Research Frontiers Incorporated
Q2 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 11 Aug 2019

[Operator:]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Research Frontiers’ Investor Conference Call to discuss the Second Quarter of 2019 results and recent developments.During today’s presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded today. A replay of this conference call will be available starting later today in the Investors section of Research Frontiers’ website at www.smartglass.com, and will be available for replay for the next 90 days.Please note that some of the comments made today may contain forward-looking information. The words expect, anticipate, plans, forecasts and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions that are part of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect the company’s current beliefs and a number of important factors could cause actual results for future periods to differ materially from those expressed. Significant factors that could cause results to differ from those anticipated are described in our filings with the SEC. Research Frontiers undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or uncertainties.The company will be answering many of the questions that were emailed to it prior to this conference call, either in their presentation or as part of the Q&A session at the end. In some cases, the company has responded directly to email questions prior to this call or will do so afterwards, in order to answer more questions of general interest to shareholders on this call. [Operator Instructions] Also we ask you keep your question brief in the interest of time.I would now like to the conference over to Joe Harary, President and Chief Executive Officer of Research Frontiers. Please go ahead, sir.

[Joe Harary:]

Thank you, Erica. Sorry about the brief technical problem we had here. Good afternoon everyone, and thanks for being here. Joining me today is Seth Van Voorhees, our CFO and after the Q&A session during my closing remarks, I'm going to going to get into more quantitative than usual and if you like hearing about large numbers stay tuned.Today I want to discuss with you three cornerstones of our business that are all exemplified by our most recent second quarter, financial stability, operational efficiency and leverage, and business growth. This is how we get to the large numbers that I'm going to talk about later on.Let's start with financial stability. As of the end of the second quarter we had $7.3 million in cash, no debt and working capital of $7.9 million. This quarter we solidified our balance sheet by a second follow-on investment by our licensee Gauzy with which with warrant exercises by them makes them our second largest shareholder owning just under 7% of our company. This is a nice vote of confidence, especially in light of the much larger investment they also made in property, plant, equipment and people relating to SPD technology.We raised a total of $4.6 million at the end of May in this investment round led by Gauzy and some of our larger long term shareholders. We had very steady and predictable expenses and our cash burn is about $450,000 to $550,000 per quarter. This means that we have plenty of cash that will last us at least for the next three years. So if we raise money in the future it will be for strategic reasons.Let's move from financial stability to the second cornerstone, operational efficiency and leverage. As I noted, we have low and predictable expenses and our expenses have continuously come down. 2018 represented the fourth consecutive year that expenses at Research Frontiers have decreased, and the fifth consecutive year of lower operating losses for your company compared to the prior year.During the first half of this year operating expenses were also lower than the first half of last year and when non-cash accounting charges are backed out, our net loss for the first half of this year was also almost $150,000 lower than the first half of last year.We also leverage what we do to not only keep expenses low, but also to increase our effectiveness as a business. This allows us to be flexible, but focused and to efficiently deploy resources where they are needed and can do the most good. Perhaps this is one reason that we are able to accomplish much more than any other companies in the smart window industry and spend a fraction of what they do.Our licensees typically make the large capital expenditures as evidenced by Gauzy’s new SPD film factory line in Stuttgart, Germany. I had the pleasure of visiting it and it is large, it has room for expansion and it is right on schedule for film production next month.We've spoken about our financial stability and resources moving forward and we've discussed our operational efficiency. Now let's speak about the most important aspect of our success, business growth.In past conference calls, I outlined our initiatives for Research Frontiers. These all center around our growth strategy. First, reducing the cost of our SPD-SmartGlass technology to the customer, simply put lower costs for our technology opens up wider market penetration. It also allows our technology to be used in new markets. For example, Panasonic and others have shown what the next generation televisions will look like, as well as display advertising. And we are very much a part of that.We expect the main part of our business growth to come from core businesses, primarily