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 (VIAO 0.77%)
Q3Â 2020 Earnings Call
Oct 29, 2020, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the VIA Optronics third-quarter 2020 earnings call. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
[Operator instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Monica Gould, investor relations. Please go ahead.
Monica Gould -- Investor Relations
Good afternoon, and welcome to VIA Optronics third-quarter 2020 financial results conference call. I'm Monica Gould, investor relations for VIA Optronics. I would first like to thank everyone for their patience today. As some of you may know, there was a significant network outage this morning in the U.S.
that affected our conference call service provider and required us to reschedule our earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today will be Jurgen Eichner, VIA's chief executive officer; and Daniel Jurgens, VIA's chief financial officer. Today's call is being webcast live and will be archived on the investor relations section of our website at via-optronics.com where our earnings press release is currently available. Certain matters we will be discussing today, including the business outlook and financial projections for the fourth-quarter 2020 are forward-looking statements.
Such statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in our documents filed with the SEC, including our registration statement and prospectus. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jurgen.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Thank you, Monica. So good morning, everyone. This is Jurgen Eigner from VIA Optronics.
First of all, thank you for joining us today for VIA's first-earnings conference call as a public company. We are pleased to report that despite the dynamic, the demand for VIA's innovative solutions remained strong in Q3. We recorded top line growth of more than 40% year-over-year, driven by both our display solutions and sensor technologies segment. Sequentially, we reported double-digit revenue growth and further expanded our order book.
Our pipeline and visibility remains robust, positioning us well for a strong finish of the year. We expect our momentum to remain strong in 2021 as we begin to ramp up production of several important projects. To give you a sense of our progress, I would like to touch on some notable milestones we achieved during the quarter. As some of you may know, we have a very strong position with the electronic vehicle manufacturers, which we continue to expand upon.
During the third quarter, we shipped the first prototypes for a leading U.S.-based TV company for a large-format cold form display assembly, marking our first call form project with a U.S. auto manufacturer. In support of this project, we started the construction of a new manufacturing facility in Germany with a capacity of 10,000 units per month. This alone will more than double our capacity in Germany by adding 1,600 square meters with potential for further expansion in the future.
On top of that, we also replaced the semi manual production process in our existing German facility to a newly fully automated one, adding to our production capacity, another 50,000 pieces units per month to a total of 60,000 units per month. The German site successfully passed the ISO 9001 audit again last quarter, and we are targeting the IATF 6,949 certification toward the end of next year. Out of the new project awards we received, I would like to highlight two in more detail. First, in the automotive sector, we received an award from a U.K.
EV customer for a new sports car; second, in the consumer electronics sector, we received two new awards from a large U.S.-based customer for industrial laptops and sophisticated touch features. Then some of you may be new to the story, I would like to take this chance to provide a short overview of the company, the markets we serve and our key growth drivers. I will then turn the call over to Daniel Jurgens, our CFO, who will provide a more detailed review of our third-quarter financial performance and fourth-quarter outlook. So let's start with the company overview.
We are a leading provider of interactive display solutions for multiple end markets, with superior functionality or durability is critical in a differentiating factor. We define an interactive display solution as a combination of display, touch and camera plus the electronic control unit, the ECU. In the active displays, which are a combination of touch sensors and LCD, a major element of these systems. And the key interface that people will be used to interact with the digital world in the future.
The future is in the active and touches a very reliable way to communicate with a computer system, similar to a desk of Seaport or a mouse. Voice is still very limited and not that reliable. It can support the touch, but it cannot replace it. It is very important that all elements of an interactive system work perfectly well together.
For these reasons, we are not only providing the touch and display solution, but also cameras as the main sensor element of an interactive display system and constantly increase the focus on the electronic control unit being the core of the system, including the drivers and software. The technology behind these elements is becoming increasingly more complex, the requirements to overcome technical and optical challenges in increasingly demanding environments are more challenging every year. VAS technology expertise positions us well to offer solutions to our customers to meet these challenges. We provide high end dispose solutions for demanding customers, not of the shelf commodities.
