Okay, hello everyone. This is Jason Zhang at CLSA Ltd. Welcome to Phison Electronics Corp's second quarter earnings call. Today, we are happy to have K.S. Pua here to share the updates of Phison and the NAND market. After that, we will open the floor to the Q&A section. Let me turn this call to K.S. Pua, please.
Good afternoon, good morning. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining Phison Electronics Corp's Q2 2025 earnings call. Let us restart. Today, a lot of content here, so I may need to move a little bit faster. And Phison, now we have a project that CB Racing, so we are in quiet period, not able to have so many perspectives in this call. Please understand. The distribution of our Q2 revenue, we can see it's strong, very strong in the embedded ODM, especially with gained a share in the PC OEM and the mobile module business. In controller-wise, the revenue itself increased a lot, but the percentages keep shrinking because of the revenue itself also growing. Enterprise-wise, we are stable growing, and we still try to make more design wins into the U.S. and also the China storage system customers.
Q2 revenue close to NT$70.8 billion, which is our record high in a single quarter. Even though Q2 we are suffering the foreign currency, due to the strong NT, we dropped, we lost the revenue in NT, but we still hit the record high. The gross margin-wise, by QOQ, we improved 21.5%. Actually, the gross profit also suffered due to the strong NT. The revenue-wise is all-time high, and we also have, we believe that this year we have a big growth in our revenue. In the gross margins, Phison's inventory was built since this year, January. That time the NT is still around 32, 33. Then Q2 NT moved to below 30. The cost itself actually, from NT turned to U.S. is increasing. We are good because the market also, component price, product price increasing.
Left-hand side, the cost increased due to NT, but the other side, the selling price increased, so offset. This still also impacts the gross margin in the Q2. The earnings per share, the Q2 is NT$3.6. We have some breakdown here. We have some inventory reversal from our book. It's impacted like NT$1.86. The forex loss is NT$5.7. It's quite a lot. Anyway, ESY is, this is already happened. In the coming quarters, we can see NT get stable, and we don't have any, something unexpected. The investment loss is around NT$0.5 due to our subsidiary. They have adjusted their, what they so-called, their prepare for IPO. This is happening.
[Foreign language ]。 Back to our summarize here, revenue in NT, QOQ is 29%, but in dollars it's 37%. Means we suffer around 8% in the foreign investment, under the foreign currency, which is, if you like to say this is an impact to the gross margin. The 8% is the net gross margin impact to our business. ESY is, we do our best. Gross margin-wise is 29%, as planned. The OpEx-wise is lower because of, due to loss in the foreign currency. The employee compensation, we are getting conservative. This OpEx-wise is lowest compared with the last few quarters. [Foreign language ]。 Back to the operating margin, 13%, gross margin 29%.
Operating margin actually is the highest in the last 13 quarters. I think our business itself turned to a much healthier. In our balance sheet, the inventory, we built inventory since January, actually since April, May, June, we keep building inventory because we are, foresee the demand and the supply will be unbalanced very soon. We also need to prepare more enough inventory for our customers. Move to the TIF and non-TIF, actually it's not much different because we don't have SSS any, compensation for the employee. It's a live threat. [Foreign language ]。 Back to the business highlight. In the client SSD controller, you can see Phison we have a controller shipment big growth, QOQ 90%, YY 49%. Control revenue increased 87% versus YY 50. We also got the three NAND makers design win in the PCIe Gen 5.
We believe we are able to gain the more design win really soon since we are leading in our Gen 5, [lyromed] solutions. The controller supply actually is still tight. We are facing the shortage due to the weapon constraint and also the substrate constraint. We still been pushing by our NAND customers to pull in and increase more controller shipment. We do our best. Thanks to the TSMC and our offset, spell, ASE, doing all their best to support us. So overall, Phison, we gained the controller share in the client SSD controllers. Actually, we gained quite a lot. In module-wise, you can see our growth is significant. QOQ 57%, YOY 153%. Because Phison, we got the TLC Gen 4 TLC QLC design win and shipment to all the Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 PC OEMs.
