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spk04: Good afternoon and welcome to DIODE's incorporated third quarter 2023 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's conference call, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. If anyone needs assistance at any time during the conference call, please press the star key followed by zero on your touchtone phone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, Wednesday, November 8, 2023. I would now like to turn the call over to Leanne Sievers of Shelton Group Investor Relations. Leanne, please go ahead.
spk05: Good afternoon, and welcome to DIOD's third quarter 2023 financial results conference call. I'm Leanne Sievers, president of Shelton Group, DIOD's investor relations firm. Joining us today from Taiwan are DIOD's chairman, president, and CEO, Dr. Kei-Shu Liu, Chief Operating Officer, Gary Yu, Chief Financial Officer, Brett Whitmire, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Emily Yang, and Director of Investor Relations, Grameet Dhaliwal. I'd like to remind our listeners that the results announced today are preliminary as they are subject to the company finalizing its closing procedures and customary quarterly review by the company's independent registered public accounting firm. As such, these results are unaudited and subject to revision until the company files its Form 10-2 for its fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2023. In addition, management's prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Therefore, the company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements that is contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Action results may differ from those discussed today, and therefore we refer you to a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including Forms 10-K and 10-Q. In addition, any projections as to the company's future performance represent management's estimates as of today, November 8, 2023. DOWS assumes no obligation to update these projections in the future as market conditions may or may not change, except to the extent required by applicable law. Additionally, the company's press release and management statements during this conference call will include discussions of certain measures and financial information in GAAP and non-GAAP terms. including the company's press release or definitions and reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP items, which provide additional details. Also, throughout the company's press release and management statements during this conference call, we refer to net income attributable to common stockholders as GAAP net income. For those of you unable to listen to the entire call at this time, a recording will be available via webcast for 90 days in the investor relations section of DIODE's website at www.diodes.com. And now I'll turn the call over to Dr. Luce. DIODE's Chairman, President, and CEO. Dr. Liu, please go ahead.
spk07: Thank you, Leanne. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As announced earlier today, our third quarter results defected weaker than expected in customer demand in the computing, consumer, and communication markets. as well as the overall Asian market. Our original assumption of a market recovery did not materialize throughout the quarter. However, our automotive polar revenue in the third quarter remained at a record 19% of revenue. contributing to our commanding automotive and industrial revenue mean 45% of revenue and above our target model of 40%. Although the current environment presented challenges for our business in near term, I believe we remain well-positioned for a return to growth as we continue to strive toward our next goal of $1 billion in gross profit. With that, let me turn it over to Gary, DIOS Chief Operating Officer, for some additional insights on the quote.
spk08: Thank you, Dr. Liu. Revenue in the quarter was $404.6 million. a 13.4% sequential decrease reflecting the weaker than expected demand in the 3C market, especially in Asia, as Dr. Lu mentioned. Although our original guidance contemplates a continued reduction in channel inventory, global demand throughout the quarter did not support a significant decrease in these inventory levels. In addition to the delayed recovery in 3C market, In the fourth quarter, we have also begun to see a more broad-based slowdown globally in industry, as well as softness in some areas of the automotive market. This is primarily related to the customer inventory adjustment as well as year-end distributor inventory management, which is contributing to our much lower outlook than our typical seasonality. Although the general market is slow, there are certain areas where the demand is beginning to show signs of recovery, especially in the computing market. That said, I want to reiterate that despite those weaker demand dynamics, we remain focused on the long-term and our product mix improvement initiatives as we continue to invest in R&D for new products, targeting expanded design wings in automotive and industrial markets. Additionally, We are further developing the process technology in our previous acquired FABs to build the capability in preparation for the reduction of our waiver service agreements. In conjunction with those efforts, we also continue to increase manufacturing cost savings across all operations. These steps represent further enhancement to the actions we have taken over the past several years. which have consistently enabled us to deliver increasing growth and profitability and will continue to do so for years to come. Let me now turn the call over to Brett to discuss our third quarter financial results and our fourth quarter guidance in more detail.
