Welcome, everyone, to Parade Technologies, Ltd. 2025 Q1 Webcast Investor Conference. Investor Relations of Parade Technologies, Mr. Yo-Ming Chang, will present 2025 Q1 financial results first. During the presentation, all lines will be placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session in English by CEO Dr. Jack Zhao and VP of Finance, Mr. Kuowei Wu. We also will remain last 15 minutes for the attendees who would like to ask questions in Chinese. Please follow the instructions given at the time if you would like to ask the question.[Foreign language] 欢迎参加普瑞科技股份有限公司2025年第一季线上法人说明会。今天的会议首先由投资人关系张又明先生报告普瑞公司2025年第一季财务数字。在此报告阶段，您的电话都会处在静音状态。当报告结束后，我们会安排执行长赵杰博士与财务副总经理吴国威先生以英文方式接受各位的提问。另外，我们最后会保留15分钟接受各位以中文方式的提问。 Now I would like to introduce Mr. Yo-Ming Chang, Investor Relations of Parade Technologies. Mr. Chang, please begin. [Foreign language] 现在有请投资人关系张又明先生。又明，请说。
Thank you, Jason. Welcome everyone to Parade Technologies 2025 Q1 Webcast Investor Conference. Parade Technologies' first quarter 2025 consolidated revenue was $126.23 million, and the net income was $20.19 million. Its both basic and fully dilute after-tax earnings per share were $0.25 and $0.25, respectively. These results compare to consolidated revenue $121.28 million and the net income of $18.21 million over $0.23 and $0.23 per basic and fully dilute share in the year ago quarter. In U.S. dollars, the first quarter revenue decreased 0.93% sequentially and was up 4.08% year-over-year. The gross profit in the first quarter of 2025 was $53.72 million, a decrease of 0.07% from the previous quarter, and an increase of 3.40% compared to the same quarter of last year.
On March 9, 2025, Parade and Spectra7 Microsystems, a Canadian analog semiconductor company, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Parade will acquire the majority of Spectra7 Microsystems' assets. These assets include intellectual property, products, designs, inventory, and other specified items. With the purchase of a majority of Spectra7 Microsystems' assets, Parade is positioned to further strengthen its global leadership in high-speed connectivity solutions. The purchase will enable Parade to both continue marketing Spectra7 Microsystems' existing advanced active cable product portfolio and to leverage Spectra7 Microsystems' technology in new high-speed solutions. Parade anticipates that Spectra7 Microsystems' cutting-edge CC technology, achieving data speed of 112 Gbps and higher, will provide valuable support for Parade's efforts to expand into high-growth markets such as data centers, AI-powered computing, and next-generation consumer electronics.
In addition, as part of the acquisition, a significant number of Spectra7's employees will join Parade, ensuring continuity of technical expertise and customer support. These strategic purchases will further empower Parade's ongoing efforts to deliver faster, more energy-efficient signal integrity connectivity solutions that meet the evolving demands of today's data-driven world. Based on the current business outlook, Parade is providing the following guidance for the second quarter of 2025. Revenue is between $121 million-$134 million. Gross margin is between 42%-46%. Operating expense is between $32 million-$35 million. The actual demand in Q2 will be impacted by tariff situation, which is hard to predict. [Foreign language] 各位投资界的朋友，大家午安。欢迎大家来参加普瑞公司2025年第一季线上法人说明会。首先由我跟各位报告普瑞公司2025年第一季财务数字。本公司2025年第一季合并营收为美金1亿2623万元，税后净利为美金2019万元。除权后基本与稀释每股税后盈余为美金0.25元，约当新台币8.38元，即美金0.25元，约当新台币8.33元。而去年同季合并营收为美金1亿2128万元，税后净利为美金1821万元。除权后基本与稀释每股税后盈余为美金0.23元，约当新台币7.21元，即美金0.23元，约当新台币7.17元。2025年第一季合并营收较前一季减少0.93%，较去年同期则增加4.08%。在营业毛利方面，本公司第一季营业毛利为美金5372万元，较上一季减少0.07%，较去年同期则增加3.40%。西元2025年3月9日，普瑞公司与加拿大类比半导体公司Spectra7宣布，双方已签署最终协议。根据该协议，普瑞公司将购买Spectra7公司的主要资产，这些资产包括智慧财产权、产品设计、存货及其他指定项目。透过此次购买Spectra7公司的主要资产，普瑞公司将进一步巩固其在高速讯号连结解决方案领域的全球领导地位。本次收购将使普瑞公司不仅能够继续推广Spectra7公司现有的先进主动式电缆线产品组合，还能利用Spectra7公司的技术开发新的高速讯号解决方案。普瑞公司预期Spectra7公司先进的112 gigabits per second及更高的资料传输速率细则技术，将有助于普瑞公司扩展至资料中心、AI运算及新一代消费电子等高速成长中的市场。此外，作为此次购买计划的一部分，Spectra7公司多位员工将加入普瑞公司，确保技术专业知识及客户服务的连续性。此策略性购买将进一步强化普瑞公司持续提供更高速、更节能的高速讯号完整性传输解决方案，以满足当今数据驱动世界不断演变的需求。基于目前对2025年第二季营运的展望，我们预期合并营收为美金121到134百万元，合并毛利率为42%到46%之间，合并营业费用为美金32到35百万元。第二季的实际需求将受到关税情势影响，而该情势难以预测。 It is my presentation for the 2025 Q1 Financial Results. Now I transfer to CEO Dr. Jack Zhao to answer your questions. Jason, you may begin.
