4/24/2025

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Greetings and welcome to the MobileEye first quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Dan Gauss. Mr. Gauss, you may begin.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Thanks, Stacey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Mobilize First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call for the period ending March 29, 2025. Please note that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements based on the business environment as we currently see it. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the accompanying press release, which includes additional information on the specific factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Additionally, on this call, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP figures. The reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures is provided in our posted earnings release. Joining us on the call today are Professor Amnon Shashua, Mobilized CEO and President, and Moran Shamesh, Mobilized CFO. Also joining today for the Q&A session is Nimrod Nuchtan, Mobilized EVP of Business Development and Strategy. Thanks, and now I'll turn the call over to Amnon.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining our earnings call. Starting with the results, Q1 was closely aligned with our expectations. Revenue was up 83% year-over-year compared to the unusually low Q1 of last year, due to the meaningfully drawdown of inventory in Q1 2020. Operating margins recovered sharply on a year-over-year basis due to the high revenue. Operating expense growth, 14% in Q1, should moderate to middle single digits on average in the balance of the year, as the current R&D infrastructure is sufficient to execute all the advanced products and programs that will come online over the next several years. Operating cash flow was again a highlight at $109 million in Q1. Business trends for our core single-chip front camera driving assistance systems were fundamentally strong in Q1, both in terms of current supply demand and design wins for future programs. Volume in Q1 was 8.5 million units, and we expect Q2 volume to be about 7% higher, and for Q2 revenue to be up approximately 7% year over year. After a volatile 2024, Q1 volumes and Q2 orders have been quite stable, with some upward variance from China OEMs compared to our original expectations. Turning to the macro environments, Clearly, global light vehicle production in 2025 has become significantly more uncertain as the industry grapples with new trade frictions that change frequently. We are fortunate that the simplicity of our supply chain, in which our customers are the importers of our products, means that we should not directly incur any material target costs. Nevertheless, we will be affected by any negative impacts to global production volumes and consumer spending resulting from these trade frictions. What we know today is that Q1 results were solid due to order flow is above original expectations and consistent for the last couple of months, and we have seen no deterioration in forward production schedules from our customers. We also know that our original outlook included a level of conservatism that was intended to reflect the risk of macro deterioration in the second half of 2025. Given expected first half volumes, our own analysis of the direct impact of current tariffs on our customers and analysis by third parties like S&P Global, we continue to see a strong potential to perform within the guidance range for full year 2025. Of course, there is potential for price elasticity and other economic effects on auto consumers, but this is beyond our ability to analyze at this time. Turning to the longer term, design wind activity was very brisk in this quarter. This tends to be bumpy, but if we compare it to the projected future volumes achieved from design winds in all of 2024, the design winds in Q1 are already at around 85% of what we achieved last year. Additionally, we are seeing potential for an inflection point in the value per unit of mass market driving assistance. REM is now included in the fourth blue cruise, And this cloud-enhanced functionality will also be adopted by a Korean OEM in future programs based on a large program we won in Q1. A potentially bigger tailwind for Mobileye is the trend towards a multi-camera setup going mainstream in the coming years due to more stringent future safety requirements and also the need to provide highway hands-free driving on mass market vehicles for OEMs to remain competitive. BYD boosted that their trend with their God's Eye announcement, which was a clear message to the industry that highway hands-free driving will likely be a standard feature on mainstream vehicles in the coming years. Mobilized surround ADAS through the IQ6 High is the perfect solution for that space, and we announced our first design win with Volkswagen during the quarter. Technology functionality and efficiency are just as important as criteria. And we have the only offering that can support all perception, mapping, driving policy, and driving function from a single SOC on a single ECU, fully upgradable over the air. And this shares a common technology backbone with our more advanced product, which supports cost-efficient modular product portfolio for OEMs across all vehicle segments. Mobilized through one-stop shop, and this really aligns with OEM software-defined vehicles and architecture consolidation goals. We're also seeing substantial opportunities from new customers. During the quarter, we achieved our first design win in about eight years with a particular European OEM. We're also seeing traction from our imaging radar product, where the first design win outside of the drive and product line is imminent with another European OEM. This OEM is expected to choose our imaging radar as an enabler of high-speed highway level 3 solutions which is a testament to the differentiation of the sensor and the big vote of confidence to our chauffeur and drive products in general. OEM decision-making for supervision and chauffeur remains slower than we would like, but we continue to make progress with a number of OEMs, including two new top 10 global OEMs prospects in the past few months. Execution on the Porsche and Audi programs remain on track, and we're looking forward to provide first prototype demos of these systems in the second half of 2025. That will be the first opportunity for external audiences to experience the new i26 high-based software and hardware in a production-intensive vehicle. Our Mobileye self-driving system for robot taxi business continues to accelerate. We announced the next step with Lyft during the quarter, announcing Dallas as the geography for initial operation, Marubeni as the owner-operator, and Lyft as the demand platform. we expect to choose and announce the vehicle OEM in the coming months. In a completely fresh development, simultaneous to the beginning of this learning call, Volkswagen and Uber issued a joint release announcing the two companies have agreed to integrate Mobileye drive-enabled ID.Bus robotaxis onto the UberRide hailing network in Los Angeles starting in 2026. This is an excellent example of the ecosystem approach we are taking in this business, which we believe has significant scale benefits. As we have discussed before, we are working with Volkswagen to integrate the mobilized self-driving system into Volkswagen ID.1, produced on the same assembly line as normal vehicles, and that's able to be scaled up or down rapidly. In this agreement, Volkswagen's mobility arm, Moya, will act as the fleet management system provider of the vehicles, and the Uber network will be the demand-generating platform. Our ecosystem approach is capital light for us, and it puts the responsibility for each layer of this business into actors that have relevant competencies and the ability to add them. On the technology front, our low-cost sensor set, efficient compute, and generalizable AI software is expected to enable rapid scaling across geographies that are compelling price points for the both. Finally, we congratulate another of our Robotaxi production partners, Holon, for booking an order from Jacksonville Transit Authority to purchase the Holland Urban Autonomous Shuttle, which is enabled by Mobileye Drive. Thanks, and I will turn the call over to Moran.

