Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKTS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Craig Ellis: Yeah, thanks for that, and appreciate all the color, Jeff. The follow-up question may be for Dave, and it’s digging into mobile and the potential for some of the successful activity with different customers to move into a production ramp. And I’ll just use the China market as an example. So, if we look out at key China selling seasons where the leading players would be developing new product. We’ve got Golden Week early October, Singles’ Day November, Lunar New Year in January-February timeframe, and then May Day further out in mid-2Q. As you’re engaging with your module partners and other players, when does it look like it would be reasonable for investors to expect more of a volume production ramp if we take those selling seasons as a proxy? Thanks, Dave.

Dave Aichele: Yeah, thanks for your question, Craig. I think the — and Jeff touched on this, our component customer that we’ve engaged with, we made some shipments last quarter. And it’s into a multiplexer that’s going into the China market on a reference design. So, we’ve seen limited activity right now. I think everybody is aware obviously the depression state that the China mobile market is in. So, we do not have direct finger on the pulse to the OEMs there. It’s something that we have to go through our customer, obviously, to get those visibilities. And so, we’re getting updates quarterly on the take rate and traction. So, we’ll watch that closely. It’s hard to really give any strong guidance until we start seeing some positive trends in that mobile market in China.

The other part is the other engagements we have with the RF front-end module guys is mainly focused on — I think we’ve guided in the past, focusing on later year models. And that is one that we’ve been validating the technology. We’ve shipped — as we’ve said in previous quarterly calls that we’ve shipped solutions that have been validated by them, and it’s really navigating a strategy of implementing our technology into those modules. So that’s still underway. So, the guidance right now has been the outer years when we would see that take rate. Obviously, as we have better visibility to the platforms of the integrated, we can provide more concrete updates.

Jeff Shealy: And, Craig, let me just add to that, from the mobile segment. I just want emphasize — reemphasize the quality audit we passed. We actually — we did continue making shipments to that customer during the June quarter. And also would add our WLP was part of the supply chain. That’s the packaging — critical packaging for that, that was part of the audit that we passed. And so, we’re prepared to ship the pieces from our end. There’s been no delay on our end. And that supply chain is working really well. So I just want to emphasize how we’re positioned at least to service that market as we’ve already demonstrated with shipments the last two quarters.

Craig Ellis: Yes. So, certainly, it seems like you’re executing well on the things that you can control, and it’s been very well publicized that the Android market is unusually weak, especially in China. If I could sneak a last one in, Jeff. Nice update on your specific plans with both the CHIPS Act and DOD and you mentioned some milestones. Are there any intermediate update points that investors could look to, as it relates to potential funding for either source? Thanks for taking all the questions, guys.

Jeff Shealy: Yeah. Thank you, Craig. So, if you look historically, when — from the time that we’ve been notified of an award decision that’s — we have to negotiate a contract and the company’s position is until we’re under contract, we don’t make — we don’t make any public announcements because those have to be negotiated and some of the terms of those have to be worked through. So, I think we certainly will have an update. We’ll provide another update. This being the year end for us, it’s kind of a short cycle until we’re back on with investors after the September quarter. So, certainly would think in the early October when we report again that — excuse me, in the early November timeframe when we report again, I will have — we’ll have an update. And I would not anticipate we’d be under contract before then.

Craig Ellis: Thank you, Jeff. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Ken.

Jeff Shealy: Thank you.

Dave Aichele: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question is from the line of Suji Desilva with ROTH MKM. Please proceed with your question.

Suji Desilva: Hi, Jeff. Hi, Dave, Ken. Congrats on the progress here. So, can you give us a sense the Wi-Fi 7 ramp that’s coming? Maybe how to size that opportunity to think about it relative to prior Wi-Fi ramps, perhaps attach rate, penetration metrics, or content per access point device or whatever way to think about it, that would be helpful. Thanks.

Jeff Shealy: Well, let me — thanks for your comment, Suji, and good morning to you. So, we did mention we delivered two newly developed Wi-Fi filter samples to a tier-1 mobile customer during the quarter. But in terms of the some of the market dynamics, I’ll let Dave comment on those for Wi-Fi 7.

Dave Aichele: Yes. Good morning, Suji. So I think a couple of comments there is, as Ken mentioned earlier that we’re releasing a new family of Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7 products that are better than previous generation in response but also smaller and form factor. So, making it more attractive, both from a size and also performance standpoint, particularly for these higher MIMO [count] (ph) architectures. So, the dollar content per system is actually increasing in the Wi-Fi 7, both with the enterprise sector that we’re seeing and also with the carrier side. And I expect the demand to be as same or if not higher in system unit sales. So, overall, the revenue should be increased for Akoustis in these Wi-Fi 7 platforms. Some examples is that the filter count can go up 50%, almost 100% based on the architectures that we’re seeing right now and how they’re developing.

So, they are fairly complex to previous ones. I think you guys are all aware of the Wi-Fi 7 advantages, particularly this high-band selectivity or what they call MO, multi-link operation, is requiring high performance filters to be able to enable that in the Wi-Fi 7. So this definitely plays in our favor. And we’re keeping a lead as best as we can from a performance technology-wise based on the XBAW technology. So, very bullish about the Wi-Fi 7 market and all the activity is moving in the right direction as far as what we’re seeing from customer deployments.

Suji Desilva: All right. Thanks, Dave, for the color. And then my other question is on the auto market. You mentioned it in the prepared remarks. Just trying to get a sense of the number of customers you may be engaged with kind of order of magnitude, is it a handful? Is it more than that? And what is the — are they semi companies, systems companies, module companies, tier-1s or auto OEMs directly? And what’s the timing of revenue ramp opportunity there just to level set expectations we are on?

Dave Aichele: Suji, I’ll take the question. So, I’ve been actually on the road visiting with some of the automotive customers and I’m pretty excited about the opportunity that it is presenting to us. It will take several years before you see these platforms rolled out. But we’re actually — so example is the wireless battery management system. We’ve got three components on reference design with a tier-1 IC manufacturer. And so, we’ve got good activity going on in Asia, and that is starting to move into Europe and expect some of that pickup in North America. So, we’re pretty excited about the opportunities there. And I think we said that we’d be announcing some design wins. And then, the CV2X, we’ve got greater than five customers that we’ve been sampling to and CV2X is starting to pick up activity wise, including in Asia, [DTC] (ph), so toll collection.