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spk01: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to AXT's third quarter 2021 financial conference call. Leading the call today is Dr. Morris Young, Chief Executive Officer, and Gary Fisher, Chief Financial Officer. My name is Catherine, and I will be your coordinator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Leslie Green, Investor Relations at AXT. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you, Catherine, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, including comments made in response to your questions... We will provide projections or make other forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, the future financial performance of the company, market conditions and trends, including expected growth in the markets we serve, emerging applications using chips or devices fabricated on our substrates, our product mix, our ability to increase orders in succeeding quarters, to control costs and expenses, to improve manufacturing yields and efficiencies, to utilize our manufacturing capacity, the growing environmental health and safety and chemical industry regulations in China, as well as global economic and political conditions, including trade tariffs and restrictions. We wish to caution you that such statements deal with future events, are based on management's current expectations, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially. These uncertainties include but are not limited to overall conditions in the markets in which the company competes, global financial conditions and uncertainties, COVID-19 and other outbreaks of contagious disease, potential tariffs and trade restrictions, increased environmental regulations in China, market acceptance and demand for the company's products, the financial performance of our partially owned supply chain companies, and the impact of delays by our customers on the timing of sales of their products. In addition to the factors that may be discussed in this call, we refer you to the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These are available online by link from our website and contain additional information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. This conference call will be available on our website at AXT.com through October 2022. Also, before we begin, I want to note that shortly following the close of the market today, we issued a press release reporting financial results for the third quarter of 2021. This information is available on the investor relations portion of our website at AXT.com. I would now like to turn the call over to Gary Fisher for a review of our third quarter results. Gary?
spk04: Thank you, Leslie. Good afternoon to everyone. I want to begin by letting you know that in response to investor requests and to align with our peers as well as to provide better clarity on our operational and financial results, we will be providing non-GAAP financial results beginning with our Q3 reporting. Non-GAAP results exclude stock option compensation, stock-based compensation. Following commentary, I'll also include GAAP results for your reference. investors can find GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation tables in our earnings announcement. Today, we are pleased to report that total revenue for the third quarter of 2021 was $34.6 million, up from $33.7 million in the second quarter of 2021, and up 36% from the $25.5 million in the third quarter of 2020. Q3 marks our seventh consecutive quarter of growth and highlights the increasing demand for indium phosphide and gallium arsenide substrates. Of our total revenue, substrate sales were 26.2 million in Q3, compared with 24.9 million in the second quarter of 2021, and 20.3 million in Q3 of 2020. Revenue from our two consolidated raw material joint ventures was 8.4 million in Q3, down from 8.8 million in Q2 2021, and up from 5.2 million in Q3 of 2020. In the third quarter of 2021, Revenue from Asia Pacific was 76%, Europe was 14%, North America was 10%. Again in Q3, no customers reached 10% of revenue and the top five customers generated approximately 25% of total revenue. Our continued revenue diversity demonstrates that our growth is not overly dependent on one large customer or application. This is another factor contributing to our confidence growth has reached a point of sustainability and will continue throughout 2022. Non-GAAP gross margin in the third quarter was 33.8% compared with 36.4% in Q2 of 2021 and 34.8% in Q3 of 2020. For those who prefer to track results on a GAAP basis, gross margin in the third quarter was 33.3% compared with 36.3% in Q2 of 2021 and 34.6% in Q3 of 2020. The sequential decline in gross margin was primarily driven by low margin sales at Gen May, one of our consolidated joint ventures. Gen May has been selling materials at a preset price to several customers under long-term contracts. The recent rise in galleon pricing eroded the gross margin on those sales. The overall impact to the consolidated gross margin in Q3 was approximately 220 basis points. At least one of those contracts expired in Q3, but we