Asustek Computer Inc

TWSE:2357

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Operator]

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Q4 2022 financial results conference call for ASUSTeK. The conference call is divided into 2 parts. First, Mr. Nick Wu, our CFO, will brief you on the financial results of Q4 2022, followed by remarks from our Co-CEOs, Hsien-Yuen Hsu and Samson Hu on operations and outlook. The second part is the Q&A. [Operator Instructions].

First, let's welcome Mr. Nick Wu, CFO of ASUS.

[Nick Wu, executive]

Hello, everyone. Please refer to Slide 5 for our P&L for the fourth quarter 2022. Net revenue was TWD 117.4 billion, down 12% Q-o-Q or down 17% year-over-year. In Q4, we saw the end user demand plummet yet again to a new low. This created pressure for us in terms of sales, allowances and gross margin. In Q4, gross margin was 8.2%. Operating margin was minus 4.2%. In Q4 2022, operating loss was TWD 4.9 billion. Net loss after tax was TWD 3.8 billion. In the history of ASUS, this was indeed a short-term anomaly.

I will give you more details on the next slide. If you turn to Slide 6, we have quarter-by-quarter P&L for 2022. You can see the trend lines for revenue and operating profit. Looking at 2022, there are several key indicators.

First, inventory allowances. In Q2 2022, we had the worst inventory loss at about 7.5% of revenue that was a major source of stress for our operations in the second quarter of 2022. Afterwards, in Q3 and Q4, our executive team as well as our operational team have done a lot to manage our inventory. In Q3 and Q4, inventory were down to 2% to 3% of revenue. So again, in Q3 and Q4, inventory allowances were down to 3% or -- 2% to 3% of revenue. However, in fourth quarter 2022, we saw another new challenge as end user demand dropped yet again and promotions at channels failed to deliver. And because of this, the results were very disappointing.

The peak season in 2022 did not deliver at all. And this was reflected in our numbers. In the fourth quarter, sales allowances accounted for 13.5% of the revenue, that was a major source of stress for ASUS. Another factor was that between 2021 and 2022, revenue went down over 10% to TWD 117.3 billion against a smaller revenue, operating expenses were high at 12%. So while we were able to manage inventory losses due to lackluster consumer demand and lack of economies of scale, in Q4, we saw this operational anomaly. We also incurred operating loss.

Now if we look at the entire year of 2022, the total revenue was TWD 493.5 billion, flat against 2021. Whereas according to market research institutions, the market overall declined by 17% in 2022. We actually had good shipment numbers and good mind share as well as operational resilience. But operating margin went down from 20.3% in 2021 to 12.8% in 2022. Several factors behind that. Inventory losses went from minus 0.9% to minus 4%. So that had an impact of about 3 percentage points, another percentage point came from consumer demand. So sales margin went down and also inventory losses and sales allowances also contributed to the loss.

Also in 2021, capital currency allowed us to increase our selling prices. And at the time, the industry was in a different kind of environment, demand outstripping supply. But now in 2022, things were normal or even with supply outstripping demand, so our margin went down. Operating expenses remained flat. So the biggest pressure for us in terms of profitability included inventory losses, sales allowances and also changes in market dynamics. If you look at things from a more long-term perspective, we believe -- with normal operations, we should be able to control our inventory losses. And the operating margin for ASUS or gross margin for ASUS rather should be back at about 15% for our gross margin. And that is what we expect as well when the end user demand for the industry picks up or the industry normalizes. We expect to have a gross margin of 15%. So those were some of the numbers from 2022 for your reference.

Next slide. 2022 fourth quarter non-op items. Investment income was TWD 485 million, exchange gain TWD 370 million. Total non-op item income in fourth quarter was TWD 1.03 billion.

Slide 8 is our Brand Balance Sheet in Q4 2022. Inventory went down from TWD 174 million in Q3 to TWD 132 million in Q4. It went down quite significantly also in line with our expectation. This showed you our execution. However, as the end user demand continued to drop, we also saw that days of inventory went down from 148 days in Q3 to 130 days in Q4. Again, we see room for improvement.

Now I'd like to ask my colleague to check the webcast signal. Some viewers seems to be saying that they are not getting the webcast, okay?

