The absolute units of LCDs around the world appear to be basically on track with what we said originally but because there’s fewer CRTs being sold that is changing the penetration rate.
Vijay Rakesh (Thinkpanmure): Taiwan inventory was up from 4 to 5 weeks which is seasonal given that they are going into the third quarter. Why then would they be cutting utilization back 10% for the quarter?
Jim Flaws: Their cutbacks are related too because even they have seen panel prices fall very dramatically. We have often warned that this is a leading indicator and they – because of the panel price drops, it’s really an indication of the inventory not at their level, but what’s happening at set assemble level where we do think there’s been a substantial build.
John Harmon (Needham & Company): Some panel makers that have been running in full capacity are running at lower capacity that would imply there might be some excess glass out there?
Jim Flaws: There might be a small amount but you know in an industry that takes 500 million square feet in quarter, if there’s an extra 20 million square feet, there might be available. It's not going to influence pricing. We are definitely not changing pricing.
Wendell Weeks: What we try to do in the analytics is integrate. When you see in those public announcements from the panel makers of what they are going to do with their utilization.
Total family glass shipment volume being up 49% quarter three versus quarter two which were tighter than we expect obviously, to ship more glass in quarter three than we did in quarter two. And so we try to integrate all that utilization input and then that‘s where we based our guidance on.
John Harmon (Needham & Company): Do you think the panel makers might be little short sighted again and not thinking about the strong seasonality of the fourth quarter?
Jim Flaws: We do not think the panel makers are short sighted. We think they are acting very appropriately. We do think that there’s a large amount of inventory at set assembly level then we can help in all the back half of the year.
We do not expect this lowering of utilization rates to stay there for a long period of time. They clearly want to influence the panel pricing environment but we clearly expect them to begin ramping back up.
Carter Shoop (Deutsche Bank): Can you discuss your level of confidence about maintaining your present strategy into 2009, as it sounds like you are anticipating a moderate oversupply situation at your customers?
Jim Flaws: We are very confident about maintaining our pricing strategy. We have said and as we have demonstrated in 2007 that we are willing to stick with this and as long as we are reasonably correct on the end-market and how it flows through the supply chain, we think our strategy is are very good and we will stick to it.
John Roberts (Buckingham Research): Could you give us an update in your strategy for requiring deposits in advance of glass expansions?
Jim Flaws: We are not getting any new deposits for glass and so we are just working its way out in terms of our casual statement. We break it out for it separately but we just began this in 2005 and it's basically winding its way off and will all be gone pretty soon in terms of impact on the cash flow statement.
John Roberts (Buckingham Research): Have there been any recent changes to payment terms?
Jim Flaws: There has been no change in terms of our day sales outstanding what we ask our customers to pay on recently.
Jeff Evanson (Sanford Bernstein): As you look at the strength of the A-brand as you call them that’s promoting much more rapid growth in SCPs and in Taiwan say, how that your B-brands might respond and what that would mean for you all?
Wendell Weeks: One of the hardest things for us to predict is what we call regional mix that you usually plays out around this A-brand versus B-brand dialogue. What we believe is that the A-brands will continue to be strong this year and that the B-brands will have to follow and therefore you will get some recovery there as well.
Ajit Pai (Thomas Weisel Partners): On the telecom side, is there any change in the pricing environment?
Jim Flaws: There is no issue with Concord on fiber – fibers going terrifically. The margin issues are really occurring in our cable systems of business and we are going to move to raise prices and are notifying our customers there but it is really more of a cost base issue and mix issue within cable systems.
Andrew Abrams (Avian Securities): Have you seen any change in your manufacturing cost structure? |