speaker
Moran Shamesh
CFO, Mobilized

Thank you, Amnon, and thanks for joining the call, everyone. Before I begin, please be aware that all my comments on profitability will refer to non-GAAP measurements. The primary exclusion in Mobileye's non-GAAP numbers is amortization of intangible assets which is mainly related to Intel's acquisition of Mobileye in 2017. We also exclude stock-based compensation. Our Q1 results slightly exceeded the color we provided on the Q4 2024 earning call in January, primarily due to modestly higher volume from Chinese OEMs and lower than expected operating expenses due to efficiencies in facilities and operations, along with some timing-related items. Revenue was up 83% year-over-year, with a high-level growth due to normalized volume in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 of 2024, which was impacted by meaningful inventory digestion by our Q1 customers. Year-over-year comparisons will be more relevant going forward as we believe supply and demand were well aligned in the back half of 2024. On a sequential basis, Q1 gross margin was up slightly versus Q4 2024, on the lower percentage of supervision revenue, while IQ gross margin were largely unchanged. Operating expenses were up some out versus Q4 as expected. This is related to some of the higher payroll expenses due to lower reserve duty refunds in Q1 and slight headcount growth. Higher spending on robo-tactic projects, higher marketing spend due to participation in industry events and other items that are largely timing related. We continue to expect approximately 7% year-over-year growth in adjusted operating expenses in 2025 compared to $926 million in 2024. We'd expect Q2 to be slightly higher than Q1, and for Q3, likely be the highest quarter of the year. We don't expect global macro issues to impact our operating expenses materially. As the majority is focused on development of technology that supports our advanced products, we will continue to look for opportunities for efficiency as we always do. As it relates to tariffs, we are fortunate that our supply chain is very simple. IQ chips for vehicle production in the U.S. are imported by our customers, not by Mobilize. Therefore, we should experience no direct P&L impact from tariff payments. We also have no material currency exposure on our revenue. and our cost exposure to the new Israeli shekel is largely hedged at this point. A bit more detail on our geographic exposure. We believe a very significant portion of our chips supplied to Europe and Asia Pacific are used for local consumption rather than for export to the U.S. Approximately 25% of our chips are shipped by our customers directly to the U.S. and are currently exempt from import tariffs. and 20% to China, where we believe it is used for local production. Although tariffs on auto components are not directly paid by us, we will fully cooperate with our customers in the next few months to optimize their production needs and potentially make minor changes to logistical infrastructure to mitigate the overall cost. While there is no direct impact, we of course will be exposed to any negative impact to vehicle production volumes, driven by supply impacts related to tariff costs on vehicles and components imported to the U.S., as well as potential consumer demand impacts from higher vehicle pricing or general weakening in economic conditions. S&P IHS published a new forecast last week that implies global production deterioration of around 2% in the balance of 2025. For a specific customer exposure, this would translate to a bit below 1 million lower IQ units in the balance of 2025. But this is just one data point. We have independently been reviewing the sector tariffs that apply to the automotive industry, vehicles, and auto parts to map the potential risk. Our baseline view is that a scenario incorporating production shutdowns of imported vehicles that are unprofitable under the new tariff regime in combination with demand-related impacts from higher vehicle pricing in general, could potentially drive 3% to 7% reduction in the volumes of our top 10 customers, which translates to about 1.1 to 2.2 million units annually. This is, of course, very difficult to predict, as the mix of sales in terms of OEMs and brands might change dramatically because of tariffs, and the potential for a shift in production sites and regions could mitigate the initial impact. Bottom line is that prior to recent tariff-related developments, our regional outlook already assumed a more conservative view of 2025 production than our customers and S&P Global. Even after the most recent forecast reduction by S&P to reflect the current tariff regime or our own somehow more negative analysis, our regional expectations STATION REMAIN VALID. WE WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE SITUATION CLOSELY GIVEN THE CURRENT COMPLETE VEHICLE TERRITORIES, VEHICLE COMPONENTS TERRITORIES SCHEDULED TO BEGIN ON MAY 3rd AND POTENTIAL FOR RECIPROCAL TERRITORIES AFTER THE 90-DAY POWER. TURNING TO Q2, WE EXPECT TO DELIVER APPROXIMATELY 8.7 MILLION TO 9.3 MILLION IQ UNITS AND FOR OUR REVENUE TO BE UP APPROXIMATELY 7% YEAR-OVER-YEAR AT THE MIDPOINT OF THE RANGE. We expect gross margin to be at or slightly below the Q1 level and for operating expenses to be seasonally higher in Q2 versus Q1, aligned with our previous expectations. Thank you, and we will now take your questions.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. Your first question comes from Joe Spach with UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I guess a couple things. Maybe just to start with the VW Uber announcement um i know it's early days but how do you envision that working is that you sort of selling a system do you think you is there sort of an ongoing potential payment from you for rides or how should we think about that evolving