Moving on to Slide 9. This is our revenue breakdown by product. If we look at the entire year of 2022, PC accounted for 67% of our revenue, component 32%, mobile phone 1%.

Next slide is our revenue by region. In 2022, Europe accounted for 30%, Americas 23%. In 2022, due to geopolitical reasons and also uncertainty and volatility in U.S. as well as in Europe, demand and sales in the U.S. as well as in Europe, in 2022 were lackluster -- were rather weak. So Asia Pacific accounted for 47% of our revenue.

Slide 11 is our business outlook for the first quarter of 2023. As mentioned earlier, based on what we are observing right now, the end user demand for the PC market is still plummeting from Q4 2022 to February 2023. This is a reflection of the big uncertainty in the macro economy and this has impacted consumer confidence. It has also suppressed corporate buying. All of these seem to indicate that the lackluster demand will be the biggest factor impacting our PC market. However, it's highly unpredictable. Based on what we can see right now, we believe in the first quarter, the PC shipment number will be down 15% to 20% quarter-over-quarter. As for component products, take motherboards, for example, the shipment numbers will be down 5% to 10% rather quarter-over-quarter.

Again, we encounter some big obstacles in Q4 2022. Based on our forecast right now, we believe our brand revenue in the short term, including the first quarter of 2023, the revenue will continue to go down for a while. We are looking at distribution channels, they are all being very pessimistic and discrete at the moment. And we are also impacted -- they are also impacted by cash flows. And based on the analysis by market research institutions, the first quarter of 2023 should be the quarter when the PC industry bottom out. In terms of single quarter revenue, that should also be the quarter when our revenue reach the bottom.

Going forward, while visibility is limited. Based on what we can see at the moment, we believe between Q1 and Q2 of 2023, our brand revenue should be able to increase to say around 10% growth quarter-over-quarter. And based on that indicator, we can see that for the industry and for ASUS as well, we will bottom out in the first quarter of this year, and we will see improved numbers after the second quarter. Here, we have to very honestly face the performance that we have delivered since last quarter -- since Q4 2022. And as of now, in the first quarter and the second quarter of 2023, we are still seeing headwinds.

While we expect the operations will improve quarter-by-quarter from Q1 to Q2, we still believe there is a very high probability that in Q1 and Q2 of this year, we are going to see suppressed profitability or we might even incur a small loss. However, having said that, we also expect that this anomaly to be a short-term phenomenon as the industry normalizes as the supply and demand become normal once again.

Under the leadership of our executive team, we are actually doing many improvement projects. We are improving our new product cycles. We are streamlining our operations and processes. We are managing the supply chains as well as our inventory. We have also set very aggressive goals to help ASUS normalize our operations to tied us through the next few quarters. By the second half of 2023, we believe our operations will go back to a relatively normal state to have positive revenue and profit growth. That is what we would like to share with you today.

So I just gave you some of our financial numbers as well as our business outlook for the coming quarter. Next, I'm going to invite our co-CEOs to talk about our strategy and operations for 2023.

[Hsien-Yuen Hsu, executive]

Dear friends from media and institutional investors. My name is S.Y. Hsu, I'm co-CEO. First, on behalf of the executive team, I would like to sincerely apologize to our investors. Our Q4 2022 performance was disappointing. However, we are a company of transparency and truthfulness. I would like to explain to you how we plan to improve.

First, let's talk about the macro environment. In 2023, the macro environment remains weak. Most market research institutions predict a negative growth for the overall PC market. Many institutions have also revised down their forecast for the PC market growth. Basically, it's 10%, plus/minus 2% year-over-year or minus 10%. And the most important reason is very weak consumer confidence. The end user demand continues to go down.

The 2023 PC shipment is expected to be around TWD 253 million. But some institutions think the shipment number will be higher than before the pandemic at around TWD 260 million. However, that era of margin is negligible.

Let's look at the chart. On the right-hand side, this is our forecast for shipment numbers quarter-by-quarter. In the second half of the year, we believe our operations will normalize. And the quarterly shipment numbers actually reflect the highly -- very high uncertainty in the market. because of uncertainty in the economy, demand is being suppressed. However, the secular trend of digital transformation will continue and PC has been proven as a very high -- very efficient productivity tool. We expect in the long term PC industry will continue to grow.