Since our inception, we have shipped more than 6 million displays, not pounding touchscreens, cameras and other system components we deliver. We have been granted more than 110 patents with another 50-plus more patent spending. Our customers and design partners include many of the world's largest OEMs and system integrators in the automotive, consumer electronics and industrial specialized applications markets. Let me say some words to the addressable market.
We are pushing for a significant market opportunity. And we believe that the total addressable market for our display solutions is robust and growing. We estimate that our term for display solutions is greater than EUR 43 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to be greater than EUR 49 billion by 2024. This TAM cover displays but does not include stand-alone touchscreens or cameras and excludes complete systems.
While market is currently growing at a single-digit rate, we is leveraging to the higher growth segments of the markets, including auto and industrial. The share of our products within this market is increasing, which is driving our higher revenue growth rate. As an orientation for you, the global market for industrial and specialized applications is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.1% to an estimated EUR 11 billion in 2024. And the market for automotive displays is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.5% to over EUR 8 billion in 2024.
With regards to our technology and competitive strength, some remarks here, our comprehensive portfolio of offerings in such as thin and lightweight display products with high optical clarity and vivid colors. We offer high bright display solutions with a very low power dissipation. Our focus is to generate high contrast ratio instead of power hungry backlight solutions and reduce reflections. You will not find products like ours as commodities in the market.
Here, our proprietary silicon-based bonding material and patented optical bonding processes play a key role. We are in the unique position of having material, process and production equipment design in-house, and we also have the development. This enables us to offer a wide variety of customized display solutions, including curve display panels and solutions, integrating multiple displays, touch assemblies under a single covenants. Our metal mesh touch screen solution allow all types of touch functions, including gestures, covering the ability to work with glass and in the rain.
So we are offering more than a traditional touch screen. Moreover, we manufacture the complete product in-house and buy only raw materials. Our touch technology is protected by a variety of patents and licenses. Recently, we also introduced our own automotive camera solution to the support to support driver assistance and ADAS functions.
Of course, these cameras can also be used in industrial equipment like tractors, harvesters, construction equipment, etc. These cameras are differentiating by having a very small footprint in a plastic housing, covering the complete automotive temperature range. We believe that our proprietary silicon-based bonding material patented optical bonding process. Our metal match touch sensor technology, as well as our competence in camera module design and overall in-house capabilities which are based on many years of cross-market experience among some of VIA's key differentiators.
We have a proven engineering team and our technological expertise is well suited for complex applications and demanding environments. We offer our customers a high level of customization with flexible module designs. We have production sites in Germany, China and Japan. Our global footprint has enabled us to overcome limitations arising from trade wars and COVID-19.
With regards to the end markets, our customers operate in the automotive, consumer electronics and industrial specialized application markets. Most of our customers in these markets are blue chip companies. We have long-standing relationships with our customers and quite often jointly defined comprehensive and customized solutions that meet their specific requirements, which we will then implement and produce. For our long-standing OEM customer base, we have become an important design partner.
Our consumer electronic offerings include solutions for notebooks, tablets and all in one monitors. We work with large global companies such as Dell, HP and Lenovo. Our industrial specialized solutions are part of in-flight entertainment systems, ruggedized laptops, marine navigational systems and fish finders, agricultural equipment, surround fuel systems, digital signage, in the active conference room displays and defense applications. They can be found in products from 3M, Dell, Emirate Airlines, GE, Honeywell, John Deere and Siemens, among others.
As indicated before, we have a very high focus on the automotive end market, where we work with OEMs and automotive Tier 1s. To name a few, these include companies like BMW, Ferrari, General Motors and Rolls-Royce. Our solutions include interactive displays for navigation, instrument clusters, real seat entertainment and infotainment systems. Cameras for surround view, driver monitoring with a strong focus on interactive display systems.
The advanced automotive camera module technology that we are developing include driver assistance features, driver support, such as driver monitoring and surround view, which promote enhanced vehicle performance and safety. On top of that, we are already very excited about our strategic cooperation with Corning, one of the leading glass producers. This collaboration began in August 2018 and has already resulted in the mass production of our first products earlier this year. Corning also invested approximately $20 million in our IPO in a concurrent private placement.