Yes, thank you, Yo-Ming. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the English question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press the star key and number one on your telephone keypad, and you will enter the queue. After you are announced, please ask your question. Should you wish to cancel your question, you may press star two. Thank you. Now please press the star key and number one on your keypad if you would like to ask a question. Thank you. Now we will have our first question, L. Wong, HSBC. Go ahead, please.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Sorry. This is L. from HSBC, and thank you, Jack and Yo-Ming, for taking my question. My first question is, can you share the product mix for the first quarter and the outlook going forward to the second quarter? Thank you.
Okay. Good afternoon, everyone.
The first question is about the Q1 product mix. In the Q1, our DP product line is slightly above 35%. Our PS or high-speed product line is under 50%. Our TC or soft driver is slightly above 10%, and our touch TT is lower than 5%. Moving forward, we continue to see the strength of our PS product line on the high-speed side, and the DP on the TC and the soft driver or our integrated solution are leading to change to recover our DP product line.
Thank you. I'll get back to the queue.
Thank you. Next one, Daniel Yen, Morgan Stanley. Go ahead, please.
Hello. Hi. Good afternoon, Jack and Yo-Ming. Could you hear my voice?
Yeah. Very clear.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe to start, I want to focus on your guidance on your second quarter outlook.
I think during the opening remark, you mentioned about right now the tariff is adding some uncertainty on your near-term outlook while you are guiding the revenue on a USD basis sequentially to be flattish. I'm just wondering because as we can see from the market, in the very near term, because of the tariff, there could be some pull-in demand, for example, for PC and also for some of the other devices. You mentioned about uncertainty. I'm just wondering, how do you see the tariff impact your second quarter? Is it a positive or is it a negative? How should we think about if there's any change on the tariff, how would that impact your second quarter guidance? It will be my first question. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
I think the bottom-up work we did is at the beginning of the tariff announced on the April 2nd timeframe. When we provided those guidance, the situation remained a lot more unclear at that time. The thing had a kind of dramatic change. We had the reciprocal tariff at the beginning, at which the rate was very high. After a few days, we had the three-month delay, and we immediately see customer requests to pull in. Then we heard being announced the PC notebook that get an exemption from the tariff. While I've been in Taiwan for a week and in China as well, we feel the customer is now getting pretty calm, I want to say. We do see some pull-ins on the Q2.
On the other hand, customer looking for more long-term solution, how would they do to address the potential tariff for different areas. This customer now is getting more rational or solution-oriented to address long-term issues. On the particular Q2, and as we said, the uncertainty, those uncertainties could be positive, could be negative. So far, it looks like the more positive than negative for particular Q2. We do not know what we will end up with, and we just try to do our best to meet our customer needs because some of them are pretty rushed, the pull-ins. Longer term, we actually take a quite conservative view as we think those tariffs in the longer term or uncertainty may impact customer behavior and, I mean, end-of-customer behavior. Like many of our customers, we still remain to see what is going on.
In the Q2, at this moment, I wouldn't think more negative than necessary, but I think probably in terms of positive side, and yeah, we just try to do our best to meet customer needs. That's what we have.
