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As most in It will tell us, we are in the SAAS age. Software you pay for the functionality you need.
Qualcomm chip ecosystem has over 60 different software imbedded. Not all of them will be relevant to everyone that uses the chip. The price you will pay for the chip will depend on what functionality you want to be activated on the chip.
If you want the DMS part to be activated on the chip when you buy it, you pay for it whether you use it or not, ( we will get Royalty). If however you do not want the SEE DMS to be activated you will still buy the chip but this time they will not be selling you the DMS ( remains inactivated)..
In other words the price of the Qualcomm chip will depend on what functionalities you want activated when you initially order the chip.
Once the numbers starts rolling in then I doubt if we will be considering how the OEM get their DMS as long as SEE gets the money.
At the moment the apparent lack of news and clear indicator of solid forward movement gives rise to a lot of speculative analysis.
Hopefully by the end of this year we will be a position to be talking factual growth rather than green shoots that may lead to forward earnings. Roll on the next KPI, we may not control OEM fitment of DMS but I am expecting very solid growth in aftermarket as that is totally within our control.
Lebow,
For better definition I will say fitted with intent to use.
Our software is part of the Qualcomm software ecosystem , so is imbedded into the chip. But we know that soem vendors that use Qualcomm will elect to use other DMS providers, they are not going to pay for SEE and also for the DMS they are using. Qualcomm ecosystem is a pick and miss and you choose which you want and pay for it. For example Self Parking software is part of the software ecosystem, imbedded into the chip, You do not pay for the Self Parking if your car do not need that functionality.
I would imagine that when buying the software Chip there will be a cart to select what functionalities you want and the price will depend on the list of functionalities that you elect. PM kind of referenced that when talking about the price for a SEE DMS software, where he stated that the price depends on the list of functionalities that the OEM wants.
Clear case is some vendors may use the Qualcomm chip, but use Magna mirror for their DMS, they are not going to pay us twice, one for Qualcomm chip which includes SEE DMS, and another for Magna mirror based DMS. In this instance the OEM even though they have a Qualcomm chip with imbedded SEE DMS, will not activate the DMS element of Qualcomm chip as they will be using Magna Mirror, hence the win we RNS will be via Magna.
Similar situation is that the laptop I bought have AVG anti virus software pre-installed but for me to use it I need to activate it (pay for it). Normally I do not activate this as I prefer using Norton, so I just load the Norton Anti Virus.
Anyway above is just my view how I see it.
Don't think SEE is involved with NextBase, so not sure why SEE should be releasing an RNS regarding this.
When PM has something worth an RNS then I am sure they will release one. If a lot of these OEM are going to be using Qualcomm, then the election of which of the software in the Qualcomm ecosystem they are going to activate will be made fairly late in the car development process. Only then, if they elect to also activate the SEE software , will we get confirmation from Qualcomm and SEE can make an RNS.
Hence apparent lack of RNS releases may well suggest that a lot of the OEM are using Qualcomm chip, in which case selection of whether or when the SEE DMS will be activated on the chip has not been made, as they do not have to make that decision early in the car design cycle.
Listing in US is great when you are making steady progress and can demonstrate it, if not it is unforgiven environment and you will suffer.
PM is not an idiot he understands this. SEE will list in the US but at the moment they are not ready for that . The USA capital market presentation did not manage to convince them of our merits, why do we think that at this stage the story will be different if we were listed there.
US listing expects quarterly reporting and is great for growth companies that can demonstrate steady growth/progress on a quarterly basis.
The publishing of a quarterly KPI is a start but need more sustaining news of progress on quarterly basis before they can hope to take any advantage of US listing valuation.
In US they valuation is not based on fluff but on true and demonstrable future value. Here we tend to be more emotional, PM is a good guy, he said that x will happen and so it must be true; Ford is growing its output so SEE is in the money, without connection to the actual trims that is growing.
To my mind US listing is still at least a year away and PM will know when the time is right. The market is not as daft as we think, they are professional investors and they are not currently rushing to put their money into SEE, in a year or so depending on performance that may change , at least I hope so. We need delivery by SEE rather than wishing our life away, that price would be £1 based on ifs and maybes.
