Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's Melexis HY and Q2 2018 results call. I would like to hand the call over to your speakers today, Françoise Chombar and Karen Van Griensven. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Dear audience, we appreciate your attendance to the Melexis earnings conference call for the second quarter, and thus also first half year 2018. For starters, let me give you a brief business perspective update. My name is Françoise Chombar, then our CFO, Karen Van Griensven, will take over for the financial highlights. Obviously, we will end with your questions. First, some highlights from the business and market side. Sales for the second quarter of 2018 were EUR 141.8 million. Sales for the first half year of 2018 thus came out at EUR 281.1 million, that's an increase of 12% compared to the first half of 2017. Melexis' performance is well in line with our expectations. Excluding strong U.S. dollar currency headwinds, Melexis' first half year sales growth would have been 18%.
This solid growth is related to both existing and new programs, ticking all the boxes on electrification, assisted drive, and customization of the car. Melexis thrives thanks to steadily increasing semiconductor content in cars, more so than related to the number of cars produced in the world. The Melexis market fundamentals are sound, today's customer sentiment continues to be positive. Geographical spread is virtually the same in half year one 2018 as it was in half year one of the previous year, with just 1% less in the Americas to the benefit of Asia-Pacific. The portion of standard product sales has meanwhile grown to 65% of total sales, in line with our long-term strategic intent. Sales growth in adjacent markets moves at virtually the same pace as automotive.
On the same note, I'd like to touch on a Silicon Valley trade show that Melexis attended again just a month ago, Sensors Converge. This is the largest gathering of engineers and sensing-related technologies. The 2018 edition attracted 7,000 plus attendees and about 350 exhibitors. The event was held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, just down the street from Melexis' newly opened Silicon Valley sales support office. Sensors Converge provides Melexis with an excellent stage to brand our capabilities and product portfolio, both for automotive and adjacent markets. Especially our offering for electric vehicles was well-received. We showcased our embedded lighting products, used the opportunity to put our third generation Triaxis in the spotlight again, and we had our product marketing manager as one of the speakers at a speaker breakout session on sensor fusion.
His talk about our Time-of-Flight family drove an amazing subsequent traffic to our booth. It was a great place to connect with the local engineers of both our existing and potential customers on the West Coast. Looking at our half year one growth drivers, they are, as usual, broadly based. Three highlights are worth mentioning this time. First, in embedded lighting, we continue to benefit from existing ambient lighting programs ramping up, as well as new programs which are being added gradually. Second, the Triaxis products, which form a cornerstone of our magnetic product sensor family. They are being used in many applications, such as steering systems, gear shifters, pedals, transmissions. High demand for electric power steering and advanced powertrain solution towards assisted and autonomous vehicles are key drivers for further growth.
Last but not least is our temperature sensors product line, which is one of the speaking examples of technology that can serve both automotive and adjacent market applications. Our temperature sensor line experienced a growing demand from its distribution customer base. These distributors serve a variety of applications in the areas of consumer, white goods, and small appliances, mainly targeted at the Asian markets. A second growth pillar for the product line is its automotive thermocouple interfaces. These are used in the powertrain and address the growing need for more stringent engine and exhaust thermal management and control. Going forward, a healthy order book gives us confidence to guide for full year 2018 sales growth of 13%-14%. Meanwhile, we are putting everything in place to satisfy the growing demand for our sensor and driver products.
We therefore invest into enhancing our test capacity with building extensions in Sofia, and though smaller, also in Ypres, and with our newest wafer test site in Corbeil-Essonnes, south of Paris. Into expanding our R&D capabilities gradually everywhere. Also by setting up new design centers like the one in Düsseldorf, Germany, which we publicized just earlier this month to be fully operational by year-end. The future is an exciting place indeed. Karen, please, can you now go ahead with the financial update?
