Canaan Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Canaan Inc's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, we will have a question and answer session. Please note that this event is being recorded. The company's financial and operating results were released by the Newswire services earlier today and are currently available online. The company has also prepared a presentation for today's call. You may view the presentation and navigate through the slides on the webcast page for the fourth quarter 2023 earnings call on the company's IR website. Joining us today are Canaan Inc's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Ngan Zhang, and CFO, Mr. Jing Cheng James. In addition, Mr. Leo Wang, IR Senior Director, Ms. Xi Zhang, IR Manager, will also be available during the question and answer session. Mr Zhang will start the call by providing an overview of the company and performance highlights for the quarter. Mr Chen will then provide details on the company's operating and financial results for the period before we open the call up for your questions. Before we continue, I would like to refer you to our safe harbour statement in our earnings press release. Today's call will include forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, our outlook for the company and statements that estimate project future results of operations or the performance of the company these statements speak only as of the date hereof and the company assumes no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements that may be made in today's press release call or webcast except as required by law these statements do not guarantee future performance and are subject to risks uncertainties and assumptions please refer to the press release and the risk factors and documents we file on with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent annual report on Form 20F for information on risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in such statements. In addition, during today's call and webcast, we will discuss both GAAP financial measures and certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful as supplemental measures of the company's performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP results. You can find additional disclosures regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations with comparable GAAP results in our earnings press release, which is posted on the company's website. With that, I will now turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Mr. Nangeng Zhang. Please go ahead, sir.

Hello, everyone. This is NG, the CEO of Canet. Thank you for joining our conference call. Our sample gems and I are at the company's headquarters in Singapore to share our quarterly results with you. In the first quarter of 2023, especially in December, the price of Bitcoin in general kept showing an upward trend, starting at around $27,000 at the beginning of the quarter, and reaching an annual high of about $44,000 by the last week of the quarter. At the same time, the total network hash rate continued to rise, exceeding 500x hash per second. The rapid continuous rise in Bitcoin price and the increase in transaction fee rewards led to a rapid increase in mining revenue, promoting miners' willingness to purchase computing power, Furthermore, discussions about end of the interest rate hike cycle and upcoming approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF have made industry participants, including miners, more optimistic about future. As a result, post-production sales exceeded expectations in this quarter, especially in December. As the halving event approaches, mining equipment providers are also stepping up destocking efforts, with the theme of small profits for fast turnover remaining prevalent this quarter, keeping product ASPs low as expected. In such a rapidly changing market environment, we see it as a favorable market window of this quarter, especially in December, achieving a total revenue of $49 million, including mining machine sales revenue of $44 million, much higher than the management's expectation of $34 million revenue in the third quarter's conference call. In the last quarter of 2023, We also adjusted the company's strategy and organizational structure according to changes in the market situation, improving R&D and operational efficiency, increasing investment in production capacity, diversifying mining operations, and exploring international markets such as North America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Completing financing in the capital market with sufficient funds enable us to deploy in advance and meet the explosive demand in the upcoming bull market. Now let me go into more detail. After announcing the A14 series miners in September 25, 2023, we continue to work diligently the following quarter to improve performance and reliability at the whole machine level and transition the new generation products into mass production. The A14 series miners are expected to begin small-scale deliveries in Q1 2024, with large-scale deliveries expected to concentrate in Q2 to Q3. Meanwhile, the development of our next-generation products is also progressing rapidly. As a customary, we will publicly disclose the specific performance of new products after prototype testing is completed. In addition to mining machines, the company itself developed integrated air or Liquid cooling mining solutions have been gradually delivered and generating revenue throughout the third and fourth quarters. These integrated solutions are highly integrated, allowing for rapid deployment and enabling our mining machines to operate in controlled environments, thereby maximizing performance and