NASDAQ:POCI Precision Optics Q3 2025 Earnings Report $4.53 -0.24 (-5.03%) As of 04:00 PM Eastern This is a fair market value price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings History Precision Optics EPS ResultsActual EPS-$0.30Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/APrecision Optics Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$4.19 millionExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/APrecision Optics Announcement DetailsQuarterQ3 2025Date5/15/2025TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateThursday, May 15, 2025Conference Call Time5:00PM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptQuarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Precision Optics Q3 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMay 15, 2025 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 6 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Welcome to the Precipio First Quarter twenty twenty five Shareholder Update Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note that the conference is being recorded. Statements made during this call contain forward looking statements about our business. You should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements as based upon our current expectations, forecasts and assumptions. Speaker 100:00:33Thank you. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Blum with Lithium Partners. Please go ahead, sir. Speaker 100:00:42Thank you, operator, and to everyone joining the call today. As the operator mentioned, on today's call, we will discuss Precision Optics third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five financial results, and this is for the period ended 03/31/2025. With us on the call representing the company today are Doctor. Joe Forkey, Precision Optics' Chief Executive Officer and Wayne Cole, the company's Chief Financial Officer. At the conclusion of today's prepared we'll open the call for a question and answer session. Speaker 100:01:12If you are listening through the webcast portal and would like to ask a question, you can submit your question through the Ask a Question feature in the webcast player. Before we begin with prepared remarks, we submit for the record the following statement. Statements made by the management team of Precision Optics during the course of this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended, and such forward looking statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements describe future expectations, plans, results or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as may, future, plan or planned, will or should, expected, anticipates, draft, eventually or projected. Listeners are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements as a result of various factors and other risks identified in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaker 100:02:31All forward looking statements contained during this conference call speak only as of the date in which they are made and are based on management's assumptions and estimates as of such date. The company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward looking statements whether as the result of the receipt of new information, the occurrence of future events or otherwise. With that said, let me turn the call over to Doctor. Joe Forkey, Chief Executive Officer, Precision Optics. Joe, please proceed. Speaker 200:02:57Thank you, Robert, and thank you all for joining our call today. Let's start right at the top with the challenges we encountered during the quarter in some of our production programs that led to significantly lower revenue and margins than we expected. Having rolled out a number of programs from product development into rapidly ramping production over the last twelve months, we sometimes discover process, fixture, or personnel limitations that can result in low yields, delivery delays, and reduced efficiency. These types of issues resulted in lower shipments than planned this quarter, underutilization of resources, greater scrap, and substantial negative adjusted EBITDA. There were also the indirect impacts of management's time and attention and direction of engineering resources to support the production line in addressing these issues. Speaker 200:03:51While we are disappointed by these results for the quarter, our confidence and excitement for the future remain undiminished. We have made significant progress on resolving the third quarter issues, and we have the largest production backlog in over twenty years. With a positive response to the launch of our Unity platform in Q3, we believe the underlying fundamentals of our strategy for business growth remains strong, and we look forward to recovering that growth in Q4 and beyond. Today, I'll focus my remarks on the following items. First, the operational challenges we faced in Q3 second, how we resolved these challenges third, the exciting sales pipeline we see as we look forward fourth, the Unity program rollout and finally, our two new Board members. Speaker 200:04:42One of the major programs driving our production growth is the single use cystoscope. In mid January, daily yields on this product line dropped precipitously to less than 50%. This is well below our historical and expected yields of around 90%. As a result, we stopped manufacturing while we performed a root cause investigation. By mid February, we had identified the source of the low yields, made corrections, and restarted production. Speaker 200:05:13The restart was successful, but the ramp back to previous unit production levels took longer than we anticipated, mainly due to challenges we experienced in recruiting, retaining, and training adequate numbers of assembly technicians, particularly for a second shift. While POC has manufactured products for many years, the particular requirements associated with running higher volume lines with multiple shifts led to some challenges that we had to overcome. The good news is that we have made significant progress, both in improving production yield and in staffing both the first and second shifts. And while we continue to improve in both of these areas, the endoscope line throughput is currently double what it was before the shut shutdown, and we expect this line to contribute significantly more revenue in Q4 than it did in Q3. Moreover, the customer for this product was supportive of the yield analysis we performed and solutions we implemented and has now asked us to expand our output further by adding a second production line, which we expect to begin producing product in the first half of fiscal twenty twenty six. Speaker 200:06:30The result of production challenges like this and the distraction of engineering resources away from product development work to resolve these issues resulted in a shortfall of approximately $600,000 in Q3. Separately and incrementally, about $300,000 of product development revenue was pushed out of Q3 due to a customer imposed delay in one program and a single delayed milestone which will be delivered in Q4 in one other project. Despite these issues, overall systems production revenue, which includes products launched in the last year as well as some legacy products, continued its upward growth, increasing over 20% quarter over quarter and more than doubling year over year. We had expected greater growth in the quarter, but our confidence and excitement for the future remain undiminished and the demand remains unchanged. We have made significant progress resolving third quarter issues, and we have a large production backlog dominated by products for customers who will take delivery as fast as we can build. Speaker 200:07:42The underlying fundamentals of our strategy are robust, and we look forward to posting solid revenue growth in Q4 and beyond. Production levels from our aerospace program, in particular, have continued to ramp as anticipated from approximately $300,000 in Q1 to $600,000 in Q2 to just under $900,000 in Q3. Near the end of Q3, we doubled the line capacity by expanding our ISO Class seven clean room and building additional tools and fixtures. We expect production for this program to set another new record in the fourth quarter as we strive to double output quarter over quarter. In April, after many months of negotiation, we finalized the main purchase agreement, which will govern our ongoing manufacturing work with this customer. Speaker 200:08:37The agreement highlights the commitment between the companies to expand production of this product that leverages POC's proprietary manufacturing technology. Under the terms of the new agreement, the customer has agreed to minimum annual purchase commitments of nearly $4,000,000 for 2025 and 2026. This commitment, along with a backlog greater than $6,000,000 today, provides us with a level of predictability and visibility to our growing production schedule, which will help us better forecast and execute production revenue. In Q3, we also started production of two additional programs transitioning from product development. One is our second single use program to go into