ST Imaging Business Update

SeekingAlpha: ST reports its Q2 2016 earnings. The CEO Carlo Bozotti and other executives talk about the imaging business results:

"Let me speak briefly of our Imaging Product Division which is reported in the line others. Here, we had strong sequential increase in sales, thanks to our Time-of-Flight specialized image sensors entering multiple smartphone models, 10 new flagship smartphones in Q2 alone. Among these, we can mention that Huawei P9 Plus and Honor V8. And we continue to see a very good momentum.

And the other good opportunity is that in the imaging and particularly in our specialty image sensors with the Time-of-Flight technology, we see momentum and we are starting also new opportunities, and this is another important contributor of our sequential growth expectation."

And then comes a question on Apple cooperation rumors:

Veysel Taze - ODDO SEYDLER BANK AG:

"Basically, not much questions left. But one will be interesting around your image sensor business. There were recently rumors that one of the North American smartphone OEMs is ramping a new R&D in France, a fab for camera modules and image sensors. And I was wondering if that's an option for you? I know you discontinued the camera module business, but is that an opportunity, or yeah?"

Jean-Marc Chery - COO:

"...first of all, I confirm that ST decided to discontinue the camera module, the commodity camera module, so we have no intent to come back in this camera module. So we are focusing on specialized imaging sensor and especially our Time-of-Flight technology where we see a very good traction, especially with a nice product called Ewok (???) where we have mainly Asia Pac and especially in China smartphone opportunities. And this is where we are focusing and focus a lot on that."

Another interesting question:

Janardan N. Menon - Liberum Capital Ltd.

"Just a couple of quick follow-ups from me. One is on your imaging business, the Time-of-Flight sensors. If I remember right, you've made a loss of about $80 million last year on the imaging side. I was just wondering, given the very strong growth that you've seen so far in the first half of this year and what you expect to see through the second half based on your design wins, would you be able to sort of almost eliminate that loss by the end of this year or is that going to be work in progress into next year as well?"

Carlo Bozotti - President & CEO:

"To respond to the first question, the answer is yes, and this is certainly an area where we can turnaround because we have the result of the camera modules and the commodity that was also linked to certain needs in terms of fab loading. And this now is done. So, it was a massive R&D effort. It was an important R&D effort with very limited sales. So now sales are coming and, of course, there is a very significant improvement."