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

So the business model is such that Mobilize is delivering the self-driving system, which includes the ECU, the hardware, the software for the self-driving software, and the radar sensors. So there's a one-time payment per car on these components. And in addition, there is a recurring license fee that is a derivative of the overall utilization of the fleet. So the more the fleet is driving, the more we're generating, in addition to the one-time payment for the systems. The Volkswagen role is to produce the self-driving cars with mobilized drive system installed in the manufacturing line. And Uber are the demand generator that can offer a self-driving service through their application to the consumer audience. Basically, the advantages that we have in this business model is the fact that we have a very geographically scalable technology as well as economically scalable technology. We come from a very cost-efficient design to begin with. that can be easily scaled, not just within Los Angeles, which is the first market mentioned in this announcement, but also, of course, afterwards, continued expansion to additional locations. And Volkswagen, who are a very high-volume vehicle manufacturer, can quickly scale the amount of robotics that they produce in the manufacturing line as demand increases over time. So overall, we think that they're... And of course, Uber is a very well-renowned demand generator company, probably the leading one in the US and globally. So we think the key ingredients necessary to become a very competitive and leading driving service in the US in the next couple of years.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Great, thanks. And then just maybe one more near term, just on the 2Q outlook and the units you just indicated. I think it's stronger certainly than where the street was. I think it's above 1Q levels as well. do you, I know you sort of talked about, um, you know, some of your own checks and work to sort of get comfortable with, with where, um, orders are and production and inventory, but do you get the sense that there's a little bit of, you know, ordering, uh, ahead of maybe some uncertainty and that there's, they're willing to, to carry a little bit more, um, you know, inventory in the channel.

speaker
Moran Shamesh
CFO, Mobilized

Yeah. So, um, I must say we cannot indicate anything specific for Q2 of sense of urgency. Disorders have been pretty stable as of February. And even at the beginning of this year, we kind of, in our forecast, we predicted around 8.5 in Q1. So it's 8.5 until 9 million units per quarter. That's what we're also seeing in the last three quarters. So also the second half of 2024 was between 8.5 and 9. So this is something pretty normal for now. When we started a year, we kind of based our focus again on demand, and that indicates no inventory or excess inventory at our customers. So we see orders aligned with that. We have more visibility maybe towards the end of the quarter, but there's nothing specific we can indicate.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Yeah, so just to summarize, you know, if there is any pull ahead in this number, it hasn't really, nothing's really changed since February, and it wouldn't be very material versus kind of what we're seeing in kind of end user demand. Thanks for that. Appreciate it. Thanks, Joe. Next question, please.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Joshua Buchalter with TD Cow and please go ahead.

speaker
Joshua Buchalter
Analyst, TD Cow

Thank you guys. Thank you for taking my question and, uh, congrats on the stellar results. Um, yeah, I wanted to maybe follow up on that previous one. I mean, the backup guide implies, um, you know, a pretty sub seasonal, uh, end of the year, I guess. Anyways, you can walk us through how much of that is conservatism on units versus, you know, share loss by your engaged customers and maybe any sort of haircutting, um, that you guys are doing to account for the uncertainty? Thank you.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Thanks, Josh. This is Dan. I can take that one. So, yeah, I mean, kind of the way our business works is we have kind of full visibility, you know, three months ahead, something like that, and then we... for the couple of quarters beyond that, that can really change at any time. We haven't seen any change in the back half. You know, we... But, you know, obviously kind of uncertainty has risen. So, you know, we don't want to get ahead of our skis. You know, yeah, the fact that we're going to do kind of more than 50% of the guide, you know, the full year guide in the first half is certainly a good sign. And we have no reason to think necessarily that demand is going to fall in the back half. But just, you know, given the current environment, we didn't really want to get ahead of ourselves.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