From 2021 to 2022, we experienced business turbulence. There are several factors. At the end of 2021, we set very aggressive or aspirational growth targets for 2022. Our goal was to expand aggressively. Of course, we took market volatilities into account and we were willing to take on that risk. However, last year, many black swan events took place, including the war in Ukraine, and lockdown measures in China affecting manufacturing in China, inflation as well as the deterioration of the total macro economy. So PC went down from 2.7% -- rather inflation was forecasted at 2.7%, but it actually went up to 4.8%. And the war in Ukraine also exacerbated the issues related to energy. So inflation is stagnating. And the decline in demand far exceeds our expectation.

Of course, in terms of operations, inventory management and our finances, we have been experiencing a lot of pressure because of these volatilities and uncertainties. And we take this anomaly in our operations very seriously. We are doing everything we can to improve our operations in 2023. This chart shows you the Windows Home activations by end users. Why do we focus on Windows Home because we sell mainly consumer PC. So Windows Home and the activation numbers can represent the consumer PC market trend. And here, you see ASUS PC activation year-over-year trend, we have consistently outperformed the market by more than 10%. This proves that our aggressive expansion strategy has achieved some results. I believe this will be positive for our branding going forward as for weak end user demand. This is also reflected in this chart.

From end of 2020 to the first 2 months of 2023, we see a significant decline in end user demand by about 20 percentage points. Inventory is another big concern. At ASUS, we've been managing our inventories very aggressively since the second half of last year. And we've been able to sell to consumers more than how we ship to distributors.

In other words, we have been working very hard to clear our inventories. Our business outlook for 2023. These are our priorities for 2023. We want to create more value, we will also create growth and enhance our operational resilience. In the short term, the environment remains challenging. Based on forecast, the GDP growth for the entire globe is going to be weak. And in 2023, we see major economies continue to decline over the next quarters, the uncertainty in economy exacerbates. And because of these factors, consumer confidence and corporate spending both are being impacted. So faced with this uncertainty, we will work on these several factors or aspects. We will manage the market dynamics. We will manage our inventories. We want our inventory levels to be healthy. Now the inventory adjustment phase is at its final stage.

In the second quarter, we expect it to be back to the normal level. However, overall, 2023, the first half of 2023 is going to be a time of volatile operations, but we will continue to enhance our operations and our operational resilience to go back to normal in the second half of the year.

In terms of business operation, we will continue to achieve high-quality growth in mind share and market share to offer high-quality products and products with high added value. We will also leverage new platforms. And as the Chinese market is opening up, this will also benefit us and the industry. We would also like to grow our mind share and market share in a very healthy way. Of course, in terms of market share, it's easy to get numbers from market research institutions. As for mind share, as it may be a bit vague or difficult to get numbers. So let me share with you some of the numbers that we have internally.

Over the past few years, we've asked RBUs to survey consumers for Net Promoter Score, NPS. Let me give you some numbers. Tech Gaming, for example, in 2022, our NPS was about 32% in 2022. That went up to 38%. For consumer PC, our score was 40% in 2021. It went up to 44% in 2022. For mobile phone, for our ROG phone, the NPS was 45% in 2020. By 2022, it went up to 57%. As for ZenFone 38% in 2020 and 58% in 2022. From these numbers, we can clearly see that our mind share is indeed increasing. Also, we will try to leverage economies of scale and win the recognition of our customers.

Right now, our brand value continues to grow. We continue to win the recognition of our customers. We are also putting resources in growth sectors. So we are quite positive that we can have long-term profitability. Of course, we need to confront reality and adapt to market dynamics. How do we better adapt to market dynamics and geopolitical impacts. These are all important lessons we have to learn. Of course, there are many things we need to improve on.

Let me give you some concrete examples, things that we are undertaking. For example, how do we better forecast orders? How do we secure strategic components? How do we better manage our supply chain and our production lines? How do we set annual goals and targets? We have been working on all of these aspects, and we want to avoid the same mistake being made in the future.

