Lite-On Technology Corp

TWSE:2301

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Julia Wang, executive]

Good afternoon, dear investors and friends from the media. Welcome to LITEON Technology's 2022 Q4 fiscal and online earnings conference. During the meeting, we will explain the results from Q4 and hope that everyone will understand better the numerous operational adjustments and transformations completed in 2022. Our meeting will begin when everyone is seated.

Today's agenda consists of 3 parts. First of all, I will explain the financial performance of Q4 and the whole year of 2022. Second, President, Anson, will talk about the company's operating outlook and growth strategy. And third, during the Q&A session, we will open the floor for questions and further explanations. For those who are here for the first time, this page provides you with an introduction to the 3 major business segments, which include: first, Opto-electronics segment, which includes Opto-electronics, semiconductors and auto electronics; second, Cloud & AIoT segment, including products used in data centers, servers, networking equipment, AI, IoT, et cetera; and third, ITCE segment, which includes products and applications for notebooks, workstations, desktop computers, game consoles, et cetera.

In Q4 2022, LITEON Technology's net sales were of TWD 43.1 billion. Gross profit was TWD 8.4 billion, with a rate of 19.5%. Operating expenses, TWD 5.1 billion, with a rate of 11.8%. Operating profit, TWD 3.3 billion, with a rate of 7.7%. Overall, Q4 was affected by the structural adjustment of the consumer electronics industry, so our net sales decreased Q-o-Q and slightly by 3% Y-o-Y.

However, the net sales of our high-value businesses, such as cloud computing power supply, auto electronics, et cetera, increased by 31% and 48% Y-o-Y, respectively. Our gross profit benefited from the increase in the proportion of high-end products and the optimization of supply chain management and operating efficiency.

Therefore, the gross profit increased by 9% Y-o-Y, and the rate increased by 2.2 percentage points Y-o-Y. The increase in operating expenses is mainly due to the continuous increase in R&D investments. In Q4, R&D accounted for 5% of net sales and annual increase of more than 30%.

Among the R&D investment, the cloud power supply business accounted for the highest proportion. Operating profit was affected by the increase in operating expenses and decreased by 8% Y-o-Y. Other income was net $1.52 billion, which included the disposal gain of the Image business. Profit before tax, $4.85 billion; profit attributable to parent, $3.85 billion; EPS, TWD 1.68, which is an annual increase of more than 50%.

In 2022, despite lockdowns on stable supply chains and structural adjustments in the consumer electronics industry, LITEON's net sales continued to grow, mainly due to the increasing proportion of high-value core business shipments.

Annual net sales, TWD 173.5 billion, gross profit, TWD 33.3 billion, with a rate of 19.2%. Operating expenses, TWD 18.2 billion, with a rate of 10.5%. Operating profit, TWD 15.1 billion, with a rate of 8.7%.

The net sales Y-o-Y mainly benefited from the increasing proportion of shipments of high growth high-value businesses such as cloud computing power supply, auto electronics and high-end photo couplers as well as operating efficiency optimization. Therefore, gross profit increased by now 9% Y-o-Y, and the rate increased by 0.7 percentage points Y-o-Y.

Operating expenses increased by 4% Y-o-Y, of which R&D accounted for 4.3% of total net sales, which is an annual increase of more than 20%. Benefiting from the increase in operating scale, our operating profit increased by 16% Y-o-Y, and the rate increased by 0.8 percentage points Y-o-Y. This reflects our high-quality growth with speed, resilience and profitability.

Among other income and expense. The large difference compared with the previous year was the recognition of financial investment evaluation. The impact of this evaluation on the company has largely decreased. The annual profit attributable to parent was TWD 14.2 billion, an annual increase of 2%, and the EPS was TWD 6.19.

Since 2020, the company has launched digital transformation and strategically increased the proportion of high-growth, high-value core businesses. In the past 3 years, overall net sales has grown from TWD 157.1 billion in 2020 to TWD 173.5 billion in 2022.

