NVE - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the NVE conference call on first quarter results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Baker, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Good afternoon, welcome to our conference call for the quarter ended June 30th, 2023. This call is being webcast live and recorded. A replay will be available through our website, nve.com. I'm Dan Baker, and I'm joined by Accounting Manager and Principal Financial Officer, Daniel Nelson. Daniel was promoted to his current position in early May and also presented on our last call. He goes by Daniel. I go by Dan to reduce confusion. He's originally from Liberia, and I'm from Columbus, Ohio, so I'm the one with the bland accent. After my opening comments, Daniel will present our financial results. I'll cover marketing and new products, and we'll open the call to questions. We issued our press release with financial results and filed our quarterly report on Form 10-Q in the past hour following the close of market.

Links to the press release and 10-Q are available through the SEC's website, our website, and our Twitter timeline. Comments we may make that relate to future plans, events, financial results, or performance are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, among others, such factors as uncertainties relating to the economic environment and the industries we serve, risks and uncertainties related to future sales and revenue, and risks of credit losses, as well as the risk factors listed from time to time in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31st, 2023, as updated in our just filed quarterly report on Form 10-Q. Actual results could differ materially from the information provided, and we undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements we may make.

We're pleased to report solid growth for the quarter compared to the prior year, despite industry headwinds. Product sales increased 23% compared to the prior year quarter, and net income increased 6% to $0.91 per diluted share. Daniel Nelson will cover the details of our financial results. Daniel?

Daniel Nelson (Accounting Manager and Principal Financial Officer)

Thanks, Dan. Total revenue for the quarter ended June 30th, 2023, increased 20% compared to the quarter ended June 30th, 2022. The increase was due to a 23% increase in product sales, partially offset by a 50% decrease in contract R&D. The increase in product sales was despite a downturn in the semiconductor industry. The increase in product sales was primarily due to increased purchases by existing customers and new customers. The decrease in contract R&D revenue was due to the completion of certain contracts. Total expenses increased 42% for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2023, due to a 16% increase in R&D expense, a 28% increase in SG&A, and a $212,000 credit loss expense for the most recent quarter.

The increases in R&D and SG&A were primarily due to increased staffing and compensation expenses. The credit loss expense was due to an increase in our allowance for credit losses under the newly adopted accounting standard. This resulted into a new expense line in our income statement. Interest income for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 increased 54% due to high yields and security purchase after June 30th, 2022. Our effective tax rate, which is the provision for income taxes as a percentage of income before taxes, increased to 24% for the first quarter of fiscal 2024, compared to 17% for the first quarter of fiscal 2023. The increase was due to changes in the timing and availability of tax credits.

Net income for the first quarter of fiscal 2024 increased 6% to $4.4 million, or $0.91 per million, or $0.86 for the first quarter of fiscal 2023. The increase was primarily due to increased revenue and increased interest income, partially offset by increased expenses and higher taxes. Net income, as reported, includes an unfavorable non-cash impact of $212,000, or $0.04 per share of credit loss expense under the newly adopted accounting standard. Net cash provided by operating activities increased 51% to $5.03 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2024, compared to $3.33 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2023. The strong operating cash flow more than covered the quarterly dividend.

Now I'll turn the call back to Dan Baker to cover marketing and new products and to preview our annual shareholders meeting. Over to you, Dan.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Thanks, Daniel. First, I'll cover marketing. We promoted our products at three major trade shows in the past quarter. PCIM Europe and SENSOR+TEST in Germany reach important target markets for us. PCIM is billed as the world's leading exhibition and conference for power electronics, intelligent motion, renewable energy, and energy management. We co-exhibited with one of our German distributors. SENSOR+TEST claims to be the world's leading forum for sensor, measurement, and testing technology. We supported a distributor at that show. We exhibited under our own banner at Sensors Converge in Santa Clara, California, a few weeks ago. The exhibition showcases the latest sensing technologies and is claimed to be North America's largest electronics event for design engineers. We demonstrated several new products, and interest was especially strong for our angle sensors and DC-to-DC converters.