In the previous slide, I talked about growth and resilience. Now how do we execute our strategy. We have many BUs at ASUS. Let's talk about these different businesses based on their different nature. Our core business includes motherboard and PC. Right now, the motherboard BU is a leader in the sector. We will continue to maintain our market leadership. As for consumer PC, we will continue to innovate. We will put design thinking into practice and drive innovation across product generations for stable profitability as for our growth businesses, including gaming PC and graphics card. We've worked in the gaming PC sector for many years, we now enjoy #1 market share. Of course, we will continue to consolidate our leadership status.

As for multimedia BU, we will continue to increase our mind share as well as market share, and we will outgrow the market. As for our strategic business, our commercial PC and AIoT business, over the past few years, we've dedicated a lot of resources to commercial PC. After all, commercial PC accounts for over 50% of the total PC market.

We've delivered good results for consumer PC, but if we want to continue to grow in the PC industry, we believe tapping into the commercial PC business is the way to go. It's a natural move for us. It's also a path that we have to embark on, so we will continue to put resources here. As for AIoT and server, we will continue to enhance our technology as well as our talent. We will continue to develop the next generation ecosystem and embrace a new digital age with AIoT.

Now in 2022, the macro environment was really harsh with lots of challenges. However, we continue to create value and was recognized by the market. For example, in a survey conducted by Interbrand, we became the #1 brand in Taiwan with a brand value of USD 2.163 billion. This shows our efforts paying off. In addition, take this ASUS ZenBook 17-inch Zen -- ASUS Zenbook 17-inch Fold OLED. This product once launched, won the awards by IF and Red Dot.

This was also selected by Time Magazine as Time's 2022 best innovations. Of course, we will not be satisfied with these achievements. We'll continue to deliver greater results.

Now I will turn it over to Samson.

[Samson Hu, executive]

Hello, friends from media and investors. My name is Samson Hu, Co-CEO of ASUS. I'll talk about the operational results and outlook by business unit.

Please turn to Slide 19. This is our System Business Group. In 2022, the revenue growth for our System Business Group was positive, a low single-digit growth in 2022. While we faced headwinds in the industry, we outperformed the market in terms of PC and gaming laptop shipments by quite a margin. From the chart, you can see that we outperformed the market by 11 percentage points and 7 percentage points, respectively, for PC and gaming laptops.

So our market share went up from 6.4% in 2021 to 7.2% in 2022. We are the only window-based brand that enjoyed a market share growth. While in the short term, there are a lot of headwinds in the industry. However, at ASUS, we believe PC remains a core strategic industry against the secular trend of digital economy developments. We will stabilize our operations and continue to invest in this area to create value. We will leverage our innovation -- innovative technology capabilities and our operational capabilities to enhance user experience.

In our creator product line, we were #1 in 2022. Our gaming PC in December of 2022 achieved market share #1 globally. We will continue with these efforts in 2023 to further consolidate our leadership status.

As for commercial PC, we will focus on a key -- a few key markets, including Taiwan, China and other Asia Pacific markets, and we continue to see growth in these markets. Now it's accounting for more than 10% of our revenue. We will continue to expand our commercial PC business in terms of mind share as well as market share.

Next slide is our Open Platform Business Group. Motherboard business and graphics card business, the operations are very solid. In 2022, both motherboards and graphic card businesses outgrew the market. We also increased our market share. We continue to optimize our product mix in these 2 areas, and this is reflected in our ever-increasing ASP. So we are capturing both quality and quantity. As for our 2023 outlook for the open platform business group, we are cautiously optimistic.

As a market leader, we will continue to lead innovation to create quality revenue and profitability. Take our ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX motherboard, for example. It features Intel's 13th generation processor. It can overclock to a record high of 9 gigahertz. That's another world record. As for our router product, in 2018, we started to support WiFi 6 and then WiFi 6E and this year, in 2023, we are supporting WiFi 7. We have always been the first company to get our WiFi routers certified to the latest standards. And as everyone knows, data centers need to crunch out more and more computing power and to be greener and greener. And we at ASUS, we were the first to launch the liquid cooling solution for servers. There are 2 types of liquid cooling server solutions. Our solutions can help data centers increase efficiency and decrease energy consumption at data centers.

