Earnings Labs

Kopin Corporation (KOPN)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Mon, Aug 6, 2018

$3.95

-1.38%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Kopin Corporation second quarter earnings call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Rich Sneider, CFO. Thank you.

Richard 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 market. I will go through the second 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 Monday, August 6, 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 differ materially 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

Thank you for joining us this morning to review our continued progress as we maintain our leadership position in providing display and optics to the companies driving the adoption of AR and VR, especially across military, enterprise and industrial applications. On the consumer side, we're driving the growth ourselves with the commercialization of SOLOS glasses this quarter. In this May, SOLOS, our smart glasses for fitness, became available for purchase on our website. As we have discussed, this new generation of SOLOS includes the many feedbacks that we received from users, who participated in our Kickstarter campaign last year as well as from U.S. Olympic cyclists, who partnered with us. With the new features incorporated in this SOLOS, as we described, it is the most advanced AR smart glasses available for sports and fitness. SOLOS offers many unique capabilities that appeal to athletes who cycle or ride. The ability to receive critical performance information on a display that makes it look like the data is floating in front of them. A group communication feature that can communicate with friends and teammates on group rides or runs, and the ability to listen to music without the distraction of hassles utilizing our innovative audio projection speakers embedded in the SOLOS. Kopin's Pupil display modules and Whisper chip's voice extraction technology made this all possible. Currently, SOLOS is available at our website solos-wearables.com. We're also taking steps to establish distribution channels and have entered into agreements with a number of specialized retailers such as Backcountry, which is a widely known online fitness retailer. We're also working with b8ta, a new concept in retailing where customers can try and purchase new technology products. SOLOS will be available in selected locations in b8ta locations. We're also raising visibility for SOLOS by partnering with athletes groups.…

Richard Sneider

Analyst

Thank you, John. Beginning with the results for the second quarter of 2018, total revenues were $5.9 million compared with $5.9 million for the second quarter of 2017. Our industrial revenues were impacted by lower demand from customers, who purchase our products for 3D metrology application. This decrease was offset by an increase in sale of our products for consumer applications. Cost of sales for the second quarter was 78% of product revenues compared with 83% of second quarter of last year. Gross margins increased slightly due to a higher absorption of overhead costs. R&D expenses in the second quarter of 2018 was $4.5 million compared with $4.7 million in the second quarter of 2017, essentially flat. SG&A expenses were $6.9 million in the second quarter of 2018 compared with $5.2 million in the second quarter of 2017. SG&A increased for the three months ended June 30 as compared to the three months ended July 1, 2017, primarily due to an increase in compensation expenses, including stock-based compensation, product promotion expenses and information technology expenses, partially offset by consultant usage and patent maintenance fees. Other income expenses was expensed at $52,000 in the second quarter of 2018 as compared with income of approximately $800,000 in the second quarter of 2018 - '17, excuse me. The second quarter of 2018 includes approximately $236 of foreign currency losses as compared with approximately $556,000 of foreign currency gains in the second quarter of 2017. Turning to the bottom line. Our net loss attributable to controlling interest for the quarter was approximately $9.2 million or $0.13 per share compared with a loss of $7.3 million or $0.10 per share for the second quarter of 2017. Second quarter amounts of depreciation and stock compensation are attached in the table to the Q2 press release. Turning to 2018, we continue to expect 2018 revenues to be in the range of $30 million to $35 million. We believe operating expenses will be largely flat compared with 2017. We concluded the quarter with approximately $53 million of cash and marketable securities and no long-term debt. The amounts I have just discussed are our current estimates, so I'll remind our listeners to review our Form 10-K for the second quarter June 30, 2018, when final amounts are filed. With that, operator, we will take questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question is Patrick Metcalf with Newbridge.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Can you give me an update on the Lenovo joint venture, the licensing relationship you have there on AR/VR and possibly MR with that relationship?

John Fan

Analyst

The question is the relationship with Lenovo NV joint venture. The relationship is going strong. They're coming out with AR glass, not just one, there are several AR glasses for different industries. I think they also announced also for security - for police security also a glass. So we are providing them not only display, also the Whisper chips.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay. Will that relationship be a licensing relationship?

