Hi, everyone. This is the first time we met each other after the Chinese New Year, I would still like to say Happy New Year to everyone. Again, we will have our IRO, Rodney, to report the fourth quarter earnings and the results of 2022 in the first session, and then we will have the Q&A session after that.
Thank you for coming today. Now we are going to review the financial numbers for Q4, 2022. As usual, all the financial numbers have been audited by CPA. The Q4 revenue was TWD 105.6 billion , representing a 26% year-on-year growth and only 1% sequential decline from Q3. The 1% sequential decline was partially related to the stronger NT dollars against U.S. dollars in Q4. Q4.
Gross profit in Q4 grew by 32% year-on-year, but declined by 8% quarter-on-quarter. As previous quarters, there was a surge in marketing events and business trips after the reopening. Therefore, the Q4 expenses grew by 25% year-on-year and 1% quarter-on-quarter, where wage inflations also added to the increases in R&D and SG&A expenses compared to a year ago. The R&D expenses as % of sales slightly increased to 8.3% in Q4 versus 8.0% in Q3 and 8.2% a year ago. The expenses ratio of SG&A was 9.6% in Q4 and Q3 versus 9.8% a year ago. The OpEx ratio in Q4 was 17.8% versus 17.5% in Q3 and 18.0% a year ago.
With the disadvantage of operating leverage , OP margin in Q4 contracted to 10.2% versus 12.7% in Q3, but significantly improved from 8.7% a year ago. Business-wise, we found decent year-on-year growth in all segments and some sequential increases in automation and infrastructure. There was only a slight seasonal decline in power electronics. Earning-wise, we found a significant year-on-year growth for power electronics with only a slight seasonal contraction in Q4. On the other hand, the profit contractions for automation and infrastructure were mainly due to mixed issues and write-downs. For the revenue contribution, power electronics, automation and infrastructure were 58%, 15%, and 27% of sales in Q4 versus 60%, 13%, and 27% in Q3, and 59%, 14%, and 27% a year ago.
With some foreign exchange loss, the non-operating profits in Q4 was TWD 0.7 billion, lower than previous quarters. In Q4, we had TWD 11.5 billion profit before tax, up 36% year-on-year and down 24% quarter-on-quarter. EBITDA in Q4 was TWD 16.7 billion, up 29% year-on-year and down 17% quarter-on-quarter. Q4 tax expense was about TWD 2.4 billion, representing a 21.1% effective tax rate. Non-controlling interest was similar to Q3, but surged significantly compared to a year ago as a result of Delta Thailand's earnings growth. The net profit after tax in Q4 was about TWD 7.9 billion, up 26% year-on-year and down 29% quarter-on-quarter.
The EPS in Q4 was TWD 3.05 . Now we have a look at the accumulated numbers for the whole year. The revenue was TWD 384.4 billion, up 22% from a year ago. GP was up 23% year-on-year, with a GP margin of 28.8% versus 28.7% a year ago. The operating expense was up by 18% year-on-year, with SG&A up 19% and R&D up 17%. Thanks to the better economies of scale, the OpEx ratio shrank to 18.0% from 18.7% a year ago. SG&A, as a percentage of sales, dropped to 9.0% from 10.1% a year ago. R&D expense ratio also contracted to 8.3% from 8.6%.
Here we also. By segment, we found decent revenue growth across the board. Profit-wise, except for automation, which was significantly impacted by the soft IM market . We found substantial profit expansions for the multiple segments. Here we also provide a sales contribution for each segment for your information. We had about, like, TWD 4.6 billion non-operating profit, slightly better than a year ago. In total, we had TWD 46.1 as income, up 29% from a year ago. Our EBITDA was TWD 65.6 billion, up 24% from a year ago. The tax expense was around TWD 1 billion, representing 19.7% effective rate. Non-controlling interest were then low as a result of the strong earnings compared to a year ago.
The net profit after tax in 2022 was TWD 32.7 billion versus TWD 26.8 billion a year ago, representing a 22% growth. The EPS of 2022 was 12.58 versus 10.32 a year ago. The proposed cash dividend this year is TWD 9.84 per share. Speaking of this cash dividend, I think we are going to provide an elaboration on it. For the net profit after tax for the current year in 2022 was TWD 327 million . For the earnings available for distribution for the current year was TWD 426 million . You can find the details in the note 2.
As you can see from the table below, due to the significant appreciation of U.S. dollars against Taiwanese dollars and Thai Baht, we had a potential of value in this difference, on translation of foreign financial statements, which results in a significant increase in other comprehensive income. Therefore, we have reversed the provision in accordance with the regulations. Considering the fluctuations, I mean, in foreign exchange challenges. Hereby we proposed an amendment to the dividend policy. Before the amendment, the amount of dividends distributed to shareholders shall be no less than 60% of the distributable earnings of the current year.
