ASUSTeK Computer Inc. (OTC:AKCPF) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 11, 2022 4:00 AM ET

Nick Wu - Chief Financial Officer

S.Y. Hsu - Co-Chief Executive Officer

Samson Hu - Co-Chief Executive Officer

Good afternoon, and welcome to the First Quarter 2022 Investor Conference of ASUSTeK. This online call is hosted by our CFO and Co-CEOs. This call is divided into two parts. First, Mr. Nick Wu, the CFO, will brief you on the financial results of Q1 2022, followed by remarks from our Co-CEOs, S.Y. Hsu and Samson Hu, on operations and outlook. The second part is a Q&A. You can enter your questions via the online interface. We will address your questions after the presentation.

First, we'll hear from the CFO. Thank you.

Thank you, investors and friends from the media. Thank you for taking part in our earnings call. Please turn to slide 5 of the presentation. This is our brand P&L for the first quarter of 2022. In the first quarter, net revenue was NT$128 billion, up 18% year-over-year, significantly outperforming the market.

Even though in Q1, there were challenges brought by geopolitics, logistical constraints, et cetera. ASUS still delivered outstanding revenue growth. In Q1, operating profit was about NT$10 billion. Down 13% year-over-year.

Net profit was NT$10.4 billion, up 7% year-over-year. EPS in the quarter were NT$14 per share. Looking at major financial indicators, gross margin was 18.7%. Operating margin was 7.9%.

Now please turn to slide six for non-operating items. Here, you can see the non-operating items for ASUS. Investment income was NT$862 million, including a loss of $180 million from Askey and a gain of NT$1 billion from our subsidiaries such as EON.

In Q1, Askey's revenue was actually over NT$7billion, reaching economies of scale. However, due to COVID lockdowns and inventory problems, they had a loss of NT$180 million after tax, which is significantly lower than its loss of NT$688 million in Q1, 2021. Their goal for the coming quarter is to break even or even turn a profit, and they are pursuing that target.

Exchange gain in Q1 was around NT$1 billion. In Q1, the war in Ukraine affected our operations in the region, but our team responded quickly and managed our revenue and exchange rate as well as accounts receivables very well. Therefore, no negative impact on the company. We also managed other currencies quite well. So we had an exchange stream of around NT$1 billion in Q1. The overall non-operating income were came to NT$2.9 billion.

Now please turn to slide 7, the balance sheet for Q1 2022. I will just mention a few key items. Inventory at the end of Q1 was NT$193 million. This reflects several factors. First, at ASUS, we continue to set and pursue market beating growth targets, for which we have to plan an events. Given uncertainty around material shortage and logistical constraints, we need to make some strategic moves.

Therefore, at the end of the first quarter, we had a higher inventory level. We expect in Q2, considering the lockdown measures in China, the lockdown measures are probably going to continue. Considering that we will maintain our inventory level at the current level for some time.

As we come into Q3, the peak season for our industry with better sales with our innovative products, we expect the inventory level to come down by then. Higher inventory level also met lower cash level at NT$288 million for Q1. Other items on the balance sheet remained stable.

Now please turn to the next slide. On slide 8, that is our revenue breakdown by product. PC accounted for 66% of the revenue component, 33%.

Next slide. Slide 9 shows you revenue breakdown by region. In Europe, due to geopolitical factors, its contribution went down from 36% in Q1 2021 to 30% in Q1 2022, whereas Asia came up, grew from 40% to 47%, Americas accounted for 23% in the first quarter.

Next slide, slide 10. Considering the trends in the PC industry, also, we consider the uncertainty we are faced with, including the lockdowns in China, logistical constraints as well as geopolitical factors in Europe and inflation and the possibility of how inflation is going to impact consumption.

Considering all of these factors, we will cautiously react to market situation. Overall, we still set market beating growth targets. We also have very good confidence in terms of executing them. Considering the current market fluctuations, especially the supply chain constraints in Q2, given the lockdown measures in China, our outlook for the second quarter 2022 is as follows. We think we will see a downward track.

For PC, we expected to go down by 10% quarter-over-quarter, components down by 10% to 15% quarter-over-quarter. That concludes my report on financial numbers. Now I'm going to ask our Co-CEO, Mr. S.Y. Hsu to give us his remarks.

