Good morning everybody, welcome to poLight's fourth quarter presentation. My name is Øyvind Isaksen, I'm the CEO. Together with me today is CFO, Alf Henning Bekkevik, and Chairman of the Board, Grethe Viksaas. The normal agenda, key events, introduction to poLight for those who are new. A review on specifically focusing on the market side, financial review by the CFO and outlook and Q&A. Quite a busy slide, which I guess is a good sign. It has been extremely busy these days, ending the year in full speed and continuing this year in at least the same speed. Which is good, which is absolutely good. Teledyne launched the 2-megapixel multi-focus MIPI module. That's kind of old news, but that was in the quarter. They are now shipping.
We have an extremely high activity on the smartphone side, which led to finally a design win and first mass production PO. Many have been waiting for that for a long time, including myself. AR, fantastic progress. Magic Leap, finally. Vuzix, finally. I will talk more about this, but also LLVision and Xvisio is confirming using TLens for the next generation AR glasses. Magic Leap was launched end of September. I don't know how many questions I have been asked which design win it is, and is it a big one, is it a small one, is it an American one? This is the one. We're extremely proud of this, of course. It's a quality stamp for TLens and poLight.
We have actually received approximately 2 million+ in POs and the shipping as we speak. This Xvisio is using actually two TLens, one on each side, and it's come back to Xvisio, but this is today released for developers and will be released for market in mid-year. Same for Xvisio and LLVision. We come back to both all these designs. We met all these at CES in Las Vegas beginning of the year. Sharp also demonstrated a design of a new camera module using TLens. It's also an add-in camera module. They showed the camera module, and they also showed the use case in a VR headset. Quite a busy start of the year, end of the year.
For those who are new, global player in tunable optics. Tunable optics is more and more talked about in the market, and I think it will play an important role in many market segments. Been around since 2005, things takes time. Now we are going into a new era of the development of poLight. It's gonna be extremely exciting to see how things develop in the future. We have a strong IP. We're focusing a lot on that. We have 17 worldwide patent families, nine pending and three registered trademarks. We are a small 40 people, increasing a little bit quarter by quarter. Headquarter in Horten, as you know, employees in Finland, France, U.K., U.S., China, Taiwan, and now also Philippines. We recently hired two people for the Philippines following our manufacturing assembly partner.
Public listed, as you know very well as PLT since 2018. Quickly, just to recap, focus market segments smartphone wearable accessories, basically consumer. Important for poLight. They are the main opportunities for high volumes. Augmented reality very important for poLight and extremely good fit for our technology. In the beginning, in the first years, AR will be enterprise professional use case market, meaning relatively low volume. Everybody believes that AR will also be a consumer product, meaning increased volume, high volume. Those two segments are extremely important for us. We continue to explore the barcode area. Teledyne is the kind of latest design win in that area. We see more and more customer wanting to use TLens for this kind of application, both barcode reading, machine vision.
It will take time to develop the volumes, because then you need to go more into the point of sales where the cost sensitivity is higher. That's where we are targeting. When it comes to other markets, I would say there are two which I've been mentioning before, and I will mention it today also. Medical, and automotive. I will come back to those a little bit later. The good thing about this slide, that I need to split it into two next time. As you can see, and you have been following us for many years, many of you, and it's not many years ago, couple of years ago, there was basically nothing. Now we are getting design wins in all key market areas. We are still lacking the medical, but that is coming.
I will come back to that a little bit later. As you can see now in on the consumer side, it's, as you know, the recently announced selfie camera smartphone, watches, smartwatches, and Maxhub, the web camera, which is still actually shipping. The smartwatches, they are end of life, so they are not shipping anymore, but the Maxhub is shipping. When it comes to the industrial area, as you can see here now, we disclose one more of the customer, which is Hikrobot, which is a quite decisible company, which is on the top right icon there. We have Superlead. Superlead are using us in three products now, and Honeywell, as you all know. The latest one, Teledyne. Of course, Magic Leap and more to come.
Quite a strong reference list building up. Yeah. This is smartphone. There's no doubt that adding TLens design is showing us many opportunities. Also the reference design we have developed by our own is helping OEMs and camera module players to start more quickly to design their own designs. For this is kind of a consumer-related slide, but I will say that the main focus definitely is smartphone. Augmented reality application and webcam, drones are also cases which we are exploring, and there are concrete cases on these areas. As I said, smartphone are key, and a significant part of the company's resources has been dedicated to smartphone.
Having said that, the synergy between the different market areas are high, meaning it's more or less the same demands, it's more or less basically it is the same product, which is used for different market segments. That's why we can, with a small organization, address quite a broad application area. In the consumer side, the status is four design wins, six ongoing POCs, and 12 planning POC. Of the six POCs, two are AR, consumer AR, three smartphone, and one ARS. Regarding the first design win, it's limited what I can say. What I can say, on the right, you can see kind of conceptually the camera module drawing. I can't show any more details, but what I can say, it's a flagship re-release.
