Good morning. Welcome to the twenty-sixth Annual Needham Growth Conference. We're gonna have a discussion with the CFO of Universal Display, Brian Millard. Also here with us today is from the company, is Darice Liu, sitting in the front row. And I would tell you, you know, if anyone is looking to do more work on the OLED space, and certainly on the company in particular, you reach out to Darice, one of the more knowledgeable people in the IR space relates certainly to OLED. So my name's Jim Ricchiuti. I'm the senior analyst in the equity research department at Needham & Company, covering industrial tech companies. I think, you know, most of the folks in the audience are familiar with UDC.
It's one of the most profitable, more profitable growth stories that I've followed over the years. Derives its revenues from a royalty and license fees, sale of proprietary OLED phosphorescent emitter materials. Before we jump into the Q&A, Brian, you're gonna go through the disclosure.
Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Jim, and thanks for hosting us here at the conference this week. Just a quick safe harbor statement. I may make some forward-looking statements as part of my remarks today. Our actual results may differ from those forward-looking statements, so we would encourage anyone considering investing in the company's securities to review our SEC filings.
Great. So, look, it's been the topic du jour for the past year or more. I feel like, for people who have known this company over the years, it's been, you know, years of talking about blue. So, but there may be some people in the audience who are not necessarily as up to speed on some of the latest developments. Talk to us about where we are with the commercialization of the blue emitter and why it's, you know, how important it could be.
Yeah, great. So for those that aren't very familiar with the company or our products today, we currently have commercial phosphorescent red and green material that we sell. And the benefits of our technology, our phosphorescent emitters, is really energy efficiency. They are much more energy efficient than fluorescent OLED technology, which is the alternative, today. Blue material, blue phosphorescent material, has not been commercialized by us yet or anyone else in the industry. And our team's been working for a number of years on moving the R&D efforts of blue closer to commercialization. And we said about two years ago this time, that we expected in 2024 to have commercial performance material available, and that continues to be the case.
We believe that this year we will be able to achieve commercial performance of our material, and that that will then enable our customers to then use that material in their product portfolios, you know, from there. So it's been a lot of work to get to this point, and still more work to do over the next few, you know, periods of time here to get to that commercialization point. But very happy with the progress, very pleased with the increased performance in our material that we saw over the course of last year, and still continue to believe that we're on track for achieving those commercial specs in 2024. And I think that the benefits of blue, as I said, energy efficiency, and that can be used in a number of different ways.
I mean, if you think about a smartphone, that energy efficiency could be applied by having a smaller battery in the device and having, you know, the same lifetime today that you do on a single charge, or potentially that same battery lasts for longer on a single charge, which would obviously be a big benefit to consumers and the OEMs. Or lastly, you know, potentially there's other energy-consuming features that the manufacturers could put into the displays and the devices overall that could enable that same battery to be able to serve those additional power needs of the device.
So there's a ton of interest across the board from our customers and the industry more broadly in our blue material, and having a high-efficiency blue, and we're very happy with where we are and where we expect to go from here.
The company has actually generated some revenue from blue, at least through the first nine months. It was, what, about $4.3 million or so?
That's right.
What can you say, in maybe broad strokes, what that customers are evaluating as they work with the material that, you know, might help us get a sense as to how quickly it could be adopted?
Yep. So there's three things when we're developing any of our materials, whether it's red, green, or blue, that we're currently working on, and it's really what's the color point of that material? So how, for example, in the case of blue, how deep is the blue or how light is the blue? So making sure it has the right color spec. Also making sure the energy efficiency of that material is sufficient to make sure that it's not consuming, you know, too much power off of a battery. And lastly, you know, what's the lifetime of the material? So how long does it last? And making sure that it has sufficient lifetime to last, you know, a product lifecycle is also very important.
So it's hitting the right combination of all three of those things, that we are looking at and that our customers are evaluating as well. And I'd say of those three, as it relates to blue, you know, lifetime has been, you know, the most difficult one to kind of move up the continuum. But, we've seen continued improvement in the lifetime of our material, especially over the course of last year, as we introduced new generations of material, and believe we're moving much closer to a commercial performance spec, on lifetime as well as the other metrics.
