Welcome to Ennostar's 2023 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference. Before the meeting starts, all lines are being placed on mute. After the presentations by the management team, there will be a Q&A session. Now I would like to hand over to Mr. Damon Tseng, Ennostar's IR Officer. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Damon Tseng, Ennostar's IR Officer. On behalf of the company, I would like to welcome you to participate in our third quarter financial results conference. I'm joined by five executives: Paul Peng, Chairman of Ennostar; Patrick Fan, Chairman of EPISTAR; Terry Tang, Chairman of Lextar; Wayne Shi, Chairman of Unikorn Semiconductor, and B.Y. Chang, Ennostar's CFO. The agenda is as follows. First of all, our CFO, B.Y., will go over 2023 third quarter results, and Chairman Paul Peng will have an opening remark.
Then the chairman of each company will talk about their Q4 outlook respectively. After that, we will open the line for questions. I would like to also remind you that all forward-looking statements contain risks and uncertainties. Please spend some time to read the safe harbor notice as slide number two. Now, I would like to hand over to B.Y. Hello, everyone.
I'm B.Y. I'll briefly go over Ennostar's Q3 results. First, Q3 net revenue was affected by weak market demand amid macro uncertainties. Q3 usually is the peak season; however, the seasonal demand has been weaker than anticipated this year. Our third quarter net revenue only increased by 5.4% to NTD 6.16 billion.
Fortunately, the increased revenue came from high-margin products, mainly horticulture, lighting, sensing, and automotive products, helping the Q3 gross margin increase by 3.9% QoQ to 8.7%. After deducting the OPEX and non-GAAP items, the net loss attributable to the parent company was NTD 660 million. Net profit margin was -10.8%. Loss per share was NTD 0.89 , slightly narrowing the loss compared with Q2. EBITDA margin was 7.3% in Q3. Moving on to Epistar's Q3 comprehensive income. Revenue increased by 5.8% QoQ to NTD 3.78 billion. On the back of the stronger performance of sensing and automotive applications, gross margin increased to 3.4%. OP margin was -15%, EBITDA margin, 10.7%. Next slide. Epistar's revenue by application.
In light of the relatively robust growth trend of automotive applications within the group, starting from this quarter, we have reorganized the automotive revenues of Epistar and Lextar, including automotive lighting, automotive sensing, and automotive display revenues. The revenue breakdown of the previous quarters has also been adjusted accordingly. In Q3, Epistar's automotive revenue share reached 25%, having gradually increased over several quarters. As mentioned just now, the increase in the Q3 gross margin also benefited from the increased revenue of automotive, horticulture lighting, and sensing compared with Q2, resulting in a further increase in the Q3 gross margin. Next slide, Lextar's comprehensive income. Net revenue in Q3 was roughly flat QoQ, up by only 2%. However, due to the increased portion of high-margin products, the gross margin rose from 20.6% to 22% in Q3. Next slide. Lextar's revenue by application.
Automotive revenue contribution reached 12%. Another high-margin segment, sensing, saw its revenue share increasing from 8% to 9%. Next slide. Ennostar's consolidated balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalent was NTD 16.8 billion at the end of Q3. After deducting bank borrowings, our net cash position was NTD 11 billion. As for the inventories, since the company continues to control our cash position and loading rate, our inventories in the end of Q3 were quite healthy, resting at around NTD 4.47 billion. Our debt ratio was maintained at a very healthy level at 23.6%. Next slide, consolidated cash flows. Cash flow from operating activities was around NTD 390 million in Q3. Outflow from investing activities in Q3 was approximately NTD 1.07 billion. CapEx, NTD 650 million.
Debt repayment was NTD 240 million. Net change in cash was an outflow of NTD 550 million. Ending balance in Q3 totaled NTD 16.8 billion. As I just told you, our CapEx in Q3 was NTD 650 million. CapEx in the first three quarters were 1.7 billion. In addition, we now project our 2023 CapEx will be lowered from NTD 6 billion to NTD 3.5 billion-NTD 4 billion. Of the CapEx items, 2 billion for the Micro LED projects will basically remain unchanged. Other items, including red light and consumer products, due to the uncertainty in the end market recently, we will slightly push back the ramp up for a few quarters.