Gross profit rate increased from 17.4% to 19.2% and operating profit rate increased from 6.5% to 8.7%. More importantly, EPS has increased from 4.31% to 6.19%, and the CAGR of EPS in the past 3 years has reached 20%. Opto-electronics, including auto electronics and Cloud & AIoT, which are the 2 high-value businesses, accounted for 49% of the net sales 2020.

By 2022, the 2 segments already accounted for 53% of the net sales. The increasing proportion of high-end businesses has led to overall net sales expansion and profitability improvement. LITEON will continue to implement the strategy of transformation and growth, including in product mix, business model and operating model, which shows that LITEON is already a completely different company.

As to be seen on the left of the slide, since 2020, the net sales of the Cloud & AIoT and Opto-electronics segment has grown year by year. In 2022, the net sales of the 2 segments exceeded TWD 90 billion, and the CAGR in the past 3 years was nearly 10%. The core applications of Opto-electronics, such as photo couplers from Opto-electronic semiconductors, have a 3-year net sales CAGR of 12%, mainly from industrial automation and green energy applications.

The CAGR of auto electronics is 22%, mainly from EV chargers, high-end LED automotive lighting and ADAS automotive imaging modules. The CAGR of IoT products in Cloud & AIoT is 7%, mainly from 5G small base stations, networking products and IoT applications. The annual growth of cloud computing power supply reaches 32% mainly from the new generation of system products due to specification improvements such as high voltage, high efficiency and high density of cloud power supply and the trend of green energy demand, our cloud computing power supply has grown rapidly.

In 2022, the 2 major segments of Opto-electronics and Cloud & AIoT accounted for 53% of net sales. LITEON's business model is actively transforming towards the goal of 4-3-3, that is 40% of sales from ITCE, 30% from Opto and auto electronics and 30% from Cloud & AIoT. In 2022, all the 3 major businesses showed annual growth in net sales. Cloud & AIoT has the highest annual growth of 10%. The gross profit of its high-end products exceeds 25% and the annual growth of operating profit reached 54%.

The gross profit of high products in Opto-electronics exceeds 30%, and the annual growth of operating profit reached 42%. The gross profit of high-end ITCE products reached over 18% by increasing the proportion of high-end products. Its operating profit has grown by more than 20% annually. Therefore, in 2022, the profits of the 3 major segments grew significantly, driving the overall high-quality growth -- profit growth.

From this concise balance sheet, compared with the previous year, our accounts receivable decreased by TWD 3.1 billion, and our inventories decreased by TWD 4.6 billion. Among the current liabilities our accounts payable decreased by TWD 1.8 billion annually.

So in terms of working capital management, which includes accounts receivable, accounts payable and inventory levels, the number of inventory days decreased by 2 days Y-o-Y and CCC, cash conversion cycle, improved by 6 days Y-o-Y. This reflects improved working capital management effectiveness.

At the same time, active working capital management and operating activities generate a net free cash inflow with a net cash position of TWD 58.4 billion. This will prepare and help the future investment and growth of momentum in core businesses. BVPS increased from TWD 32 to TWD 35 y-o-y. So our intrinsic value is also continuously improving.

We will now quickly give an overview of Q4 and the entire year of last year. Net sales in Q4 benefited from high-end products, such as cloud computing power supply and auto electronics, coupled with supply chain management and operational efficiency optimization, which pushed up gross profit by 9% Y-o-Y, with a rate of 19.5%, an annual increase of 2.2 percentage points.

Among the operating expenses, R&D investment accounted for 5% of the quarter's net sales with an annual growth of more than 30%. The R&D focus is on cloud, 5G, auto electronics, high-end photo couplers and opto-electronic semiconductors.

To focus on the development of the core businesses, the company has completed the transfer of the image business at the end of 2022. In the full year of 2022 due to the improvement of high-value core businesses, the annual net sales was TWD 173.5 billion, an annual increase of 5%. Among them, cloud computing power supply, auto electronics and high-end photo couplers were all growing.

