Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Richardson Electronics earnings call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022. At this time, our participants are on a listen only mode. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question- and- answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ed Richardson, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Welcome to Richardson Electronics conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022. Joining me today are Robert Ben, Chief Financial Officer, Wendy Diddell, Chief Operating Officer and General Manager for Richardson Healthcare, Greg Peloquin, General Manager of our Power & Microwave Technologies group, and Jens Ruppert, General Manager of Canvys. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available for playback. I'd also like to remind you that we'll be making forward-looking statements. They're based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Therefore, our actual results could be materially different. Please refer to our press release and SEC filings for an explanation of our risk factors. Net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 were $53.7 million, 38.4% higher than last year's first quarter.
We are excited about the strong start to fiscal 2022 as we achieved the highest level of quarterly sales in 11 years and the best quarterly earnings per share in nine years. Sales are higher than prior year across all three business units. Our strong first quarter performance is a result of growth initiatives that are starting to take hold and the ongoing strength of the semiconductor wafer fab market. Our legacy tube and display businesses also bounced back after struggling earlier last year due to COVID-19 pandemic. While we continue to face unprecedented global supply chain and logistics challenges, the team has done an excellent job serving our customers. The first quarter ended with record backlogs for the ULTRA3000 ultracapacitor modules for GE wind turbines, microwave products, and Canvys displays, putting us in an excellent position for continued growth.
I'll now turn the call over to Bob Ben, Chief Financial Officer, to review our first quarter financial performance in more detail. Greg , Wendy, and Jens will update our successes and new programs as well as our challenges in each business unit.
Thank you, Ed, and good morning. I will review our financial results for our first quarter of fiscal year 2022, followed by a review of our cash position. Net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 increased to $53.7 million or were up 38.4% compared to net sales of $38.8 million in the prior year's first quarter, due to higher net sales across all three business units. PMT sales increased by $12.8 million or 42.2% from last year's first quarter, driven by higher sales of power conversion in RF and microwave components, as well as semiconductor wafer fab equipment specialty products. In addition, sales across most of the electron tube product lines increased from the first quarter of fiscal 2021.
Canvys sales increased by $1.7 million or 25.8% due to strong customer demand in Europe. Richardson Healthcare sales increased to $0.4 million or 22.0% year-over-year, primarily due to an increase in demand for ALTA750 tubes, partially offset by lower sales of parts and pre-owned CT scanners in Latin America. Gross margin for the quarter was 30.3% of net sales compared to 31.8% of net sales in last year's first quarter. PMT margin decreased to 30.1% from 33.0% due to a higher percentage of lower margin PMT sales. Canvys margin as a percent of net sales decreased to 33.4% from 34.0% because of higher freight costs driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Healthcare margin improved as a percent of net sales to 24.3% in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to 5.6% in the prior year's first quarter, primarily due to improved product mix and manufacturing absorption from increased production of the ALTA750 tube. Operating expenses were $13.5 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to $13.0 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The increase in operating expenses resulted from our normal employee compensation expenses, including incentives and annual merit increases, as well as higher travel expenses. While there were some additions to staff during the quarter, the majority of the increase in our employee count was in manufacturing positions and included in cost of goods sold.
These increases were partially offset by lower legal expenses. The company reported an operating income of $2.8 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, as compared to an operating loss of $0.6 million in the first quarter of last year. Other expense for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, including interest income and foreign exchange, was less than $0.1 million, compared to other expense of $0.4 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The income tax provision of $0.2 million for the quarter reflected a provision for foreign income taxes, which was higher than the prior year's first quarter, and the offset of a U.S. tax provision against the valuation allowance.
Net income was $2.6 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, as compared to a net loss of $1.1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Earnings per common share on a diluted basis in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 were $0.20, compared to a net loss per share on a diluted basis of $0.09 in the prior year's first quarter. Turning to a review of our cash position. Cash and investments at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2022 were $36.4 million, compared to $43.3 million at the end of fiscal 2021 and $42.5 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2021.