Therefore, we will lower the CapEx for this year, and may still gradually increase the amount next year and the year after, based on market conditions. So again, this year's CapEx will be lowered from NTD 6 billion to NTD 3.5 billion-NTD 4 billion. This concludes my talk. Next, Paul, our chairman, will have an opening remark. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in our Q3 financial results conference. As our CFO told you earlier, our revenue increased by 5.4% in Q3, and we also saw improvements in our gross margin, reaching 8.7%. However, because the utilization rate was still very low, we're in the red at the operating margin level, of which more than 80% was caused by the idle capacity. The performance of consumer products in Q3 was on par with Q2.
However, due to the growth of automotive and special lighting, such as horticultural lighting, both revenue and profit improved. We still have more cash than financial liabilities, so the cash position is very healthy. Of course, we also strictly control CapEx in response to the unclear market situation to ensure our balance sheet can be maintained at a healthy level. Our inventory turnover also dropped by four days QoQ in Q3. Now, our Q4 outlook. Q4 is seasonally soft traditionally, especially for consumer products, which experience most obvious seasonal variations. The automotive market is still growing steadily. EPISTAR and Lextar are also actively introducing various automotive applications with their customers, including displays, lamps, and interior sensors. The demand for LED displays is expected to increase slightly. However, with the arrival of the soft seasonality, we will strictly control inventory and adjust the UT rate according to actual demand.
We also need to restructure our capacity and eliminate some less efficient capacity to improve manufacturing capabilities and productivity, so that our overall long-term competitiveness can also go up. Unikorn's performance is growing steadily, with optoelectronics products taking up the bulk of the business in the second half. In the first half of the year, optoelectronics products accounted for the biggest revenue share, and it's projected that microelectronic products will also contribute to revenue growth in the second half. Overall, the second half performance will be better than that of the first half. We will also work hard to increase the proportion of the value-added products, especially in the Micro LED segment. We will also leverage the synergy of the group to prepare for mass production.
Moreover, we will strictly control CapEx expenses, focusing on capacity integration and capability improvement, and prepare for mass production of high-end products and Micro-LED applications. We hope that with these efforts, our profitability will further go up. Thank you for giving me the time to go over our business updates. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Paul. Next, we will have the chairman of EPISTAR to provide us with a business update for Q4.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I'm Patrick from EPISTAR. As our CFO, B.Y., just told you, I would like to go over our Q4 outlook. In Q3, our high-end applications, including automotive, horticultural lighting, and wearables, grew as expected. As we enter Q4, which is the traditional off-season, the consumer market demand has softened, including traditional TV set market. However, there are some exceptions.
For example, in the lighting segment, where the entire supply chain has effectively digested inventory, urgent orders have emerged for replenish stock. Although we have entered the traditional off-season, there are some individual cases where the supply chain inventory has dropped a lot and additional demands resurged. This signal that the economy should have a better outlook next year. In addition, the LED display segment has been growing nicely this year. But in Q4, which is the traditional peak season, our share is also increasing. Therefore, we hope that the Q4 performance will at least stay at the same level to offset the softer demand experienced in Q3. Mini LED was the main growth driver of EPISTAR in the past, and is now one of the reasons for the increase in idle capacity. So we actively communicate with the end customers.
Although the global decline in the IT segment is quite pronounced, we hope that we can maintain or even increase our market share. We have won recognition from customers, not through lower prices, but with better services. We also hope that our Q4 revenue will be on par with that of Q3, despite the softer seasonal demand. We also hope that our next year's share will be maintained or even better. In addition, in terms of automotive applications, as Paul and B.Y. mentioned, our automotive business is growing. The growth trend will likely be maintained in Q4, and this seems to be the overall trend of the entire industry, because almost every automotive customer is growing, and business is growing across many lines from inside to outside of a vehicle, including turn signal lights, tail lights, backlights, and ambient lights. This should be good news for the entire industry.