Thanks, Jack. To follow up, could I ask, you mentioned about there are some, I think, more negative versus the—I'm sorry, more positive versus negative, and you also mentioned about some pull-in. I'm just wondering, for our 2Q guidance, essentially, we are looking at flattish. Could you give us which product line is up sequentially or which product line is down sequentially?
In terms of each segment, so far, I would think it's flattish because Q2, in the normal seasonality, is a weak period, right? It's a weak Q.
We think the flattish versus Q1 is on the positive side compared with normal seasonality if there were no tariff or no nothing, and we're pretty happy with the guidance. I think we continue to see our PS product take strength, and demand is high. We start to ship our DP integrated solution in the later part of Q2. I would think, though, where DP is in the recovery period to recover our business and with our integrated solution. Overall, I would think in terms of percentage of business on each segment, they are more similar as Q1.
I see. I see. Thanks, Jack.
To follow up, I also want to consult your view on the overall, maybe the PC market because I always remember, I think before COVID, you were the very first one to call out the demand for PC will not be just lasting for one quarter. It could be lasting for several quarters. I always remember your view. Right now, I think we are already maybe one year after all this AI PC launch, I think, from different platforms. I am just wondering, from your perspective, maybe to—I think tariff macro is complicated, but just looking at the AI PC or the overall PC market, do you expect AI PC this year or any end of Windows 10 could drive the acceleration of the PC replacement, or you do not see that? I am just wondering, from your perspective, how would you see the market? Thank you.
I think the AI PC particular, and I think the launch last year generated a period of momentum of shipments, and we are strongly associated with their business. AI PC has been getting more significant applications, and I would think the demand for AI PC will increase. One of the examples you will see is a content creation segment, which is more towards high-end, will be start to replace by AI PC. I think you will see the new platform with very high calculation power and, I mean, very high tops will start to address the first segment on the content creation segment. They are the AI-heavy segment, and the content creation, the tool software are ready to take advantage of the AI provider feature, right? Those are good.
I can identify a few of the particular areas the AI provides the significant productivity improvement, and in some cases, create entertainment features that previously the notebook cannot do. Those are the good things, and we are particularly associated with the newer content creation segment, and we foresee to see those will have an increased demand or those content creation, the PC or notebook will have a higher price because they're feature-rich, right? Gradually, you will see the AI thing become a hobby for many consumer space, right? Now we see more and more people to use the AI PC for meeting minutes and so on and so forth. I'm kind of positive to see those will continue. As we understand, you will see a few of competing platforms come out, try to address the high tops, the PC segment.
That will become interesting to observe. That is what we view, and it is positive, and it will happen in the high-end for content creation segment and so on and so forth.
Thank you, Jack. From your perspective, do you think this high-top platform, new AI PC will be announced during COMPUTEX?
Yeah. I thought there will be a well-known platform with the U.S., with our joint design together, and we are glad to associate with the multiple chips on that particular system. I think we are all very busy to make the reach the production. Beside that, we also know other customers and also other OEMs are to work on those areas. Those content creation demands much high speed, and we will need a lot more high-speed device, and we are happy to see those when will happen.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Jack. I will be back in the queue.
Thank you. Next one, Lucas Liu, KGI Securities. Go ahead, please.
Hi, Jack, Yo-Ming Chang. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. The first question is a follow-up for the overall PC and maybe IT market. I would like to ask if you are still confident that Windows 10 EOL and such as the COVID-driven replacement cycle will still be a meaningful tailwind for the overall PC and IT market for this year and next year?
If you talk to the customer, people who are like Microsoft, they think the cycle will stop, and they are prepared quite a lot of things to enable the next wave of transaction. Certainly, we are happy to see those will happen. However, as we said, the tariff situation may impact those transactions, and I hope they're not.
The current platform of PC is getting tired or start to be obsolete in terms of today's AI or other functionalities. Yeah, I think we will see those things happen, and particularly the Microsoft push very hard.
Got it. It's very clear. Just curious about the recent tightened US tariffs. Is there any—can you share more about the observable change in customer's behavior?
Could you repeat again?
Can you share more about the change in customer behavior due to the recent tariffs?
Oh. Actually, as I said at the beginning of the remark, we have not seen customer make any significant change on their behavior. You may see some of the pull-in in the short term on the Q2. You also see customer start for their new facility outside of Asia, and particularly in Mexico.