After the amendment, the amount of dividends distributed to shareholders should not be less than 50% of the net profit after tax of the year. The reason why we proposed this amendment to this modification to the dividend policy, as you can see from the table, the table of historical cash dividends, because of the fluctuations of foreign exchanges and the strong appreciation of the U.S. dollars against Taiwanese dollars and Thai Baht, we had this, I mean, a strong profits on the P&L. Actually, I mean, the profit from this, I mean, appreciation of U.S. dollars is only the book value, so without any cash in and cash out.
Going forward, considering the future capacity and investment plans, we decided to make this modification for, to, I mean, to the dividend policy. In this case, that we can also, I mean, have a more consistent in terms of our, the company's cash flow and the dividend payouts. We hope to win the supports from the shareholders. As, as we know that, we actually saw the pretty strong growth, I mean, for your EVs, EV solution business. How do you see the outlook for your EV business this year? EV is actually a very hot theme and very hot topic today. Actually there are some mega trends, I mean, in this auto industry.
In the old days, I mean, when Tesla just emerged, people or many other automakers didn't really expect Tesla could become a game-changer, I mean, in this industry. Today, even for the automaker that didn't really believe in the future of EV, which is the Japanese, I mean, OEM, they also started to, I mean, invest more into their new models of EVs. As we can see from the latest, I mean, article, the recent articles on The Economist, it actually mentioned the new model of Ford, which is F-150. This pickup truck actually contributed a lot of, I mean, sales contributions to Ford. It suddenly became the mainstream model, I mean, in the pickup truck market.
As I heard from a friend, I mean, who lives in the U.S., United States, he told me that if he wants to, I mean, to order a new pickup truck from Ford, he has to wait for at least a year. The demand for the EVs, not only for the passenger car, but also for the trucks are very strong in the market. For the EV cars or for the electric trucks, they can not only be the vehicles and moving people from one place to another place, but also it become a type of Energy Storage System to provide additional energy to the household.
A good thing, I mean, a good thing for this market for, or for this EV business is, it's not like other ICT business or industry. Once, I mean, once you get the models or once you get the project wins from the customer, and then you can have this, I mean, business, at least for maybe another 5 years. Because the, I mean, the life cycle for the electric vehicles can be pretty long. Actually we are not allowed to provide any financial, I mean, guidance or official guidance to the investors or to the public. The only thing I can say is we continue to expect the pretty decent growth, I mean, for.
A pretty decent growth for our EV business this year. I mean, I a s I said, I couldn't, I mean, really talk about like, the accurate, I mean, growth number. I provide such, I mean, number for you. We do expect pretty decent growth, I mean, for our EV business this year. We also expect this business start to make some minimal profits this year. Do you think that you are able to achieve even faster growth, I mean, for your EV business, I mean, compared to 2022? Yeah, perhaps. Can you give us like more colors on this, slightly higher gross margin in Q4, and also give us some guidance, I mean, or the gross margin outlook for the whole year?
The higher gross margin in Q4 was mainly related to the unfavorable product mix and some one-off write off of inventories as well. This, I mean, one-off write off accounted for to the Cost of Goods Sold, like around 1%. For the shipping margin for the whole year, I mean this year, I think that as the chairman just mentioned, we actually expect to see, I mean, the faster growth of our EV business. But this business actually carried lower shipping margin and very minimal OP as well. That might be dilutive, I mean, to our margins. But we'll still contribute, I mean, on the bottom line because of, I mean, less drags from the loss.
Can you give us slightly more details about sales contribution within automation segment? For example, how much was from the industrial automation and how much was from the building automation? How do you see the margin profile going forward for the automation segment? In Q4, because of the weakness of the market, the industrial automation business was actually under some pressure. On the other hand, building automation business was growing really, really fast. As you probably already know that our subsidiary, VIVOTEK, was growing substantially last year. Like more than half of its business was ODM business, which carried lower margins.
That was the main reason we saw higher margins of automation segment. Simply put, that was actually because of the product mix, I mean, the unfavorable product mix, I mean, of the automation segment. How do you see the, like any opportunities or any chance, or have you already seen any evidence of, I mean, IM market recovery, especially in China? I think we do expect to see some improvements, I mean, in the industrial automation business, especially because we had, I mean, a relatively lower base last year. Actually there is still a structural issue in terms of the labor shortage in the China markets.
Anyways, the factories will all need to, I mean, upgrade their automation equipment or their automation level in order to survive, I mean, the next generation of manufacturing. In the long run, we still have pretty high expectation for industrial automation, despite the short term, I mean, weakness of the market. Can you give us, like, some idea about your plans for Delta Thailand going forward? Where we produce our products is still subject to the clients, I mean, the customers' choices. For example, if the customers, they prefer their products to be produced in Thailand or in China or in Taiwan.