We are also projecting continued growth in Q4. Of course, business may be affected by the Lunar New Year in Q1 next year, so we will have to wait and see. In the high-end segment, wearables have seen weaker demand amid the off-season. However, in terms of horticultural lighting, because we have reached next year's performance target ahead of schedule, we have started communicating with customers and will secure the materials for some of their next year's purchase in Q4. Traditionally, Q4 is the off-season for horticultural lighting. It seems that the overall demand is declining. However, because we hit our target ahead of schedule, there will also be demand for material preparation in Q4. Q4 performance will not drop to a very low level. In addition, in high-end lighting, besides horticultural lighting, there are also some bidding projects for building lighting and landscape lighting.
The high-end lighting demand was relatively weak in Q3, but now it seems to be picking up, so this also adds up to the baseline. Overall, because the consumer market is still in recession, we hope that the EPISTAR's revenue will not decline too much in Q4. Through these efforts, we are also hopeful that we will not only avoid a steep decline, but also post growth after Q1 next year. This concludes my talk. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Patrick. Now, Terry, would you please provide us a business update for Lextar for Q4?
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I'm Terry from Lextar. Now I'd like to provide you with our Q4 business outlook. Q4 being the off-season for TV backlight and sensing applications, will likely see weaker demand than in Q3. However, the demand for IT backlight and lighting is projected to be flat QoQ.
The revenue of automotive products, such as automotive backlight, sensing, and lighting, is expected to grow QoQ in Q4. Moreover, driven by growth in automotive backlights and sensing, our automotive segment's revenue contribution will almost double this year, growing from 5% last year to 2%-10% this year. Looking ahead, direct-lit Mini LED backlight, featuring high brightness and high contrast ratio, has been widely applied in automotive clusters and central information display or CIDs. So we expect the automotive direct-lit backlight will be one of the most important revenue contributors to our automotive segment this year, next year, or even in the next few years. As for automotive lighting, it has been accounting for a bigger share of our automotive segment's revenue.
On the back of the growth of the EV demand, interior display, including tail lights and exterior display, such as headlights, rear lights, and display lights in the back and in the front, the applications of matrix display lights will expand substantially. Therefore, we expect to see multifold growth next year. Buoyed by the growth of these applications, the automotive segment's revenue contribution will likely reach 15% in 2024 and 20% in 2025. So our automotive segment will be the key growth driver of Lextar in the coming years. This concludes my business outlook for Lextar in Q4. Thank you very much for listening.
Thank you, Terry, for your sharing. Now, we will have Wayne from Unikorn Semiconductor to give us a business outlook for Q4.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I'm Wayne from Unikorn Semiconductor. I would like to spend some time talking to you about our Q4 business outlook. First of all, about our opto electronics VCSEL. In the past two to three years, we've been achieving mass production of small form factor, proximity VCSEL with end customers. In Q4, with increasing penetration in the end market, we are experiencing stronger demand. At the same time, we've developed large size, high power applications for new projects with several customers. Many NRE customers have shown avid interest in this large size VCSEL or high power platform. Our priority in Q4, therefore, is to complete the setup of this platform. Moving on to Micro LED. Building on the growth momentum of Micro LED RGB display platform, in Q3, Unikorn achieved better performance, shipping in meaningful volumes to international customers.
In Q4, we see the volume to be maintained, and this is our first generation product. At the same time, we are working with our customers to develop second generation and third generation products, hoping to deliver newer generation and higher efficiency products with stronger cost structures, so as to achieve higher volumes. Now, about our Micro LED, LED, AR/VR platform. Unikorn Semiconductor continues to advance our AR/VR platform. Currently, many customers have expressed avid interest in our platform and is working with us on NRE projects. As for microelectronics products, with fierce competition on the computer silicon market, our performance was less than expected. Therefore, Unikorn will have to more aggressively improve our manufacturing process.
At the same time, we will have to effectively take advantage of the synergy created through combining our epitaxy and process expertise, so as to develop better and higher-end applications and products. We hope that we will be able to improve our performance to achieve better performance, so as to attract more customers to come to Unikorn Semiconductor for engineering development. Now, about our RF segment. In the past two years, we've been helping end customers to develop low voltage computer silicon RFPA. Currently, the projects are going steadily. However, these kind of products require longer development cycles, and they are still being moved ahead, and things have been working quite smoothly at the moment. As for the epitaxy for RF, we are shipping in stable volumes. While the shipment volume is not growing significantly, it has been maintained steadily.