We took provision that And we took provisions that demand will go down. Because we started our guide in the beginning of the year in a very conservative manner. So even if demand falls, so far we feel that we meet the range of the guidance.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

But we're not getting any clear indication that it will fall. That's kind of the point.

speaker
Joshua Buchalter
Analyst, TD Cow

Got it. No, thank you. That's pragmatic and makes a lot of sense. I guess a follow-up. How would you... characterize your customers' engagements in design activity? I mean, you mentioned I think you had 85% of last year's design wins in the first half. I mean, your OEM customers have been, I think, slower than we all expected to move, in particular with advanced ADAS products. How do you see the current environment impacting their appetite to invest in new technology? Because I can see it going either way. And any more color you could provide within the 85% that your design went year-to-date? Any sort of directional indicators across base ADAS versus surround and supervision chauffeur? Thank you.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, I can take that. So what we're seeing so far is a very strong, continued strong demand from our customers to source our products for future generations. That comprises the majority of the 85% or the volumes that we won during Q1. And it's a mixture of surround ADAS and basic ADAS products. We are pretty much in a position of solidifying our position with our top 10 customers for years to come after these design wins. When it comes to sourcing advanced products, I think it makes sense that the previous couple of months have created maybe somewhat of a delay in some of the decision-making because of urgent matters that they need to address regarding tariffs. And I think it makes sense. What did not change is that their understanding of the necessity of having advanced products in the future. And competition is moving forward for each OEM. And just recently, Tesla continued to double down on their commitment to long-term autonomous driving in their product. And again, stressing the significance of self-driving technologies in the near future And that, of course, continues to apply a lot of pressure on OEMs to move forward. During this quarter, we have had two engagements with two of our top 10 customers that started with Taran Datas and now are expanding to Level 3 and Level 2++, the chauffeur and supervision evaluation, that have kind of moved through the pipeline to more advanced stages of evaluation. And we're reaching convergence with a couple of other opportunities. So we still see movement in the right direction, and we're seeing also more and more interest in specifically Level 3 eyes-off driving, targeting end of 2027, roughly speaking, with big OEMs. So that is also an encouraging sign that even though there are uncertain times, they're still committed to the long-term prospect of intelligent driving in the future for them, and they're working with us to make progress in that front. Thank you.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Luke with Baird.

speaker
Luke
Analyst, Baird

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. First, maybe if we could just talk about what's going on in China right now and the fact that things have been trending relatively better the last couple of quarters. I know you haven't read into that too much today, but now it's just an accumulation of data points. Are you better able to tease out what's going on with those customers?

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

I think that our focus now in China is supporting our Chinese OEMs on global exports and also on the local market. And we are outperforming our initial expectations. So roughly 20% to 30% market share is quite stable. On the advanced products, We see opportunities after we start revealing our second-generation product, which is going to be based on IQ6. So this is sometimes closer to the end of the year and not now. So our business development on our advanced product is more focused on Western customers and not in China. China, we are focused on ADAS and also supporting our Western OEMs, Porsche and Audi, in their launch of supervision chauffeur also in China end of 2026 and 2026.

speaker
Moran Shamesh
CFO, Mobilized

Just to give some sense on the numbers for China. So we started 2024 with relatively low numbers. So we sold approximately 400,000 units. And then from the second half of 2024, we're seeing increased volume. So in the second half, 1.2 million units. We were still conservative at the beginning of the year with the guidance, so we were aiming approximately 500,000 units a quarter. And we are seeing demand more than that in the first and also the second quarter. So in terms of the guidance versus the beginning of the year, it's some source of upset.

speaker
Luke
Analyst, Baird

All very helpful. Thank you. Just a quick one, the imaging radar award that you believe is imminent, are you implying that that is a potential chauffeur award as well?

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

No, this particular award is just for the sensor itself. We have additional opportunities of the imaging radar bundled with the chauffeur product, but that is separate. Understood.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Thank you.

speaker
Shreya Patil
Analyst, Wolf Research

Thanks, Luke.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Shreya Patil with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

speaker
Shreya Patil
Analyst, Wolf Research

Hey, thanks so much for taking the question. Maybe just back on the 2025 guidance. I think previously you had talked about an expectation of share gains or ADAS penetration increases as embedded in the 2025 guide. And I'm wondering if you're still seeing that at the moment. I understand that overall the production expectations that you've embedded are still consistent with what we're seeing in production, but I'm just wondering if you're also seeing ADAS penetration increases or share gains as well.

speaker
Moran Shamesh
CFO, Mobilized

Yeah, so as you mentioned about the global production, at the midpoint of our guidance, we kind of now aligned with third-party forecasts, forecasts of approximately 7% for our top 10 customers. As for the incremental units from new launches, and mobilize share gains within our top customers. I mentioned in January, we are expecting 1.4 million units. That looks in line with expectation and maybe even ramping up a bit faster than expected. So this is still a source of additional units. And also the China expectations, which were more conservative at the beginning of the year, and we're seeing an upside also for China OEMs.