Yes. Thank you, Françoise. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Sales for the second quarter came out at EUR 141.8 million, as already mentioned by Françoise, an increase of 10%. The gross margin, on the other hand, was EUR 65.8 million or 46.4% of sales, an increase of 11% compared to the same quarter of the last year, and an increase of 4% compared to the previous quarter. R&D expenses were 13.5% of sales. G&A was at 5.3% of sales, and selling was at 2.7% of sales. The operating results were EUR 35.4 million or 25% of sales. An increase of 7% compared to the same quarter of last year, and an increase of 3% compared to the previous quarter.
The net result was at EUR 28.1 million or EUR 0.70 per share, a decrease of 9% compared to EUR 30.8 million or EUR 0.76 per share in the second quarter of 2017, and a decrease of 2% compared to the previous quarter. If you look at the first half year, we grew 12% or EUR 281.1 million in sales. The gross margin was EUR 128.9 million, an increase of 11% compared to the same period last year, or 46.4% of total sales. The operating result was almost EUR 70 million compared to EUR 64.6 million in the same half year of 2017, an increase of 8%. Net income came out at almost EUR 57 million or EUR 1.41 per share, an increase of 1% compared to or EUR 1.38 per share in the first half year of 2017.
The board again decided on an interim dividend of EUR 1.3 growth per share. The shares will start trading ex-coupon on October 23. The record date is October 24, and the payment date will be October 25. We are now open for a question and answer session. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, it's star one for questions. We have three participants. The first question comes from the line of François-Xavier Bouvignies. Please ask your question. Your line is now open.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one I had was on your full-year guidance. At the midpoint, it remains the same, but you changed the exchange rates. If my estimates are correct, it's a 2% impact on the currency. My question is what changed for changing the constant currency full-year guide? What is the main driver for this?
Okay. Yeah, thank you, François. It's, I would say, normal that we reduce the spread in the mid-year because at the beginning of the year, of course, the currency mix and the forecast as a whole are always much more uncertain. There's always some corrections here and there during the year. I think what is key to is no structural change going forward. The market is positive. As I said, Melexis products tick all the boxes on the market trends. We keep gaining market share, and we have a healthy order book. It's just that, yeah, we always try to be as realistic as possible using the data that are available to us at the moment we make the guidance, and that's what we've done also today.
Okay. That's clear. Just to clarify one point. I understand you now about the guidance, at constant currency, because you took 1.17, it's lower by two percentage points. I just wanted to know, is there any specific driver like cut in production or a delay of contracts, just to know what is the delta coming from?
No, nothing in particular. I think it's the usual corrections over the years.
Okay. Thank you. The second one I had is, again, I asked you last quarter already, on your inventory. If we look at this quarter, it came up very high compared to your historic. I remember correctly, in Q1, you said you were comfortable with the level you had in Q1, it keeps increasing significantly. Can you help us understand what is really driving this increased inventories and maybe, to understand what is inside your inventories?
Well, I can tell you that we still feel comfortable with the inventory as it stands right now. It is fully in line with our guidance for further growth in the second half of 2018. What is important here is that we want to secure the supply to our customers. As you know, and I tell anyone, that in today's strained capacity situation, it is in fact, strategic to build inventory. We don't expect it to move strongly again in the second half. I think, nothing specific there. Nothing that at least I worry about.
What I'm trying to understand is, it isn't the first time that Melexis has a 15%-20% growth going forward, and you never had such level of inventory despite this growth. Why this time is different? Why do you build so much when the pipeline is not different than previous years?
The situation on the market is different than it has been for a long time. The tight capacity situation is one of the reasons.
Even if like, we should expect maybe a very strong acceleration in 2019, then? Are you building up for 2019?
That's a good try, François, we only give our guidance for 2019 in February, at the full year results.
Okay. Going forward, this inventory level, should we expect to stay at the same level or going up, down further?
We expect it more or less to stay around these levels that we have today. We don't expect it to grow much more, certainly not versus sales over the next months to come.
Okay. Thank you. The last one for me, you talk in the release about autonomous driving as a driver for your magnetic sensors. Can you give us some examples of application for ADAS applications, just to have some examples of what you're driving just to try to understand some examples?