And are you, as you've been providing the material to customers, are they, are you also providing the host material as well? So when we see that revenue number, that small-
Yes.
But is that including host?
Yeah. Yes. So, as Jim said, there's both an emitter and a host material that's needed to produce OLED displays and we, in the case of blue, we sell both an emitter and a host solution to our customers. The emitter of that $4.3 number that you mentioned for nine months through September, the majority of that, a significant majority of that was emitter, but there were certainly host revenues included in that figure.
Okay. Has the company decided whether to pursue on a go-forward basis, the blue host materials business?
So we are planning to participate in that business. We have, you know, strong IP in blue host. Our material also performs quite well in our opinion. We believe that we will plan to introduce that host, you know, solution to the market. I think what Jim's alluding to a little bit is there's the host business generally tends to be a little bit more commoditized and competitive than the emitter business. And so, we had had a green host business, you know, probably a decade ago, and were participating, had significant revenues that were generated off of that, but it just quickly kind of went other directions. And I think there's some concern of, you know, is that gonna repeat itself here in the case of blue host?
We plan to bring a host solution to the market. We believe ours is competitive. We are very mindful of the fact that it is a more competitive and commoditized business, and so we're making sure we're being very disciplined as we deploy, you know, capital to that, so we don't kind of get ahead of... too far ahead of ourselves, as we bring that to market.
But we shouldn't necessarily assume there's gonna be a repeat of what happened with green?
Yeah, I think lessons have been learned from the green host business experience of, you know, as I said, a decade or so ago. So, we're being, you know, much more disciplined and cautious as we approach the blue host opportunity.
Okay. And with respect to that opportunity, UDC has talked about blue having a similar ratio of green to red, essentially around two to one?
That's right.
Okay. You haven't given any color to the market about pricing.
Mm-hmm.
You know, we don't know what you can say at this point, but when you go back to green, how much of a premium did green command when it was adopted? For people who remember, it was back, what, 2013, and it replaced a legacy green emitter material.
Yeah, correct. So, the First of all, the industry, the OLED industry was at, and our company was at a very different spot, you know, 10 years ago than we are today. So I think the analogy of green and blue don't really quite hold, just based on the kind of dynamics today. But as you said originally, you know, yes, we believe that our blue material has a premium price profile associated with it, compared to our red and green material that we sell today. And on the ratio front, you're right, that right now, from a quantity perspective, there's roughly 2x the amount of green material compared to red. So it's a two-to-one green to red ratio in the current displays, and we would expect the amount of green and blue to be similar.
So in the future, if you think about from a ratio perspective, you have, you know, two blue, two green, and one red, would roughly be what you'd expect from a quantity point of view. And on the pricing side, we believe there's a premium price profile for a number of reasons. One, we've made a significant investment in this over a number of years to get this to market. We also know there's a ton of interest in the industry, more, you know, broadly in this material, and we believe it should command a premium. And lastly, it is gonna be more costly, especially initially, for us to manufacture our blue material compared to what we currently can manufacture our green and reds for. So for all those reasons, we think that there's a premium price profile.
I can't give you a percentage today, obviously, but that's how we're approaching the conversations with our customers on pricing.
And then again, maybe just to go back to the host side of the business, we, you know, we know what the green host represented. I think back at the time, I think it was about a third or more of your overall materials business in 2013, 2014. Is that... How do we think about the blue host portion of the business, since you are-
Yeah
... committed to-
Yeah
-that?
Yeah, I think it's, it's one that, you know, it's an opportunity from a- There's much more host from a quantity perspective in a display than there is emitter. The price of hosts generally are, you know, much less than than emitters. So there's, you know, a little bit of a of equation to do there to get to the exact figures. I think the key point on blue host is it's an incremental opportunity above the emitter business that we believe, you know, we have a very strong foothold in. We think we also have a strong positioning in blue host, but we are being very disciplined in making sure that, you know, we're not building excess quantities or infrastructure around blue host until we can really see that there's a viable commercial opportunity there.
Brian, you touched on this. You know, we try to go back to green and look at, you know, what happened then. But the company was, it was a different company. It was a different market. But you know, even so, can we look at your historical experience with green in some form as a template for blue? I mean, we do have multiple players now in the market versus 10 years ago, when it's essentially one customer.