reducing maintenance costs. These benefits increase customer willingness to purchase our mining machines, putting us in a favorable position in terms of sales. To better test our products, we choose to showcase them first in the hot Middle Eastern region, demonstrating our confidence in product performance. In terms of mining machine sales, We achieved approximately 5.47 million terahash per second of computing power in the fourth quarter, a year-over-year increase of 192% and a quarter-over-quarter increase of 49%. Mining machine revenue reached $44.1 million, representing a sequential increase of about 49%. Additionally, the contract sales for our A14 series mining machines received enthusiastic booking from customers this quarter, with accumulated contract sales orders exceeding 7.5 million terahertz per second with customer prepayments. This encouraging growth in contract sales orders has elevated the company's level of customer advance as of the end of 2023. However, the gross margin of these pre-sales orders is not high. The sudden influx of contract orders will also test the company's delivery capability. We will better balance cash flow and inventory, as well as manage the inventory allocation between contract sales both orders and mining business. At the end of the first quarter, we once again entered into procurement agreements with publicly listed companies such as Cypher Mining Inc. and Stronghold Digital Mining Inc. This includes a contract sales order from Cypher for 16,700 units of the A1466 mining machine and another order from Stronghold for 1,100 units of the A1346 mining machine. Additionally, earlier deliveries include 11,000 units of A1346 model to Cypher and 2,000 units to Stronghold, all of which have been delivered to their respective mining sites and installed by the fourth quarter, operating smoothly. In the Southeast Asia region, where we focus on channel sales, we achieved sales of 900,000 terahash per second of computing power in the fourth quarter, contributing to stable sales orders. Our online retail store targeting overseas markets expanded their reach to four new regions, including Norway, the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Israel, totaling 46 regions reached by this quarter, meeting the purchasing needs of decentralized individual miners worldwide. Benefiting from factors such as increasing the Bitcoin price, transaction fee rewards, and improved uptime, we achieved mining revenue of approximately $3.7 million in the fourth quarter, representing a growth of about 14% compared to about $3.3 million in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, we mined a total of 101 Bitcoins. The company continues to maintain a holding strategy in its Bitcoin mining business. At the end of the fourth quarter, we held 909 Bitcoins belonging to the company, reaching a historical high. The current market value of our Bitcoin assets is almost 50 million US dollars. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, our total energy mining computing power was 1.91 exahash per second. In Kazakhstan, following the acquisition of the necessary Type 2 license for mining. We have been collaborating with our local partners to resume mining operations. Despite challenges such as hash code weather and the need to re-establish cross-border accounts, we have made significant progress. We commenced re-energizing our mining machines in the first quarter of 2024, and the majority of them have now been successfully re-entered. As a result, these gradually reactivated mining machines have begun generating mining revenues. In 2024, while maintaining our mining strategy We will continue to adjust and upgrade our specific operating tactics. First, when selecting project opportunities, we will pay more attention to factors such as legal system and the regulatory stability in the project's located region, enhancing risk control. We will expand our scale while ensuring the security of our company assets. Secondly, we will shift from cash flow-oriented to growth-oriented strategies. Therefore, unlike in the past, we will use more advanced mining machine models for self-mining, prolonging investment span, reducing operational risks, and enhancing the market competitiveness of our mining business. Lastly, in addition to proactive mining models, we will also consider fixed rate hosting and other ways, such as self-construction or acquisition, to deeply participate in mining operations. As of today, the company has 11 active mining projects globally with a total of 2.8 exahash per second of energized computing power this energized computing power has increased by 46 percent compared to the end of fourth quarter of 2023 mainly due to the re-energization of some machines in kazakhstan and the energization of machines in other projects as of Today, we have 2.1 exahash per second of expected computing power to be installed. This refers to the computing power that Kenya has shipped to a targeted mining country but has not yet been put on the shelf, and we expect to gradually install the power it's up in the first and second quarters of this year. We defined the estimated total computing power deployed as the sum of computing power installed and expected computing power to be put on the shelves. Based on the estimated total computing power deployed, the estimated total power demand of all mining farms is 177 megawatts, with a weighted average electricity cost of around $0.05 per kilowatt. per kilowatt-hour and a weighted average revenue share ratio of around 70.9%. In the fourth quarter, the market environment, driven by the price of Bitcoin, notably improved. Although the performance of the mining machine market lagged behind the