Sipps1
I have just thought of an optimistic interpretation, where the score has nothing to do with SEE DMS software.
See DMS observes the driver , interprets when they are distracted and provides the information to the OEM system.
What the OEM then does with that information is up to the OEM and not SEE.
Hence I will interpret the Driver Monitoring score as to mean what the OEM does, ( what he car does), when it has identified that a driver is distracted. With this interpretation then it has nothing to do with SEE software as our responsibility is simply to accurately detect when the driver is distracted, while different OEM will choose what action to take based on that information.
Sipps1,
If you go to the link for Euro NCAP provided by Maplinman below, you will see for yourself.
Expand the dropdown arrow for Assisted Driving in each of the Cars reviewed and you will see the scores for each of the Category under this tab (something like):
Consumer Information 25.0 / 25 Pts
System Status 25.0 / 25 Pts
Driver Monitoring 10.0 / 25 Pts
Driving Collaboration 25.0 / 25 Pts
In ALL the vehicles reviewed, Driver monitoring is given 10 out of 25 points.
If you are interpreting this differently please let me know how you view this. We all want DMS to be super duper but this score seems to show the reality which sometimes is a variance to what one may wish.
My musing is: if this is the reality of the situation, does this play into the fact that we have had RFQ's open for a while and yet no OEM seems to be in a hurry to award the contract, even though we have been assured that they need this DMS in order to get 5-Star rating. What score do a DMS need to have in order to assure a %-star safety rating, all other things being equal? Will the current 10 out of 25 points cut it?
Like everyone else I wish the price of SEE is £1 yesterday, but taking the SEE tinted glasses off, I am trying to analyse the factual data as I currently read it.
If all the DMS rated so far are only getting 10 out of 25 points, I wonder why the car makers are bothering? 10 out of 25 is hardly a rousing endorsement, it is not even a pass mark if we assume that pass mark is at least 50% , (12.5 points out of 25)
Will 10 out of 25 give an OEM the famous 5-start safety rating? What extra functionality needs to be in a DMS for it to get more than 10 out of 25 rating? Is this a reason why the OEM are not exactly rushing out to award the outstanding RFQs that is needed to meet FY24 deadline for DMS?
Just my personal musing, since at moment all DMS seem to have score of 10 out of 25 making them much the same. [Difference may well be in other uses ,(commercial application or convenience features), that the DMS vendor provides. These extra features are however not safety related and will not improve a DMS safety rating].
Wish that we can limit ourselves to things that actualy affect SEE. Any post about Car X increasing production , some people add 2 + 2 and come up with 22 and then they seem disappointed when the price does not respond to their over optimistic expectations.
The mentioned article seems to be talking specifically about Ford F150 Lightning XLT trim, which does not even offer BlueCruise as an option so will not have any impact for SEE.
Only two trims of F150 Lightning trims offer BlueCruise:
Platinuim ( installed as Standard)
Lariant ( BlueCruise Offered as Option)
Seeing,
I am happy we have released some value for the aviation business but do also have some concerns.
I always have issues with perpetual exclusivity, Magna was ideal as it is only for 3 years. I remember PM saying we will not get into such exclusivity again that tends to bind us...CAT deal took a while and not an insignificant cost for SEE to unravel that and take back some of the application areas that were initially sold as part of the exclusivity. Takata exclusivity stymied the company and we only got out of that when Takata failed. At the time we can only work with Takata ...so key reason why SEYE managed to have over 1M cars on the road ahead of us. At the time they were able to work with other OEMs while we were tied in an exclusive arrangement with Takata.
This current exclusivity probably requires more information for people to know what exactly is entailed. What becomes of our work with CAE?
I am afraid they did bully us...but I suppose when you are the little guy , you take what you can get.
Great to finally sign a licence for avionics although I am not too keen on a perpetual exclusive licence. That means Collins is got the licence for aviation for ever. We can not work with any other company within the aviation space.
Even if SEE is taken over, whoever takes over SEE still will be bound by this licence.
Exclusive perpetual licence is normally what the big boys do to the little guy...we had same thing with Caterpillar when we needed he money.
