Good morning and welcome to the WiSA Technologies First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Barnard, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andrea and thank you all for joining us today. With us today on the call are Brett Moyer, CEO and President; and CFO, Jeff Oliva; and Mike Binn, SVP of Business Marketing from Comhear, Before turning the call over to Brett, I'd like to remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties impacting WiSA's business, including current macroeconomic uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, our inability to predict or measure supply chain disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and other drivers. Our ability to predict the timing of design wins, entering production and the potential future revenue associated with design wins, rate of growth, the ability of future revenue associated with design wins and predict customer demand for existing and future products to secure adequate manufacturing capacity, consumer demand conditions affecting consumers' end markets, and the ability to hire retain and motivate employees, the effects of competition, including price competition, technological regulatory and legal developments, developments in the economy and financial markets, risks and uncertainties acting the proposed Comhear at transaction such as the inability to enter into definitive agreements with respect to the proposed transaction, the expected performance of the part two risk related to receipt of necessary regulatory and shareholder approvals, failure to realize the anticipated benefits from the transaction, the ability of the parties to satisfy various conditions closing the proposed transaction and another risk detailed from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those described in Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, as revised erupted for any changes described in any subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and the preliminary and definitive proxy statement or other documents that WiSA intends to file with the SEC in connection with the proposed Comhear transaction. The information in this presentation is as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligations to update regard to do so by law. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brett. Go ahead, Brett.

Thank you, David, and good morning. I'd like to welcome both new investors, old investors, and particularly the Comhear investors today. On the call, we will be focusing on our intent to and describe the strategy around acquiring Comhear. For the new investors, we're going to do a quick overview on WiSA, but I would recommend you either reach out to me to get more detail on WiSA's strategy, or listen to one of our prior calls. But WiSA is focused on smart devices and getting wireless audio from smart devices into the room, around the room, around its commercial space to make sure that the consumer gets that immersive audio experience as if they're in the stadium listening, watching a live game as if they're in a theater here in the movie itself and all the audio above it, behind it to the sides of it, right? So in the core that we're going after that market and we have a strong portfolio of wireless IP. We have an interoperability standards around -- under the brand WiSA. We have a pretty broad customer base of tier one consumer electronics customers, and WiSA has a small product line of speakers under the Platin Audio that's mainly there to drive awareness of WiSA certification within the industry, build up WiSA stores with the retailers, and drive technology demo success with our new technologies as we launch it. But today to that portfolio, we'll be adding Comhear's immerse IP and immersive audio techniques for adapting audio to where a listener is, where they're sitting, right? Financially, we think it has a strong impact once we've merged the two companies. We -- there'll be some -- there's some variability around Q3 and how that impacts us. But starting in Q4 and into 2024,…

Yeah. Yeah. Hi, everyone. Thanks again for your time. Brett, I definitely would reiterate that there's definitely a lot of excitement about the areas of synergy between the two companies, as well as future areas of where the technology overlaps and can enhance different areas. So a little bit about Comhear. Comhear's mission is really to innovate the immersive and directional audio space, with our foundations from patents that are highly defensible from Qualcomm, the Qualcomm Institute in UCSD. We deliver really a world-class experience by leveraging a number of different technologies and deliver those suites with world-class brands, which is really exciting for us. We continue to innovate and a lot of those areas of innovation are in the wireless space. Wireless meaning using IoT sensors and emerging AI to really create unique audio listening experiences, whether that be finite directional audio like Brett mentioned, or immersive audio without the need for surround sound speakers through a linear speaker of our et cetera, in multiple different application verticals is really exciting for us. And we're looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate further as this conversation and acquisition moves forward. What does that mean? What are we doing with AI? What are we doing with IoT sensors and how does that apply to how we want to expand into the marketplace? Comhear has a unique set of patents, like I mentioned, and what we're able to do is do dynamic audio filtering. What that means is we can take in AI enabled and information from sensors and in real time beam audio into different areas and create different formats, meaning we can detect -- if we can detect a number of people in the room or objects or movement, we can reciprocate with an audio format that's very interesting.…

All right. Thanks Mike. Excuse me. So before we open up for questions today, I think we're excited about this opportunity. I think it strengthens our relationship with key customers. It deepens our IP portfolio. And so we're looking forward to completing a set of final documents and sending this out for shareholder vote and closing the transaction in Q3. And with that operator, we'll open up the call for Q&A.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Jim McIlree of Dawson James. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning, Jim.

