Morris Young
Analyst · Needham & Company. Please go ahead
Thank you, Gary. I want to begin with an update on the export restriction because I know that is top of mind for many of you. Then I will discuss current market opportunities and our plan for gross margin improvement. As many of you know, on February 4, the China government-imposed trade restrictions on the export of indium phosphide material. Similar to 2023 restriction on gallium arsenide substrates. These regulations explicitly seek to restrict the export of material used for military applications. Therefore, we are now undertaking an export permit process for indium phosphide similar to what we have done for gallium arsenide over the last two years. We were disappointed that the portal to accept export applications did not open until April. That said, we were well prepared when it did open. And we have submitted comprehensive applications on behalf of all major indium phosphide customers outside of China. In our experience, we typically hear back initial applications within 45 business days and repeat applications are often processed faster. As such, we do not expect to be able to ship indium phosphide to customers outside of China before mid-June at earliest. As Board mentioned previously, we do not believe that any of our indium phosphide sales go to military applications. So we feel that we are in a good position to realize a backlog of sales once we can navigate the permit process. While the current geopolitical environment present a near-term headwind for our business, we are also discovering some unique opportunities. The cloud and data center connectivity market in China is accelerating. And in an effort to promote innovation and reduce dependency of foreign suppliers, we are seeing a significant effort to develop domestic source of EML and silicon photonics-based lasers. We estimated that the Chinese data center optical interconnect market is currently around 1/3 of the global market. However, most of the optical devices for these interconnects are sourced from outside of China and applications for indium phosphide within China remain focused on PON today. Further, laser manufacturers in China are developing an appreciation for the critical benefit of very low EPD material in high-speed interconnect devices, both in the traditional PON market and in the new data center market. As a result, our sales of indium phosphide within China are increasing. The TAM for data center market remains small at this moment, but we do expect to see significant growth over the next few years, as the PON laser providers expand their portfolio of market to include EML and silicon photonics solutions. That said, in Q2, we expect healthy double-digit growth for our revenue from data center applications in China of a Q1 level. We also have significant indium phosphide backlog from customers outside of China that is ready to ship. We are working diligently to support the need of our customers globally, and we are hopeful that Tongmei can begin to secure permits for initial geographies soon. Turning to gallium arsenide. We continue to see recovery, particularly in China and Taiwan across a number of applications like high-power industrial lasers, wireless routers and Wi-Fi. We believe there is a sizable opportunity for our gallium arsenide substrate in HPT devices for the wireless market. This represents exciting potential for which we believe our technology and products are well suited for. With the cost of performance breakthroughs we achieved on our 8-inch product as well as strong relationship building with one of our largest Asian-based epi provider, we're in a great position for growth. But this is a competitive and sophisticated market. We were excited in Q1 to have the opportunity to compete for a large share, but we stumbled in trying to scale too quickly. We continue to view this as an exciting space, but are taking a more measured approach to market -- to this market share expansion to ensure that we can execute effectively as we increase our production levels. We're also seeing a notable increase in design activities and qualification for gallium arsenide-based lidar for the autonomous vehicle market in China. With the growing adoption of autonomous vehicles and high-precision sensing technologies, gallium arsenide has become a critical material due to its superior electronic properties and ability to operate effectively in high-frequency applications. Chinese manufacturers are increasingly investing in the development of lidar system for the EV market that leverage gallium arsenide, recognizing their potential to enhance resolution and accuracy in object detection and navigation of the competing camera-based solutions. Similar to what we are seeing in the data center market, there seems to be a push in China towards reducing dependency on foreign suppliers and fostering domestic innovation. As a result, we believe that the demand for lidar is poised to grow and that this is a market in which our low-EPD gallium arsenide substrates are showing tremendous value in device performance. Over the last 12 months, we have aggressively advanced the technology -- technical capability of our material to help our global customer base solving complex next-generation challenges. The material we supply are being used in highly sophisticated applications such as the ones that we have mentioned today, where our breakthroughs in delivering extremely low EPD give us a distinct competitive advantage in both indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. I'm extremely proud of our team for the rapid progress we have made. For that reason, I cannot allow gross margin setbacks in our substrate business to cloud the achievement that we're making in our technology. We strongly believe over the coming quarters, we can drive meaningful improvement in our gross margin. In the near term, we're taking a more measured approach in the HPT market to ensure that our gallium arsenide production and yield can ride themselves. This is now among our highest priority here in China and the top priority for our manufacturing leadership. We expect to see improvement beginning this quarter and continue throughout the balance of 2025. This is an issue that is very much in our control, and we are laser-focused on fixing it. It is also worth noting that the decrease in substrate sales as a result of trade restriction has also impacted our gross margin performance, as Gary noted. We feel good about our ability to begin to secure indium phosphide permits, which should help our overall sales volume in the back half of the year and contribute to a healthy revenue and product mix. Both of these will help us in a gross margin lift for our business. Before I conclude, I want to say a few words about our raw material joint ventures. Sales in Q1 were strong and we have been trending up over the past year. We continue to invest in expanding our capability and have built an impressive portfolio, which today includes gallium, arsenic, PBM crucibles, quartz, indium and germanium. The strategic value of this material is not only that we can more cost effectively supply all of our critical materials needed to manufacture our product, but we also benefit from the additional revenue stream generated by our joint ventures to sales of this product on the open market. The asset value of this portfolio has grown substantially over the last 20 years, and we will continue to expand our opportunity in 2025 through the development of new markets. There is a new and greater awareness of the importance of earth material, and we are ahead of the curve in developing this unique integrated supply chain. In summary, while the geopolitical environment is creating undeniable challenges, we are focusing our energies where we can drive positive return today. We're uniquely positioned to optimize growth opportunities in China, such as high-speed data center connectivity and sensors for autonomous driving, and we are pursuing these and then other opportunities with success across key markets for indium phosphide, gallium arsenide and germanium substrates. We're also working tirelessly on behalf of our global customer base to ensure that we can continue to support their needs across all our products. We recognize this is a challenging time for our customers, our investors and our employees, and we are deeply committed to working diligently on your behalf. With that, I will turn the call back to Gary for our second quarter guidance. Gary?