My name is Peter Westberg, and I work as an equity analyst at Kalqyl covering IMINT. Today we're going to talk about IMINT second quarter of 2022. With me today is Andreas Lifvendahl, the CEO of IMINT. Welcome, Andreas.
Thank you. Thank you.
I think it's fair to state that IMINT once again performed a great quarter considering another sales record with maintained strong margins as well. Congratulations to you, Andreas, and your colleagues at IMINT.
Thank you.
Can you start off by giving us a brief summary of the quarter?
Sure. As you mentioned, another strong quarter in all in all. Not much difference from first quarter. Business progressing well according to plan. No major events, I would say. We're still strong with our key accounts. Overall, a bit of a headwind in the market in general. Can see that in some of our customers' volume shipments. Overall, it wasn't a strong quarter for the global smartphone market, but we keep our position and, as you mentioned, are able to keep up revenue on a solid and good level, I think.
Yeah, I agree. Approximately what was Imint's market share of new sold smartphones in the quarter?
We don't have any exact data, but it's no major change since first quarter. We have our key accounts and we are in a lot of their phone models. Some of them saw some increase, many saw a bit of decrease, but I would say we was pretty stable market share over the last couple of quarters, actually.
All right. You're making progress with Qualcomm, who is constantly becoming a more important partner for you.
Mm-hmm.
How strategically important do you consider this collaboration to be in your growth base when it comes to this new verticals and wearables?
I think they will be a key partner in this. I mean, we build on a long-standing trust and relationship in the smartphone domain. That is also still very strategically important as they are, I would say, probably the leader in terms of high-end chipsets and loading their chipset with more and more advanced hardware to accelerate our future products and functions. We're building on that sort of mutual trust and are really happy to be invited, recognized as a key provider with the enhancement solution when they are investing heavily in other segments than smartphones. Wearables is one good example.
Yeah
Yeah, it's a good position to be able to walk hand-in-hand with Qualcomm when they meet up with the early customers for new wearable chipsets.
How is it going with other tech giants like Samsung, for instance, and also within social media?
Dialogues continue. Samsung is, I mean, a large and strange account, so it's a tough one, but we keep dialogues on several levels, as always, I would say. Other tech giants, we're probing our way forward, as we talked about earlier. We have one customer that has a strong position within social media and that project is progressing and relationship is firm and good. It takes time, but I think we're making more and more a dent in that market as well, getting
Yeah.
our name across.
'Cause you previously communicated, I think it was last year, that you have this ongoing dialogue with a giant within social media.
Mm-hmm.
That dialogue is still active.
Absolutely. The project is ongoing, so we are working with them. They are facing quite substantial delays in the original product plans, which is of course a bit unfortunate because we were hoping to be able to move faster, but it's not up to us. It's a complicated project, and they wanna do it right, so they're taking their time.
Right. During the quarter, you signed a new partnership with SIM Technology Group .
Mm-hmm.
Can you tell us a bit more of this collaboration and what type of customers SIM Technology Group have?
Right. They have a broad range of customers. I mean, they've been in business for many decades. What's interesting now is they made a very strategic decision to focus a lot on the industrial AR market. I would say they are one of the leading design houses in China for this segment. Already working a couple of years with that, so white labeling some of the other products are actually built by SIM Tech. So this is really a way for us to get a really good reach in this, especially in the Chinese AR market, although they are having clients globally. They are a strong design house in these technology areas and also have a lot of forward-looking product ideas as well where we can operate in the long run.
Nice. Yeah. Can Vidhance be included in a product from SIM without an agreement being signed between one of SIM's customers and Imint?
That could happen, for sure. They are working with two models. One is as a ODM design house where they build their own designs and provide them white label to the customers. They work more on an OEM basis where customers would bring in their own requirements and they would design according to that. We can either sign or SIM Technology can include our software when they do designs themselves. They can also be a middle hand where we sign directly with the end customer.
That's all perfect.
The agreement works.
Yeah
With both models, basically.
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Regarding wearables, did you see growth quarter-over-quarter in Q2?
Yes, we see that, but it's still from very low levels. I think that's worth to point out. A lot of this are prospects and projects going on right now.
Mm
an early evaluation. There is growth, but still on compared to smartphones, very small levels.
Yeah, understand. I don't know if you can give us information on this, of course, but how much of IMINT's total turnover percentage-wise do you think wearables will make up in one year?
I think we have ambition of maybe, like, 5%-10% in the wearable segment.
Okay.
