Innoviz Technologies Ltd. (INVZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
November 9, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Robert Moffatt
executiveGood morning. This is Rob Moffatt, Vice President of Corporate Development and IR at Innoviz, and I want to welcome you to our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Omer Keilaf, Chief Executive Officer; and Eldar Cegla, Chief Financial Officer. Following their opening remarks, we will open the call for your questions. I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be available Investor Relations section of our website at ir.innoviz.tech. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our discussion today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties relating to future events and the future financial performance of Innoviz. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements made today speak only to our expectations as of today, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise them. For a discussion of some important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements, please see the Risk Factors section of our Form 20-F filed with the SEC on March 30, 2022. I will now turn the call over to Omer. Please go ahead.
Omer Keilaf
executiveThank you all, and welcome to the team. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm excited to provide another update on the meaningful progress we've been making -- this has been another fast-moving quarter with new design wins, new technology partnerships, significant upgrades of our manufacturing throughput and a big step forward in our move into the automotive market. Let's start things off with a look at our most recent new customer win. After our Volkswagen announcement last quarter, we said that we had 2 to 3 additional OEMs that could make a decision in the next 6 months. Moving true to our word, we announced in September that we secured yet another production work with a new Asia-based customer. Not only is this our fourth production win and our second win as a Tier 1, it also signals an exciting acceleration in our momentum, delivering back-to-back production wins just 1/4. We will dig a little deeper into our pipeline later in the call, but let's first take a look at this most recent day. The new contract is with an Asian OEM, who we cannot name yet, but he's on the fast plate becoming an emerging global EV leader. There are some very important parts of the deal that I wanted to touch on. First and foremost, this is an extremely tech-forward OEM. They took a close look at our technology and the platform partners that we can integrate with, and they decisively chose our solution over any other competition. And in that process, they also concluded that we are well positioned as a Tier 1 direct supplier. Additionally, they are currently targeting a fast ramp-up of lighter installation on 2 models with a quick turnaround to SOP with production revenues expected already to begin in ‘24. And this deal articulates our long-term strategy extremely well. Very large deals like the Volkswagen deal we announced last quarter are going to bring the volumes that will rapidly drive our unit cost economics lower and lower volume deals will bring our higher contribution margins. And with each new deal we win, we are growing our preproduction NRE revenues and securing increased funding of production machinery and tooling. Over time, each deal will move us closer and closer to our long-term margin targets. From a global standpoint, this is our first automotive branding issue -- expanding Innoviz geographic reach and production footprint, this is an important step in our platform expansion efforts and highlights the incredible progress we'll be making on this front. Combined with recent progress on the nonautomotive side, Asia is evolving into an increasingly important paragraph for Innoviz, and we hope to have additional news per share in the coming quarters as this market is rapidly and developing for us. Last but not least, there is one more very important part of this deal. And it has to do with the technology partner that we are working with for this customer. As many of you know, there are 3 leading autonomous driving platforms in the auto industry that operate the that operate the order and the software stack that integrates the sensing and perception inputs from the various ADAS components, such as LiDAR and radars and cameras. With this deal announcement, we're excited to share that now we have production awards, not demos or partnerships, but actual production awards with 2 out of 3 main platforms in the industry. Integrating with these platforms can be an important barrier to entry. We believe that once you are on the platform and you have the working relationship with the partner, you can gain deep domain experience together, and it could accelerate future business wins for both parties. I want to encourage investors to not underestimate this aspect of the deal, several of the RFPs that we are currently competing on have already decided to use this platform. We believe that having this working relationship can increase our odds of winning additional business in the near term. Needless to say, we are very excited about this development. Now let's spend a little time on why we are winning in the automotive market. I've picked up from some of my conversations with investors that there is a belief that the success in the lighter industry is going to come down to one thing, like range of resolution. But that is obviously not enough. In our experience with customers, you cannot simply win by checking 1 or 2 boxes. You have to check all of them. You have to be strong on each of these categories, price performance, automotive grade manufacturing and company maturity. And the feedback that we've gotten from customers is that we aren't winning these deals by 1 or 2 points. We are winning across the board on multiple phones. But don't just take it from us. We wanted to share a quick video from the event we hosted in September, celebrating the opening of our new headquarters with a large group of investors and customers from all over the world.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeIt's not only a big building that who knows what we'll do with it. It's actually going to allow us to beat our targets.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeOf all the places that I’ve been to I was so impressed by the vigor and the creativity and the technology.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeNever before the automotive industry had been under such a strong change. We're looking at the sensors, picking out the best sensors that we can find in the market. In the future, we will work closely together with you. So we deserve all the merits of the efforts that you are accomplished so far. And this is the fruits of all your effort, and I think this deserves a big applause for everyone here. So thank you.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeMany companies had 1 or 2 smart engineering idea how to solve a specific problem. But Innoviz looks like the most promising one in making the best out of those conflicting things, and that's why we decided a few years back for Innoviz..
