Microvast Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MVST) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Craig Webster: Okay. So the – just – you might have got – I might have misspoke, but there’s very little backlog for China in there. So China is a much more short-term market. So this is the beauty of the backlog, right? So it’s – over 80% is 53.5 amp hour. Backlog is about 10% for China market, and the balance is split roughly 50-50 Europe with – and then U.S. The way we look at backlog for Clarksville is like whatever we can produce for an energy storage customer, that could come from the U.S. But right now, the only production we have is Huzhou. So all 53.5 amp hour cell production this year is coming come from Huzhou because that’s what’s available. Does that answer your question?

Sean Milligan: Yes, that’s helpful. And then you talked about 1,000 units per year for the container manufacturing or assembly facility. I’m just trying to think. Like so that’s above – like is that in preparation for a Phase 1B of Clarksville because it’s more than the output you’ll have, right?

Craig Webster: Yes. No, Sean, good question. I suppose the easy way to think about it is 1,000 containers is about $1 billion a year in revenue. Phase 1A is roughly like – excluding IRA, Phase 1A is going to be about a $500 million. Phase 1B would be the same, would be another $500 million. So the – this is the beauty about Windsor, is that it’s sized for the Phase 1A and Phase 1B.

Sean Milligan: Okay. That’s really helpful. And then I guess like one last question if you can take it. But in terms of timing for the larger utility scale storage projects, are you waiting on some of the domestic content revision clarity? Like what are your customers telling you in terms of what they’re waiting to put in additional firm orders there?

Yang Wu: Actually, we’re not waiting for. We are working so hard to increase the capacity as much as possible. And right now, the purchase order is more than what we can make, and it’s a good problem to have.

Sean Milligan: Okay, great. Thank you, guys and nice quarter.

Yang Wu: Thanks a lot, Sean.

Operator: There are no more phone questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Rodney to address questions that have come in via e-mail.

Rodney Worthen: Thank you, operator. We’d like to take just a couple of questions from the online for the management team. In relation to the backlog growth, can you give a bit more color onto what is happening and where you see the backlog going from here?

Craig Webster: Okay. Well, both. It’s demand from commercial vehicle customers is super strong. I think Sascha can touch a bit more on that. And then energy storage customers, which is U.S., as Wu Yang just mentioned, it’s more of a – like what we’ve got available than sales, and our expectation is that the Clarksville 1A is going to be super high utilization as soon as it’s running. And based on orders, we’ve got customers that want to book out ’25 capacity already. And as we get that ’25 capacity booked, we have to take prepayment. Like cash comes in early, and then we can use that to then fund the additional capacity expansion needed. Sascha, do you want to add anything else on commercial vehicle backlog growth?

Sascha Kelterborn: Yes. Let me add three things. Craig, thanks a lot. So in general, we are gaining also further volumes in other markets like South Korea, Taiwan. We’re increasing our backlog in India. So we are further increasing backlog for projects, which are dedicated to ’25, ’26 onwards with – on commercial vehicle side also in Europe. And what we clearly see is that similar to the development of Europe, we are getting more and more prototype orders into the U.S. So also here, we will see over ’24, ’25 upcoming for the further backlog increases. Also on the commercial vehicle side, we see that European customers, which we have are moving to the U.S. winning their electrification projects, and they are using as well the same technology what they’re using Europe today already with the 53.5. So they are taking that technology also to the U.S. market.