expect some continued pressure on gross margin in Q4 as a result of additional contracts that are coming to conclusion. The rise in raw material pricing also impacts our cost of goods sold on the substrate side of the business. However, this has been offset by the contribution to our profitability that our partially owned supply chain companies provide. It is a unique and important aspect of our supply chain strategy. As we look ahead, we believe that our increasing volume Improving product mix and continued improvement in manufacturing efficiency will allow us to drive continued gross margin improvement as we progress through FY22. This will be a primary focus for us over the coming quarters. Total non-GAAP operating expense in Q3 was $7.7 million. This compares with $7.4 million in Q2 of 2021 and with $5.9 million in Q3 of 2020. On a GAAP basis, total operating expense was 9.1 million. This included 1.5 million in stock comp, of which 518K is non-recurring. For comparison, total GAAP operating expense was 8.3 million in Q2 of 2021 and 6.6 in Q3 of 2020. R&D is one of the primary drivers of the increase in our OpEx. We have two major programs that are ongoing. the development of 6-inch indium phosphate, and the development of 8-inch gallium arsenide. In addition to R&D, we continue to make necessary investments to enable our IPO in China, which we believe will be significantly beneficial to AXT and our shareholders. Non-GAAP operating profit for the third quarter of 2021 was $4.0 million, compared with non-GAAP operating profit in Q2 of 2021 of $4.9 million, and $2.8 million in Q3 of last year. For reference, GAAP operating profit for the third quarter of 2021 was $2.4 million compared with an operating profit of $3.9 million in Q2 of 2021 and an operating profit of $2.2 million in Q3 of 2020. Non-operating other income and expense for the third quarter of 2021 was a net gain of $1.4 million. This included a net gain of $1.1 million from the partially owned companies in AXT supply chain accounted for under the equity method. It also included a tax credit in China, totaling approximately $960K in Q3. In addition, we continue to be very well regarded in KaZou and have positive relationships with the local government, which has been beneficial to our operations. In Q3, we received two grants from the local government, totaling $1.0 million for our facilities investment in the region. As we look ahead to Q4, we do not expect our results to benefit from either a tax credit or grants. As such, we expect our EPS in Q4 to come down from Q3. Our Q3 results included approximately $338K in tariffs as a result of the 25% tariff charge on importing wafers into the United States from China. For Q3 2021, we had a non-GAAP net income in the third quarter of 2021 of $5.4 million or $0.13 per share compared with $5.4 million or $0.12 per share in the second quarter of 2021. and with $1.0 million or $0.04 per share for the third quarter of 2020. On a GAAP basis, net income was $3.8 million or $0.09 per share. This is a bit lower than we forecasted as a result of the lower gross margin contribution from June-May. By comparison, net income was $4.4 million or $0.10 per share in the second quarter of 2021 and $1.0 million or $0.02 per share in Q3 of last year. The weighted average diluted shares outstanding in Q3 of 2021 was $42.7 million. Cash, cash equivalents, and investments were $56 million as of September 30th. By comparison, at June 30, it was $58.5 million. We do continue to feel good about our cash balance. Depreciation and amortization in the third quarter was $1.8 million, and capital investments were $6.1 million. Net inventory at September 30 increased by $1.8 million in the quarter and ended at $60.7 million. Ending inventory consisted of approximately 44% in raw materials, 50% in work in progress, and 6% in finished goods. This concludes the discussion of our quarterly financial results. Let me give you a brief update and comments about our plan to list our company in China on the star market in Shanghai. We are working closely with our China investment banker and our China law firm handling the IPO transaction. They have some experience in this, as they are also helping another NASDAQ listed company now. There are many details involved in this process. As compared to an IPO in the NASDAQ, the number of small details is greater. We hope to submit our application in Q4. That is a credible goal, but it is by no means easily accomplished. Our teams have been responsive and working hard on all topics, and we continue to make good progress. So in conclusion, we have now had three consecutive quarters of revenue over $30 million level, and we see continued opportunity on the horizon. I'll now turn the call over to Dr. Morris Young for a review of our business and markets. Morris has been in China since July and will remain there for five to seven months. So last year, he and I were both in China, for this call and I can tell you it's hard to get up in the middle of the night. So Morris was awake and at the office at his 3 a.m. and has been waiting for this call today. So Morris, take it over.
