VIA optronics AG

Hello everyone and welcome to the Viya Optronics AGQ1-22 earnings call. My name is Charlie and I'll be coordinating the call today. You'll have the opportunity to ask a question at the end of the presentation. If you'd like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'll now hand the call over to your host, Lisa Fortuna with Investor Relations to begin. Lisa, please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome. Joining me today are Juergen Eichner, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Dr. Marcus Peters, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during this conference call relating to the company's expected future performance, future business prospects, or future events or plans may include forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Participants are directed to via Uptronics Form 20S for a description of certain business risks, some of which may be outside of the control of the company that may cause actual results to materially differ from those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any duty to provide updates to our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Our earnings release for the first quarter of 2022 is posted on the company's website at buyoptronics.com. With that, let me now turn the call over to Juergen for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, good afternoon, and thank you for all of you for joining us today. We are excited to briefly discuss our financials for the full year 2021, which can also be found on our form 20F, highlight our Q1-22 results, and most importantly, share our outlook for Q2 and the full year 2020. To begin, I'd like to take a few minutes to provide an overview of VIA's key achievements over the last year and our go-forward business strategy. In 2021, we had many exciting business developments. We acquired and began the integration of Germanius, a high-tech company focusing on automotive system integration and user interfaces for well-known high-end original equipment manufacturers, OEMs. This is the continuation of a successful partnership which has allowed us to provide advanced cockpit solutions with our display and touch components including new developments in functionality overall. We formed a strategic partnership also with SigmaSense to develop new touch sensing solutions, this being part of our offering. The partnership allows us to apply new innovations across industries from the consumer market to the high-tech automotive and industrial markets. Finally, we incorporated a new entity via Optronics in the Philippines for the design and development of camera solutions. As a reminder, via Philippines was incorporated to facilitate the integration of a camera design and development team that was previously part of integrated microelectronics IMI. Thus far in the fiscal 2020, we have also had some notable achievements. In February, we announced that we received the 2021 Award for the Best Technology Innovations Value Strategy for Germany from Capital Finance International. This award acknowledges our commitment to developing innovative and cutting-edge solutions for applications that require sunlight-readable, robust and optically superior interactive system solutions. In May, we announced the expansion of our staff and capabilities in Nuremberg. VIA has added a new production site adjacent to our headquarters and started ramping up MS production in the automotive production line, which has already achieved record shipments of over 31,000 units as of May 31, 2020. This growth not only demonstrates our flexibility and diligence, but also our innovative capacity as we set our sights on our potential growth ahead. Finally, this past month, we announced plans for a new production site in the Philippines. We expect that site will increase operational efficiencies and help increase margins while also mitigating the impacts of ongoing geopolitical pressures, cost increases and restrictions in China. Although we have not been able to implement all the desired measures to negate the increased supply chain costs during the first quarter, We have agreements in place with customers starting in July, which will allow us to adjust prices and stabilize margins in the second half of the year. Despite this, we are proud of how our team has performed amidst the ongoing semiconductor shortages, shipping challenges, and continued COVID-19 lockdowns in China. Despite these headwinds, demand for our display systems and solutions remains robust. Forecasted demand Expressed on a compounded annual growth rate or CAGR basis from 2020 to 2025 for automotive, consumer and industrial are 16.4%, 5.9% and 16.2% respectively. More than ever, work from home drove higher usage of PCs, laptops and tablets. In addition, we consistently saw a greater need for connectivity in cars, more autonomous systems and shared mobility over the past year. Our customers are increasingly aware and sensitive to the technical and optical challenges that come with the new user interfaces combined out of displays and touchscreens in terms of light, shock and extreme temperatures. Our solutions stand up against the challenges of today across multiple end markets in which superior functionality and durability is a critical differentiating factor. Before I hand the call to Markus, I'd like to provide an update on the supply chain, specifically the global component shortage and its impact on Viya. While we have continued to successfully navigate these challenges compared to the broader market, there have been cost increases affecting our business as a result of the component shortage and shutdowns in China, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and material price increase due to freight rates. We continue to work with our customers on a case-by-case basis to mitigate the impact on our business. In summary, we are pleased by the process that we have made and the results we have achieved in the first quarter of 2022. And this should support continued momentum and growth in the fiscal year 2020 and beyond. However, during this year, we will focus on reinstalling and growing our margins. This is the first priority. With that said, I'd now like to turn over the call to Markus for a short overview of the full year 2021 financials and a detailed review of our first quarter 2022 performance. Markus?