John Fan

Analyst

It is a licensing relationship in - for equities, yes. We actually have equity in the company, yes. Over 10%, yes.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay. And then your other Chinese licensing agreement with Pico Interactive. Where does that stand and when do you see the product coming to market?

John Fan

Analyst

That particular product, they're still developing, so I do not know exactly when they're ready to introduce it. Yes.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay. And then, lastly, how is Google Glass holding up in the marketplace and do you see a chance where they'll be ordering from you again? And then you talked about a new design win in the last conference call, how's that setting up?

John Fan

Analyst

Yes. The question from Patrick is the Google Glass. Google Glass has announced earlier this year that they have good response on their Google Glass. So the rest of the situation, I'm afraid that you should ask Google.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay. And then the new design win, any traction there?

John Fan

Analyst

There's a lot of activities on AR glass, especially AR glass. And I think the inflection point, as we now notice, is actually arriving. We're seeing a much stronger demand for our components both - especially in our display and optics for the coming year. So I think in our recent presentations, I think, probably, Rich, he projected a significant increase in the AR glass demand. So for now, it's our existing customers, but for some new customers coming online.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay, great. And then Whisper chip. I know you have 30-plus patents surrounding Whisper chip, both far field, near field, but we don't hear anything about Whisper chip other than the product being in SOLOS, now in the new Golden-i. Can you give us an idea of how your design wins outside of your current in-house products is looking like? Is there any traction on the Whisper chip possibly going into a pair of earphones or something else?

John Fan

Analyst

Yes. The question is about Whisper chip. It's a very good question. The technology is so new, as I say we have over 30 patents issued or pending. So what we find now is that people look at this technology because it is not noise cancellation, it's a voice extraction. There is no such thing in the market yet. So just look at it. So we decided, we have to pioneer the applications and show the advantage. SOLOS and Golden-i are, in fact, devices that show the advantages. I say Golden-i Infinity especially is totally voice controlled. In addition to that, our partners, for instance, RealWear and Lenovo joint venture are incorporating Whisper. So pretty soon next year, you will see a whole bunch of devices using Whisper and I think this by themselves will be a huge demo and promoters for our new technology.

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay, great. So you feel very comfortable, confident that you have the right products, the right road map to have a successful 2019. This is just a one quarter blip with the military being pushed out, but as far as the commercialization of AR smart glasses, it looks to be right on track for a strong second half.

John Fan

Analyst

Yes. Second half and the year beyond. I think we have been planning for that step to incentivize. Remember a few years ago, we had very strong revenue growth from TWS, the earlier thermal gun sight business. I think that we told us the best way is to have multiple sources of incomes. So in the military, we have multiple programs, now the FWS, which is now the follow-up for TWS. We have the armored vehicle, and we have the F-35 ramping up. So we have multiple sources dampening out the unevenness. In addition to that, not only our component business are growing, we are providing both SOLOS and Golden-i next year - for the next year growth. So next year, almost all of development programs are finishing up. Products are into the market and provide multiple sources of revenue. So we look towards next year to be [up still optimistically] [ph].

Patrick Metcalf

Analyst

Okay, great. And then, John, I see a lot of talk on mixed reality and waveguide sockets out there.

John Fan

Analyst

Yes. Mixed reality is a very interesting thing. It all becomes very clear now - it is clear that mixed reality sits in the middle of AR/VR. I'm now going to be giving a talk in Asia in September. AI is augmented reality. This allows people - to make people more productive, more informative - have information on the fingertip. And VR is a degree that gives you a new dream world, fantasy world, another universe to you. MR is somewhere in the middle. It's more for good simulations, designs and it is in between, which is very good for enterprise. So I think people discovered that technology may be a little bit easier than AR/VR and I think that might be the second wave after AI has come out of MR for enterprise, industrial applications and then VR will come. Yes, they're all coming in stages. Displays and optics as well as voice are already in those devices.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for closing remarks.

John Fan

Analyst

Thank you joining us this quarter, and we'll see you next quarter. Thank you.