Unknown Attendee
attendeeToday, I think there's probably a dozen, maybe a little bit more than that of companies that are worth talking about. 8 of them, I believe, are now public independently, including Innoviz, of you know. So you also have to talk to the customers. You have to talk to the Tier 1s to the OEMs. And so that's what we did. That's how we evaluate it. This is overwhelmingly positive feedback for Innoviz products. This is sort of how we think about the industry and why we think Innoviz is a leader.
Unknown Attendee
attendeeTo me, it's very clear that 2 years from today, 3 years from today, we continue to make progress and develop the right technology to allow the use of safe mobility everywhere.
Omer Keilaf
executiveNothing is better than hearing from our customers and partners themselves. One of the other points that I want to make about our strategy is that we are deeply focus the Level 2+ to Level 3 sweet spot of the automotive industry. There has been an increase in headlines recently highlighting that the progress with Level 5 full autonomous riding is moving slower than both. It is increasingly more -- looking more like 2035 or even later. We wanted to take the opportunity to remind investors that it has been long our view that full Level 5 autonomy was going to take many years. And this is why from day 1, we built the company's strategy around focusing on the Level 2 plus, Level 3 to Level 4 categories in the autonomy spectrum. The recent development of OEMs either deemphasizing or even fully canceling the Level 5 effort is happening at the same time that they are realizing that many customers have gross prorated with Level 1 and Level 2 active safety solutions like forward collision warning and land keeping assist with some drivers turning the futures of entirely. Looking at both of these trends together, OEMs are quickly realizing that Level 2+ and Level 3 autonomy systems are likely going to be the biggest differentiating factor in the automotive industry over the next decade. And you can see this in our pipeline in our next slide. One of the major milestones that we track for our business is our OEM share, since we believe that once we are on the shelf and validate it with an OEM and integrate it into their software stack becomes easier for them to pull you into more and more product lines. Once you are embedded, you should be able to grow with the OEM as LiDAR-based L2+ and L3 systems are rapidly democratized and moved up the curve over the next decade. On that basis, our OE share as extends today is roughly 15% of the global automotive market. And if you look at our pipeline on the right, we have 11 OEMs that are in either RFI or RFQ process. Collectively, these 11 OEMs produce approximately 40 million vehicles per year, representing an additional 42% of the global market. When combined with 15% share currently in Innoviz order book, it means that the company either has business or is actively competing for our new business with OEMs that fall roughly 57% of the global automotive market. This pipeline includes many of the world's largest OEMs and is follow plans that you are familiar with. In fact, 6 of the OEMs have annual production levels of 4 million units or more. And the average production within the pipeline is about 4.2 million [ per unit ]. What's even more important here is that we believe that nearly all of the pipeline decisions will be made by the end of '24, with most of this decision likely to close in '23. When I meet with investors, I'm often asked, why should I care now? Let's talk again when production starts. But the question is missing is that there is a sizable land taking place right now. And the bulk of the early market share is going to be awarded in the next 6 to 12 months. Ultimately, we think this is going to be a winner take most market with us in the lab, and this market share will be very sticky for the next decade or more. Now let's transition from the long term to the past quarter. We had some very exciting developments in the third quarter that I want to spend some time on. First, I'm excited to share that during the quarter, we began shipping the samples, units originating from the Holy Michigan production rate. As a reminder, the decamp is the person that ultimately is going to go to full production. It needs to be produced by the final production tools and processes. Its design is already automotive grid, and this is the last stage of the process is used by the OEM for the final manufacturing validation before moving to sales production. You can see in the photos how excited we are to be disclosed to the start of the production of our customers. One of the other exciting development this quarter relates to the upgrades we've made to the production processes, which were acquired as part of reaching the [ desample ] milestone. The production process upgrades are made in parallel with our planned downtime from our headquarters growth, which included the movement of the calibration and testing lines within our building. I don't want to understate the scope of this effort. I personally spent many, many late nights with our engineers implementing and reengineering the process so we could maximize the gels and minimize the downtime of our lines. This was a crucial step in our plans for the next