Gross profit and operating profit increased by 9% and 16% respectively, showing high-quality growth in profit. At the same time, benefiting from the expansion of net sales scale and the improvement of operating efficiency, the annual gross profit was 19.2%, up 0.7 percentage points Y-o-Y. Operating profit rate, 8.7%, up 0.8 percentage points Y-o-Y. Net profit after tax was up 2% Y-o-Y. The EPS reached TWD 6.19. This morning, the BOD has approved a cash dividend of TWD 3 per share for Q4 2022. Including the cash dividend of TWD 1.50 distributed in the first half of 2022, the cash dividend for the full year will reach TWD 4.5 per share.

You can see on the screen that our long-term shareholders not only receives stable cash dividends every year, but also enjoy value-added gains in stock prices in recent years. The future cash dividend policy will be flexibly adjusted according to financial, business and operational factors, with the goal of maximizing total shareholder return.

This concludes the key financial reports for Q4 and the full year of 2022. I'm now handing over to President Anson, who will explain the company's operating outlook and growth strategy.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Thank you, Julia. I think in Julia's presentation, you have heard very clearly that over the past few years with the strategy of lean and focused, LITEON has focused on our core businesses. For example, in Q4 last year, we transferred our Image business. And over the last 2 years, as you have known, clearly, we have focused on where we can use our core businesses in order to create more value. And in these areas, we can make good use of our core capabilities in order to become a leader.

So with such a strategy of lean and focus, this graph clearly shows you our efforts over the last 3 years. With such a strategy, we have completely changed our operation. I'm not going to repeat these numbers because Julia has already mentioned them to you a while ago.

Now you may be more interested in knowing, with such a strategy of lean and focused, what will be our strategic development, in which direction will we go? Now I'm using this slide for you to clearly see our three steps. First of all, focus, we focus on our core, which is consumer electronics, ITCE. This is our core business. And also, Opto-electronics, parts and components, this remains where we will continue to focus and develop in addition.

But we know that these 2 areas were affected by economic cycles and volatilities. And in the long run, they may not be the areas which will maintain high growth in the term continuously. So our growth strategy in the future will continue to focus on cloud infrastructure, which includes data centers, and cloud computing and automotive electronics and AIoT IoE, which includes IoT and 5G, et cetera.

On this graph, you can clearly see this, on the path that we choose we see that the total caps are all very large. This is why we are able to develop in these areas. Among the 3 major areas that I just mentioned, you can see that in different areas, we have started to have some progress and some results.

For example, in terms of cloud and power supply, after 2 years' efforts, our data center market share grew a lot, grew from single digit to -- last year, I believe that our market share achieved around 30%. With continuous efforts, our market share over the next 2 years will continue to go up. And we will be able to penetrate new clients with new projects. So with the introduction of new products and new clients, we will be able to keep growing our market share.

In terms of automotive, from Julia's presentation a while ago, you can see that last year, the overall operation of auto electronics grew by around 20%. And the biggest growth factor comes from EV chargers. I think you can all see that over the last 2 years, the market of EV chargers grew very rapidly, along with the growing popularity of EVs. But last year due to supply chain impact, the growth was subdued.

But in the future, with the stabilization of semiconductors and raw material supply over the next 3 to 5 years, it will grow very rapidly. So our efforts in EV chargers will continue to receive positive results. And inside the car, we had onboard charger.

Over the past 2 years, we have been making efforts in that regard. And also in terms of ADAS, with our photography technology and AI algorithms, our results have been growing year after year with new projects and new clients. As for AIoT and 5G, yesterday, we just announced that in March in MWC in Spain, we will launch our new 5G products there. So in addition to 5G, we will also focus on some energy-related infrastructure and efforts.

Previously, I told you that our core business, our core capabilities in the future, ESG will be a very important trend and we see many opportunities related to it. We can use our core capabilities in order to bring better solutions to the market. So simply put, we talked a lot about Smart Grid, but in the future, we will use a more general term which is IoE, Internet of Energy, we will use this term as our next step, longer-term development core.

