Factors Affecting Our Results of Operations
Net Sales. We derive substantially all of our sales (net of sales returns and allowances) from our standard products business. We outsource manufacturing of mobile OLED products to external 12-inch foundries. Our product inventory is primarily located in Korea and is available for drop shipment globally. Outside of Korea, we maintain limited product inventory, and our sales representatives generally relay orders to our factories in Korea for fulfillment. We have strategically located our sales offices near concentrations of major customers. Our sales offices are located in Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Greater China. Our network of authorized agents and distributors is in the United States, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
We recognize revenue when a customer obtains control of the product, which is generally upon product shipment, delivery at the customer’s location or upon customer acceptance, depending on the terms of the arrangement. For the nine months ended September 30, 2022 and 2021, we sold products to 169 and 175 customers, respectively, and our net sales to our ten largest customers represented 70% and 81% of our net sales—standard products business, respectively.
We will provide the Transitional Fab 3 Foundry Services up to September 1, 2023 at an agreed upon cost plus a mark-up.
Gross Profit. Our overall gross profit generally fluctuates as a result of changes in overall sales volumes and in the average selling prices of our products and services. Other factors that influence our gross profit include changes in product mix, the introduction of new products and services and subsequent generations of existing products and services, shifts in the utilization of our manufacturing facility and the yields achieved by our manufacturing operations, changes in material, labor and other manufacturing costs including outsourced manufacturing expenses, and variation in depreciation expense.
Average Selling Prices. Average selling prices for our products tend to be highest at the time of introduction of new products which utilize the latest technology and tend to decrease over time as such products mature in the market and are replaced by next generation products. We strive to offset the impact of declining selling prices for existing products through our product development activities and by introducing new products that command selling prices above the average selling price of our existing products. In addition, we seek to manage our inventories and manufacturing capacity so as to preclude losses from product and productive capacity obsolescence.
Material Costs. Our material costs consist of costs of raw materials, such as silicon wafers, chemicals, gases and tape and packaging supplies. We use processes that require specialized raw materials, such as silicon wafers, that are generally available from a limited number of suppliers. If demand increases or supplies decrease, the costs of our raw materials could increase significantly.
Labor Costs. A significant portion of our employees are located in Korea. Under Korean labor laws, most employees and certain executive officers with one or more years of service are entitled to severance benefits upon the termination of their employment based on their length of service and rate of pay. As of September 30, 2022, approximately 97% of our employees were eligible for severance benefits.
Depreciation Expense. We periodically evaluate the carrying values of long-lived assets, including property, plant and equipment and intangible assets, as well as the related depreciation periods. We depreciated our property, plant and equipment using the straight-line method over the estimated useful lives of our assets. Depreciation rates vary from 30-40 years on buildings to 5 to 12 years for certain equipment and assets. Our evaluation of carrying values is based on various analyses including cash flow and profitability projections. If our projections indicate that future undiscounted cash flows are not sufficient to recover the carrying values of the related long-lived assets, the carrying value of the assets is impaired and will be reduced, with the reduction charged to expense so that the carrying value is equal to fair value.
Selling Expenses. We sell our products worldwide through a direct sales force as well as a network of sales agents and representatives to OEMs, including major branded customers and contract manufacturers, and indirectly through distributors. Selling expenses consist primarily of the personnel costs for the members of our direct sales force, a network of sales representatives and other costs of distribution. Personnel costs include base salary, benefits and incentive compensation.
General and Administrative Expenses. General and administrative expenses consist of the costs of various corporate operations, including finance, legal, human resources and other administrative functions. These expenses primarily consist of payroll-related expenses, consulting and other professional fees and office facility-related expenses.
Research and Development. The rapid technological change and product obsolescence that characterize our industry require us to make continuous investments in research and development. Product development time frames vary but, in general, we incur research and development costs one to two years before generating sales from the associated new products. These expenses include personnel costs for members of our engineering workforce, cost of photomasks, silicon wafers and other non-recurring engineering charges related to product design. Additionally, we develop base line process technology through experimentation and through the design and use of characterization wafers that help achieve commercially feasible yields for new products. The majority of research and development expenses of our display business are material and design-related costs for OLED display driver IC product development involving 28-nanometer or finer processes. The majority of research and development expenses of our power business are certain equipment, material and design-related costs for power discrete products and material and design-related costs for power IC products. Power IC uses standard BCD process technologies which can be sourced from multiple foundries.
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