Hello, everyone, friends from media and investors. First of all, thank you for participating in our earnings call. Samson and I are going to give you an update. We have three major or key business objectives. First, on ASUS. This new culture was proposed by Mr. Shu back in 2018, a unified team that trusts in radical truth and transparency, leveraging collective wisdom to achieve synergies across all business segments. We want to transform our culture and become a better company.

The next business objective is about the next era of innovation. I believe at ASUS, we are very devoted to innovation. In the past, we focus on product innovation going forward. We will also innovate in terms of process and our operations. This is to have better operational efficiency.

The third objective is setting aspirational targets. Our core business is PC related. The PC market is a mature one with low growth rate. Of course, in the past two years, due to COVID-19, we saw significant growth in this industry. However, as the pandemic fades away, we expect the growth rate will come back down to normal.

For ASUS, we will still continue to set aspirational targets to beat the market to outperform the market. Next slide. As a brand company, we, at ASUS, of course, have a brand strategy. This is the golden triangle of the ASUS brand. Three components to it: first, design thinking. With our product design, we try to address consumer pain points. We try to provide the best consumer experience by delivering the best designed products. And then we try to enhance our market position through CRM and connected service. We then use NPS, Net Promoter Score to measure how we are doing. We will continue to enhance our products as well as our bright next slide.

Now let's briefly look at our performance in Q1 2022. Since the pandemic, in the past two years, the overall market has grown quite significantly. Now it's 2022. The pandemic is fading away, in many regions and countries they are now back to normal.

However, in Q1 2022, we delivered excellent performance compared to Q1 2021 we grew by 18% year-over-year. That is outstanding performance. I would also like to thank our colleagues for their efforts.

And I would like to talk to you about our open platform products. We maintained our leadership in open platform products with very strong ASP growth in Q1 2022. We dominated in Intel Z690 and AMD X570 high-end motherboards with a 55% market share worldwide. With Workstation motherboard, our revenue went up by 50% year-over-year in Q1 2022.

Moving on to system products, whether we are looking at regular PCs, gaming PC or commercial PC, overall, system products revenue went up by 30% year-over-year, also excellent performance.

Through innovation and better product mix, we drove double-digit ASP growth in Q1 2022, also excellent. With marketing, we executed product segmentation and resilient operational management strategies to outperform the market. I think this was mentioned by our CFO.

Next slide at ASUS, we focus very much on Product Design. We have devoted a lot of resources to design, and we achieved a lot this year, by winning lots of awards at Red Dot and iF. We garnered 39 awards at Red Dot. That's a record for us.

In the 2022, iF Design Awards, we have also done very well, among more than 10,000 products from 57 countries and regions, we garnered 32 awards, including -- in addition to that, we have been awarded 7 iF Design benchmarks.

They include Global Top 10, Top 10 in Asia, Top 3 in Taiwan. Top 10 corporate design team worldwide, Best Gaming Hardware for VR and top 10 Computer worldwide and Top 25 in Telecommunications, these all show our strong design capabilities. We will continue to provide the best products and the best customer experience for our consumers.

Okay. Next slide, I'd like to talk to you about our AIoT. We have very high expectations of the AIoT business unit. We have very strong product capabilities. Through mergers and acquisitions, we are also acquiring expertise and domain knowledge. We are trying to build strong AIoT offerings. Right now, we are focusing on smart healthcare, smart retail and smart manufacturing.

Next slide. In terms of our AIoT solutions, we have continued development in health care. For example, we released the latest LU710 phased array and endocavity portable ultrasound probe. This can be used to scan heart, lungs and be used by OB/GYN doctors. We have showcased around Taiwan. We have also begun our IoT Telemedicine Cart partnership with government. We have also provided ASUS AIoT solutions for 5G smart poll. Thanks to all of this, our AIoT revenue grew by 55% year-over-year in the first quarter.

Now Samson is going to brief you on our PC business. Thank you.

Thank you, S.Y. Dear investors and friends from media, good afternoon. My name is Samson. I will talk to you about our operations. Through our Golden Triangle brand strategy, through our innovation, through increased value, we are seeing great results across different business.

In terms of revenue, regular PC grew by 30% year-over-year. Zenbook and Creator PC, which we focused a lot in the past two years, grew significantly among regular PCs. They contributed significantly.