Bitcoin price change, showing continuous decrease in the mining machine price. On one hand, the company continues its prudent cost and expense control. On the other hand, following the organizational adjustments, we have a linear and more efficient team, which is well prepared for the bull market. Our sales efforts resulted in a significant increase in sales cash inflows, despite some non-cash provisions and impairments associated with promotional interactives. These interactives enable us to generate crucial cash inflows, and our destocking efforts are near completion. In general, our strong sales collection and fundraising contributed to a robust increase in the ending cash balance in Q4 2023. In the first quarter of 2023, through the issuance of preferred shares and ATM offering, the company has secured a net financing amount of about $86.2 million. In the first quarter of 2024, the company received another $50 million of financing through the settlement of preferred shares. In the early stages of last year's fourth quarter, we made the judgment that the bear market was bottoming out and the bull market was approaching. However, based on experience, market changes during the bear to bull transaction will vary rapid, requiring early preparation of the supply chain and product layout. In the past, we relied on internal funds and proceeds from customer advancement. Cash from these resources was slower to materialize and constrain our ability to expand during bullish periods, resulting in suboptimal capital utilization. This influx of funds from preferred shares and ATM offerings has allowed us to advance our supply chain and the related production capacity preparations by at least two months. This enabled increased investment in research and development and accelerating product development progress. From a longer perspective, the benefits delivered may even exceed the two-month timeframe. positioning us to capitalize on significant market opportunities in the bull market and expand our market share. Since the SEC officially approved the listing and the trading of Bitcoin spot ETFs, the price of Bitcoin has experienced a brief consolidation phase and recently broke through and stabilized above $50,000 with a combined effect of improved sales and success with financing settlements. Our cash and cashier equivalence increased from $41 million at the end of the third quarter to $96 million at the end of the fourth quarter. However, we must also recognize that the Fed's interest rate cut cycle has not yet truly begun. Financing costs remain high for miners and there is still uncertainty about the pace of Bitcoin's upward movement, posing ongoing challenges to the industry. The first quarter of 2024 is also the last complete quarter before the halving event. Based on our past experience, this quarter is a super wait-and-see period that occurs every four years. Coupled with the multiple factors of having the Chinese Lunar New Year, the market in this quarter is expected to be very subdued, and the recovery is likely to occur in the Based on the comprehensive situation as learned above, we are providing a cautious outlook for the first half of 2024. We anticipate a revenue of approximately $33 million in the first quarter of 2024 and approximately $70 million in the second quarter. This forecast is based on the company's current market and operating conditions, and the actual results may vary. 2023 was a challenging year for the entire industry with an unvarying face. We overcome the rise of obstacles and successfully navigated through the market downturn as planned. Even during times of this pair, we enhanced corporate governance and made extensive preparations for the halving and the bull market. What doesn't kill me will only make me stronger. We have never been more confident in seeding the historic opportunities presented by the Bitcoin bull market. For the industry, 2024 will be a pivotal turning point. In the previous cycle, institutional investors represented by Wall Street launched a significant bull market with 69,000 price per Bitcoin. I have always said that the next bull market can only and must be driven by widespread public participation. As the new year begins, the approval of the Bitcoin Spot ETF is a milestone and can serve as a starting point for the next bull market. We will continue to work diligently supporting the Bitcoin system with computing power and over the next four years strive to expand applications of computing power, promote industry development, and enhance social operational efficiency alongside industry leading partners, ultimately supporting the progress of society. This concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you, everyone. I will now turn the call over to our CFO James. Thank you.

Thank you, NG. And good day, everyone. This is James speaking at our Singapore headquarters. As NG studied at the top of the call, Bitcoin price grew significantly in quarter four, especially stayed high in December. And the market demand on machines quickly recovered before total hash rate exceeding 500 exahash per second. We see that the short time window of Bitcoin price increase maximized our machine sales through multiple channels, drove customer advanced payment on our new A14 series, promoted diversified deployment in mining, improved operational efficiency by organization optimization, and received a series of fund raising from ATM and preferred shares. Our strong sales collection and fundraising contributed to a positive ending cash balance, which reached 96 million US dollars at the end of quarter four, increased from 41 million US dollars at the end of quarter three. Frankly speaking, those were a series of better