Hello, and welcome to the Melexis Q2 2021 results call. My name is Josh, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note that this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I'll now hand you over to your host, Françoise Chombar, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, operator. Dear audience, it's a pleasure to welcome you again to our Q2 2021 earnings conference. Today we are three speakers. As usual, Karen Van Griensven, our CFO, and myself, Françoise Chombar, and today also Marc Biron, future CEO. Let's cover some top line and financial background first, and after that, we'll be happy to answer any question you may have. Q2 2021 comes with another sales record, EUR 159.1 million, just shy of EUR 160. An increase of 58% year-on-year and an increase of 2% quarter-on-quarter. As in Q1, we are not constrained by demand but by supply. Q2 was probably the worst in terms of managing expectations from customers. This being said, we have risen well to the challenge of allocating the available material fairly across our customer base.
Our teams have done and are still doing a wonderful job, and I join our customers in praising them for their resilience and solution-oriented attitude. In the first half of 2021, the outperforming product lines were embedded lighting, temperature sensors, and the magnetic sensors product family. Let me give you some more color on each of those three, starting with magnetic sensors. When we look at position sensors and our latch and switch products, they have gained traction in automotive applications during the first half of the year, not surprisingly. In the adjacent market, the current sensor, and also the latch and switch products, have been particularly successful, and that confirms our strategy and the recent launches of dedicated adjacent products for those 2 product lines. Temperature sensors grew well both in automotive and in adjacent applications.
We see greater volatility in the months to come because adjacent demand is usually more fluid, less predictable as we all know. In Q2, we also cleared the largest part of our backlog demand thanks to capacity increases on the supply side. COVID-19, however, remains a factor to reckon with as it continues to disrupt our supply chain, particularly in some countries in Asia, who usually forcefully react to any outbreak. Finally, our embedded lighting product family grew tremendously in the first half year, paving the way to more than just comfort functions in cars. Networked lighting has an ever-increasing role to play in the communication of information, like warning of a hazard or emergency. Light also interacts with the car occupant. For example, when he's using a headset or to just indicate battery charging. Light interacts also with voice recognition and navigation systems.
Our leadership in interior automotive lighting is now being extended to novel and stylish design of exterior lighting, serving equally as an interaction tool with the outside world. Melexis ICs shape the future. The products we launched in the second quarter exemplify how well our teams are delivering on our strategic intent. Indeed, all of the Q2 launches build further on our patented Triaxis Hall technology, which continues to provide a bedrock to bring value to our customers. Let me give you three examples. In adjacent, we launched a new magnetic sensor for position measurement in HMI applications. HMI is human machine interfacing. They also serve door closure detection in white goods and access control systems, anti-tamper for smart metering, and contact joysticks. Quite a breadth of applications.
Secondly, in automotive, we brought to market a new magnetic position sensor for advanced steering and braking applications, and also new family members, especially conceived to support the heightened temperature operation in both hybrid and electric vehicles. Last but not least, we launched a next-generation current sensor for automotive power conversion applications. To conclude, Melexis is well-positioned to play a leading role in the transformation of our markets, and I'm happy to be taking up another role from August onwards with a company that is in a marvelous place, full of opportunities. I consider it an honorable ending of my CEO tenure and an honorable beginning for the new CEO with his crew. Marc, handing the stage now literally to you.
Thank you, Françoise, and thank you for the time spent with me during this transition period. Even more important, thank you for all your advice and all your guidance given during those more than 20 years working together in Melexis. Thank you for that. As we mentioned during our analysis day in June, our product centers around planet and around people. They contribute to making our planet more sustainable, making home energy more efficient, promoting clean energy, and eliminating pollution. Melexis products also contribute to improving people life, for example, by upgrading point-of-care equipment or smart wearable device, or making the car safer and more comfortable for the users. We see those contributions translating already into business today and even more so in the future. We continue to work hard to address the ongoing supply chain issues.
Combined with an expected strong demand for the remainder of the year, we are upgrading our guidance for the second time this year. Even if car sales have risen sharply following the uptake of the economy post-lockdowns, nobody expects worldwide that car sales will exceed historic volume anytime soon. The more important trend for Melexis is that the car of today, and especially the electrified vehicle, are much more semiconductor-rich, and even in particular, much more sensor and driver-rich. It's why we can truly say that Melexis IC shape the future. Moreover, Melexis strategic intent to diversify beyond automotive is well underway. We built on our fundamental competencies and technologies we have been using in automotive. Before handing over to Karen for the financial results, I want to conclude by saying that we have sound strategy, and we will continue and develop such a strategy. We have great products.