I think you can all observe that in our new products, new markets and new businesses, everything is related to one thing, which can be seen on this slide, ESG. These are our past efforts in ESG. And this topic will continue to be there over the next 20 years or so. This will be the mega trend. How can we reduce our carbon emissions year after year. This will be very important. And in our industry, it's all about energy, how can we use energy more efficiently, how can we reduce energy consumption. This is important in our industry.

Over the last 10 years or so, LITEON has continued to make efforts, and we have received many external recognitions. As you can see here, we are a member of Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and we are included in the MSCI ESG leaders Indexes and we are rated as fine status by the ISS ESG rating. And in terms of CDP we cooperate with the supply chain in order to better the supply chain.

Over the last few years, we have received supplier engagement leadership. These are our past efforts and recognitions, but I think this trend will continue to move forward. So we are committed in terms of new businesses, markets and efforts. We will continue to contribute LITEON's value. We are committed to carbon reduction every year. No matter what type of new products we launched, our carbon reduction -- our carbon emissions will be reduced by 5% every year.

At the same time, we don't just fight alone. We don't just focus on our own products in terms of carbon reduction. More importantly, we collaborate with our supply chain. In our green supply chain initiative, we want to maximize carbon reduction. So in addition to our own efforts, we partner with different parties, 2 years ago, we launched the green supply chain initiative in order to maximize our value.

So finally, through entering carbon management in green supply chain, we want to achieve the goal that by 2050, we will achieve zero carbon emission. So I just quickly took a few minutes to explain to you LITEON's future important areas and topics. And also in terms of ESG, how we will make good use of our core capabilities so that LITEON can create the maximum value.

So when you pay attention to LITEON, with a better corporate robustness nowadays, well, our GP improved from 13% to 20% already. So with such a corporate robustness. Our next step is that we want to rapidly grow our operation. The areas that I just mentioned are those where we will make active efforts in the future.

So this concludes my brief explanation. If you have other questions or want to understand a bit further, you can raise related questions, and I will be more concrete in answering your questions.

[Julia Wang, executive]

Thank you, Anson. Now we open the floor for questions, and then we will answer in more detail.

[Sharon Shih, analyst]

This is Sharon from Morgan Stanley. I have 2 questions for you. Thank you, Anson, for telling us LITEON's future growth strategy. It seems that if you focus on Cloud & AIoT, could you tell us a little bit about this. In this high-growth business, is there still room to grow your operating margin, because if we look at 2021 and 2022, the entire year's operating margin in the Cloud & AIoT segment was still lower than the corporate average. Does that tell us that in the future, if we focus on high growth, that it means that the corporate average operating margin may have limited room for growth. This is my first question.

My second question is this. Anson just mentioned that over the next 3 to 5 years, more growth will come from EV chargers. And we understand that there are indeed many opportunities in that area. Could you tell us the situation in the United States. What is your presence preparedness for production capacity. And due to IRA, I'm sure that you also have some plans, more opportunities lead to more competition as well. So could you also tell us about EV chargers when you try to get projects? What is your niche? What are your different methods to fight despite? For example, do you focus on 2-way fast charge or -- is there any special way for you to win your deals?

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Your questions are all very professional. So let me answer your questions this way. First of all, I'd like to return to the company's entire product portfolio. Our goal 433, we are still in this process of achieving that goal in cloud and auto electronics. In the future, their proportion will have to reach 60%. Why? Well, it's simple because just as I told you, the ITCE segment over the next few years will not grow rapidly. And more pessimistically, it may decline even a little bit. But in terms of opto-electronics, which also includes auto electronics and Cloud & AIoT. Over the next few years, maintaining a double-digit growth shouldn't be a problem. So we will gradually working towards that proportion from Julia's presentation today and previous presentations, We can all see that the gross profit in that area is better than in ITCE. So with this product mix, and there is still room to grow the gross profit. This is my first point.