Next, our AIoT business group. In 2022, this business group saw a revenue growth of 90% year-over-year. At ASUS, we continue to invest in 3 aspects, including smart manufacturing, smart healthcare and smart retailing. In terms of smart manufacturing, we continue to offer more comprehensive Industry 4.0 solutions. We offer visualized 3D equipment, AR glasses and AMR. We also offer AI-assisted defect detection systems. We are able to build a pilot smart factory using ASUS -- the AI from ASUS.

In terms of smart healthcare, we have launched the [ HS ] system. In the end of 2022, we signed a memorandum with Roche to develop precision medicine here in Taiwan. In addition, we are aggressively tapping into smart healthcare. More specifically, we're building smart healthcare Cyber-Physical System, CPS, to create the next-generation smart healthcare as well as infrastructure and its applications. Through our 3-layer architecture, we would like to create more agile, more resilient health care systems in Taiwan.

Next, Gaming. Gaming is a very important sector for us across various business groups. In 2022, gaming revenue accounted for close to 47% of our revenue. With our ROG, Republic of Gamers, we continue to develop through 3 aspects: brand, products and community. For example, this year, at CES, we launched a new product with a good thermal system. This is ROG Strix SCAR 18. So CNET ranked this as the best gaming gear at CES this year.

ROG has always driven to provide customization for our players. And that concept is incorporated into our ROG ASUS mechanical keyboard. And this has been well received by media and players alike.

In addition, as we've shared with you before, we continue to build player communities including power users who would like to overclock gamers, e-sports players as well as music and lifestyle. We continue to work with various partners across the ecosystem.

Next slide, please. Whatever changes we might see in the ICT industry, sustainability and ESG will always remain very important for corporations. We also need to find business opportunities in sustainability and ESG. Over the years, we have always relied on data to help us manage better and do ESG better. We focus on a few aspects, including climate action, circular economy, responsible manufacturing as well as value creation. This is how we strive for mid- to long-term sustainability. We use green materials and products. We get our products certified with eco labels. We also try to recycle our products globally. We are making concrete actions, and we're seeing great results.

Going forward, we will try to create a sustaining -- we will try to sustain an incredible future that mission that overarching thing is going to guide our operations and marketing activities. This is how we can turn our businesses, our resources devoted to ESG into business opportunities.

The next slide shows you a concrete example. This is a product that we launched at CES. This is called B9. This is a carbon-neutral business laptop. It has been certified to meet ISO 14067 and also PAS 2060 verified. We try to maximize carbon reductions throughout its design and manufacturing process. And then we use carbon credit to offset any carbon emissions in the entire product cycle. This is an important milestone for ASUS. We launched our first carbon-neutral business laptop, and this has also been well received.

Finally, to conclude, while the macro economy and the PC industries are facing many challenging factors, we will not forget our brand value. It's all about managing the business. We will continue to invest in sustainability, in our competitiveness and in our products as well as increasing our resilience, so that's when the economy turns for the better, we can seize and capitalize on the business opportunities. That concludes my presentation. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you, co-CEOs and the CFO. [Operator Instructions] First question from KGI Securities. For the first half of 2023, ASUS seems to indicate that ASUS might still incur a loss. So could you give us more color around the time line? So what other -- what key indicators can tell us that ASUS is going to turn a profit in terms of sustained a loss.

[Unknown Executive]

As some webcast viewers are saying they did not get the webcast very clearly. So allow me to present the whole picture again. What we are seeing is very weak end user demand and this is exacerbated by very conservative procurement by channel partners. They are extremely conservative and protective at the moment. Based on our observations, if you look at the system activation by the end users. And if you compare that number to the numbers of PC procured by channels in the past few quarters. Actually, for 3 consecutive quarters, the numbers bought by consumers is greater than the number of PC procured by channel partners. And the difference is in the millions. What we are faced with is a double whammy.