spk10: Thanks, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone. Revenue for the third quarter, 2023, was $404.6 million, down 13.4%, from $467.2 million in the second quarter of 2023, and 22.4% from $521.3 million in the third quarter of 2022. Growth profit for the third quarter was $155.9 million, or 38.5% of revenue, due to the impact of our wafer service agreements combined with higher facility under-utilization costs due to the softer than expected demand in the quarter. This compares to $195.4 million or 41.8% of revenue in the prior quarter and $217.8 million or 41.8% of revenue in the prior year quarter. GAAP operating expenses for the third quarter were $102 million or 25.2% of revenue and on a non-GAAP basis were $95.6 million or 23.7% of revenue, which excludes $3.8 million of amortization of acquisition-related intangible asset expenses and $2.6 million of restructuring costs. This compares to GAAP operating expenses in the prior quarter of $105.8 million, or 22.6% of revenue, and in the third quarter of 2022 of $105.4 million, or 20.2% of revenue. Non-GAAP operating expenses in the prior quarter were $102 million or 21.8% of revenue. Total other income amounted to approximately $6.6 million for the quarter, consisting of $4.5 million of interest income, $1.3 million of other income, a $1.3 million foreign currency gain, and a $0.4 million unrealized gain on investments, and $0.9 million in interest expense. Income from taxes and non-controlling interest in the third quarter 2023 was $60.5 million, compared to $101 million in the previous quarter and $109.1 million in the prior year quarter. Turning to income taxes, our effective income tax rate for the third quarter was approximately 17.6%. Gap net income for the third quarter of 2023 was $48.7 million. or $1.05 per diluted share compared to $82 million or $1.77 per diluted share in the second quarter 2023 and $86.4 million or $1.88 per diluted share in the third quarter 2022. The share count used to compute GAAP diluted EPS for the third quarter 2023 was 46.3 million shares. Non-GAAP Adjusted net income for the third quarter was $52.5 million, or $1.13 per diluted share, which excluded net of tax $3.1 million of acquisition-related intangible asset amortization, $1.9 million in restructuring costs, and a $0.9 million gain on an equity investment. This compares to $73.3 million, or $1.59 per diluted share in the prior quarter, in $92.2 million, or $2 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2022. Excluding non-cash share-based compensation expense of $4.7 million net of tax for the third quarter, both GAAP earnings per share and non-GAAP adjusted EPS would have increased by 10 cents per diluted share. EBITDA for the third quarter was $90.6 million, or 22.4% of revenue. compared to $133.5 million, or 28.6% of revenue in the prior quarter, and $141.9 million, or 27.2% of revenue in the third quarter of 2022. We have included in our earnings release a reconciliation of GAAP net income to non-GAAP adjusted net income and GAAP net income to EBITDA, which provides additional details. Cash flow generated from operations was $50.1 million for the third quarter. Free cash flow was $11.6 million, which included $38.5 million for capital expenditures. Net cash flow was a negative $27.1 million, including the pay down of $35.3 million of total debt. Turning to the balance sheet, at the end of the third quarter, cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, plus short-term investments totaled approximately $308 million. Working capital was $768 million, and total debt, including long-term and short-term, was $53 million. In terms of inventory, at the end of the third quarter, total inventory days were approximately 124 as compared to 112 last quarter. Finished goods inventory days were 34 compared to 30 last quarter. Total inventory dollars increased $18 million from the prior quarter to approximately $343.7 million. Total inventory in the quarter consisted of a $16.5 million increase in raw materials, an $8.9 million increase in finished goods, and a $7.4 million decrease in work in process. Capital expenditures on a cash basis were $38.5 million for the third quarter, or 9.5% of revenue, which is at the high end of our target model of 5% to 9%. Now turning to our outlook. For the fourth quarter of 2023, we expect revenue to be approximately $325 million, plus or minus 3%. We expect GAAP gross margin to be 35% plus or minus 1%, primarily due to higher underutilization costs on the lower expected revenue combined with less favorable returns product mix from a reduction on the contribution of automotive and industrial revenue. Non-GAAP operating expenses, which are GAAP operating expenses adjusted for amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, are expected to be approximately 26.5% of revenue, plus or minus 1%. We expect net interest income to be approximately $2 million. Our income tax rate is expected to be 18%, plus or minus 3%. and shares used to calculate EPS for the fourth quarter are anticipated to be approximately $46.6 million. Not included in these non-GAAP estimates is amortization of $3.1 million after tax for previous acquisitions. With that said, I now turn the call over to Emily Yang.
