Earnings Labs

Kopin Corporation (KOPN)

Q1 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, May 8, 2018

$3.95

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to Kopin's Q1 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to you host, Mr. Rich Sneider, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Rich Sneider

Analyst

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. John will begin today's call with a discussion of our strategy, technology and markets. I will go through the first quarter 2018 results at a high level. John will conclude our prepared remarks. And then we'll be happy to take your questions. I would like to remind everyone that during today's call, taking place on Tuesday, May 8, 2018, we will be making forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the Company's current expectations, projections, beliefs and estimates and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from those forward-looking statements. Potential risks include, but are not limited to, demand for our products, operating results of our subsidiaries, market conditions and other factors discussed in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements made during today's call. And with that, I'll turn the call over to John.

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Thank you for joining us this morning to discuss our first quarter results. Strengthening our military operations primarily drove performance in this quarter. As we have talked about in the past, our displays and optics have been developed initially for military, meeting its demand for quality and reliability. So the military has always been a key market for Kopin. In Q1, we have the continued ramp of the F-35 fighter jet program, where Kopin is the sole supplier of displays for the pilot helmets. In addition to our current purchase agreement, we have been notified that we will be received – we'll receive shortly follow-on orders through 2019. After quarter-end we received initial production authorization for FWS-I program consisting of 5,000 eyepieces to be delivered over the next year, with shipments beginning in this August. The second part of the program, the FWS-C is also tracking on plan in the initial phase of development. At the same time we’re moving through the early development process on the armored vehicle program, we won the last quarter. And we are pleased that the program was just expanded to include the development of additional eyepiece scopes, increasing the potential total value of the program for Kopin from $40 million to $80 million. Finally, our new Brillian™ LCD microdisplay product line, which was created specifically to meet the extremely high brightness requirements of next generation avionic AR applications and they have been well received by our customers. We expect follow-on orders as development continues on new helmets utilizing the display. We're also seeing good in – uptake in the industrial enterprise AR business. Many of our partners have indicated strong reception for their new industrial products. In addition, we're excited to report a major design win with a global U.S.A. tier one company for…

Rich Sneider

Analyst

Thank you, John. As you may have seen in our press release, Kopin has adopted ASC Topic 606 using the modified retrospective approach, meaning the standard was applied only to the financial results of the first quarter of 2018 with a cumulative adjustment to retained earnings. Under this transition method, we applied the standard only to contracts that were not complete the initial adoption date. In the press release for comparative purposes, we also provided results that would have been under ASC 605. Alright, so turning to results. Beginning with the results for the first quarter of 2018, total revenues were $5.7 million, compared with $4.4 million for the first quarter of 2017. The increase in quarterly revenue year-over-year was primarily driven by military applications. Process sales for the first quarter was 80.5%, of product revenues compared with 79.3% for the first quarter of last year. Gross margin decreased due to lower utilization in one of our facilities, which was partially offset by the increase in military revenues, which have higher gross margins as compared to our other products. R&D expense in the first quarter of 2018 was $4.5 million compared with $4.3 million in the first quarter of 2017, essentially flat. SG&A expenses were $6.9 million in the first quarter of 2018, compared with $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2017, reflecting incremental SG&A of $0.6 million from our acquisition of NVIS in the first quarter of 2017. And an increase in sales and marketing compensation expenses, partially offset by lower professional service fees. The incremental SG&As for NVIS for the three months ended March 31, 2018, primarily relates to the amortization of intangibles resulting from the acquisition. Other income expense was income of $5 million in the first quarter of 2018 as compared with an expense of…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeff Bernstein with Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Hi guys. Just a couple of questions. What's going on with the OLiGHTEK line?

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

You're talking about the OLiGHTEK, which is obviously in Kunming, China, the line is running, and I think, that it will start operational third quarter this year.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Great. And then just a question on the win that you announced with the North America Tier 1. Is that a company you've done business with before?

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Jeff, I'm afraid, I cannot comment on it. It's suffice to say, it's a very large global company.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Got you. Can you say is it an industrial-type company, or is it a Silicon Valley-type company?

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

It would nice to be Silicon Valley company, I think.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Okay. Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question from Jeff Bernstein with Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Alright. Can you give us an update on what's going on with 3D machine vision?

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Yes, that's a market we're talking about using display for 3D morphology. The market is growing very well. I would say, they're growing by 30% a year. We're now beginning to penetrate the Chinese market. And if that happens, hopefully, happens this coming quarter, you'll be very exciting.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

And you had some, I guess, lower factory loading in one of the facilities. Can you just talk about that?

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Sure, sure. We have facilities in Charleston, down in Western Virginia and Westborough, Massachusetts. And so in a typical semiconductor model, we have a high fixed cost. And so utilization in one of our plants is lower than we had anticipated. So the fixed cost per unit was higher which negatively impacted gross margins, but the other facilities did well. So for the most part offset, we're of about 0.8% on the gross margin.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

And is that just a timing issue?

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Yes. We saw orders were going to come through in the first quarter, didn't materialize – I understand them showing up in the second quarter so.

Jeff Bernstein

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Got you. That’s great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I would like to turn the call back to Dr. John Fan for closing remarks.

John Fan

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please proceed with your question

Yes thank you operator. I would like to remind everybody that tomorrow morning we have our annual meeting at 9:00 o’clock. That's our Annual Kopin Meeting. Please, hopefully, you can attend that, the meeting. With that, I'll see you guys next quarter. Thank you, bye-bye.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.