It's a high-end phone, very high-end phone, implying it will be low volume. I've always been saying that the first cases for smartphone for poLight will be low volume. You will never be thrown into a huge, million, 2 million, 3 million case before they have two things, proven the technology and also see that we are capable of ramping fast enough. This is something we have to prove ourself through the first assignments. They claim that they're gonna achieve the most compact selfie camera in the market. Instant and smooth autofocus user experience, they say. I myself visited the company, of course, seen the phone, and it's looks impressive. The camera module specification is, 32 megapixels, a quite high-resolution selfie camera.
They're using a BFT lens, Silver Premium, aperture size 1.9 inside a fixed focus lens stack. This will be, they claim, the smallest camera module and pupil size with AF for selfie camera in the market. Status. First mass production PO received and announced. We are already shipping. We have weekly shipment from our factory to customer, and that will be continuing in the coming weeks and months. They are planning a market launch in Q2 2023, so not far away. We're also in discussion on future new projects with the same customer. Anyway, the proof of the pudding is repeat orders. Extremely exciting development. I would say well-deserved. Let's keep on delivering. AR side. Yeah. Also, I would say very good development.
As you have noticed, I've step by step, I've been more and more verbal about the AR market area. I think it's fair to say that we do feel still that this technology is a extremely good fit for AR. The key selling points we are addressing, just to repeat that, we enable this ultra-compact size camera module, which is important for small glasses. We have a extremely low power consumption. There's nobody even close to that low power consumption spec we have. If you can imagine, even when the glasses become smaller than this, the battery capacity is very limited. Power consumption is one of the key factors. Fast focusing speed. You're moving.
You don't want to have a very slow to focus capability because you want to see instant things in focus. We have a constant field of view, mean no pumping when you change focusing distance. There is no impact on gravity. Moving your head, there is no impact on gravity. Extremely important, they call it athermalization. Meaning, that camera module, a camera module without autofocus in this application can quickly experience to be out of focus because of temperature variations. There with TLens, in a way by design compensate for that. Extremely important attribute for these glass suppliers. Use case for TLens camera in AR, of course fast, sharp, focusing of object text regardless of distance where you are.
QR barcode scanning, regarding of distance, you know, say you're in a factory floor, you want to scan a QR code, you need to have that super fast. Hand gesture recognition, all in focus, as we would know well from the smartphone application. Of course, continuous video focus when recording moving objects. One design win, Magic Leap, not a small one. Six design-ins, two of them consumer. Here's one of them, Vuzix. Four ongoing POC, sorry, two of them related to consumer. 11 planning POC. Gonna keep us busy. This is CEO at Las Vegas. As you can see, I'm being demonstrated by the Magic Leap. They have a huge booth, Magic Leap. You have to sign up for demonstration.
We waited for nearly an hour to get access to the demonstration. Very, very popular booth and many wanted to have. They had many different kind of places and different use cases they demonstrated. I was lucky to have a go, and it's really, really an impressive glass. Really, really impressive. Not cheap, but super impressive. I met with key team members of Magic Leap, and they really emphasized a lot how important the TLens is for their functionality. As you can see here, Yole has done a teardown. Yole is a famous company doing market analysis, strategic advice. They're doing teardown analysis. They have done a teardown, you can see here on the right side here, that camera to the right.
Here they have teared it down, they found a poLight logo. That was relatively obvious it was poLight. Here you can see the TLens in the package. This is a packaged TLens on top of a fixed-focus camera. This is not an add-in, this is an add-on with a package. Oh, sorry. There's an interesting statement here saying that, "The use of this poLight device is key for the functionality for AR VR headset," comments Romain Fraux, CEO of Yole SystemPlus. "It provides a strong added value for the new wave of AR VR headset systems." We didn't pay him. Super encouraging, more to come.
Magic Leap, I'm not going through the all the details there, but for your references and for your information, you can look through it later. Magic Leap is private, founded in 2010. It's the largest funded, it's kind of $3.9 billion investment. 1,000 plus employees. ML2, Magic Leap 2 is seen as the industry's most advanced AR head-mounted display. Focus on enterprise. We are in the world-facing camera. Sorry. Vuzix. Vuzix, this one, actually they are public, so they are traded in the U.S. Founded in 1997, it's a real. I met the CEO at Las Vegas. He was super happy with the TLens and other TLens related technology we can offer.