production, a microendoscope used for an ophthalmic procedure. Speaker 200:09:28And the second is a complex subassembly used for retinal imaging. Each of these programs is now running at a 100 to $200,000 per quarter level. Finally, there are still many product development programs that continue to move forward which meet our standard benchmarks for production revenue potential. In particular, a couple of programs that were delayed due to work our customers needed to do before continuing their work for us have now started to move forward again. A good example of this is a program that uses a very small single use endoscope for a specialty arthroscopic procedure that has been on hold for over a year as our customer evaluated updates and market conditions before deciding to move forward. Speaker 200:10:16Earlier this month, we received a purchase order to complete product validation, and we now expect this project to move to production near the end of calendar twenty twenty five. The single use ophthalmic endoscope that started production in the third quarter and the single use arthroscope that just restarted in our product development pipeline, along with our single use cystoscope already in production, all represent good examples of the way POC's unique capabilities in micro optics and CMOS based digital imaging are enabling next generation endoscopic systems that support the fast growing single use endoscope market. As we've discussed on recent calls, this segment of the endoscope market is growing at annual rates estimated to be as high as 20% and is being driven by the lower cost and superior performance of these scopes. The lower cost comes from the use of photolithography computer chip technology to fabricate CMOS sensors, combined with the positioning of the CMOS sensor at the distal tip of an endoscope. This eliminates the high cost elements in more traditional endoscopes required to carry the image from the distal to proximal ends of the endoscope. Speaker 200:11:32Along with lower cost, the CMOS based scopes generally have better image quality than those based on older imaging technologies. With single use endoscopes, surgeons always get brand new scope image quality. Hospitals don't need to track scopes through reprocessing procedures, and perhaps most importantly, the possibility of cross contamination from one patient to another is eliminated. Now that CMOS sensors have been available for medical devices for a number of years, and with early adopters demonstrating that single use endoscopes are technically, clinically, and economically viable, the entire endoscope market is moving in this direction. With POC's long term strategic focus on developing technology, infrastructure, and partnerships, particularly with Omnivision, a market leader in producing CMOS sensors, we are well positioned to become the supplier of choice for digital endoscopes and more specifically for single use endoscopes. Speaker 200:12:34Our Unity platform, which we launched in late January, further aligns our offerings to this target market. As we discussed at length in our last call, the Unity platform is designed to utilize standard baseline designs with a library of modular subsystems that can be quickly updated and customized to satisfy specific customer product requirements. At a high level, UNITY is expected to revolutionize the way new endoscopic systems are developed by combining the best technology with the best design process. This approach reduces risk, cost, and most importantly, time to market. The response to the launch of Unity at shows in late January and early February, along with the demonstration exhibit and session presentation at the Device Talk show in May, has been very positive. Speaker 200:13:30We have seen a steady increase in website traffic flow with April levels more than 15% greater than January, and today we are in active discussions with five potential customers motivated by their interest in Unity. This response bolsters our confidence that Unity will help us bring new programs into our development pipeline in the near term. Before I turn the call over to Wayne, I want to make a couple comments on the recent changes to our Board. I want to start by thanking and acknowledging Doctor. Richard Miles for his dedication to POC. Speaker 200:14:07Dick retired from the Board in March after serving as a Director for nearly twenty years. During that time, he has been a steadfast supporter and contributor to POC. Peter Ananea, who joined us following the acquisition of Lighthouse Imaging in 2021, also retired from the board in March. He was a great resource of experience and advice and has been a strong contributor during his entire time on the board. We are fortunate to have two highly respected individuals with great experience in areas relevant to POC's current operations joining our board, Buell Duncan and JJ Pellegrino. Speaker 200:14:50Many of you may know JJ from his role as CFO at LaMaitre Vascular, a NASDAQ listed company in the medical space. JJ's record of success in helping to build the company from early beginnings to significant scale and shareholder appreciation are directly relevant to Precision Optics, especially since much of LaMaitre's growth was driven by scaling production of medical devices in Massachusetts facilities. Similarly, Buell Duncan brings decades of executive leadership strategic expertise, further strengthening our commitment to innovation and growth, having been a marketing and general management executive at IBM for nearly three decades. Buell's experience building and leading sales and marketing teams and in general corporate management will be valuable to us as we work to capitalize on sizable market opportunities. With that, let me turn it over to Wayne to review the financials in more detail. Speaker 200:15:52I will then provide some closing comments and open the call to questions. Wayne? Speaker 300:15:57Thank you, Joe. Let me expand on some of Joe's comments on the financial results, starting with revenue. For the third quarter, revenue was $4,200,000 compared to $5,200,000 in the third quarter of fiscal twenty twenty four. Breaking it down, production revenue was $3,200,000 compared to $3,000,000 in the year ago quarter, while engineering revenue was $924,000 compared to $2,300,000 in the year ago quarter. As Joe mentioned, low yields forced us to pause production of our single use cystoscope, resulting in unplanned increases in non billable sustaining engineering activities to support manufacturing scale up programs and conduct a root cause analysis. Speaker 300:16:45Our efforts, while ultimately successful, consumed engineering time and resources in these non billable activities. With the launch of our Unity platform, a customizable solution that encompasses our design approach, and the interest generated by our presentations at three of the four major trade shows we will attend this year, we've seen the pace of engineering pipeline opportunities increasing. We also recognize the comparative impact of the full absorption of our engineering team's efforts to bring the single use cystoscopy product to launch when we compare current results to the year ago quarter. We expect to finish our fiscal year strongly with $6,000,000 in sales in the next quarter. Our backlog and demand for production remains strong, driven by the aerospace and single use programs. Speaker 300:17:39Turning to gross margin. For the quarter ended 03/31/2025, gross margins were 10% compared to 35% in the year ago third quarter. As we mentioned, the low yields and one month shutdown of the line and the under absorption of engineering resources were contributing factors here. We expect gross margin to recover as manufacturing continues to scale and revenues increase, particularly in the Speaker 200:18:07fourth Speaker 300:18:08quarter. We increased R and D spending in the quarter from $193,000 to $211,000 compared to the quarter ending 03/31/2024. R and D spending in the current fiscal year increased $302,000 to $930,000 compared to $627,000 during the nine months ended 03/31/2024, primarily due to our investment in Unity. Selling, general and administrative expenses, or SG and A, increased $321,000 to $2,200,000 during the three months ending 03/31/2025, compared to $1,900,000 during the three months ending 03/31/2024. The increase was primarily due to increased personnel costs, primarily stock based compensation and recruiting expenses. Speaker 300:19:10Similarly, SG and A spending in the current fiscal year increased $357,000 to $5,900,000 compared to $5,500,000 during the nine months ended 03/31/2024. As a result of the lower revenue and associated lower gross profit, our net loss was $2,100,000 for the quarter compared to $317,000 net loss for the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes stock based compensation, interest expense, depreciation and amortization, was negative $1,300,000 in the third quarter of twenty twenty five, compared to a positive adjusted EBITDA of $52,000 in the same quarter last year. Cash at the March was in excess of $2,500,000 