Our collaboration, which combines our technologies with Corning's ColdForm technology enables us to jointly design and deliver the most innovative curve glass interior display and such solutions and further strengthens our market position. We are working on several automotive projects with OEMs currently focusing on high-end cars and electric vehicles. VIA's focus is on providing a complete interactive dashboard display cluster assembly using Corning's ColdForm glass technology with optical bondage display touch assemblies. Another area of our development focus is to replace the more expensive metal frames with specific plastic solutions, thereby reducing the cost significantly.
We believe our share with the solution in the auto industry will be significant as the total number of displays in the use of glass as a design element and vehicle steadily increases. With regards to future growth, we have a strong and growing pipeline across our end markets. We currently have over 500 projects in process with a combination of existing and potential new customers. Our growth will be driven by expanding the number and size of our projects within our existing customer base, expanding our reach to new customers, specifically in the automotive market and leveraging our sensor and camera capabilities to deliver system solutions.
In summary, I am very encouraged by our performance in the third quarter. We remain confident with our comprehensive and differentiated offerings, coupled with a large addressable market position us well for long-term growth. With that, I will now turn the call over to Daniel to discuss our financial results and outlook in more detail. Daniel?
Daniel Jurgens -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Jurgen, and good day, everyone. I am Daniel Jurgens, CFO of VIA Optronics. I'll start by reviewing our financial and operating performance for the third quarter of 2020 and then provide our outlook for the fourth quarter of 2020. The first so, I would like to note that we report our financial results in two segments: our display solutions segment, which includes the development production and sale of interactive display solutions using our optical bonding technology.
Our second segment is our sensor technology business, which we acquired in 2018 and is located in our Japanese subsidiary, VTS, and includes the development, production and sale of our metal mesh touch sensors, both for use in our own enhanced display solution and as component parts to third-party customers. Now turning to our third-quarter results. Total revenue in the third quarter of 2020 was EUR 43.6 million, which compared to EUR 30.6 million in the third quarter of 2019. The increase of 42.5% was driven by strong growth in our display solutions and sensor technologies segment.
Total display solution revenue was EUR 35.9 million in the third quarter of 2020, up 41.9% from EUR 25.3 million in the third quarter of 2019. The increase was driven mainly by increased sales from our consumer electronics and industrial customers, including Dell and Pegatron. Total sensor technology revenue was EUR 7.7 million in the third quarter of 2020, up 45.3% from EUR 5.3 million in Q3 of last year. The increase was driven mainly by strong demand for notebook PC driven, for example, by the global increase of working from home.
Turning to our gross margin. Total company gross margin for the third quarter of 2020 was 14.7%, up from 1.6% in the first quarter of 2019. This increase was mainly driven by improved margin in our sensor technology segment. Specifically, our sensor technologies segment's gross margin rose to 16.9% in the third quarter of 2020 from negative 47.2% in the third quarter of last year due to substantially lower raw material costs based on lower usage of third-party materials and the higher yield compared to the third quarter of last year.
Our display solutions segment gross margin increased to 14.2% from 11.9% in Q3 of last year and was also driven by benefits from our cost reduction program that we implemented in the beginning of 2020. Similar to Q3 last year, revenue from our display solutions segment represented approximately 82% of total revenue in the third quarter, while revenue from our sensor technology segment represent approximately 18%. The breakup of our display solutions segment revenue can be made by the use of our products in their end markets and is related to the total group revenue as follows: revenue related to the industrial specialized applications end market accounted for 35% of our total revenue, which compares to 36% of the total revenue in the third quarter of last year. Revenue related to our consumer end market in the third quarter represented 30% of our total revenue, which compares to 30% of the total revenue in the third quarter of last year.
Revenue from our automotive customers accounted 17% of total revenue in third quarter 2020 compared to 18% in third-quarter 2019. The turning to expenses. Total operating expenses, excluding offset from other operating income, in the third quarter of 2020 were EUR 6.1 million or 13% of total revenue, which compares to EUR 6.5 million or 21.2% of the total revenue in the third quarter of last year. EBITDA in the third quarter of 2020 was EUR 3.5 million or a margin of 8% compared to negative EUR 3.7 million in the third quarter of 2019.