Those products are wanted all over the world. We will continue to expand our portfolio thanks to our innovation and also our innovative spirit.
Thank you, Marc, and good morning to everybody. Some more comments related to the financial results. Sales came out for the 2nd quarter at EUR 159 million, an increase of around 58% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and an increase of 2% compared to the previous quarter. The euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate evolution had a negative effect of 4% compared to the same quarter of last year and no impact compared to the previous quarter. The gross result was EUR 67.1 million, or 42.2% of sales, an increase of 73% compared to the same quarter of last year and an increase of 3% compared to the previous quarter. R&D expenses were 12% of sales. G&A was at 4.9% of sales. Selling was at 2.3% of sales. The operating result was EUR 36.4 million, or 22.9% of sales.
Which is an increase of 260% compared to the same quarter of last year and an increase of 5% compared to the previous quarter. The net results was EUR 33.5 million or EUR 0.83 per share, an increase of 246% compared to EUR 9.7 million or EUR 0.28 per share in the second quarter of 2020, and an increase of 21% compared to the previous quarter. The board of directors also decided on an interim dividend of EUR 1.3 gross per share. The shares will start trading ex-coupon on October 19th, 2021. Regarding the outlook, Melexis expects sales in the third quarter of 2021 in the range of EUR 20,158 to EUR 163 million. For the full year 2021, Melexis expects a sales growth between 24% and 27%, a gross profit margin of around 42%, and an operating margin of around 22%.
At the midpoint of the sales guidance, and all taking into account a euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate of 1.18 for the remainder of the year. I would like to open now the Q&A session. Please, operator, go ahead.
Thank you very much. If you would like to ask a question or make a contribution to today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypads now, please. Please ensure your line is unmuted locally, and then I will introduce you into the call. That's star one on your telephone keypads now, please. Our first question comes from the line of Matthias from Kepler Cheuvreux. Matthias, please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Yes. Hello. Thank you. Good morning. First of all, from me, wishing you all the best, Françoise. I guess all good things have to come to an end once, but I'm sure it will be replaced by plenty of other good stuff. Also good luck to Marc as well, of course. Regarding my question, you mentioned already, supply chain constraints, Q2 probably the worst quarter. Would it be possible to put a number on it? How do you see this evolving in the coming quarters? Do you think really that Q2 was the worst? I see Nissan recently made comments that for them, Q3 would potentially be the most impacted. How should we think about this going forward? How much of a constraint is this on sales evolution?
Okay. Thanks, Matthias, for this intervention. Thank you for your nice words. There is a good ending and there is also a good beginning. Good things also have a beginning. I'm very positive about that, both for the team in Melexis and, of course, also for myself. On your question, why do I say that Q2 was the worst? That was in terms of managing expectations by customers. What we see today is that, let's say customers are not yet accepting completely because they are continuing to push, of course, for more delivery. What they are accepting is that there is a limit to everything. They are also accepting because we explained it well to them that we try to fairly distribute whatever we have across the board so that everybody keeps running.
We are also very attentive to potential overstatements of current demands or really needs, current needs. Because of course we know it's not a solution, but it's very human, when you have a shortage, to exaggerate your future demand or even exaggerate your current demand. We have multiple ways. It's difficult sometimes, but we have multiple ways at least to sense and identify where the need is the highest. That was the most difficult. Of course, downstream, the impact of the allocation that we did is still coming, so that, for example, Nissan now says, "Yeah, the worst is still to come yet," because they are downstream and there is a time delay in seeing the impact of that.
Q2 was also the worst for us because in Q1 we still could deliver out of inventories that we had built up, because as you will remember, we were extremely proactive already in the summer last year, taking the decision to increase wafer starts and to keep our inventory at a decent level for the tsunami that would then be coming. We also did not expect that the tsunami was going to be so vehement. In Q1, we still could deliver out of the inventories we had built up. In Q2, that inventory was gone, and the extended capacity was not completely in the works yet. In the remainder of the year, we should see that coming, those gradual capacity extensions anywhere in the supply chain. Not only at our suppliers, but also at our test facilities.