Phison now already become the key supplier in the PC client SSD OEM and ODM. In Gen 5, Phison also shipping to our Tier 2 and Tier 3 PC OEMs. Tier 1 will happen by CQ4 this year. We can see Phison in the PCIe Gen 5. We are ready to become the really key players. In the mobile-wise, Phison control shipment growth 74% QOQ, 76% YOY. We also gained a really big share. Revenue-wise, controller also big increase. Modules also incredible. It's a 2x QOQ and 1.6 x of YOY. Revenue-wise, it's 2x. By the way, we gained a share. Overall, this year 2025, Phison will become the biggest mobile storage controller in the world. We gained the biggest share in the world. Talking about the Chromebook, we also gained more design win. Actually, almost every Chromebook, the Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3.
We're not only in controllers, but also we are in the modules. This chart to show you, talking about smartphone, other than one Apple, one Samsung, the rest are all in China. Phison, this is only in the mobile controllers, not including IoT. In this, you can see we are become a really key player in the eMMC UFS for the mobiles. We believe with our heavy investing into the R&D, and also we have a strategic partner in China, we think we are able to gain more share in this field. Enterprise SSD is a stable growth. Even though right now in China, the suppliers are cutting price to gain the share, we have other markets like U.S., Southeast Asia. Overall, the shipment, the revenue, the petabyte, we are increasing. We also design in the design win more storage system customers.
Our PCIe Gen 3 controllers is PCIe Gen 6 enterprise controllers will be ready. The silicon will be ready by the end of this year. We are moving to leading in the market. Next year, we are going to CQ2 start to ship Gen 6 enterprise SSD to our storage customers. This is what we are working with current storage systems. We are shipping the samples under quad. It's 128 TB modules. We also develop shipping these 60 DWPD to really key storage system makers for the AI systems. We ship a few thousand sets already. Now we are dealing in this market. In the overall business highlight in the IoT industrial, the industrial market was really slow in the last year, second half, and the CQ1, but looks like gradually the market is bouncing back. Phison recovered full range, full range of IoT industrial modules.
Not only eMMC, but also other SSD. In the eMMC, now we again, we become the major supplier in the worldwide biggest TV OEM, or OEM, the brand. We also win several U.S. and China, the robotic, the system makers. We also doing customization for them. This is Phison, we are focusing in the industrial business. This also becomes really stable and a better gross margin business to us. In automotive-wise, you may know the low density flash is going to be EOL. Luckily, Phison, since the 2022, we've been asked by the NAND makers to help them to hold inventory. This inventory turned to a really profitable business. Not only profitable, we also have a big leverage to support our customers to make sure they are not going to face any shortage. In automotive, in IoT, Phison now become really, really key players.
UFS for the while, we also gained many design wins in this, automotive industry. This chart is to show you in the last, two, three years, Phison's team visited worldwide. We work with the worldwide automotive ecosystem partners. You can see Phison Solution now, we are almost covered any brand, the major brand, you know. This is all our design win, and this is our shipment. We are not just only talking, but we are shipping. [Foreign language ]。 Portable SSD, Phison is the first USB, for the all controllers in the in the world. We win the three NAND vendors' business, and, one of them already has a shipment in the market. We are top, we gained almost the top, five, the five of top ten brands in the market.
This is unique, and we are in the leading positions. The SD microSD for the Nintendo, microSD express, we also start to ship to the market. Back to the our retirement driver business. We announced the world's UFS 4.0 driver, now already testing, doing the AVL with the CPU makers. This product is going to ship to the market by second half next year, and we are now a unique supplier. PCIe Gen 6 driver, we also already got samples testing with the CPU makers. We also try to build the driver not only in the PCB motherboard, but also bring into the automotive, robotic, and also to the cable. The sales itself, we have a growth revenue 4x, YOY, so we are taking shares in this new business. Adaptive Plus, we keep investing for two years, promote two years. Recently, we got many, many disruptive innovations.
We work with the CPU makers, GPU makers. More and more POC is happening. The shipment itself, we can see gradually improving. We believe the edge AI, the era almost coming, almost coming. We have a lot of activity. Hopefully, due to the we are in the quiet period, I'm not able to make more comments, but one commitment is this is coming. We are heavy, cooperating with NVIDIA. Now we are one of their partners, not only in storage, but also in the AI. Phison also has lots of POC systems, as you can see in here, which cover the bank, security, the hospital, telecom, industrial, information, IT, almost in the academic. This is already spent over one and a half years. We can see the concept go to the POC, then go to the revenue and business.