Lastly, about our microelectronics BAW filter. Starting from Q3, we've been shipping in small volumes to customers in Western U.S., and we will continue to ship in Q4. These will be small volume shipments for qualification, and things have been looking quite good and the results are being quite satisfactory. At the same time, we are helping several customers to develop next generation platform. The platform will achieve significant, significant improvement in cost structure and performance. We hope that next year they will be able to bring in more revenue to us as a company. This concludes my talk. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Wayne. So our executives have provided with their business outlook for Q4. We would like to proceed to questions and answers. We would like to welcome participants to pose questions online.
Thank you. We now start the question- and- answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero, star one on your telephone keypad. When you hear your name announced, please start to speak. If you wish to cancel your question, please press star two. Thank you.
As we're waiting for questions online, we would like to provide answers to the questions that we have collected from analysts before the meeting. First of all, many analysts are quite interested in our strategic deployment for Micro LED. Under the umbrella of Ennostar, we have Epistar, Lextar, and Unikorn Semiconductor, with Micro LED technology portfolio and production capacity, and PlayNitride is also one of our collaborating partners. This week, AUO and PlayNitride announced that the two companies will work together to build a Micro LED COC line. So what is our positioning of Epistar, Lextar, Unikorn, and PlayNitride in the Micro LED industry? From the perspective of Ennostar, what is our thought? Paul, would you please?
Hi, I'm Paul. When it comes to Micro LED, there are actually many applications and processes and technologies. Within our group, we have different roles and responsibilities. For example, PlayNitride is the only company that can commercially mass produce Micro LED displays. Therefore, last year, Epistar had technical transfer with PlayNitride, and Epistar is building Micro LED production lines, hoping to build end-to-end capabilities in the field of Micro LED, from epitaxy to chip production. As for Lextar, the company is working on micro package service. Therefore, Epistar and PlayNitride deliver chip on glass. Lextar provides package on glass or package on PC board, which is more applicable to the existing process and manufacturing equipment.
As for Unikorn Semiconductor, it provides Micro LED foundry services, and it also offers ultra-high resolution, such as AR/VR display production and silicon production process. So each of the company has its unique positioning. However, ultimately, the epitaxy all comes from Epistar. Therefore, within the company, we have clear division of expertise and good synergy in Micro LED applications and technology. We hope that going forward in the Micro LED segment, we will enjoy a nice deployment, strategic deployment in terms of technology and applications.
Okay, thank you, Paul. We have shared with analysts that automotive plays an essential part in our business. Recently, AUO announced to acquire a Germany-based company named BHTC. Will this deal have any bearing on Ennostar? Paul, would you please?
I think I'm not at the liberty to speak on behalf of AUO.
However, basically, I think the group has built deep expertise in the automotive segment, from die to module, and even from backlight to displays in the future, and ultimately, to Micro LED displays. In car interior, we have ambient lights, headlights and tail lights, and turn signal lights and head sensors. Within the Ennostar Group, we have a wide array of expertise and are able to ship products commercially. We have been observing rapid development of the automotive market. In the future, smart cockpit will be widely used in autonomous driving and electric vehicles. LED, Mini LED or Micro LED panels feature power efficiency and flexible form factors. They can also be colored or be transparent, resulting in many display applications. Of course, added with the lights and lamps, we think that Ennostar has great growth potential in the automotive field.
AUO acquired BHTC because BHTC is a Tier 1 provider of automotive climate control and display HMI. BHTC has been a customer of AUO. As a group, Ennostar will be able to enjoy faster growth in the automotive field because of the acquisition. Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Paul. There is also a question on our outlook. We've talked about our Q4 outlook previously, including the development of the automotive segment. Could we provide more color around our mid- and short-term deployments and strategic development for automotive segment? Could Patrick please talk about Epistar's direction? And later, we will have Terry to talk about Lextar's strategic focus.
Thank you. I'm Patrick. I would like to talk about our development focus in terms of the automotive segment. In a car's exterior, we have tail lights, turn signal lights, and brake lights.