Cash use in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022 resulted primarily from an increase in working capital that was necessary to support the significant year-over-year sales growth we experienced across our three business units. A large portion of the inventory growth relates to components needed to fulfill orders on hand for the ULTRA3000 and other long-time lead parts for PMG. Capital expenditures were $0.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, compared to $0.7 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2021. Approximately $0.3 million related to investments in our Healthcare business, $0.3 million was for our IT system, and $0.2 million was for other projects. We paid $0.8 million in cash dividends in the first quarter of fiscal 2022.
In addition, based on our current financial position, our board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per common share, which will be paid in the second quarter of fiscal 2022. Finally, during the first quarter of fiscal 2022, we repatriated $0.7 million to the U.S. from China. Our U.S.- domiciled cash and cash equivalents balance totaled $18.1 million as of August 28, 2021. Now I will turn the call over to Greg, who will discuss the results for our Power & Microwave Technologies group.
Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Sales for the Power & Microwave Technologies group, or PMT, in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022 grew 42.2% to $43 million versus $30.3 million in Q1 last year. In addition to an excellent sales quarter, PMT achieved a book-to-bill ratio of 1.13. Our sales growth and strong bookings mark a solid launch to what is shaping up to be an excellent fiscal year 2022. Our gross margin decreased in the quarter to 30.1% versus 33% in the prior year, which was mainly due to product mix. Looking into the PMT Group, we continue to have excellent growth in our Power & Microwave Group, or PMG. We have a growing line of new technology products targeting RF and wireless applications.
This includes 5G infrastructure programs as well as power management and energy storage applications that support numerous green initiatives. With respect to 5G wireless and power management, revenues increased by double digits again in Q1. Our Electron Device Group, or EDG business unit, produced strong sales and bookings in the quarter from our engineering solutions products that support the semiconductor wafer fab equipment market. Additionally, our legacy tube business also grew in the quarter, exceeding the first quarter of last year. We have increased backlog going into Q2 FY 2022. This was achieved by continued growth in power management and wireless communications. On the power management side, we saw growth in applications for wind, solar, electric vehicles, and energy storage. New products such as our patented ULTRA3000 Pitch Energy Module used in wind turbines continue to gain traction with increased bookings in the quarter.
We are producing the ULTRA3000 with great results in the field and now millions of hours of accumulated operation. Our production quantities in the quarter did not meet our forecast due to component lead times. In the quarter, we built a strong inventory position on these key products, and we expect to increase shipments going forward throughout the balance of fiscal year 2022. Our RF and microwave business continues to benefit from positive trends associated with 5G, microwave communications, and SATCOM applications. As people continue to work from multiple remote locations, they must be able to send and receive large amounts of data. Our entire team has done an excellent job identifying niche technology partners who collaborate with us globally. We continue to invest in and focus on resources to support these growth markets. These resources include design engineers, field engineers, and manufacturing capabilities.
We also added several small niche suppliers to fill technology gaps. This strategy has been highly successful, and we will continue to use it to develop new products, customers, revenue, and profits by capitalizing on our demand creation infrastructure. EDG also experienced an increase in both semiconductor wafer fab demand and large MRO tube business. We have also seen our legacy tube business come back strong during the last two quarters. The first quarter of FY 2022 continued to prove that the demand for our products and services did not go away with the pandemic, and we're even more excited about the trends in the coming quarter. We continue to receive support from key partners such as Qorvo, MACOM, Anokiwave, UnitedSiC, LS Materials and Fuji Electric. Key tube manufacturers in the industry, such as CPI, Thales, NJRC and Photonis, worked with us to manage customer requirements.
Our in-house engineering and manufacturing teams did a great job supporting increased demand from our global semiconductor wafer fab customers. The team also supported product designs for key markets such as the ULTRA3000, with patented technology for power management in the wind turbine market. Our engineers, in partnership with Battery Street Energy, also developed the ULTRAGEN3000, which we'll be introducing in the second quarter for cellular base stations and critical facilities. I'm very pleased with the progress we are making. We will continue to identify, develop, and introduce products using ultracapacitor technology for power management application, and this portfolio of products will continue to grow throughout FY 2022. We remain challenged by longer semiconductor component lead times. This affects our component business and engineered solutions products, including the ULTRA3000 and ULTRAGEN3000.
