I hope this clarifies my thinking for you.
1) NUH is the only OTC hearing aid that meets the QUH classification meaning its self fitting and can be sold in store and online. The other classifications limit the product to online only and/or are preset, all these other OTC categories have restrictions of various kinds that don't apply to the QUH classification. The words "hearing aid" per se are not relevant as the products are sold in the context of the OTC Hearing Aid market, "hearing aid" is taken as a given. What is more relevant is the concept of "self fitting" which is the key objective if a hearing aid is going to be a true OTC product. Most people are also likely to want to go to a bricks and mortar shop initially so as to see these products, get advice and try them. NUH has done well in establishing a significant % of POS where this can occur and where the sale is active (assisted) and not passive. They have a good mix of in store and online POS. They will sell something and I believe sell good volumes.
2) Not relevant. It is a waste of time to keep going back and arguing what they should or could of done or where they could be now. What matters now is what they do to execute in the US OTC market as well as other deals such as future OEM's etc. NUH in terms of product development did not really have a class leading product until the Max arrived in 2020. The IQ's were not really up to the standard required by an professional hearing outfit but indeed had a level of personal hearing assistance functionality. As explained prior, NUH sole focus was on the US OTC market, and by the time the Max was released it was expected the OTC legislation would be close to being enacted and the Pro was already being lined up. The OTC rules took a further 2 and half years. I may be wrong here, but all the key people ( Miller, Cannington and Luna) were/are US based and seem to have a good understanding of the nuances in the US hearing space and the OTC market was always their target to the point they may have been blind to other things around them. It is not relevant now, they are where they are.
3) It needs to be understoood in the context that their objective was the US OTC market. The excessive delay in the establishment of the OTC market rules meant they had to scrap around to survive. Covid didnt help either meaning they had to pivot and even when they locked in a deal with HP, the resulting chip shortages caused by the covid lockdowns, meant the deal never progressed. Yes, their execution and some of their decisions could of been much better, but one also has to cut them some slack. Who would of thought the HP bundled deal would come to nought? If there wasnt the chip shortage which stopped the release of the Dragonfly we would be having a very different conversation now. We cannot blame NUH for the chip shortages but it did suffer the negative consequences of this even though NUH could meet supply to HP. Given what they have put together now, they are finally in a very good position with a very good product.
4) I seriously doubt its a standard form licensing agreement. Why would NUH even bother with an agreement that yields a few hundred thousand in additional revenue and wastes all this time and diverts precious resources?. Why not contract them directly? More importantly, why would RealTek waste their time and money investing several millions of dollars and becoming NUH biggest shareholder?. Who does that for a standard form licensing arrangement? Why not simply negotiate and sign a standard form licencing agreement and move on? The actions of both NUH and RealTek suggest there is something far more substantial at play and that involves significant money and market opportunity. A clue may lie in the fact that RealTek is big in the audio business and NUH despite being in the medical device hearing business, is also essentailly in the audio business and its technology can be used across platforms. Lets wait and see what is announced very soon but I dont believe we can look at this through simply a very narrow OTC market chip only lens, the overal picture is much bigger.
5) Revenue: even with very conservative assumptions they will grow their revenues considerably from here and it will be many multiples of what they currently have, in fact it will be magnitudes higher than anything they have ever achieved. I have assumed less than the $20-30mln number you have speculated as I am very conservative, but which ever way we look at it we are still talking about a many multiple increase in revenues which implies a many multiple increase in stock valuation. They have positioned themselves well particulalry in the bricks and mortar space in the OTC market in the US particulalry where there is the context of active sales. For example they are on board with a medical advisory group which is recommending their product to all their medical office clients. Like I stated in (1) they will sell something and sell plenty. And then we add the RealTek and OEM/s stuff on top of this which in my view will exceed anything coming from the selling of Pros. The other thing worth stating is RealTek is in their corner now, I doubt they will fail. As i mentioned in a post a few days ago, I am waiting for a couple of more key confirmation milestones with RealTek, if they occur as I am expecting, its game on and one can forget about worrying about NUH's demise. It wont happen.
Happy to respond, I always enjoy constructive dialogue. I believe there is way too much negative commentary here on HC and while some is well justified, most is based on erronous assumtpions and understandings and focusing on things that don't matter and ignoring the things that really matter as well as people pushing their prejudices.
Good luck and have a good day
Expand
(20min delay)