Mm-hmm.
that customer, that customer made a really, a fairly rapid transition-
Yeah
... to green. So I guess the question is, you know, could we see a different trajectory? F or blue because we're dealing with multiple customers? Or, yeah, what, what's a way to think?
Yeah, I, I think it's, it's a great question. The adoption curve is something that I think, you know, we believe there will be significant adoption. I guess it's a matter of how steep is that curve and, and, and how does that occur? But once we bring phosphorescent blue material to the market, there really should be no desire on the part of a panel maker or an OEM to continue to have a fluorescent blue in their, in their device. That's our, our view. The, the benefits are vast in terms of the performance that someone would get from having a higher efficiency blue material in their device. And so we believe that there will be at a, you know, ultimately, a significant adoption.
Now, does, you know, does the industry take a, you know, an approach where they maybe introduce it into, a limited series first, or, you know, do they go larger? We don't really know that at this point. I think our key focus on this, at this point is getting to that commercial performance, getting to a place where our customers, you know, can introduce it into their product portfolios, begin to sample, you know, materials displays to OEMs that have higher efficiency blue, and then from there, we believe there will be a significant adoption curve. It's just a matter of, you know, how steep that is, but ultimately, over a number of years, we believe it should get to a very high level of penetration.
You have the company has license agreements in place covering blue with the exception of your largest customer, Samsung. And so is there an y reason to think that an agreement with respect to blue, you know, would not be reached with this customer? And you know if and when an agreement is reached, are you going to communicate that to the street?
Yeah. So in terms of the agreements, you're right, that all of our customers, except for Samsung, have portfolio license agreements. So that provides access to the entirety of our IP for the customers except Samsung. Samsung's agreement has always expressly excluded blue. And so there will be a need to, you know, reach an agreement with Samsung on a license agreement for blue. Our position is, and we've seen nothing that would indicate, you know, to the contrary, is that all paths to high efficiency blue travel through our IP and our material. And so all of our customers would need to have a license agreement to our IP in order to be introducing high-efficiency blue display. And so we're confident that, you know, with Samsung, we'll be able to reach that agreement at the time it's needed.
I think the key right now for all of our customers is we don't have pricing for the commercial material, and as with respect to Samsung, we don't have a license agreement currently in place. That's not slowing down the work that we need to do and that our customers are needing to do to continue to advance the R&D. And so, as we get closer to that commercial introduction, we're confident that we'll be able to reach the necessary contracting elements. Communicating, we would love, I'm sure, to be able to put out a big press release when we are able to enter into those agreements. I think it'll be facts and circumstances at the time. You know, is it material and therefore requires SEC disclosure?
you know, what's the willingness on the part of our customers to be able to publicly announce that? So I think we'll have to see once we get closer to that point. But on our side, there would certainly be a desire to, to communicate that to the market.
I guess there also are other ways, I assume, even during an earnings call, if the question were posed in a certain way-
Correct. Yeah.
it would give people the sense that
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. We will obviously-
Without-
To tell you the truth on our... Yes. Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
So just on... again, lastly, on the, on the topic of blue, I know we've spent a lot of time on this, but I think there's a lot of interest in this. How are you gonna be, you've given us, some sense as to the, preliminary initial revenues that we're seeing in blue. Any, qualitative commentary with respect to contribution blue could be making in 2024? Is that gonna be part when you guys give guidance,
Yeah
... after you report Q4-
Mm-hmm
... is there gonna be some discussion about what may be baked into that guidance with respect to blue?
Yeah. So we're still a month away from that point, you know, late February, when we report our year-end results. So still more work to do internally in terms of, you know, setting guidance and determining the color that we provide. But I think that qualitatively, we'd at least be able to provide probably some insight into the blue number that's in there. I think the key point is, you know, as we sit here right now, in mid-January, we don't have commercial performance material, right?
Right.
There's more work to do from an R&D perspective to get to that point. But we'll provide more information, you know, in a month or so here.
Does that suggest, you know, when we, the question keeps coming up for investors about where are we in terms of the commercial viability, has there been any change in that?
