Microvision announced its third quarter earnings on November
8th and this time the stock actually held its ground rather than the
usual 20% drop immediately following the conference call. During the quarter, Microvision reported revenue
of 2.6 million, 40% decrease in cash used in operations, and held nearly 11
million in cash and cash equivalents, which is enough to pay the bills until
spring. Pioneer’s Cyber Navi car navigation
system, which contains Microvision PicoP display engine, has received positive
reviews and a planned expansion to Europe is near. During the question and
answer period we actually had questions from analysts unlike previous
conference calls. But nobody seemed to ask what ever happened to ES Plus Korea
or the big announcement after CES 2012 regarding Microvision partnership with
WoWee One. There was a bit of excitement
when WoWee One announced the VUE , which was supposed to contain a direct green
laser engine from Microvision. The original launch was rescheduled and then we
never heard from them again.
Either way that’s old news. Here we are nearly a year later still burning through cash and one partner generating revenue. However,
that partner is Pioneer and they actually released a decent product and provided
Microvision significant revenue along the way. All of the rumors about the
commercialization of direct green lasers not available till 2015+ have been
silenced due to OSRAMs announcement that they are commercially ready to provide
direct green lasers. Many others aren’t far
behind and even Sony is jumping in. It seems Microvision is focusing on the
head up display market and is currently in talks with several Tier 1 automotive
suppliers. However, Microvision is still
pursing anybody interest in embedding their PicoP display engine in their
products. Microvision's CEO, Alex Tokman,
stated that in the third quarter alone they shipped more than 20 engine
samples.
Back in October, Microvision and Intersil Corporation announced
an agreement to partner on the development of Microvision PicoP display engine.
Intersil released research reports in which they concluded that laser based
projection is the future of pico projection. During Intersil’s recent conference call they
mentioned to their shareholders the partnership with Microvision along with two
key pieces of information. First, Intersil will be shipping a pico projector
prototype to a major auto manufacture after securing its first design win and
second, they believe within 2 years, major smartphone and tablet makers will be
shipping products that embed pico projectors. Alex Tokman during the Q3
conference call stated they are working with Intersil to double their current
25 lumen output to 50.
Overall, this was the best conference call in a long time.
Pioneer is a solid partner with good product, direct green laser manufactures are coming online, Intersil
is onboard, interest from tier 1 automotive manufactures, increasing revenue, and
cash burn has been significantly reduced. However, Microvision has only enough cash to last
till April and if they can’t secure any additional revenue in terms of
contracts for their display engine, it’s back to diluting shareholders. But
whatever, we are used to it by now. All
jokes aside, CES 2013 is just round the corner and according to Tokman,
Microvision will be unveiling “features that no one else has”. CES should be interesting!