Turning to new products, it's been said that energy and data are the major currencies of our lives. We enable both currencies. Our data couplers transmit data. Our DC-to-DC converters transfer energy. In the past quarter, we expanded our line of combination data couplers with DC-to-DC converters. These devices transfer data and energy from one system, such as a computer, to another, such as a robot. Unlike many companies, after COVID-19, we returned to in-person annual shareholders meetings. Shareholders can meet our managers and directors and see hands-on product demonstrations. This year's meeting is on August third, at the newly renovated SpringHill Suites in Eden Prairie. If you can't attend, you can see product demonstrations on our website or YouTube channel. Our proxy statement for the meeting is available via our website or the SEC's website.

The first annual meeting agenda item is the election of directors. We're fortunate to have a strong, independent board of directors with two former public company CEOs, Rich Kramp and Jim Bracke, a former CFO of a public company, Pat Hollister, and an experienced director for several successful public companies, Terry Glarner. The second annual meeting agenda item is approval of our officer compensation. This year's proxy has new pay versus performance disclosures and metrics, which show how we tie compensation to performance and shareholder value. Our compensation principles, as detailed in our proxy, include: we don't overpay our officers, our officers have the same fringe benefits as all employees, there are no executive perks or golden parachutes. The third agenda item is to allow shareholders to vote on the frequency of advisory votes on officer compensation.

The board recommends a say on pay vote every year for good governance. The final agenda item is the ratification of our auditors for this fiscal year, the year ending March 31st, 2024. Boulay has been our auditor since 2019, and we recommend their approval for our next audit. We expect our Boulay audit partner and audit manager to attend the annual meeting. Now, I'd like to open the call for questions. Beth?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question is going to be from the line of Jeffrey Bernstein with Silverberg Bernstein Capital Management. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

Hi, Dan and Daniel.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Hi, Jeff. Well, congratulations on the new firm.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

Thanks. Thanks very much. Appreciate that. I had a couple questions for you. You know, there's been some revenue volatility in the last few quarters, in a good way. And, obviously, there's some impact from the semiconductor, you know, supply chain issues, et cetera. You guys have spent some money on CapEx for testing, et cetera, in order to improve your capacity. You know, when we think about, you know, kind of spreading the peanut butter of this lumpiness over several quarters, you know, it sort of feels like that a $7 million-$8 million per quarter run rate is maybe sort of a new norm.

Can you just talk a little bit about the volatility we've seen and what you're feeling about, you know, a baseline revenue expectation?

Operator (participant)

Dan and Daniel.

Daniel Nelson (Accounting Manager and Principal Financial Officer)

Oh.

Operator (participant)

There you go.

Daniel Nelson (Accounting Manager and Principal Financial Officer)

There, yeah. I'm sorry, I was muted. Jeff, great question. This is Daniel Nelson. Our revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, obviously, as you pointed out, was somewhat less than what we ended the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 with. Fiscal 2024 Q4 was an extremely unusual quarter. As you mentioned, we did deploy some additional equipment, which we purchased toward the end of fiscal 2024, which helped us significantly meet demands that our customers had for the fourth quarter. We don't expect our revenue for fiscal 2024 to significantly differ from fiscal 2023. That lumpiness, we pretty much expect to kind of wear as the year progresses.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

Okay. That's great. In terms of the forward-looking indicators in the business, can you say anything about book-to-bill? Is that continuing to be over one?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

This is Dan Baker. Jeff, we don't have precise book-to-bill data, but we've been pleased with the order flow and, although the industry is down, we've outperformed the industry, and our goal is to continue to outperform the industry. We're getting new orders. There is a little bit of catch up still in our current order flow, but we're optimistic, and we're pleased that we've been able to significantly outperform the industry. As Daniel mentioned in the prepared remarks, the semiconductor industry is down 21% in the most recent report, and our product sales were up 23%.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

Dan, can you say anything sort of qualitatively? You had a kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the supply chain distress that was out there. Additionally, people really starting to think about their supply chain safety and more domestic sourcing and that kind of thing. You know, what do you think you came away with in terms of gain of customers? I know number of customers is not terribly indicative of anything. Anything you could say about that, you know, sort of new designs with new customers.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Yeah, exactly. You're exactly right, Jeff, that we did get some excellent opportunities to get a foot in the door during the period of shortages, and we've retained those customers. There was, as you might expect, a certain amount of double ordering and making sure that customers had adequate supplies, but we were able to. It was priceless marketing, in that we were able to reach risk-averse customers who might not have considered a smaller company like NVE prior to the shortages. It, it was and continues to be a great opportunity, and as we've said before, while they probably or some of them might have come for the lead time, we're confident that they're gonna stay for the excellent products and the excellent service that they get from NVE.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

That's great. Just curious, you know, PUFs have been a source of some volatility in revenue. There's a lot of discussion about having to manufacture a lot higher volumes of armaments. I know you kind of can't tell us a lot about that business, or you'll have to kill us. Can you just talk a little bit about PUFs and, you know, was there business in the quarter? Any visibility on PUFs, you know, in the next few quarters?