They did an IPO in 2009. They are not small, around 115 people. They are actually the industry oldest, first mover of AR OEM. Focus also on the enterprise. They are in a way, a serious player. Very competent. Also impressive demos at Las Vegas. We were so lucky that we were able to get hold of this, I would say, DVT release, which is for the release to developers, for them to prepare themselves with application and so forth. Again, two cameras with TLens on both sides. To the benefit of time, I will not go through the details here, we also have a set of Xvisio, a headset in headquarter. Those are same AR enterprise.
A relatively small player, but still, planning to release this AR headset for enterprise customer in mid this year. LLVision, a Chinese company, also having a DVT glasses ready, trial shipping to customers, planning to do a mass production release mid this year. Okay. Barcode industrial. Teledyne launched 2-megapixel multi-focus MIPI module. This is actually the second generation product using TLens. I would say machine vision, manufacturing line application, so small volumes. This is little bit, I would say the story of poLight's design wins in barcode reading, is that it is related to machine vision, manufacturing line, logistics, meaning relatively low volumes. All these products are shipping. Why we are not announcing kind of progress is because every...
When we get the first PO, that PO is quite high compared to what they need. Say we dictate that they need to order maybe say 12,000 units as a minimum order quantity for us to have an efficient manufacturing process. Whereas they maybe only need 2, 3, 4 thousand per year. That's why you don't kind of hear kind of a constant news loop, because we are in a way forcing them to buy quite a lot for a few years' consumption. All these products are shipping. The opportunity pipeline is increasing. However, we do work actively now to try to find those opportunities, which is more towards the point of sales, meaning much higher volumes.
You can easily get a barcode point of sales application, which will sell in quotas like NOK 0.5 million, NOK 1 million. It becomes a significant market at a different price, of course. What we're selling now is a few thousand type cases, and the prices is very high. I think this will step-by-step build trust in our application, in our technology for this kind of application. Step-by-step, we are also able to cost reduce when we are ramping more for mass production for smartphone and other cases. We will also be able to reduce the cost of our products, meaning we can be more cost competitive for PDA type barcode reading application. That is the plan. Five design wins, 15 POCs, 13 barcode machine vision related. It's a huge pipeline, and 11 planning POC, six of which is barcode. Healthcare.
Senkore, which I know you have as much dialogue with as me, is my understanding from the forum. Matt, CEO, Las Vegas, very positive to poLight and our technology. Claim they will now start soon human trials. TLens into a human body. Isn't that a good slogan? They do plan a market release in the mid this year. That would be then the first design win in medical. Super interesting case. We can see other coming to us also wanting to start POCs on in that endoscope market. Kavli, the Moser team in Trondheim, has done a lot of good things for poLight when it comes to brand building.
There's been a lot of press around them. I saw Zuckerberg, he just gave them some funding, actually. They are getting a lot of credit for the work they've been doing. TLens is an element of that. I'm not gonna take the credit, of course, because they are doing a fantastic research work, but TLens has been an important tool to achieve what they achieve. It's impressive to see how many research lab and actually, I would say commercial, instrument supplier who's now working on similar solutions. We just this week, we got a PO from a company in China who are actually gonna sell this kind of microscope and need then TLenses for that. That will probably be released within this year.
More and more activity related to that. I said before, and I will repeat, I don't think this is gonna be a big volume thing for us. We are selling at very high value. We even do some system integration, stacking, and stuff like that for them. I think it will be an super important brand building in that area. Meaning like cases like Senkore, when they see that we are involved in this kind of advanced research instrumentation, it gives them a kind of a comfort that this is a good technology and have a good references in highly advanced applications. I'd see it more as a brand building than anything else. Of course, it's money, but it's not gonna scale the company. It's gonna be a brand value. Yeah.
Over time, we feel that this can be an important market segment, but it will take time to develop it. We have one design win, Kavli. We have one design-in, which is Senkore. We have 15 ongoing POCs. One of the POCs is actually related to a world market leader in endoscope. They use time, they're extremely thorough, highly competent. We already received quite some Innovation Norway financing from them, and hopefully next year we can talk about a real project with this customer, market leader. 15 ongoing POCs. Many of those are type Kavli related, but also others, and eight planning POCs. My table, design wins 11 up from nine. If you look at the bottom line, active project, meaning design-ins, eight up from seven. Completed POCs 65 up from 61.
Ongoing W-POC 38 up from 33, and planning POC 47 up from 36. Super hectic days. Alf Henning, would you like to go through the financial?
Sure. Thank you, Øyvind . Good morning to you. The company had NOK 4.1 million in revenue in fourth quarter last year, compared with NOK 3.9 fourth quarter in 2021. The EBITA loss was NOK 50 million in the fourth quarter, compared with NOK 5.7. There's mainly two reasons for the decline in EBITA. The most significant one is that in the fourth quarter in 2021, the company won the VAT claim that had been going on for several years and recognized NOK 12 million. The other reason is that there was expense related to share options of NOK 4.7 million in the quarter, the same quarter in 2021, related to social securities, due to the fact that the PLT, the poLight share rise in the quarter.