spk07: Thank you, Gary, and good afternoon, everybody. Our third quarter and year to date revenue results continue to underscore the gathering momentum in our business. After years of preparation we're now seeing sustainable increasing demand from the technology megatrend that our substrates help to enable. Trends such as 5G telecommunications, data center upgrade, health monitoring, the Internet of Things, and the proliferation of LED lighting and display. Year-to-date, we increased our revenue by 46% over the same period in 2020, including a 36 percent increase in gallium arsenide and a 46 percent increase in in the phosphide substrate. With our new expanded manufacturing facilities, we're able to capture market share and new opportunities while meeting the stringent technical requirement of Tier 1 customers. As such, 2021 is unfolding to be a pivotal year for our business. We expect to post growth of approximately 40% this year with substantial gains in our profitability. And we're looking ahead. We believe that we can achieve double-digit revenue growth again in 2022 of between 15% to 20% with multiple existing growth drivers and the new ones being later to the current demand. Now, in the first five, Q3 marked the highest quarterly revenue in AXC history. And once again, it was our top contributing material. Market demand was strong across the board as capacity in our industry is now tight. Customer who hasn't worked with us for many quarters are now returning. and several existing customers are forecasting increasing demand, and our ability to expand capacity to meet customer demand is beginning to open up new avenues of opportunities in multiple applications. But for our peers, we believe that we are in the best position to be able to respond. In Q3, Indian Phosphorite sequential growth We're driven by 4G and 5G telecommunication applications, as well as continued healthcare, healthy demand for data center connectivity. We believe that these applications are closely related, and as the exponential growth in data necessity, both the infrastructure to move it, as well as the capability to efficiently handle and store it. From a substrate perspective, any modernization of telecom and datacom center infrastructure that utilizes Indian phosphide is positive for our business, whether that's ponds, front hall, or back hall infrastructure, or select botanics built out within the data center. While there will continue to be quarter-to-quarter fluctuations, we believe that we have reached a tipping point in which the application that will require Indian Phosphine have become an essential part of modernization of telecommunication business. In addition to these major applications, we believe there are significant new applications for Indian Phosphine now visible on the horizon in healthcare monitoring, automotive sensors, and more. Among AXC's competitive advantage in the process is our ability to scale manufacturing volume quickly and efficiently to meet rising demand. In addition, we have been told by multiple customers that our VGF grown material uniformity as well as consistently provide the industry's lowest EPD level, which are essential requirements for high-performance applications and Tier 1 specifications. Now turning to any gallium arsenide. In Q3, we posted our highest quarterly revenue in more than four years. In semiconductor gallium arsenide, we continue to see strong demand for high-end LED applications, including automotive and lighting and display. We're also seeing rapid growth in high-power lasers, particularly in China. On the wireless side, IoT continues to be strong. In addition, with six-inch capacity tightening up in our industry, we're beginning to see demand from customers, from renewed customer demand interest in our gallium arsenide or HPT devices. and our ability to expand capacity. This has not been a strong application for us for many more than 10 years, and our facilities give us the opportunity to be competitive once more. As we look ahead to the evolution of gallium oxide in high-tech applications, we believe micro-LED in particular holds great promises for our industry. Major customer device manufacturers are behind the development of the technology for a variety of applications, including televisions, AR, VR headsets, and portable devices, and others. Medical LEDs, which should not be confused with mini-LEDs, uses gallium arsenide to make red for the red, blue, green LED modules. that can provide almost any color. Micro-LED devices are expected to consume less power, provide sharper contrast, and produce brilliant lighting and colors. We're seeing reports that the potential micro-LED market for smaller consumer devices like wearables and phones could be larger than the entire current market for gallium oxide substrate today. Regardless of the specific numbers, this is an exciting space and could add significantly new value to the LED market in 2024 and beyond. Now turning to R&D, we'll continue to progress on the development of 8-inch gallium oxide wafers. Among the many benefits to our customers 8 inch galvanized that will help to enable to scale and cost effectively which is required for very high volume applications. As you may know, every step up in diameter size comes with a major increase in the technical challenges of producing it. But we have successfully delivered sample quantities to interested customers and we're working with them to meet the requirement of their emerging projects. Moving now to the remaining substrates, revenue decreased modestly in Q3 from the prior quarter. However, the satellite solar industry market remains healthy, and we are well on track for 2021 to be a growth year. Finally, to raw materials. As you may recall, we