automotive and architectural. Fee income from automotive and aircraft was up during the first half of this year compared to the first half of last year. I mentioned earlier that automotive royalties were higher this quarter, as I noted in the past as cars get further and further away from their initial introduction date, the total number of cars produced each year for that model declines, so to maintain steady royalties under that environment requires higher and higher take rates for options or that new car models be introduced using our technology. This is what happened.We spoke about the drivers in these two markets before. In automotive, we make cars more energy efficient, reduce CO2 emissions by 4 grams per kilometer and increase the driving range of electric vehicles by up to 5.5%. We also make people more comfortable and safer and protect the interiors of cars.In March, Bentley Motors gave a presentation at the Auto Glass Conference in Berlin that I also presented at. In their presentation, Bentley highlighted that using SmartGlass can save up to 13 pounds of weight and eliminates 54 components just in the sunroof mechanism. The auto industry is certainly hearing our message.On our last conference call in May, we noted that there were 19 vehicles that we and our licenses were working on for SPD that are being built in the United States, Europe and Asia. Now a few months later, we're up to 23 vehicles and I expect that additional activity, especially within the automotive market will become apparent soon.I expect automotive to continue to grow for us. We can see this in the SPD film sales reports that we are getting. Film purchases this past quarter are running at record levels. They are 36% higher this quarter than the same quarter last year. These are good leading indicators since this film gets put into products in subsequent quarters that generate royalty income for us.36% is a very nice growth rate. And as you will hear later on, just three OEMs are projected to use 30 times the amount of SPD glass currently used by the entire industry for all product applications. This growth will come from three main drivers in automotive. The accelerated move towards electric vehicles, remember we increased the driving range of electric vehicles by up to 5.5%. The drive to reduce CO2 emissions, we reduced CO2 emissions in internal combustion engine vehicles by up to 4 grams per kilometer. And with lower costs growth from spreading the comfort, fuel efficiency and safety benefits of SPD to a wider number of vehicles.Automakers are estimated to invest $225 billion dollars in electrification over the next five years. We will be part of that. And sheer numbers will contribute to our growth in automotive. There are 100 million vehicles produced every year. We only need to be on a small percentage of them to be very profitable. We plan to be on much more than a small percentage.Now let's turn to some of the key questions and answers we received by email before this call, questions from investors and we addressed many of the general topics in our presentation today. Here are some of the additional questions that were emailed to us.A shareholder noted, I was at CES and heard mentioned of SPD used in the television industry. Is that something we might see? And what is the potential value of that market for SPD in TV or flat panel display industry. What would royalty rates look like in that industry? Percentage of sales, flat rate et cetera.Well to answer your question, we get a 15% royalty from the licensee that is producing that, and I too with that CES and in fact, you are correct, there were actually two very large consumer electronic manufacturers that had SPD products in their private booths for their best customers and it was quite impressive to see the performance when you combine SPD with other technologies.The second question the shareholder asked was regarding Gauzy, will there be an announcement when the factory goes live or will you wait for a ribbon cutting ceremony. Well there's definitely plans for a ribbon cutting ceremony. The issue is inviting all of the dignitaries, the politicians and the key executives, especially from the German auto companies, to be there for that event in their facility. But you're going to hear about it well before then. I think it'll be very soon when you get an idea as to when film is coming off that production line.Next question. Given the near completion of the new Gauzy plant, can you tell us what types of windows that are produced there? Architectural, auto, airplanes et cetera? And since production is due to increase substantially due to the upcoming completion of the Gauzy plant, can you tell us what new customers or types of new customers are expected to be producing from such plant and expected quantity of window to be purchased over the next quarter and year.Thanks, Chuck for the question. I will give a little bit more quantitative information about that. But that factory is going to be producing SPD film for the entire industry, so automotive, architectural, aircraft, marine, consumer electronics, everything. And it's going to be quite a facility and state-of-the-art.There was a similar question from another shareholder about the same thing. So we move to the next question fromNeil Levin

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Ken Jones. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

I'm sorry, my question was why I'm hearing no sound.