spk06: Thank you, Brad, and good afternoon. As Dr. Liu and Gary mentioned, revenue in the third quarter was down 13.4% sequentially, and below our original estimates. Our assumption of the market recovery in the quarter did not happen. Our global POS decrease in the quarter and our channel inventory increase slightly remained above our defined normal range of 11 to 14 weeks. The automotive market remained relatively stable during the quarter. Looking at the global sales in the third quarter, Asia represented 72% of revenue, Europe 18%, and North America 10%. In terms of our end market, industrial was 26% of DIOS product revenue. Automotive remained a record 19%, computing 25%, which has improved three percentage points compared to last quarter, with most of the improvement driven by AI server demand increase. Consumer represented 18%, and communication, 12% of product revenue, with smartphone demand, especially in Asia, still low during the quarter. Our automotive industrial end market, combined at 45% of product revenue, represented the sixth consecutive quarter above 40%, and is 5 percentage point above our 2025 target. Now let me review the end market in greater detail. In the automotive end market, revenue and demand remained relatively stable in the third quarter. We continued to focus on expanding our content in various applications by extending our design wing momentum. During the quarter, we introduced 139 new automotive compliance products, which included low-voltage MOSFET product for automotive battery management system, Wi-Fi telecommunications, and infotainment applications. As the contact expansion continues to increase in the automotive market, the demand for managing sensor data, control information, infotainment, and power line and battery management is increasing dramatically. We introduced a series of power TVS products with a wide range of operating voltage ideal for protecting EVs and charging station applications. We're also seeing design wins for protection devices in domain control units, touch panel systems, transmission control units, PCI Express Gen 4 clock generators, as well as crystal oscillators in ADAS infotainment and auto-driving radar systems. Automotive compliance ideal diode controllers continue to have strong demand from ADAS telematic and infotainment systems. We also secure design wing for USB Type-C solutions, including USB power delivery controllers, MUX switches, and re-drivers for in-vehicle infotainment systems. We are also seeing increased adoption of 3.3 volt USB-C re-drivers, USB-C DisplayPort Alternate Cross-Bot MUXes, and different video protocol switches in rear seat entertainment, Smart Copic, ADAS, and camera monitor systems. In the industrial market, we begin to see product weakness materialize with a more pronounced inventory rebound, combined with year-end distributor inventory controls expected in the fourth quarter. Despite the general market weakness, our team remains focused on furthering our design with momentum and new product introduction to support future growth. The industrial and automotive market remain our top focus for expanding our content and market share to drive continued product mix improvement and gross margin expansion over time. To highlight a few positives during the quarter, our HDMI mugs and re-drivers, USB Type-C DisplayPort alternative re-drivers, and MiP re-drivers saw growth in commercial displays, while our HDMI signal duplicators were adopted in the industrial camera system. Silicon carbide shock key diodes continue to gain traction in power factor correction applications for industrial adapters and medical equipment, while Serestor and SBR products gain momentum in power over Ethernet, surface, and solar panel applications. We also continue to secure design wings for our linear LED drivers in handheld power tools and high voltage regulators in fan applications. And our PSO sound drivers continue to win new designs in security alarm, household smoke alarm, and aftermarket dashboard alarms. In the computing market, after many quarters of inventory adjustment, we're seeing some signs of recovery with particular strength in the AI server demand. We expect POS revenue to increase sequentially in the computing market, with a further recovery in the first half of next year in this market. Our TVS protection product for USB-C data line protection, USB-C source power switches, low-voltage MOSFETs, and low-voltage only hall sensors are building momentum in notebook, desktop, and docking station applications. There was also increased adoption of our connectivity and signal integrity products, including MUX switches and re-drivers for HDMI, USB-C, DisplayPort, and MIPI protocols in applications including workstations, gaming, notebook, desktop, docking stations, and add-in card applications. We're also seeing adoption of our 40 gigabit per second USB 4.0 re-drivers in long channel cases together with USB 4.0 retimers and 20 gigabit per second USB Type-C DisplayPort redrivers in the next generation computing platform designs. Our PCI Express 3.0 packet switches are also building momentum by enabling high-speed seamless connectivity in cloud server and data centers with multiple CPU system support for cross-domain endpoints to improve reliability, availability, and serviceability. Also in the computing, our timing products continue to gain design-in, design-win momentum for surfer and storage applications, while our PCI Express Gen 5, Gen 6 clock generators and buffers were designed into AI surfers. In the communication market, we continue to secure new design wings for our timing products, including clock buffers and crystal oscillators for smart NICCAR and optical transceiver modules. Our LDO family, low-voltage omnipolar hall sensors, low-voltage MOSFETs, and data line protection products saw solid demand and new design wings for camera, IO protection, smart cover, and wireless earbud applications in the smartphone. Lastly, in the consumer market, our bridge rectifier, hall latch switches, and TVS products continue to gain traction in home appliance applications. Design momentum also continues for our LED drivers, SBR, PSO sound drivers, and audio amplifier in VR headsets, TV, monitor, headphones, and tracker applications. And our LDOs gained demand momentum from home monitoring camera systems, while our HDMI-passive active MUX re-drivers, splitters, and the DisplayPort MUXes saw increased adoption in keyboard, video, monitors, and mouses. In summary, although the global demand environment remained weak, and we are being impacted by inventory digestion across certain end markets. Our team remains focused on driving increased design wins and new product introduction, especially in our strategic focus areas of automotive and industry. This initiative has been the foundation to our past contact expansion and market share gain. and we believe also serve to position us well for a return to the growth and margin expansion in the future. With that, we now open the floor to questions. Operator.