speaker
Shreya Patil
Analyst, Wolf Research

Okay, great. And then maybe on just trying to think through the opportunity that you see here in mobilized drive, you know, the deal that was announced today with Uber just comes off the heels of a similar program with Lyft. So I'm wondering if we should see this as an indication of momentum accelerating in robo-taxi deployment broadly And if that's the case, obviously Uber and Lyft are the two largest players in the U.S., but I'm wondering if there are other opportunities in the pipeline as well, maybe in other markets.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, so definitely we're seeing accelerated momentum and increased interest and demand. It's a broader realization in the industry that robot taxi and self-driving services are here. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when and how much. And we are a very attractive partner in the sense that our products are scalable, cost efficient, can be deployed globally in all major markets in the near future. So Volkswagen is our kind of leading partner, strategic partner for producing robot taxi cars from assembly lines in scale that can be quickly ramped up according to demand. Partnering with Lyft and Uber, the two biggest mobility operators in the U.S., It's very, very important to quickly reach the pockets of millions of consumers, as probably you can imagine. But in addition to this, we're also working on launching in Europe, beyond just the US, in similar timeframes. Again, partnering with Volkswagen, a very strong European OEM, allows us to be one of the earliest, if not the first, to launch in Europe. Partnering with Holland. gives us another angle of transportation in different, maybe slightly different use cases. And beyond all of those, we're also working with additional OEMs that are very interested in this business model, car manufacturers, to produce level 4 cars in their manufacturing lines, partnering with Mobilized Cell Driving Technology, with Mobilized Drive. And then once Mobilized can bring to the table the mobility operators, it really opens the door for more OEMs that are interested in a similar model. And if we think about making a revolution of robotaxis, it's about scale. That's the next big thing. And the scale is not just a few hundreds of cars. It's thousands, and then tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cars in Europe and the U.S. And to get there, we are partnering with the most scalable OEMs on the planet. So that's kind of our trend, and we do see very, very accelerated momentum in the past three to six months, I would say.

speaker
Shreya Patil
Analyst, Wolf Research

Great. Thanks. I might have to get on the call for a second real quick.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Adam Jonas with Morgan Stanley.

speaker
Adam Jonas
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Hey, everybody. Just a couple questions. First, there's a bit of a, maybe this might sound oddball, quirky, technical, but we're hearing from some that the Gen AI has helped possibly increase the value of dash cam video capture that could be really relevant to the ability for like an Uber and Listlead or other fleets to capture data. Obviously, it's not the same fidelity and in the same sensor modality and connected to the computers the way your systems in a very sophisticated way are. But I was curious if you subscribe to that, that at least at some level, the coefficient of value that you might apply to an aftermarket dash cam video capturing footage from around a vehicle that's driving around might have some improved value given the AI, Gen AI revolution going on. That's the first question. Thanks.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

But in terms of data collection from vehicles, we have what we call REM 1.0, which is sending images to the cloud, but sending condensed data to the cloud. We have been developing a new generation of REM, which we call Supreme REM, which is based on sending pictures, still very low bandwidth, but sending pictures to cloud. And we'll have much to talk about in the coming months or years about this new technology. So there's quite a lot of progress in terms of what kind of data, at what frequency of data, volume of data you can start extracting from vehicles and still meet also regulatory approval. There's privacy concerns and all sorts of issues there. And we're really on it with the new technologies and the new approaches. And all of that will meet our 2027 launches of Chauffeur and Drive.

speaker
Adam Jonas
Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Okay. So, Amnon, basically, it's not a bullshit question is what you're saying. No, no, no. You never have bullshit questions. I disagree. Okay. And a follow-up. I'm just curious. Given so much other... activity in other sectors outside of automotive in terms of data capture. I think you'd agree with the belief that any machine that can be automated will be automated, and cars are just one modality of many, many thousands potentially of other modalities. I'd be interested if Mobileye is allocating or there's any change in allocation, even if it's a small level of of your R&D and advanced development work on markets outside of automotive at this time? Thank you.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

Yes. I'll say yes, but I cannot expand further. We are exploring, but we are still at the exploration stage of looking at additional growth engines in the physical AI space. Thank you, Adam.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Anton Schaiban with News 3 Research. Please go ahead.