[Joe Harary:]

Oh, okay. Were you able to hear me once I got back on.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Absolutely.

[Joe Harary:]

Okay. Thanks a lot. We had a little technical issue and it's now resolved obviously and I hope the message came through loud and clear, as well as my voice.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Thank you. That's a great result.

[Joe Harary:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Leonard Leese. So please say your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Hey, Joe.

[Joe Harary:]

Hey, Len.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

My question is you know, several years ago in Lincoln’s concept car they were using the SPD and then it never appeared in the car. So is it likely to be in other then electric cars and where do we start seeing it elsewhere in the car industry?

[Joe Harary:]

Yes, a resounding yes to all of those questions. Some other cars in the pipeline that we talked about, including some of the high volume vehicles, our internal combustion, as well as electric and some are U.S. based companies with you know, getting really good response to what they've been doing, some are in Europe, and some are in Asia.So we have a pretty broad base now in our pipeline. And you know, sometimes it's hard for U.S. carmakers to get their act together, they have many pressures on them. And I think that's what really happened with Lincoln is that by the time they did get their act together the car was close to being introduced, and that was what really what happened there. But you know, I think you'll see it on U.S., as well as European and Asian cars.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Isn't the next two quarters, likely to show significant increases, again because isn't this now when the new models are being introduced. So if they have them in the new models we should start to see that in the third and fourth quarter should we not?

[Joe Harary:]

What we've said in the past and we're still holding to this, is that the high volume cars really don't come into production until the second half of next year. And you know, that's when I think you'll see a real bump in our revenues based on those vehicles. And you know, depending on when in the year they come in. That's where we expect the revenues to start showing there.But you know, there's other things which you know, if you allow me to have a few surprises up my sleeve in the coming days, weeks and months, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised there.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Joe Harary:]

Thanks, Len.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Claire Houghton. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Joe, congratulations on a good quarter and the good news, particularly with the stock price, I've been very impressed with, not only the price going up, but the volume that's been involved. But my question is, there was a video on your - on site, on your website that showed a - showed some cars that were using SPD film or I guess they were using SPD film you indicated that and one of them for sure was I mean, naturally the Mercedes which we know about. But also the other one was a BMW. And I mean you…

[Joe Harary:]

That was a concept called the Active Tourer that BMW did a couple of years ago, its kind of interesting. They put a leaf pattern in the roof that was activated by the SPD, so you can create all these like very strange segments in the roof if you wanted to. You know, I am fairly confident that the first cars produced by BMW when they produce an SPD equipped car won't have the leaf pattern, but who knows.One of the things that Gauzy factory can do which is quite exciting, is they can laser etch different patterns into the film that are emulsion is coated on. So you get much, much better thinner lines between the segments.So you know, where I think that's going to have a practical impact Claire is that, a number of automakers are looking at putting SPD above what they call the AS line, which is the blue shade band typically on a on a windshield. You can do whatever you want from a regulatory standpoint there. So they've been building the SPD film inside the windshield up there on a lot of different cars that they're working on and there you could actually create segments where a sensor would detect where the sun is on the horizon and if it's high on the horizon maybe it only shades the top third of that sun visor. If it's a little lower on the horizon maybe it's two thirds. And if it's you know very low on the horizon maybe the entire shade band gets darken with SPD.But it allows you to maximize the visibility and only have the driver visibility shaded where it's needed. So it's quite interesting. And the Gauzy factory can do that much better than the methods they use now to do that, which are still pretty impressive and it's all done with laser etching and things like that. But during preproduction on the film can really make this a very interesting product. And it's just one of the nice features that Gauzy thought about and put into their factory.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate that information.