We recorded net income in the third quarter of 2020 of EUR 1.5 million, which compares to EUR 0.2 million in the second quarter of 2020. Based on our weighted average share count of 3.07 million shares, this translates to a basic and diluted earnings of $0.47 per share as we have no dilutive securities. Now turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of EUR 87.4 million, which included gross proceeds of the IPO of $93.75 million and a total debt of EUR 33.4 million.
In the first quarter -- in the fourth quarter of 2020, we expect total revenue to be between EUR 37 million and EUR 40 million, which will exceed last year's fourth quarter. We believe our guidance is conservative due to the potential to a second lock down in countries around the world, which may impact some of our customers. Overall, we are pleased with our financial results and the successful completion of our IPO during the third quarter, which positions us well to capitalize on the growth opportunities ahead of us. I will now turn the call back to the operator to open up the line for questions.
Thank you, operator?
Questions & Answers:
Operator
[Operator instructions]The first question is from Anthony Stoss from Craig Hallum. Your question please.
Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst
Good afternoon, Jurgen and Daniel, a couple of questions. Maybe you can hopefully go into a little bit more detail on the improving gross margins, especially on the sensor side, where do you think that can go in the December quarter or frankly, in calendar 2021. Also, I'd love to hear how much of the G&A was onetime IPO-related expenses in the September quarter? And then lastly, what was the capex number? And what's your thoughts in terms of capex? You talked about building out more production in Germany. Just curious your view on capex going forward.
Thanks.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So I can potentially -- maybe let me say some word on the sensor development upfront. Yes. Because the rest is basically financials.
So in the -- with regards to the sensors segment, we are not only trying to improve the current technology that we have. We're also looking into a new technology, which I cannot talk too much about that right now. So what you see in terms of numbers is basically our existing some technology and not the new developments. So overall, we believe that there will be a stronger growth in margins.
But maybe Daniel can say something to that as well. But I hand over to Daniel regarding the overall numbers for capex and the other questions that you raised.
Daniel Jurgens -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. First of all, your second question was on IPO costs included in the third quarter. The direct IPO costs directly related to the IPO, like lawyers or also the investment banks are according to IFRS deducted from the proceeds. And -- but there are, of course, included, let's call them indirect IPO-related costs because we had -- and we will see that maybe also in the future.
Indirect costs that are coming from the preparation foreign IPO like processes or our internal structures like a continuous improvement of internal controls and things like that. But there are no direct related IPO costs in the third quarter. And your third question was about the capex in the future. There will be, like we already announced in the prospectus.
There will be, of course, capex in the future for the increase of our production capacity and capabilities, like we currently, as Jurgen mentioned, building up a new production site here in Leonberg to fulfill the needs for additional projects. There will, of course, this will cost money. But our capex for additional production in general is not that high. Even here, we expect capex around EUR 5 million.
Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst
OK. And maybe if I could follow-up with Jurgen, just related to the expansion of the production in Germany to 10,000 units. You've talked about this new project with a U.S. EV maker will ramp up volume in early 2021.
Will the additional 10,000 units per month that you just talked about? Is that something that's needed down the road? Or do you need that in order to service this customer for early 2021? And maybe help us understand the additional capacity you're putting in, how long it takes to put in?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
So the 10,000 units that I mentioned is basically for this company for that production. The -- to be honest, the only reason why we had to do that right now in the new side was because our current building, we have space, but that space was -- is still occupied by a tenant. We can only get out in the next year. So we had to take this additional site, which is at the end of the day, we are pretty lucky because it looks like we have more projects coming in to the German side.
So at the end of the day, we need this whole capacity. Now again, the 10,000 is only for one -- for this one customer and the new additional capacity in Leonberg was related to automated lines is spread over several customers.
Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst
If I could ask one final question and I'll jump back in the queue and maybe for either of you, too. The quarter was better in terms of revenues than what you were, I think, anticipating going in. And originally, you were thinking that the December quarter would be flat. Did you pull some revenue, do you think, from the December quarter into September since December is now looking down sequentially? I know when you add them bolt together, it's still pretty strong, but I'm just curious if you think you pulled some of the revenue from December into September?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
No, maybe we didn't pull revenue in. That's not the case. But the -- now OK, at the quarter end, we never really know how much individual customers will pull out of the -- of our warehouses because at the end of the day, this is also their quarter end. So the quarter end is usually a sign of a financial political event.
So we cannot plan that accurately, but we have not pulled any revenues in from Q4 into Q3. And the reason why we give the guidelines for the guidance for Q4 that way is that at the end of the day, it looks very positive at the moment, but we try to remain conservative because you never really know what's happening -- what will come up at the moment. We have a potential soft lock down in several countries of the world that may affect us. So this is why we have been more conservative.
So to.
Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst
Understood. Thank you for that, appreciate it. Good luck.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
[Operator instructions] The next question is from Gustav Froberg with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Gustav Froberg -- Berenberg -- Analyst
Hi, both. Thank you for taking my questions as well. I have a couple. Firstly, just on Q3, I was hoping you could give us a little bit more color on the type of projects that you've been working on in Q3 that has driven the strong growth.
Any color on the type of customers that have been driving this? And then also, maybe in that context, you could help us understand how much of your revenues in Q3 came from new customers versus existing customers? And then finally, into Q4, I know you gave a little bit of an indication as to what to expect there. But maybe you could tell us a little bit about what lies behind your planning. Do you know what type of projects you have currently in the pipeline? Just a bit more color on the actual drivers of Q4 would be very interesting. And then a final question, just on G&A.
The G&A line in your P&L for Q3. Could you maybe give us some reasons why the G&A cost increased so much in Q3
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
So, maybe Daniel, this is again, more financial questions, but upfront for me, we have, as you can imagine, the -- we have -- the projects you worked on in production in Q3, they have been existing projects. There was not a significant new ramp-up in Q3. So it was basically a variety of projects and based on demand. The new ramp-ups, there will be -- if you are there should be, I think, in Q4, we have a few, but they will probably not yet contribute that much to the revenue.
But Daniel, you can say more about the spread in general. So it was an increase in demand. And that is also what we potentially see for going. But with regards to the -- you also said about regarding the increased cost that we have.
Keep in mind that we are planning for a big ramp-up in January in Germany. So of course, you have to do upfront investments. So you have to hire staff. You cannot, let's say, if you ramp-up in the middle of January, you will not get all the 50 people that you need.
And when you start and start to hire them at this point in time, they have to have training before. And we have to have them in-house. So this is something which contributes to that. But I'll leave the remaining part to Daniel.
Daniel Jurgens -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, Gustav. Thanks for the questions. I think most of this is answered by Jurgen about the Q3 revenue development, we have drivers for Q4. Are not new -- no new projects that are very few new projects.
As Jurgen already mentioned, we are very conservative on that. And want to be careful because it is really not very stable conditions around the world. However, we are -- we look forward that also this will be a good quarter. The cost driver in general are -- that, of course, we have more costs, as I mentioned before, that are indirectly used for preparing on the -- for the IPO structure.
And besides that, we have to, as we mentioned already in the prospectus, we will increase our research and development teams and that we already started. Jurgen talked about that. We already started. We have to start that.
And we had here also additional costs. And we had all over. We had yes, we have additional quality costs and expanding the quality team. So all over, we have in G&E, additional costs for the -- for personnel.
I think this is -- this is majorly driving majorly driving the costs.
Gustav Froberg -- Berenberg -- Analyst
Thank you. Just a follow-up on the cost. Could you maybe help us quantify or think how to think about the magnitude of the indirect IPO costs that you talked about?