currently consolidate two joint ventures, Boyu, which manufactures high-temperature PBM crucibles and PBM-based tools for OLED, and our other joint venture, Jingmei, which is a diversified industrial high-purity material supplier. Demand continues to be strong. We are on track to achieve significant growth in this area of our business over the prior year. In 2020, both companies relocated to our campus in Kajol, enabling them to expand capacity in response to market demand. This, coupled with a recovery in pricing of raw materials such as raw galleon, has contributed to their growth this year. As Gary mentioned, while the increase in raw material price has negatively impacted our growth margin, our 10 supply chain companies provide enormous benefit in terms of overall profitability as well as our supply. We're highly focused on driving renewed improvement in growth margin in 2022. We believe that our expanded growth in revenue, favorable product mix, and continued improvement in our manufacturing efficiency at our new facilities will allow us to return to or exceed our prior performance. In closing, this is an exciting and transformative time for AXC. Our strong growth highlights the market expansion we're experiencing in our key product categories across a diverse set of applications Customers are forecasting rising demand and a positive sentiment for the coming year. Gary and I have been around for a while, and we sense that even for us, this is a golden convergence of market and emerging technologies. For this reason, we're making important investments in our business, including larger diamond substrates, capacity expansion, and our IPO in China. While these investments bring us to a higher level of operating expenses, they give us significant competitive advantages in our ability to scale our business and the need of tier one customers and emerging high volume applications. We believe we have laid a strong foundation for business transformation and opportunity in 2021. As such, we're setting the stage for other year meaningful growth in 2022. I now turn the call back to Gary for our fourth quarter guidance.
spk04: Gary? Thank you, Morris. As Morris discussed, the demand environment remains strong in Q4 with some seasonality expected in certain applications like PON and gallium arsenide for wireless devices. and continued strength in several Indian phosphate applications. Reflecting this, we expect to see revenue in Q4 of between $34 million to $36 million. In accordance with our commentary on Q4 gross margin and taking into consideration the expected absence of China-based tax credits or grants, we believe that our non-GAAP net profit will be in the range of $0.06 to $0.08, and our GAAP net profit will be in the range of $0.04 to $0.06. Share count will be approximately 42.8 million shares. To put this in perspective, let's look at our expected results for the total fiscal year of 2021, including our Q4 guidance, revenue growth is more than 40% and reflects an increase in annual profitability of more than 300% as compared to 2020. This growth is the result of years of cultivating customer relationships, investment in our operations, and the convergence of technology trends that are likely to drive our growth for years to come. Okay, this concludes our prepared comments. Morris and I would be glad to answer your questions. Operator?
spk01: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Again, to ask a question, that's star 1. And we have a question from Richard Shannon. Your line is open.
spk06: Excellent, guys. Thanks for taking my questions here. Maybe I'll touch on a couple elements of the guidance here. First of all, on the revenues, my line was a little spotty. I'm traveling, so I might have missed some of the drivers here that help you get to your revenue guidance. And I guess implicit in that question here is that the range of revenue guidance here, 34 to 36, is a million wide or double the width that you normally have in your revenue guidance. So I wonder if you can give us a sense of what you're thinking there and what are the drivers up and down.
spk07: Go ahead, Morris. Yeah, let me try that. I think raw material is going to be down slightly. Indium phosphide we project to go up slightly. Gallium arsenide we projected to go up slightly. And germanium is approximately flat. As far as the widening range of the substrate revenue, Uh, first of all, I want to remind everybody Q4 usually is a down quarter for us. Uh, given that we have the first 10 days of national holiday in China, as well as the backend of the Christmas holiday seasons. So, uh, so, you know, we are guiding actually sort of flat for the quarter, but we just went in the range a bit to give us potential pushes. Uh, you know, as you know that, uh, with, um, you know, the potential power shortages in China. Although we do see that customer demand out there, but we just want to make sure that we have all the capacity to deliver and to our customers.
spk06: Okay. That is helpful. My second question here is on the BIDEM line guides for the fourth quarter. I haven't had time to run through those numbers here, and obviously your OpEx has been moving modestly higher over the last few quarters or so, and you typically don't guide on gross margins, but certainly the EPS number here is a bit lower than what we had, and I think it was what was in consensus. So I guess I want to get a sense of the drivers here, any way you can quantify or at least help us understand the magnitude of the changes, both in OpEx and gross margins and other points that help us get there. and then to the degree to which the pricing things related to the gallium raw material contracts and how they bake into that would be great as well.