spk04: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two.
spk02: At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from William Stein with Truist Securities.
spk04: Please go ahead.
spk12: Great. Thanks for taking my questions. The first is about your capital allocation strategy. There are several similar companies, let's say diversified companies with broad end markets, a lot of analog products. Many of them have micros. I acknowledge you don't, but you're a very consistent generator of free cash flow. And you've used that to continue to pay down debt for the last few quarters, I think the last maybe eight or ten quarters perhaps. And you now have a net cash balance. Stock's down a lot from the peak. What is it going to take to see the company resume a buyback? And would you consider establishing a dividend?
spk10: Yes, so Will, this is Brett. I think that as we've talked about before, we do view our capital strategy as essentially driving growth, you know, investment in growth. And a key part of that is looking at M&A. A key part of that is investing back in the business that we've done. I think we've openly talked about our history. We have had some stock buyback programs. Back in 2015, we had a program, and then we bought Light on Semiconductor. It was a buyback. And we continue to look at that. You know, from a dividend perspective, that's not something that we view on the table right now. But we continue to contemplate the best use of our cash as we continue to be confident of our growth and cash generation. Yeah, we just continue to consider it. Absolutely.
spk12: Okay. As a follow-up, I'm hoping you can address... sort of combined question about the quarter and the outlook. I think in the press release and then also in the commentary on the call, you talked about a recovery that you expected to happen that didn't. I didn't, perhaps my recollection of my notes just isn't all that strong, but I don't recall Q3 being guided for a recovery. And so maybe you can just refresh my memory. What recovery were you expecting that didn't materialize? And then going forward, maybe talk about when you think things settle out and start to recover and when we can start thinking about revenue returning to growth. Thank you.
spk06: Yeah, so this is Emily. I think during the Q3 earnings call, you know, we provided guidance, right? The guidance is actually based on a lot of assumptions for each of the market segments and some of the customers, I would say, overall situation. So looking back, compared to what we assumed in the beginning of the quarter versus the end result, we still feel like that some of the assumptions didn't realize. And we did actually assume certain recovery area that should improve. because of the channel inventory situation. So I think that's really referred back to our assumption. And like I said, based on the assumption, there are certain things that we built in there, unfortunately, didn't really materialize during the quarter. So I think your second question is really, when do we think the business will back to the normal range? So I think that's really a crystal ball. It's really hard to predict at this moment. Market is extremely dynamic. But I think what we want to really assure is the market situation or demand decrease as well as the inventory adjustment should be short term. And we want to make sure as a company we continue to focus on the important areas that really help us with success in the past. which is really focused on the product mix improvement. You know, this includes by introducing more new products and continue to drive the automotive industrial contact expansion at the same time working on the manufacturing efficiency, right? So, you know, we cannot really control the market, but with all these right things in place, we're confident that this will continue to drive, you know, revenue improvement as well as margin improvement over time.
spk07: As I mentioned in my speech, we will continue to focus on R&D, spend the money in R&D, focus on new technology, new process, and new product. We still target our vision of $1 billion of gross profit. So short-termly, yes, we have some inventory problem or not. This is inventory adjustment, but for us, still need to focus on long-term.
spk03: Thank you.
spk04: Our next question comes from David Williams with Benchmark. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I guess maybe firstly here, it seems like there's been some mixed commentary out of the automotive segment and the put and takes around just where the exposures are and whether it's good or bad. But just kind of wondering if you could help us. kind of square some of your commentary on the automotive, where you're seeing the weakness particularly in terms of geographies and whether that's ISO traditional, excuse me, ISO or EV, anything that kind of helps us understand where the particular weakness is coming from would be helpful.