[Foreign language ] I want to share with you, Huawei just announced their so-called AI SSD. What I can say is almost a similar concept from Phison. They developed their AI SSD. We are happy to see this happen because we believe they agree our approach is in the right trend. [Foreign language ]。 We also build a lot of software. Actually, we need millions and millions of developers to develop applications on the edge AI. We also need a lot of software systems SI companies. We are building ecosystems in Taiwan, in China, in the U.S., and also in Malaysia, India.
This is to show you, in Taiwan, we start to build several SI and software companies to provide the service to our customers. These take times, no easier, but good times definitely will come. In Monday and Tuesday, just two or three days ago, there was the ASEAN AI Malaysia Summit. I was one of the speakers. We are launching using single CPU without GPU. Let me repeat again, single CPU without GPU. We enable the CPU internal GPU with Phison Adaptive Plus. Immediately, the PC laptop converts to AI PC without any extra GPU and NPU, without any extra cost. Imagine many years ago, every PC you want to go to the internet, you need to use a modem and Wi-Fi router, a Wi-Fi extender. Intel promotes Centrino, if you know about Centrino.
Today, every PC system is built with Wi-Fi. Today, with our new technology, engage with Intel, POC done. Before July 15, we have a workshop with Intel, July 29, and also PC OEM, ODM worldwide. We really proved a single PC notebook without extra GPU, NPU, plus Phison Adaptive Solutions immediately converts to AI PC, like Centrino era. Next year, every PC shipping from a factory, just plug in Phison Adaptive Plus, then this is AI PC. Every user, you are able to enjoy the AI PCs without extra expensive expense. Monday, Tuesday, was the Malaysia ASEAN Summit. Malaysia is this year's chair country. I was invited there, and at the same time, with our Malaysia subsidiary, we announced the development and progress of Adaptive Plus on iGPU.
This is with Intel, spent one and a half months, we proved that any future PC, as long as it adds our solution, immediately transforms into AI PC, no need for extra GPU and NPU. This is a very big innovation and invention, and this will impact the future. Any PC in the future will inevitably be AI PC, as long as it uses our solution. We can expect to see very big and fast development. We also facing that we need a lot of engineers. We hope ecosystem they have a good skill AI engineers, but unfortunately, the university is not able to train the good skill engineers due to they don't have enough budget to buy expensive GPU. With the Phison Adaptive Plus, any single GPU card can convert to AI training PC. We also build the course to have a support, educate the trainers.
After the few months, we have already trained over the 200 plus our trainers, which is from hospital, from professors, from Audi, from automotion, from the SI system integrators, everything. Now we also license our training course to university, to third party, and to other career training systems in Taiwan, in Malaysia, and India. We believe this can help us to train more good skill and AI engineers to use our Adaptive Plus. Computex on in May, we have we won the award, the Golden Award. Among these awards in AI, Phison and NVIDIA is in the AI area. We are happy to put our E28, the new invention, on the Adaptive Plus, and also this is a support we are funded by the Taiwan government. This is something we have activities with the Taiwan Telecoms.
First half, this year the OpEx is reducing due to the profit is shrinking by the first half. Q1 market was slow. CQ2 market was business was good, but we suffer EPS around close to 6 by the foreign currency. I believe coming months, the business, especially you can show from our opening profit, we are turning good. [Foreign language ]。 Let me make some summary. Market supply basically is a constraint. CQ3 every NAND vendors insist to raise a single digit of the price, in the NAND. We need to be very careful to selling our products, not to sell too low in the market. We recently have a more inquiry from worldwide. We believe China competitors, they've been actually they've been suffering. They buy high, they sell low to get their revenue, but now they are also turning to very conservative. The shortage of substrates is happening.