stage of our strategy as it removed the key bottleneck in our production. These development achieved 2 important things. Number one, it helps reverse from mass production with BMW and the shutter programs launching next year. And number two, it will unlock more units for sale in the automotive market beginning this quarter and ramping into 2023. In the past, the majority of our production, you need to be prioritized for larger volume automotive customers. But now with this upgrade, we will be increasingly able to pursue both markets simultaneously and more equal measure. While we haven't been as vocal about our progress in the nonautomotive market, as we have been in automotive, it has the potential to become an important part of our business. And we have made some early success, including the deals and partnerships from the third quarter listed on this slide. One important take what you hear from investors is that every time a customer chooses to work with our lighter solution, it's a validation of boohoo and software. Of course, not every deal is at the size of Volkswagen and BMW. But each announcement we make here is a situation where a customer takes a close to at our technology compared to the competitive environment and choose to go with noise -- this validation and early momentum in our automotive markets, coupled with our increased ability to ship units is an important development. When you combine all of the various dams from the nonautomotive market, it can approximate the dam on automotive side. And the product design cycles are shorter, so the revenue can come on faster, and they tend to be at higher gross margins. It's a perfect complement to the automotive market, where volumes can be in the means of units, allowing you to reach market-leading unit cost economics once those volumes come on. If you take a step back, there is -- these are both $30 billion terms that we are showing great progress in. And to accelerate our success in the nonautomotive market, we are planning to increasingly work with distributors -- distribution partners. In fact, next week, we are launching our first ever 3-day-long global distributors summit here at headquarters in Israel. We'll be hosting 9 industrial and technology distributors from across Asia, Europe and North America to educate them on our technology, are them with our marketing tools and introduce them to our ordering and logistic platforms. Engaging distributors is an important evolution in our go-to-market strategy. It's a lower cost way to amplify the efforts of our sales, expanding our reach in nonautomotive quickly and without meaningful increases to our headcount and fixed costs. As we've said before, 2023 will be an important year for our growth in the nonautomotive market, and we are making progress in building the partnerships and the overall foundation for success in the coming years. With that, I'll turn it over to Eldar to go over the financials.
Eldar Cegla
executiveThank you, Omer, and good morning, everyone. Starting with cash. We continue to maintain a high liquidity level with approximately $218 million in cash, short-term deposits restricted cash and marketable security on balance sheet as of quarter end. And as we have said in the past, our cost structure has already largely matured. So our operating cash outlays remained mostly stable during the quarter and were in line with our 2022 budget. Moving to income statement. Revenues in the quarter came in at $0.9 million compared to Q3 2021 revenues of $2.1 million. Sales in the quarter were impacted by the upgrades we made to our calibration and test lines during the move of our company headquarters, as Omer previously discussed. While the timing for the upgrade took slightly longer than expected, the investment was well worth it, given the meaningful improvement in throughput. With these changes behind us, we expect our revenues cadence to normalize going forward with an uplift to InnovizOne unique deliveries in the coming quarters. In fact, our current unit delivery in Q4 2022 have already surpassed Q3 2022 delivery. On the cost side, operating expenses for the third quarter of 2022 were $31.3 million, an increase from $30 million in the third quarter of 2021. This included $4.9 million of share-based compensation compared to $8.2 million in Q3 2021. The year-over-year increase in operating expenses was primarily due to an increase in headcount during the quarter, partially offset by the lower level of share-based compensation. Research and development expenses for Q3 2022 were $24.2 million, an increase from $20.6 million in Q3 2021. The quarter included $3.2 million attributable to share-based compensation compared to $3.7 million in Q3 2021. In conclusion, while the setback in our unit delivery this quarter was slightly larger than expected, the volume should be recovered in the following quarters and the long-term benefits that we expect to unlock are meaningful and a step in the right direction for the company as we move to full serious production of the BMW and shuttle programs next year. This progress further strengthens our position in the marketplace and improves our ability to gain additional market share going forward in both the automotive and nonautomotive segments. And with that, I will turn the call back to Omer.