From a viability perspective, no. You know, we've continued to see improved performance each generation of the material, so we're moving much closer to that mark that we and our customers would say is commercial performance. Are we right there today? No. There's more work to do, but based on the improvements that we've seen over really the course of the last two years, because it was-
Mm-hmm
... two years ago this time that the company said, "We think in 2024, we're gonna have, you know, commercial performance." And that confidence at that point, which has continued since that point, was based on improvements we had seen in the years preceding that, right? And where we were in 2022, the improvements that we knew we were gonna see over the course of 2022, that continued to move in the right direction over the course of 2023. And so we're moving much closer in the right direction, but it's R&D, right? And so there's, you know, it's not a linear path to, you know, the finish line here. But it's all, you know, trending in the right direction, and we're very positive with, and pleased with the results.
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the markets. It took a while for OLED displays to reach the point where they are currently, which is roughly 50% or so of the smartphone market. Is that where we are?
That's right. Yeah.
Okay. So how do we think about the adoption in some of the newer areas, notably the IT market, which includes tablets... There's been a lot of speculation-
Mm-hmm.
About a certain consumer electronics supplier that sells tablets, laptops, monitors. You know, I wonder also just if there's, you know, for those of us who weren't following it as closely, what if there were anything at CES as it relates to what you were seeing on the IT market?
Yeah. So as Jim said, there's really three key segments that we follow for the business. There are others, but there's three major segments that we monitor. One being smartphones, which, as you said, we're at 50% penetration right now in terms of global smartphones having OLED displays. That also has room to continue to grow. We've seen OLEDs in recent periods continue to penetrate that mid-tier smartphone market. The premium market, for a number of years, has all had OLED displays, but the mid-tier is starting to to continue to adopt OLED displays in that segment. Next being IT, which, as you said, there's a lot of momentum from a number of angles, that momentum that we're seeing in IT.
One being, you know, a number of leading consumer electronics companies, one in particular, that's expected to adopt OLED displays into its IT portfolio, I think starting with tablets and then rumored to be going into other IT products from there. And, also on the IT side, there's an exciting opportunity from a material perspective, a quantity of our material that there's a tandem structure that's expected to be used in many of the IT displays, and that's, really two emissive layers that would be in the displays. And so that's an incremental opportunity for our material, the quantity of our material to be greater per square inch.
It's a good point, Brian. Maybe just spend a moment on that for people who aren't-
Sure.
as familiar with that.
Yeah. So the tandem structure is really an approach that certain OEMs and our customers are taking to address a lifetime issue in IT. So if you think about an IT product, like a laptop, let's say, where you have a white background on for a significant portion of the day, those pixels are on if you have an OLED display, you know, when there's a white background on. So in order to make sure that the display can last an appropriate lifetime and have the right level of brightness and lifetime, there's a tandem structure, which is, as I said earlier, two emissive layers that would be in the display.
If you think about the quantity of our material compared to a single layer, it's maybe not quite 2x the quantity of our material, but it's probably pretty close to that in terms of the quantity of our material that would be needed in a tandem structure. And so that's an approach that a number of OEMs are taking, and then our customers are therefore, you know, applying, and we think that that's another significant opportunity from a per square inch perspective, per square meter, for our material to have a greater impact.
Is there any way to think about the IT opportunity and also just based on what you just said, as we think about the development of that market over the next two to three years, maybe in the context of what you generate in another market, the TV market, which is a smaller market for you, although than with one big customer. Is there any way to think about that IT opportunity?
I think it's hard to really have a direct comparison between TV and IT-
Mm-hmm.
because also the TV architecture, the way that TVs are manufactured
Right.
is uniquely different.
Right.
Whereas the IT approach would be the red, green, and blue side-by-side architecture, similar to what you have on a smartphone. The TV process that's used, the most OLED TVs are made by LG Display, and they have what's called a white OLED approach. They create a white deposit white material or a number of materials to get to a white color and have a color filter on top of that to create the red, green, and blue colors. So it's a uniquely different architecture, so I'm not sure there's a direct analogy other than, you know, certainly larger displays like IT, if you think about a monitor or a laptop or even a tablet, that's much larger than a single smartphone.
