VIA optronics AG

Hello everyone and welcome to the Viroptronics fourth quarter 2022 financial results conference call and thank you for standing by. My name is Daisy and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to ask a question please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand your hand over to your host Samuel Cohen with Alpha IR Group to begin so Samuel 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 the optronics form 20F for 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 the 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 will cross the wire shortly for the preliminary unaudited fourth quarter and full year results of 2022 and will be shortly posted on the company's website at bioptronus.com. Please note that since these are preliminary unaudited results, the company did not provide segment level detail this quarter. Final audited group financial statements will be made available within the required 20F filing period. With that, let me now turn the call over to Juergen for a few opening remarks.

Yeah, thank you, Sam. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. In today's call, we will cover our fourth quarter and full year 2022, as well as share our outlook for 2023. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $54.9 million, an increase of 18.6% from $46.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Total revenue for the full year 2022 in 2022 was 218.5 million, an increase of 20.9% from 180.8 million in 2021. The top-line growth exceeded our expectations and was driven by continuous strength in our display solutions segment. We were pleased with our fourth quarter results, capping an important year in which our team has demonstrated resolve in overcoming challenges presented by the broader microelectronic and macroeconomic environment, including supply chain efficiencies and ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted our operational results in 2021 and 2022. As I step back and look at the full year, we made significant strides to resolve such impacts by cost-down activities and sales price adjustments. Even though the measures did not cover the whole year as they phased in during the course of 2022, we can already show significantly improved results in 2022. Furthermore, we did consolidate and strengthen the organization, expanding our Nuremberg facility and completing our production ramp-up while implementing cost savings measures to expand margins. Further improvements will phase in in 2023 like production efficiency measures, shared service services, shared service, savings, and others. A big contributor will be the production in Nuremberg, running now smoothly, showing that we can produce even higher quantities compared to what we planned. The production line was enhanced to enable significantly higher throughput. Additionally, we continue to separate ourselves from competitors by further pushing our display and sensor technology as well as the camera portfolio. This enables us to fulfill the the specifications of our automotive and industrial customers, which are ever-changing and advancing. And we remain in an optimal position to exceed their unique requirements. The growing demand for sunlight-readable in- and outdoor displays, as well as sensors and cameras, has resulted in increased order volume for the cutting-edge technology solutions. We are excited about our healthy pipeline of projects with Fortune 400 companies. Additionally, we are exploring opportunities to extend our solution for car interiors with interactive display and touch functionality with industrial partners. We believe that will drive considerable growth in the future and look forward for sharing additional details later this year as it fits the demand and the requirement of the changing automotive supply chain. Turning to our cost savings initiatives, our shared service center in the Philippines will allow us to consolidate our administrative and global services, which will drive synergies and reduce operating expenses. And we recently kicked off our first shared services activities in the Philippines. We believe that this combination will allow us to redistribute resources and free up capital to improve business critical functions and focus on growth opportunities in each of the three end markets. Looking ahead to 2023, It appears that elevated freight costs are beginning to ease and our measures mitigate the impacts going forward. In 2023, we anticipate the further realization of the previously announced performance improvements and continuously focus on higher value projects that will support merchants. Going forward, we believe that these initiatives will continue to help improve our merchant profile and position the company for long-term sustainability and profitability. Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, there are strong structural entailments in the end markets in which we operate, and we remain well positioned to capture the expanding applications and use cases for our products. The increased adoption of electronic vehicles and sophistication of applications in these vehicles support our long-term growth forecasts, and we continue to believe that we provide a critically differentiated offering to auto and industrial OEMs. With that said, I'd now like to turn the call over to Markus for a review of our fourth quarter and full year 2022 performance and the full year outlook. Markus?