They will take a longer shipping time, so demand the shipping product earlier. After all, customer is pretty calm, as I said. They are developing more long-term solutions. After all, the US market, which may impact tariffs, but impact by tariffs, the percentage is like overall 30-30-something % of the notebook PC. Customer will just focus on this to address those issues. We are happy to support them for those transactions. As we talk to our board, our management, we are in California and have a resource in California. It will be very true in the near future. We need the FAE to go to Mexico to support their production, as we do currently in China, so it would not be surprising. The customer will ask us to provide support resource over there.
In fact, I had a review with our major distributor, and we also talked about this, how would they arrange the support resource and how would we train those support resource. They are the first line of support resource. How would we support them afterwards? The good thing is we're in California, so it's okay with the support resource in Mexico. It's pretty convenient for us. We used to do that to support their period of time, the TV manufacturing in Mexico, and we didn't do support them. Let's see how the whole manufacturing floor goes, and we are ready to support.
Got it. Thanks. Regarding to the pricing pressure issue, which we have mentioned in the previous call, is there any change in recent pricing or recent pricing pressure across different product lines?
No.
The price, the cost always is an important factor for our business. We have not seen particular people ask for price reduction because of tariffs. No. So far, we have not.
Got it. Very clear. We have said that ASIC projects may be a potential gross margin driver in the future, and we have six nanometer test chips so far. Are there any notable breakthroughs we see in the ASIC business for Parade?
We have been doing the ASIC and live business for quite a long time, right? In the Q1, we had our high-speed six nanometer test chip come back, and not only six nanometer, 12 nanometer as well. Both are working very well, and we verify our high-speed site. Very happy to see those great results. We shared our result with our customers, and they are pretty happy.
We pretty much sure we will have some chip and build on the six nanometer soon. The project may take a longer time to do. Six nanometer to us is no longer a barrier anymore. In fact, we're happy with the six nanometer capability for low power and high speed. Those are good. You wouldn't be surprised we'll move further and take a lead on those opportunities. There will be more opportunities come up. Since we have many high-speed IPs, right, we talk about we probably have more complete high-speed IPs than anybody else. Customers look at the opportunity and like to work with us for other opportunities. We're happy to work with those tier one customers.
Of course, once you do the six nanometer or beyond, you have to justify the project size and to justify the mask cost, right? Those are expensive. Customer, oh, I understand.
Okay. The last question following the ASIC business. Can you share about the ASIC, how long will it take for the projects to take for kickoff and to tape out? When do we expect to see such projects to have NRE revenue contribution at the earliest?
You mean the project will consume the mask cost? I think the project starts from the development to the production at least one and a half years to two years period. Those will be higher price to justify high volume to justify the mask cost. You probably will know the mask cost we're talking about for six nanometer, $8 million-$10 million.
Moving forward, more expensive. And the waiver also quite expensive. Yeah, you have to significant project to justify that.
Got it. Thank you. I'll be back to the queue.
Thank you. Next one, Anthony Lau, Yuanta. Go ahead, please.
Good afternoon, Jack and Yo-Ming. Can you hear my voice?
Yeah. Clear.
Yeah. This is Anthony Lau from Yuanta and wishing continued strength through the supply chain dynamics. I have the following three questions. The first one will be historically that we are extremely consistent to the overall PC market. We also talk about that the PC vendors or our clients' now behaviors have some changes, but not a lot. Overall, do you think in this year for the overall PC market, the seasonal pattern will change a lot comparing to last year or even 2022?
Do you think maybe second half of this year PC shipments or orders to be flattish compared to the first half of this year?
We hope not. We hope the normal seasonality of the second half is much stronger than the first half. That is what we call a normal seasonality. However, this tariff situation change could be based or very quickly. Good thing is the U.S. new administration and now start to behave more practical or more work with the company or work with the corporation. I would think a lot of people lobby on them as well. If there is any tariff, we hope it is a rational small amount, not significant amount, allow the industry to behave, change, to make sure end customer will not see the price increase. If we can achieve those, I do not expect significant changes from the previous years.
Certainly, we don't know. We hope we wouldn't have the same situation as April 2nd because after April 2nd, everybody got shocked, right? That happened before. We think the administration will be a lot more considerate to what our impact would be and to announce or change things. After all, the U.S. does not produce any notebook PC or consumer product at this moment. It didn't make a lot more sense to do this because it didn't increase any employment or anything in the U.S. Rather, it may cause the consumer to pay more. I don't think the administration, the current administration, wants to see this. Let's keep it positive and hope that wouldn't impact. I knew that, including our distributors and others, and all predict or project the U.S. will go to the recession in Q3 and Q4.
