Earnings Labs

China Automotive Systems, Inc. (CAAS)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 10, 2012

$4.43

-1.99%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the China Automotive Systems’ second quarter 2012 conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Kevin Theiss. Thank you. You may begin.

Kevin Theiss

Management

Thank you for joining us today and welcome to China Automotive Systems 2012 second quarter conference call. My name is Kevin Theiss and I am with Grayling, China Automotives’ U.S. Investor Relations Advisor. Joining us today are Mr. Hanlin Chen, Chairman; Mr. Qizhou Wu, Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Jie Li, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Daming Hu, Chief Accounting Officer of China Automotive Systems. They will be available to answer questions later in the conference call and we will help with translation. Before we begin, I will remind all listeners that throughout this call we may make statements that may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date of this call and actual results may differ materially from the results described in or anticipated by our forward-looking statements due to certain risks and uncertainties, including those described under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 9, 2012, and in documents subsequently filed by the Company from time to time. The Company expressly disclaims any duty to provide updates to any forward-looking statements made in this call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I will provide a brief overview and summary of the 2012 second quarter results and then I will turn the call over to management to conduct the question-and-answer session. The 2012 second quarter results are un-audited numbers under U.S. GAAP. In our call today, I will review the financial results in U.S. dollars. Second quarter unit sales in 2012 continue to be sluggish as total vehicle sales increased by 10.1% to 4.8 million units. However the growth was uneven, as unit sales of passenger vehicles increased 16.6% to 3.8 million units…

Operator

Operator

We’ll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) One moment while we poll for questions. The first question comes from the line of Echo He with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question. Alain Lillie [ph] – Maxim Group: Hello. Hi, this is Alain Lillie on behalf of Echo. I’ve got two questions. Yes, two questions. Can you talk about the ASP in 2Q and how is that compared to last quarter and what do you expect in the coming quarters? And the second question is that given that actually your gross margin, operating margins improved in this quarter sequentially and year-by-year and also given that the inflation is not a threat anymore in the coming – in the rest of the year. Where do you expect gross margins going forward? Do you expect to remain at the current level or do you think you have room to improve? Thank you so much.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

[Interpreted]. In terms of ASP, if we look at the year-over-year comparison, actually it’s slightly down about 3%. We think that 3% if move on a breakdown a portion of that which is about 2% basically are price cuts. And the other 1% is our product mix as we increase from the lower price mechanics in steering products.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

[Interpreted]. Okay. In terms of ASP change in the coming quarters, we think the price has pretty much spent alike. There is not so much room for price reduction. So we believe we can control within 1% that maximum reduction on our price for the second half of the year in terms of year-over-year comparison.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

[Interpreted]. Okay. To your second question, first part of the gross margin. We saw a recovery of a gross margin mainly due to our cost control measures. We have seen a lot of things has been reduced in the common cost side. First is the raw material, the raw steel and price had gone down. On the labor side, it’s been a number of years since China has increased a quite a bit on the labor cost. Now we’re reaching equilibrium so we think the labor hike is pretty much flattened. And lastly the procurement. We have done a number of – we’ve made number of efforts to improve our portfolio program and reduce relevant costs. So as a result of that, our gross margin has been improved. And looking into the second half of the year, we think that at least we believe that gross margin will maintain 19.4% 19.5%. If we’re looking to 2013, we think the gross margin could be better and mainly due to more increased sales to international markets and also the EPS metric power steering products sales are still been moderate in 2012. So we expect some kind of ramp up in 2013.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

[Interpreted]. Okay. So yes, and the selling and G&A expense also reduced during the quarter and we actually increased quite a lot on the R&D side. We’re focused around a number of initiatives. One is OEM relationship development. We’ve been using our R&D programs, building more models with our customers. Also we’ll be increasing our R&D effort on the EPS in (inaudible) building products and lastly is our joint venture – and lastly is this, our target market, new target market with both joint venture – Sino-foreign joint venture OEMs. So going forward we’re going to leverage our strong R&D capability and keen to penetrate the market.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) There are no questions at this time. I’d like to hand the floor back over to management for closing comments.

Qizhou Wu

Analyst

[Interpreted]: Thank you for attending second quarter earnings conference call. We look forward to speaking with you in the coming quarter. Thank you. Bye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And thank you for your participation.