Well, I have multiple examples, but if I stick to the You could talk about the more visible things like 3D cameras and so on. People always forget that there is a lot hidden in the car. When you have an autonomous vehicle, then you need the car to understand what is happening, but also the car to react, and react in a very controlled fashion. You have all these closed-loop control systems that need to understand where everything is in the car, what the position is or what the status is of pumps and of flaps and motors and all sorts of things. Which means that you need the car to sense also its internal. Not only to be conscious about what is going on externally and be able to react accordingly, but also to understand how moves are being done internally.
When a car needs to brake by itself, then a whole bunch of systems need to respond in the right manner. When you then restart the car, then the systems should know, "Ah, that's where I was five seconds ago. This is where I have to be now in the next millisecond." All these closed-loop systems need a lot of sensors and a lot of drivers to make sure that the functioning is impeccable. That is something that many people forget, that this is needed because it's not as visible as, for example, a camera would be. I hope that answers your question.
Yes. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Janardan Menon. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good evening. Just a couple of questions from me. One is on your ASIC business itself. It's quite a large part of your business. When I look at the trends for the last quarter or year-on-year, this business is actually not growing. It actually declined a little bit, both sequentially and year-on-year. Whereas obviously the rest of your business is growing very fast. I'm just wondering, what is the reason for that? More importantly, what is the outlook for that ASIC business? Is it likely to be sort of a drag on your growth rates going forward? Are we going through a temporary phase which should correct itself, and we should see any comment there would be helpful. Thanks.
Okay. Well, I'm not sure if it does not grow at all. I do believe that it still is growing. Our long-term intent is indeed that the ASSPs are taking much more share. It was a target also to make that grow. What you see on the market is that people or customers are less and less interested in building their own ASICs because it's hugely expensive. I think that Melexis can cover the needs of the market and the needs of customers with our ASSPs, so with our standard products, and also with customized ASSPs. We have a bit the best of both worlds in the sense that we have the proven technology, which we adapt to the needs of customers. Not always, because there are standard products that are really standard and are not changed at all.
Some of the customer needs are a bit different than others, and we can adapt through, for example, firmware or through one mask set change, or other types like package types, et cetera, or test versions. In that sense, we have to make a choice. Those customized ASSPs, are they to be counted under the ASICs or under the ASSPs? We count them under ASSPs because in fact they are 95% or more the same. Just a little tweak is required towards the customer requirements. I would say that it's a normal evolution of our business, and it's one that we welcome.
Does that mean that, within those numbers, there is a trend towards where you are replacing at your ASIC customer an ASSP part over the last 12 months or so, which is also contributing to what you're saying?
Yeah, that happens. Yes.
Okay. Just moving on to the broader market. There's been quite a few concerns on tariffs and trade wars and things like that. Some of your customers have talked about seeing an effect on their sales. Your OEM customers have talked about that. I was just wondering what exactly you have seen in your order book. Have you seen any of your customers having a slowdown? Is that being compensated by others, which is ensuring that overall there's not too much of an impact? Or have you seen any kind of an overall slightly slower momentum in the last few weeks?
Well, no, we have not. We have not seen an impact on this in our order book at all.
How do you measure, sort of weigh that against comments from the likes of, say, Mercedes or Daimler or Volkswagen that they are either cutting production or they're seeing an impact, et cetera. What do you think is happening in that mismatch between what some of them are saying versus what semiconductor companies like yourselves are seeing in terms of orders?
I think what is important to note is that Melexis is much more driven by the semiconductor content and by new programs coming on board than by the number of vehicles sold. I'm not saying that there is no impact at all because, of course, if the number of cars produced in the world is reducing, it will impact somehow our business. You don't see that necessarily as a pure impact because it is compensated by new programs coming on board that either we win from the competition or are new programs that come into cars that were not there before, new applications that you need, et cetera. It's a mix between those two.
Understood. Last question is just on the temperature sensors going into the distribution channel. Is that something which you have been pushing harder in terms of expanding your presence in the distribution channel, and also to non-automotive customers? Or is it something that just happened to take place during the quarter where you saw stronger demand from the distribution channel for those products going into these non-automotive products?