Next, Gaming PC. The revenue grew by 30% as well. For commercial and education PC, this segment grew by 50%.

Next slide. If we look at the PC growth by region. Let's look at regular PC first. In Europe and Americas, the growth is in low to mid-teens. In Asia Pacific, China, we grew by 50% and 110%, respectively. So overall, the growth for regular PC was 30% year-over-year.

Moving on to Gaming PC. In Europe and Americas, we had growth in the low-teens. In Asia Pacific and China, we grew by 60% and 40%, respectively. For commercial PC, excluding Chromebooks, in Q1 2022, we grew by 100% year-over-year. Looking at different regions, 30% growth in Europe. We grew by 3.2-fold in Americas, 1.6 times in Asia Pacific and 4% in China. In the past three years, we doubled down our efforts on commercial PC. We are quite optimistic about this segment. We believe it's going to be an important growth driver for ASUS going forward.

Next slide. As mentioned before, our strategy is to not increase only in quantity, but also in quality. We are trying to increase the percentage of high-value products. Like we said before, we are aggressively using outlet panels in our regular PC. As OLED provides high value as well as very good viewing experience.

Here, we are a leader in the industry in value creation in Q1 2022. We are a number one brand with more than 60% market share for OLED notebook. And OLED notebook contributed to more than 15% to our revenue.

Next slide. Moving on to our gaming brand. We continue to increase our competitiveness. We also work closely with the community and find partnerships across different industries. Through these efforts, we try to increase the reach of our ROG brands and the design of this brand as well. We want to be the number one gaming branch. That is our strategy for gaming.

Next slide. With respect to ROG gaming products and solutions, again, we use design thinking and innovation. We continue to draft new applications and segments to meet the different needs of different gamers.

Next slide. Here is an example. At CES, early this year we launched a new product ROG Flow Z13. This is in response to 5G and cloud gaming. It offers great performance, great scalability and great portability.

We redesigned the product. We consider a new product positioning. So this is a tablet as well as a laptop, a 2-in-1 product. We are creating a new segment within the gaming PC market. And we have received a lot of buzz, a lot of great reviews from the media. Some say we are -- this one is the best gaming tablet on earth.

They also think this is a great example of brave design in PC. And this corresponds very well to the brand spirit of ROG to be fearless. And our sales -- the sales of this product has been very good as well.

Next slide. In addition to that, in terms of connectivity, we also have ROG offerings. We continue to innovate and lead in this area. Last year, we launched the world's first WiFi 6E gaming router. ROG rapture, GT-AXE1100 that was last year. And this year, we launched the world's first WiFi 6E quad band gaming router. LG Repture GT-AXE 16000. We continue to lead the connectivity segment for the next gaming chapter. That's another example of our innovation.

Next slide. In addition to gaming, -- as part of our segmentation strategy, creator is a very important segment as well. As mentioned before, back in 2011, we launched the ProArt display monitors for professional creators. On that foundation, in 2019, we doubled down our efforts on the creator offerings. Now we have offerings across notebooks, workstations, monitors, peripherals, protectors, et cetera, to meet the needs of creators.

Next slide. With our efforts in the past two years, we are reaping results. The creator product line is one of the growth drivers for ASUS according to GfK and NPD data in Q1 2022. For our products with NVIDIA, GTX and DGX, we now have more than 30% market share, a number one position in the market. That is outstanding result.

Now, please turn to the next slide. As the ASUS brand grows, ESG is also very important for us. ASRA, Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards last month announced their awards. We, at ASUS, our report got the Silver Award for Asia's Sustainability Report. We got gold for Asia's best environmental impact reporting and silver award for Asia's best supply chain reporting.

The organizer, ASRA, also recognizes our efforts in pursuing sustainability saying that ASUS has set clear targets and are driving them forward, incorporating sustainability into our operations, and we continue to be very transparent when it comes to disclosure. ESG is very important. We will continue to work with our supply chain partners to measure with data and manage based on science. We want to build for ASUS a sustainable brand.

That concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, co-CEOs and CFO. We will now begin our Q&A session. Feel free to enter your questions via the online interface. We will compile all the questions and address them later. Thank you.