There is now a relatively predictable way in which we have allocated and will be delivering to our customers, and that brings a lot of calm, both on our side, though situation is still tense. It gives a lot of calm with the people dealing with the supply chain and with customers. It gives also a good predictability towards our customers on what is possible and what is realistic, and what is in fact not possible until later. In that sense, that's why I said Q2 is probably the worst, and now it's building up and continuing to see where we can improve as much as possible, because that's also what our customers are expecting from us and what we are delivering.
I hope that answers your question, Matthias.
Yeah. Thank you. Very clear.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from the line of Stephane Houri from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Me too, I'm wishing you the best, Françoise, for your next adventure. The first question is on the current situation. If you could please describe the current situation, maybe by highlighting what are your lead times, the inventories in the chain as you see them, and also maybe the pace of current bookings and if there is double ordering in the chain, that would be helpful. That's my first question.
Thank you, Stephan, also for your nice words. The impact on the different product lines is somewhat different because we have supply lines that involve different countries, that involve different complexity of the value chain. Lead times, it depends a bit what you call lead times. If of course the capacity was there and the original lead times were respected, we could deliver according to lead time. What we see, and you hint at it as well, is the risk and the potential risk of double ordering, which I said in my previous reply that we are very attentive to that and we have ways to find out, let's say. Meanwhile, we're very good at finding that out, though, of course, nobody's perfect, but at least I think we manage that pretty well.
Additional volumes that were not in our long-term capacity planning, of course, cannot be built up as fast. That takes time to build up. In some cases, if we want to increase capacity in normal times, it would require maybe three to six months. Today, it requires much more than that, up to one year. If that happens, of course, the lead time then goes up to one year or more. If we look at how we have leveraged that, in fact, for our own test facilities, for example, the long-term planning, we invest always ahead of time. I can refer also to the Sofia building. It took three years to build that building. At the same time, we take action to standardize, for example, our equipment park as much as possible so that that leverage is at our hands as well.
Of course, today, machines or equipments, test equipments also take a longer time than in normal circumstances to get delivered. The same is true for capacity at our suppliers, where you take the wafer fab. There is still capacity potential upwards, for example, in Corbeil. At our assembly suppliers, we have always also done a long-term, like with our wafer fabs, a long-term capacity planning that goes over two years, let's say, where we see that we now take gradual capacity extensions or we qualify second sources, whether it's for raw materials at our current suppliers or qualifying new vendors. Those have always been options that we have weighed off against each other. Does that complete your question, the answer to your question, Stephane?
Yes. In fact, there was also the point of level of inventories in the chain as you see it. Have they increased or not at all, they have not changed since the Q1?
The level of inventory has increased a bit because, of course, it increases a bit with higher demand, which we are seeing right now, but it's expected to remain pretty stable over the next months to come.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Stephane. If you have a second question, may I park that one until we have done the first round of questions?
Sure. Absolutely.
Thank you. Okay.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from the line of Ruben Devos from KBC Securities. Ruben, please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Yes. Hello, good morning. Just coming back on the order book. Obviously, the commentary suggests order activity appears to remain red hot maybe looking beyond 2021. Just curious whether you could talk a bit about the characteristics of the order book today. Does it include orders that will be delivered in 2022? What products specifically are in relative higher demand? In terms of discussions with your customers, what are some of the expectations they have from Melexis for next year? Just trying to get some feel of whether the strong momentum we're seeing could carry over into next year as well. That's my first question. I have a second one, maybe later.
Okay. I will answer, or Marc will answer. The order book is still very strong. It has not been weakened in the last weeks. Customers are still ordering on the high level. Of course, customers accept difficulties and try to navigate. We are all a bit creative to deal with shortage, and we support the customer in this process. The order book is still strong. Your question is towards 2022. Yeah, as far as we see, we don't see any weakening in 2022. What I can perhaps say is that it's clear that today, the customer order with a longer time horizon than before.
Now we have really already an order for the end of 2022, which is a bit atypical, and probably because the customer wants to show their commitment to Melexis, and then they order with a longer time horizon.
Yeah. Could I follow up on that? Can I ask a second question?