spk04: Okay, so I'll go first. One of the drags for Q4 is the situation with Jinmei, one of the companies that we consolidate. That's a temporary problem, but they have they have made some commitments for deliveries that had a long trajectory. And as a result, the change in cost of raw gallium, which they have to buy, went up. So that's a key factor there. And when we go down to the bottom line, OpEx this quarter in Q3, the gap OpEx was $9.1 million. That included about $500,000 of one-time charges related to stock compensation. So in Q4, it'll come in below $9 million for sure, we hope, we think. But you're right, OpEx does take back some of the gross profit dollars. And then we think based on the changes that we see from Q3 to Q4, that it's going to come out about what we got a few minutes ago.
spk06: Okay, maybe to follow up on the – I'm sorry, go ahead, Morris.
spk07: No, go ahead. I want to hear what your follow-up.
spk06: I guess the follow-up question is, and you quantified it, Gary, and you prepared remarks about the gross margin impact, I think 220 basis points in the third quarter. Is the impact here similar or higher or lower in the fourth quarter?
spk04: It's similar but slightly lower.
spk06: Okay. Okay. And then do we see those things abate after the fourth quarter too?
spk04: Go ahead, Morris. What were you going to say?
spk07: Yeah, I think so, but let me go back to the, I think obviously the EPS drop is sort of, you know, lower than Q3 for our guidance in Q4. So, you know, if you look at what benefit us on Q3's EPS, one part of it is that we have a tax reversal in China, which we don't expect it to repeat in Q4. And the other is, you know, the Jingmei has a lower gross margin of this particular contract they signed with the customers, which will not continue, but it will drag down for a little bit, I think, you know, as we establish new contractors, new customers that is going to recover. And yet the other is the government award that we received in Q3, which is now going to repeat itself in Q4. So, overall, I would say, you know, the SG&A has increased, mainly because several things. We're spending quite a bit of money in R&D, in 6-inch in e-phosphate, as well as in 8-inch gallium arsenide. And other big part of the increase that we're spending is you know, build up our infrastructure for the proposed IPO in China. And as you know, that proposed IPO in China give us great valuation so we can dilute very much smaller proportion to get the fund necessary for us to grow in our business in the future. So that's beneficial for AXT, but in the meantime, some of these necessary costs which is attaching to the IPO process is burdening our present structure. However, I would also remind you that, you know, now we have grown 40% year over year. We expect our revenue to grow again next year, which I think will take care of some of the added expense that we incurred, and we're building a much stronger larger and stronger foundation for future growth, which will hopefully give us better profitability next year, as well as more profits drop down to the bottom line.
spk04: Yeah, I'll just underline one important thought, which is that I view and we view as a company, Morris and me and the leadership team, we view We want OpEx to flatten out, but we view it as an investment. It's clear there's something happening in our markets. We think we're uniquely positioned, having completed the relocation, to take advantage of these things. We think we can move faster than our competitors, and we're investing in that. And then in the same note, some of the expenses are resulting from driving for the IPO, So they're also an investment. So we think we're going to get a return on our investment starting next year.
spk06: Okay. Per Morris' comments on growth, I did want to have my last question here be your comments about the 15% to 20% growth next year. I wonder if you can characterize it in a few different ways, you know, by the revenue segments here, even within substrates, and then also – To what degree are some new customers, you know, particularly some of these tier one customers have been recently qualified, how much they're adding to that overall growth profile next year?