Okay. First question is from Mr. Yang [ph]. His question is for the CEO is about inventory. What's the content of the inventory in Q1? What about the company's strategy or visibility towards inventory, as for valuations for the inventory, does the company has all data.

Okay. I will take this one. By the end of first quarter, the inventory included components and finished goods, 50% and 50%. For component materials, they can be divided into several categories. First, chips, CPU, memory and solid state chips. Those were the major component material inventory.

As for finished goods, let me talk about the background. Now the inventory level in our channels are back to normal to pre-COVID levels. In Europe, because the sales momentum is low, inventory tended to be high there. And because of high inventory in channels, our own inventory is also relatively high. So inventory in Europe is a priority for us. We need to better manage that.

However, on the goods side, whether you are looking at key component material or finished goods. I think, in Q2, considering market momentum and geopolitical factors; secondly, considering also the lockdown measures in China in the second quarter. Due to the lockdown measures, we weren't able to assemble materials into finished products.

However, if you look at the content of our inventory, whether they are component material or finished goods, they all belong to the new generation. Going forward, in Q3, as we come into the high season of our industry, these inventories will be transformed into growth drivers for us. We expect by Q3 as sales pick up. By the end of the third quarter, the inventory level will come back down to a very healthy level.

Second question from Mr. Yang. In the PC industry, what's the supply situation for chips? What's the inventory of chips for ASUS? What about the shipping costs? Is ASUS seeing shipping cost declining.

Okay. I will address this as well. The supply of chips, I think we talked about this last time. When it comes to IC, the supply is in a manageable level. Of course, we see some shortage in power management IC and other ICs, some shortage in these ICs. But overall, looking at the current situation, ICs are no longer the major gating item. Gating items these days tend to be camera components, modules or PCB-related components. We see some shortage in IC, but IC is no longer the gating item. As for shipping costs earlier, we saw significant port congestion in the US or a shortage of containers and truck drivers, et cetera. Now the current situation is not getting worse, but the constraints remain. Therefore, whether you are looking at shipping rates or air freight, the cost remains high. Of course, high shipping costs is creating cost pressure for us. But still, it's all in the expected and manageable level. Thank you.

Thank you. And we will now compile the questions. Next question from Economic Daily.

Two questions. Recently, many companies started employ share ownership trust, is ASUS planning to do the same? Second, server seems to be a business that a lot of companies are moving into. Could you share with us ASUS's strategy and target for the server business?

Okay. I'll take this one. In terms of talent retention, we see a lot of media reports these days. 2022 is a year for talent recruitment and talent retention for all companies involved. It's the same for ASUS. Let me talk about the programs that we are already doing. Of course, we have regular annual salary increases. Now this year, we are going to -- in addition to that, introduce a structural change in the salary composition. We will also accelerate the salary increase. In the past, the salary increase will come in the second half of the year. Now it's happening in the first half of the year.

As for your question, employee share ownership trust, it's something that we are -- have internally discussing, but we are still earning out the details. And it is our hope that we can roll out the employee share ownership trust by the end of this year. These are all efforts we've made in terms of talent retention.

To your second question about servers, the war in Ukraine is affecting our server business. Having said that, we have also seen growth in the server business in recent years. We at ASUS, we are devoting more resources to server. We actually have also established an enterprise solution BU to cater to the different needs of specific clients. This is a new BU. We, of course, have set targets for this new BU However, since this is a new BU, we are still trying to pursue those targets. So at this moment in time, I can now share more with you. Later when we have more concrete results, we will certainly update you on that – those.

Thank you. Next question from Nomura Securities.

What's the PC demand in China and Europe right now. China is affected by their zero covid policy and lockdowns in Europe, we see the war in Ukraine and geopolitical tensions. In the U.S., we see inflation and recession threats. So do you still expect the second half of the year will be the peak season for PC? How will ASUS adjust?

Okay, I'll take this one. Yes, indeed. We talked about industry factors, the war in Ukraine, the geopolitical tensions. These factors are still having an impact. And you also mentioned lockdowns in several cities in China, in Europe and China. These are two markets that we're closely monitoring right now.

In Europe, affected by the war in Ukraine as you all know, the war in Ukraine does not only affect Russia and Ukraine, it's affecting the entire Europe. That is because many European countries rely on Russia for the energy supply. In the European market, they are seeing higher power prices and energy prices, which in turn is impacting consumption. We are seeing inflation pressures and squeezing the spending power of households.