To compensate for this, we are taking an aggressive stance on inventory to fill the pipeline, ensure we can meet our customers' needs, and we're working closely with our customers and suppliers to complete this. I cannot stress enough the value of Richardson Electronics model to our customers and suppliers. Our unparalleled capability and go-to-market strategy are unique to the RF and microwave industries. We have developed a powerful business model, including legacy products and new technology partners that fit well with our engineered solutions capability. Through our steadfast and creative focus on customers, we will continue to excel by taking advantage of opportunities as they arise. We believe our customers and technology partners need Richardson's products and support more than ever. With that, I'll turn it over to Wendy Diddell in Richardson Healthcare.
Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. Sales for the healthcare group were $2.3 million, an increase of 22% versus Q1 last year. After a strong year-end finish, sales in June and July started off slow and then picked up in August. We believe the slow start to the quarter was due to increase in COVID-19 cases and the impact this had on hospitals' priorities, as well as people pushing off elective surgeries. We were pleased to see tube revenues increase 92.5% over the prior year. Strong demand in Europe and the China reloading program continued to positively impact tube sales. Gross margin in the first quarter was 24.3% versus 5.6% in Q1 last year. We still have lingering supply chain issues related to COVID, as well as inconsistent component quality from our suppliers.
This limited the number of tubes we made in the quarter and also resulted in higher scrap costs. We met customer demand, but we still have additional production capacity, and initiatives are underway to improve parts and tube yields. Getting the ALTA750G into full production, followed by the Siemens repair program, will also positively impact margins. Regarding the launch of the ALTA750G, we have had one tube in beta, and it continues to perform well. We anticipated full rollout by early fall, but we are behind due to push outs with our second beta tube site. We now anticipate launching the ALTA750G in November or December. Sales growth will be gradual as we get the ALTA750G into the market and Canon CT scanners come off OEM service contracts.
We are on track to ship our first repaired Siemens site, the Straton Z, in small quantities between now and the end of the calendar year. Additional Siemens sites, the MX, MXP, and MXP46, will follow in calendar year 2022. There are no third-party replacement options for these Siemens sites. Siemens CT market share is significantly larger than Canon, making this an attractive market. This is a repair program, we follow the same development steps as a new tube to ensure our products exceed our customers' expectations. Having a broader range of tubes to offer our customers will increase our importance as a healthcare supplier and support our mission to help reduce healthcare costs. It will have a positive impact on sales and improve gross margin as we leverage our manufacturing operations.
We have also started the process of identifying our next tube program and are currently evaluating business plans to ensure sufficient demand. We also continue our efforts to expand the number of countries in which our tubes are registered. In the quarter, we shipped our first tube to Vietnam. We also registered our tube in India. We anticipate sales in India will be minimal due to the smaller Canon install base. Canadian registration, which is fully dependent on the Canadian authorities, is still pending. I will now turn the call over to Jens Ruppert to discuss the results for Canvys.
Thanks, Wendy. Good morning, everyone. Canvys, which includes the engineering, manufacturing, and sale of custom displays to original equipment manufacturers in industrial and medical markets, delivered an outstanding performance with sales of $8.4 million during the first quarter of fiscal 2022, a 25.8% increase over the same period last year. Increased customer demand in Europe drove the growth, where we experienced a nice pickup after the COVID-related slowdown in the previous year. Gross margin as a percentage of net sales was 33.4% during the first quarter of fiscal 2022, down slightly from 34.0% during the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The decrease in gross margin was related to increased freight costs that is impacting many companies across the global supply chain.
Our backlog at Canvys is at an all-time high as customers continue to compensate for supply chain uncertainties. This is particularly true in the electronic components market. We are also dealing with ongoing extended lead times for selected components from our Asian suppliers. The phenomenal bookings last quarter, along with a number of projects that are currently in the engineering stage, position us well for continued growth, assuming no longer term impact related to the COVID pandemic or worsening supply chain challenges. I am pleased with the positive progress in our online awareness initiatives. We are adding new application stories to our website, publishing press releases, and using social media to promote our new product platforms. We are confident that our online strategy will result in new leads and business growth in the future. During the quarter, we received several new orders from both existing and first-time medical OEM customers.