[Joe Harary:]

Sure.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Barry Rubin. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yes. Thank you. I'm a recent shareholder. I follow the company few years. I am very optimistic and thank you for continued progress. I have two quick questions. Do you have…

[Joe Harary:]

Welcome to the family.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

I think I've been following you maybe 15, 20 years, but I think things have gotten more excited now. So that's why I've been buying more shares. But I have two quick questions to save time. Do you have the phone number of the IR firm that I can call in the future when I have questions?

[Joe Harary:]

If you email me off line, I'll put you in touch with them, okay.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay, fine. And what is the name of the company anyway?

[Joe Harary:]

Let me give you all that information off line. Basically they like to do one on ones and they'll give you the personal attention that you deserve, so.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. What is Joe your - your share count is what over 30 million.

[Joe Harary:]

Yeah, it's about 31 million or so…

[Unidentified Analyst:]

And the large shareholders, institutional or what is the total insider ownership percentage wise?

[Joe Harary:]

I think it's about 8% or 9%, if you just count management. Our largest shareholder is Kevin Douglas. He's around 13% or 14%, Gauzy is just under 7%, Neil Goldman is up there, with Goldman Capital Management, just a lot of different pockets of investors.But when you look at individuals, what's kind of interesting about our share ownership is that individuals can own half a million to a million shares. I mean, they've – and maybe more even and I know some of them are on this call.So people have really been able over the years to accumulate a nice position and now my job is to make sure that those shares become ever increasingly more valuable for everybody.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Did you have your - last question did you have your annual shareholders meeting yet?

[Joe Harary:]

We did. We did in mid-June.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay, fine. Thank you for taking the time.

[Joe Harary:]

Sure. And welcome to the family like I said, thanks.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Dennis Labarre. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Well there's a delay to get unmuted, Joe are you there?

[Joe Harary:]

Yes. How are you doing Dennis?

[Unidentified Analyst:]

I am fine.

[Joe Harary:]

I had the same thing happen to me once and it's frustrating.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Well you know, in the 30 years that I've been doing this crazy stuff like, this is the third time I've ever asked a question on a call.

[Joe Harary:]

I'm honored.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

And one of them was when are they going to fire the CEO. That's not my question.

[Joe Harary:]

Okay.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

You talked about rabbits up your sleeve, correct?

[Joe Harary:]

Oh I don't want to - a good magician never reveals that.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. And then my question is that you buy a lot of feed or a little bit of feed? To feed the rabbit.

[Joe Harary:]

I think that there is going to be significantly positive things that people are going to see. You know look in all seriousness Dennis. There is a…

[Unidentified Analyst:]

By the way. That's just a joke, okay. I don't really care.

[Joe Harary:]

I know, I know. But you ask a good question and I think that what we try to do at Research Frontiers you know, the frustrating part quite frankly is we're in industries where the customers are very secretive. They don't let you say a lot of things until they say it. And we try to counteract that as much as possible by giving as much general information as possible, and when we can say something we do.And you know some of the rabbits up the sleeve I think are going to be things that we've talked about in the past. That are just verification that everything is working the way we outlined and moving forward.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. Well now my real question is. When you have one producer of your material, your film, so today what has happened to the pricing, if you can share any color on that?

[Joe Harary:]

Sure. So, almost immediately after we introduced the second manufacturer Gauzy, the price of Hitachi film was reduced. This was something responded to very positively by the industry. And that was one of the things that we can hope for is to have some good old healthy competition among the filmmakers, both in terms of the quality of the product and the price of the product. And we got our wish.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

But they didn't tell me anything other than the price came down a little bit or a lot?

[Joe Harary:]

Yes. That's all I am going to say. Hitachi will not let me tell you how much and I'm sure Gauzy would love to know that also.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. Well I respect that. Number two, do automobile manufacture mid year production changes or how does that work today. I guess I'm not familiar with it?