On the balance sheet, the cash position was NOK 84.2 million at the end of the year, compared with NOK 167.8 million in the end of 2021. Inventory of NOK 45.6 million, compared with NOK 16.8 million. That is an increase of NOK 28.8 million during the year. The increase is mainly wafers from STMicroelectronics. That is our long lead component, but also assembled TLenses, increase in assembled TLenses contributed to the increase. The increased inventory improves the company's readiness for potential volume cases. On a cash flow, the company had NOK 104 million in cash at the beginning of the quarter, used NOK 15.2 million in operating activities, whereof NOK 9.6 million was related to increased inventory.
NOK 4.4 million was used for buying new final test equipment at the Philippines. The company had NOK 84 million at the end of the quarter. That will bring the company cash-wise throughout the second quarter this year and into the third, meaning that there will be a need for capital rise during the next quarters. Thank you.
Thank you, Alf Henning. One slide to go, and then Q&A. Outlook, growing pipeline in several market areas, I think is a fair statement. Recently announced the timing and first mass production PO for smartphone. This is an extremely important milestone for the company, and it is a key reference for all market segments. Of course, as we have seen before, companies can change their mind and delay or cancel programs. As I write in the report, that can of course also happen this time. Having said that, a firm PO, chasing us with deliveries, relatively recent, soon coming announcement, is at minimum, a very strong signal that this is the real case.
A opportunity are developing very positively, as we've gone through several references, several confirmed design-ins, and a part of Magic Leap 2, which is a fantastic achievement for poLight. At CES, I mentioned Sharp. Sharp have actually demonstrated quite quickly a fantastic capability of developing an add-in camera module. I don't know if you saw it, but they have a demonstration of this camera module. They made some videos. I actually have a copy of that presentation, also the camera module, and it's quite impressive work. They are super enthusiastic about TLens. Sharp has been in dialog with us for many, many, many years. Japanese, they are thorough. It takes time to develop the relationship, but they are expressing an extremely high interest in Sharp. Sharp is many things.
Sharp is a camera module supplier, but Sharp is also an OEM. I think there are several opportunities, both that Sharp camera module will try to sell their camera modules to other OEMs, but they also have internal customer. I think Sharp case can lead to many interesting cases over the next years to come. This other kind of AR cases which we're now involved in is building an impressive reference list and an impressive platform for future strengthening our position further in the AR space. Of course, we will not be alone in the AR space. There will be other technologies which will come in. We will coexist with other technologies. I think it's fair to say that the position we have taken now is a very, very strong position, and we intend to keep that.
Yes. As Alf Henning said, there will be capital needed to continue development of this fantastic company, as we have communicated in several quarters. Hence, of course, the company is planning accordingly. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Could I then invite you for Q&A session, Alf Henning?
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Okay. First, some questions related to smartphone.
Is that me?
No, no, that's mine.
Oh, okay.
Chairman, can I ask you for water?
Yeah.
Thank you.
At your service.
Thank you.
Should we start?
Let's start.
Okay. Can you say something about whether this customer is the same customer who has been involved all the way as OEM together with camera module maker in the development of the add-in concept? Now we're talking about smartphone.
No, it's not the same OEM, but it's the same camera module supplier.
Can you say something about whether this customer has a plan or sketch for future use of TLens in future models as well?
As I mentioned in the smartphone slide, that is the case. We are in discussion with the same customer of next generation releases.
If this phone is released-
Of course, just want to say that it's not a walk in the park to get the next one. They will for sure being hammering on pricing and performance and all that stuff. Yes, there are real cases also lining up.
If this phone is released as expected, do you think there is a possibility that the phone would go on sale in Norway?
We asked that question, and we have no clear answer to that. It seems like it will be possible from a tech perspective. It depends how they will use what kind of methods they will use to distribute the product. Our interpretation is that sooner or later, that should be possible. Grethe can buy a new phone finally.
Have you received inquiries from other smartphone customers who want to use TLens as a result of the first customer's few further steps?
We are extremely proactive in this market. We don't need inquiries. We are hammering all the doors all the time, showing all our design solution and stuff like that. We are all over the place. Of course, when this new phone will be released, we will showcase that phone to all who will let us in.
Can you say something about timeline from projects to market entry in this segment? Is it differences between OEMs, fast followers?