During the quarter, we raised approximately $5,000,000 paid down our revolving line of credit and deployed working capital. I will now turn the call back over to Joe for some final comments. Speaker 200:20:18Thank you, Wayne. Let me finish by summarizing a few key points. We were certainly frustrated by the impact of lower production yields on the single use cystoscope and other production programs in the third quarter. But we believe we have corrected the root cause of these issues and are on a pathway to optimal production operations. Our confidence in correcting and achieving optimal yields is based in large part on our success getting through similar issues in our aerospace program, which is now running at 95% yield and continues to grow. Speaker 200:20:54Our backlog remains strong, our customer relationships remain strong, and our pipeline opportunities are expanding due to the introduction of Uniti. Overall, we expect Q4 revenues to grow significantly from Q3 levels. As discussed, there is demand for as many units as we can produce from key production programs. So while the path to reaching $6,000,000 in quarterly revenue based on increasing production volume has been bumpier than we anticipated, we are still confident we will reach this milestone in Q4 and that this will be an inflection point leading to positive adjusted EBITDA. One final note before we take questions. Speaker 200:21:37We will be at the Medical Design and Manufacturing exhibit in New York City next week, and I would welcome an opportunity to meet with those of you in the area. Please contact Robert if you'd like to set up a time to meet. To all of you on the call, I thank you for your continued support of Precision Optics. We'd be happy to take questions at this time. Speaker 100:21:58We will now begin the question and answer session. First question will come from Horisto Valtowski, Investor. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:22:40Hello. Just to be clear, are you saying that you had engineering clients lined up and you just couldn't collect revenue because you had to use your engineers to fix the prediction issue? Speaker 200:22:58That that was part of the problem. Yes. Speaker 400:23:01Okay. So now now that it is fixed, you'll be able to collect engineering fees as well as production fees? Speaker 200:23:11Correct. It's not just to be fair, it's not just about collection, it's about the execution. Right? So we used some of the engineers to work on the issues we had on the production line, so they were unable to work on billable projects that we could have collected on. That's correct. Speaker 400:23:31Okay. So it's nice to hear this about your win for the military customer. Is that a program that might continue after 'twenty six? Do you see it like as a kind of a long term $1,000,000 per quarter thing? Or will it be just done? Speaker 200:23:54Yeah, so this is for the aerospace program where they've committed to the 4,000,000 per year. All indications from them and given what we know about the program is that it's likely to continue well beyond '26. That was simply the timeframe that they were willing to commit to as part of the negotiation, but I have every expectation that it will continue much beyond that. Similarly, the numbers that we reported, the nearly $4,000,000 a year, are the minimum order levels. Already you can see from the backlog that we have today that they have been ordering at a higher rate than that. Speaker 200:24:34So our hope and expectation is that the order rates will be higher and that they will continue beyond '26. Speaker 400:24:44Right. Your backlog, you said that you had $6,000,000 from that program in your backlog. Now is are you saying that you only count backlog for one year ahead? Speaker 200:24:57No, that's the total backlog for that customer. But we do believe we can work through that backlog within twelve months. That's Speaker 400:25:07see, I see. Okay. Okay. Oh, that's that's good news. And and that that endoscope program, have you did you have any contract contractual problems because of the of the production delay? Speaker 400:25:27Are you okay on the contract? Is there a risk of them getting a second supplier or anything like that? Speaker 200:25:38So we are okay on the contract. This is a customer that we have a very good relationship with. And so they were involved while we were dealing with the shutdown of the line. They had some engineers here, they were collaborating with us, we were working together. Of course, they were disappointed that we weren't satisfying the delivery rates that they would like, But they're very cooperative and very supportive, even to the point where, as I mentioned in my comments, I went through it quickly, they gave us an order to stand up a second production line after this all actually in the midst of all of this happening, I think because they saw the way that we were dealing with the issue and the way that we were resolving it. Speaker 200:26:27To answer your question fully, the question of having a second supplier, there is a mechanism where they can manufacture themselves or have a second supplier and we're paid a royalty as part of the agreement we have with them. And for risk reasons, they've told us that they will likely do that at some point. But it's not because of the issue we had this quarter. And as I say, despite having that issue, they've given us a new contract to stand up a second line. This is partly because we're delivering slower than they would like, but more importantly, with the second line, they're looking forward at the fact that their volume demands are going up faster than they anticipated when they gave us the original order a year ago. Speaker 200:27:14So the short answer to your question is there's no contract problems, that things are moving forward in a positive way, and the relationship with the customer is very good. Speaker 400:27:25Okay, that's good to hear. Have you, and I apologize if I missed that during the call, have you staffed up all your positions, can you fix that? Speaker 200:27:37I think as of today, have almost a full complement of assembly text. We're now at a point where we're looking to have a little bit of extra because we need the line to be running smoothly. So we're still looking for a few more people, but our team's done a good job of bringing in the assembly text that we need. This is why the line is running much better today than it was even a month or so ago. Speaker 400:28:09And when is the second line going to be stood up? Speaker 200:28:13The second line we expect to start running in the first half of fiscal 'twenty six. Speaker 100:28:19Okay. Speaker 200:28:20So sometime in the summer or fall. And we're working to add staff to the existing line now. I just said we're looking for extras. Partly that's to have backup for the line now. It's also to hit the ground, be able to hit the ground running with that second line because we can move people from the first line to the second line when it's ready to go. Speaker 400:28:41Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And just to get you on the record, you expect the current quarter to come in EBITDA positive, so there probably won't be any need for additional stock issues. Is that correct? Speaker 200:28:57That's correct. Speaker 400:28:59Okay. Well, that's it for me. Thanks. Good luck. And congratulations on all your customer wins. Speaker 200:29:09Thanks. And thanks for all those questions. Speaker 100:29:13All right. Operator, I guess we'll wait to see if any additional questions come in through the live teleconference line. I've got a couple here on the webcast. Actually, you know what? It looks like we do have someone on the live line. Speaker 100:29:34Chuck, I'll turn it back over to you to queue up the next participant. Yes, sir. The next question will come from Mr. Rick Teller, investor. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:29:44Yeah. Hi, Joe. I have a question about the development of the Unity line. So, basically, you're taking your engineers and instead of them working, designing custom work for customers, you're having them develop this standardized production line, a production of various components and whatnot that they can mix and match and put together modularly, you might say. And so that means there engineers that instead of bringing in money as they're paid to do work for customers, you're having to pay them and that shows up in your R and D spending. Speaker 500:30:29How long, I mean, how long and how heavy will those expenses be to until you can say, well, we've got the basics of the unity line all developed, and from here on out, other than some little tweaks and changes as components change and technology changes, you know, we don't have to spend much more time on on basic line. All the engineers can go back customizing work for clients. Is this gonna be a couple of years or a couple of quarters? And are we going to see r and d jump way, way up or is more modest increases? Yeah, Speaker 200:31:19great question, Rick. Let's see if I can answer this succinctly, because there's a lot there. So the first point I'd make is that, as we've talked about in some of our earlier calls, what we're really doing here is capitalizing on the designs and the IP that we've developed over the years, working on programs for our customers, because one of the things we always insist on is that we maintain ownership of the IP. So that's the first thing. We're not starting from scratch, and so the amount of time that our engineers have to spend in order to put together the package that becomes Unity is much less than would be required if we were not piggybacking on top of the work we do for our customers, which is in fact billable. Speaker 200:32:05So even though there was some increase in the R and D cost, it's not nearly the increase that we would've seen if we were starting from scratch, that's the first thing. The second thing is we've people can see if they go to our website, but we've identified four sort of families of unity platform projects that we expect the overall market will sort of gravitate towards. And so these are defined, the first three are defined by endoscope size. And then the last one is sort of a catchall for high precision and ultra high definition kinds of things. We've already essentially completed the first two categories, and with those we've gone out and launched Unity. Speaker 200:32:53The other two categories we certainly want to get finished, but we have a lot of flexibility on when and how aggressively we pursue those, and when and how aggressively we add sort of additional modular elements to these first two systems that have come out. So we treat the UNITY program as a regular product development program. So it gets reviewed on a monthly basis by Wayne and Mahesh, our COO, and myself. And we evaluate the availability of engineers to be able to work on the Unity program and compare that to the need to have the engineers working on other billable revenue product development programs. So having said all that, our goal really is to sort of fill in the places where we might have a gap in product development requirement for a specific engineering discipline. Speaker 200:33:59So it will show up as an R and D expense, but in some sense it's trying to utilize some of the overhead that comes from not being able to run a program continuously because we have customers who need to do their pieces and those sorts things. So I guess the sort of short answer, and I'm looking at Wayne to see if he nods, is that the increase in R and D I would expect the R and D expense to continue at a similar level that we've seen over the last couple of quarters, maybe slightly lower because we were doing some extra work to get to the Unity launch. But it's not going to be a huge increase and it's going to be sort of a low level, sort of steady state for the next few quarters, would say. Does that Speaker 300:34:45sound right, Wayne? Your last sentence is what I would have said. Speaker 100:34:47Okay, there you go. Speaker 500:34:52Okay, then one other question related to unity. From the point of view of potential customers who are saying, well, we could design this. We thought of a good new, possibly good new product, and, we could design it ourselves or get some other, independent outfit, maybe a POC competitor to, design it for us, or we could go with Unity. Once unity is, you know, fully developed, let's say, a customer we're talking about a customer showing up, let's say a year from now. What would be the difference in terms of time to market between them going with Unity versus going with complete custom design? Speaker 200:35:44Yeah, we've looked at that pretty carefully because it's part of what we talk about a lot Because in some sense, this is critically important for them because they always wanna get to market as fast as possible. It depends, of course, on how complex the system is and how much it's gonna deviate from the Unity platform itself. But generally speaking, we expect that it will accelerate the timeline by six to twelve months. Sorry, yeah, six to twelve months. Speaker 200:36:16Yeah, half a year to a year. Speaker 500:36:18Okay, good. All right, well thank you. Speaker 200:36:22Thank you, Rick. Speaker 100:36:23All right, Chuck, I'll jump in again while we wait to see if additional people come in the, the dial in call. We do have a couple of webcast questions. Once again, if you're dialed into the webcast or linked into the webcast, you can type in your question through the ask a question feature on the, webcast player there. Question here, Joe, the facilities. Previous calls you've commented on potential need for updated facilities. Speaker 100:36:56Could you provide an update on that? Speaker 200:36:59Yeah, I'm going let Wayne take that because he's been working on the leases. Speaker 300:37:02Thanks, Joe. So we operate in three different states. In El Paso, Texas, where we've had facilities down there for a number of years, we've extended our lease recently. That lease was expiring, so we've extended. In Wyndham, Maine, we Speaker 200:37:25have Speaker 300:37:25a lease that's expiring at the July. So we took the opportunity to locate space closer to Portland where there's a better concentration of engineering talent that will help us as we grow going forward. In Massachusetts, we operate in four different buildings and at the moment we're evaluating options for consolidation and expect to make some decisions soon. Speaker 100:37:59Okay, great. Thank you Wayne. Again, final reminder, if you're dialed in star then one to ask a question or on the webcast player, can type it into the ask a question feature there. Perhaps the final question here, gentlemen, are the tariffs impacting POC's business? Speaker 200:38:19Yeah, sure. So in some sense, the tariffs are impacting everyone's business to one extent or another. But there are let's see. So we're really in a growth mode. So in terms of the sort of overall expectations, it's not going to change our expectations for the kind of growth that we're going to see and the positive impact that that growth can have. Speaker 200:38:47Having said that, we do source components overseas. The main part of the business where we're doing the single use endoscopes and the aerospace programs and those sorts of things, there are some individual components, sensors come from overseas, for instance. But the total value of those components to the overall system is limited because most of the value in those cases is embodied in the design and the manufacturing. The one place where we do see a fair amount of impact is on our Ross Optical business. This is a group that's down in El Paso, Texas that sources and then builds individual components and small subassemblies. Speaker 200:39:31That group, which today represents about 20% of our business, sources most of their components from other companies, some in The US but many of them outside The US. We're looking at and watching what's happening with the tariffs. We have already had some communication with customers and made some initial indications that if the tariffs end up at an extreme place, at a very high place, that we'll have to share those additional costs with our customers. And by and large, those customers have reacted in an understanding way. We also are constantly pursuing alternative suppliers. Speaker 200:40:13So I think on the whole, we don't expect that the tariffs are going to derail our growth plans or have a major impact on the performance of the company. Speaker 100:40:26All right, very good. Joe Wayne, I am not showing any further questions here. So with that, I'll turn it over to you for any closing remarks. Speaker 200:40:35Thanks Robert, and thank you everyone for joining us on the call today. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Thanks, everyone. Have a good evening. Speaker 100:40:44The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallPrecision Optics Q3 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsQuarterly report(10-Q) Precision Optics Earnings HeadlinesPrecision Optics Corporation: Precision Optics Reports Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Financial ResultsMay 16 at 6:39 PM | finanznachrichten.dePrecision Optics Corporation, Inc. (POCI) Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call TranscriptMay 15 at 9:15 PM | seekingalpha.comIs President Trump Lying To You With This?President Trump’s economic transition isn’t without hardship. But what if there were a smart, tax-free way to protect your 401(k), IRA, or pension from market chaos and currency collapse? The 2025 Wealth Protection Guide reveals a legal IRS strategy that may let you keep more of your retirement—regardless of what happens next. Trump’s warning was real. So is this opportunity.May 16, 2025 | Colonial Metals (Ad)Precision Optics Reports Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Financial ResultsMay 15 at 4:30 PM | globenewswire.comPrecision Optics Market Global Forecast Report to 2030: Cumulative Impact of United States TariffsMay 14 at 3:04 PM | globenewswire.comPrecision Optics Schedules Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 Conference Call for May 15, 2025May 8, 2025 | globenewswire.comSee More Precision Optics Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Precision Optics? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Precision Optics and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Precision OpticsPrecision Optics (NASDAQ:POCI) designs, develops, manufactures, and sells specialized optical and illumination systems and related components primarily in the United States and the European Economic Area. It offers medical instrumentation products, including endoscopes and endocouplers, as well as other custom imaging and illumination products, such as Microprecision lenses and micro medical cameras, and 3D endoscopes for use in minimally invasive surgical procedures by hospitals and physicians. The company also provides components and assemblies for industrial and military use. It markets its products to medical device companies. The company was incorporated in 1982 and is based in Gardner, Massachusetts.View Precision Optics ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Alibaba's Earnings Just Changed Everything for the StockCisco Stock Eyes New Highs in 2025 on AI, Earnings, UpgradesSymbotic Gets Big Earnings Lift: Is the Stock Investable Again?D-Wave Pushes Back on Short Seller Case With Strong EarningsAppLovin Surges on Earnings: What's Next for This Tech Standout?Can Shopify Stock Make a Comeback After an Earnings Sell-Off?Rocket Lab: Earnings Miss But Neutron Momentum Holds Upcoming Earnings Palo Alto Networks (5/20/2025)PDD (5/20/2025)Synopsys (5/20/2025)Home Depot (5/20/2025)Lowe's Companies (5/21/2025)Medtronic (5/21/2025)Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (5/21/2025)Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (5/21/2025)Snowflake (5/21/2025)TJX Companies (5/21/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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There are 6 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Welcome to the Precipio First Quarter twenty twenty five Shareholder Update Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note that the conference is being recorded. Statements made during this call contain forward looking statements about our business. You should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements as based upon our current expectations, forecasts and assumptions. Speaker 100:00:33Thank you. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Blum with Lithium Partners. Please go ahead, sir. Speaker 100:00:42Thank you, operator, and to everyone joining the call today. As the operator mentioned, on today's call, we will discuss Precision Optics third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five financial results, and this is for the period ended 03/31/2025. With us on the call representing the company today are Doctor. Joe Forkey, Precision Optics' Chief Executive Officer and Wayne Cole, the company's Chief Financial Officer. At the conclusion of today's prepared we'll open the call for a question and answer session. Speaker 100:01:12If you are listening through the webcast portal and would like to ask a question, you can submit your question through the Ask a Question feature in the webcast player. Before we begin with prepared remarks, we submit for the record the following statement. Statements made by the management team of Precision Optics during the course of this call may contain forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended, and such forward looking statements are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements describe future expectations, plans, results or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as may, future, plan or planned, will or should, expected, anticipates, draft, eventually or projected. Listeners are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements as a result of various factors and other risks identified in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaker 100:02:31All forward looking statements contained during this conference call speak only as of the date in which they are made and are based on management's assumptions and estimates as of such date. The company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward looking statements whether as the result of the receipt of new information, the occurrence of future events or otherwise. With that said, let me turn the call over to Doctor. Joe Forkey, Chief Executive Officer, Precision Optics. Joe, please proceed. Speaker 200:02:57Thank you, Robert, and thank you all for joining our call today. Let's start right at the top with the challenges we encountered during the quarter in some of our production programs that led to significantly lower revenue and margins than we expected. Having rolled out a number of programs from product development into rapidly ramping production over the last twelve months, we sometimes discover process, fixture, or personnel limitations that can result in low yields, delivery delays, and reduced efficiency. These types of issues resulted in lower shipments than planned this quarter, underutilization of resources, greater scrap, and substantial negative adjusted EBITDA. There were also the indirect impacts of management's time and attention and direction of engineering resources to support the production line in addressing these issues. Speaker 200:03:51While we are disappointed by these results for the quarter, our confidence and excitement for the future remain undiminished. We have made significant progress on resolving the third quarter issues, and we have the largest production backlog in over twenty years. With a positive response to the launch of our Unity platform in Q3, we believe the underlying fundamentals of our strategy for business growth remains strong, and we look forward to recovering that growth in Q4 and beyond. Today, I'll focus my remarks on the following items. First, the operational challenges we faced in Q3 second, how we resolved these challenges third, the exciting sales pipeline we see as we look forward fourth, the Unity program rollout and finally, our two new Board members. Speaker 200:04:42One of the major programs driving our production growth is the single use cystoscope. In mid January, daily yields on this product line dropped precipitously to less than 50%. This is well below our historical and expected yields of around 90%. As a result, we stopped manufacturing while we performed a root cause investigation. By mid February, we had identified the source of the low yields, made corrections, and restarted production. Speaker 200:05:13The restart was successful, but the ramp back to previous unit production levels took longer than we anticipated, mainly due to challenges we experienced in recruiting, retaining, and training adequate numbers of assembly technicians, particularly for a second shift. While POC has manufactured products for many years, the particular requirements associated with running higher volume lines with multiple shifts led to some challenges that we had to overcome. The good news is that we have made significant progress, both in improving production yield and in staffing both the first and second shifts. And while we continue to improve in both of these areas, the endoscope line throughput is currently double what it was before the shut shutdown, and we expect this line to contribute significantly more revenue in Q4 than it did in Q3. Moreover, the customer for this product was supportive of the yield analysis we performed and solutions we implemented and has now asked us to expand our output further by adding a second production line, which we expect to begin producing product in the first half of fiscal twenty twenty six. Speaker 200:06:30The result of production challenges like this and the distraction of engineering resources away from product development work to resolve these issues resulted in a shortfall of approximately $600,000 in Q3. Separately and incrementally, about $300,000 of product development revenue was pushed out of Q3 due to a customer imposed delay in one program and a single delayed milestone which will be delivered in Q4 in one other project. Despite these issues, overall systems production revenue, which includes products launched in the last year as well as some legacy products, continued its upward growth, increasing over 20% quarter over quarter and more than doubling year over year. We had expected greater growth in the quarter, but our confidence and excitement for the future remain undiminished and the demand remains unchanged. We have made significant progress resolving third quarter issues, and we have a large production backlog dominated by products for customers who will take delivery as fast as we can build. Speaker 200:07:42The underlying fundamentals of our strategy are robust, and we look forward to posting solid revenue growth in Q4 and beyond. Production levels from our aerospace program, in particular, have continued to ramp as anticipated from approximately $300,000 in Q1 to $600,000 in Q2 to just under $900,000 in Q3. Near the end of Q3, we doubled the line capacity by expanding our ISO Class seven clean room and building additional tools and fixtures. We expect production for this program to set another new record in the fourth quarter as we strive to double output quarter over quarter. In April, after many months of negotiation, we finalized the main purchase agreement, which will govern our ongoing manufacturing work with this customer. Speaker 200:08:37The agreement highlights the commitment between the companies to expand production of this product that leverages POC's proprietary manufacturing technology. Under the terms of the new agreement, the customer has agreed to minimum annual purchase commitments of nearly $4,000,000 for 2025 and 2026. This commitment, along with a backlog greater than $6,000,000 today, provides us with a level of predictability and visibility to our growing production schedule, which will help us better forecast and execute production revenue. In Q3, we also started production of two additional programs transitioning from product development. One is our second single use program to go into production, a microendoscope used for an ophthalmic procedure. Speaker 200:09:28And the second is a complex subassembly used for retinal imaging. Each of these programs is now running at a 100 to $200,000 per quarter level. Finally, there are still many product development programs that continue to move forward which meet our standard benchmarks for production revenue potential. In particular, a couple of programs that were delayed due to work our customers needed to do before continuing their work for us have now started to move forward again. A good example of this is a program that uses a very small single use endoscope for a specialty arthroscopic procedure that has been on hold for over a year as our customer evaluated updates and market conditions before deciding to move forward. Speaker 200:10:16Earlier this month, we received a purchase order to complete product validation, and we now expect this project to move to production near the end of calendar twenty twenty five. The single use ophthalmic endoscope that started production in the third quarter and the single use arthroscope that just restarted in our product development pipeline, along with our single use cystoscope already in production, all represent good examples of the way POC's unique capabilities in micro optics and CMOS based digital imaging are enabling next generation endoscopic systems that support the fast growing single use endoscope market. As we've discussed on recent calls, this segment of the endoscope market is growing at annual rates estimated to be as high as 20% and is being driven by the lower cost and superior performance of these scopes. The lower cost comes from the use of photolithography computer chip technology to fabricate CMOS sensors, combined with the positioning of the CMOS sensor at the distal tip of an endoscope. This eliminates the high cost elements in more traditional endoscopes required to carry the image from the distal to proximal ends of the endoscope. Speaker 200:11:32Along with lower cost, the CMOS based scopes generally have better image quality than those based on older imaging technologies. With single use endoscopes, surgeons always get brand new scope image quality. Hospitals don't need to track scopes through reprocessing procedures, and perhaps most importantly, the possibility of cross contamination from one patient to another is eliminated. Now that CMOS sensors have been available for medical devices for a number of years, and with early adopters demonstrating that single use endoscopes are technically, clinically, and economically viable, the entire endoscope market is moving in this direction. With POC's long term strategic focus on developing technology, infrastructure, and partnerships, particularly with Omnivision, a market leader in producing CMOS sensors, we are well positioned to become the supplier of choice for digital endoscopes and more specifically for single use endoscopes. Speaker 200:12:34Our Unity platform, which we launched in late January, further aligns our offerings to this target market. As we discussed at length in our last call, the Unity platform is designed to utilize standard baseline designs with a library of modular subsystems that can be quickly updated and customized to satisfy specific customer product requirements. At a high level, UNITY is expected to revolutionize the way new endoscopic systems are developed by combining the best technology with the best design process. This approach reduces risk, cost, and most importantly, time to market. The response to the launch of Unity at shows in late January and early February, along with the demonstration exhibit and session presentation at the Device Talk show in May, has been very positive. Speaker 200:13:30We have seen a steady increase in website traffic flow with April levels more than 15% greater than January, and today we are in active discussions with five potential customers motivated by their interest in Unity. This response bolsters our confidence that Unity will help us bring new programs into our development pipeline in the near term. Before I turn the call over to Wayne, I want to make a couple comments on the recent changes to our Board. I want to start by thanking and acknowledging Doctor. Richard Miles for his dedication to POC. Speaker 200:14:07Dick retired from the Board in March after serving as a Director for nearly twenty years. During that time, he has been a steadfast supporter and contributor to POC. Peter Ananea, who joined us following the acquisition of Lighthouse Imaging in 2021, also retired from the board in March. He was a great resource of experience and advice and has been a strong contributor during his entire time on the board. We are fortunate to have two highly respected individuals with great experience in areas relevant to POC's current operations joining our board, Buell Duncan and JJ Pellegrino. Speaker 200:14:50Many of you may know JJ from his role as CFO at LaMaitre Vascular, a NASDAQ listed company in the medical space. JJ's record of success in helping to build the company from early beginnings to significant scale and shareholder appreciation are directly relevant to Precision Optics, especially since much of LaMaitre's growth was driven by scaling production of medical devices in Massachusetts facilities. Similarly, Buell Duncan brings decades of executive leadership strategic expertise, further strengthening our commitment to innovation and growth, having been a marketing and general management executive at IBM for nearly three decades. Buell's experience building and leading sales and marketing teams and in general corporate management will be valuable to us as we work to capitalize on sizable market opportunities. With that, let me turn it over to Wayne to review the financials in more detail. Speaker 200:15:52I will then provide some closing comments and open the call to questions. Wayne? Speaker 300:15:57Thank you, Joe. Let me expand on some of Joe's comments on the financial results, starting with revenue. For the third quarter, revenue was $4,200,000 compared to $5,200,000 in the third quarter of fiscal twenty twenty four. Breaking it down, production revenue was $3,200,000 compared to $3,000,000 in the year ago quarter, while engineering revenue was $924,000 compared to $2,300,000 in the year ago quarter. As Joe mentioned, low yields forced us to pause production of our single use cystoscope, resulting in unplanned increases in non billable sustaining engineering activities to support manufacturing scale up programs and conduct a root cause analysis. Speaker 300:16:45Our efforts, while ultimately successful, consumed engineering time and resources in these non billable activities. With the launch of our Unity platform, a customizable solution that encompasses our design approach, and the interest generated by our presentations at three of the four major trade shows we will attend this year, we've seen the pace of engineering pipeline opportunities increasing. We also recognize the comparative impact of the full absorption of our engineering team's efforts to bring the single use cystoscopy product to launch when we compare current results to the year ago quarter. We expect to finish our fiscal year strongly with $6,000,000 in sales in the next quarter. Our backlog and demand for production remains strong, driven by the aerospace and single use programs. Speaker 300:17:39Turning to gross margin. For the quarter ended 03/31/2025, gross margins were 10% compared to 35% in the year ago third quarter. As we mentioned, the low yields and one month shutdown of the line and the under absorption of engineering resources were contributing factors here. We expect gross margin to recover as manufacturing continues to scale and revenues increase, particularly in the Speaker 200:18:07fourth Speaker 300:18:08quarter. We increased R and D spending in the quarter from $193,000 to $211,000 compared to