[Joe Harary:]

They could do midyear and mid model production changes, so and remember this has now been a very proven technology. So it becomes easier and easier for an automaker to shorten the development time by basically using the same licenses that are producing for the other OEMs.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. What is the lead time, if they – everything shifts in time today. So if they're going to have product or cars on the line January 1st. When they actually order from the subs suppliers i.e., Gauzy to do whatever they need to do, what's the lead time there?

[Joe Harary:]

You’re talking about, if they wanted two months because really if you look at what's happened in the industry when the product first came out it was bleeding edge technology.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yeah, I know, forever…

[Joe Harary:]

But unfortunately it was proven to be cutting edge technology and not bleeding edge. So companies like Pilkington, and AGC and AGP and some of the other major glass companies have all shown the reliability of what they produce for the auto industry and then it's just a matter of producing it in the right size and shape for the auto companies, whereas in the beginning there was very long term durability testing that Mercedes did for about five years, put it in special equipment.You know, you can imagine there was a lot of - a lot longer time in the beginning than now. And you know McLaren basically pulled the trigger very quickly on this you know, and they used established licenses and that made it even quicker.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. So let's just go to the XYZ widget which every automobile industry player uses, decide they want to put that widget in their car. What's the lead time for when they have to order it from Gauzy, what's the lead time, nine months, six months, a year?

[Joe Harary:]

It's probably under six months but typically if they want to do something different you know, remember everything has been deployed in the sunroof which is actually probably the most demanding environment for a car. If they wanted to do it let's say in the windshield you know, maybe there's different issues, especially if you can have it segmented sun visor. So they'll probably be a little difference depending on where they're deploying it, but pretty much not much.And the capacity of the industry is now such that film is just reliably coming off the production line. So it's really how quickly can the laminators, laminate it to the customers’ spec. And that's going to vary a little bit by product, but its not going to be the same lead times we had before.But fortunately you know, the 19 models that we add in the pipeline last conference call and the 23 that we have this conference call, they all started their work a while ago. So it's not like we have to wait another six months or a year for them to be ready if they wanted to launch it tomorrow they could.Unidentified AnalystOkay. And you didn't spend any time today talking about I believe that people in Texas who's had hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at them. What's the status of that company today?

[Joe Harary:]

Are you talking about View?

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yeah.

[Joe Harary:]

Yes. Well they had a $1.2 billion investment by SoftBank. They spend a lot of money. They are on their Series G or H or I or J or I don't know which at this point. You know, I don't really worry too much about them. I don't think they were worried about us too much until we started talking about wider film for the architectural market coming out because now we're also moving into the one market that they're in.Unidentified AnalystOkay. Well I believe in the last two conference call you brought up their name and today you didn't?

[Joe Harary:]

View. I have no problem talking about them. You know I have a very high level of respect for their CEO.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Very good. Thank you very much. And hopefully it will be 10 years before I ask you another question.

[Joe Harary:]

Okay. I hope the question is not when are they going to fire the CEO, like you started the question with.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

And I'm not sure my request, that they did honor that request and I'm not sure that was the right thing to do in hindsight. Life goes on.

[Joe Harary:]

Okay. Speak to you soon. Take care, Denise.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Mark. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Hey, Joe. How are you doing?

[Joe Harary:]

Good. How's it going?

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Good. Good. I called you guys last quarter and I got to say I'm pretty impressed with you guys doing – seeming to do much better and better with each quarter. And you know that's very impressive. So I'm proud of you guys.

[Joe Harary:]

Thank you. It's really just focus and hard work. It's not magic.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yeah, I know, nothing's ever is though, you guys are doing good. Hey, I just got a quick question. I understand you guys work out your headquarters in New York and I know you guys are pretty much expanding all over the world, especially with this film thing going on in Germany. So I've got a question if you plan on getting any more buildings around your headquarters or just anywhere around the area?

[Joe Harary:]

You mean for our own use or to use our glass?

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Your own use.