We have a new upside on our SSD, mobile storage, and the controllers, but we cannot fulfill. As well as I said that we have a fundamental forecast, which is good, but all the upside are really challenging. Controller, this year we gained a big share in the client SSD and also mobile storage, but we hope we are able to solve the substrate issue to fulfill what the customers ask. In the mobile, we gained a share, and this is turned to we are really key players. PCIe Gen 5 enterprise SSD is getting stable, slowly grow, and we also got some several design wins in the U.S. market and China market. Hopefully, this will turn to strong revenue growth in the coming quarters. Automotive pricing is a really key player, and I think no need to keep any explanation. You see just now our design win customer list.
We are the king in this industry. Adaptive Plus turned to really good, especially with the iGPU coupled with Intel. This will help us business growth really soon. [Foreign language ]。 Okay, let me we have some Q&A, after Q&A we go to the live. Okay, why issue the third convertible bond? we can see next year our business, again we are in quiet period, but we can see the big growth. We believe we are going to, we need to buy more extra pipe to have a fulfillment to our customers. So we hope we can have a much cash flow to help us to run the business and to build the inventory.
Okay, this CB is to help us to growth in the coming years. Dividends, this morning board members approved dividends $6.5 NT, which is approximately around 71%. in the past we keep 55%, but this time board members agree we don't have a big EPS due to the suffer by the foreign exchange, but we they approved 71% of the share dividend. [Foreign language ]。 The impact of USD, every 1% NT growth will impact our 3% revenue. in CQ2, revenue from NT, the different NT to dollars is 8%. I can really clearly tell you this is all our gross margin, but again it is why it is so no way to complain. But when the currency goes to the stable, we are happy to see to growth our business.
[Foreign language ]。 ...will be shortage, I'm hard to comment due to quiet period, but we take the open markets report. Next year the big growth is around 10% to 15%, but according to the last 10 years, the demand growth is a 30% plus. Due to this difference, we believe next year the price will be tight. Why the growth only the big supply growth down to 10% to 15% because of CapEx. You can read from the public, the three HBM suppliers they prefer to put CapEx in the HBM. US and Japanese, they'd like to improve the CapEx, but due to their financial constraints, they are not able to get aggressive. Overall, the big growth in supply is really limited next year.
[Foreign language ]。 Micron just saying that they are going to walk away from the mobile business and also lay off 300 plus engineers in China. The impact to Phison is Phison already become the really key player in the China mobile storage controllers and also modules. We have already our strong subsidiary, they are doing the service to the China mobile customers. I believe this will China mobile makers, they may decide prefer to come to Phison and the Hongxing because we have a proof, we have a good technology quality and supply. We believe other NAND vendors may also like to talk to Phison how to enlarge their business opportunity in China. [Foreign language ]。 The whole inventory, we still focus in the controller and enterprise.
Due to embedded ODM, the PC OEM modules and the mobile modules increasing a lot, we try to build a much higher inventory for our future fulfillment. We worry next year supply balance is imbalanced, supply demand imbalance, so we need to build our inventory to make sure next year we have a better fulfillment to the customers. Okay, we can go to the online Q&A.
Okay, thank you, KS. Now we are opening the floor to Q&A sections. For online ambassadors, if you have any questions, please raise your hand and I will unmute you to start the questions, or you can write down your questions through the system. My first question is in terms of the impact from FX. KS, you mentioned that the impact is around 8% on the top line, and you also believe that 8% will directly impact the gross margin as well. I think your gross margins will be around 37% based on US dollar. Is that?
I think this is a simple mathematics. Of course, the gross margin has many, you know, impact factors, right? I'm just saying simple. My inventory, that's it. Inventory buying at NT$33 costs $1.33, but when we ship out, go to NT$29, we lost the NT$4. NT$4 equivalent to how many %? This loss actually is a gross margin, right?
Okay, got it, got it. I wonder if you can provide your gross margin based on U.S. dollar in Q2. Can you provide that kind of details?
I don't think we have that because this is also a little complicated. The indirect labor costs also count in the NT. Okay, I just give a simple, okay, the key component controllers, the flash we are buying in the dollars, we ship in dollars, right? Let's say in the whole material cost, we have a 50% is a controller plus flash. From 32 - 33 down to 29, every dollar we lost is 4 NT, 3 NT.
Understood, understood.
Yeah.