We talked with our sales teams in Europe. They say in some European countries, private households also see their electric electricity bills jumped by 30%. So, it's having an impact on their spending power. Of course, PC is being affected as well. And indeed in the past two months, we see PC sales momentum in Europe declining. We will closely work with our channel customers. We also talk with our important CPU vendors trying to come up with aggressive promotions to stimulate the demand.

We will continue to monitor the situation. As for Mainland China, we see the supply chain being affected. We also talked to our China team. They are also seeing PC consumption being dampened. In China, as everyone knows, their biggest online shopping website is jd.com. Every year, on June 18, they have a major promotional event. So a lot of people wait until June 18 before they shop. June 18 is going to be an important event. So these are the situations in Europe and China.

As for the US, due to inflation pressures, the US is increasing interest rates and the Fed is reducing its balance sheet. These will affect consumption as well. So the US market is another one that we are watching closely.

Now given all these, well, we still see a high season in the second half of the year. Well, we are cautiously optimistic because the seasonality pattern has persisted over the years, no matter what events have occurred during that year. We still see that seasonality.

In the second half of the year, well, right now, in Q2, we don't see a lot of supply. We don't see a lot of market momentum. So there's going to be some pent-up demand. And in the second half of the year, we have the back-to-school campaign in Q3 and holiday seasons in Q4. So we are still cautiously optimistic. That's our take currently.

Next question is from DigiTimes. Two questions. When do you think the PC industry will return to the normal pre-pandemic? What will that look like? Second question, what's the current status of ASUSs phone business.?

Okay, I will take these two. First, I may have to define the pre-COVID situation. I think everyone agrees that in 2020-2021, the COVID situation was the most severe. And we saw a certain surge in demand as people worked from home and learned from home.

In 2019 or prior to 2019, the pre-COVID era, it was quite different. However, I think you will agree that even after COVID, people have changed during the past two years. Their habits have changed. In the past, they did not work from home. They did not shop online as much.

However, after two years of the pandemic, people have changed. I personally think even after COVID, even we don't see the pandemic raging on, I don't think the PC industry will go back to the situation prior to 2019. Of course, we can set aside the sudden surge in 2020 or 2021. But we expect or I expect a new normal post-COVID.

Now what's the evidence? Recently, we've been talking with our upstream suppliers. Many suppliers have also shared with us their analysis and outlook. I can share some with you. They clearly see that the profile of PC consumers is changing after two years of COVID.

People 35 years old or younger, they are buying PC more frequently. They have also seen that in the revere refers – the reverse cycle used to be eight months, but now the refresh cycle is down to six months. This is to show that even after COVID, I believe the post-COVID situation is going to be a new normal. The total addressable market for PC or laptop is going to be higher or bigger than 2019, even though it won't be as big as in 2020 or 2021, as for when this new normal will arrive, I expect in the second half of this year.

Right now, we see inventory levels normalizing across different distribution channels. Although the world in Ukraine is affecting the spending power of consumers. In Europe, we see higher inventory days. These are some signs. But I believe in the second half of this year, the industry will enter the new normal post-COVID and thank you for your question about our phone business.

In 2021, we shipped around 800,000 units. We grew by 100% year-over-year in line with our expectations. In 2022, we will continue to launch different products to meet the needs of different users. And we expect to be profitable as we launch new products.

Looking at the gaming phone market. We are very optimistic about it. This year, we are going to launch different specs to meet different requirements. We would like to achieve economies of scale and to breakeven, although there is a lot of uncertainty in the market, we will try to manage these and reduce the loss of the phone business

At the same time, we understand that the mobile phone contains a lot of technologies. And these technologies can find new applications outside of the phone. So we are exploring opportunities in this area, but we don't have a definite answer yet. Going forward, when we have a more concrete answer, we will definitely update you on that in our future conference calls. Thank you. Next question is from Credit Suisse. The pricing of graphics cards is coming down recently. What's ASUS take on graphics cards? And what are your expectations for graphics cards?

