Himax Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:HIMX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jordan Wu: First on ASP trend, compared to the last few quarters certainly, ASP is definitely stabilizing across the board because the orders, the overall industry inventory position is now healthier than before. Certainly our customers, our e-panel makers are either just starting to make money, or some of them are still under the water in their P&L, right, and certainly we are aware the macroeconomic conditions have not been looking very positive. I think price pressure because of lack of demand and also because of customers not being very profitable, I think price pressure will persist, although I don’t see a similar kind of price pressure that we experienced in the last few quarters. I think the comment kind of applies across different sectors.

I can’t really tell, you know one sector from another, very different picture, and certainly that picture may vary as time–as we move along into next year, but–and we’ll report in due course, but for now, we don’t see a very different picture across different sectors. You mentioned foundry, China foundry [indiscernible] and also the cooperation with Nexchip. I mean, certainly we have a joint press announcement for our strategic alliance, and that is focused on automotive display. With Nexchip, actually we have kickstarted collaboration on both DDIC and TDDI with mass production for both expected to be around Q4 next year. I think price aside, which certainly is always welcome, price aside, I think having a strong partner in China also helps us in dealing with Chinese customers and covering Chinese markets, where in automotive, especially EV as we’re all aware is very, very important.

I think our Chinese customers will certainly favor, welcome this move that we’ve made with Nexchip. Yes, so both in foundry and probably a bit more so for back end, where possible we will look to diversify our supplier base and expand further into China, and longer term, surely I think that will help us with our costs and hopefully alleviate pressure for price.

Donnie Teng: Understood. Maybe just one last follow-up from me. If we look at your fourth quarter guidance, your EPS is in between $0.09 to $0.13. But surprising, I feel the upper range of $0.13 looks like to be higher than my previous expectation if considering your sales is going to decline, like 8% quarter-on-quarter in the mid range. Do you have a lower tax rate in fourth quarter or do you have lower opex in the fourth quarter?

Jordan Wu: Yes, thank you for this question. I appreciate you’re being very diligent in looking at our financials and building your model. Yes, there will be some tax benefits that we will enjoy because of certain tax planning that we made earlier in Q4. I wouldn’t elaborate on details right now, obviously, but yes, tax is one of the reasons, and basically we also run our financial projection model, right, so the EPS range certainly is directly the outcome from those models based on our revenue and gross margin guidance, among other things, and yes, you picked up this fine detail and indeed there will be some tax benefits that we expect to enjoy in Q4, and that is due to earlier tax planning that we did.

Donnie Teng: Understood. Thank you Jordan, I’ll go back to the queue.

Jordan Wu: Appreciate that, Donnie.

Operator: Thank you. At this time, I would now like to turn the call back over to Jordan Wu for closing remarks.

Jordan Wu: As a final note, Eric Li, our Chief IR/PR Officer, will maintain his marketing activities and continue to attend investor conferences. We’ll announce the details as they come about. Thank you and have a nice day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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