My second question is in terms of your headcount expansion. You mentioned that it seems like you suffer some shortage in terms of the human resources or engineers. Do you plan to expand more headcounts in incoming quarters or in next years?
Okay, actually since the last two, three quarters, I really think that Phison has no intention to increase that many headcounts. Due to our headcount increase from 2019 to 2023, they are good in wild training. They are starting to exercise, all good. From 2024, we start to push using Adaptive Plus in-house AI solution to help them in design. We don't have a plan to increase big deal headcount in coming quarters. Until Adaptive Plus turns to big revenue profit, then we have to ask him more headcount to develop the future application software. It means before Adaptive Plus turns to the good profit revenue, we have no intention to increase headcount.
Understood, understood. My third question is in terms of the gross momentum in Q2 and Q3. I think some of the demand in Q2 is coming from some of the tariff concerns leading to a poor shipment in Q2. How do we expect that this kind of gross momentum probably will slow down or impact revenue in Q3? In Q3, what kind of gross momentum do we expect to sustain the gross drivers in Q2 or in the second half this year?
Okay, first of all, no matter how many % the tariff American asks, the products from Phison shipping to the U.S. still no tariff. Storage, no tariff. In CQ2, I don't see, seriously, I don't see customers in the U.S. willing to put in that many inventory. Only a few, but not that many because they can see storage is no tariff. Talking about the coming month's demands, based on what the order we collect in May, June, July, actually is growing. It's growing, okay? We are now, has already painful because we have inventory. Supplier keep increasing too much price on that. We need to carefully use our inventory to make the design in-design win fulfillment. We are not able to take other upside opportunistic business. Means we are controlled to take order, we are controlled our shipment. I don't see the demand is slow down, basically.
By the way, from just the previous, my report is we are getting share in the client controller, client modules, mobile controller, mobile modules. Demand to me, making sure I think still healthy and strong.
Got it. The real demand is pretty good and you can further get some market share to fuel the gross momentum in the coming quarter.
Yes.
Got it, got it. We got some questions. The first one is, can the company talk about enterprise SSD market share again and where are the big opportunities for Phison in the next couple of years?
Enterprise SSD market share we are still slightly way, way small because we are not a NAND manufacturer, but we gained a few projects, actually turned to dollars, it's quite big. It's a customized design and also doing the DIY SSD for the system, storage system makers. I don't expect Phison can tell everyone I will share in the enterprise SSD, but we can see the growth happening. Next year, 2026, definitely I will share, it's going to happen on the analyst report. Enterprise SSD, we still investing. Our PCIe Gen 4 behind the leader two and a half years, Gen 5 behind nine months. Gen 6, our silicon coming back by October, our working sample will deliver to customer by next year, April. We are almost able to deliver Gen 6 with the big players. After that, then it's meaningful that we are going to talk about market share.
Got it, got it. Thank you. We have a question from Donnie from Nomura. Donnie, please go ahead, your question.
Thank you, Jason. Hi, K.S., can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you, K.S. So I think the first question is regarding the competition landscape of the NAND controller market. I think your competitor also mentioned about is like they gained lots of market share into the second half this year. It seems like you have very strong shipment as well. I'm just curious, how would you compare your products with the competitors? If both of you are gaining market share, who do you think is like losing market share among the controller market? That's the first question.
Donnie, actually, I also keep making the study research, ask my guy to see what happened in the market. You know, this is a democracy, right? Everyone can say what they want to say, but at the end, the number will show if they are bluffing or not. In controller-wise, to be honest, my competitors, what they are saying, I found no much evidence to prove that. Anyway, coming quarters, we can see who made the right comment on that. On controller client, definitely we can see the number, right? We are gaining a lot. My supplier also came to me, Fang Zhui, saying, "Hey, Phison doing a good job because that's increasing." I'm hard to comment, but I found no solid answer to tell you because I also don't know how my competitors are doing.
Understood. Another question is you have mentioned about Micron's absence in the mobile NAND market, which may create some market share gain opportunities for your business. I'm just curious, if you look at the mobile NAND market, Micron previously developed their own UFS controllers, and now they are retiring from the market. YMTC is an emerging player among the NAND sector. After Micron's absence in the market, how do you think about the mobile NAND business model will be changed in China, or whether the module makers in China will have better position, or YMTC will continuously grow faster than all the NAND makers? Are there any like domestic UFS or eMMC controller vendors that can compete with you or Seeker Motion?