Daniel Nelson (Accounting Manager and Principal Financial Officer)

Yeah, Jeff, this is Daniel. As we did mention, we saw a considerable increase in our sensor and product sales lines, but unfortunately did experience some decrease in anti-tamper sales. You know, that's not unusual because anti-tamper sales vary significantly and is dependent heavily on procurement schedules by our customers. But we're still positive that there are opportunities out there for more anti-tamper sales. Long story short, we did see a decrease in anti-tamper sales.

For the quarter.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

If I could just add, also, in addition to what Daniel said, as you point out, Jeff, there are opportunities for defense system sales, and the Department of Defense does say that anti-tamper, one of the applications of anti-tamper is to protect sensitive technology that might be sold to allies or provided to allies. Of course, there's been a fair amount of that. In the long run, it's there are excellent business opportunities, but it can be, as you correctly pointed out, it can vary significantly quarter to quarter, depending on defense procurement schedules.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

That's great. Thank you. Then lastly, just a question on how, you know, customer behaviors around big product launches? You know, you've got some larger customers, both in the hearing aid market and in the med tech arena, and there are some, you know, important kinds of product introductions coming. Do they generally kind of stock up in advance of launching a product? Or, you know, and it probably doesn't cost much to stock up on sensors or, you know, is there sort of a ramp as they ramp, you know, or is there really no pattern around that?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

This is Dan Baker. That's a great question, Jeff. It actually is relatively slow in the startups because often there are regulatory restrictions, so a medical device manufacturer, particularly a life support or a class 3 medical device manufacturer, might have to gradually roll out a product. In many cases, products are rolled out in certain regions first. The U.S. has a relatively long regulatory cycle through the FDA, so what we often see is long development cycles and a gradual ramp-up as the products are deployed, as the regulatory approvals are met, and as the more and more practitioners might use the products. It's been, as you know, an excellent business for us. We provide a unique benefit proposition in terms of reliability, miniaturization, and low power.

Those are things that are very important in the medical device industry, and we've been willing to invest in it and to be patient with the regulatory cycles. It's a significant part of our business, now, and we expect it to be a significant part of our business for the foreseeable future.

Jeffrey Bernstein (Portfolio Manager)

Great. Thanks very much. I'll let somebody else ask some questions. Appreciate the time.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone. One moment for our next question. Our next question is from the line of Hristo Mastev, private investor. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hello, this is Hristo Mastev. Congratulations on great results, especially as compared to the rest of the semiconductor industry.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Could you talk a little bit more about any inroads you're making into more mass market applications and where you might be going into, if that is happening?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Yes, absolutely. In addition to the markets that we've talked about, we have invested in markets that are longer term. Some that we've highlighted include the hearables market, which includes OTC hearing aids. We see excellent opportunities there, and then the broader hearables revolution, which, we're engaged with hearables developers, and we're developing sensors that can be used in next generation hearables. In particular, we have sensors that are compatible with rechargeable batteries that are often used in consumer wearables and hearables, rather than the disposable batteries generally used in traditional hearing aids. Our new parts have received positive feedback, and we have design wins in that space.

The design cycles aren't quite as long as for life support medical, as we talked about in the previous question. There are still longer development cycles, but we're investing in that. The other area that I would highlight would be the automotive market. We've cautioned that automotive can take a while, but we've continued to invest in the development and qualification of products, especially for sensors in electric and autonomous and more sophisticated safety systems for next generation cars. Our parts are smaller, more precise and lower power, more rugged than conventional electronics. Those are important advantages in the automotive market.

We're also expanding our DC-to-DC power converter product lines, which I touched on during our prepared remarks, which have potential in the electric vehicle market, but also in energy conversion, such as green energy and energy storage markets.