That is extremely difficult to answer short and precise on. I think I would like to answer it in this way. Many camera module suppliers, many OEMs have already is a part of completed POC list. When they start a new project, however, it's like typically like this. They start with a, okay, this is a phone, and we need to have a different mechanical design. We need to have a different optical spec. Even if they've done the POC to prove the TLens technology, they have to start from scratch because the new mechanical design means that they have to new camera design, new image sensor in the market means that they have... So everything, and that takes quickly six to 12 months, depending on who you are, to make that happen.
It was previously mentioned that there are four smartphone customers who come a long way in terms of maturity in POCs. Three customers lead the way, while fourth is maturing quickly. Can you say something about the smartphone market? Are there many players who are actively working with TLens as technology in selfie cameras, rear cameras, or other functions now?
Yeah. I think we went through it at least briefly in the presentation, but what I can say that we have several smartphone opportunity also in addition to the design win announced. Also I mentioned before that there's no doubt that smartphone market OEMs are struggling, and they're still struggling. As we have been exposed to that, cancellations, delays due to... Basically triggered by the shutdown of due to COVID. The people are extremely careful in spending money, meaning OEMs dropping sales significantly. That is coloring the whole sentiment in that market. I can confirm that we have other opportunities we are exploring.
If one of the OEM, camera maker working with TLens requesting whether poLight can supply to a model with a high volume in, for example, Q4 2023, how must poLight practically prepare and ramp up the organization to meet such an inquiry with a positive response?
Yeah. It is. We are step-by-step building up a quite good capacity when it comes to infrastructure, meaning assembly line and stuff like that in the Philippines, and testing facility. In a way, another challenge will be material coming into the fab, like wafers from STMicro. But I would say that we have, as you know, as you can see from the inventory, we have already taken quite some risk to be ready for smartphone cases. We have a, I would say, significant of inventory related to wafers.
I would say that we can, we can supply much more in end of the year than we think is needed, even for a relatively good volume project, because we are prepared for it. Generally speaking, the lead time of material is as much as 12- 18 months. Yeah. It's a very, very long lead time still. Maybe things will be changing in the fab side, but at the moment, that's the case. Luckily, we have a lot of inventory, so we can move relatively quickly. Another bottleneck for us, which we are working on and which will be sorted out, hopefully within that time perspective like Q4, is our test capability. We are testing every single TLens that's being shipped to customer for all kind of parameters, mechanical, opticals.
That test capability, which Alf Henning mentioned, we have done more investments in that, is something we also need to increase to be able to supply a high volume case, which we are currently doing.
Our smartphone is planned to be released, using TLens in the second quarter of 2023. Can you say something about what this will mean for the company if it turns out to be a success?
I think, if there is a phone... Should I say, when there is a phone shipping with TLens, that, then we are moving to a new era. We can then show that people can buy that phone, other OEMs can buy that phone, they can test that phone, and hopefully their user experience is very positive. Of course, then we have a live reference in maybe the most important high volume market at the moment. I think, it's basically a reference which is super important to get the next design wins. I think it open up a new era for the company.
For many, the smartphone lens order was a surprise. Did you expect the order for the smartphone project at the time it came?
I was surprised that day because, of course, we are following things closely. But, they did actually accelerate the development a little bit. When I met the customer in... When I was traveling, I think that I was a little bit surprised by how much they accelerated the plans. But, we have obviously been working with this customer for a long time, so we are relatively well-informed, but they did accelerate it, yes.
Okay. Some AR/VR questions. About a week ago, the company Yole Group had a teardown of Magic Leap 2 and revealed that TLens was inside the product, making it public information. What is the reason poLight didn't issue a statement commenting on this? Is it not a fantastic opportunity to finally demonstrate to the market what poLight have achieved?
Mm. Yeah. What we, what we decided to do, to not kind of create an unnecessary, what should I say, information and noise in the market. We decided to take that today, showing it physically, also telling the bigger picture. I hope that was sufficient. Also then you can see the Magic Leap in the context of everything else. That was the decision we took, that we felt it was better to present it today, which is not many days later than the data was available.
It was fantastic fun to have Magic Leap confirmed as a customer with design win in AR, one of the major player in the U.S. What does the reference mean for poLight's future work with other AR/VR customers? Did you notice more interest for your products?
Yeah. As again, it's a reference in a key market. All references is the best sales tool you can have. Extremely important.
What feedback have you received from Magic Leap on TLens in Magic Leap 2?
One of the key management member thanked me for a highly important component for the AR glasses, so I think that's.
Wow.
That's a good reference to have.
In a previously quarterly report, it was mentioned that poLight works with almost all AR/VR players of importance. One more of the major players in the U.S. was mentioned as a POC with a possibility of design win in 2023 with a 2 TLens camera. Can you say something about how this project is on the timeline?
Vuzix, it's here. Release market mid this year. Now for developers.