I joke with the people, "You guys are a lot more than the U.S." Everybody tried to think the U.S. will become a recession. I would not doubt negative on this. I hope the government will be much more smart not to go to the recession because of tariff. Yeah.
Strongly agree. It is really hard to predict the macroeconomics issue or politics issues.
Yeah. I talked to the Asia distributor, and I understand they are all projected that the U.S. will go to the recession. I told them, "You guys are more negative than necessary."
Yeah. Maybe just turn to our startup business, but not just focus on the overall macro dynamics. If we focus on our high-speed product line, can you provide any update to the USB4 sales contribution this year because we have the complete product portfolio?
Can you also share any kind of changes for the competitive landscape for the USB4 repeaters market?
Since our USB4 introduced, we are doing quite a lot and quickly become our number one high-speed product line. They contribute to our revenue. We continue to see we win the models because of our maturity of product and because our competitor keep finding the issues. Our approach to the USB4 retimer, not a single device, we now offer end-to-end product line, which means we offer not on the notebook soft side. We offer on the monitor, the receiving side. Our newer product, PS9010, the USB4 hub, and generate a huge interest in those segments. We offer redriver for cable. We basically offer the complete solutions. We think that strategy works out reasonably well because USB4 eventually will dominate everywhere.
In addition, our USB4.2 80 gigabit per second chip already working with the key, the SoC or PC, the CPU suppliers. They are all in the process test our USB4.2 80 gigabit per second and the test chip. Those are the we continue to show our customer that we are capable to do a lot more than what they can expect. Certainly, on the USB4.2 80 gigabit per second, we might offer more different category device. USD will offer a large end-to-end approach to every piece of USB4 area where we have our device there. That is our strategy. Our high-speed side, beside the we talk about notebook, notebook monitor, and maybe a dongle dock, we have successfully moved to the automotive. Quite a lot of automotive win with our high-speed device. We penetrate to the server side as well.
Our recent acquisition, as we discussed, the Spectra7, those ultra high-speed silicon germanium solution are intended to address the data center, the cable market. Those are our total solutions. Those are our approach. We continue to expand our high-speed portfolio.
I see it's very clear, Jack, is the elaboration about the high-speed product line all looking in the future is very bright. Because we just mentioned about the USB4.2 repeater, and we are also working with the SL scaler vendors. Qualcomm competitors, maybe we can say end vendors plan to launch their CPU in the coming quarters for AI PC. Are we more optimistic to the overall AI PC market after this vendor's product publishes in the market? Also, can you also do you also think this vendor's product to generate meaningful business upside for us in next year?
I think we are very positive for their systems. Those systems are so powerful, and the newer systems are so powerful. Typically, they require two - three retimer devices. In some cases, they even need a redriver on the motherboard because those notebooks tend to be large size. I would think those content creation, the AI-oriented notebook will have a good share of the market. Our device associated with it will have a lot more to go. We also see we are focused on USB4 retimer on this system. On those systems, in some cases, they also need a PCIe Gen4, Gen5 redriver. We already have opportunity or design cases on the notebook with our silicon germanium PCIe Gen5, Gen4 redriver there. We are pretty positive to work with those high-end segment.
We think we will gain a lot of the shares. Just as an emphasis as a company strategy, we think we have a good share of PC notebook on the high-speed side. We moved to the motor side. We moved to the automotive. We moved to the server. Those are related. We are really broadening our reach of high-speed devices.
Thank you, Jack. It is very useful and very helpful. Now back to the queue.
Thank you. Next one, Evelyn Yu, Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, please.
Thank you. I got two questions here. First of all, I wonder if we can talk a little bit more on our acquisition of Spectra7. What exactly are our new product or market segments that we will be targeting? I think you mentioned a little bit on data center cable market.
I also want to know what kind of synergy should we expect and how will it be reflected in our revenue or earnings? That's my question.
The Spectra7 we announced. In fact, we just closed the deal either today or yesterday. Spectra7 is officially now part of Parade. We are proud of and we are happy to do this case. Spectra7, in particular, the product is in the data center ACC cable. They are shipping and Parade will continue shipping the data center solution for 200 gig the cable, which implies eight of their parts. They already introduced their 112 gigabit per second. We might well jump on the wagon to 400 gig the cable system. They have the design ready to tip out for 224 gig system and the device.