Omer Keilaf
executiveThank you, Eldar. Before turning it over to the Q&A, I wanted to wrap up our prepared remarks with a quick review of where we stand today versus our original 2022 growth. On the right-hand side of this slide, you can see the goals that we have set to ourselves at the beginning of the year and where we stand now. In terms of preproduction programs, we came into the year targeting 10, and today, we are at 14%. We targeted 1 design win, and we are already delivered to with 2 more months left in year. And in terms of the order book, we originally targeted a 30% increase. And thanks, in particular, to the VW deal in our most recent win, we've blown through that goal with a 165% gain moving to $6.9 billion. And again, the year is not over yet. In terms of our pipeline, we previously disclosed 12 programs in RFI or RFQ process with 23 expected to make a decision in the next 6 months. With the announcement of our new Asian OEM deal, that Bob goes to 11 and now we have 1 to 3 customers who could make a decision in the upcoming 6 months. When I talk about the momentum that we have at Inova, you can see it on this slide. We've already delivered on the things we promised to deliver for 2022, and we believe there is a lot more to come in 23 and 24. Okay. With that said, I will turn over the call to the operator to take us into the Q&A.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] Our first call today comes from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs.
Mark Delaney
analystThe first one is, I'm wondering if you can give any preliminary input on how all Innoviz is doing with the 1 to 3 OEM decisions that could be made in the next 6 months? And can you elaborate a bit on how impactful being qualified with 2 of the key platforms has been with those decisions?
Omer Keilaf
executiveOkay. So I would say that with those opportunities, we are already at the short list, meaning that the last stage of the -- and generally, I would say that we are in a very strong position. We've heard several times that our award with VW is very meaningful. And one of them is -- so one of them is using one of the platforms, the other one is using the other. And the third, actually, I'm not sure which platform they're using. But I will definitely say that from the first I mentioned, the fact that we're already integrated into those platforms is a key advantage.
Mark Delaney
analystThat's helpful. My second question was hoping you can give more of an update on how the sample process is going? And any more clarity you can provide on when you think the company will be in serious production. You said next year for a couple of programs, but is there more granularity you can share? Is it more first half or second half weighted?
Eldar Cegla
executiveSure. So maybe I'll explain a little bit about what we've done in the last quarter. Moving from Camp in this center means that the product -- in sample the product needs to finalize all of the design validation for automotive grade. This sample is related to the production validation. So you need to start a T center when all the production processes are done. So we had to -- before starting the December, we had to go through all of the needed changes from the open issues we had in our production processes in order to meet that milestone. So we started shipping already the decent, and now we're doing this sample production validation. And basically, it means that next year, hopefully, by the beginning of the year, we were already able to meet the start of production of our customers.
Operator
operatorOur next call comes from Jared Maymon from Berenberg.
Jared Maymon
analystFirst question for me. You guys talked about it on the presser and then on the call as well. But on that new platform partner, so given your existing partnership with Qualcomm, as you guys pointed out, that kind of leaves NVIDIA or Mobileye, either one of those obviously great to kind of hit yourselves to. So I guess the question is, can you expand a bit on what the mechanics of that relationship are? And then given the key competitor has called out past partnerships with those platform partners, can you explain how your competitive positioning and the procurement process changes for you?
Omer Keilaf
executiveSure. So the way it works with these platforms or maybe specifically with this one, the way that they work with the different customers is that eventually, it's the customer decision on which sensor they would like to source. But eventually, there is a lot of value. And once they are already losing your sensor collecting data, practicing their algorithms, it removes a lot of overhead on doing that again. And eventually, although it's a customer decision on which sensor they want to use, there is a certain, I would say, overhead, they might need to pay if they want the platform to support a different sensors. So in general, I would say the fact that we were awarded to a program with this new platform is giving us a huge benefit maybe the customer, the future customer, a huge benefit because the leverages of existing efforts going on and wouldn't-- I mean overall program cost would be lower. I hope it's clear.
Jared Maymon
analystYes, definitely. Thanks, Omer. And then second question. So great to hear the update on the forward-looking order book. Just on the order book in general, we've been trying to get a better sense of how the kind of top ladder players are approaching those calculations alongside the customer. So can you help us better understand how estimates on things like take rates to arrive at? And then if any unconfirmed wins are considered in there like what some of your peers are doing?
Omer Keilaf
executiveNo, we're only referring to design wins we have, and those are based on volumes that were provided as part of the RFQ. We give some weighted measure to the different scenarios that are given to us. And based on the number of vehicles that are expected to be included across several years of the program. We are assuming a moderate take rate, which is starting from 1% to 14%. It's actually different between the different programs because for passenger because there is more clarity on the number of vehicles per customer, specifically on the short-term program. This is based on just the volumes that we got from the customer itself because there are no volumes out there already.
Operator
operatorOur next question comes from Andres Sheppard from Cantor.