[Joe Harary:]

No, since we are a licensing company, one of the nice things is that with nine people we get actually coordinate the efforts with hundreds if not thousands of people around the world. So for me, I spend a lot of time at airports, including this weekend I'm going to be flying out again. But it's very much about working with a really fine set of companies that are our licensees to get the job done.And we happen to be in many industries that are very concentrated, like automotive where, if I'm in Germany I'm a two hour drive from 80% of the world's unit volume for premium vehicles. So it's very easy to take over the waterfront.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Now that's very good. It's very good. I was just wondering Joe, all right. Thank you very much.

[Joe Harary:]

Thanks, Mark.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Steven Al Marker. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Hello?

[Joe Harary:]

Hi, how are you?

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Hey, Joe. Long time. How you been?

[Joe Harary:]

Yes, very good.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

I don't think I quite clearly understood what you said in your talk at the beginning. So I'm going to ask. I believe you said that there in the near future will be 32 vehicles using SPD?

[Joe Harary:]

Now we said last conference call we said we were an active discussion about 19 different vehicles for SPD and this quarter we're in - that number has grown from 19 to 23.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay.

[Joe Harary:]

But not all of them - not all of them make it off the production line, but the ones that do are probably going to be and there's probably a greater probability that more of them will than in the past just because we've proven ourselves over and over again with Mercedes and now McLaren.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. because shortly afterward you said something about using approximately 30 times…

[Joe Harary:]

Yes.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Was that only automotive or is at total?

[Joe Harary:]

I was saying 30 times what the whole industry uses for everything but it's three automakers.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. So…

[Joe Harary:]

Three OEMs, three out of the 11 that are out there.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Maybe it's just - but it seems like, at least in the German part of the European market when one or two of them latch onto something eventually they all do?

[Joe Harary:]

Yes and most of them - most of them follow Mercedes. Mercedes takes a lot of pride of being first with things like seat belts and anti-lock brakes and crumple zones and other things. And usually there's good cooperation between Mercedes and their competitors on new products coming in. So often you know the other guys are fast followers.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. I'm looking in my piggy bank now to see what I got available. I was just curious are we - are you doing any talks with Volkswagen?

[Joe Harary:]

I can't comment specifically, but I think I've said in the past that we're talking with virtually every car maker in the world. So I guess the answer would be we're talking with almost everybody you could think of.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. That's great. Well, thank you for their time.

[Joe Harary:]

And by the way just maybe just to kind of outline. Volkswagen has a particularly thorny problem. They're kind of the poster child for this emissions cheating scandal that went on with diesel engines and the backlash on that was that most car companies now they've all been doing their own thing it looks like with that, but most car companies are moving away from diesel and back towards either gasoline powered engines or electric vehicles. And both of those things benefit us because we could reduce the CO2 emissions on internal combustion engines by 4 grams per kilometer which helps them comply with the new European standards that come in next year. And it also increases the driving range of electric vehicles.So you know, we've been a beneficiary of that. And Volkswagen probably has the biggest exposure. I think one of the industry reports I saw, says that they're probably going to face annual fines of $1.6 billion based on not meeting the CO2 emission standards for Europe. So it's getting interesting for us. And you know I would have – I wish everybody well including them, we'll help them do well. But it'll be through the electrification of their vehicles and reducing the CO2 emissions in their internal combustion engines.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. Well, thanks again and good work. Thanks a lot.

[Joe Harary:]

Thanks a lot.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Bye-bye

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Leonard Litmo. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Hey. Joe I'm back. A couple of calls ago you mentioned that at one point in time you were looking at the auto market maybe being like $200 million in revenue to Research Frontiers, but with all the actions going on that that number might get blown away. Is there any way you can give us a ballpark and what the market could be?

[Joe Harary:]

I don't want to speculate because even a $200 million number when you consider its all profit for us basically because we're a licensing company, it is a pretty remarkable number. That was just talking, by the way, about sun roofs. What we're seeing is an expansion beyond sun roofs to side glass rear glass the windshield and that number came out long before electric cars were more the reality that they are today. So it could get really big.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Oh, that sounds wonderful. Thank you.