Daniel Jurgens -- Chief Financial Officer
That I can't by now quantify because it is everywhere. It is -- there's a lot in quality, but we have to work in quality anyhow, as you know, if you are stepping in, in the automotive market or expand in the automotive market, you need to have several certificates on that, and you need to fulfill a lot of quality requirements. So -- but this quality requirements, I don't know if you are familiar with that. There are many of them are help with the requirements for us, for example, you have with the internal control requirements coming from the U.S.
regulation. So it is not really to separate of course, there are some that I would say, you can separate, but I have not that in my mind. It's not a big -- it's not that big amount that you really can separate and say that is only helping us with the IPO structures.
Gustav Froberg -- Berenberg -- Analyst
OK, thank you very much. No problem at all with your answer.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Charlotte Friedrichs with Berenberg. Your question please.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
Hello, thank you. Just two follow-ups from me. I'm more focused on your project pipeline here. In the beginning, you mentioned that you had two new projects, one in automotive for a U.K.
EV maker of sports cars and then also in the consumer area for industrial laptops. Can you give us an idea of maybe the size? Are these larger projects or rather more smaller incremental ones?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
But the EV on project in that case is a, I would say, not small, but it's -- in revenue-wise, it's not that quick compared to the one we have that or we don't do 10,000 pieces of unit, but is that fair, you're talking about 1,000 to 1,500. But if you talk about the notebook project, that's a regular size industrial notebook project. It's pretty much the same as all the other projects we have in that area. From the quantity wise.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
OK, understood. And then another question on the larger EV project that you have going on. I understand you've been shipping the first prototypes now. Can you walk us through what the next milestones are when you expect to kick off production and how quickly that will be ramping up?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, the next milestone will be, of course, another set of prototypes, but we are not talking about 10. We're already talking about 100 this year. And the ramp-up at the moment, we plan to ramp up as early as possible in Nuremberg, of course. It depends a little bit on the facility.
It also depends a little bit on the -- how we size the production. There is currently a discussion of bringing more automation in that process and delay the production in Germany for a while and produce in China for a smaller period. Customer, is that the benefit, the customer would even take the penalty into account that they have today, I think it's 20, 25% or whatever on top of the unit. So this is in discussion right now.
We -- so it could be very early next year. Or it could be at the moment in the March-April area. But we are discussing that it's not completely front.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
OK. And the feedback on the prototype so far, have you received any feedback there already?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. They were -- so far, what I have heard, they were excited. So I am not even I didn't see them yet, but the feedback was quite good.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
OK. So so far, no reason to assume that there's anything that I don't know may go wrong in that regard, right?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
No, there is no reason to think that the -- it's more or less how to optimize right now the ramp-up. That's only -- that's the only thing which is -- needs to be settled, but it's not a good or bad thing. It's just finding the best solution.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
OK. Understood. And the penalty payments, can you just remind us how those work?
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Sorry, the penalty in the penalty?
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
The penalty payments in case there's a delay because they want to have higher automation, for instance.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
So it's not a penalty payment for us. It's basically for them, the U.S. has imposed a 24, 25% tax for goods build in China.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
Sorry, that's what you meant, understood sorry.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
So from them, but -- so they are willing to accept that if -- overall, at the end of the day, if the automation is the higher automation provides a long term benefit, and they are willing to take this extra cost. And so this is why I said it's not a panel, it's just extra higher cost they have to pay on top of it. I consider it as a penalty because if you have to import anything out of China and the U.S. right now, everybody has that penalty.
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
OK, understood. Thank you very much.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, you're welcome.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Jurgen Eichner for closing comments.
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So again, thank you. Thanks, everybody, for joining us on the call today. We are very excited about our restack stage as a public company, and we appreciate your interest and support.
We are looking forward to update you on our progress in the next quarter. And with this, I would like to hand over back to a back to our venture cap -- our investor relations. Sorry for that, it's too late.
Monica Gould -- Investor Relations
Thank you, everyone, again for joining our call today, and we really appreciate your patience as we had to reschedule at the last moment. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator signoff]
Duration: 42 minutes
Call participants:
Monica Gould -- Investor Relations
Jurgen Eichner -- Chief Executive Officer
Daniel Jurgens -- Chief Financial Officer
Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum Capital Group -- Analyst
Gustav Froberg -- Berenberg -- Analyst
Charlotte Friedrichs -- Berenberg -- Analyst