The second point is this. Our -- in terms of our efforts in EV, I believe that the reason why we can generate the maximum value is because our softwares compared to competitors are relatively better made. By software, I mean, systems because ebill charges are actually systems, not just components or modules. So the value of a system involves not only hardware but also software management. If you still remember, over the last 2 years, I have kept saying that LITEON would invest heavily in software capability enhancement, which we can see in EV, cloud and firmware. The reason why today we are able to win market shares from competitors is mainly because that our software and hardware are well combined and our clients see the differences. This is also our most important core capability. Hardware is important, but software is equally valuable.

Last quarter, I told you that this year we would establish a production site in the United States. And the current decision is that it will be in Dallas. We have already identified the location. But right now, in the U.S., the power capacity doesn't meet our requirements. So we will have to apply for capacity enhancement, which may lead to some delay so that our future EV charger production needs can be met.

In terms of our product mix, in addition to Level 2, our Level 2 enjoys more than 20% of market share in North America already. In addition to that, our most important product this year will be 30k Watt DC fast charge. We already have 2 comprehensive solutions, and in Q1 they will be completed. And starting from Q2, we will start to promote them with clients and markets. So the targets will include EV service providers as well as car manufacturers. They are all very interested in such fast charge. At this moment, we won't launch so-called super fat charge, which goes beyond 250k watts.

I believe that it is something quite unique. The market mainstream will be Level 2 and 30k to 60k Watt DC battery charge. We will gradually launch these products over this year. And with such an introduction, EV chargers are relatively -- the prices are relatively higher, so we will be able to enjoy a relatively faster growth. This is my answer to your question.

[Cheng-Tai Lee, analyst]

This is Terry from KGI Investment Advisory. I want to invite you to talk about Q1 and Q2 this year in terms of your overall operation. Well, with market volatilities, I'm sure that everyone is already quite clear about Q1 and Q2 this year. After the pandemic -- well, the pandemic has changed the environment significantly. For example, in the past, we saw that the ratio of H1 to H2 in terms of business with 45 to 55. During the pandemic, we saw 50 to 50. And last year, it was even 60 to 40. So the volatilities in this industry are quite different. It's no longer as stable as in the past, the tempo is changing. So we believe that in H1 this year, it will be the same. Since Q4 last year, things have been gradually going down.

And in Q1 and Q2 this year, we will probably reach the bottom. And in Q3 and Q4, the supply chain inventories will be reduced to a level with such reduction started from Q3, Q4 last year already, it will have taken 1 year for the inventories to be reduced to a normal level before demand starts to rebound. So our current estimate is 45% to 48% in H1 versus 55% to 52% in H2, roughly. I just want to invite Anson to translate for us. So the Q1 net sales decreased Y-o-Y. How much will that be double digit or higher?

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Well, yes. Well, to answer your question, there's 1 difference this year. In Q4 last year we had the image business transfer. So in Q1 this year, compared to the same period last year, the impact will be larger. But how big will be the impact, Julia just reminded me, after every earnings conference, I received some serious concerns. So I have to be careful. I'm not in a position to answer your question here. But a decrease in Q1 and Q2 Y-o-Y will be inevitable.

[Unknown Analyst]

I want to first ask you a simple question. When we look at our Cloud & AIoT, the margin for AIoT is lagging a little bit. Do you have improved the measures? Or do you think that it requires new products in order to enhance the OPM? Second, this year has more turmoil and changes. So could you share with us -- in terms of demand, which product line is the most unstable and volatile?

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Did you say our AIoT products having a lower margin?

[Unknown Analyst]

Right. AIoT.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Okay. In terms of Cloud & AIoT at this stage, compared to other businesses, indeed, it has a lower margin. Mainly, this has to do with our current product portfolio, which leads to a lower margin. In the future, in terms of our efforts in Cloud & AIoT, we are already moving towards high end markets, that is to say, you can see that in addition to the product portfolio that we have, we also have some sub product portfolios. So for low value, low end things, we are strategically giving them up gradually. And in terms of high-end products, our software will create and increase more value. And we believe that the difference in terms of GP will be roughly 5%. This is the direction that we are moving towards and adjusting towards.

As for the second question -- what was your second question?

