Thomas Eriksson
Analyst · Cowen & Company
Thank you, David. I am really pleased with the development of the Company and we have made substantial progress during 2015. We increased our revenues 136 percent to $11.1 million compared to 2014. Our core licensing business is growing and we expect it to continue to expand. We have extended our customer base with new market segments. In addition, we made substantial investments in developing and industrializing our technology to make plug-and-play sensor modules for our customers. So why are our modules important? And why are we going in this direction? First, we will improve scaling by delivering standardized product offerings. We can reduce time to market for our customers, as the module is easier to integrate. We can address new market opportunities including the after markets. We will be able to do better forecasting with improved revenue predictability. We will strengthen our competitive advantage and control a greater part of the value chain for our solution. As a result, we expect to see increased revenues and profits. In December, we launched our first sensor module, AirBar, an accessory touch module for the PC market. AirBar has created a lot of interest from consumers, retailers and distributors from all over the world. We believe that with our current licensing business and our solid developed module business we have all the critical elements in place for us to achieve profitability. And now I would like to move over to our Automotive business. It is progressing very well. And it´s exceeding our expectations with an increase of 18 cars that were launched during 2015. At the 86th Geneva Motor Show last week there were no less than 12 new cars on display using our technology. We added a few more in the first quarter of 2016, as right now we are in total of 26 car models. To mention a few, we are in the new Chevrolet Sail, the Buick Hideo, the Geely NL-3, Suzuki CF, S-Cross and Baleno and the SsangYong Korando and the Volvo S90 and XC90. We had a nice revenue ramp in 2015 from our automotive business from zero to $1 million in revenues with over 340,000 cars delivered. We expect the revenue ramp to continue in 2016 as existing models along with new models gain traction. Infotainment with touch is now standard with most brands. Our technology support wet hands, gloved and fingernail operation, it has a very nice speed and soft touch. So, we believe we have the best touch solution on the market that meets the high requirements from our customers in the Automotive business. We have been investing in developing new products and solutions for the Automotive market. We are in development with the world’s largest suppliers of entry systems. Our sensor modules enable gesture controlled doors that eliminate the need for door handles and at the same time enhance the user experience with improved safety. More and more cars with knobs and buttons are moving towards a gesture based user interface to control the car. And our technology is perfectly suited to offer our customers high performance sensing both inside and outside of the car. Neonode’s successful cooperation with Autoliv to industrialize our steering wheel sensor module ensures that tested and certified steering wheels with our sensor modules will become available in the market on a wide scale within the next few years. At CES in January Autoliv showed fully self-driving cars with our steering wheel sensor module controlling the handover process between the driver and the car. This technology is predicted to revolutionize car user’s safety and transportation in the future. Neonode is in pole position with these sensor modules that will enable the usage of self-driving cars in a safe and intuitive way. We are in discussions with some of the largest OEMs in Europe, Asia and in the United States for integration of our steering wheel sensor modules in their cars. During 2015, the number of printers in the market using our touch has increased by over 200 percent from 1.7 million in 2014 to 5.6 million units in 2015. As of today we are in 51 printer models, not including the recently announced 15 new printer models from HP. Our second printer customer, Lexmark, has launched seven new models of their next generation printers, the CS and CX700 Series, the 800 and 860 Series. All features our new easy to use user interface powered with our technology. During 2016, we expect new customers to launch printers throughout 2016 and expect our revenues to increase from the printer business in 2016. Some of our customers already in 2016 transitioned into using our new sensor modules designed specifically for printers. These modules greatly simplify integration and time to market for our customers. We expect over time all of our customers to move over to use our sensor modules in their office equipment products. During the last couple of years, we have been investing heavily designing technology especially for the PC market. We have developed a solution for this market to support large display products like Monitors and All-In-Ones, but also medium sized displays like notebooks and small displays for keyboards with touch. The most important outcome from our efforts is that we now have a solution that can address the full PC market. Not only the 500 million notebooks that according to Microsoft is already on the market, but also the 140 million new notebooks sold every year without touch support. For the PC market we support both Windows 8 and Windows 10 devices and also the growing market for Chrome OS and Android powered notebooks, and also USB sticks PCs that is connected to a display. Our sensor modules can also be embedded into PC devices for OEM customers that prefer to have them integrated into their design. The solution for the PC market that I am talking about is AirBar. AirBar is a slim consumer electronics device designed to touch-enable any new or existing notebook PC, as you simply attach it to a display and connect it with a USB plug. It's truly plug and touch. AirBar enables full function touch where the users can sweep, tap, select, pan, pinch and zoom. You can use your fingers, a stylus, you can use your hands with gloves on and even a paintbrush. AirBar brings affordable functionality to new and existing devices. The module will initially be available for notebooks with sizes in 11.6, 13.3, 14, and 15.6 inch displays and can be sold standalone for consumers with existing notebooks and bundled with new non-touch notebooks for added value and functionality. To scale our volumes and bring AirBar to the mass market we have signed a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro, one of the largest worldwide technology distributors. We are partnering with Ingram in North America, Europe, India, Asia and Australia. Ingram will be our direct customer and fulfillment partner. Ingram will supply AirBar to all of their customer base consisting of thousands of retailers and also supply AirBar to value-added resellers, which address the enterprise and educational segments. Ingram Micro will also do fulfillment for third-party PC OEM online stores such as Microsoft, Lenovo, Dell and HP. We’re also investigating the demand for PC accessory OEMs to cobrand AirBar with their brands. This represents a great opportunity to leverage existing established brands to build greater sales in our own brand. We expect to ship the first AirBar in the second quarter in 2016 and ramp up during the rest of the year to meet expected demand. We have invested in the manufacturing process with a high-tech qualified production partner that already builds consumer and automotive products. We see demand from our customers for us to deliver fully tested modules, so we have invested in the manufacturing process to secure the quality. As of today, we have over 10,000 preorders from our AirBar Web site and we expect to deliver our first AirBar units in the second quarter. We are working together with Ingram Micro to set the forecast for the rest of the year and align the production to meet the demand. For more information you can go to the AirBar Web site where you can find videos and other details about the product. We know there has been a lot of speculation surrounding our gesture based patents, especially with the recent rulings in the Samsung vs Apple lawsuits around the world. I’d like to end with saying that we are talking to the top legal firms exploring our opportunities. With that said, I’d like to turn over to Lars for a financial update.