You know, a number of smartphones from a square inch perspective would go on the size of a laptop or a tablet. So it's certainly a great opportunity in terms of increased size of displays and therefore more of our material being needed, but it's hard to really draw a direct comparison-
Yeah.
from TV.
Before we go to a more of a discussion on TVs, I wanted to go back to the comment that you made about the mid-tier market-
Mm-hmm
... being an opportunity. And maybe talk to us a little bit about, because you guys have also a unique view of what's happening from a capacity standpoint.
Yep.
There's been a lot of discussion, even from some of the folks that are supplying some of the capital equipment used to manufacture OLED displays, the capacity additions in China, how that potentially could also fuel that mid-tier market.
Yeah. Yeah, so as it relates to the comment on mid-tier was on smartphones-
Yeah.
And I think the smartphone capacity, there continues to be increased capacity added, you know, across the market. There's also, you know, enough capacity right now that we're not capacity constrained to be able to grow from where we are today. The IT capacity is actually a very interesting one-
Okay
... which, you know, in April of last year, Samsung Display announced a very large Gen- 8.7 fab that they plan to, you know, build over the next few years for the IT market. And so that's a big opportunity, and that's, you know, it's clearly a $3 billion investment that they're making based on where they see the industry going, the feedback that they're getting from their customers in terms of capacity needs in the future. And also, in Q4 of last year, BOE announced a similarly sized-
Mm-hmm
... fab that they're gonna be building in China for the IT market as well. So those are both clearly signs that our customers are making significant investments in new capacity for the IT market, and that's, you know, reflective of where we see things going in the next few years.
Are you gonna be in a position, as the IT market develops, to, you're sometimes a little bit further removed from the end product, but to give a little color at IT revenue stream might look like, or are we gonna be relying on third-party sources?
Yeah, I think we, you know, I guess that's a great question from a kind of a forecasting perspective and the data that we get from our customers and insights. So, you know, we have a rolling kind of 12-month forecast that we use internally, and that's based on data that we get from our customers, and we obviously get some information from them on, you know, what they're working on from a long-term R&D perspective. We clearly can't be publicly sharing a lot of that, but, yeah, to the extent that we can give color, we absolutely always strive to, to do that. And then beyond, you know, that 12- to 24- period, we really do rely on a lot of the third-party analysts who, you know, have a lot of information on, on the markets as well.
Yeah. Let's turn to TVs. The OLED TV market, I think, has been fair to say, a little slower to scale the way some of us thought it would. You know, and particularly even in the past year, just this is more a function, I think, the overall weakness in consumer electronics. You know, we'll talk about some of the, you know, the R&D work that's going on in terms of maybe driving down the cost of manufacturing OLED TVs. We'll talk about that in a second, but put that aside, how confident are you that the OLED TV market, the company—how confident are you that it moves beyond what's really been kind of a niche segment of the premium-
Mm-hmm.
- end of the market?
Yeah. So right now, OLED TVs have roughly 3% penetration globally, so 3% of TVs sold are OLED displays. And as you said, it is still a premium, you know, price profile compared to compared to an LCD technology, but it's also a premium quality display. I mean, if you walk into a consumer electronics store and you see an OLED TV next to an LCD or really any other architecture or technology, OLED displays clearly win out, and that's also evident in the fact that it continues to win, you know, consumer electronics awards, you know, year after year as best TV. The price has come down. It's not, you know, in the stratosphere.
It used to be thousands of dollars to get a 50- or 60-inch TV, and now it's, you know, a little more than $1,000 typically to purchase a TV of that size, an OLED TV of that size. So it still is premium. It's continuing to come down. I think that's what we need to do is, I guess, twofold: One, have that price continue to come down and also have, you know, LCDs continue to, you know, from a capacity perspective, be less prioritized by our customers and the broader market. And you've seen that Samsung Display fully exited the LCD business, LG Display exited it almost entirely at this point.
And so the major display makers are really moving to OLEDs, and we would expect that trend to continue, and to continue to, you know, go into the Chinese market as well. The Chinese market still is very focused on LCDs, and we think that there's opportunity in the next few years as the price can come down, consumers can understand, to a better degree, the benefit of an OLED TV, and we see that as being a significant driver in the future.