speaker
Anton Schaiban

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I'd like to follow up on the announcement with Lyft to debut mobilized-powered taxis in Dallas in 2026. I was wondering how do you expect the rollout to play out? It seems that the goal is to eventually deploy thousands of vehicles across multiple cities. So any color you can provide on the economics of the deal and the pace of deployment, the shape of the ramp would be very helpful. Thank you.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, maybe I would address the general roll-up of our Robotaxi fleets without addressing the specific project. There is only so much we can expand on this project at this stage. Generally, we are working in a few stages. We start with the development and testing stages in which we deploy dozens of vehicles driving around the designated area. repeatedly, and of course, there's a combination of offline and online validation processes that are necessary to make sure that the quality of service is at the highest level possible. Of course, making sure that we can meet the safety standards, the meantime between interventions in this designated area. Afterwards, there is a certain stage of pilot programs in which we're using the safety drivers at the start, but still opening the doors for users to experience the service and getting feedback from that. That's still the magnitude. It's still in the dozens. Then it gradually expands to maybe small hundreds of vehicles. After that, there is an early stage of driverless activities, and then it becomes a full commercial service. And this process can take a few months, or it can take maybe a year or so of walking through the different stages of this activity. We have been working in the U.S. in certain cities in the past two years for early testing, and 2025 is a really important year for us in robotics development because we are expanding the scale significantly of mobile light drive systems driving in the U.S. in different cities and really seeing more statistic data or more statistic analysis of our performance and seeing very impressive results and improvements towards the goal and getting to these launches. We'll talk about the economics. Refresh. Yeah, and then when it comes to the economics, again, just to make sure it's clear, mobilized product is the ECU, and the ECU includes the hardware and the software. We get a payment one time for that per car, and then there is a recurring license fee for the operation of each and every robo-taxi vehicle according to its availability and usage. So you can think of it as a percentage of every dollar per mile that consumers pay for a self-driving system that is enabled by Mobileye Drive.

speaker
Anton Schaiban

Great. Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. And maybe as a quick follow-up, so on the cloud-enhanced ADAS announcement with the Korean OEM, can you maybe provide some color on the volumes this could represent, the timing and shape of the ramp, and maybe remind us the overall design win status for cloud-enhanced?

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, so normally cloud-enhanced ADAS is a integrated within high-volume projects. So it's a front-camera-based system that is now uploading data and downloading data from our RAN database. And that is very important for us because the RAN database is using us not just to improve the quality of our base data as product, but also as kind of the backbone for our advanced product. So Surround Data, Supervision, Chauffeur, and Drive. So our strategy is to have an ecosystem of OEMs that are contributing data and benefiting from the data of multiple OEMs and then having very good coverage and refresh rate globally that all of the OEMs that are in this ecosystem can enjoy for the different products. So adding more high-volume OEMs to this ecosystem is essential, of course, to these purposes. And the rollout is within the near future, let's say. We're not going to go beyond that.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Thank you, Antoine.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Mark Delaney, Goldman Sachs.

speaker
Mark Delaney
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Yes, thank you very much for taking my questions. For Mobileye Drive, I think both the Uber and Lyft agreements target operations beginning in 2026. Can you speak to how development is going to meet that timeframe? And taking a step back and thinking about Drive more holistically, it's been a small contributor. to the company's revenue, but as you think out to 2026 and 2027, do you think Mobileye Drive revenue is going to become a meaningful part of Mobileye's overall financials?

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

Yes, in terms of development, we have shifted all the hardware to IG6I a few months ago. The ECU called it Drive64, and it's meeting all our targets for end of 2026 launch of driverless robots. So we are on target there with the statistics, with driving. We have been driving in Europe and in Austin, Texas, and we are gradually expanding testing and with many dozens of vehicles in multiple sites. In terms of revenue, The contracts we have talk about tens of thousands of vehicles spread over until the end of the decade. So we are talking about a meaningful revenue coming out of this business. And in the last few months, the potential for more than what we have contracted. So it could be somewhere around five figures, six figures, in terms of volume of cars until the end of the decade. So it could be very meaningful in terms of revenue to the company. Given the upfront pricing. Yes, upfront and also the license fee for years.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Just to clarify that we're expecting the meaningful revenue per year to start from 27 onwards and not in 26. And when we think about the potential... So today, there is only a small fraction of the percent of miles driven by people in the U.S. that is autonomous. And although it becomes more and more pervasive in more cities, and others that are claiming to launch those services, we're still scratching the surface. As we envision the next few years towards the end of the decade, we believe this number will significantly grow. And we believe that we'll be one of the maybe two or three enablers for that, but it It's realistic to have only two or three and not 20 or 30 in that stage, and the volumes to facilitate for the demand in the U.S. and Europe for mobility services is in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, potentially millions of vehicles. This is why partnering with OEMs at Kinscale is so important.

