EHang Holdings Limited (NASDAQ:EH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

We are confident in our cash position will be sufficient to meet cash needs for us to reach cash flow positive status in the near future. Starting from this quarter, we will provide revenue guidance for the next quarter in our earning results. We are optimistic about our post-TC commercial operations. We anticipate achieving revenue of about RMB56 million for the fourth quarter, representing an increase of 257% year-over-year and an increase of 96% quarter-over-quarter. For the fiscal year of 2023, we expect total revenues to be about RMB118 million, up 166% from last year. Looking forward, as we sell and deliver more products per customer’s request and steadily expand our commercial operations in the future, our cash flow will improve and we are confident that the company can generate positive cash flow in the later part of 2024.

That concludes our prepared remarks. Let’s now open the call for questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first questions come from the line of Tim Hsiao from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on receiving the type certificate from CAAC. I am Tim’s colleague and will ask the question on behalf of him as he lost his voice due to a bad cold. Just a quick question about order backlog. Can we get a sense of the composition of current order backlog in terms of geographic mix and model mix? When…

Conor Yang: Yes, thank you.

Unidentified Analyst: [indiscernible] EHang’s revenue since company has obtained the type certificate?

Conor Yang: Hi. Thank you for the question. Currently, our sales pipeline reached more than 450 units of unmanned eVTOL aircraft from China and other parts of Asia. This includes more than 245 units from domestic customers and 210 units of pre-orders from Asian overseas markets. There are also other countries — from other countries that will be delivered after obtaining validation TC in these respective countries. And over 90% of our sales pipeline in the domestic and Asian markets are for EH216-S, and less than 10% orders from EH216 logistic version and also EH216 firefighter version. These sales pipeline will be delivered in stages per our customers’ request. For instance, our [indiscernible] customers, they typically start with an initial purchase of three to 10 units for training and trial operations and local sites.

Subsequently, as operation expands and demand increase, they will buy more products. So, these are precious timeline typically spans one to three years. So, we can see a significant increase in delivery volume in the fourth quarter upon obtaining the TC. Moving forward, we will provide revenue guidance for the next quarter in our quarterly financial reports. Thank you.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Ting Song from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question. Your line is open.

Ting Song: Thank you for taking my questions. Just a quick one. What’s EHang’s progress on getting TC certification in overseas market like Middle East or some other countries? Thank you.

Huazhi Hu: [Foreign Language] My English is poor. I need translated by Anne. [Foreign Language] [Interpreted] Okay. The type certificate we have obtained is by CAAC. As we all know that in the past few years, the CAAC has reached a lot of bilateral recognition agreement with other aviation authorities in other countries. Now, we are promoting the communication between CAAC and with other civil aviation authorities. For example, recently, the Brazil Civil Aviation Authority had came to China. So first, we will prioritize the — to work on the regions that we have orders in the local market. We believe we will make efforts to promote the VTC procedure, which means the verification of the type certificates in the local [counties] (ph) and we will provide support to that work.

Before we obtain the VTC, we can deliver some products to the local market and do some training for the local clients. We will extend our market expansions at a proper pace to the international market. We believe that soon we will see our global exposures. So, the VTC is administrative work, so it’s not as complicated as the type certificate. Yeah. That’s my answer. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our third question. The questions come from the line of [Rong Zhao from TS] (ph). Please ask your question. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Thank you for taking my questions. So, I have two questions on my side. And the first one is on EH216. So, I would like to ask whether the company sees the need to upgrade the product so as to increase the range of mileage judging from the current feedback from the demand side? And if so, what is the timeline and the cost outlook? And second question is about airworthiness certification in the EH216 logistic operation. What is the expected time to get TC? Thank you.