Speaker 4

Would you be able to keep your margins the same in those mass market devices, or would be kind of lowering your margins but still making more money?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

That's a great question. The way we look at it is we're looking at the total contribution that a new product line might add and the shareholder value that it could create. We don't have a specific target market, target gross margin, for example. In markets such as consumer markets, where the gross margins might be lower, but the volumes might be higher, we certainly consider that when we make investment decisions. It's possible that these types of markets could have lower gross margins, but we also see them as large markets where we have a convincing benefit proposition. We think it makes sense, and we're not looking at a particular margin that we have to have as a minimum.

Obviously, we have to be able to demonstrate that we can make money, but, we're not using gross margin as a primary metric.

Speaker 4

Have you gotten your automotive qualifications yet?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

We have some qualifications. We have a letter of conformance from the IATF under Standard 16949. We look at individual products, so as you probably know, The company needs to be certified for automotive. In practice, that's the IATF 16949, we've passed those audits. The products themselves often have to be approved. We look at the product approvals on a case-by-case basis, and we're certainly have gone through much of the testing involved in things like Q101 or other automotive-specific certification. We're prepared to do that, and it's a significant, that's part of the reason why the design cycles might be, you know, might take a while, but we're prepared to do that.

We have people who know how to do it, and we recognize that that's part of getting into these markets.

Speaker 4

Okay, that's good to hear. What is your advantage in automotive? Because, you know, there, you can afford to have, like, kind of higher, bigger size than what you need in hearables and in pacemakers. Do you have significant power efficiency advantage?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Yes, that's a good point. Size is sometimes important in the automotive industry. Often they're trying to cram more and more sophisticated electronics in an existing footprint. You're right, it's not. It's a lot bigger than a hearing aid, for example, or a pacemaker. As you point out, lower power is an advantage because particularly for our hybrid and electric vehicles, that helps determine the vehicle's range and the equivalent miles per gallon. Every little bit helps, and lower power in sensors or couplers can be important. The ruggedness of our parts, the fact that they are inherently non-volatile, that they can withstand extremes in temperature and electrical transience, is important in the automotive market. The final advantage I might highlight, is the precision. Having a very precise sensor is important for some applications.

Some applications, one could imagine a seat position sensor, which is not extremely critical, but in many cases, things like motor rotation or position or current sensing for motors and batteries, precision can be an important advantage. Those are the advantages that we highlight in the automotive market.

Speaker 4

I assume you have, like, no drainage current for current sensing whatsoever because you're not connected to the wire, right?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Yes. We often call that non-contact current sensing, so there aren't the losses. You're, you appear very familiar with that. If one puts a conventional device that's often called a shunt or a resistor, in series with the device you're trying to sense, there's inherent losses there. The way our current sensors work is, most of our current sensors, they're non-contact, and so therefore, they would go next to the wire or the circuit board, and there are no inherent losses, and they can sense very high currents without having to have a resistor in series. That's part of the efficiency advantage that I was talking about. That would eventually ripple through to higher efficiency and longer range for an electric vehicle.

Speaker 4

Correct. I assume the DC-to-DC converters have a similar efficiency advantage?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Yes. The advantage there is that we can drive things like high-side switches for power conversion, and our devices are fully isolated, so they allow more efficient power conversion either in electric vehicles, power storage, or other types of energy storage markets. The efficiency advantages that accrue there also from our couplers, is that they can switch faster. The couplers can switch faster than conventional isolators, and the faster they can switch, the more efficient they are and the lower the losses, because the switches that are used for power conversion are very efficient when they're on or off, but they're not very efficient during the transitions. We reduce that transition time.

Speaker 4

All right, sounds great, and, I understand all those applications, you require some time to get qualified and get to market. When are we going to see revenues from these? Are you already seeing revenues from these?

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

We're seeing some small revenues. It's not enough to be significant, but we look at it as long-term opportunities. You asked a great question: What are we looking at longer term? We do see it as a longer-term opportunity. We don't have a particular timeframe, but we want it to be as fast as possible, of course.

Speaker 4

All right. Thank you. Thank you for getting into the details of complicated technical details, and good luck.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

Thank you. We appreciate your questions, Mr. Mastev.

Operator (participant)

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Dan Baker for closing remarks.

Dan Baker (President and CEO)

If there are no other questions, we were pleased to report continued growth, with product sales up 23% and operating cash flow up 51%. We look forward to seeing some of you at our annual meeting on August 3rd and to our next earnings call in October. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.