UDC at Needham notes - 1/10/17
Fireside chat format with Needham asking Sid questions
- "Our technology is in every OLED display commercially available today".
- Discussed visibility in relation to equipment suppliers like COHR and AMAT, explained they don't see materials(sales) until lines are turned up. He did say their customers give them rolling forecasts for future material requirements. First time I've heard them say that.
- Discussed the difficulty of providing guidance on a yearly basis, and almost impossible on a quarterly basis. Did say the emitter volumes to Samsung in the first 9 months of 2016 were pretty much what was expected.
- Re-iterated without being asked specifically, they expect Samsung to adopt their new red and green in 2017.
- Highlighted the 3 items that impacted the lowering of guidance. Samsung not adopting new materials(even though their volumes were as forecasted), LG becoming more efficient than expected when they turned up their commercial fab(either commercial was a lot more efficient or the pilot line was very in-efficient), and LG royalties were lower than expected due to a faster drop in prices than expected.
- Discussion of fixed vs variable licenses and Samsung in particular. Highlighted the last Samsung agreement was extended 13 months before a new one was signed and considers that a possibility again. Highlighted they brought on a professional team of negotiators from Disney 4 years ago that they feel have done an excellent job taking over for Sid and Steve. This team will be negotiating the new Samsung agreement.
- Chinese display makers. Said BOE will be the leader in China.
- Believes the primary reason for LG's new P10 fab is to drive down prices.
- General discussion on acquisitions, talked BASF and blue, nothing new. Did say they were already using over half of the Adesis team and so it was a quick way to scale up their development team.
- Doesn't feel any real product will come from the TADF companies anytime soon.
- They have no new host wins, and if they do, if will be a much different business model.