If they prefer their products to be produced in a place there, we will have the local team to serve there to serve the clients. From the perspective of the group, whether either of the products, I mean, are made in by, I mean, Delta Thailand or by Delta, because we actually consolidate all the numbers and revenues of Delta Thailand. It doesn't really make a big difference. Can I say that if it's possible that, I mean, customers, I'm so sorry. They prefer their products to be shipped by Delta, but be produced by Delta Thailand. I think they're actually the customers, they have their preference. For example, the European clients, they may prefer to have their products, I mean, to be produced in Thailand or Taiwan.
We also have the teams, I mean, to serve the clients. Well, simply put, that is all based on the preference of the clients. It's all about the clients' choices. How do you see the outlook for Q1? We of course, I mean, we still do expect to see the year-on-year growth for Q1. Actually, we still have like multiple growth drivers, including like EVs, data centers, telecom powers and Energy Storage System and so on and so forth. Unless there are some, I mean, uncertainties or like any uncertainties in the macro environment. Otherwise, we do expect to see the year-on-year growth.
Compared to last year, would you say that you are being more optimistic about the sales momentum for your EV solution business this year? I think actually, all the projects we have at hand, actually are the orders or the project wins we had. I mean, we won, I mean, in few years, a few years ago. In terms of the expectations, actually, there are not so many differences. Only because this year, I think the supply chain, especially the auto supply chain, the situation in the auto supply chain is better than last year, especially the first year, the first half of last year.
We may see the acceleration of this, I mean, revenue growth for our EV solution business. Can I say that like, for each business, you are being more optimistic, I mean, this year compared to the end of last year? I wouldn't really say so, because for the consumer related businesses, for example, the smartphone power chokes and the notebook power supplies and fans and so on and so forth, I think the market is still under some pressure. Also for the 5G deployment, I think as I always said, I mean, in the analyst meetings, the major bottleneck is still, I mean, the lack of the killer applications. That is the main reason for the slow deployment of 5G.
The next question is, I mean, how do you see the impact, I mean, of the fluctuations of the foreign exchanges? We actually, I mean, in terms of the sales, we, the majority of the sales, are in U.S. dollars, and the costs are in U.S. dollars as well. The fluctuations of foreign exchange actually only has very limited impact on GP margin. We actually adopt a natural hedge policy for our GP margin for the foreign exchange exchanges. How do you see the artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT? How do you see the impact on Delta? Or, are you seeing more opportunities because of this?
Yeah, I think so, because there is some growing demand for the computing capability, which also results in increasing demand for energy management and cooling, and also the upgrade for the networking equipment in order to have wider bandwidth. I think we are going to, I mean, benefit from this kind of trend, especially for our infrastructure segment and infrastructure related businesses. In terms of the internal applications, we are still, I mean, observing this trend and studying on this. I heard about that. I mean, there is still pretty significant labor shortage issue in China, especially after the reopening. How do you see this issue?
I think the way we handle or we solve this problem is we will accelerate our pace of factory automation and Smart Manufacturing. Let me give you some numbers. Actually in 2022, our direct labor actually declined by 20% on the year-over-year basis, but our production value was actually growing in 2022. I think going forward, we will continue to deploy more and more Smart Manufacturing and automation, I mean, within our own factories. In the old days, the direct labor was about like 5.4%-5.5% of our Cost of Goods Sold. Today it was actually around 4% or less than 4% of our Cost of Goods Sold.
Going forward, we will, I mean, continue to see the decline, I mean, in this direct labor cost. For the CapEx plan, I mean, in 2023, I think the CapEx investments, I mean, in 2022 was around TWD 2.2 billion. Because of some, I mean, labor shortage and some material shortage last year. Some of the projects, I mean, especially the construction projects, have been delayed to this year. We may see some increases, I mean, year-on-year increases, I mean, for the CapEx investments, I mean, compared to the last year. For the CapEx investments, I think, I mean, by nature, we are not really, I mean, CapEx intensive, I mean, company.
Our CapEx, I mean, CapEx level is not like the upstream, especially the semiconductor industry. Our CapEx investments, I mean, as a percentage of our revenues, is actually not a really big number. How do you see the dividend policy? Could you please give us, like, more colors or details or elaborations on this, I mean, dividend policy? I think we have already, I mean, we already explained the proposal, I mean, of this, I mean, dividend policy modification, I mean, at the beginning of the meeting. I think the whole idea is we want to, I mean, be more consistent in terms of the real cash flows, I mean, and the dividend payouts.
At the end of the day, we want to maintain a stable payout ratio and the dividend, I mean, the stable payout ratio, I mean, for our investors and shareholders. That is the whole idea. How do you see your market shares, I mean, in the EV market? Which are your biggest customers? Can you give us some names? I think it's pretty hard to say because we actually provide a range of different products. But considering we actually nearly cover like all the Western OEMs. We believe that our market shares is actually quite substantial. Can you give us the breakdown of your capacity? I think, currently, China still accounts for like about more than 60% of our total capacity.