Some of these applications include endoscopy, cryolipolysis systems, pulsed field ablation systems, dental treatment centers, super pulsed laser systems, robotic-assisted surgery, microscopy, patient monitoring systems, and surgical navigation systems. In the non-medical space, our products are used in a variety of commercial and industrial applications, including CT scanners for inspecting luggage at airports. We received orders from customers in the public transportation space, where our monitors are used on trains and buses for passenger information systems, as driver monitors for security CCTV monitoring within the cabins, and for control rooms. In addition, we secured new orders for monitors that are used for process automation and for teleprompter and talent systems for well-known news stations. From the variety of customers and applications, as well as the value of orders from existing and new customers, it is clear we offer our global customers outstanding products and local service.
While our sales organization stays focused on new opportunities, I will continue to review and adjust our business strategy to improve the operating performance of the division. Maximizing cash flow is an ongoing priority. We continue to work with our partners to help reduce inventory while being able to meet the demands of our customers, particularly during the pandemic and the challenges it brings to our supply chain. I will now turn the call back over to Ed.
Thanks, Jens. It's great to see the display business in Europe coming back strong. Your team has done an excellent job managing COVID and supply chain challenges. Canvys' record backlog is a testament to the team's efforts. I remain very excited about the future of Richardson Electronics. We know that we must make every day count as we continue to raise the bar on our performance. None of us are taking the growth for granted. We continually look to ways to capitalize on market opportunities while improving our day-to-day operating performance. Within EDG, I'm happy to see our industrial tube business coming back strong, particularly in certain segments as avionics and marine. There's a good mix between our legacy products, the products we manufacture for the semiconductor wafer fab industry, and the other products such as microwave tubes.
The healthcare team continues to stay focused on tube improvements and developments. It's a tough business that's come along much slower than we anticipated. With more tubes in production, we'll gain leverage from our state-of-the-art facility and investments. Our newest green initiative is ultracapacitor modules used to replace batteries in wind turbines and other critical applications. This technology offers considerable upside for the balance of FY 2022. Our patented designs are unique to the industry. We continue to work around the clock to ramp up production and meet demand. We're investing in equipment and people that will give us more control over the supply chain and increase production levels. Chip supply continues to be a gating factor. Strong sales growth required more cash than we anticipated during the quarter to support the working capital needs.
We remain focused on maintaining a strong cash position while continuing to control expenses and improving our operating cash flow. Rest assured, we're all working toward improving our income statement. I'm encouraged by the direction we're headed and the strong start to the fiscal year. At this point, we'll be happy to answer a few questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Our first question comes from Howard Brous from Wellington Shields. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Ed, Wendy, and the group, congratulations on what's is really a great quarter.
Thanks, Howard.
I have a couple of. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Let me first start with the inventory buildup over the last, say, 6 months. It's gone from, under $60 million- $67 million. What part of that, if you can comment, is building an inventory for ULTRA3000? Because that's what you mentioned earlier.
It is about $3 million worth of additional inventory. We have the total number of ultracapacitors in stock to build out the $10 million order plus other orders we anticipate. If you know, we've been waiting for integrated circuits to finish the circuit board, and we now have delivery on those. Obviously, between additional inventory and the additional working capital needed for receivables, the cash has gone down, which we anticipated. That's why we're trying to conserve the cash. We always get asked about buying stock back, we need the cash for the growth of the business.
No, absolutely agree with that. When you talk about other orders, we know about NextEra. What other orders have you booked, if you will, for this fiscal year?
No, I'll let Greg address that one.
Yeah. Hi, Howard. In the first quarter, we booked, as you know, we're directly involved with a lot of field testing with the four top owner-operators of GE wind turbines in North America. In the quarter, from a bookings point of view, we were named the exclusive supplier to one of those, and we received a very large booking, and that product will be shipping in our fiscal year also. It was a good quarter in terms of shipments. We were able to do some great things, getting piece parts in to meet the customer's request. It was also a very good quarter in terms of bookings. Going forward, we expect to ship over the next three quarters, $12 million-$14 million of ultracapacitor modules for GE wind turbines.