The first factor is weak or plummeting end user demand. This is reflecting weak consumer confidence. The second layer comes from channel partners or distributors. They are now being extremely conservative in terms of procurement, and that is creating a second layer of pressure. Against this double whammy, what we're seeing is that since Q4 last year, as in addition to the plummeting demand, the revenue for the first quarter of this year will be down by about 15% quarter-over-quarter. However, as mentioned before, Q1 might be the bottom for the entire industry. The industry might bottom out in Q1. And based on our limited visibility in the second quarter of 2023, we may be able to deliver a quarterly growth of around 10% in terms of revenue. So Q1 down by 15%, Q2 up by 10% quarter-over-quarter.

As for profitability, for Q1, as revenue is down, while we are managing our inventory better, we are also optimizing our product mix. We are doing a lot of other things to optimize our operation. However, against a much reduced revenue. In the first quarter, we expect to see a smaller loss compared to minus 4% in Q4 last year. The number in Q1 will be more reasonable. However, of course, there's still room for improvement.

In the second quarter, as end user demand picks up and our revenue improves and with more measures in place, we believe in the second quarter, we will see much improved profitability. However, based on the factors we can see at the moment, including great uncertainty in the industry and the suppressed end user demand, Q2 might still see a small loss for ASUS or a minus operating margin. That's going to be a blip in our operations. However, as we continue with our progress, we believe it's reasonable that we can return to positive profitability as the industry normalizes and as channel partners return to more normal operations.

We believe we need to have the plans in place to pursue positive revenue and profitability growth in the second half of the year. Also, we also talked about what's a key indicator that we won't return to profit. There are several factors. Looking at ASUS, first, we are closely monitoring the expected end user demand and the buying or purchasing behavior of channel partners, whether there's any policy adjustments. Now looking at ASUS internally, our inventory adjustment is close to its final phase.

Next, what we are going to do is to launch more new products and new models to improve our overall product mix and create more product value. And this will take some time for execution. So these are some of the indicators you might want to look at.

When it's appropriate, we may also share these internal indicators with you. Now these factors, they can be reflected by external factors. They will correspond to our revenue and gross margin as our revenue improves quarter-by-quarter and our gross margin improves quarter-by-quarter. I believe these are some of the important indicators you can look at.

[Operator]

Another question from KGI Securities. In 2022, ASUS gained a lot of market share. However, in terms of financial numbers, ASUS incurred a bigger loss. So why do we see this disconnect between the financial numbers and its operations? Could you give us more color around this.

[Samson Hu, executive]

Thank you for your question. As mentioned by our CFO; and co-CEO. Indeed, back in 2021, we set very aggressive growth targets for 2022. As a leading brand in the PC industry, this is our responsibility. We need to continue to pursue growth. Of course, when we said that those aspirational goals and targets at a time, we did consider market dynamics but 2022 proved more volatile than our expectations against that backdrop. The aggressive goals resulted in some poor numbers because in 2022, we had to secure more key materials or components. And that resulted in a financial burden. However, in 2022, we have secured more mind share and market share. And indeed, we achieved the targets we set back then. From that perspective, we were successful. And going forward, we will continue to shoulder the responsibility as a leading company in our industry. We will continue to pursue growth.

At the same time, we are taking the lessons learned to heart. In 2023, as we set new revenue and operational goals, we will be even more pragmatic. Thank you.

[Hsien-Yuen Hsu, executive]

My name is S.Y. Hsu, allow me to add. Well, last year, our inventory were high, we were under a lot of financial pressure, because the System Business Group was the main corporate. Now allow me to explain why did we set such aggressive targets back then? As we know, in the past few years, COVID created significant demand. From 2020 to 2021, our PC shipment grew by 17% at ASUS. In terms of revenue, revenue growth was close to 28%. We did quite well the year before. Of course, we wanted to strike the iron while it was hot. So we set relatively aggressive targets.

And allow me to take you back to that point in time in 2021. You might remember the overall supply chain was really tight for some key components. The lead time was up to over 50 weeks. That has never happened in the history of my career. So when we set those aggressive targets, unless we did not want to ship that number. Of course, you needed to procure components and material. And once you signed contracts with your component suppliers, to put it bluntly, there was little room for you to step on the brakes as market changes. And of course, later on, we did make some adjustments. We don't want to make the same mistake again in the future.

In the first half of 2023, we see that the inventory is coming down. Now when will we see the inventory level normalizing at ASUS.