We are right after acquisition, we'll tip out this 224 device. They have a very unique design. We feel they have its unique edge with patent protected to allow us to market higher speed ACC cable segment. This is the new, even Parade did our silicon germanium solutions and for more the USB or lower speed, for example, 56 gig. For the ultra high speed, we think their solution has its uniqueness there. Moving forward, the team will continue looking for the data center cable solutions, whether the more advanced one because we are in the silicon germanium and we can imagine to do a lot more than today's. The best thing is we have sufficient cash can invest in this area. We are looking for on this. They are shipping data center device.
We are reach out a few of data center cable and raw solutions. Our customer or potential customer are happy we acquired the Spectra7. We got a comment from the customer that they say the Spectra7 had a pretty decent or good technology compared with the competitor. However, they had financial issues. We, Parade, come in for the supporting financial side. That is the stable financial. That is the customer very much like what we are doing. Yeah.
Thank you. How should we model their financial potential impact or how should we incorporate in our models?
The spending side is very limited because there are not too many people there. The tip out is not much expensive. You probably can get a detailed number afterwards, talk to the Yo-Ming. Certainly, the revenue they are shipping is not that big revenue.
Compared with our revenue, so that's not that big. Potentially, we might be able to capture much more as we have a much bigger sales force. We know a lot of the people than they have. They actually have a unique technical ability to reach out to a lot of the people who are doing the cable side, including the optical side. Our team with them to attend. They just finished the optical, the OFC, the conference in the U.S. We were surprised to see how many people know the Spectra7. We are happy with that. We think for us it is the deal for us to steal. We are glad we did it. Let's see how much we can use that asset to grow our business. We put our sales and the market resource together with them in the U.S. side.
Let's see how will we do it. We cannot promise too early, but let's see how we'll do it.
Okay. Thank you. My second question will be, previously, we mentioned we faced some competition from TI. I think we mentioned that last time, which impacted our margin somehow for high-speed interface segment. I would like to know after the tariff that China has imposed to the U.S., have you seen any easing competition on this front, or have you observed any new opportunities, especially in China market?
Yeah. Last time I went and I talked about it, the TI go with a lower price. Surprisingly, the customer found the TI actually has a bug there. It is not because of tariff. It is because their chip has a bug. A lot of customers switched back to us.
Overall, we hear whatever the tariff thing on the U.S., the semiconductor. Also, I was in Shanghai last week. I also heard that the China government did announce it, but China customs did not announce it. The answer from the China customs was, "You have to wait to see we announce it." You have noticed so far, China customs has not announced anything for U.S., the chip for tariff. So far, it is doing as it is. I really do not want people to do that. It does not end up always good. Maybe short term will benefit some of us, but long term, it would not do any good.
Thank you. Thank you, Jack.
Thank you. Next one, Hosliu, UBS. Go ahead, please.
Yes. Hi, management team. Good afternoon, and thanks for hosting the call. A couple of questions from me.
The first one is regarding your second-half outlook. I understand that there is a lot of turmoil in the market at this stage. Would you be able to provide some initial thoughts as we start to look at second-half outlook? Historically, I think the pattern has been like 43%-48% in first half versus 52%-57% in second half. Do you think that is still a reasonable assumption to make or some pulling is already happening second quarter, and so the second-half outlook may not be as strong as seasonality? Thanks.
If you ask me this moment, I think that would remain similar as the previous years on the percentage because I do not have more information to provide on the tariff on the impact. Really, you heard a lot of things, but you have not heard the materialized anything change.
This other side, the Taiwan distributors project U.S. will become a recession in the Q3 and the Q4. I do not particularly agree with that. If you ask me today, I would think the things should be similar as previous years. However, I could be wrong because it is really subject to the water tariff situation. I hope U.S. does not go into recession. Okay?
Okay. Just on that, if you could also share your end market exposure within U.S. domestic market versus your rest of the world or the China exposure. We understand probably you can share the direct customer exposure, but just would like to hear your view regarding the end market exposure if you could share the detail. Thanks.
It is not us, right? It is like the OEM, the PC, and the market. The OEM depends on who they are.