Definitely YMTC is the biggest beneficiary because they are local suppliers. If you stand in the customer side, the phone makers, they need second, third, the suppliers. Of course, Korean suppliers still try to make the fulfillment, but we believe the margin, if Micron decides to walk away from this business, means the margin is bloody. As a Korean, they may face the same challenge. The market is there, right? Users don't want to see a single supplier. Phison proved we have now become the biggest controllers maker supplier in this field, and we are good at technology delivery, supply quality, and service, and reputation. We believe we are going to gain share no matter the phone makers come to us or the NAND manufacturers come to us.
I'm not able to comment the Silicon Motion and the China module house, but again I have to repeat the design technology, the quality, the service, and the reputation.
Understood. My last question is your comment on the shortage in terms of substrate and seed package. Do you think that will further drive the NAND module price to beyond what you said about like 3% - 5% "growth" in the third quarter?
I think if in the busy period, every customer, the system maker needs to pull in in that period, maybe two to four weeks, yes, potentially yes. Personally, I don't want, I don't like to see this happening because if price keeps pushing high, the same story will happen by early 2024. When price keeps, the first price keeps driving high, system maker may decide to cut half the capacity. I don't like to see that happen.
Understood. Thank you, K.S. I'll step back to the queue.
Thank you, Donnie. We also got some questions. The first one is the impact from tariff. The U.S. exports tariff is currently set to around 20% for Taiwan. What's the impact for Phison and what's the actions accordingly?
We're still not facing the tariff, but we already have a plan to produce our modules in the U.S. maintenance. This is what we can do. I don't have much to tell you about this because this is not only my own issue, this is everyone's issue. That's it.
Got it, got it. Another one is regarding NVIDIA's GP10 AI PC platform. Will Phison's AI Adaptive Solution be integrated into this kind of platform? Will I, yeah.
I cannot make comment due to NDA. My answer is let's see, okay. One thing I'm for sure, we are using Intel CPU immediately convert the PC to AI PC. This is to show how powerful Adaptive Plus. Let's see.
Okay, thank you, K.S. I have another question in terms of the embedded ODM business. It sounds like this kind of business had a very strong growth momentum in Q2. Is that due to the higher market share gains, or we also see other new growth momentum?
In mobile-wise, we have a market share gain. In the PC OEM, actually Phison doing a lot of customization in the past. We have a gain because of its unique products, and also we gain our reputation in the PC OEM. For the last five years, Phison working very hard to make our controller good quality, bug-free, no callback. Compared to my competitors, sorry that they always have a bug this, bug that, and you know callback. That's why they lost the customer, the PC OEM tier one, tier two, they lost the competence to my competitors. I can say, yeah, we gained the share, and also we gained the respect from our customers.
Understood, understood. Can you provide the growth momentum for each of the applications in Q3 and Q4? I mean, including consumer, industrial, gaming, and enterprise?
Retail still very slow. Retail very slow due to the, again now it's a summer season and the U.S. inflation. Gaming is, other than Nintendo, the rest is very, very slow. Nintendo, the microSD Express went in shortage. Due to the substrate not enough, we have many orders on hand, but we just only partial shipment. Going to the embedded ODM in the mobile and the PC OEM, yes, very strong. Our PC OEM inquiry from customers next year is almost 2x growth, almost. This year I think we're doing good. Enterprise-wise, slightly growing, and we have many ongoing design in projects. All the one project turned to design win can turn to a big amount of U.S. dollars because of the high value of the products. Automotive, we have a significant growth because after design in two years, the business is coming. The last is Adaptive Plus.
We are now shipping around 10 servers per month. Last few quarters is like one to three servers per month, now up to 10. AI training PC, we ship like 50 to 100. We made the design win into many OEM in the iGPU project and also lots of POC ongoing. Adaptive Plus, we are waiting the time when the market starts to take it, then immediately this can turn to the revenue.
Great, thank you. We have a question from Simon. Simon, please start your question. Thank you.
Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, K.S. Yeah, overall today, takeaways sound positive broadly.
Yes.
One quick question is convertible bond. Meanwhile, you are still paying the dividends. You already mentioned that you need some extra capital for the next year and then the chip sourcing. Would you recap the overall CB impact for the number of shares, etc., dilution?
It's not decided yet. I mean, we are waiting the approval. Okay, it's not yet approved. When approved, we need to pick up a day to which day to issue with what kind of a stock price, right? It's no comment now because we're just in the under approving.
Yeah, usually when I look at the tech companies, you know, convertible bond issuance should be the last, I mean, a choice. You know, why not just the debt, or you can increase the working capital, or maybe you can reduce the dividends to secure the shareholder value, I mean, the per shareholder value.
This is a trade-off, okay? Phison's payout capital, around payout capital, is around NT$2 billion. We are running, last year was NT$58 billion, means we turned over 30 times, 30 times. I foresee we are going to grow rapidly in the coming years due to the business there, right? Why not we just increase capital? Second, in Taiwan, the shareholders, especially you are foreign investors, they're also asking about their dividend, right? If we are not fulfilling the dividend, I think the share, most shares are not happy. Third, in the history, the module house who grow the business with a debt from bank eventually disappear. It's hard to explain to you. This is according to history. Phison is really solid, conservative in finance, and we are running good business, really small payout capital. I can see big growth. I also need to entertain the shareholders with dividends.
The best choice is a CB because CB no interest. Why not?
Okay, sir, thank you. My second question is, how do you see the overall your product price trend? Because one of the second quarter sequential earnings improvement contributors was the ASP increase, right? What's your view for your product price?
No, the answer is no. CQ2, no. ASP increased dollars, but NT dropping.
No, I mean the U.S. dollar-based ASP trend.
Yes, yes, USP, not, I think the shipment. Okay, you can read here, right? QOQ, you can see the growth. This is not only by price, right? Yeah, you can see also, it's a big growth.
Yeah, volume growth. How about the price? How was the price trend for the second quarter?
Overall, the market started to debounce by the end of February. The convert to the shipment happened from April-May, but unfortunately again, the currency, dollars gained, but NT lost.
In the second half, let's look at only the U.S. dollar denominated ASP trend. All the SSD products, for example, do you think the second half will be broadly stable or some upside there in terms of the U.S. dollars?
Based on our forecast, yes. Based on our backlog, yes. We see the growth in the dollars and NT$.
What's your view over the NAND chip in the sourcing next year? You pointed out maybe some potential shortage next year, but the global NAND fab not yet fully utilized. Maybe Phison can enjoy the larger volume of the NAND supply next year, no?
Yes, but are they willing to sell low price to me?
No idea.
This is our in-house strategy. We do what we have to do.
is 10% to 15% big growth among the NAND chip makers.
The main growth average every year is around 30%. This is just for your, this 10% to 20% is not for me, okay? This is from report. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. A lot of people talking about geopolitical things. Would you recap your China exposure? What percentage of your overall product is done in China versus your revenue for China? What percentage of your revenue for China? Thank you.
Right now, our business is mainly go through our subsidiary. It's a hot. We only provide a component. I don't have this distribution. Maybe next time, I think we can prepare.
Yeah, you are manufacturing all the assembly lines, outsource the guys basically.
99.999% in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia.
Yeah, Malaysia. Okay, all clear, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. We got some questions. The first one is PCIe retirement driver launch schedule.
Retirement PCIe Gen 6, we have a sample on hand. It's under developing. The driver already goes to design in process. First order may come by next year CQ1. It's ongoing. The driver, we are earlier, but retirement, we are behind.
Understood. Yep. The second one is, how do we think about OpEx into the second half this year?
We believe the foreign currency loss factor is not going to happen in the second half, I believe. We also can see the revenue was stable. Gross margin, I can see at least July turned to a better, August, even much better. In case the OpEx of special unit expense definitely will increase. No matter what, earning is still better than first half.
Got it, got it. Yeah, I think due to the time interest, I think that's all of today's conference call. Thank you everyone to delve in this conference call. Thank you, K.S. And we'll see you next time.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. Goodbye.