Applied Optoelectronics : AAOI 2Q23 Investor Presentation

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

This presentation contains forward-looking statements. The statements contained in this presentation that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "believe," "may," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "should," "could," "would," "target," "seek," "aim," "predicts," "think," "objectives," "optimistic," "new," "goal," "strategy," "potential," "is likely," "will," "expect," "plan" "project," "permit" or by other similar expressions that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes. These statements include management's beliefs and expectations related to our outlook for the third quarter of 2023. Such forward-looking statements reflect the views of management at the time such statements are made. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions and current expectations, which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and financial results; reduction in the size or quantity of customer orders; change in demand for the company's products due to industry conditions; changes in manufacturing operations; volatility in manufacturing costs; delays in shipments of products; disruptions in the supply chain; change in the rate of design wins or the rate of customer acceptance of new products; the company's reliance on a small number of customers for a substantial portion of its revenues; potential pricing pressure; a decline in demand for our customers' products or their rate of deployment of their products; general conditions in the internet datacenter, cable television (CATV) broadband, telecom, or fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) markets; changes in the world economy (particularly in the United States and China); changes in the regulation and taxation of international trade, including the imposition of tariffs; changes in currency exchange rates; the negative effects of seasonality; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in the company's documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022. More information about these and other risks that may impact the company's business are set forth in the "Risk Factors" section of the company's quarterly and annual reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not rely on forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon information available to us as of the date hereof, and qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this press release to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in the company's expectations.

We provide non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP net income (loss), and non-GAAP earnings per share to eliminate the impact of items that we do not consider indicative of our overall operating performance. To arrive at our non-GAAP gross margin, we exclude stock-based compensation expense, expenses associated with discontinued products, and non-recurring (income) expenses, if any, from our GAAP gross margin. To arrive at our non-GAAP net income (loss), we exclude all amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation expense, non-recurring expenses, unrealized foreign exchange loss (gain), losses from the disposal of idle assets, if any, non-GAAP tax benefit (expenses), and expenses associated with discontinued products, from our GAAP net income (loss). Included in our non-recurring expenses in Q2 2023 and Q2 2022, and Q1 2023, are certain non-recurring expenses related to extreme weather and pandemic events (if any) and non-recurring tax expenses or benefits (if any), and employee severance expenses (if any). In computing our non-GAAP income tax benefit (expense), we have applied an estimate of our annual effective income tax rate and applied it to our net income before income taxes. Our non-GAAP diluted net loss per share is calculated by dividing our non-GAAP net loss by the fully diluted share count (for periods in which non-GAAP net income is positive) or basic share count (for periods in which our non-GAAP net income is negative). We believe that our non-GAAP measures are useful to investors in evaluating our operating performance for the following reasons:

We believe that elimination of items such as amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation expense, non-recurring revenue and expenses, losses from the disposal of idle assets, unrealized foreign exchange gain or loss, and depreciation on certain equipment undergoing reconfiguration is appropriate because treatment of these items may vary for reasons unrelated to our overall operating performance; We believe that elimination of expenses associated with discontinued products, including depreciation and inventory obsolescence is appropriate because these expenses are not indicative of our ongoing operations; We believe that estimating non-GAAP income taxes allows comparison with prior periods and provides additional information regarding the generation of potential future deferred tax assets; We believe that non-GAAP measures provide better comparability with our past financial performance, period-to-period results and with our peer companies, many of which also use similar non-GAAP financial measures; and We anticipate that investors and securities analysts will utilize non-GAAP measures as a supplement to GAAP measures to evaluate our overall operating performance. For a reconciliation of GAAP measures to our non-GAAP measures, please see the Appendix to this presentation.

Non-GAAP measures should not be considered as an alternative to net income (loss), earnings (loss) per share, or any other measure of financial performance calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. Our non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other organizations because other organizations may not calculate such other non-GAAP measures in the same manner. We have not reconciled the non-GAAP measures included in our guidance to the appropriate GAAP financial measures because the GAAP measures are not readily determinable on a forward-looking basis. GAAP measures that impact our non-GAAP financial measures may include stock-based compensation expense, non-recurring expenses, amortization of intangible assets, unrealized exchange loss (gain), asset impairment charges, and loss (gain) from disposal of idle assets. These GAAP measures cannot be reasonably predicted and may directly impact our non-GAAP gross margin, our non-GAAP net income and our non-GAAP fully-diluted earnings per share, although changes with respect to certain of these measures may offset other changes. In addition, certain of these measures are out of our control. Accordingly, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure guidance to the corresponding GAAP measures is not available without unreasonable effort.

This presentation shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities of the company, nor shall there be any sale of the any securities of the company in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Any offer, if at all, will be made only pursuant to Rule 144A or Regulation S under the Securities Act.

© Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. 2013-23

A Leader in Advanced OpticsDynamic MarketsMarquee CustomersProprietary ManufacturingDiversifying Customer Base

• • Revenue of $41.6 million, in-line with guidance range

• • Non-GAAP Gross Margin of 24.8% vs. 16.7% in Q2 2022, above guidance range

  • • Increase in gross margin was driven mainly by favorable product mix, targeted cost reductions, and the benefit of some of the intentional actions taken to improve the Company's bottom line, including: the exit of several low-profit legacy products, shifting R&D resources away from some low-margin projects to focus resources on areas to maximize margin, and some success in executing price increases with some customers.

• • Following the Company's prior announcement earlier this year of a development program to make next generation lasers for Microsoft's datacenter, both for 400G and beyond, AOI signed an additional development agreement in Q2 with Microsoft to provide design and assembly services for active optical cables.

• • Third Quarter 2023 Guidance

  • • Revenue in the range of $60 million to $66 million

  • • Non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 29.5% to 31%

  • • Non-GAAP net profit in the range of a loss of $1.9 million to profit of $0.2 million, and non-GAAP earnings per share in the range of a loss of $0.06 to earnings of $0.01 using approximately 33.1 million shares