Universal Display Corporation (OLED) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello and welcome to the 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Universal Display Corporation. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded and will be available online after the meeting. We ask you not to record the meeting. [Operator Instructions] Questions on the same topic or that are otherwise related may be grouped, summarized and answered together. Only those questions related to the official business of the company or the meeting will be answered as time permits. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Steve Abramson, Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Universal Display. Mr. Abramson, go ahead -- please, go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Universal Display Corporations 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Thank you for joining our virtual meeting via webcast and I hope that you have all been well. This is the first time we are conducting our annual meeting virtually and from separate locations. So we appreciate your understanding if we run into any technical hiccups. Today, we will conduct the formal business of the meeting as set forth in the company's notice of annual meeting and proxy statement and rules of conduct, links to which are posted on the annual meeting website. It is our intention to conduct this meeting in accordance with these documents. Following that, I will give a brief presentation on the company, and I will then do my best to answer questions from shareholders as appropriate and as time permits. Now I'd like to formally open the business portion of this meeting. The polls for the items to be voted on at this meeting are open and will remain open until the end of the business portion of this meeting. Shareholders of record who have not already voted or who wish to change their votes may do so now by following the instructions on the annual meeting website. Please note that if you've already voted and do not wish to change your vote, you do not need to vote again here. Virtually joining us today are members of the UDC Board of Directors and company executives. As mentioned, I'm Steve Abramson, Director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Display Corporation. The other executive members of the company's Board are: Sherwin Seligsohn, our Founder and Chairman of the Board; and Sidney Rosenblatt, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary of the company. Our independent board members are: Cynthia Comparin, Cynthia joined the Board in January; Rick Elias; Betsy Gemmill; Keith Hartley; Celia Joseph, Celia also joined the Board in January; and Larry Lacerte. From the company's executive management team are: Dr. Julia Brown, Senior Vice President and our Chief Technical Officer; Janice Mahon, Vice President and General Manager of our Material Supply business; and Mauro Premutico, Vice President, Legal and General Manager of Patents and Licensing. Also on the call is Dr. Mike Hack, Vice President of Business Development. Additionally, I would like to introduce the following individuals who are also virtually present today: Joseph Charles, Elizabeth Kane and [ Mike Gazal ] of KPMG, the company's independent registered public accounting firm; Justin Chairman of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, the company's outside legal counsel; and Christopher J. Woods from American Election Services, LLC, who was appointed by Broadridge Financial Services to serve as our inspector of elections and proxy tabulator. The company had received an affidavit signed by a representative of Broadridge Financial Services, which is serving as inspector of elections and proxy tabulator, that notice of this meeting, along with the related proxy and annual report materials, was mailed or made available beginning on April 23, 2020, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 3, 2020, our record date. Based on the affidavit from Broadridge, this meeting is duly called with timely and proper notice. Based on the information provided by the inspectors of elections, a quorum of shareholders is present in person or by proxy for the transaction of business at our meeting today. We are meeting today to vote on the proposals described in the company's proxy statement. The first item of business is the election of the 9 director nominees listed in the proxy statement, each to hold a 1-year term. As a reminder, the nominees are: Sherwin I. Seligsohn; Sidney D. Rosenblatt; Cynthia J. Comparin; Richard C. Elias; Elizabeth H. Gemmill; C. Keith Hartley; Celia M. Joseph; Lawrence Lacerte; and I, Steven V. Abramson and the final nominee. Biographies for each of the nominees are included in the proxy statement, and the Board recommends a vote for each of the 9 director nominees. The second item of business is the advisory nonbinding vote on the compensation of our named executive officers as described in the proxy statement. We refer to this vote as being advisory because results are not binding on the company. However, the company's Board of Directors and Compensation Committee intend to consider the results of this vote in making determinations in the future regarding executive compensation arrangements, and the Board recommends a vote for this proposal. The third item of business is the ratification of the company's Audit Committee's appointment of KPMG LLP to serve as the company's independent auditor for the year ending December 31, 2020. The Board recommends a vote for this proposal. Should anyone wish to cast their vote, please do so now. [Voting]