Can you comment as to your current backlog for ULTRA 3000?
You know, Howard, with allocations and everything going on, we talk daily to our suppliers and customers. Because we're doing everything internally we can to support their needs, I don't wanna give those numbers out because they can do the math themselves. Right now, I will tell you that there's nothing I'm personally on every week with every single long lead time supplier getting products in. We have calls every week with every of each of those four large owner-operators, and we're working together, suppliers, the customer, and us to meet their needs in terms of them getting this rolled out into their wind turbines in our fiscal year.
All right. The $12 million-$14 million is for Q2, Q3, and Q4. Is that a correct statement then?
Yeah, that's approximately what we have. Based on lead times and everything else, that would be for the next three quarters.
That's bookings.
No, that's shipments.
That's shipments.
Yeah.
In terms of potential-
Bookings will be higher than that. You know, we do a booking forecast with the team, based on the feedback we're getting from a number of beta site testings. Those production orders we feel will get maybe at the beginning, in this case, December 2021. More than likely in our end of our third quarter, we'll get the production orders for a number of other owner-operators. Bookings will be higher than that overall. We'll have a positive book-to-bill in FY 2022, definitely.
Next- gen, where are you in terms of starting production?
Yeah. Next- gen, we are finishing up the beta site product. It's being tested. Those will be delivered. We have a setup with T-Mobile. They'll be doing the first beta site testing the last week of October. The balance, I know we have a beta site testing set up with AT&T, and that'll be the first week of November. Those are the two largest test sites and testing that we'll do. I don't think there'll be a lot of changes to the product. It looks very well, but we just need to get some, like the ULTRA3000, some field hours underneath it before we see some of the large production orders, which we fully expect.
When you talk about large production orders, can you give all of us a sense of what you're talking about?
I think phase one will be orders. For example, the one that we're quoting is a roll-up by T-Mobile in the Atlanta area, and that's 900 towers. You know, our bookings are expected this year to be between $5 million-$10 million in bookings. The shipments, I don't have that number for you right now, so I don't know what that would be.
All right. Fair enough. In terms of the tube business, we had a conversation last quarter about a break- even in two years. We're talking about a break- even on a cash flow basis. Is that, Wendy, what we were referring to?
Right. What we said was that we expect the Healthcare group to begin generating operating contributions towards the end of FY 2024. We're in FY 2022, so it'll be two years.
Right.
Then is right. We're looking at exiting FY 2024, breakeven to positive operating contribution. We are still doing everything possible to meet that date or pull it in.
All right. That's all I have right now. Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Thanks, Howard.
Again, congratulations to the whole group.
Thank you.
Great job. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Tony Chiarenza from Key Equity Investors. You may ask your question.
Good morning and congratulations on a great quarter.
Thanks, Tony.
First question is I was just comparing the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year to the current quarter, and obviously, PMT is up, but Canvys and Healthcare are both down a little bit. Can you comment on that? Is that kind of a cyclical slowdown in each of the business units, or is there something going on that we should look at?
Normally, the first quarter is the lowest quarter of the year, and ironically, it's the best quarter we've had in 11 years, so it's even larger than the fourth quarter. What we see, particularly in Europe and Southern Europe in August, there are a lot of factories that close up, so normally, business is down, and that would impact Canvys for sure. Overall, we are really pleased with the quarter. We've never had a quarter like that in the first quarter where we get a higher first quarter than the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter is usually our largest quarter in the year.
So it is-
Can I just-
Yes, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
I was just gonna add that with respect to the Healthcare business, again, we did have a couple slow months in June and July, which we weren't quite expecting. Having talked to many people throughout the industry, we weren't alone in that regard. You know, one of the biggest things that impacted our revenues in the first quarter was lack of systems. We had virtually no system sales in the first quarter. That's been a problem for us, and we had said earlier on it was gonna continue to be a problem because hospitals throughout COVID were not upgrading their CT scanners. The number of scanners that were available to purchase and resell virtually dried up. We're starting to see that improve now, but we did take a hit on that in the first quarter.