Andres Sheppard-Slinger
analystA few quick questions for me. In regards to the revenue number, Cegla, so that was a little bit lower than Q3 and '21, looks like the primary reason was [ such a ] downtime from the company's headquarters move. I'm just wondering, can you expand a little bit on that? And I know you're not guiding Q4, but should we expect a stronger Q4 to finish the year...
Eldar Cegla
executiveSo it was very important for us. This move was the same is primarily due to the upgrade that we did in relation to the sample stage that we transition to, which means currently, the throughput is much better than we had before. And as I said already now, the deliveries that we made to this point in Q4 is larger exceeds the deliveries that we did last quarter. So definitely, I expect the momentum to pick up on that. Maybe one important change from last quarter is the fact that we won another program, which has some NRE to eat some considerable NREs essentially yes, which will impact us already next year. So this is something very important. So we won a very nice program that will contribute to our revenues next year as well.
Omer Keilaf
executiveI want to maybe add to this. If I may, as a company pursuing automotive, our commitment to our customers such as BMW to follow their quality requirements, moving to the decamp required us to modify our production processes to meet with their requirements. So it's not only the product that is to be automotive grade. Also, all of the production tools and processes need to meet certain requirements. And we had those open issues to cover in order to move to the sample. In a way we had to sacrifice the short term in order to do those necessary changes so we can move to the sample. So the downtime was, I would say, unavoidable. But in general, it is in to support our customers that we're expecting to launch next year. And maybe to add to the recent design wins, as Eldar said, this recent design win, there are 2 very important elements related to the revenues. One, as Eldar said, is the significant NREs, but also the production tools. So the customer is funding also the production -- another element, which is super critical is the fact that this program out of the different RFQs that we were completing was the one to launch the earliest and with quite substantial volume already in 2024. So for us, it was very strategic to win this program because it allows us to see growth of our revenues in the meaning, I would say, in a good way already in 2024.
Andres Sheppard-Slinger
analystWonderful. Quick follow-up. Earlier this week, we saw some consolidation in the LiDAR sector with the merger between -- after and Velodyne, which I'm sure you're aware of. I'm just wondering maybe, Omer, in regards to strategy, is this something that you and Innoviz might be considering? Obviously, you guys have great partnerships with BMW, Ceria, the Asian OEM. So in some ways, you are ahead of the competition. I'm just wondering, are you exploring or contemplating any M&A activities.
Omer Keilaf
executiveNo, it's a good question. So I can share with you that in the last probably year, we came across the different ideas coming from banks, et cetera, to consider that kind of path. I have to say that in my point of view, the only thing that matters for us is whether this acquisition will help us to gain momentum in the automotive space. And whether the technology that we might need in order to have a better offering into the market will help us to do that. From that point of view, we didn't see and we don't see a good reason to look at that point to look at that approach.
Andres Sheppard-Slinger
analystGot it. Fair enough. And maybe one last one, if I could. Eldar, maybe for you. Can you just remind us on your capital needs? How are you thinking about capital raising needs as we approach 2023 and beyond?
Eldar Cegla
executiveYes. Yes. So basically, we are looking at next in terms of what are the expected revenue or inflow sources. And as we said before, we expect both the launch of the PMB program, which will both generate the final NRE that we are expecting there in revenues. We expect the shuttle programs to launch, we have additional revenues coming from the new client in Asia. So we have some expected inflows. So in addition to that, we have a strong cash position. So I think we are in a good position. And of course, there might be certain opportunities depending on what we do in the market. But currently, this is our plan.
Omer Keilaf
executiveMaybe I'll add to that as well. We are pursuing additional programs right now. And with a program that we are competing with, there is a substantial NRE requirement that will also support our efforts, which is quite meaningful. So in that manner, it's a fall term needs. We are also -- I would say that the company organizational structure is very, I would say, efficient. The way the company is able to support different programs is based on the fact that the technology is highly flexible, and it actually meets all the requirements we've seen. And as such, it doesn't require a large or meaningful need to grow the company to support additional customers. Basically, with every company that we need to support, the headcount is not -- that's not required to increase meaningfully.
Operator
operatorOur next call comes from Samik Chatterjee from JPMorgan.