[Joe Harary:]

Thanks a lot.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Michael, I mean Thomas McCarthy. Please say your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Joe, tell us more about the application for Panasonic televisions? When would that hit the market. How is it being used? As Panasonic patented it or other television companies be able to do the same thing?

[Joe Harary:]

I think you'll see multiple companies doing what they're doing. You know, also remember you know, Tom and that in that market you have one or two manufacturers that make the TV is for basically everybody and everyone just puts on their name nameplate to it. So there's a close working relationship among what appears to be competitors. But mostly it's just brands.The timing I'm not sure I'm allowed to discuss. But if they were showing it at CES this past January you know, it's pretty much coming very soon. So we expect revenue at least to start coming from that market in 2020.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

And what kind of…

[Joe Harary:]

While we're on that topic, there's a very interesting video called the History of Television on YouTube. If you if you search for that term the History of Television and it goes through TVs from the 19, 20s till today and kind of the evolution. But as they get into 2020, you'll see our TV in there. So take a look for that it starts towards the end of the chronology and there's others too that have come online that have been put out, that are really remarkable about how that works. So the stuff that was behind closed doors are now you know, in some cases visible on YouTube.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Can you tell us in a Layman's kind of way how it's being used?

[Joe Harary:]

Sure. So what the industry tried in the past time was to just have a piece of glass with whatever display technology was being used. Either liquid crystal, like you know the LCD screens or OLEDs, the organic light emitting diode technology that's more prevalent now. And what they found is that you hang one of these TVs up against the wall and it looks okay, because you don't have light behind it.But what if you wanted to just take a window in your home, that looks out on your backyard or a mountaintop or if you wanted to take a piece of furniture that had, for example, a display cabinet with China or curios or things like that. What if you wanted to make that piece of glass your television. You needed something that would block out the ambient light that was behind the screen when you wanted to watch TV, but you wanted it to be clear when you wanted it to be a clear window.And that's exactly what we do. Ifs you add our film to an existing television and what it does is it creates is dark and back plane if you will that allows you to get very high contrast, video images.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

So very much like the store front windows that we know about, correct?

[Joe Harary:]

Yeah, and also store front windows, so you've probably seen Panasonic at a video about the transparent screen where you walk by Macy's and there is a video of the handbag that's on sale playing on the window and then all of a sudden the window - while the video disappears and you see the handbag behind a clear window. That's the idea in the retail environment, its quite exciting.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Got you. Thank you, Joe.

[Joe Harary:]

Thanks.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Frank Goldner. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Thank you. Joe, I've been a long suffering Research Frontiers. Shareholder. It seems to me 15 years ago when we were talking about the screen, they said they had to develop a black particle. Are you telling me they developed a black particle that they can use it as a TV screen?

[Joe Harary:]

No. This is being used for a different function. It's SPD films similar to what's being used in all the other markets, its just because of the different optics of it. But what it does is it just creates a darkening effect. Think of it two way mirror in a police station, the room that you're looking - that you want the privacy and is dark, you get it two a mirror. But you don’t want to - you can't turn off the lights if you will in all of Macy's, so that someone can see what's on the outside window, but can buy you can flip a switch and make our film simulate the same thing. So you know that that's where it's coming in that area.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Well, it's good to hear. That's one of the first things that I remember talking with Bob about that sort of thing that I thought the - would be a good replacement for the cathode ray tubes we had back, the Eastman Kodak and plus Panasonic and others have surpassed that. But does that gives me some hope that I might make some money on this?

[Joe Harary:]

Oh, yeah. And you'll make it on automotive and you'll make it on architectural too, don't worry.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yeah, okay. Thank you. That was my question.