spk07: Go ahead, Morris. Yeah, I think we do expect our revenue projection. We do see we're talking to multiple customers in Indian Phosphine, and they have very exciting new applications for Indian Phosphine. And we do expect Indy classified to continue to grow. In our projection, actually, it will grow more than 30% next year. So we'll have a higher percentage growth for us for next year. Gallium arsenide, we are also seeing renewed interest. Well, first of all, what we already see is the high power laser in gallium arsenide, especially in China. is giving us a very high expectation for growth next year. We're already engaged with customers, but they are telling us that for next year, they expect a volume wrap in high power laser demand. And we're also seeing a very exciting, new, interesting HPT market for us. You know, as you know, that HPT, has been sort of flat for many, many years, and because our strength in providing PEM substrate for the cell phone market, so we have been absent from the HPT market for a long, long time. But now, the industry experts are telling us in the next two years, they are seeing, you know, the HPT market actually demand to grow between... almost 40 to 50% in the next two years. As you know that this market capacity is kind of tight. So they are talking to us and we're excited about returning to that market in near future. And so that's the two big growth driver. I think raw material, we believe that we're poised to grow mainly because our two joint ventures are moved to a much larger an expensive new manufacturing facility that will allow us to grow, as well as the demand is very strong in PPN, both in terms of providing crucible for crystal rolls, as well as, you know, for LED market. And so they are poised to grow. And our high-purity material business, which is Jing Mei, although... They are being flagged this quarter because of the low margin they cost the overall company. But that business is a very healthy business. And, you know, there's increasing demand. We have the right technology and capacity to serve our customers. So we expect that to grow as well. Humane, by the way, is sort of a flag projection for next year.
spk06: Okay, great. That's great detail for me and all my questions. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Gus Richard with Northwind. Your line is open.
spk05: Yes, thanks for taking the questions. I just want to make sure I get my housekeeping right. Gary, I think you mentioned you're going to try to get OPEX for the coming quarter at around $9 million. Was that GAAP or non-GAAP?
spk04: That's GAAP. I think it will be – we currently predict it will be south of $9 million, a little bit. Got it.
spk05: And then on the Star Enlisting, you know, your SG&A rose, modeling it up about $5 million this year. How much of that spend is for the Star Enlisting?
spk04: Well, we've hired a number of people to help us on the project. There's also been a lot of – administrative and permit kinds of issues that are driving these things, things that we can't slip into the balance sheet, into the equity section. I don't know if I can give you a solid answer. I haven't carved that out enough. We've observed the phenomenon, but I don't know specifically how to answer the question.
spk07: Yeah, so maybe let me help out a little bit. I think, you know, look, we are probably the second NASDAQ listed company trying to go public on this stock market, okay? So perhaps the Wall Street expert doesn't have a whole lot of experience, but I can tell you firsthand there's a lot of required conformity that we need to follow. I'll give you one example. In some of our employee compensation section in China, because we're going to propose to go public in China, the requirement to be a public in China requires that we pay certain, they call it housing allowances for employees. And our compensation to our employees was not minimum. to say for sure, but because of the new requirement, it's sort of elevated to a new level, and we have to sort of lump it in, and, you know, so that's an expanded expense, although it's not large, but there's a lot of these small things piling up, and they are just required conformity that we need to follow as a proposed next, I mean, China, let's say, public company. But as you know, the other side of the equation is that once we go public, the valuation of this new company in China that we propose to go IPO is going to be much higher valuation than new week we can ever get. And so as a result, we will be able to get ourselves much lower cost, much less dilution for the growth fund that we need to answer some of the capacity expansion and new business opportunity we're going to capture. So, you know, that's the two sides of it.
spk05: I understand. So, Gary, I was just looking for a ballpark. Is it, you know, a couple, three million a year? Is it, you know, just do you have any ballpark whatsoever?
spk04: No, I don't. I'm sorry. I should drill down on that.
spk05: Yeah, let's move on. And then in terms of R&D, you know, in the past when you guys have started to ramp up your efforts in 6- and 8-inch, 6-inch, indiaposite, 8-inch, scaliomarcinide, some of it had flowed through the gross margin, the pressure in the quarter. Was that just from the raw materials company, or was there some incremental pressure from that R&D activity?
spk04: You're knowledgeable about this, and I think that's good. There is some in cost of goods sold. Because we manufacture and there's many process steps in our process technology, so it's difficult to capture everything that's development-based. There's not a lot of R in cost of goods sold, but there is D in terms of research versus development. And so, yes, there is some there, and it probably contributes some to the shortfall of the gross margin.