Based on our own forecast, we account for about 50% of the market currently. So it is actually a bit difficult for us to pursue more growth in terms of market share. However, with this foundation, aided with our successful cases in the Mini LED segment, we are working with our customers, including Lextar, to turn these exterior lights into displays, such as placing Mini LED on a display while Mini-LEDs backlight, unlike Mini-LED backlight, such displays are yellow or red lights. Can they be RGB? I think many development projects are ongoing. If you go to vehicle trade shows, you will see many more similar demonstrations. Moreover, in the car exterior, we also have secured a good market share in exterior lights. We hope that we will have more growth in these fields going forward.
As for car interior, for backlight, I think Terry will be able to provide you with more details later. The direct lit backlight segment is growing rapidly, so they are consuming more chips. We will be working with packaging foundries and module makers in hopes of developing the most appropriate chips for direct-lit backlight displays. Moreover, in ambient lights or RGB driver in package, it has increasingly become a trend. Epistar's chips have been installed into various cars through packaging foundries, and we have secured a high market share. Initially, chips used in high-end cars of European car makers mainly come from Epistar. Of course, in the short term, the volume may not be that significant, but as EV becomes a trend, ambient lights or displays will become even more popular and widely used, resulting in bigger shipment volumes for us.
Based on the forecast of our customers, the volume will be significant in three-five years. So currently, we are working with our customers and communicating with them closely. Moreover, in car interior sensing applications or driver monitor systems, EPISTAR has a leading position in the infrared technology, so we have secured a good market share. However, we need to grow our shipping volumes as such kind of systems hasn't been widely used in many cars. However, on the back of rising awareness for driver safety, the number of projects has been growing. We will also deliver head-up displays in new segments, such as using mini-LED for projection for display to be used as head-up displays. In the future, micro-LED will be directly placed on top of glass to provide transparent displays, or can be used directly on head-up displays.
We are working with our customers closely starting from next year. I haven't talked about headlights. We have been securing pretty good market share in daytime running lamp segment. However, daytime running lamp is not as relevant in the driver safety segment. Our headlights have achieved qualifications with some smaller vehicles in the past three years, so the quality can be guaranteed. Next year, we may be able to deploy headlights into more mass-market vehicles, with growth, growth potential expected. We hope if we have more clear information, we'll be able to share with you next year at our investor conferences. Next, we'll have Terry to provide us with his perspective. In terms of the development of Lextar in the automotive segment, our automotive segment includes automotive backlight, lighting, and sensing.
In terms of automotive and backlight, as mentioned, we mainly offer clusters and dashboards. We extensively apply FALD, or full array local dimming, in mini-LED products. Lextar has been working on the mini-LED technology field for many years. With our outstanding product feature, we have secured a presence in European and American car makers. Mini-LED has become a key contributor to our revenue. Today, we are also aggressively developing next-generation products, including modular or curved applications. We are also developing industry-leading, most power-efficient products. As EV demand demands higher power efficiency, we can project that in the coming years, automotive directly backlight will post a CAGR of 40% from 2024 through 2026, which will also become a key growth driver of us. As for automotive sensing, mainly IR sensing components for cockpit systems.
With new regulations implementations around the world, making DMS and OMS increasingly essential in vehicles are expected to see significant demand growth. Lextar's DMS and OMS IR components have been adopted by many Chinese and American car makers, and starting from this year, we have seen them making visible contribution to our automotive revenue. Our automotive light product line includes interior and exterior displays. In the car interior, it's mainly applied in ambient lights. In the exterior, we have a mini RGB LED metric displays used in interactive headlights or tail lights. These kind of products have been deployed in European Tier 1 car makers. So this is a core competence of Lextar in the area of mini-LED. We expect to ship in bigger volumes in 2025. Overall, from backlight, lighting, and sensing, we are moving ahead in accordance with our strategic focus.
Thank you, Patrick and Terry, for your sharing. Thank you. We don't have any questions on the line. Now I would like to hand over back to Mr. Damon Tseng. Please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our investor conference today. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us at the IR department of Ennostar. We'll see you next time. Thank you.
Thank you very much for participating in Ennostar's 2023 third quarter financial results conference.
This concludes the conference today. You may disconnect now. Thank you.