It is, as you know, a strategic intent for Melexis to do more in the adjacent markets. Years ago, we were losing percentage-wise on the adjacent markets. Since now 2 or 3 years, we are moving or we are growing the adjacent market portion at the same pace, more or less, as the automotive, which is a first sign that the strategic intent actions that we have been taking are getting results. Yes, we also made a move towards supporting the distribution sales. We've added a new distributor recently. We've done some changes in the distribution in order to maximize our chances to get product lines like the temperature sensing line, or the latches and switches, or the fan drivers that are more suitable, let's say, for smaller volume sales and for sales through distribution. Yes, we have made some efforts to make that happen.
We see indeed some first results of that, and that's very good, because if you do actions, you expect results, and that's what we're seeing today. It's not only temperature sensing. It's several ones, but as temperature sensors, sorry, as this product line had good results in the first half of this year. We noted that one of the reasons was indeed that sales through distribution is picking up.
Understood. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from the line of Guy Sips. Please ask your question.
Yes, I have one additional question. Do you see any impact of changes in buying behavior of some of your OEMs relate to new legislation like the new Real Driving Emissions Test?
Well, I would say yes. I think the customers are more open. Well, we don't sell directly to the OEMs, as you know. We do sell to tier ones. We do have contacts with OEMs, of course, and more and more. It's something we do much more to understand firsthand what the plans in the industry are. Indeed, the Real Driving Emissions Tests and the new emission legislations, also the TPMS legislation in China, for example, does move as it has over the years. This is not new. Legislation is driving more semiconductor content. Yes, I would say we do see that. Not that it's huge, but yeah, legislation has always driven more business in semiconductors.
It's not that it's triggering some postponements recently.
Postponements on what exactly? What do you mean?
On order intake, that they are waiting for.
Yeah.
Not really. Not that I know of, no. Not today, at least.
It has also no relationship with the question of one of my other analysts related to the inventory build-up. There is no relationship between this and the inventory build-up.
Oh, no. No.
Okay.
No, there is no direct relationship to that. As I said, the inventory build is a build that we do for strategic reasons. We want to make sure that our customers are secure as far as their supply is concerned. We've had in the past, let's say one year to one and a half years. We were in some lines in an allocation that makes customers extremely nervous, then you need to do a little more to gain back their full confidence than what is usually needed. We are building also to secure the growth in the next couple of months. Yeah, capacity extensions also mean that you put in some buffers, in case your transfer plans are a bit delayed for one or the other reason. You want to have a good buffer stock.
That's also what I mean with it's strategic to put in place the right inventories. Of course, these are inventories We don't just build inventory of everything. We make a good selection of what exactly we want to have as inventory. It's not across the board, it's very selected products. I hope that answers your question.
Can you give us some insight what kind of products that are or is that-
Sorry, come again?
Can you give us some insight what kind of products that you are building up inventory?
At least they are products where we see a longevity. No risk of obsolescence. High risk of getting maybe stuck in either a transfer plan delay or a potential raw materials or capacity issue. We do contingency planning, and that contingency planning leads to decisions that sometimes say, "Okay, let's build some more inventory of that, and then we're secure for the supply." I would say those are the criteria that we use in order to build inventory or not, or build more inventory than normal or not. I hope that's clearer now. Yeah? Okay.
Perfect. Thank you.
Good. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Osborne. Please ask your question.
Yeah, good evening. A couple questions on my end. Maybe just on the inventory issue again, sorry to keep harping on that one, but other than capacitors and rectifiers, which there's an industry shortage of, are there any other key components? My understanding is you don't use any silicon carbide, but can you just talk about specifically for what applications you're seeing the component shortages? Are you having to go out to 2020 to provide firm visibility to your suppliers for those components?
It's not only about supply of materials, it's also about capacity constraints. The capacitors, that is indeed well-known, the whole industry is struggling with that. There is also other materials. It could be what we've seen is sometimes, it's very diverse, it's not just one big thing. It's very diverse. Sometimes we come into trouble with lead frames. Sometimes we come into trouble with mold compounds. Sometimes it's about, we need some special silicon wafer material. We have upsurges that we don't know if the ramp-up will happen exactly in that manner, we want to secure at least that we have sufficient capacity plus material. It's so diverse. It gives us, at times, a lot of headaches, it's a bit across the board in the industry.