[Unknown Analyst]

Well, I wanted to ask you what is the product line that is the most unstable and volatile in terms of demand the most unstable.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Yes. For now, I don't see any products that are -- that can be unstable. According to our current estimate, this year, despite environment, uncertainties -- well, as I said, the overall ITCE market is declining. This is our estimation. But we ourselves have some changes in product portfolio and some high-end products have higher shares. So internally, our target is to at least maintain the same level. And as for cloud and opto-electronics and auto electronics, our estimation is a growth of 10% to 20% at least. So currently speaking, I'm not specifically worried about any products that can be -- that may be unstable.

[Unknown Analyst]

Understood. Sorry, I want to add 1 question. Last year, you mentioned that in terms of cloud server power, there would be more new products and new client shipments. So when we look at the P&Q trends, are the -- do the trends remain as positive? Or there may be some price reduction and postponement?

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Well, in Cloud, we don't see any price reduction pressure because for these companies, cost is not the major concern. The major concern for them is our machine performance and quality as well as the COS for them. So these are much more important than cost for these clients. I have been saying for a while that in Cloud, we are concentrated on a few clients in North America. And we are having new projects with these clients gradually and I have been emphasizing that with a new client -- a new client doesn't give us a big share immediately. They look at our performance -- our machine performance and the stability of shipment and quality before they start to increase our share. We are having projects with most of our new -- most of our clients. So we need to wait for a while and see. Our growth remains as optimistic as what we said back in Q4.

[Unknown Analyst]

Sorry, Anson, I need your translation once again because you just said that Cloud and AI -- Cloud and opto-electronics. So you have 10% to 20% of growth for this year. But I remember that last year, in the previous earnings conference, you said that your estimate for Cloud this year would be more than 20%, right? So are you revising downward or what -- this is my first question.

Second, I want to shorten the time line a little bit. If we only look at H1 this year, in terms of Cloud, what is the growth rate roughly?

[Anson Chiu, executive]

So let me clarify the methodology with you. What I was talking about opto-electronics and Cloud, it was based on the 2 groups, which Julia mentioned. So if you only look at Cloud power supply, and my answer for you is that, our estimate is the same as what we said last year. Last year, our Cloud grew by more than 30% -- well, Cloud power supply grew more than 30%. And our target this year is to maintain this same growth trend. So this is about the power supply. Of course, Cloud includes other aspects. So for the 2 groups, the growth is between 10% to 20%. This year we are changing our overall portfolio towards the 433 target that we set up. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. So in terms of power supply, maintaining a growth of more than 30% is our existing target. So this is my answer for you. H1 this year compared to H1 last year is also growing.

[Unknown Analyst]

President, sorry, I want to ask you, you mentioned that your core businesses are growing. How about that? We exclude the image business for a while, if we don't talk about it for a while and do comparison, is there still a decrease in H1 this year? Even if we exclude that, there is still a decrease Y-o-Y because in Q4 we saw a decrease in ITCE. We are also seeing that since Q4 last year, there are some clients that have temporarily suspended shipment of goods in order to control their inventory. So in Q1 this year there is some decrease. So you are saying that the major reason for the decrease is because your core businesses are also affected by clients' inventory adjustment.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Well, I think there are 2 reasons. First of all, just as I said, COVID. Because of COVID, cyclical volatilities are different from the past. So if you look at the baseline, Q1 last year had a very high baseline because of COVID. The demand was very high at that time. In Q1 this year, things are returning to normal. This is the first point. Second, if we look at our core businesses, things are growing, but there are some consumer products including invisible light used in customer products and some ITCE products, they are still decreasing.

[Unknown Analyst]

So can you tell us -- this year, Cloud, opto-electronics and ITCE, what are the rough proportions this year.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Well, for this year, if we look at the estimated proportions, 20% for opto-electronics for 2023 and Cloud & AIoT, it will grow to roughly -- 35% roughly. And as for ITCE, it goes down from 49% to 45% to 43% roughly. And this year, the entire year is still growing and better than last year. Yes, this is our current target indeed.