Okay.
Can I add something for Canvys maybe just quickly? I mean, Q1 was up 25.8% year-over-year. We have, you know, almost 100% growth in Europe alone in Q1. Business is up.
Yeah, I understand. I understand. Thank you. That's very helpful. Not to harp on it again on the cash issue, and I think you're absolutely right to use the cash for the growth of the business. Have you given any thought to increasing the dividend at all, given obviously the stock price has gone up a lot and the dividend yield has gone down, which is a good thing. Obviously, the business is going forward. Have you given some thought to maybe raising the dividend slightly?
We discussed it at the board meeting this week, everyone is quite concerned that we have enough cash available to, you know, handle the growth of the company. We were all surprised that our cash use in the quarter, you know, was $5 million +. We'd love to have the business continue on this kind of growth, we need the cash to support it. I think the answer is we'll maintain the dividend where it is until we see where we're going.
Okay. Until I guess the answer would be some more stability of earnings and cash flow and maybe a lower cash usage is what you would look for.
That's correct. We are anticipate, you know, by the end of the year that we may be cash flow neutral. Certainly, if we can turn Healthcare on, we'll start to be cash flow positive.
Okay. In terms of market share, looking at the fab business or some of it, how would you consider it? Have market share remained stable? Do you think you're gaining market share?
Well, I think the products that we manufacture are gaining market share. In the semiconductor wafer fab industry, there are two products, you know, one of them is deposition, which is the older technology that's used for replacement of tools in existing wafer fabs, and the new one is etch. The majority of our business, probably 60% of it, is deposition. You know, we've been manufacturing those products since the early 2000s. Although we, you know, when you look at the industry, they talk about the industry growing 50% or 40% next year, we don't anticipate that our growth will be that high because we have more of our products in the deposition side.
Right. Right.
Still it's good news. I mean, we did over $22 million in the last fiscal year in that industry. The bad news is the industry goes up and down like a roller coaster.
Right.
They're telling us that 5G is gonna maintain the industry growth for the next two or three years, and we hope they're right.
Right. It's very helpful. Good luck and congratulations again on an excellent quarter.
Thanks, Tony.
Thank you.
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, that is star one. Again, if you would like to ask a question, that is star one. Our next question comes from Brad Leonard from BML Capital Management. Your line is now open.
Right.
You two, you have me now.
Hello. Good morning.
Hey, Brad.
Good morning. Congratulations on a nice quarter. I have a question on the ULTRA3000. Did you actually have sales in the quarter?
Yes. This is Greg. Yeah, we're in full production. We had a strong shipping quarter, we're going into the second, third, and fourth quarters with a larger backlog than we started 2021 with.
Okay. That's great. What are the margins like on that product? Are they similar to the group average?
They're accretive to the company's overall margins.
Okay. That's great. What do you think the ultimate size of this business is gonna be on an annual basis?
Well, based on our market share, and again, right now that product is focused on owner-operators that use GE turbines. Over the next two to three years, it could be $40 million-$50 million.
On an annual basis?
Yes.
Okay. Good to hear. That's all I had. Thank you.
Thanks, Brad.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Hughes from SGF Capital Your line is now open.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, do you have a company-wide book-to-bill number?
Hi, Mike, this is Bob Ben. Yes, it's $1.41 at the end of the first quarter for the full company.
Okay. On the electron tubes business, can you just talk about pricing, if it's consistent with what you've seen in the past? Secondarily, where the revenue for that business stands now versus pre-COVID.
Sure. you know, the prices, unfortunately in the tube business, go up every year, and I'd say the pricing this year are up somewhere between 5%-10%. The units decline, and the price increases sort of flatten the industry out. What we saw is after COVID, during COVID, a lot of equipment is shut down, and tubes don't like to be shut off. They like to run hot all the time. We really had in the last few quarters, we had a large increase in the aftermarket for power tubes particularly, that are used, for instance, in laser equipment for cutting steel parts and for dielectric heating, laminating plastics and plywood and heat-treating steel parts and things of that nature.
