Energous Shares Fall as WattUp Wireless Charging Commercialization Lags
Energous shares closed down 8.5 percent to $8.04 Wednesday after the company’s Tuesday Q3 earnings report in which it reported revenue was $228,000 vs. $206,000 in Q2, it continues to work toward commercializing its WattUp wireless charging technology.
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CEO Stephen Rizzone wouldn’t break out the percentage of revenue from royalties vs. R&D tax offsets, on the company’s earnings call. Three Energous customers -- Korean hearing aid company Delight, Gokhale Method and Qubercomm -- have announced WattUp-enabled commercial products, Rizzone said, and the company is working with those customers toward full commercial availability.
Smaller-form factor products -- hearing aids, wearables and personal sound amplification devices -- will generate most Energous revenue in 2019 and are expected to hit the market in the first half, Rizzone said. Products will use Energous’ first-generation CMOS chips, which are generally available now, he said. Rizzone also highlighted availability of its reference design transmitter from original device manufacturer IDT.
Higher power wireless charging solutions will begin coming “into fruition” toward the end of next year, Rizzone said. The company is working with more than 75 companies in near-field, mid-field and far-field applications of WattUp technology, he said.
Rizzone managed expectations about the company’s repeated references to an ongoing relationship with a “key strategic partner,” a “top-tier consumer electronics company” it has been engaged with since February 2015. Since then, a “broad range of technological approaches to wireless charging have been explored,” and the relationship has progressed “beyond development, exploration and testing to actual product engineering,” said the executive. Saying he can’t provide more details, Rizzone said the relationship “has successfully advanced to a new level, focused on a broader ecosystem that can be launched to support a diverse set of devices.” But Energous remains “cautiously optimistic as to the ultimate outcome of this relationship” since there's “no guarantee that the WattUp technology will ever be commercially available in any of our key strategic customer’s products.”
The wireless charging company is developing a new generation of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) chips said to support up to 15 watts of fast-charging contact power, with the ability to go higher, at efficiency levels 10 percent better than other wireless charging options on the market today, said Rizzone, citing smartphones, tablets, cordless power tools and drones as target applications. Energous plans to demo a higher power solution with partner Dialog Semiconductor at CES, he said.
Energous’ IP portfolio is at 130 patents issued and 49 expected to be issued soon, said Rizzone. It added 11 new patent applications in Q3 and nine continuing applications, he said.
The company's regulatory team has secured certifications for WattUp near-field technology in 108 countries in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa, and is making progress toward regulatory certification in China, Japan and Korea, said Rizzone. Energous has introduced customers into the process in those countries and believes that will help the pace and scope of certifications, he said.
For Q4, Energous expects a “material ramp” in revenue from chip shipments and increases in engineering services, Rizzone said.