[Unknown Executive]

Let me take this briefly. From our presentation, you can see that in Q3 and Q4 last year with the hard effort from our operational team, we -- our inventory level went down significantly from Q3 to Q4 by about 24%.

Looking at the current trend, in the first half of this year, we will continue to take aggressive actions to reduce inventory. By Q4 last year, as we said, the inventory adjustment was at its final phase. However, against a very weak demand in the market, we believe it will -- our inventory level will be back to a healthy level by Q2. When we set our goal last year, we wanted to reduce our inventory by TWD 10 billion to TWD 20 billion. By the end of Q2, we believe our inventory level will be at a healthier level.

In the first half of the year, as we adjust our inventory, we will be better able to increase the percentage of new products from the end of Q1 to Q2 and that will pave the way for our operations in Q2 to Q3 all the way to Q4 and that will be reflected on our gross margin. That's my brief answer to the question.

[Operator]

Next question is from Shin Kong Securities. EVGA has quit the graphics or video card market. How is that affecting ASUS?

[Unknown Executive]

EVGA withdrawing from the graphics card market. For us at ASUS, of course, that means we can gain our market share. From a business growth perspective, of course, we will go after it very aggressively. As for why EVGA quit the market, there are various reasons. We know that NVIDIA can be quite aggressive with the suppliers. As for some back stories, I'm sure you as institutional investors, you know more than I do. And these are things between EVGA and NVIDIA. And we, as outsiders, we do not get the whole picture. So I will not comment on that. As I mentioned, EVGA had a very high market share in the U.S. Of course, we want to gain market share from EVGA.

We've been working quite well with NVIDIA and we, at ASUS, we have strong technological and innovative capabilities. What may take more effort is that our products traditionally enjoy higher positioning and higher ASP. So how do we maintain our high-end brand positioning? And gain market share at the same time. That is something we need to tackle delicately. Of course, Other players are also scrambling for the market left by EVGA. It all comes down to how competitive your products are.

[Operator]

A question on cash dividend from UBS and CNS.

[Nick Wu, executive]

Today, our Board of Directors approved our cash dividend proposal for 2022. It's per TWD 15 per share based on EPS of TWD 19.8 for the year 2022. The payout ratio is around 76%. In general, we will adhere to this plan. Comparing both our yield and payout ratio to those of our competitors and continue to provide better value to our shareholders.

[Operator]

Next question from UBS. Based on region, do you see any region performing better than other regions? Are there -- is there a particular region that is performing well can help ASUS?

[Unknown Executive]

I will take this one. I think you all understand the overall situation at channels. Overall, Europe and the U.S. are the weakest. But later on, we are also seeing weakness in Asia Pacific lagging behind Europe and U.S. by about a quarter.

As for China, of course, the Chinese market declined as well, but relatively by a smaller margin. Going forward in Q2 or the second half of the year, if the market improves, looking at various regions, we are now more optimistic about the opening up of the Chinese market. It can help the domestic market in China or indirectly China as the second largest economy in the world, once it opens up, its economy can also lift the global economy, especially for Western countries and Asia Pacific. So China is going to play a bigger role. However, the opening up of the Chinese market to be honest, we have not seen a significant lift for the PC industry in Q1. Now in Q2, as we approach June 18. JD.com, a very important distributor in China. On June 18, every year, they have big sales and they will start their promotions in May. So it remains to be seen how well China is going to perform.

Whether the Chinese government will further stimulate its economy and its domestic market, these are all important factors we need to monitor. Put it simply, the opening up of the Chinese market can be expected, perhaps in the second half of the year or in Q2, it will help the domestic market in China and indirectly it might lift the European, Asia Pacific and U.S. markets. As for Europe and the U.S.

Let's talk about the U.S. first. For the U.S. market to recover, it all depends on inflation, the pace of Fed rate hikes. Right now, the market expects that it will take several quarters before the rate hikes come to an end. So the recovery in the U.S. market is going to come at a slower pace. As for Europe, last year, people were worried about in energy crisis last winter. However, the energy crisis was not as severe as feared due to a warm winter and inflation remains important in Europe.