spk05: But the major factor was just the rising price of the raw gallium that was impacting the raw materials and not so much the R&D.
spk04: Yeah, the biggest driver, the standout, you know, Most notable driver is the 2.2% and gross margin percent that we would normally be getting from Jinmei, and we didn't. So that's the biggest single element. And then I would say there's still some settling in. As I look at it from a business standpoint, and I do have an operating background as well, so it's new facilities. it's new equipment, and it's new people. So I think there's some what I would call low-hanging fruit there, that as we mature in those areas of facilities, equipment, and people, that the manufacturing efficiencies will help the gross margin. And I might as well just speak to it now. We have lots of listeners that, you know, We're a little bit disappointed in Q3, Q4 gross margin, but we're very confident about bringing that number back up for sure to 35%, but our goal is to be greater than 35%, and we think that it's an achievable goal. There are some situations in business where you need a miracle for something to happen. This is not one of those. We see exactly what's going on in manufacturing. We know what's going on in the marketplace. We have pretty good visibility right now from our customers, but I would say better than any time in the seven and a half years I've been at AXT. So we'll get there, and I would encourage our shareholders to view the, not just quarter to quarter, but year on year, which is significant, and I think next year will be another very positive comparison year on year.
spk05: Just on gross margins, Gary, what would you expect the trajectory to look like? I mean, you know, I think Q4 looks like it's going to be the bottom based on your guidance. You know, is there a city ramp back to 35%? Or is it, you know, more stair-step depending on how those long-term contracts for purified gallium go?
spk04: Yeah, we have to get out of the weeds with Gin May. A lot of that's already happened, but there's still some more happening in Q4, and it may dribble into Q1. We're not sure yet. But I don't think it's – I think it's not going to be like we won't get to 35% until 2023. It's going to be next year. And maybe not Q1, but definitely Q2 is very possible. I haven't done a grounds up yet with the team, but – intuitively, based on the things I just previously said about our visibility and our understanding of the business, I think it's very achievable to get there in Q2 and stay there and then go on past that. Got it.
spk07: Well, let me chime in for a little bit. Hi, Gus. Let me repeat what I think in all prepared comments. First of all, we believe that Indian Phosphate is going to grow and actually grow faster than our product mix next year, and that is going to help us. On top of the 40% growth this year, we think we're going to grow our revenue again. And that is also going to help us our gross margin. And thirdly, as Gary mentioned, you know, we are going through some kind of a, some sort of a growing pain. Although the pain is not much, I mean, hopefully it's, you know, most of it is over with. And then with our added capacity and with more manufacturing that we're going to do on the, you know, the more attractive product we're offering we have, And with also the market rising, the market demand rising, I think is very important. And, you know, I think, you know, the part of the gross margin drag, also I want to remind you, is, you know, we're seeing Galleon price going up and Germanium price go up, okay? And they are good component of our cost of goods sold, okay? But... So I would expect every competitor or every substrate provider in our business having this gross margin squeeze. However, with our supply strategy that we have joint ventures in making the raw galleon and in the, in making the, you know, other raw material for us. So we are partially mitigating the, uh, the gross margin hit. In other words, we got a margin hit on the top, but below the line, our joint venture is providing us the better return. And yet also, as you know, the inflation pressure is coming. And if the capacity becomes tighter, who knows? There may be a, it could be a point that maybe the price is going to go up. But as you know, in our industry, it's difficult to raise prices But there are different ways to improve our margins, such as, you know, there are better product offerings that we can do, you know, such as high-power laser, which require low EPD, and the brand-new market force to get into, and that will give us better opportunity to, you know, improve our margin that way.
spk05: Very helpful. Thank you so much. Thanks, Gus.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from Hamed Korsan with BWS Financial. Your line is open.
spk03: Hi. I just wanted to understand your working capital needs here as you continue to burn cash and build inventory. Is there a particular customer or customers that are requiring you to build this kind of inventory? Is it a supply chain issue? Because your cash has also been declining since the beginning of the year as well.