Nice. New AR/VR patents are now coming up weekly from a very high number of both small and large players, and we see that TLens is one of the preferred technologies in many of these patents. Is poLight involved in the POC work of all these actors, or is someone working on their own with camera model makers without poLight's assistance in the projects?
I think, first of all, I would like to pinpoint this patents, because we get a lot of mails from our investors about patents or patents application. I think it's important to say the following. Some of the patent application or are utility models, which is basically will not never become a patent. They may do it for protecting the freedom to operate. Some of the application are also clearly they can never be approved because of priority by also others. When you say patents, it's not necessarily patents. It could be utility model, could be application which will never be accepted. Yes, we see the same patterns, and you're helping us to follow that.
I would say when it comes to new AR/VR applications, sometimes we know about it, sometimes we don't know about it. Sometimes the pattern can be very generic, any tunable lens, not only TLens, but any tunable lens. It varies. It's a mixed bag. I think it's very useful that you help us to follow this development because there is a big activity now in this area.
Which applications other than world-facing cameras are TLens relevant for in AR/VR in the short term and in the long term?
Now, it's, it is, we didn't talk about today, but it's, I would say display. Laser Beam Scanning is one of the display solution which we think will come. We are involved in quite a big project with a big player, where the TLens is being used for tuning the laser system so that when the user focus or look at the glasses, independent on where the user is focusing, it will always see that Laser Beam Scanning display in focus. That tuning of the laser is done with a TLens. Quite important case for poLight. We haven't talked much about it. It's a strictly confidential case, actually targeting consumer market. That is our display.
We have, we have a new concept, which is being developed as we speak, or should I say prototyped. That is for, we call TWedge, so it's another trademark for poLight. It's for like Micro-LED displays, which is also quite popular to use for AR displays. They struggle with resolution. One way of doing, solving that problem is to use TWedge. TWedge is a TWedge, which is pixel shifting, half-pixel shifting to two times, three times, four times increase the resolution of a display solution, Micro-LED. This is a new product, but it's basically the same technology platform. It's the polymer, which is the lens material, and two glass membranes. What the TWedge does is that it basically tilt one of the membranes, okay.
Meaning that the beam which is coming in is being beam steered to different positions on the screen. Basically beam steering, tilting with a piezo. That is we get extremely many positive feedback on that concept. Mid this year, we will demonstrate technical samples to many players. We will be at the booth in the U.S. for Display Week and we are trying to engage with a customer or customers to bring that product to first application. It's not TLens, but it's based on the same technology platform. It will be a new product for poLight if we decide to move on with a significant potential.
Sharp.
Finally, not only a single product company.
Sharp just showcased the new VR solution with TLens. You stated that there was low expectations in volume until 2024, 2025 in the AR/VR segment. If Sharp were to enter with a top OEM, is it not then possible to have significant volume in this case alone and before 2024, 2025?
No, I don't think. As I said, we talked about Sharp, super important partner, in many aspects, but I really don't believe any AR volume before 2025, 2026. I think just to be very clear and honest on that, the market is not there yet. The technology is not there yet. We need to be patient. We need to use this year to build our position and enterprise and be engaged in POCs with companies. We plan to be ready when the consumer market is there. That's what needs to be focused. I don't want to give any expectation of having anything high volume on AR side, in 2024 or something like that. That's too early.
Okay. Now some questions regarding medical. We are seeing an exciting development of project within the medical vertical now. How is the customer base distributed here? Is it mostly Asian, European, or American players?
Global. Impressively global, actually.
Nice. Coretronic was mentioned earlier as design-in with poLight. Can you say something about whether they use add-in or add-on concept? Is the model they use in the camera developed in-house or is it a camera model maker that can sell this to several other medical customers?
Senkore uses an add-on, concept, especially kind of we are helping them to integrate it on a somehow. We take a bigger responsibility on only supplying the TLens in this case. It is a purpose-made design for Senkore.
Can you explain a little bit more about major player who works with TLens and who has come a long way in the POC phase? Is this a project that could have greater financial potential for you?
Yeah, I just mentioned it in during talk about the medical, but it's a very interesting case. I cannot say more than it's one of the key market player, maybe market leader in this kind of equipment. They are doing POC as we speak. They've been doing it for, I don't know how long, six, eight, nine months at least. We are getting financial support for them. We are selling sampling to them. Maybe next year they are ready to start a real product project. Of course, we will update investors on that. Extremely interesting case.
Yes, I think that this could have a relatively significant standalone impact on for us, but also of course, entering a new market area again, giving new opportunities. In sum, super important.
The Kavli Institute and Moser have received support from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's foundation.
Mm-hmm
... to spread the Mini2P technology to several research environments because they believe it is so groundbreaking and important in future research. Have you noticed any growing interest in such solutions against this background?