The other side of the business is we manufacture microwave tubes, magnetrons that are used in a lot of industries that are growing, going into new equipment. These are applications like synthetic diamonds, for example, in all kinds of industries for turning carbon into building materials, for example. The newest industry is high power 915 MHz magnetrons up to 100 kW are being used for producing hydrogen. They take methane gas and they hit it with really high power microwave, and they come up with acetylene and hydrogen. It appears that hydrogen's gonna be the fuel of the future. That industry's on fire, and frankly, we have more orders for magnetrons that we manufacture than we can deliver right now.
You know, we sell 20,000 customers all over the world, so the tube business is really spread out in a lot of different applications. We sell magnetrons for avionics and marine applications. After COVID, all the pleasure boats were being retrofitted again with new equipment, so our business with companies like Garmin and Honeywell is through the roof. It's, it's really a good time. We're so excited about the growth of the business, which we haven't seen in years.
Okay. What portion of that, the PMT revenue stream is from the magnetrons?
You know, they're both CW magnetrons that are used for industrial heating applications and for generating diamonds. Then there are magnetrons that are pulse that are used in radar that we sell to companies like Garmin and Honeywell. Within JRC alone, we do about $12 million a year. I'd say it's close to $20 million right now.
Okay. The pickup in the hydrogen market, which is getting a lot of attention just on the ESG front right now, do you think that that's material enough to move the needle for the company overall? Meaning, could it add a few million dollars a quarter in revenue, or is it not that large?
Yeah, absolutely. It's gonna take time. There are a number of companies that are addressing the production of hydrogen, and we're in touch with all of them. They not only buy the tubes, but they buy the complete generator, and we manufacture the generators as well.
Okay. Just that business overall, the electron tube business, has it completely recovered from COVID at this point and from a revenue standpoint, or is there still more recovery ahead?
Well, in the aftermarket business, the replacement business is recovered, but there's a tremendous amount of growth potential in the microwave area.
Okay. Okay. Then the semi cap wafer business, you touched on this, that you did $22 million last year. On the last call, I think you indicated that business could be up 10%-20% this year. Is that still a good number to think about?
Yeah, I think that's right on, probably 20%.
Okay, good. The healthcare business, I think in the last year or so, you said that the operating loss for that business on an annualized basis is about $5 million. Is that still ballpark?
Yes, that's correct. Unfortunately.
Okay. Last question for you. Just a point of clarification. I think there was a discussion around cell sites in Atlanta and the potential for $5 million-$10 million in bookings. Was that specifically for cell site business? Is that what was being referred to?
Yeah, that's the next product, based on the ultracapacitor project we are working on. It uses similar technology the product does, that the ULTRA3000, which replaces these lead-acid batteries and wind turbines. Well, with every cell site, there's a generator that's also using lead-acid batteries. This product would replace those at a cell site. That's a new product design. Again, though, based on ultracapacitor technology that we're able to get to market very fast. Amazing design team here. We already have a letter of intent from T-Mobile, and they'll be doing that beta site testing at sites in Atlanta at the end of this month. That was mainly in reference to the status of the new product, which is called the ULTRA GEN3000 gen, meaning generator.
Terrific. I actually did have one last question for you. I think you said PMT's book-to-bill was 1.13. You said company-wide was 1.41. The PMT business is the majority of your revenue, so mathematically it's really hard to get to 1.41 if, you know, 75%-70% of your revenue has a book-to-bill of 1.13. What's the disconnect there?
Hi, Mike, it's Bob Ben again. The Canvys business has a very high book-to-bill at the end of the first quarter. That makes up the difference. Healthcare is also over one.
Okay. The Canvys business must have a book-to-bill north of two.
Around two.
Okay. Just in the $1.13, are you including the ultracapacitor business in that metric?
In the bookings and billings, absolutely, yes.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
As part of that, we have a backlog now of $126.5 million. You can see next year looks pretty good.
I'm sorry. It was What business was that for? What was the backlog number you just cited?
The total backlog for the company right now is $126.5 million.