spk06: Yeah, so David, this is Emily. I think overall in the automotive market segment that we see in general the inventory level increase, right? So we do expect Some inventory rebalancing. Each customer situation can be different from the others, and each program can be a little bit different as well as down to the part number level. So unfortunately, not everything equal. But in general, we're also seeing with the inventory rebalancing coupled with certain area of demand adjustment as well. As a result of this too, and I also mentioned quarter end inventory control by some of the distributors, so we really believe that's really compounded area that we do expect automotive is going to be under a little bit challenge in the short term. From the regional point of view, I think for automotive, especially with strategic account, it's really a global approach. So it's really kind of difficult to point it out to a specific region. But in general, we're seeing more of the weakness from the North America and also Europe market. So that's really what we see.
spk07: And if you look at, we're still able to accomplish record of the 19% of the revenue. So our automotive still continue going at the same time we still continue improve our content of the automotive. So that's the effort we are focused on, and I think we still continue successfully to increase the content.
spk06: Yeah, so I think I mentioned we actually introduced 139 automotive compliance products just in 3Q. I believe second quarter is 139. And the previous quarter is actually other 79 or 80 numbers. So you can actually see the focus overall for the company on driving new product introduction as well as getting into a new market area. Expanding our SEND and TAN will continue to be the focus.
spk09: Is that part of the issue going into the fourth quarter?
spk10: Hey, David, can you repeat that? You really broke up on that question. Could you repeat that?
spk09: Yeah, my apologies. Was the UWA strike, was that any impact to you guys on the fourth quarter?
spk06: Yeah, I mean, you know, there's definitely indirect impact, but I think relatively it's not a big impact.
spk09: Okay, all right. And then just lastly for me, is on the gross margin, can you kind of maybe give us the puts and takes there and just the guidance on the margin side is down pretty further than we would have thought, but is it just volume or is this part of the service agreement that's also having impact? And any color there would be helpful. Thank you.
spk06: Yeah, so I think overall, right, When we look at this margin, I talk about the product makes a change a little bit. If you look at auto industrial percentage, definitely decrease a little. But mainly the reason is actually due to the underloading situation, under-realization. Of course, that's coupled with different reasons. I think the long-term agreement, I mean the service agreement is part of it, as well as the decrease in the revenue. But, you know, again, right, this is the thing that we really believe is a short-term challenge that we will overcome. I think the long-term focus, you know, talking about the product mix improvement, auto-industrial, as well as introducing new products. And, you know, we are confident that in the longer term, we'll continue to drive the revenue improvement as well as the margin improvement.
spk08: Right. And this is Jerry. I would like to put some comment on the LifeWaker service agreement. Basically, this is really nothing we can control for our customer demand, okay, and the loading here. But what we really can control is that we're aggressively loading our stuff and then follow-up our processing technology in those two waiver grants that we acquired a couple years ago. And that's really the things we want to focus on, and you're going to see the possibilities, you know, in the future, but it's got more loading to resolve the underloading situation shortly, like that way.
spk03: Thank you.
spk04: The next question comes from Gary Mobley with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.
spk11: Hi, everyone. I hope you're surviving the early morning wake-up. I appreciate you joining us here at this time in Taiwan. So, you know, probably what's on most people's mind is, you know, how 2024 looks, and I'm sure you're not going to go there, but maybe if you can give us a sense of... maybe sort of the exaggerated seasonal patterns you might see to start the year or maybe even different, some of the atypical seasonal patterns that might unfold during the year considering the inventory drain that has to take place.
spk06: Yeah, I think, Gary, with the market dynamic that's going on, I think it's hard to put a seasonality picture anymore, right? Just looking at 2023, it is a little bit all over the map, right? So I think in general we're still hopeful that the market demand situation as well as inventory readjustment is going to be over. So we still think that's going to be a short-term issue. Again, since it's short-term, we want to continue to focus on the important things that can get DIOS to be more successful down the road, right? So that's what we really see. I think first half, it's definitely visibility and challenge in front of us. So we definitely are hoping for a second half improvement.
spk11: Okay. So I would assume that you're trying to maximize your manufacturing load just like your competitors are in the SOC macro environment. Related to that, how is pricing holding up on a like-for-like product basis, given that maybe people are looking through the nooks and crannies for all types of business at this point in time?