Yeah. Yeah. We see more and more cases coming to us, they are all over the world. This is, as I said, it's not a big contributor with volume, but from a brand building perspective, it's really, really useful. Also, I have to say, it feels good to contribute to things which is meaningful for the greater good.
Agreed. Some technical questions, or, and misc. Do you increase headcount?
Little bit, yes. We just added a couple of very senior, highly qualified team members in Philippines. I was just there and visiting them. We need to have high competence close to a manufacturing partner, and Philippines is key in that respect. A little bit, yes.
Has there been interest from other players about purchasing poLight? Will poLight be willing to sell if anybody shows interest in the near future?
That is, you know, we don't focus on that. We focus on developing organically, this company, to share, to create shareholder values. What will happen in that context is a boardroom decision and a shareholder meeting decision. Focus for us is organic development.
It has been a lot of talk in Norwegian media lately about the state of the share issue practice. Subscription rights versus direct issue or private placement, I guess. If a future capital raise is required for poLight, does the management and the board see it as important to give existing shareholder subscription rights, except if there is a good reason not to?
Yeah. Good question. I think the board is very kind of take this very seriously. When we do raise capital, consideration with respect to the company, consideration with respect to shareholders is key judgment they do. We will try to do what's good in sum. I don't want to comment more details on that. It's of course something which we seriously consider different ways of doing share issue.
It is mentioned that the company runs test productions for yield improving work at regular intervals.
Mm-hmm
...and that a number of lenses are produced for stock. Where do we find ready-made lenses in the accounts?
Yeah. First of all, we, today, we produce more than trials. We produce as much as we can to deliver to the smartphone customer. That is real production. Also we produce for other customers. But yes, the yield is going up and down. This is very typical for the stage we are in. But when it comes to the lenses which are in stock, you would find in the inventory, in the report. Also when you get the annual report, there will be more details about this.
Yeah, that's right. How high a yield do we think you can manage on TLens in high volume production?
I think it's a quite good outlook actually. We have seen a huge improvements, the last weeks when we now finally can do some continuous, relatively high volume production. Definitely, 90 plus plus.
You have mentioned that you work with almost all important camera module suppliers. How many have ready add-in modules now, and how many are expected to be ready during 2023?
Yeah. These add-in modules have different application areas. We have camera module suppliers making add-in designs for AR, as an example, VR. We have camera module suppliers focusing on smartphone for add-in. We have camera module supplier doing add-in for industrial application. There are many different application also for add-in. I would say that a small handful, in sum, I guess will be something end of the year, give and take.
At Capital Market Day, we were presented with both pre-shaped TLens and an OIS solution with poLight's technology platform. We find this again in patents from camera module makers now. In some patents we find combined solutions that contain poLight technology that performs both OIA, OIS, autofocus and zoom. This is considered by optical engineer as the holy grail for cameras. A camera module that can perform all these solutions without moving parts. Can you say something about if you have seen prototypes with such a setup and/or if this is possible?
Again, patents, be careful. Patents is not necessary patents. Referring to my comments above. OIS, AF zoom, yes, you're right. Especially zoom has been, is a wet dream, I would call it. I think it's super challenging, to be honest, to have a zoom in a smartphone configuration. Maybe, maybe possible long term, but I think OIS, AF, yes. That exists and we can also do that with polymer optics. I think the most challenging part in that three OIS, AF zoom is the zoom part. I think it's been a wet dream for many, many years, and I think it's has the color of a bit like a wet dream. I have not seen anything useful so far.
Maybe one day.
The add-in design opened many doors, and this reflected in growing numbers of patents, including TLenses and add-in designs. Newly, there was a publication with an add-in design that includes two TLens faced together towards each other. Can you explain why they do it like this, and if it's possible at all?
Yeah. That's, that's in a way, one way of stacking TLens. Which, maybe for this application typically could be for telephoto. Yes, possible. Yes, this is something we have been looking at.
Knowing there has been surfacing patents for stacking TLens in smartphones in both horizontal and vertical models.
Mm-hmm.
Can you say something about real estate for two and vertical models similar to the one that you, the one that is in your reference design?
I think, if I understand that question right, in the vertical direction, that is along the thickness of the smartphone, I guess is the question. The horizontal is more like the folded optics. In the horizontal, you have more space. Of course, if you go along the width of the phone, there are more space. Having a stacked TLenses in the set direction or the thickness of the phone will be more challenging from a real estate perspective. For folded optics or telephoto, possible. Of course, if you accept that camera sticking out, that's another thing. I think people would like to get rid of that, and so I think that stacking TLenses is more relevant maybe for telephoto and folded optics.
Regarding automotive cameras, as they use glass lenses today, is it seen as a cheaper solution to implement plastic lenses with TLens tech to reduce cost in the future?