[Joe Harary:]

Thanks a lot.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Mike Zelnick. Please state your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Joe. We've been a long profitable person in the shares. I'm happy to say. I've got a question…

[Joe Harary:]

I'm happy, you're happy Mike. You've been a very long term supporter, I know you were a friend of Bob Saxe also, way back when and a good friend to the company. So I'm glad that you've had success with it.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yes, indeed. Do I understand correctly that we're about to go from in the auto section - in the auto industry from one to three of the OEMs.?

[Joe Harary:]

We're going to go to more than three. We already have now Mercedes and McLaren that have been publicly announced. But you know, there's probably a dozen in that list of ‘23 that we haven't announced yet.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Okay. I was cut off earlier from your room, your voice projection. Can you comment on what the timeframe might be for the next OEM to be coming online with this?

[Joe Harary:]

You know, I'm going to give a little more detail in my closing remarks and maybe in the interest of time since there's been a lot of questions on this call and ask that we try to address any remaining questions are there any more.Okay. Let me - Mike let me answer your question in the closing remarks that I'm about to make. And also if we haven't fully answered anyone's questions that either they e-mail to us or in the presentation today, let us or call us or e-mail us and we'll do our best.As far as the closing, well, I think we'll get into some of the numbers in a more detail.Today we spoke about many things, but I want to highlight what I believe are the two most significant developments. One is our automotive pipeline. It's growing both in number and in car models and in the matter that's pretty smart glass projected for use in each model.We're up to 23 car models that are actively working with us and our licensees and some of these models can use between 5 and 15 times the amount of SPD-SmartGlass currently being produced for the entire automotive industry just for Mercedes. Just three OEMs in the pipeline are projected to use 30 times the amount of SPD-SmartGlass that's being used for all applications, so that includes everything from cars to planes to boats that everything.Going from 19 to 23 car models in less than three months is significant and exciting. And being able to dramatically increase the amount of SPD-SmartGlass used per model will also be a big contributor to our success.Another game changer is the new Gauzy factory line for SPD film. This factory has the capacity to produce 1 million square meters of SPD-smart light control film per year, as well as being optimized for highly efficient and functional SPD film production and quicker delivery times.This 1 million square meter number can produce 1 to 2 million sun roofs per year, 8 to 10 million aircraft windows or over 700,000 architectural windows. They could also coat SPD film that's 1.8 meters wide, making it possible for us to more effectively address the large architectural smart glass market for the first time in our company's history. And this is a major market. Aabout 60% of the world's glass goes to architectural applications and there's a growing need for energy efficient green buildings.I saw the factory. I saw the equipment and I saw the customers. I even saw the areas already slated for expansion. Of course, having a second source of supply of SPD smart film adds an appropriate level of competition in the supply of SPD film to our other licensees. And this has already resulted in a meaningful reduction in costs for what is often the most expensive component of a smart window, the film.I think for anyone paying attention to what we said we needed to do, and then seeing it done. Our path to success seems clear. The reason for the success is straightforward. Its focus, and hard work. 2019 and 2020 are expected to be the beginning of highly significant years for us in the automotive industry.The use of SPD in trains and aircraft will also grow.And with the introduction of a wider and less expensive film due to new competition among the SPD filmmakers Hitachi and Gauzy, all markets will benefit. And it also opens up for the first time the very large potential architectural smart glass market.We are proud that we have the best performing and most durable and reliable smart glass in the world. We are proud to work with some of the finest companies and people in the world. You know, most people might consider taking time in August off, not us, and not our licensees. We're all working hard.September and October will also be busy months for us and I look forward very much to speaking with you in November at our next conference call and discussing more results from our collective efforts.We are not doing this alone. We have a formidable team of licensees. Together with us they are out there every day building factories, hiring people, educating the market, making presentations to customers and closing deals.You'll hear about some of these activities soon. I believe they will pleasantly surprise you. Thank you all for your faith in us and your participation in today's conference call.OperatorThis concludes today's conference. Thank you for attending.