James DeVries
Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jason, and welcome, everyone to our call. We are pleased to be able to share with you our strong second quarter results as well as our progress on a number of key initiatives. Let's start with our second quarter financial performance. We grew our topline 13% to $1.3 billion accelerating from last quarters 11% growth. Excluding the Red Hawk acquisition, which was completed in the fourth quarter of 2018, we grew our business 5% also slightly above our first quarter growth rate led by very strong organic commercial growth of 19% and an increase in our residential interactive take rate. Taking a closer look at our commercial business, revenue from business customers accounted for 29% of our year-to-date total revenue. Indicative of our progress during the quarter, our sales team was awarded a Fortune 100 national retailer with over 1,000 sites and a broad spectrum of product and service needs including monitoring, CCTV and fire. We also continue to make progress integrating Red Hawk and completed three smaller commercial tuck-in acquisitions. We remain confident in the bright prospects for this part of our business. We have a strong pipeline and expect to generate additional total and organic growth through the balance of the year before lapping the Red Hawk acquisition, which occurred last December. Turning for a moment to our residential business driven by our recent launch of our new Command and Control panel, over 80% of second quarter installs included interactive services, bringing the percent of our total residential and small business customer base to 43% as of the end of June, up from 38% a year earlier. This is a positive outcome. We expect to continue to improve even further given the robust adoption rates today. Our adjusted EBITDA at $630 million expanded 3% over the prior year period driven by the higher revenues as well as our continued focus on cost efficiencies, particularly in our field service operations. Our quarterly free cash flow before special items remained strong at $121 million, roughly consistent with the year ago quarter. Year-to-date, as of June, we generated nearly $300 million of free cash flow before special items, which is in line with our expectations. To support, continued growth and profitability, we remain focused on improving and balancing our key performance indicators or KPIs. Beyond the large increase in our interactive take rate, our gross revenue attrition on a trailing 12-month basis improved 20 basis points versus the prior year to 13.3%. Despite the year-over-year improvement, we've adopted a neutral outlook for the balance of this year as reflected in our updated guidance that Jeff will share in a few minutes. We continue to make strides and customer service levels and have not experienced a meaningful increase in attrition attributable to competition. Over the long-term, we expect to drive continued attrition improvement as we deliver a superior customer experience and emphasize optimizing the acquisition of high-quality customers such as those that are now embracing Command and Control. Continuing with our operating metrics, during the quarter, we generated efficient RMR or recurring monthly revenue additions of $13 million, consistent with the increase during Q1 this year, growing our end of period RMR to $351 million. Our total SAC or subscriber acquisition cost was up 1% in the quarter to $370 million, primarily attributed to higher, upgrade and add-on volumes and advertising investment. Looking ahead, we expect to continue to drive underlying net SAC improvements through higher installation revenues as well as increased sales and installation productivity. We also expect to continue our current higher investment rate for upgrades to meet strong existing customer demand for the Command and Control panel and incremental home automation services. Summarizing our second quarter performance, we're pleased with our overall progress and driving strong revenue growth, balancing our core operating metrics and delivering healthy levels of adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow all while continuing to position and invest in our business for the future. Next, I'd like to provide an update on our progress converting our 3G radios that count of which is now approximately 3.6 million units. Since our last call, we've made significant progress advancing and deploying our replacement strategy. While our estimates are subject to change, I'll provide a few key points, as you think about the three-year life of the program. First, there are many variables involved, retention levels, system upgrades, revenue opportunities, and even potential technology solutions that impact the outcome. Second, we estimate 50% or more of the replacements could be conducted while we are there, already assisting our customers in their homes. In other words, a separate truck roll would not be required. Third, we are continuing to test and develop a variety of initiatives to reduce or offset the gross expenditures associated with these conversions. Our estimated range of the net costs for the 3G conversion is between $200 million and $320 million. While we have entered the execution phase, we remain in the relatively early stages and we'll continue to evaluate ways to make the one-time replacements cost even more efficient. Allow me to provide an update on a few of our new business initiatives starting with Amazon and Alexa Guard. As previously discussed, ADT supports the integration of Amazon, Alexa Guard feature with our professionally installed security and automation systems, benefits for us include allowing ADT customers to enhance their home security via audio detection when they're away and the addition of new sales and marketing opportunities. I'm pleased to share that Alexa Guard launched during the second quarter and we have completed more than 15,000 customer integrations with ADT Pulse and Command and Control. Also during the quarter, we entered into a new partnership with BH Management Services, a leading national multi-family home provider partnering with BH. We built-out approximately 6,000 new units in the second quarter with smart home capabilities including smart locks, thermostats as well as security. Finally, subsequent to the quarter end in July, we entered into a future pilot agreement with Farmers Insurance to offer professionally monitored home protection and smart home solutions for their policy holders. A final noteworthy strategic initiative is our launch during the second quarter of a five city pilot program was Citizens Financial Group as part of their merchant partnership platform. In July, we expanded the program to an additional three cities. This consumer financing arrangement allows consumers to finance upfront costs of becoming an ADT customer. Early indications have been encouraging and have resulted in strong unit economics with meaningfully higher upfront revenue. During the pilot, we will continue to work through refinements to our pricing model and sales experience to optimize the program before rolling out a consumer financing program on a national level in the coming quarters. We're excited about the implications of the program which we believe will benefit both our capital efficiency and long-term growth opportunities. In summary, we generated strong financial results during the second quarter, continued to make solid progress on our KPIs and rolled out many exciting business initiatives that will help drive ADT's future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.