Since there is no other business to come before the meeting, the polls are now closed. I have the preliminary report from the inspector of elections on the voting results, and I am pleased to report that each of the proposals voting on today has been approved by the requisite vote. The inspector of elections will provide the final certified report of the votes following the meeting. That report will become a part of the record of this meeting and is not expected to affect the outcome of the voting I announced today. We will report the detailed voting results of today's meeting on a Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the coming days. That concludes the formal portion of the meeting, and I now declare our 2020 Shareholders' Meeting formally adjourned. Now let me provide a short report of the company as we review 2019 and share our view of the business. Please take a moment to review our safe harbor statement. We pay our lawyers a lot of money for this. During the presentation and any Q&A, I or other company management members may make forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 related to future events or results. These statements are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company's periodic reports filed with the SEC and should be referenced by anyone considering making any investments in the company's securities. With COVID-19, the world is still grappling with a public health crisis. In these extraordinarily challenging times, we have been able to keep our employees safe, maintain our business operations and continue our strategic growth programs. Our primary focus remains on the safety and well-being of our employees, customers, partners and community. During the first quarter, our crisis management and business continuity plans were activated. Under our crisis management plans, we implemented measures to safeguard our employees, which includes modified work arrangements. And in our facilities, we are adhering to the recommendations from local, national and global health authorities to maintain a healthy and safe work environment. Our business continuity plans are mobilized to ensure our ability to continue our R&D programs and manufacture and ship to customers our energy-efficient, high-performing UniversalPHOLED materials. In this slide, you will see a snapshot of how some of our employees are adapting to the new structure of work from home and social distancing in the office. As we look to our financials, the continued proliferation of OLEDs in smartphones, TVs and wearables as well as early commercial headway into the IT and automotive markets is fueling OLED capacity investments in installs, which in turn helped us to achieve record results across the board in 2019. 2019 revenues were $405 million, operating income was $158 million, and net income was $138 million or $2.92 per diluted share. This slide shows a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures. For more information, please refer to our SEC filings. We have 2 main revenue drivers: materials and royalty licensing. If you look at our revenue profile, you will see that the ratio of our materials to royalty licensing revenues falls between 1.5:1 and 2:1. Moving on to Slide 7. The display industry is comprised of approximately a dozen panel makers. Our top 3 customers represent the top 3 OLED display panel makers in the world. As more OLED investments are made and new OLED capacity is built, we expect to see further diversification in our customer profile. With respect to cash, we ended 2019 with $646 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments or $13.74 of cash per diluted share. With a robust balance sheet and strong positioning in the long-term OLED growth market, we intend to continue returning capital to our shareholders through our dividend program. In displays, the number of OEMs adopting OLEDs and the number of OLED products are both increasing. Based on 2019 market research figures, about 1/3 of the smartphone market, 1% of the IT market and 1.4% of the TV market has been penetrated by OLEDs. And there are new and expanding opportunities in the AR/VR, wearables and automotive markets. Looking to the near term, the COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty in the market. The market forecast on this slide and the next were published in April by Omdia Market Research, formerly IHS, do not fully reflect the impact of the current public health crisis. With unclear near-term demand visibility due to the tremendous uncertainty surrounding the consumer environment and the macroeconomic environment, we withdrew our 2020 guidance last month during our first quarter earnings call. Long term, we believe that the long-term growth path of OLED is unchanged and remains strong. The timing of adoption may shift due to the macro economy. OLED capacity is one way to gauge our revenue opportunity. The number of OEMs adopting OLEDs and the number of OLED products are increasing. With this end market growth, panel makers have and continue to invest in new OLED capacity to support their growing OEM customer base. This demand momentum is fueling a multiyear OLED CapEx growth cycle. As we look to 2021 and beyond, as new OLED capacity comes online, new OLED products are launched and progress continues with our customers' commercialization plans, we expect it to fuel the OLED market's trajectory. With the strength of our know-how, experience and broad IP framework of over 5,000 issued and pending patents worldwide, with new inventions and patents from our amazing R&D teams, we believe we will maintain our leadership position in the OLED ecosystem. As I mentioned earlier, the display industry is comprised of approximately a dozen panel makers. This is a list of our announced customer agreements. Let me just highlight that we have long-term multiyear agreements with all of the top-tier display players, including Samsung Display, LG Display, BOE, Tianma, Visionox, and the most recent long-term agreement is with China Star. Additionally, we have long-term agreements with multiple lighting panel makers. At the heart of our core competencies are our phosphorescent technologies and materials. As noted on this slide, the discovery of UDC's proprietary phosphorescent technology was a major breakthrough in the OLED industry. With efficiencies that are up to 4x higher than the conventional fluorescent OLED materials, UDC's patented and award-winning phosphorescent OLED technology and UniversalPHOLED materials are proven to enable low-power consumption in OLED displays and lighting. Our focus remains on being at the forefront of leading-edge OLED technologies and phosphorescent materials. Our team of scientists and engineers are continuously inventing, developing and delivering next-generation emissive material systems and technologies, including new reds, greens, yellows, and hosts to meet the ever-changing and ever-evolving customer specifications for an array of consumer applications. With respect to blue, we continue to make excellent progress in our ongoing development work for a commercial phosphorescent blue emissive system. Our goal is to deliver all phosphorescent OLED stack, enabling higher energy efficiency and high performance across all specifications. In displays, the development and commercialization of OLEDs is accelerating across the consumer electronics market, including smartphones, with the top 3 OEMs all using OLED for their premium lines. In TVs, there were about 15 OLED TV makers in the world using LG Display panels in 2019. This year, an additional 4 new OEMs: Huawei, Xiaomi, VIZIO and Sharp will launch OLED TV models, further broadening the landscape of OLED TV players and products. And to showcase why OLED TVs are great, please take a look at this video from LG. [Presentation]