In Q1 and in Q2, I believe Europe is still in the adjustment phase. Europe EPM market will only recover in the second half of the year.

[Operator]

Next question from CNS. Regarding the phone business. What's the operational result of your phone business in 2022? And what's your outlook for the phone business in 2023? Are you going to launch new phone models?

[Unknown Executive]

I will take this question. Last year, the phone industry went into decline. The market wasn't good at all. In 2021, we shipped about 800,000 phones, and that dropped to 600,000 in 2022. It was mainly due to the pandemic, inflation and weak consumer confidence, so it was down year-over-year. However, we are positive on the long-term growth of the gaming phone market, we will continue to launch new products and increase our brand value.

As mentioned before, the NPS of our ROG phone is increasing very fast. It's now very close to 60%. So consumers are recognizing the value of our products. The phone BU given its scale, it's very difficult for the phone BU to turn a profit. Therefore, internally, we are also discussing how to apply the technologies and resources of a mobile phone to other areas. We want to explore other applications. And this is an ongoing project.

Also worth mentioning is that we, at ASUS, we started our development of the mobile phone way back then. We started with the feature phone. We have also devoted a lot of human resources to develop essential IP. Over the years, we have accumulated a large quantity of valuable essential IP. Recently, we have been licensing these essential IPs with major players. We expect in the next 3 years, licensing income will exceed TWD 3 billion. And the licensing fee income will grow year-by-year because many IoT devices, including electric cars, they need to communicate with other devices. So they need to use those communicative technologies, and so they need to license those essential IP from us. And this year alone, the licensing income is close to TWD 1 billion. So that's a piece of good news, I would like to share with you.

[Operator]

Next question is from Morgan Stanley and Fubon Securities. What's your take on gaming in 2023? According to some supply chain partners, they see market recovery in gaming PC. What's your take on that?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. compared to the overall PC market, gaming PC is relatively strong. However, as PC market declines by 11% this year, we believe gaming PC will have a low single-digit decline or remain flat over the year. If we look at Q1 and Q2, compared to Q4 last year, Q1 and Q2 are going to be in decline compared to Q4, but of course, the decline is smaller compared to the overall PC market. As for the 2023 growth or long-term growth, I believe we can be optimistic about the gaming market due to several factors. First, gamers. Gamers are a stable source of income. Second factor, gamers replace their machines much quicker than regular consumers. Gamers won their hands on the latest technologies. So their product replacement cycle is shorter.

In 2023, as you all know, several GPU suppliers already launched their new generation products in Q1. New generation products can enhance gaming experience significantly. So that's going to provide a lift for the gaming market in 2023. That's a very important driver.

[Operator]

I think we have compiled and answered all the questions. If there are other questions, feel free to approach our IR team after the earnings call. Now I would like to turn to our co-CEOs for their concluding remarks.

[Samson Hu, executive]

This year, is a big challenge for the entire management team. Against this backdrop, I think excellent corporate culture can lead companies through obstacles. At ASUS, our company culture is truthfulness, transparency and continuous evolution through collective wisdom. Truthfully and transparently, we have examined the root causes of problems in Q4. We will use this approach to improve and adjust thereby making ASUS an ever-evolving and innovative organization. We aim to deliver excellent results for all investors in the future.

First of all, I would like to thank all media and institutional investors again for your support for ASUS. The operating loss in Q4 was a setback and the sluggish demand in the first half of 2023 remains a challenge. The headwinds are going to persist for a while. Faced by these operational headwinds, I think it's all about going back to our mission, our long-term commitment to our brand value and to growth. That commitment remains unwavering. We are confident that with our capabilities and our resources, we will surely deliver long-term growth. We've taken a hard look at our internal goal setting and operational processes.

We will set better growth targets by more closely monitoring the market situation. Of course, we still aim to outgrow the market with important lessons learned regarding how we set goals for 2022, in particular, as S.Y. mentioned, how to do strategic purchasing, how to manage the supply chain and logistics, how to work with our customers, how to get better business forecast from our sales teams, et cetera. We really need to have a close group and a more precise process. We need to up our game and be more precise. In 2023, our operational processes will only be better. With that, I thank you again for your support. Thank you.

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