speaker
Mark Delaney
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

This is very helpful. Thanks. My other question was on the consumer vehicle part of the business. You mentioned in the prepared comments that potential new awards with Supervision and Chauffeur, I think you said are going somewhat slower than you'd have liked. Why do you think that is? And maybe help us better understand as you think about the opportunity set with Supervision and Chauffeur. You talked about five OEMs being in more advanced stages of evaluation at your last investor day. Are those five all still active or have there been any changes there? Thank you.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, so I think There are some macro events that are obviously contributing to the delays or to the longer decision-making process than originally expected. The past two to three months have been very turbulent for the industry in general. That probably served a significant role in taking more time to make these decisions. We still have a lot of confidence in the engagements we have. We see progress made. We're moving through the ropes of the different stages and getting to concrete stages. receiving official RFQs and getting to negotiation statuses. We're getting closer to convergence with several of these opportunities that we mentioned in the IRD. So I think overall, we still have the confidence we have in supervision, which remains as high as it's been. We just need to be patient and make sure that we're doing the right things with the OEMs. And many things can happen in the next few weeks, but we don't think we should be predicting when things will happen, but it's realistic to converge.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

And I think in the last couple of months, there have been two new engagements that we did not anticipate at the Capital Market Day back in December. And, you know, they are very meaningful in terms of breadth, both supervision and so forth. So I think 2025 is going to be a good year for those advanced products. Thank you, Mark.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

speaker
Aaron Rakers
Analyst, Wells Fargo

Yeah, thanks for taking the question. Kind of building off that last question, you know, thinking about that slide that you'd given at the analyst day, you know, thinking about chauffeur and supervision, I think in total there were seven kind of moving possibly to the right. I guess just to be clear, those seven still exist. Maybe it's taking a little bit longer, and now you would add two new OEMs to that list, just kind of thinking about that progression of those OEM opportunities. Is that fair?

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah. So I think that what has changed is that the nature of the discussion might change. The flags are still there. So in some cases, it's been expanding the discussion from a single product line to multiple product lines. That happens in three of these engagements. I think the most consistent trend is that there is a growing interest in level 3 eyes-off products that are targeting NO27, early 28 SOPs. It seems to be now a very, very strategic product for several big OEMs. That was maybe not as evident in our discussions in the IRD. And in some cases, maybe we have moved from a high-flame to low-flame discussion. maybe in one particular case. But in general, we still have the same long-term confidence that this business is building. Our focus right now is partnering with OEMs that will allow us to scale our next-gen product based on IPv6, which we are now developing, and we have a lot of confidence in our ability to do so.

speaker
Aaron Rakers
Analyst, Wells Fargo

Perfect. And then as a quick follow-up, thinking about the Uber and Lyft relationship and the one-time payment, I also know back at the analyst day you highlighted kind of a chart that showed you know, blended ASP going from $55 to upwards of $200 by the end of late decade. How do we kind of, you know, cross that relative to the Uber and Lyft opportunity, you know, versus that 200, you know, any context of that one time, you know, ASP opportunity with those engagements?

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, I think that chart that they refer to does not take into account the commercial potential of the mobile drive partnership with Lyft, Uber that we just announced. And it's pure upside to that. So I think that in most of the analysis we showed about future revenue growth, we took an extremely conservative assessment of drive progression. So in previous numbers that we shared, it was not reflected. Sorry, just to add a comment. This chart was focused on how will a consumer car, a passenger car, look like. So today it's $55. That's what the chart said. But today, for that OEM, a passenger car is worth roughly $55 for Mobileye. And with a gradual adoption of our advanced products that are designed for passenger cars, that number can grow from $55 to roughly $200-plus.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

It did not reflect any Robotaxi business.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Well, we said about the Robotaxi business in the past. what we said about the robo taxi business in the past is, is kind of the upfront cost is, is in the five figures plus, you know, like.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

With healthy margins.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

With healthy margins. So it's, it's a completely different business model because you're talking about generating revenue per mile, you know, across, you know, hundreds of thousands of miles per vehicle. So the, and you're talking about replacing, you know, a human driver, which can cost, you know, $80,000, $90,000 a year if you think about two shifts of drivers. So it's kind of a different business model and just a completely different revenue per unit. Thank you. Thank you, Aaron.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Gary Mobley with Loop Capital. Please go ahead.

speaker
Gary Mobley
Analyst, Loop Capital

Thanks for speaking in my question. The European OEM that you mentioned in your press release that you haven't done business with since 2016, What drove that re-engagement, and is this a redundant application for their internal chip, or just any sort of color you can give on that?

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

Yeah, so going as detailed as possible, given the nature of this business, it is not a redundant product. It is to practically source mobilized solution as their ADAS solution. in future projects. So it's basically going back to a mobilized solution after almost nine years of not having mutual design wins, which we see as another testament of our product advantages and position in the market as a market leader in this segment. And we don't know all the details, but we can assume that it's mostly about performance versus cost superiority that we have.

speaker
Gary Mobley
Analyst, Loop Capital

That's helpful. Just a quick follow-up. Are you reaffirming your non-GAAP gross margin for fiscal year 25 of 150 basis point improvements over the prior year?

speaker
Moran Shamesh
CFO, Mobilized

Yeah, so we are still anticipating an increasing gross margin. The mix of supervision and IQ is different in 2025. So we're still expecting an upside of approximately 100 basis points in 2025 versus 2024.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Yeah, I think China volumes are a little bit lower margin for us. So as the China volumes kind of outperform a bit, that leads to like a little bit less upside than or, you know, increase than we were expecting. But very, very small.

speaker
Gary Mobley
Analyst, Loop Capital

Thank you very much.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question. Addison Yu with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

speaker
Addison Yu
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Hey, thank you for taking our question. I want to come back on Robotech CEO. How do you think about the performance threshold for Drive in these US deployments? Obviously now you have Uber as well. Is there some level where you need to kind of prove or they need to feel comfortable with that it will achieve before you can really get these deployments ramping up?