spk06: I think in general, price is always driven by demand and supply. When the demand is a little bit weak and with a little bit more supply, there's definitely some shift in that But what we still see, majority of the price pressure is really coming from the decommodity area. And the advanced or differentiated unique product overall still much better. So again, based on this, which is nothing new that we've been talking about. So we'll continue to focus on the new differentiated new products, right, which is referred back to the product mix initiative improvement that we have been focusing for the last number of years already, right? So that will continue to be the direction and focus overall for the company.
spk08: Okay.
spk11: If I could just sneak one more in.
spk08: Sorry. Go ahead, Gary. Go ahead. I would like to put some comment on that. Other than the price pressure that we're facing now, and again, really, we can control this private, you know, private, you know, private, you know, private, you know, co-sum and the efficiency in that way. So that we can, you know, you know, take advantage of those kind of co-saving, you know, activity initiatives to face those kind of, you know, price issue and price pressure from the front market.
spk11: Okay. Brad, if I can speak one in. You're essentially guiding your OPEX to decrease roughly $10 million sequentially. Is that anything structural or permanent, or is it just lower bonus accruals and some other variable items?
spk10: Yeah, so basically you have, if you look at some of our trend across the year, we start to see some of the revenue trend. You can see the actions that we're taking to bring our employee spend in line with that. We're also, you can see some restructuring charges we took in third quarter as we consolidated some stuff and various actions we're taking and I think you'll continue to see things we're doing to drive and be stronger as we work through this cycle and continue to stay focused on kind of the, when you look back a year ago when we were hitting 500 million, we were right on top of our model and as we think about going forward, you know, we're going to tighten the belt during this cycle to be stronger and then get in a better position as we go forward and continue to work to enable ourselves to grow back into that. Thank you.
spk04: Our next question comes from Tristan Guerra with Baird. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, this is Tyler Bomba for Tristan. Thanks for taking the questions. You touched on some of the near-term dynamics on pricing. Could you talk about maybe what your expectations for pricing are into next year?
spk06: Yeah, so I think, Tristan, you know, I think pricing is dynamic, right? There's different product categories. There are different competitors that we are facing. And each of the area can be a little bit different versus the other. I think the end market also a key factor. So in general, you see more of this kind of price pressure coming from the maybe consumer more on the computing area because the volume demand driven, right? So I think in general, we believe with the new product introduction and with the focus of the contact expansion in auto and industrial, and together with the manufacturing efficiency, can help us to weather better from the price pressure and with the long-term margin improvement. So I think in general, that's what we see overall in the market.
spk01: Great. And then before this current quarter that you just reported, when was the last time that you had underutilization charges? And what does that tell us about where we're at in the cycle?
spk08: Yeah, actually, you know, we do not dispose of too much information about those kind of underutilization charges to our client at this moment here. But we do see that underutilization situations happening since like third quarter. And then we're Well, if you are looking at the
spk07: or under loaded, I need to separate from two aspects. One is under loaded due to our service agreement. Due to when we do the acquisition for the operation, then we have a service agreement. And that, what we are doing is developing our own technology and porting our own power to continually speed up the under-loaded effect. So that's one direction. The other direction due to the under-loaded is our own manufacturing and due to our own loadings. Then we slow down the capacity extension. So you can see that's why the CapEx for the manufacturing capability or capacity was reduced. That extension was reduced. That's why Brad mentioned we cut down our CapEx. But at the same time, I think dropping the price may not be a good solution because if the market slow down and you cannot just drop the price and try to gain more . So most important is the product mix and new product. So if you can focus on new product and bring the product mix, then Maybe short-term, we don't solve it. But from long-term strategy, strategic direction, this is what we need to do to get it, you know, for independent to the market. So if you are going to the differential product and that automotive, you cannot be easily depressed or get shielded, loosed by other people. So the whole thing would be the capacity utilization would be due to the customer demand, not due to the . So this is the strategic direction we are focused on is more new product, more automotive, industrial, more differentiate type of product. to resolve the capacity issues. By dropping the poor lot, our price will not be a good solution.
spk01: Great. Thanks for all the color there.
spk04: As we have no further questions, this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Liu for any closing remarks.
spk07: Thank you for your participation on today's call. Operator, now you can disconnect.
spk02: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may all now disconnect.
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