Can you give us a little-?
At the end of the quarter.
Can you give us a little context, like where it was last quarter or a year ago?
We ended the fourth quarter at about $125. A year ago, Bob, have you got a number?
$76 million at the end of the first quarter last year.
$76 million at the end of the first quarter last year.
Okay. The backlog went from $125- $126.5 sequentially in a quarter that's typically seasonally a little bit softer, right?
Right.
Okay.
Right.
Super. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mike.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Landry, BML Capital. Your line is now open.
Good morning.
Good morning, Eric.
Hey, thanks. I appreciate you taking two questions from the same shop. Actually, I think Mike asked the two important ones that I was gonna ask about the book-to-bill math and whatnot. Thank you for clearing that up. Then, I guess related to that, my other question was, yeah, just I wanted to know how material the increase was in backlog in at Canvys, but I guess that was also answered. Let me ask this. I think you alluded to the fact that the G is a little behind schedule, but I don't recall hearing whether or not the Canvys stuff is behind schedule.
No, the CT is not behind schedule. We are starting to ship in between now and the end of the calendar year in small quantities. We'll be shipping one of the tubes, which is what we had intended to do, and we are on schedule with the full release of all four tubes in calendar year 2022. I'd say something about that.
Okay. I guess that's it then. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Eric.
Thanks, Eric.
Thank you. I am showing no further questions. I will now like to turn the call back over to Ed Richardson, CEO, for closing remarks. I apologize. We do have one question coming from Michael Koukladas, Private Investor.
Hey, Michael.
Just wondering if that's your ULTRA3 000 sounds like a really a groundbreaking product. I was just wondering if there's any application for replacing lead-acid batteries in the auto industry at all. If you could address that, I'd appreciate it.
Yeah. The automotive industry is looking at using ultracapacitors in that industry. The ultracapacitors and the supplier we have are much higher voltage and power levels, so they'd be for more larger applications in the critical facilities and in wind turbines, et cetera. We look at that market, and if we see an opportunity that our design team, our suppliers can come up with a product to support that market, which obviously is a huge market, we'll look at it. Right now we have four products in the pipeline.
We'll be introducing the ULTRA GEN in Q2. We have a UPS, an uninterrupted p ower supply ultracapacitor system that we'll be introducing in Q4. Another product that we hope to introduce in Q1 of next year. The main goal is to get as much market share as we can because you hit it on the head. This product is the most proven, most user friendly product in the industry. We just want to maximize that, but also have numerous products in the funnel so we can have a portfolio of products supporting many of these green initiatives. We just seem to have found a niche, both from a component point of view and a design point of view, Michael.
Okay. One more technical question was, since you're replacing the lead-acid batteries, are there any nasty metals in the capacitors that are not environmentally friendly?
No. In fact, that's one of the listing of attributes, and this is coming from a couple of our customers. Just the cost that this, in terms of downtime, et cetera, or the cost of going and doing a remote replacement of lead-acid batteries in wind turbines, going up 300 feet in some remote field is huge cost to them. This product lasts 15 years. One of the other large costs that they have is the amount of cost it takes them to dispose of lead-acid batteries because of the chemicals is huge. I mean, there's huge graveyards that they have to take to meet, you know, environmental standards.
The ultracapacitor technology is electrical, and so it can just be, you don't have all the environmental issues, that you do with the lead-acid battery, and getting rid of them is much less expensive, than the, you know, if you will, these literally car batteries that are out there now.
Okay. Thank you for the insight. Sounds exciting.
It is. We are excited about it. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike.
Thank you. I'm showing no further questions. I'll turn the call back to Ed Richardson, CEO, to close remarks.
Thanks, Justin. Well, thanks to all of you for your interest in Richardson Electronics. After achieving the highest quarter in sales in 11 years, we're really optimistic about our future and hope you are as well. If you'd like to discuss our results, please feel free to call us at any time. Any one of us are available to talk to you. We're also gonna be attending the LD Micro Main Event next week in Los Angeles, and we'll also participate in the Sidoti virtual conference in December. We look forward to discussing our second quarter performance with you in January. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.