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

Well, we have clear metrics with our customers. that show superior to human-level performance, and we are on track to meeting those metrics.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

There is a constant mutual evaluation of the performance from us in the development stage, and we're seeing, let's say, very strong progression towards this target, and this is the basis of taking the decision to take the next step and go into the commercial deployment stage.

speaker
Addison Yu
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Gotcha. And is it the same threshold for both the two deployments, or are there actually nuances depending on who you're working with at Uber or Lyft?

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

No, it's the same threshold.

speaker
Addison Yu
Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Okay. And just one quick one. From a liability perspective, has that been kind of hashed out who is kind of liable for... Yeah, who is sort of liable of anything, kind of if there's an accident or something, is that been hashed out already or is that TBD?

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

So that's, these aspects are behind us without going into the details.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Edison.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Next question, Tom Harrian with RBC, please go ahead.

speaker
Tom Harrian
Analyst, RBC

Hi, thanks for taking the question. The first one has to do with surround ADAS versus supervision. It looks like we have, yes, surround ADAS with the VW mass market brands supervision for the VW's premium brands. But obviously we noticed some of the premium OEMs, Mercedes, BMW, trying to develop their own autonomy. Just how do we think about supervision going forward given this potential headwind? Is it that maybe we should be contemplating surround ADAS being the kind of bigger category winner for you guys as opposed to supervision? Or do you just see a migration as the mass market players over time kind of migrate towards supervision from surround ADAS?

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

We see surround ADAS as the next level of ADAS. So the migration is from front-facing camera to surround ADAS. And this is driven by increased regulatory requirements on future ADAS systems, both in Europe and in the U.S. The 2028 and 2029 regimes are very challenging and require multiple cameras. A front-facing camera would not be enough. So the surround ADAS is really the new ADAS going forward. Supervision shares the same sensor set in terms of cameras with the chauffeur and driver. So supervision is the next step going from eyes on to eyes off in a hands-free driving that can drive everywhere, urban and highway. Supervision has also added advantage of generating data. So because it's the same sensor set, you can start with a supervision system, use that as a data generator, for example, uploading events, uploading your You write all sorts of probe functions, and you upload the data, and you use that data to go further and develop Level 3 and Level 4. So there is a space for supervision, and the Holy Grail is Level 3. Chauffeur is really, if you look at where things should converge to in terms of consumer cars, it's Level 3, and then later expanding the ODD to Level 4.

speaker
Tom Harrian
Analyst, RBC

Okay, just to clarify, so you're not seeing a change in how you guys see the adoption being maybe more towards surround ADAS versus supervision. Rather, it's just a migration.

speaker
Nimrod Nuchtan
EVP of Business Development and Strategy, Mobilized

No, and the way we analyze this is by evaluating the vehicle models with different price points for each product category. So it's practically different segments of the vehicle lines that are targeting surround ADAS and supervision or chauffeur.

speaker
Tom Harrian
Analyst, RBC

Okay. And my follow-up had to do with, I guess, the commentary on the test learnings call earlier this week on general AI versus kind of sensor-based mapping. I know you guys have talked a lot about this. We heard a lot about this at the Investor Day. But they referenced specifically their FSD rollout in China and how it has progressed, in their words, very quickly without knowing the country's specific dynamics, driving dynamics, habits, etc. Just curious to how you think about maybe their commentary on the general AI approach camera versus alternative things.

speaker
Professor Amnon Shashua
CEO and President, Mobilized

We're all using AI. I think we should stop all this hyping. Everyone is using AI. Everyone is using Gen AI. All these hypes, I think we should stop. But to the point, there's a lot that simulators can add. So, for example, in our launch in China, traffic lights are completely different than what you see in the West. Traffic lights are digital, where you have a counter at every place, and we cannot send data from China, outside of China, but we replicated this in a simulator, and then we used the simulators in order to train our systems. And we use simulators a lot to compensate, to mitigate the fact that we cannot use data in China. And this is kind of standard techniques. Everyone is using it. And I think we should stop hyping things, really.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

Thank you, Tom.

speaker
Moderator
Conference Moderator

Thank you. I would like to turn the floor over to Dan for closing remarks.

speaker
Dan Gauss
Host

We've run out of time. Thanks, everyone, for joining the call, and we will talk to you again next quarter. Thanks very much.

speaker
Stacey
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

Disclaimer

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