Probably a good segue to what the company's been doing with respect to OVJP.
Yeah.
Maybe, you know, first, why don't you tell us a little bit about that, and then we'll dig a little-
Sure.
more deeply into it.
Yeah. So we've had an R&D project for a number of years called, as Jim said, OVJP, which is Organic Vapor Jet Printing, and it's a technology that we developed in-house, and it is focused on how to make large area displays, like television-sized displays, using the same process or the same architecture that you would have in a smartphone today. So right now, your smartphone that's in your pocket has red, green, and blue material on a side-by-side basis in the display. So, how they make those smartphones is they have a mask come over the glass, they deposit the red, another mask comes, they deposit the green, and they deposit the blue.
So that process doesn't work when you scale it to a very large size display because there can be issues with sagging of those masks, and therefore, you can't get to uniform printing on a very large display using the same process that you use to make a smartphone today. So what OVJP is trying to do, and what we've, you know, been successful at proving it, it can do, is print using print heads to get to that same architecture of red, green, and blue side by side, using a dry printing process. And we've been able to scale that up. We set up a subsidiary in 2020 in California, and have hired a number of equipment industry professionals out there to scale that up to a larger size.
So we're currently at, you know, at a Gen- 4 size, you know, need to continue to scale beyond that. And we've been able to, you know, print all layers, all colors using OVJP, and so, we've been able to prove that it works at a certain size, and now it's a matter of how do we scale it beyond that? How do we also get, partners, whether that be customers or equipment manufacturers, to work more closely with us on furthering the R&D, efforts there. But we're very happy with the progress that we've made. Setting up that subsidiary in California was really key to moving the R&D forward, and it's, you know, proven to be a great investment that we made, you know, a few years ago.
Now, others have tried to develop OLED printing technologies, and I think there may even be one of your customers, TCL China Star has pursued this as well.
Yeah.
Talk to us about, you know, what's happening outside of what you're doing and to what extent-
Yeah.
Could it impact the market?
Yeah. So there's I think some folks are working on inkjet printing. I think that's one approach. There's also a thing called using a photolithography approach that's been discussed recently. Some people call that eLEAP. It has a number of different names associated with it. You know, I think anything that can continue to expand the OLED TV market, we're in favor of, you know, of processes that can do that. You know, some folks have had challenges with inkjet printing. I think it's been underway for a while. The eLEAP thing that I mentioned is a relatively new approach that some folks are working toward. And OVJP, we think, has a lot of opportunity as well.
What are the milestones we should be looking for on this?
I think it's continuing to scale the size that we're printing on, continuing to improve the print uniformity from beyond—which is not necessarily something we can, that from an investor perspective or outsider, really see. It's not as tangible, but there are a lot of key milestones internally that we have for the team to continue to work toward. And so continuing to improve upon the performance of the system is key. And then from things that you would be able to see potentially are, you know, whether we partner up with someone more closely on OVJP and can build some of those strategic partnerships going forward.
Yeah, and on the partnership question, it would seem like it would be an equipment company, but how are you guys thinking about if we get to that point?
Yeah.
You've mentioned customers, equipment companies. What's a more likely scenario?
Yeah.
How much interest has there been on the equipment side?
Yeah. We've had a number of conversations with both customers and folks in the equipment industry, and I think there's, you know, there's interest. I won't necessarily say, you know, we're not on the cusp of necessarily signing something, but there's been interest from parties. And I think whether we go customer or equipment partner, I think it's really a combination of both, because if we can get a customer very interested in the technology, that also then, you know, enables some of the relationships with equipment partners to move on, you know, at a greater pace. So, we're approaching it from a number of different angles, not just one.
Okay. I wanted to also mention if we spent a moment on automotive, it's obviously much smaller in comparison to these segments of the consumer electronics market that we're talking about, but we have seen OLED adoption grow in that market, you know, particularly with EVs, where we've seen it over the years, also in OLED lighting. How does UDC view the automotive market, just as it relates to both displays and lighting over the next few years?
Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. It's one that we've, you know, I think over the last year, we've started to pay a little bit more attention to, 'cause prior to, you know, recent periods, it had been, you know, some tail lights here and there, maybe a few displays. But you've heard us say on the last few conference calls that there's been a number of, you know, automotive manufacturers who have adopted OLED displays into the interior of their vehicles. Tail lights continue to become, you know, more penetrated. We've seen Audi, BMW, Mercedes, all, you know, adopt tail lights, OLED tail lights, to varying degrees.
On the interior, especially in the EV market, it's a huge opportunity because the energy efficiency of OLEDs, OLED displays, relative to LCDs, is great for EVs because you can draw less energy off the battery, therefore, that unlocks, you know, additional range or other opportunities for the manufacturer. So we see it as being a key, you know, growth opportunity going forward. It was interesting, last week at CES, LG Display, you know, our one of our major customers, they had, in addition to their, you know, traditional, you know, TV booth and showcasing their technology there, they also had a separate booth in the automotive hall at CES because they're really focused, as is Samsung and, you know, many of our Chinese customers also, in this automotive opportunity.
And so being able to showcase some of the, you know, cockpit of the future and of the vehicles, was something that they wanted to prioritize. So we're very excited about it. We see it as being a great opportunity for OLEDs, you know, beyond, as you said, the traditional segments that we focus on.
Let's move to the financials for a bit. I think anyone who's followed the company for a while knows the attractive margin profile of the business. At the same time, you've had some headwinds in the past year as it relates to the underutilization of the Shannon, Ireland facility, which I think was about 140 basis points in September.
Thereabout.
Thereabout.
Yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
Does, you know, does that become less of a factor in 2024?
Yeah. So, I think on the margin side, as you said, we, you know, have a very strong margin profile last year for 2023, we guided 76%-77%, which is slightly off where we were, you know, in prior years. And we have an opportunity in the years ahead. We have a fixed overhead base, we have our manufacturing network in play, we have Shannon, and we also have two sites in the U.S. where we manufacture our product. And we have that cost profile in place. We have the opportunity to put additional volume through those manufacturing locations, gain operating leverage to a greater degree. And Shannon is a key capability for us.
I mean, as we think about the next few years and where we see the industry growing, the volumes of material that we're gonna need to produce to meet the industry demand, Shannon is a capability that we'll be able to, you know, as I said, put additional capacity into, additional capability into, but that overhead base can remain largely the same. And so we think there's, from a tailwind perspective, absolutely an opportunity to improve from where we are today. Some of the headwinds we're managing, we do have volume pricing dynamics in all of our contracts with our customers. So as those volumes increase on a per unit basis, you would expect our customers to secure a better price per unit.
And then there's also certain input costs, whether it be Iridium, which is a material that we use in certain of our our products, as well as, you know, other kind of, you know, labor, et cetera, that have you know increases over time. So we're managing it very closely, but we expect to continue to maintain a very strong margin profile going forward.
But the business has, you know, historically, going back to 2021, 2022, been able to generate operating margins well north of 40%. Is there any reason to think that, you know, we, we can't see that profile long term?
Yeah. So for 2023, we guided 35%-40% operating margins. And going, you know, I can't give you a long-term guide here today on margins, other than to say it's something that the management team works very closely to make sure that, you know, we're both on the top line side, as well as the cost base, that you know, we're being very, very conscious.
Okay. And just on the balance sheet, what, $800 million in cash, no debt. You've done some... The company's done some selective M&A, including last spring, last April, acquiring the Merck KGaA OLED patent portfolio. I think that was about $66 million or so.
That's right.
How do we think about capital allocation going forward? Is there, are there M&A opportunities? How are you thinking?
Yeah, so we definitely want to grow the business. I mean, that's foundational. You know, growing the business from here, continuing to identify opportunities for growth and investment, is the key priority. And whether that investment is M&A, as you said, or R&D opportunities that we see that we want to fund to a greater degree, having the capital available is important. We have returned capital to shareholders. It is a priority of ours to do that. We've had a dividend program in place for a number of years that we've increased annually, and we, you know, hope to continue to do that going forward. So, that's kind of how we think about capital allocation.
All right. Brian, thanks.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Jim.