It could grow quicker. Some of the prospects, I mean, it's an open game because there is some of our prospects are also very uncertain on the volumes and what kind of end customer they will sign up as well. It's a lot of good ambitions.
Mm. And this, uh-
Giving a percentage number is hard because I would add my guess based on our customers' guesses, so that would be multiplying guesses.
Yeah
I keep it open.
Given the industrial use also within AR and VR, do you think your pricing power and stickiness towards your customers will be better in that segment?
Yeah, we see that already, especially the long-term collaborations and that we are relates to the product life cycle and the kind of business case they are used in. It's a different animal than the consumer market, which is very fast-moving and a bit opportunistic.
Yeah. That's great, and that's also what I thought. China is still following their zero COVID policy in some areas, and how has this affected IMINT during this quarter, and how will this affect IMINT for the rest of 2022 if the lockdowns continue?
Right. No, I think there are effects on many levels. One effect is sort of the Chinese domestic smartphone market and the impact it had on the Chinese smartphone makers, where you saw significant volume drops. The big reason is probably just both lockdowns, people not going out shopping, and also, of course, logistics problem and getting both goods, device components and people into the factories and so on. They're of course struggling in that aspect. From a business development perspective, it's of course also problematic in the long run to not being able to have frequent face-to-face meetings. I think we are in the same boat as all other companies, right? It's hard to innovate and get really intimate with your customers only through video calls.
Yeah, understand. I was just gonna ask you how this has affected you compared to your competitors for, like, ArcSoft, for instance, 'cause IMINT has this, pretty remote organization, you can say.
Mm.
I'm guessing this could also lead to a benefit to you considering ArcSoft is maybe getting more affected.
Right. Now, I mean, I think there are plus and minus. Even if, I mean, ArcSoft have a home field advantage with Chinese customers and are present in many cities where our customers are, still with lockdowns, even they have been prevented to actually be on site and so on. Our remote way of handling customers have in a way been helpful. Of course, on the negative side is that they have easier access once doors are open again to have physical meetings, and I think that in the long run is important as well. We have our own Chinese operation and people in China. We also have had people from Sweden actually staying in China this spring, which has been really helpful.
We are looking at expanding our partner network in China as well, so that get more on an even footing with our Chinese competitors.
Yeah. Understand. Can you share with us approximately how much of IMINT's total sales are attributable to China?
Not from the top of my head, but I would say that it's around three-quarters of our sales, in that ballpark.
Okay.
It's a significant part.
Yeah, yeah. You hired three new employees during the quarter, two full-time employees and one consultant. In which areas and geographies will they operate, and why?
Right. So far, all new hires are in our head office in Sweden. Most are engineers, but it's a split between product development and sales development and product integration, which is an engineering job but within the sales group, basically working close with our customers to both define new products, technical sales, but primarily to make sure that our products are integrated and tuned correctly for the devices.
Yeah. The sales hires, when do you consider them to be fully productive?
I think we have a good method of getting new guys on board here. It's a matter of months before they are getting really useful. We have good processes-
Right
to get people on board quickly.
Yeah. The next question is what your plans are for the record high cash position.
Right. No, that's a nice problem to have.
Yeah
We are increasing our organic investments. We are still hiring, so we have a couple of new guys coming in now after the summer as well. After that, we'll probably pause and consolidate, make sure that everyone is getting productive and form our teams in the best way. Of course it creates a better and better position for us to look at acquisitions as well.
Yeah. The acquisitions, do you think they will be attributable to new segments like AR/VR or the core segments like product portfolio development within the smartphone market?
I think both are viable options.
Yeah.
We're looking pretty broadly at that topic, and it should just make business sense from a business perspective and a cultural perspective.
Do you have any ongoing dialogues right now regarding M&A?
We have general dialogues, and we keep an open mind whether an acquisition in the long run could be an option, but no firm discussions.
Understand. Can you provide any info regarding when IMINT will start making financial guidances?
Not yet, but we are. I think we talked about it last time.
Yeah
Since then, not much has happened in summer months. We are discussing that together with the board of directors as well to start giving a bit more longer time horizon for our business.
Mm
to guide, not maybe in exact numbers, but more broadly what we aim to do in a number of years, and I think that is probably going to be helpful for the investor market as well.
Yeah. Andreas, is there anything else you would like to share before we finish this interview?
I think you circled in on the good questions, and
Thanks
a good summary in the beginning as well. I think it was good.
Great. Thank you, Andreas, and good luck going forward.
Thanks so much.