spk04: There are some customers that require us to build inventory, including customers that want the inventory consigned to their site, but it remains on our balance sheet. And one in particular is growing, and so that is a contributor. But the, you know, Another comment I can make about working capital that's maybe insightful for this time period is that September was our – of the three months in the quarter, September was the largest revenue month. And when that happens, I don't like it because it tends to load up AR. AR went up, you know, like $3 million Q2Q, maybe 3.1, I think. And AP went down $4 million, which means that was cash out. But in general, working capital, I think we're managing it okay. We need to have inventory to keep growing the revenue. And we're comfortable with our cash position. So, yeah, I hope that's helpful. I know Working Capital, it moved around a lot from June 30th to September 30th, but I think it's okay. Okay. That was it for me. Thank you. Thanks, Haman. Good afternoon to you.
spk01: Thank you. Our next question comes from John Michael Goldetta with Octavian Capital. I'm sorry, he just removed it. We have a question from Richard Shannon with Craig Hellam.
spk06: Well, great. Thanks for taking a couple more questions from me, guys. Let's see here. Morris, on the opportunity with HBTs, you know, I've covered you and AXD for, I think, over a decade, and I haven't heard you talk much about this. I guess I'd love to understand the underlying reasons for this. Is this basically a capacity issue on the behalf of your competitors that's opening this opportunity up, or are there other drivers for this?
spk07: I think it's the former. I think, you know, HPT market is very mature. But from what we hear from our customers, the demand forecast seems to be very strong. We are still engaging our customers. And, you know, when the market prior to this, this market is fairly mature. It doesn't grow a whole lot. But we're seeing, you know, from our first-line customers, the epi grower, and they're buying quite a bit, a number of MOCBD reactors. And they are the ones who told us that this market demand is going to grow between 40% to 50%. Of course, we are looking at this very cautiously because this, although the demand is there, but, you know, The price pressure is there because it's a very large market, but does give us the opportunity to get into something which we exited almost like 10 years ago.
spk06: Okay. So we shouldn't necessarily be baking any contributions into, say, next year's revenue stream. Is that what you're telling me?
spk07: In our projection, we do. We are putting in something, but we're cautiously – But we're putting, let me see, our projection, I think we're putting about $4 million worth. So overall scheme of things is not going to be large, but definitely we think the opportunity is there. Yes.
spk06: Okay. That's helpful. My second and last question is on micro-LED, and I think I asked a version of this question last quarter, and that is, Obviously, you've been talking about a revenue ramp starting maybe kind of middle of calendar 24 and some big opportunities, big customers, and a big ecosystem. What has to happen between now and then? When do you determine when you've got a customer? When do you have to start building capacity for this? Do you anticipate having sort of – you know, take-or-pay kind of situations here because this clearly would ask you to build a lot of CapEx that I'm sure you don't want to strand in any way. So how should we think about the timeframes between now and then in your micro-LED business?
spk07: Sure. That's a very good question, Richard. Yes, we are very cautiously optimistic. I mean, this is a great opportunity. and the demand is there. We are talking to our customers, multiple customers, actually, and we want assurances that, you know, the order is there, the demand is there. But although we've been saying that the big demand is going to come in 2024, but the pilot production and sampling is actually starting now, and, you know, something like I would say between 500 to 1,000 wait for a year next year. And we're going to need to work with our customers to see what kind of spec they need. And we're going to have a very good feeling of what's going on. And as we speak now, we are engaging with our customer. We gave them our projected capacity expansion. and they're giving us the forecast of where they will be. But as far as ticker pay, as far as signing contract is concerned, yes, we are contemplating that. But on the other hand, if you sign a ticker pay, then we have to deliver, don't we? So there are mutual requirements for each other, but this is a great opportunity. I think we are spending the necessary money fund and development costs to ensure that we can capture this opportunity down the road.
spk06: Okay. That's a good characterization. Thanks for that detail, Morris. That's all for me.
spk01: Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I'd like to turn the call back to Dr. Morris-Young for any closing remarks.
spk07: All right, and thank you, everybody, for participating in our conference call. In November, we will be participating in the Craig Highland Alpha Select Conference, and we hope to see many of you there. As always, please feel free to contact me, Gary Fisher, or Leslie Green directly if you would like to set up a call with us, and we look forward to speaking with you in the near future.
spk01: this concludes today's conference call thank you for participating you may now disconnect
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