Yeah, that's actually a very good observation. In automotive, there is a trend or they are exploring to use plastic lenses. That is causing a problem. The problem is that plastic lenses is less temperature stable. In a car environment, when you use a camera which is a fixed focus consisting of plastic lenses, a change in temperature will bring a fixed focus camera out of focus. That's where you need AF, so-called athermalization, same as for AR glasses. Yes, you save cost on one side. Of course, adding AF is also adding costs. It's a calculation, what they feel is smartest to do.
Having then AF there, then of course you could use AF more actively, not only for athermalization but for changing focus. Then you could say actually there was another question, I think, coming, is that TLens, as we say, is compensating for this temperature just by design. Meaning that the way the plastic lens is drifting, causing a camera module to go out of focus, is actually passively corrected by the TLens because it has the opposite effect. You can think about a very cost-optimized TLens with no activation, just being a passive component, which obviously will be a super cost-efficient design. Could also be potentially a new product.
Can you tell us more about TWedge?
How many questions are left?
Oh, there's a lot more.
I think we need to do some selection here. We talked about TWedge. I think that's done.
Which companies do you see as poLight's main competitors and why?
VCM industry.
You are showing a capsule endoscopy on the healthcare slide.
Yes.
Do you have any ongoing capsule endoscopy projects?
This pill camera is my wet dream. One day I will make it.
Can you please explain this first from the report, important changes to the wafers, improving the optical performance of the TLens is now phased in.
Yeah. It is a wafer with a better ARC coating, meaning a better transmission through TLens, more light into the image sensor. We have two versions going forward. One with better transmission and one with still good, but there isn't a better. Those will be potentially priced differently. The first smartphone case is with the old ARC coating. This is, now we will produce mainly the new ARC coating.
If the chairman is here, would it be appropriate for her to present herself and maybe on the board's view of the company going forward?
Yes. Grethe, would you like to say something?
Right now?
Yeah, if you want. If you have a mic. Do we have a mic?
There's someone back. Yeah, there's one there.
Maybe come join us then, Grethe.
It's on?
Yes.
Okay. This is extremely unprepared. I'm chair of the board in poLight. I have my background from IT, technology, and I've been with poLight now for four years or something.
At least, yes.
I mean, the board is as excited as you guys are about poLight. It's extremely difficult.
Mm-hmm.
It's also an organization that is extremely dedicated, and I think they will manage. Anything else you wonder about?
Thank you, Grethe.
Okay, thanks. That was supportive.
Thank you.
Teledyne just released an Optimom 1.5 millimeter or something. It comes with an adaptive price point and has an Optimom 2M in additional autofocus lens option. Is this TLens as well?
That I don't know. I need to check.
Before we listen, let me just... Can I go for that?
Yeah. Okay.
How many VR cases are poLight in? How is the case for 2023 going? When can we see it in the market?
I think there is a potential. We have some few VR cases. I think there is a potential for end of the year for VR cases for poLight. That will be related to, you know, VR, then you don't see through. Like in the AR glass, you see the world, and then in addition to the world, something is projected to the display. You see both the real world and you see something overlaying the real world. Like, in a VR headset, you're in a cage, so you don't see the world. In that application for poLight in the VR headset is actually in a see-through camera. Meaning, there is a camera which has been shown to the user, wearing the glasses, which is taking picture or video of the world. See-through.
That's the application of poLight, and I think there is a potential for end of this year, design win in that area for poLight.
You mentioned for the first time in a quarterly report that TLens has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the automotive market. Where in the automotive area is TLens relevant?
Both in cabin and outside. Both.
When will the company gain cash positive and start working, making money?
Yeah. We don't have a new guiding as we had before. We said 2025 will be a profitable year. We have an updated the guiding. This, of course, is fully dependent on how quick mass or volume production starts in poLight. It's highly uncertain, of course, but there's no new guiding on that.
You write in the report that you do important changes to the way for us to improve...
That we already answered.
the overall performance. Okay. Yeah.
Actually, let's run me for surface. Yeah. That's it?
No, this is the last one.
Yeah, no, we have answered that one. Let me just give me a second to see that we have covered most.
I think we covered all of them.
Fantastic. Thanks, Ole-Tanning, for your support. Yeah.
Welcome.
That's it. Maybe a record, 1 hour and 10 minutes. Thanks a lot for all of you coming. I think also this is probably record audience sitting here face-to-face with me. Very motivating. I encourage other people to join. It's so much more fun to talk to the audience than to a screen. Really appreciate it. Next events for poLight is that we're gonna produce an annual report, April 26th, that will be published. We have the Q1 2023 report, which will be May 11th, 2023. See you May 11th.