Delta, including its subsidiaries, accounts for another 20%+ . The rest is coming from Taiwan and other countries. Although we continue to have this, I mean, capacity expansion plans. As I said, I mean, earlier, there are some project delays, I mean, because of the labor shortage and material shortage last year. For many of the new projects, we haven't really have, they haven't really running at their new capacity yet. In terms of the capacity breakdown, it's actually not that, I mean, different compared to the number we've mentioned previously.
How do you see the outlook for your EV charging, EV charger business? Actually, I think the, for example, I mean, the U.S. market, one of the biggest operators, which is EVgo, is actually our customer's customer. I think in many countries, and especially in the U.S., in China, the governments, I mean, they are pretty proactively deploying the EV charging facility. That's why we actually have pretty high expectation for our EV charging business. I have a follow-up question. I mean, for the EV charging business. We all know that, I mean, the market for EV charging business is really big, but also the competition there is quite fierce. All the companies, they have this, I mean, power management related technology. They all want to penetrate into this market.
How do you see your competitiveness there? Well, the market itself is indeed pretty crowded. Well, technically speaking, if you look at the design of the product, you may think, okay, the design of the product is actually not that difficult. As a matter of fact, I mean, as a matter of fact, it actually requires pretty high expertise, especially considering to the safety issues of, I mean, fast charging. For example, for DC-to-DC fast charging, it actually requires the expertise, experience in the power management technology.
I think some companies, especially for those, I mean, they are not, the experts, I mean, in the power management industry, they may not yet think of the potential risks of this. Actually, I mean, in terms of our business plan or the product portfolio, EV charger is only part of our whole business plan. Our ultimate goal is we want to build up a smart grid for the cities by providing the integrated solutions and products. We actually have the Energy Storage Systems and our solar inverters and our EV chargers and so on and so forth. EV chargers is actually only part of this smart grid. Simply put, I think that it's just like the many other or any other, I mean, new businesses, or emerging businesses.
At the beginning, there are always, I mean, many people or players, they want to penetrate into these new markets, but not everyone can really survive in the market unless they really have the expertise, I mean, in this market. Can you give us, like, the sales contribution of your Energy Storage System business, I mean, last year? Well, in terms of the sales contribution, it was actually pretty minimal, I mean, last year. It was only like $1.2 billion last year. In terms of the growth potential, we actually expect a pretty high growth potential for this Energy Storage System. What about your power chokes, I mean, for the auto market?
Currently, the auto choke accounted for, like, more than 10% of our passive component business. Maybe I can provide a little bit more colors on this. For the auto chokes, we actually see pretty much, I mean, growth potential for these auto chokes, not only because of the growing volumes, I mean, on the vehicles, but also with the much higher specs and requirements, I mean, for the auto chokes compared to the IT chokes. For example, for those chokes that installed in the vehicles, they have to handle the extreme environment. For example, also including the vibration and the heat. The coolness, I mean, in the vehicles.
The request, I mean, in terms of the specs for auto chokes is actually much higher than IT chokes. What's your. Well, let's talk about your ESG. Do you have any focus, I mean, in terms of your ESG development this year? I think one of the new focuses of our ESG is we started to make some efforts in the biodiversity. In addition to the biodiversity, I think our. We also, I mean, we also, we are targeting to achieve the RE100 target, I mean, before 2030. Also, we are committed to achieve, like, net zero in our global operations in 2050.
Can you talk about the midterm drivers, growth drivers and the midterm long-term growth outlook? I try to answer this, I mean, question. Delta, we do 10-year strategic plan every year. On average, the company will grow at double-digit compared to the previous years. I suppose you the midterm you were talking about is 3 to 5 years. For the drivers, EV is certainly one of the most important drivers, and the EV related products, such as passives and I mean, for the auto chokes. We are also now selling more and more power auto chokes. On the other hand, we are also selling more and more cooling fans, I mean, to the vehicles as well.
Now we are selling more and more fans, I mean, to the car companies. For example that we actually provide the fans, I mean supply the fans, for the seats, cooling and also for the engine coolings and infotainment system cooling as well. EV is going to be one of the biggest drivers for sure. Data center is definitely be another, I mean, important growth driver as well. We not only cover the hyperscaler, I mean customers, but also many telecom operators, because they are also very keen to make a transition from the voice center to the data center. Another growth driver will be our building automation business.
Actually the buildings, I mean, consume like 30%-40% of total electricity in the world. By deploying our building automation system, we actually hope to make some contributions in reducing the energy consumption in the buildings. We believe that there, I mean, that is where we can make some contributions. Those would be the long term, mid to long term growth drivers to the company. I think time is up. Thank you for coming today. Thank you.