results beyond our previous expectations in November. Let's start with profit and loss. Quarter 4 total revenue was $49.1 million, which beat our guidance of $34 million by 44% favorable variance and represented an increase of 47% quarter over quarter. Our revenue from machine sales was $44 million, and our mining revenue was $3.7 million. Regarding our machine sales, We delivered a total computing power sold of 5.5 million terahash per second, representing a year-over-year growth of 192% and a quarter-over-quarter growth of 46%. As the average selling price increased from $7.9 per terahash per second in quarter three to $8.2 per terahash per second in quarter four. The increases were mainly driven by our destocking efforts for A13 series and the improved customer demand. Meanwhile, distributors and the online retail store also contributed to the revenue of machine sales. Southeast Asia contributed 900K terahash per second delivery in quarter four, mainly from distributors. And our online store first time cover the Kingdom of Norway, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Israel. Total country and areas with shipments reached 46 for the first time. Demand from more and more small scale miners was satisfied. Considering both factors of power sold and ASP, our revenue from mining machine sales achieved $44 million, up 49% from $29.5 million in the last quarter. In addition to mining machines, our self-developed integrated air or liquid cooling mining solutions have been gradually delivered throughout the third and fourth quarters. Accumulated orders from customers was higher than $4 million, driven by customer recognition of our integrated cooling technology. The revenue from integrated mining solutions in quarter four was $0.6 million, up 133% from $0.2 million in quarter three, driven by the increased delivered volume. Specifically, For mining machine sales, we accrued $55.5 million for inventory write-down, prepayment write-down, and provision for reserve for inventory purchase commitments in this quarter. The inventory write-down decreased sequentially by 16% to $45.1 million, which was driven by the accelerated destocking in this quarter. Those write-downs and provisions are made under US GAAP rules, jeopardizing our gross profit but do not impact our cash status. If the above write-downs and provisions were excluded, we would have a gross profit for our mining machine sales of $0.7 million and a gross margin of 1.6%. Turning to our mining business, Our mining revenue increased 14% quarter over quarter. We expanded our mining business in Africa, South America, and the Middle East, which resulted in our total energized hash rate accumulated to 1.9 exahash per second in the end of quarter four. We mined 101 bitcoins in this quarter and achieved 35 bitcoins for mining profit. Gross profit margin reached a record high 41% for our mining business in this quarter, which was mainly attributed to the average Bitcoin price increase from about $28,000 in the last quarter to over $36,000 in this quarter. Please note here that mining profit or loss is defined as the proportion of mining revenues deducting costs for energy and hosting in terms of mining revenues without consideration of depreciation for the deployed machines. Additionally, we and our local partners in Kazakhstan went through a bunch of challenges from harsh cold weather to resetting up cross-border bank accounts. 1.09 exahash per second out of 2.0 exahash per second in Kazakhstan have been successfully re-energized to normal in early January. That makes our total energized computing power to 2.8 exahash in Q1 2024. which has been deployed in six countries and areas. This enables us to expect a material mining revenue increase in quarter one 2024 compared to quarter four. And we continue to expand our mining business with another 2.1 exahash per second machines to be energized in quarter one and quarter two, as CEO mentioned previously. Shifting to our AI business, AI revenue was $0.3 million in this quarter, up 59% quarter over quarter. This growth was primarily driven by the increased sales volume of our AI products. Now turning to the expenses. Our operating expenses totaled $39.2 million, decreasing 36% year-over-year and 10% quarter-over-quarter, respectively. Excluding the one-off expenditure for our new generation chips incurred in Q4 2022, our operating expenses decreased 15% year-over-year, which was mainly due to the decrease in staff costs. share-based compensation, and Bitcoin impairment. The sequential decrease was mainly due to the decreased Bitcoin impairment and the realized gain on Bitcoin and second-hand mining machines sold. Please note, according to the accounting rules, when we sell the second-hand machines replaced from our mining business, the realized income will benefit our P&L by offsetting G&A expenses rather than contributing to the revenue. Besides, in this quarter, we incurred a one-off expenditure of $2.2 million for the organization optimization, which was offset by the decreased annual performance-based bonus. We believe the positive effects of operational efficiency improvement will begin to be reflected in our operating data from quarter one, 2024. The next result of the foregoing was a non-GAAP operating loss of $78.3 million for this quarter, narrowed 29% year over year and 20% quarter over quarter, respectively. Benefited from the non-cash recognition for deferred tax assets, non-GAAP net loss was $53.9 million, narrowed 30% year-over-year and 17% quarter-over-quarter, respectively. Please note that according to U.S. GAAP accounting rules, we recognize the first closing of preferred shares financing as convertible liability, the second closing of preferred shares as forward liability, and the pre-delivery ADSs as own share lending equity, respectively. These financial instruments incurred an excess of fair value over proceeds received and a fair value change. These non-cash accounting treatments hit our Q4 bottom line with total $70 million. In order to represent our performance more accurately and more comparably, we excluded these impacts from our non-GAAP measures. In addition, although legally issued, the pre-delivery AESs were not considered outstanding, then excluded from basic and diluted earnings per share. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow, in quarter four we received 61.2 million U.S. dollars from the ATM and 24.8 million from preferred shares financing facilities respectively. And we paid 35 million U.S. dollars to secure our wafer supply by utilizing the fundraising proceeds. The other proceeds were also utilized for the wafer supply prepayment in January 2024. During this quarter, the cash outflow of 71 million U.S. dollars for productions was offset by cash inflow of 75 million U.S. dollars from sales, which was mainly contributed by sports sales of A13 series and advance payment for A14 series. so our cash flow from production and operation turned positive with $4 million. Consequently, at the end of 2023, we held cash and cash equivalents of $96 million on our balance sheet, which was $55 million higher than the ending balance of September 30. Now moving on to our contract liability. The improved market demand helped us to record contract advances of 19.6 million US dollars as of 2023 year end. This balance increased 28.6 times compared to 0.7 million US dollars at the last year end. And 2.5 times compared to 5.6 million US dollars at the last quarter end. The majority of contractor advances came from pre-sales of A14. It included but not limited to those sales contributions from big clients. As previously announced, we secured follow-on purchase orders from Cypher and Stronghold with over 17,000 mining machines. As of the end of quarter four, recorded account receivable of $3 million, declining 69% compared to the end of quarter three, as a series of payments have been made by customers during quarter four. We will continuously evaluate market demand and adopt corresponding credit policies with caution. Now turning our attention to our Bitcoin assets. The Bitcoins we held as our own holding assets kept growing in this quarter and reached 909 Bitcoins as of December 31st, which is 49 more than 860 at the end of quarter three. We also held 169 Bitcoins received as customer deposit, which declined 209 Bitcoins compared to the balance of September 30th. I want to share with you that we plan to early adopt the FASB new accounting rules on cryptocurrency assets since January 1st, 2024, which allow cryptocurrencies to be carried at the fair market value. If adopted with the price at January 1st, 2024, our cryptocurrency held by the end of 2023, we anticipate that the carrying value would increase approximately 18 million US dollars based on latest price difference between market price and the booking price. The current fair market value of those owned Bitcoins is almost 50 million US dollars. We believe these rules will enhance the transparency and accuracy of our financial statements, as well as provide better clarity to our investors and shareholders. Turning to our fundraising, from November 28, 2023, the date we reported our Q3 financial results to December 31, 2023, we utilized the ATM for fundraising with net proceeds of $61.2 million. In late 2023, we closed the first trench of preferred shares financing, raising total net proceeds of $24.8 million. In early January 2024, we closed the second trench of preferred shares financing, raising total net proceeds of $49.7 million. The total proceeds of $136 million fundraising helped us carry out new product R&D and wafer capacity preparation to secure future mining machine supply after halving. In the first quarter of 2024, we anticipate a revenue of $33 million, considering many of our customers are waiting for halving to generate more visibility about ROI of CapEx investment. While for Q2 2024, we anticipate a revenue of $70 million, considering A14 series pre-order volume and the potential demand upside after halving. Consequently, the selling price of computing power will remain under pressure. Policy changes regarding cryptocurrencies and mining in different countries will also add uncertainty to industry operations. We may force unforeseen obstacles. Based on the above comprehensive situation, we give a cautious expectation for the first half of 2024. Now I would like to briefly walk you through our financial results for the quarter. Revenues in the fourth quarter of 2023 were $49.1 million as compared to $33.3 million in the third quarter of 2023 and $58.3 million in the same period of 2022. Growth loss in the fourth quarter of 2023 was $54.1 million compared to $69.1 million in the third quarter of 2023 and $64.1 million in the same period of 2022. Total operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2023 were $39.2 million compared to $43.8 million in the third quarter of 2023 and $60.8 million in the same period of 2022. Non-GAAP loss from operations in the fourth quarter of 2023 was $78.3 million, compared to $97.4 million in the third quarter of 2023 and $110 million in the same period of 2022. Non-GAAP net loss in the fourth quarter of 2023 was $53.9 million, compared to $64.7 million in the third quarter of 2023 and $76.6 million in the same period of 2022. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net loss per ADS in the fourth quarter of 2023 was $0.30. As of December 31st,