Some of them more, some of them less. Overall, probably the exposure is a little bit more than 30% to the U.S. market. I think we have no reason to think what's the difference from us. We think we probably will take the similar percentage because we are providing the chips to the older OEMs on the PC and notebook market. The best thing is at this moment, everything is exempt, right? Let's see how it goes. I would think the people like Apple committed $500 billion for AI, the contribution for U.S., the infrastructure side. Those are meaningful. Hopefully, we'll become a way for other people to make a decision, right? At least last Trump administration, Apple, everything got exempt.
Yeah. Totally agree on that. We'll see what is going to happen.
I think just a quick follow-up to your own business. On a four-year basis, just based on the historical seasonality and you expect it to play out as it is in the past, do you think it is reasonable to assume that you will still be able to grow double digits year on year for sales this year?
We do not know. Especially on this tariff there, it is making everybody nervous. We do think the uncertainty there will reduce the demand for customers. I hope those uncertainties will get clarified very quickly. The longer time to hold uncertainty there, the worse for the market.
Sure. Yeah. My second question is really about your profitability. First, on the gross margins, how should we think about the trend for your business as you guide it within your long-term range of 42%-46% for the current quarter?
Given all the macro uncertainties and mixed shifting to where your largest customer at lower margins, with the price discount, you could also potentially benefit from your foundry partners who are trying to fill their capacity right now. With the guidance you just provided for second quarter on the growth margins, do you think it could end up to be in the upper half or the lower half of your guidance? Thanks.
I will think that we'll keep our long-term growth margin intact and will be stabilized, which will be good for the analyst or for market as well. We certainly hope the growth margin can go up. With our product mix there, the drivers to the growth margin not increase is really the competition on the panel side.
The panel side, the people are much more aggressive and willing to sacrifice their growth margin somehow compared with others. Our solution really is we develop a new architecture. For example, our Intel solution and integrated and our TTED. Those start to show the real revenue strengths. We have successfully made a customer to large adoption of our TTED solutions. As our tier one customer getting very interested to do those Intel solutions. If people are moving, panel industry moving to those integrated solutions, we think it will be benefit because the device is so complicated. Now I have a firmware there and I have a security there. It is a lot more sticky for the solution rather than today, the software Tikar, everybody can change everybody's.
That has become, the price competition has really become a headache from the low to mid end of China supply.
Yes. That is exactly my follow-up question, just on the competitive landscape in the time of the color.
More and more, your, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, just more of your peers, no matter if in China or out of China, your display drive IC peers try to penetrate into the high-end timing controller market along with their display drive ICs. Would you actually be worried about the potential market share shift in the near term, especially within your largest customer?
That is what we said. No, I do not worry about our largest customer because we keep doing things and getting very significant advance. I do not think there is a competition there. Okay? Let us go very, very deep to micro. I would not worry about our standard plus customer at all.
The real thing for the normal DHL type of customer, the strategy for us to get off the price, the exuberant competition there is go with our integrated solution. Okay? We successfully get our Intel solution. We will have a mass production, pretty good volume for the TTED device. Those are the things.
Yeah. That sounds really powerful.
We try to out of this competition side of it. Otherwise, you stay with those, yeah, your margin impact a lot. After all, the panel, regardless of what you do, the panel growth margin is not as cannot compete with the high-speed PS part.
Okay. Got it. That's very clear. My last question for this call is just on the operating expense. Given all the macro events going on, would you update your expectations for your operating expense outlook for this year? Thanks.
No.
We did not do much because special service, the cost is kind of very low within our margin of error. I would not be that much because that is just a handful of people joining us and for the continuity of our product. We are quite cautioned for the uncertainty of this tariff situation there. We did not try to stay in the cost-sensitive practice. That is the current situation. We do not think we need to do much of the change or so on and so forth. We hope that we can use the current resource to deliver our new initiative and generate the significant revenue. The first one, the PCIe Gen4 redriver, definitely. The second one will be our USB4 hub and automotive as well.
And then the server and hopefully the cable side and the high-speed cable side will provide another lag of revenue growth.
Okay. Just from the absolute amount perspective for your operating expense this year, do you think it will just be stable or just will be undergrowing your sales this year?
I think it will be stable just in the similar as we have provided guidance, we did not make much of change. The guidance we provide already includes spending we foresee for Spectra7.
Okay. Got it. Thank you very much. I will be back in the queue. Thank you so much again.
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