I will take this question. In the past two years, the demand of graphics cards were boosted by cryptocurrency by mining demand. We know mining is power intensive. And many people criticize this is not environmentally friendly. So many capital currencies have changed their mining rules, switching from POW to POS. This is a very clear trend, especially with Ethereum. Definitely, it will switch to the new rule in the second half of this year. Because of this clear trend, the demand from cryptocurrency is coming down.

The demand for graphic cards will come back to gaming applications. What we see right now is that demand from mining is disappearing. So the prices for graphic cards are coming back down to normal. However, having said that, the demand for graphic cards from gaming applications is still very strong. And we believe in 2022, the gaming market will continue to grow. As new platforms are being launched, we remain quite positive on the graphics card. Whether it's motherboard or graphics card, we are the leaders in these two markets. When we have new platforms, when we see an uplift in performance, we will also see shipment momentum for these markets. So we believe we are going to see positive growth for graphic cards in 2022. Positive revenue growth for graphic cards. Thank you.

Next question is from Economic Daily. ASUS' talked about, in 2022 the gaming PC will grow by 20% year-over-year. And ASUS also set a 6% target for operating margin. Are these plans and targets still in place? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll take this one. First, on gaming PC, up 20% year-over-year, that remains our target, and we are very confident about achieving this target. If you look at the gaming PC or laptop industry as a whole -- well, rather looking at the PC industry as a whole, we expect it will decline slightly by a single-digit. That is the overall PC industry. However, gaming laptops within the PC market. We believe gaming laptops will maintain a single-digit growth. This is backed by how the young generation users are embracing gaming. This is a clear trend.

Secondly, we see the ecosystem of gaming, whether it's content to vendors, we see a thriving ecosystem for gaming. Thirdly, in our dating life, whether you are a student or you are working already, in addition to learning or working, we still need entertainment. So gaming is a very important part of entertainment. We still believe the gaming laptop will be very positive this year, at least a single-digit growth for this year. Against this background, we at ASU, as we said earlier, we have our strategy for gaming laptops. It's about creating competitive products. It's about being innovative.

As we mentioned earlier, we continue to be the leader in this segment, in uncovering new demand. For example, a few years ago, we launched Vivowatch series, a thin and light laptop for gaming. A while ago, we launched T14 followed by Flow.

Last year, we launched FLOW X13. And this year, we launched FLOW Z13. These products are all creating new product categories and they become indeed, new product categories within gaming laptop. This is how we expand the value of the brand.

We also talked about our marketing strategies, trying to reach a greater community through cross-industry partnerships, for example, partnering with musicians, and athletes. Through these efforts, we are very confident that our gaming PC business can achieve a 20% year-over-year growth in 2022.

As for the entire year, for the entire PC business, we still set the target of a 6% operating margin. That remains the target. That's for the entire year. And the confidence for achieving that target comes from our segmentation strategy.

For example, we have the Creator lineup. We're already seeing results from our Creator offerings. These are all high-value products. Also, I talked about gaming. Gaming products are also high-value ones. Even with regular laptops, we are still also trying to do something different. For example, we are using OLED Display on regular laptops.

Through these different approaches, we want to maintain an operating margin for the entire year at 6%. Of course, throughout the year, there might be some short-term fluctuations. For example, in Q2, we are being affected by the lockdown measures in China and some short-term dips, but that's going to be a short-term dip. For the entire year, our target remains that we will achieve an operating margin of 6%. Thank you.

Thank you. We've reviewed all the questions. I think we have addressed them all. In the interest of time, we will invite our two co-CEOs to give us the concluding remarks, before we close the call today.

Okay. Thank you again, investors and media for your support for ASUS. We have encountered a lot of surprises. The work in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, these are creating challenges. But here, I want to thank all the colleagues at ASUS and our customers. Thank you for your support.

We continue to work as one team and trying to provide the best solution for our customers. We also aim to deliver great business results for our shareholders and customers. Thank you.

Thank you, investors and friends from the media. Thank you for your support. Yes, this year, we're seeing a lot of uncertainty in the industry. We will work with our upstream suppliers and downstream channel customers closely.

We maintain flexibility in our operations and respond to market situations. As I said earlier, in terms of revenue growth, we want to be the market by at least 10 percentage points in 2022. And we want to deliver an operating margin of 6%.

Lastly, the COVID situation in Taiwan is quite severe these days. Please stay safe. And stay healthy. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes our investor conference today. Thank you.