Dr. Mike Chang
Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is now open
Yifan, thank you and thank you everyone for listening us. AOS once again delivered outstanding execution for the June quarter. As the new capacity came on line, we achieved another record quarterly revenue and all of the core financial metrics came in above the mid-point of our guidance ranges. We closed a solid fiscal year 2018 setting a new record with annual revenue and highest non-GAAP earnings per share in 7 years. I am pleased with the annual revenue growth by 10% year-over-year and non-GAAP gross margin expansion by 270 basis points. I am more pleased that we improved the annual non-GAAP earnings per share by 37%, as compared to a year ago. The step up in the revenue run rate and the earnings leverage were driven by strong demand for our diversified new products, and were enabled by the increased internal capacity. Looking back at the fiscal year 2018, every effort we dedicated has been about making fundamental improvements towards our goal to accelerate growth. In terms of demand-side improvement, we continued to bring the market-driven R&Ds and the technology roadmap that coincide with our customers’ emerging interests and needs. The demand for our product remained very strong across all DMOS technology platforms including Low-, Medium-, HighVoltage and IGBT, and some of the design activities are now transitioning to a stable revenue stream. Our Power IC product line that was severely impacted by the supply constraint is expected to resume the growth starting from the September quarter. Our new DrMOS products are gaining traction in Vcore applications, and we are allocating more capacity to support our customers. Additionally, we are just starting the ramp of our products for smartphone battery pack and high-value, high-performance graphics card, I am very excited about the opportunities for scalable expansion led by AOS’s customer-friendly products. With regard to the supply-side, the Chongqing joint venture plan reached several major milestones throughout the year. The constructions of building, infrastructure and Phase 1 clean room were completed ahead of schedule. We started to gradually equip the clean room a couple of quarters ago, and successfully finished the trial production at the assembly and test facility. In addition, we have been gradually expanding our internal capacity over the past multiple quarters to support increasing demand. I am pleased to announce that the critical investments in internal capacity are already in place and the heavy lifting is behind us. Our proactive and deliberate planning and execution have presented us with an opportunity to cultivate enhanced customer engagement. At AOS, our investments are always fundamentally aligned with customers’ success. Among all the business considerations, the top priority during allocation planning was to help customers keep their production lines running even if it sometimes doesn’t maximize our product mix. The AOS strong culture and commitment to customer support were even further recognized and rewarded during last year, which in turn, advanced us to play a greater role in business partnership. As a point in case, our hard work and dedication to the success of Chinese smartphone OEMs in the past few years solidified customer confidence in AOS, and new customers including global brand names opened the door to us. The improved partnership position is reflected in the future business pipeline, and it is a critical asset that provides us with the ability to scale. Our focused execution of business plan is accelerating the financial roadmap, which we believe will enhance our shareholders value. About a year ago, we have published both near-to mid-term and long-term target models. The near-to mid-term goal is to achieve a high-single-digit revenue growth and mid 20% gross margin. The long-term target is to reach $600 million in revenue with greater than 30% gross margin. I am pleased to announce that we have achieved the near-to mid-term financial goals. With the current capacity run-rate, we now expect to grow the top-line by 10% in fiscal year 2019 with notable improvement in the bottom-line. Once Chongqing joint venture ramps up in fiscal year 2020, which we strategically planned since 2015, we are confident that it will significantly enhance our growth opportunity. As we march toward to our next set of goals, we will certainly encounter challenges that will test our patience and determination, but I am optimistic that the critical investments we have made in demand creation and supply capability will better position us to capitalize on the next phase of accelerated growth. I will now move on to the segment review starting with Computing. It represented 43.7% of total revenue in the June quarter. We posted a 13% sequential increase and 19.8% growth year-over-year. Bolstered by the strong share gain across all notebook applications, this segment grew 17.1% in fiscal year 2018. The Computing industry is increasingly expanding beyond personal computing to include Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Internet of Things. As a leader of power management especially in the computing area, we have been relentlessly sharpening our capability to support the customers’ needs. Computing market continues to be an important segment for AOS based on our core competencies and customer partnership, and we are committed to stay on the forefront of the evolving technology. As the demand for our products increases, we expect this segment to grow modestly quarter-over-quarter in the September quarter. Second, Consumer. It was 19.1% of the total revenue. It decreased by 1.7% and 13.2%, sequentially and year-over-year, respectively. The decline in TV revenue caused by the soft demand from one of the major TV OEM customers continued in the June quarter, leading the fiscal year to be down by 7.2%. However, our IGBT product line continues to demonstrate solid improvement as we capture additional market share through design wins with home appliance customers in China. To mitigate the constraint from third party suppliers, we have been strategically migrating new product developments, such as higher power applications for TV and home appliances, into our own production facilities. This strategy will enable us to gradually resume our Consumer business strength. With that, we expect a slight increase in this segment next quarter. Turning to the Power Supply and Industrial Segment it was 20.1% of the total revenue, which grew 1.5% sequentially, and was up 26.3% from the same quarter last year. This segment grew by 11.5% in fiscal 2018 driven by industrial IGBT, αMOS5TM high voltage and the medium voltage platforms. We were able to firmly secure our market position driven by the superior performance of our medium voltage products. We are encouraged by the share gain with quick chargers and the adoption of USB PD applications. We expect to maintain the same level of sales in the September quarter for this segment as compared to the June quarter, primarily due to mix management. Lastly, we also saw strong progress with the Communications segment. It represented 14.1% of the June quarter’s revenue. It demonstrated a healthy growth of 12.1% and 19.2%, sequentially and year-over-year, respectively. We are showing strong footing and continued share gain inthe AlphaDFN product line for smartphone battery management application. Coupled with growing demand in telecom networking products, this segment posted a 22% growth in fiscal year 2018. Fueled by the further production ramp of our AlphaDFN, we expect this growth to continue in the September quarter. In closing, we enter fiscal year 2019 with expanded capacity, stronger portfolio in growing markets, and enhanced customer partnerships. We see great opportunities ahead of us. We are keenly focused on executing our plan to deliver accelerated growth and improved profitability for many years to come. With that, I will now turn the call over to Yifan for the guidance. Yifan?