Got it.
You mentioned silicon carbide, indeed, we are not into silicon carbide. The same is true for silicon wafers.
Understand. Could you just remind us on the lead time, in general, the visibility that your order book gives you, is that two to three months? Or how firm are the orders with all of the changes going on in the automotive industry? What type of line of sight to revenue growth do you have?
That can also be very diverse, I would say two, three, four months is what we usually have.
Got it.
Now on the previous question you had on the inventory, I must say the worst is over. There will be some continuation of capacity, et cetera, because we have done a lot of work, proactive work, on making sure that we have the necessary capacity either reserved or built up, no matter where it is in the supply chain, it could have been on our end as well. Because of all these actions, yeah, the worst is, I would say, is over.
That makes sense. Two other quick ones here. Do you have a sense of perspective of, as you ship to a Sensata or one of your other tier 1 partners, Continental, et cetera, and then that then is shipped to a car. What that lag time is between the shipment from your fab to the actual production of the vehicle? Just given all the changes on emissions testing in Europe, the new energy vehicle credits in China being reduced, that's been an area of investor concern.
Yeah, that largely depends also on whether we're tier 2 or 3, and whether our customer is using subcontractors or not. Truly, until it's, I would say on average, it's probably between four and six months. Don't pin me down on that because it's also extremely diverse.
Makes sense. The last one I had is just with the highlighting of the distribution channel for the non-automotive applications. Is it correct to think about that as potentially lower gross margin, but potentially less OpEx intensity? The EBITDA margins are potentially better than your corporate average? Just any puts and takes on the margin for both lines would be helpful to understand.
Because distribution is usually lower in volume, the prices are higher. The gross profit margin is a bit higher.
Is there higher OpEx intensity for staff to do that as well or no?
Not really. Not really, because it's the same knowledge that we need or the same competencies we need for serving direct business as it is for distribution. For distribution, you also need distribution managers, and for serving customers, you need account managers. For both, you need application engineers that either train the distribution application engineers or that dig deeper into the customer application. It's a bit similar, I would say. There's no big difference between one or the other. The biggest difference is in the number of customers that you can reach through distribution, much more diverse customer base, with lower volumes per customer.
Makes sense. I appreciate all the detail. Thank you.
No problem.
There's no questions at this time. Please continue. We've got a last question that just came, sorry. The line of Gaspar Ariño, please ask your question.
Hi, good afternoon. I have two. The first one, over the first half, you reported revenue growth of 12% and 18% on constant currency basis. The automotive sensor market is not growing as fast, and you mentioned that you're gaining market share. Can you please elaborate on that comment and maybe share with us who is the market share donator or how is the competitive landscape look now? That's the first one. The second one would be if you could comment on the performance of current sensors. Thank you.
Competitive landscape has not really changed a lot, it's pretty much the same as it was. Also the way we do business and the way we gain market share is gradual, by making sure that we make the right products for our markets, that we come out with the right features on our new products, the other thing is, if you are incumbent in a customer, then the customer usually tries to maximize also their investment in your product, they grow organically over time. They grow organically, whatever they buy from you. They put it in more and more platforms. Our products, I mentioned it before, where you have this best of both worlds, where you customize standard product technology. That also helps because sometimes they have a slightly different application.
They want to use your product, they need a slight tweak for one or the other OEM, that's then very easy to do because it's not always easy to do with an ASIC, it's easy to do with an ASSP.
That's one. Competitive landscape, not really changed as such. On current sensors, what is exactly your question?
Just to know how the product family has been doing in the first half, sometimes the other quarters you've commented the performance just to know. I know they represent a very tiny part of the portfolio, I just want to get a sense of how fast are they growing.