I suppose we can't complain because we did it to the Start-up optics company we signed a perpetual licence to use their IP within the automotive space for as little as $5M over 3 years. Business is not a charity so the big boys negotiate for all they can get ...Collins bully us and we bully the small fries below us.
Why would true self driving need a DMS. It is self-driving so no driver to monitor.
May eventually have in cabin monitoring , but for a bus, I would imagine that this would be situated on the roof of the bus, somewhere in the middle of the cabin so that it can have view of the whole seating area of the bus.
While we are busy comparing staff instead of worrying why we have not announced a contract in spite of what was alluded by our CEO, how about this:
One CEO has a significant holding in their company while the other hardly have a skin in the game!
I do not think PR will do much to this share price. We have passed the PR stage and besides since we have missed so many deadlines that were set by the company itself, I am not sure who will take any statement by the company at face value.
What we need is contracts, things that will drop to the bottom-line rather empty words no matter how flowery it may be. The market has been listening to our PR long enough and at some point, without delivery, it become deaf to your words. We have had the PR that all companies that needs to be compliant to the DMS regulations for 2024 were already late to the party, ( 8 months ago). [ Market then assumed that we will be announcing a sheaf of contracts as all these OEMs scrabble to become compliant to new safety rating regulations.] Yet it appears that none of these are in any hurry to award the contracts, so either what we are offering is not enough for these OEMs to award the required contracts or the OEM's are not bothered about being compliant to the new safety ratings. Whichever side of this you lean, it is not a situation that engenders confidence especially if you believed PM that it will take about 2 years from contract award to actually having the cars in the showroom.
As for Ford Mustang everywhere, instead of an RNS: the quarterly KPI if it is tracking strongly upwards will speak volumes. Price will react accordingly as that will be factual data and not RNS.
My take is that SEE needs delivery and demonstration of progress,( contracts , KPI etc..), nothing else will impress the market including Financial officer spending his own money in shares.....after all Martin ****z has more of his own money invested in SEYE than all the SEE board put together and I don't see many people with the view that he must know the what is happening, so based on that SEYE is a better investment than SEE.
PM please deliver what you promised or alluded to and we will all be okay!!
Wouldn't start counting your chickens yet. Ambarella also partners SEYE as well as CIPIA.
Most of our partners also partners others or provide the option to use other DMS supplier, except for Magna mirror and that may well be because we are the only show in town at the moment with regards to tech that can work in the mirror.
I am pretty sure that when others come along they will also offer those , else they will be limiting there potential sales channel.
SEE may well be the tech of choice or high end cars where they do not mind paying more for our ASP so as to get differentiation. For the run of the mill cars , their prime consideration may well be simply cost as long they meet regulatory requirement.
Hate ask this but why or why will you bet £180K on a tech that is still fairly unproven? As far as I know there is no Graphene company that is making any money.....the hope is always that it will be a tech for the future....commercialisation is in the future for those that survive. Unless of course you are multi millionaire and betting £180k is akin to me putting £5 on the lottery.
This company has always been a high risk punt admittedly with significant upside if it pans out...but too rich for my blood at £180k. Or rather I am too poor to bet £180k on a high risk venture.
Hopefully you are very well off that the sum you stated is just a drop in the ocean for you.
Baxter, you are not wrong: the next 6 months has to be the timeline for SEE to deliver tangible evidence and not sound bites.
There will always be those that chose to have irrational faith and go down with the ship, thus it has always been. They will see a bright light at anything without either rational analysis or negative testing.
I still think that SEE has an opportunity but all depends on execution. At the moment the execution is far behind the my expected curve, but worse still is my belief that it is behind the company's own publicly intimated timeline.
Like you I am giving it another 6 months before making a final decision.
I stress this is my own personal view as I only take responsibility for my own investment. I have never been an advocate nor a detractor of any specific stock in a BB. I share any information I may have on the stock good or bad , since I also benefit from others sharing information. To invest or not invest is a personal decision for each, as such I am resistant to the group think that usually exists in a BB.
Everyone's financial state or investment horizon may be different from others.
I also find that most people that do offer such unsolicited investment advice in a BB usually are talking moonshine, those that talk sense are normally paid for such service.