Hey, guys. The $10 million to $15 million in revenue that you're looking for next year, can you just break that down in a range of what you think it'll be from the legacy WiSA versus the acquired Comhear?

So we didn't do that. I think the characteristics between the two, Jim, is there's a large pipeline of design work going in. Any can move by a quarter or two and it makes a difference. But if you want to split it out, roughly is $5 million to $10 million for each.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And in the Comhear deck, it shows that they sell modules as well as IT licensing, is there -- can you give us some indication about the split between those two revenue streams now and what you think it'll be in the future? And that's just for the Comhear side?

Just for the Comhear side? Mike, do you want to answer that?

Yeah. So when we say modules, we mean integrated audio hardware that has our technology on it, right? And the software. So moving forward, we see a higher ratio of software licensing and IP licensing over the hardware component. And moving directly to -- or I should say the majority of our revenue will be off of reference designs. Our IP licensing and our software stack with our suite of solutions. So we do take a revenue share off of the hardware that's delivered to consumers through our global manufacturing partners. That will shrink as our software and licensing income increases, which is higher revenue for us and is a good compliment to WiSA.

Understood. That's great. Thank you. And I know you didn't put this in the release, but can you just give us a -- either a range or a broad brush characterization of the Comhear cash burn in either recently, or the expectation for 2023?

Well, our expectations when we get consolidated is that it would not impact our cash burn as a company. So there would be offsetting cost reductions in the WiSA group to absorb the Comhear expenses. But they have a very lean operation right now. And that's one of the advantages of the merger for them, I think is to fold into a company that's been built out.

Understood, understood. Okay. Great. Thank you. And I'm sorry, just a couple of more. Is there going to be a merger of the R&D teams or are they going to operate separately?

Well, it depends what timeframe you are, right? If you go out three years, there's one team that's working on all opportunities based on the value of the opportunities, right? If you're looking at day one, both teams are highly focused on getting their initial customers launched, and I don't think we would change that in year one. But….

Yeah. I guess I'm thinking day 180 or the midpoint of that. Okay. Never mind Brett. I think I see what you're saying, so that's fine. I get it. Thank you. I'll withdraw that. And my last one is, can you just talk about the inventory reserve in the quarter of that that you reported? What was that about? And are there -- I'm assuming that you think that's all you need to reserve, but is there additional risk for the inventory that WiSA is holding right now?

So -- well, so the answer to that is we do not believe so, or we would've had a different reserve right there, right? The reserve largely is addressing an imbalance between different components, which is a legacy of the whole COVID supply chain debacles. Right? So I believe we've adequately reserved for products that are misbalanced. We have a number of products that are still going into production on HT that have three to four year life. So I think we're set okay.

Got it. Okay. And just one more if I might. So the operating expenses this quarter down about 800 K from Q4, is the current operating expense run rate stable for the rest of the year flat, down, up? Can you characterize directionally what you think OpEx is going to do just on the WiSA side for the rest of the year?

Yeah. So it will be up in Q4 as we launch the 5.1.4 soundbar with WiSA DS. We think there's -- we're continuing to look at pushing expenses down in Q2 and Q3, so I don't see it going back up. Q4 with Christmas season, we'll have some additional marketing expense in it.

And that additional is relative to Q1 or relative to the potential declines in Qs 2 and 3?

Both.

Okay. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you so much and congratulations on the transaction. It looks very interesting.