[Unknown Analyst]

Hello, Anson, you mentioned a while ago that in North America, there would soon be new capacity. Apart from that, in terms of the company's CapEx investment, are there other plans in other countries? And if so, what are the product lines focused on? And also, what is your 2023 CapEx level?

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Well, for 2023, the level is roughly the same as the previous years, which was about TWD 5 billion to TWD 6 billion, roughly. Currently, the biggest plan is that outside China, of course, now we have Dallas in the U.S. There is a site that is about to operate this year. At the same time, we are expanding Vietnam. Starting from this February, we are beginning Vietnam Phase II. There are 2 main products in Dallas: Cloud and automotive chargers, they are in Dallas. As for in Vietnam, we have ITCE products and networking products that will go there. In the future, maybe some of our cloud products may also go to Vietnam. Right now, our power products are in China and in Taiwan. Of course, for clients, they consider Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, all as part of Greater China. So the hope that in the future, we can diversify between different production basis. So we plan to move some of our Cloud products, power supply products to Vietnam and also enclosure products will also move to Vietnam. So Vietnam is probably our biggest production and manufacturing center outside China.

[Unknown Analyst]

I want to add 1 more question. American clients -- automotive clients and hyperscalers, do they have a specific time line for moving production out of Greater China? And according to their government regulation, they want to increasingly enhance the cell production rate for EV chargers to 80% to 100%. So I want to know if Dallas will be able to change -- increase in orders in the long run in the future -- or do you think that maybe it's for the long run, not for the current expansion.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

Well, I think the clients don't have a specific time line in terms of moving production out of China or Taiwan. They just think that this is a future trend. So they want everyone to get ready and prepare sooner, but they don't ask us to finish what by when, specifically, but they want us to be quick about it. There are 2 important trends. First of all, they want us to move some capacity out of China, but not all of our production capacity. And it shouldn't be all of it.

Second, the capacity that is moved out doesn't have a limited destination. It doesn't necessarily have to be the U.S. or Vietnam. We can look at our own supply chains and evaluate which destination is the most appropriate. Different companies have different options. Right now, Thailand and Vietnam are the most popular destinations.

As for the percentage in the U.S., I think the American government is using this policy to attract a new infrastructure, EV chargers and automotive parts and components to establish local supply chains. I don't think there is a requirement for 70% to 80%, but they wanted to be over 50%. This is very certain. So we don't immediately put all of the action to the same basket. We also look at the majority of the market and also the supply chains when we gradually increase our investment in the U.S.

[Unknown Analyst]

Hello, Anson. I want to ask 1 more question. You mentioned that the R&D in Q4 exceeds 5%. I remember that you have a long-term goal for it to achieve 4.5%. So you did it in Q4. I want to know what is your future R&D investment plan.

[Anson Chiu, executive]

I think in Q4 it exceeds 5% because it has to do with the ups and downs of the net sales. So I think you can observe our amount in R&D investment, how much do we invest in R&D. If we look at 2021, compared to 2020, the increase was TWD 500 million to TWD 600 million. But last year, we invested this much, but actually, we saved money in SG&A, and we shifted that money towards R&D investment. If you look carefully at our OpEx a while ago, the percentage was roughly the same Y-o-Y but the composition has changed. SG&A used to be higher, R&D used to be lower, but now it's reversing -- R&D is getting higher and SG&A is getting lower.

Second, if we look at 2023, R&D investment, the current plan is that it will be higher by more than TWD 1 billion Y-o-Y. And most importantly, it goes back to what I just told you. Our new products and energy-related areas, we need to increase -- accelerate our growth. So Cloud, automotive, and AIoT are the important areas in terms of our R&D. We want to make sure that our R&D investment can help new product development and expansion, so that we will be able to increase our market shares rapidly in the future. This is my thought.

We can accept 1 more question.

If there are no further questions, this concludes our earnings conference today. All the information will be put on through our official website. Thank you for your participation. Thank you, everyone. I wish you happy New Year and good health.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]