Samik Chatterjee
analystI guess a couple from my side, and I'll ask them together. One, firstly, in terms of your pipeline, can you talk about the sort of geographic diversity or sort of how the pipeline looks like in terms of the split between the geos or the OEMs there? And are there any geographies that you feel you're sort of underrepresented today and even in terms of your pipeline and need to focus more and invest more towards over the sort of next 12 months or so. The second one, the question I had was around this new win that you have, the customer is trying to rush to light sort of series production in 2024 with the Asian OEM that you referenced. I mean as a company, as a liar company that's been providing safety, how are you trying to mitigate some of the risk of the OEM trying to rush this to serious production. What is allowing the customer to rush this or compress the time line? Is it that the software stack is much more developed? Are they more confident about the software stack? Like, how do you as a company then mitigate some of the challenges in trying to balance sort of safety versus compressing the time line to production?
Omer Keilaf
executiveSo first of all, thank you, Samik, for the questions. Starting with the first question. Geographically, we are spread now. I mean we started with German in Germany because we saw it as the base of the automotive market. I would say that even some of our -- I would say even our Asian new customer, LND, there is a big team there also in Germany, which is also helpful for us. But other than that, we are currently in discussion within those 11 OEMs, I would say that probably everywhere. Japan, U.S. and other areas of Europe. I don't think that we have a blind spot, but blends by definition, is probably something I don't know about. But I think that we -- I don't think there is a carmaker that is pursuing a lighter now, and we're not engaged. So I hope that answers your question. I think that maybe just add, I think that there is good progress in Japan now, moving faster. And also in the U.S., maybe a little bit following that. Other than that, the second question about safety. So look, the second program, I mean, the new program that I mentioned the partner that is responsible for the overall driving decision and testing is a very credible player. And I believe that eventually they would manage to do. I mean eventually, they are responsible for all of the driving testing and safety. We are responsible for the lighter and the perception software. But eventually, I believe this is with a very credible team behind it. So I'm not concerned.
Operator
operatorI would like to pass over the next question to McClain Culver from Rosenblatt Securities.
McClain Culver;Rosenblatt Securities;Analyst
analystThis is McClain on for Kevin Cassidy. I had a few questions around the Navis 360 RFQs. Have you already started accumulating RFQs? And is the process different than the automotive market? And I have a few follow-ups.
Omer Keilaf
executiveSure. So the short answer is no. The Innoviz360 was designed based on discussion with a specific customer. But generally speaking, I would say that the Innoviz360 will be delivered as samples to different customers. The 360, maybe there's one RFQ. But I would say that generally speaking, the automotive market is not yet at the stage where level is making meaningful progress in terms of making decisions on the product, but we do see the trend going there. So I believe that with -- in terms of -- I mean, basically, we started to develop the 360 knowing that, that stage would come. And I believe that next year, that's the time that we'll start to see more meaningfully. Right now, the discussions are more on the, I would say, the technical aspects to see that we design the system that mix all of their needs, but no, I would say, RFQs in the automotive market. There are discussions with nonautomotive customers. I would say that one of the changes we've made to the product is related to discussions about the industrial design. Many customers that we've showed the product, made their comments about having a more seamless integration just by having a product that is more similar in terms of shape. And therefore, we did change the product the way it looks and connects. And we hope to show this product by the end of this year. I think it will be a very disruptive technology because it introduces a very significant improvement to the price performance that it is offered today by others.
McClain Culver;Rosenblatt Securities;Analyst
analystOkay. That's helpful. And for those RFQs, about how many competitors do you have? Is it kind of the same about 2 to 3 as before?
Omer Keilaf
executiveSo I would say that different geographies sometimes introduce different competitors. In general, we mostly compete with the Tier 1s, some there are the Tier 1s that you're probably familiar with that have their own LiDAR. And I would say that in general, we don't really see a lot of the lie other lines compete directly.
Operator
operatorThank you very much. That shall conclude our Q&A session for today, and I would like to pass the call back over to Omer. Thank you.
Omer Keilaf
executiveOkay. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I just wanted to take a minute to give you a quick advertisement for CES. We're excited to meet with both customers and investors in January at the conference. Without saying too much before event, we plan to highlight not just our technology, but some of our actual products that we are integrated on. And we will showcase some of the capabilities of our new Innoviz360 item, which is going to be an exciting new addition to our product set and an important part of our continued growth in both the automotive and automotive markets. For investors that look -- that are looking to connect at the event, please feel free to reach out to our IR department directly through the email address on this slide or in the press release. We will help you find the time to visit the boost and meet the team. Okay. With that said, I'm excited to explore Innova stands today and the progress we have made over this quarter. Thank you for joining us. And with that, we can end the call. Thank you very much.
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