nLIGHT, Inc. (NASDAQ:LASR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Keeney : Yes, good. I think that the significant change that we continue to see is an additive manufacturing, form next is the big trade show that occurs every year, and its next week in Frankfurt. We’ll be announcing several new products. There’ll be a number of important presentations. And we have disclosed our strategy there in the past around using the Corona AFX technology to allow for higher productivity tools. We are seeing that be deployed. We’re getting design wins, and so that is the area of the industrial market where we see significant growth opportunities. It takes time for that to show up in our quarterly revenue. But the design win activity is going well there.

Operator: The next question comes from Greg Palm from Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Greg Palm: I guess maybe just one follow-up, obviously, can congrats on the sort of expansion of HELSI here, but can you provide a little bit more background? I don’t know if there were, was were always options associated with this contract that you were expecting to win and I’m not sure if it was dependent on some event or some demonstration. And then just to be clear, are there additional options outside of this that can still be won or is this with this specific contract?

Scott Keeney : Good. Thanks, Greg. This was contingent upon success in HELSI-1. And as we had previously announced, we exceeded the goals for that program for a 300-kilowatt class laser. And there were two awards. It was nLIGHT and Lockheed for this program. And this is to develop a much higher-power laser. And there are other programs that will expand this area, and complement, what we are doing here. So, no, this isn’t the only opportunity that we are working on. There are other ones that we are working on the parallel state. And subsequently, there are other opportunities also.

Greg Palm: Okay. But are there additional, I guess, are there additional options within HELSI-2? Or was this said in terms of additional options that could be one specific with this contract?

Scott Keeney : Greg, for the contract for HELSI-2, this is the contract. There are no, known options that that we are working on for this contract. But their other contracts that are related, and we will continue to expand the work going on in in directed energy lasers.

Greg Palm: Yes. Understood. That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up. I think I heard you mention or maybe you alluded to increased competition from some of the Chinese players outside of China. And we know how competitive, China has gotten. And so maybe you can just go into detail a little bit of what you are seeing? What regions specifically? I am guessing you were alluding it to cutting, but any other sort of commentary along those lines would be helpful.

Scott Keeney : Sure, Greg. Those comments — specifics behind those comments are related to primarily cutting. And in terms of geographies, where we see greater competition, might be in places like, South Korea, somewhat in certain areas of Europe, some parts of the U.S. And it is not a dramatic change. We expect to continue to see competition. And we wanted to note that, indeed, that’s what we have seen play out over the last year or so.

Greg Palm: Okay. I mean, is there a greater concern that what has evolved or occurred in China specifically over the last three, four, five years that, that could become a bigger issue outside of China, whether it be in the U.S. or Europe or other parts of Asia? Or are you just trying to frame it up as, something that’s maybe a little bit of a risk, but you don’t think the same sort of long-term event will happen outside of that region specifically?