Thanks Jim.

The next question comes from Jack Vander Aarde of Maxim Group. Please go ahead.

Okay. Great. Good morning, guys. I appreciate the update, and good to see the strong 2024 growth outlook. So Brett, it's clearly been a tough environment for the entire consumer electronics industry, as I mentioned last quarter, but it sounds like you're still expecting 2023 growth. Can you just talk about the industry headwinds in general and what you're seeing in your -- maybe your online marketing data? And then I'll have a follow up just from the pandemic highs in 2020 and consumers refreshing their -- I guess upgrading their home theaters. Is there an upcoming refresh cycle to think about from those consumers? Thanks Brett.

All right, Jack. That's a lot of big questions. All right. So from a demand perspective, we think we get a fairly solid pulse from the Platin Audio line, right? It is not our main business, but we see stuff turn. And from what we've seen this quarter so far, we -- at least if you make price moves, tough price moves, in some cases consumers respond, which is good, but I still personally believe consumers are pretty tight on the wallets. There's a fair amount of inflation sucking up discretionary income. But we've seen response. We've seen demand change with price actions. So we'll continue to take those price actions in Q2 and Q3 to align the speaker business with the new products that are rolling out. Right? The point of the marketing in Q3 and Q4 around the speakers is really to talk about WiSA and Atmos and immersive audio. So we will move the smaller ones out and we will focus on Atmos, 5.1.2 Monaco, which has the bigger speakers and the upfiring speakers in the front. And then at a lower price point, we'll focus on the 5.1.4 soundbar. They both have advantages, the soundbar is cheaper, but it's got rear upfiring speakers, whereas the Atmos system is a killer sound field for with bigger speakers. Right? So that's what we see on the consumer side. What was the next question you had?

Yeah. It from the pandemic kind of highs where everyone was in their -- the COVID cage, upgrading their home theaters back in 2020, 2021. Are we -- is there a potential for a refresh cycle from those consumers further upgrading their home theaters?

Well, I don't -- yeah, I don't think there's a refresh cycle on TVs coming. But I do think there's an opportunity for the audio space. I wouldn't say refresh, but to extend that home entertainment piece. So if you look at building, whether it's a soundbar, soundbar with rears a full 5.1 or 5.1.2, whatever speaker system around that TV, you still have 75% of the TV sold without external audio. And if you think about your experience in the movie theater or your experience when you go to a professional sports event, that immersive audio really is impactful, right? So we think as the consumers either see their wireless expanding with wage increases or price discounts, so kind of expands the reach of their disposable income that this fall should see a rebound in audio demand.

Okay. Great. And then, just a follow-up. I'm not sure what you can comment, I haven't looked too deep into the 10-Q yet, but with the pending acquisition on sort of Comhear, can you connect this to your ongoing exploration of strategic alternatives that's been kind of laid out in your prior filings? Is this all tied together to dissatisfy what your explorations? Just any update there would be helpful.

Yeah. So we are still active in conversations around strategic partnering with bigger companies. We think the Comhear opportunity is a great opportunity if we say standalone and potentially, depending on which strategic partner we're talking about, could strengthen our opportunity to be of value to a bigger partner.

Okay. Great. Well, I appreciate the comments there. Again, congrats on the strong growth outlook and the exciting announcement of Comhear. Looking forward to tracking it. Thanks Brett.

Thanks Jack.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brett Moyer for any closing remarks. End of Q&A:

Yeah. So I'd like to thank the people that are taking the time this early morning for today to listen to the call. I'm certainly available for calls, but look, the WiSA team is excited on two fronts, both with the traction and the performance we're getting out of WiSA DS and WiSA E and the possibility, the attempt to merge that with the efforts coming from Comhear. We think the two teams can execute well. They can be a more valuable partner to some of our customers and vice versa with our customers. And we look forward to our next call with you in August. And that's it. Operator?

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation and you may now disconnect.