the quarter ending 03/31/2024. R and D spending in the current fiscal year increased $302,000 to $930,000 compared to $627,000 during the nine months ended 03/31/2024, primarily due to our investment in Unity. Selling, general and administrative expenses, or SG and A, increased $321,000 to $2,200,000 during the three months ending 03/31/2025, compared to $1,900,000 during the three months ending 03/31/2024. The increase was primarily due to increased personnel costs, primarily stock based compensation and recruiting expenses. Speaker 300:19:10Similarly, SG and A spending in the current fiscal year increased $357,000 to $5,900,000 compared to $5,500,000 during the nine months ended 03/31/2024. As a result of the lower revenue and associated lower gross profit, our net loss was $2,100,000 for the quarter compared to $317,000 net loss for the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes stock based compensation, interest expense, depreciation and amortization, was negative $1,300,000 in the third quarter of twenty twenty five, compared to a positive adjusted EBITDA of $52,000 in the same quarter last year. Cash at the March was in excess of $2,500,000 During the quarter, we raised approximately $5,000,000 paid down our revolving line of credit and deployed working capital. I will now turn the call back over to Joe for some final comments. Speaker 200:20:18Thank you, Wayne. Let me finish by summarizing a few key points. We were certainly frustrated by the impact of lower production yields on the single use cystoscope and other production programs in the third quarter. But we believe we have corrected the root cause of these issues and are on a pathway to optimal production operations. Our confidence in correcting and achieving optimal yields is based in large part on our success getting through similar issues in our aerospace program, which is now running at 95% yield and continues to grow. Speaker 200:20:54Our backlog remains strong, our customer relationships remain strong, and our pipeline opportunities are expanding due to the introduction of Uniti. Overall, we expect Q4 revenues to grow significantly from Q3 levels. As discussed, there is demand for as many units as we can produce from key production programs. So while the path to reaching $6,000,000 in quarterly revenue based on increasing production volume has been bumpier than we anticipated, we are still confident we will reach this milestone in Q4 and that this will be an inflection point leading to positive adjusted EBITDA. One final note before we take questions. Speaker 200:21:37We will be at the Medical Design and Manufacturing exhibit in New York City next week, and I would welcome an opportunity to meet with those of you in the area. Please contact Robert if you'd like to set up a time to meet. To all of you on the call, I thank you for your continued support of Precision Optics. We'd be happy to take questions at this time. Speaker 100:21:58We will now begin the question and answer session. First question will come from Horisto Valtowski, Investor. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:22:40Hello. Just to be clear, are you saying that you had engineering clients lined up and you just couldn't collect revenue because you had to use your engineers to fix the prediction issue? Speaker 200:22:58That that was part of the problem. Yes. Speaker 400:23:01Okay. So now now that it is fixed, you'll be able to collect engineering fees as well as production fees? Speaker 200:23:11Correct. It's not just to be fair, it's not just about collection, it's about the execution. Right? So we used some of the engineers to work on the issues we had on the production line, so they were unable to work on billable projects that we could have collected on. That's correct. Speaker 400:23:31Okay. So it's nice to hear this about your win for the military customer. Is that a program that might continue after 'twenty six? Do you see it like as a kind of a long term $1,000,000 per quarter thing? Or will it be just done? Speaker 200:23:54Yeah, so this is for the aerospace program where they've committed to the 4,000,000 per year. All indications from them and given what we know about the program is that it's likely to continue well beyond '26. That was simply the timeframe that they were willing to commit to as part of the negotiation, but I have every expectation that it will continue much beyond that. Similarly, the numbers that we reported, the nearly $4,000,000 a year, are the minimum order levels. Already you can see from the backlog that we have today that they have been ordering at a higher rate than that. Speaker 200:24:34So our hope and expectation is that the order rates will be higher and that they will continue beyond '26. Speaker 400:24:44Right. Your backlog, you said that you had $6,000,000 from that program in your backlog. Now is are you saying that you only count backlog for one year ahead? Speaker 200:24:57No, that's the total backlog for that customer. But we do believe we can work through that backlog within twelve months. That's Speaker 400:25:07see, I see. Okay. Okay. Oh, that's that's good news. And and that that endoscope program, have you did you have any contract contractual problems because of the of the production delay? Speaker 400:25:27Are you okay on the contract? Is there a risk of them getting a second supplier or anything like that? Speaker 200:25:38So we are okay on the contract. This is a customer that we have a very good relationship with. And so they were involved while we were dealing with the shutdown of the line. They had some engineers here, they were collaborating with us, we were working together. Of course, they were disappointed that we weren't satisfying the delivery rates that they would like, But they're very cooperative and very supportive, even to the point where, as I mentioned in my comments, I went through it quickly, they gave us an order to stand up a second production line after this all actually in the midst of all of this happening, I think because they saw the way that we were dealing with the issue and the way that we were resolving it. Speaker 200:26:27To answer your question fully, the question of having a second supplier, there is a mechanism where they can manufacture themselves or have a second supplier and we're paid a royalty as part of the agreement we have with them. And for risk reasons, they've told us that they will likely do that at some point. But it's not because of the issue we had this quarter. And as I say, despite having that issue, they've given us a new contract to stand up a second line. This is partly because we're delivering slower than they would like, but more importantly, with the second line, they're looking forward at the fact that their volume demands are going up faster than they anticipated when they gave us the original order a year ago. Speaker 200:27:14So the short answer to your question is there's no contract problems, that things are moving forward in a positive way, and the relationship with the customer is very good. Speaker 400:27:25Okay, that's good to hear. Have you, and I apologize if I missed that during the call, have you staffed up all your positions, can you fix that? Speaker 200:27:37I think as of today, have almost a full complement of assembly text. We're now at a point where we're looking to have a little bit of extra because we need the line to be running smoothly. So we're still looking for a few more people, but our team's done a good job of bringing in the assembly text that we need. This is why the line is running much better today than it was even a month or so ago. Speaker 400:28:09And when is the second line going to be stood up? Speaker 200:28:13The second line we expect to start running in the first half of fiscal 'twenty six. Speaker 100:28:19Okay. Speaker 200:28:20So sometime in the summer or fall. And we're working to add staff to the existing line now. I just said we're looking for extras. Partly that's to have backup for the line now. It's also to hit the ground, be able to hit the ground running with that second line because we can move people from the first line to the second line when it's ready to go. Speaker 400:28:41Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. And just to get you on the record, you expect the current quarter to come in EBITDA positive, so there probably won't be any need for additional stock issues. Is that correct? Speaker 200:28:57That's correct. Speaker 400:28:59Okay. Well, that's it for me. Thanks. Good luck. And congratulations on all your customer wins. Speaker 200:29:09Thanks. And thanks for all those questions. Speaker 100:29:13All right. Operator, I guess we'll wait to see if any additional questions come in through the live teleconference line. I've got a couple here on the webcast. Actually, you know what? It looks like we do have someone on the live line. Speaker 100:29:34Chuck, I'll turn it back over to you to queue up the next participant. Yes, sir. The next question will come from Mr. Rick Teller, investor. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:29:44Yeah. Hi, Joe. I have a question about the development of the Unity line. So, basically, you're taking your engineers and instead of them working, designing custom work for customers, you're having them develop this standardized production line, a production of various components and whatnot that they can mix and match and put together modularly, you might say. And so that means there engineers that instead of bringing in money as they're paid to do work for customers, you're having to pay them and that shows up in your R and D spending. Speaker 500:30:29How long, I mean, how long and how heavy will those expenses be to until you can say, well, we've got the basics of the unity line all developed, and from here on out, other than some little tweaks and changes as components change and technology changes, you know, we don't have to spend much more time on on basic line. All the engineers can go back customizing work for clients. Is this gonna be a couple of years or a couple of quarters? And are we going to see r and d jump way, way up or is more modest increases? Yeah, Speaker 200:31:19great question, Rick. Let's see if I can answer this succinctly, because there's a lot there. So the first point I'd make is that, as we've talked about in some of our earlier calls, what we're really doing here is capitalizing on the designs and the IP that we've developed over the years, working on programs for our customers, because one of the things we always insist on is that we maintain ownership of the IP. So that's the first thing. We're not starting from scratch, and so the amount of time that our engineers have to spend in order to put together the package that becomes Unity is much less than would be required if we were not piggybacking on top of the work we do for our customers, which is in fact billable. Speaker 200:32:05So even though there was some increase in the R and D cost, it's not nearly the increase that we would've seen if we were starting from scratch, that's the first thing. The second thing is we've people can see if they go to our website, but we've identified four sort of families of unity platform projects that we expect the overall market will sort of gravitate towards. And so these are defined, the first three are defined by endoscope size. And then the last one is sort of a catchall for high precision and ultra high definition kinds of things. We've already essentially completed the first two categories, and with those we've gone out and launched Unity. Speaker 200:32:53The other two categories we certainly want to get finished, but we have a lot of flexibility on when and how aggressively we pursue those, and when and how aggressively we add sort of additional modular elements to these first two systems that have come out. So we treat the UNITY program as a regular product development program. So it gets reviewed on a monthly basis by Wayne and Mahesh, our COO, and myself. And we evaluate the availability of engineers to be able to work on the Unity program and compare that to the need to have the engineers working on other billable revenue product development programs. So having said all that, our goal really is to sort of fill in the places where we might have a gap in product development requirement for a specific engineering discipline. Speaker 200:33:59So it will show up as an R and D expense, but in some sense it's trying to utilize some of the overhead that comes from not being able to run a program continuously because we have customers who need to do their pieces and those sorts things. So I guess the sort of short answer, and I'm looking at Wayne to see if he nods, is that the increase in R and D I would expect the R and D expense to continue at a similar level that we've seen over the last couple of quarters, maybe slightly lower because we were doing some extra work to get to the Unity launch. But it's not going to be a huge increase and it's going to be sort of a low level, sort of steady state for the next few quarters, would say. Does that Speaker 300:34:45sound right, Wayne? Your last sentence is what I would have said. Speaker 100:34:47Okay, there you go. Speaker 500:34:52Okay, then one other question related to unity. From the point of view of potential customers who are saying, well, we could design this. We thought of a good new, possibly good new product, and, we could design it ourselves or get some other, independent outfit, maybe a POC competitor to, design it for us, or we could go with Unity. Once unity is, you know, fully developed, let's say, a customer we're talking about a customer showing up, let's say a year from now. What would be the difference in terms of time to market between them going with Unity versus going with complete custom design? Speaker 200:35:44Yeah, we've looked at that pretty carefully because it's part of what we talk about a lot Because in some sense, this is critically important for them because they always wanna get to market as fast as possible. It depends, of course, on how complex the system is and how much it's gonna deviate from the Unity platform itself. But generally speaking, we expect that it will accelerate the timeline by six to twelve months. Sorry, yeah, six to twelve months. Speaker 200:36:16Yeah, half a year to a year. Speaker 500:36:18Okay, good. All right, well thank you. Speaker 200:36:22Thank you, Rick. Speaker 100:36:23All right, Chuck, I'll jump in again while we wait to see if additional people come in the, the dial in call. We do have a couple of webcast questions. Once again, if you're dialed into the webcast or linked into the webcast, you can type in your question through the ask a question feature on the, webcast player there. Question here, Joe, the facilities. Previous calls you've commented on potential need for updated facilities. Speaker 100:36:56Could you provide an update on that? Speaker 200:36:59Yeah, I'm going let Wayne take that because he's been working on the leases. Speaker 300:37:02Thanks, Joe. So we operate in three different states. In El Paso, Texas, where we've had facilities down there for a number of years, we've extended our lease recently. That lease was expiring, so we've extended. In Wyndham, Maine, we Speaker 200:37:25have Speaker 300:37:25a lease that's expiring at the July. So we took the opportunity to locate space closer to Portland where there's a better concentration of engineering talent that will help us as we grow going forward. In Massachusetts, we operate in four different buildings and at the moment we're evaluating options for consolidation and expect to make some decisions soon. Speaker 100:37:59Okay, great. Thank you Wayne. Again, final reminder, if you're dialed in star then one to ask a question or on the webcast player, can type it into the ask a question feature there. Perhaps the final question here, gentlemen, are the tariffs impacting POC's business? Speaker 200:38:19Yeah, sure. So in some sense, the tariffs are impacting everyone's business to one extent or another. But there are let's see. So we're really in a growth mode. So in terms of the sort of overall expectations, it's not going to change our expectations for the kind of growth that we're going to see and the positive impact that that growth can have. Speaker 200:38:47Having said that, we do source components overseas. The main part of the business where we're doing the single use endoscopes and the aerospace programs and those sorts of things, there are some individual components, sensors come from overseas, for instance. But the total value of those components to the overall system is limited because most of the value in those cases is embodied in the design and the manufacturing. The one place where we do see a fair amount of impact is on our Ross Optical business. This is a group that's down in El Paso, Texas that sources and then builds individual components and small subassemblies. Speaker 200:39:31That group, which today represents about 20% of our business, sources most of their components from other companies, some in The US but many of them outside The US. We're looking at and watching what's happening with the tariffs. We have already had some communication with customers and made some initial indications that if the tariffs end up at an extreme place, at a very high place, that we'll have to share those additional costs with our customers. And by and large, those customers have reacted in an understanding way. We also are constantly pursuing alternative suppliers. Speaker 200:40:13So I think on the whole, we don't expect that the tariffs are going to derail our growth plans or have a major impact on the performance of the company. Speaker 100:40:26All right, very good. Joe Wayne, I am not showing any further questions here. So with that, I'll turn it over to you for any closing remarks. Speaker 200:40:35Thanks Robert, and thank you everyone for joining us on the call today. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Thanks, everyone. Have a good evening. Speaker 100:40:44The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.Read morePowered by