If it's a real follow-up on that one, yes. Otherwise, I would ask you to wait for the second round. Thank you, Ruben. Go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. It's just because Marc mentioned that there's longer-term visibility. It relates to what I was thinking about. In the past, we used to see just-in-time inventory management. That looks to become a thing of the past. Actually, I was just curious of your thoughts with your customers and the OEMs seriously reevaluating their inventory policies. Whether you could share some of your thoughts on how these changes in inventory management may have an effect on Melexis in the longer term?
Well, that's something that we are currently discussing, of course, with our customers. For everybody, it has been a focus today in delivering or in managing the delivery short-term. We are in the midst of discussing how could we, in future, avoid this happening again. It's clear, and I said it already at the last earnings conference. For now, it's the end of the JIT principle, the just-in-time principle, because it has become totally incompatible with the realities of making semiconductors. Semiconductors have become much more complex. Complex in the sense of the more technologies which we are not in, but also complex if you look at our products. Some of them are extremely complex and advanced as far as integration of features, different heterogeneous integration of new materials are concerned.
These have become really complex systems that demand that we all together in the supply chain look at it differently. That is too soon to tell how that will play out. I think everybody should now look back and learn the lessons of the past and see how we can do it better in future.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Ruben. Please take the next question.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from François-Xavier from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I've just one question on the gross margin. We have seen in the last few quarters and the latest comments from TSMC, from the foundry players, that they are increasing the price. Some are more aggressive than others, Vanguard and UMC. I know it's not part of your suppliers, but TSMC just recently said that they will increase the pricing in the second half of the year as well. I believe TSMC is not the main one, but you are using them. I just wanted to have your view on how do you see the cost of manufacturing for Melexis, maybe in the second half of the year and maybe in 2022? What is the pricing development of your own product?
Do you manage to pass any cost inflation to your customers in a way that in the past, we always talk about 0%-5% price decline every year? Just wanted to have your view on these gross margin moving parts, please. Would be great.
Yeah, Marc speaking. You are right. Indeed, we have also faced some price increase at some of our suppliers. Not all of them, but indeed some of the suppliers came back to us. To answer your question of how we will deal with this, you probably know that part of our business is done via distribution, and we have, in June, increased the price of the product going to distribution. Now we are evaluating how we will deal with this price increase. Yeah. It's likely that we will push toward the customer this price increase, but we evaluate the best way to do it and the best level, because indeed, the competition is also doing the same. We are evaluating the best way to pass this price increase.
Can you remind us what is your exposure to distribution then on percentage of sales? I thought it was like 20, 25%.
Yes, indeed. It is around, yeah, 25%.
Yeah. Okay. On the automotive side, you won't pass to the customers. Is that the right way to look at it? On the direct sales.
We did not do it yet. The distribution is indeed mainly what we call the adjacent and the non-automotive.
Yeah.
For the rest, we are evaluating. We did not yet take a position. Yeah, the idea is to pass at least part of the cost increase to the customer.
Some of the cost increase is also not yet fully known today. This process is ongoing. There are still a lot of unknowns. Indeed, we will try as much as possible to balance the inflation from suppliers, and also pass on where we can to customers.
When you say unknown, Karen, the gross margin for the full year is 42%. Did you bake in any headwind in the second half from the manufacturing foundry side?
So far, it's based on what we know today, but what we don't know, we don't know.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Marc Hesselink from ING. Marc, please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Okay. Thank you. Looking at the non-automotive part, again, quite a big step up over the quarter. Given that you are supply constrained, is there a way you make a trade-off? How do you prioritize which clients go first? Is then the case that, in this case, some of the non-automotive businesses as a priority?
Yes. Thank you, Marc, for your question. Well, it's a complex thing to decide on who gets priority over whom. It's also a complex set of, you could call it KPIs or data that we're looking at. Also, indeed, our strategic intent very much directs the final decision that we take on this one. We tend to prioritize customers that are loyal to us or have been loyal to us. We tend to prioritize those businesses that are sustainable longer term. Typically, in automotive, that will be, of course, the strategic for growth opportunities. In adjacent, it is also a strategic intent. Of course, with adjacent, what you see is either you take the business now and you have it for maybe a longer term, or you decline it and then it's gone forever.
Those are also elements that we take into account when making decisions, but it's a very complex thing, that decision-making, and it involves the best of our market knowledge and the best of our people. Far, I think we're doing the right or taking the right decisions going forward. Yeah, that is also something that we explain to customers. Marc mentioned it, we are extremely creative, and our customers are also sometimes extremely creative in finding ways to keep the business going.