As someone who owns a few OLED TVs, they truly are the best TVs in the world. Now moving along to wearables. In the wearables market, OLEDs are the display of choice due to their thinness and ability to be made on plastic for conformability. In the IT market, we are beginning to see OLEDs in the notebook market with products including the Dell XPS 15, Gigabyte Aero 15, HP Spectre x360, Alienware m15 and Razer Blade 15 as well as new tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 6. What's driving this interest in OLED in IT? As Samsung has noted in the past, AMOLED displays are known not only for their outstanding color reproduction but also for properties that enable low-power consumption, ultra-slim bezels and thin and light designs. They also noted that AMOLED panels deliver the best display specifications for notebooks by enhancing the mobility and seamless streaming capabilities for high-resolution gaming and graphics content. An emerging focal point in the consumer electronics industry is form factor. We expect the ramp of plastic OLED production to usher in new design possibilities. From conformable to foldable, then to rollable, OLEDs are the only current display technology that can commercially enable these exciting and groundbreaking form factors. In the coming years, new ideas, new concepts and new products are expected to showcase the endless possibilities that OLEDs can engender. And now here's a quick and fun video from Samsung, showcasing how great foldable OLEDs are. [Presentation]

On a personal note, I love my Galaxy Fold for the practicality and portability of a 2-in-1 product of a smartphone and a mini tablet. Now to the VR space. We are seeing OLEDs in the virtual reality market, highlighting OLED's benefits of fast refresh, high contrast ratio and wide color gamut. OLED lighting development activity continues. The compelling benefits of OLED lighting include: high power efficiency, novel and innovative form factors, beautiful natural colors and cool operating temperatures. Here are some of the novel OLED lighting products from Acuity Brands and OLED lighting fixtures using OLED work panels. In addition to the mainstream consumer market, we're also seeing growing interest from the automotive market, not just for OLED lighting applications like taillights, interior lighting and indicator lights, but also for displays. One of the main benefits of OLED taillights to automakers is its form factor and ability to create novel designs. Adoptees include: Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz. In displays, some of the benefits of OLEDs include: high contrast, which means less eye fatigue; wide color gamut, which means natural, saturated, consistent colors; low-temperature fast response times, which means no staggering in extreme coldness that you experienced with LCDs; and flexible display design, which means that not only can you create conformable displays, but also unbreakable displays that are made on plastic that can conform to the shape of the car. The first car with a full color interior OLED display is a 2021 Cadillac Escalade. Organic vapor jet printing, OVJP is a novel manufacturing process for maskless, solventless, dry direct printing of OLEDs. We believe that OVJP has a potential to revolutionize the manufacturing of large-area OLED TV patents. While still a few years from a commercial OVJP system, we are pleased with the progress we are making in the key R&D milestones we are achieving with our 3-chamber full-color pilot system. Universal Display started as a New Jersey R&D company in 1994. And now we are a global company headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey with offices around the world, including in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, China, Ireland and our wholly-owned subsidiary, Adesis is based in Newcastle, Delaware. Last year, we expanded our footprint in Asia to meet our customers' growing needs with increased local technical support, including new corporate and laboratory facilities in Korea and Hong Kong, with state-of-the-art PHOLED application centers for device fabrication and testing with our customers and partners. Also in 2019, we announced the formation of UDC Ventures, our corporate venture arm, which is located in Midtown Manhattan. And earlier this week, we announced our 20-year partnership milestone with PPG, our exclusive manufacturer of our proprietary phosphorescent OLED materials. Our UniversalPHOLED emitters are made at PPG's Monroeville, Pennsylvania and Barberton, Ohio sites. In summary, Universal Display is a trailblazer in the growing OLED market. We have the innovation engine as well as the commitment to operational excellence, agility and flexibility to drive the continued development and commercialization of state-of-the-art OLED technologies of phosphorescent materials. We thank our employees around the world for their drive, desire and dedication and heart in elevating and shaping Universal Display's accomplishments and advancements. To our customers and partners, we thank you for collaborations that continue to engender a vast array of design possibilities that are transforming the display and lighting landscape. And to our shareholders, we thank you for your continued support as we execute on our strategy to deliver on our vision. And with that, we will now go into the question-and-answer session. We will take shareholders' questions and comments that have been submitted during the meeting on the annual meeting website. Please note, we will try to answer as many questions as time allows. But only questions that are appropriate to the business of the company or the meeting will be answered.

We received a question regarding succession planning. Our response is that we are constantly looking to add exceptional talent to our group of senior officers. We believe we have a good and deep group of talent for the future. In addition, we received questions relating to our blue emitter development. And to that point, I will say that our confidence in developing a commercial phosphorescent blue emissive system continues to grow due to the significant R&D progress we are making. We currently have approximately 100 people working on blue. We believe a commercial blue is a matter of when and not if. But until we meet initial commercial specs, though, we do not intend to provide specific details. With no further questions or comments in the queue, I now declare this 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders closed. Thank you all today for joining us in these unprecedented times, and I ask that you please stay safe. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to Investor Relations at [email protected]. I want to thank all of the company's directors, executives and partners for joining us, and I would like to thank all of our shareholders for your attendance in today's meeting and for your continued support of Universal Display Corporation.

This concludes the 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders for Universal Display Corporation. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.