Yeah. Well, we don't usually inform on the percentage growth per product line. What we usually do is to give a view on what stood out during the quarter or during the half year, in this case. The ones that are-
let's say, performing the best.
That does not mean that current sensors is not growing. In fact, all of our products are growing over time.
We do not mention the precise % growth. We've never done that, and we don't intend to start doing that neither.
Okay. That's okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Basil Hantash. Please ask your question.
Yes, hi. Thank you for taking my question. Most of them were already answered, but there's one, two left. What is your current visibility for the remainder of the year with the guidance for the full year on the hand? Do you have this usual 12-15 weeks, or can you already see into the first quarter of 2019 to have a feeling already how this could shape up? The second one would be, we get a little bit color around your ADAS/autonomous driving positioning. I was wondering if you could give a color around your EV clean car positioning products there. Are you engaged in these topics like main inverter and the onboard charger, or is it rather sensors around this EV part? What exactly is your positioning there would be really very helpful. Thank you.
Okay. On the visibility for the remainder of the year, this is what we've mentioned in the press release. I have little to add to that. Indeed, we have the usual, like we said before, two, three, four months of visibility. I do not comment on Q1, or we do not comment on Q1 neither. Yeah.
Sorry, if I may interrupt. I know it's really not a guidance, but if you see you have the usual order pattern, but also the longer-term projects, so to say. Can you say from these longer projects that visibility has not really deteriorated looking into the first half of the year, despite all those macro noise, trade tariffs, slowing China auto volumes maybe? Would you say from the bigger orders or larger orders projects that everything is still on track?
Yeah, I would say so. In fact, I'm with customers quite a bit. There's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of change going on in the industry. Customers are really busy with all these trends, electrification, assisted drive, and I don't see, today, a change. That's why also we said in the comments that we see positive customer sentiments. If that is what you were looking for, yeah. No, we don't see any change and everybody is hard at work to manage all these important changes that are happening in the industry towards more electrified vehicles and more than the road towards autonomous drive.
Okay.
I hope that answers your question then? Your first question.
Yes. Thank you. The second one, please.
Yeah. On the second one, you were asking how we are on the electric vehicle. We are doing very well on that because in general, if you would go to, for example, current sensors, which the previous person has asked for, the trend of the electrification is of course very benign for that product line. Specifically in automotive, we are in the inverter for traction motor control, we have a significant share there, also on the onboard charger, but definitely also in the inverter. Clean cars need a lot of sensors and a lot of drivers.
What you see is that with electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles, whatever A hybrid vehicle of course is the best of both worlds because it needs a much cleaner, usually than gasoline motor, and in the future it will be more gasoline than diesel motor, which means more sensors and more drivers to be used in that. As far as the electric vehicle is concerned, they also need to become much more efficient, and thus they also require a much higher sense and drive content than today. In many cases, if you look at range fear, at the fact that the way of dealing with energy and with consumption of energy in an electric vehicle is looked at, sometimes what we see is that customers rethink the system completely. Not only our direct customers, but also the OEM. They are talking to us about this.
The Asian trend will need much more smart valves, for example, for thermal management, but also more aerodynamics. Again, all of that to improve range performance. We are extremely well-positioned in that area. For the assisted drive and autonomous drive, I think I have answered that question already previously.
Okay. If I may, just a quick follow-up. If you take the midpoint of your, or let's say the 13%-14% growth for this year, how much of this growth is really coming from your traditional business, and how much of this growth is driven by the new topics, autonomous driving and clean car topic? Can you give a direction for that and how could that shape up mid-term?
It's very hard to tell. I'm sorry. This is really hard to tell.
Okay. No problem. Thank you.
Yeah. I'm sorry for that.
No. I guess it's tough what is ADAS and autonomous driving. No, I'm fine with that. Thank you very much.
Okay. You're welcome. Sorry for that. Yeah. Okay. Operator, do we have further questions?
No, we haven't got no more questions.
Okay. Dear audience, thank you for your interest and to-the-point questions. Looking forward to welcoming you at our next earnings conference call, which is on October 24th. Let's say at our Analyst Day on December 5th later this year.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.