Okay. Is that also visible in the gross margin? You prioritize the products with the highest gross margin?
I would say it plays a certain role, but it's not the first element that we take, but yeah, of course, it plays a role. We would be stupid if we wouldn't take that into account. Nevertheless, in Melexis, we have always made short-term decisions with a view on the long-term strategic intent.
I think how we are also dealing with these difficult decisions today. It is not different than how we did it in the past.
Great. To understand it fully correctly, at the beginning of the startup process, you have a certain amount of wafers that you can order, and then you can fully discretionary decide what's going to be pushed on that wafer. Is that the way to think about it?
Yes. It's more or less that. Yes, indeed. There is an available capacity that of course, we fill and we maximize as much as possible, and then we distribute over the businesses that we see. Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Marc.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Robert, please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. I'll just take one question then. It just would be, if you could just sort of describe the level of tightness in your core markets like magnetic sensors. Are you seeing OEMs willing to do incredible things to swap out designed-in products at a late stage given short supply as we're seeing in microcontrollers? Is this not really happening in your core markets?
On the magnetic product, yeah, sometimes indeed we cannot deliver the product of choice, let's say. In discussion with the customer, we can find an alternative product that fits also the application and this is the idea of innovative initiatives that Françoise mentioned. Sometimes we use a plan B, let's say, and we are able to provide another product that fits the application. This we can do for sure in the magnetic product because we have a huge portfolio of products. We have Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, and in between those different Gen, we have different kind of product, then we have a bit more flexibility, let's say, to be innovative.
Got it.
When we have an ASIC for one customer, we cannot do this because it's a single product to a single customer.
Yeah. What you hinted at, Robert, also is the potential lack of microcontrollers. You cannot replace one-to-one a microcontroller with a Melexis product or vice versa for that matter. However, what we do see is that some of the functions or some of the tier 1s, let's say, when they look at their system, they can choose alternative ways to service the OEM with a pump, for example. They have maybe a system with a pump that has a microcontroller, and they have a similar pump that maybe has our integrated product driver. As you might remember, we make integrated products. That means that some of the products, driver products, but also some of the sensor products, they integrate a small microprocessor.
That's why we call our products edge sensors and edge drivers as well, because they do a certain amount of computing for a particular function. What we notice indeed is that OEMs will look at their portfolio of choices for pumps. Indeed, we sometimes get interesting requests for delivering an integrated product that then is used in a system that is similar but not completely the same as the other pump that uses a standard microcontroller.
Got it. This favors companies with large portfolios like yourself rather than the small narrow players, basically.
Well, you could say that, though there is a high amount of luck involved as well to what is possible. What we see is indeed, and what is important is that we gain a lot of market intelligence by talking to not only our direct customers about this, but also because OEMs are approaching us, from that perspective. Usually, we talk to OEMs for future-oriented technologies and future-oriented solutions. In this case, we come to know a lot about the current state of where they buy what, and that helps us also to understand that there is quite some additional potential still for Melexis products in future as well. Even if we cannot just simply have a one-to-one replacement for microcontrollers, we do see that the potential for new business is fantastic.
By having those discussions with OEMs that in other, in normal circumstances, we would not have had. That brings a lot of market intelligence. That's also a silver lining of such situations.
Thanks a lot.
Good. Let's go to the next question.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Varun from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for letting me on, and best wishes to you, François and Marc, for your new roles. I actually have two minor classifications on questions that were asked earlier. The first one is on your order book. You mentioned that you're receiving longer-dated orders now. Can you just make a comment on your backlog duration, i.e., how much of your backlog is for deliveries that are slated for 2022? Secondly, based on your comments that you made in reference to your gross margin, seems like we are at the peak gross margin level, at least for the near term, for the next four to six quarters. Is that the right way to think about it? Thank you.
Maybe first the question on the GPM. Yeah, we have 42% in Q2. We also guide around 42% for the rest of the year. This is indeed the norm or the structural gross margin we expect moving forward in the next quarters. If that answers your question?
Karen, is that the peak level that you expect, even for 2022? Is that the sort of level that you expect?
Pardon?
Is this the level of gross margin that you expect even for 2022?
