it was a little bit of each. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: A little bit of each, so a lighting and a display application?

Steve Abramson

President

Yes. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Sid, the G&A declined from Q2 levels, anything going on there or is that – should we look at the run rate you are at, at the end of Q3 for G&A?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

It is sort of just – it jumps around a little bit. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Yes.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

I think we just need to maintain – we have always talked about – I think a fairly consistent rate. The R&D was up a little bit, but I think the G&A number that we have talked about probably will go back up to that level. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Okay, and then one final question from me. You sometimes have a little bit more visibility with the contract research revenue line, would you expect that revenue to be up in Q4 from Q3 levels?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Yes, I believe it will be up. That number has – we gave – we talked about what we thought it will be for the year. We had basically had the same total dollar amount of contracts in the house today as we did about a year ago. It has just taken longer for some of these contracts to get executed, but we have – we have announced a number of them that have got executed and we will get to work on them, so you will see probably some bump up in this area for the fourth quarter. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: And I do not know – it may be – it is we are reaching a little too far, but is there any sense you can give us as to what that line might look like in 2009 only because it is a fairly sizable part of your revenue?

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

I cannot give you specifics for the year. I think it will – this year was lower than the prior year. I would expect the next year to be higher than this year. Jim Ricchiuti – Needham & Company: Okay, thank you.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

All right, thanks Jim.

Operator

Operator

Okay, there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to management.

Steve Abramson

President

Thank you all for calling. As you know, we are really accessible to you, so you can call us directly and I thank you for your participation, thanks everybody.

Sid Rosenblatt

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call.