We don't guide yet on 2022. But all in all, we have a good product mix for the moment that gives us gross margins of 42% for the time being. There are other things at play in the market, but all in all, we expect that we have our gross margin quite well under control. There is not so much leverage upwards moving forward, but also downwards, we don't see major risks at the moment.
Thank you. On the backlog duration.
I can answer that one. It's very hard. We do, for example, not disclose a book-to-bill because it's very hard to make that happen because our customers have a very diverse order behavior and order channels, et cetera. What is important in this case is that we can now, or there is now with our customers, an openness to discuss these longer-term commitments than there was before. I think everybody now realizes in a downstream, let's say, everybody realizes that we cannot prolong the way we worked in the past, but that we have to be much more forthcoming and also our customers and our customers' customers have to be much more forthcoming in providing visibility. Those are the discussions, and that's the good thing about it.
Those are the discussions that are now ongoing with customers. We are very happy that we can do this now, that there is this openness, because they realize that they have a role to play in providing the right visibility. We also have a role to play to explain to our customers why certain areas are difficult and where the risks are and what are the type of information that we need from them in order to be able to secure deliveries to them longer term. That's the good thing about it. It's not so much about how much is the backlog longer term, but rather how conscious is now the awareness in the whole supply chain that we have to work together differently than in the past. We have to start working together in the first place. That's a very good thing.
That's definitely also a silver lining of this crisis.
Thank you so much for your comments.
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from the line of Michael from Degroof Petercam. Michael, please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Yes. Good morning. I also have a question on the supply chain and not downstream to your customers, but more upstream because you are also limited by the supply chain. Your guidance for Q3 and the full year suggests two more quarters of flattish sales. I was wondering, when do you expect your wafer supplier to be able to boost their capacity so that you can get more wafers and grow beyond the EUR 160 in sales?
Well, that's something that we are doing all the time. We make long-term plannings with all of our suppliers, and of course, also with our wafer supplier, which, of course, you know is most of the time X-FAB.
X-FAB still has quite some capacity available at their newest facility, which is in Corbeil, south of Paris. We have been working with them since about three years, something like that, to qualify quite a number of products in certain technologies at this fab. The same is true for other fabs. Also for Dresden, we have been qualifying. We have been in that process for a longer time already, and I think that 2022, we will continue, or the rest of this year, but also into 2022, we will continue to work on this and see where we can boost capacity, either by debottlenecking or by adding real complete new lines.
Okay.
It's a gradual process. It's not digital. It's rather analog that we are moving.
Yes, of course, the goal is more wafers, simply put.
The goal is more output.
Yeah.
Of course, amongst that, it is also more wafers. Yes.
Yeah. 2022, more output, more wafers, that is something that could be happening. Is that visibility good enough to suggest that it could already happen in the first half, or maybe will it build up only gradually?
Yeah. As Karen just mentioned, we will give guidance on 2022 in February.
Okay. That's a smart answer. Good. Thank you for the clarification.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much. Just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, it is star one on your telephone keypad. We do have another question from the line of Stephane from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Your line is now unmuted.
Yes, hello. I'm back. A lot of questions have been asked, obviously, but I still have two kind of housekeeping questions. The first one is to really understand what's in the financial result this quarter, and how we should model it going forward. If you have an idea on that, would be helpful. Also, on the tax rate, not for this quarter, but maybe going forward, how should we model the tax rate? Thank you very much.
All right. On the financial result, we had an exceptional result in Q2 related to the unrealized revaluation of our inflation hedge. This, it's exceptional. It can also be in the other direction moving forward. On the fiscal result, we guide for the year around 15%. Moving forward, long term, we always put forward 15%-20% as guidance.
In your definition, is 2022 long-term already, or should we stay in the middle of what you're doing today and what you're guiding for the future?
For the?
The tax rate for 2022, will it be already higher than in 2021 or?
It's too early. We don't guide yet on 2022. Sorry.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay, we have no further questions in the queue at the moment. As a final reminder, it is star one on your telephone keypads if you would like to ask a question. Okay, we have no further questions, so I'll hand you back over to the hosts.
Okay, thank you for all the questions. I hope the answer are satisfying to you. We are looking forward to meet you again at the next earning call, which is scheduled on October 27th. Thank you, everybody, and have a nice day.
Thank you very much for joining today's call. Thank you.