John Fieldly
Analyst · B. Riley. Please proceed
Thank you, Cameron. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. During the third quarter, we achieved new record volume levels, and we further increased our footprint with increased distribution and expansion in a multiple other regions across multiple channels, expanding our reach and availability. Our focus and targeted investments in sales and marketing provided returns in the form of increased sales volumes, increased brand awareness and increased availability of our products as we continue to maintain premium pricing. This record volume level demonstrates our products are in demand, and our growing consumer base has never been stronger. For the third quarter, revenue increased 54% to a record $16.6 million. North America revenues increased 92% to a record $11.4 million, and international revenues increased 7%, driven by reorders in Asia, which were partially offset by a 15% decrease in European revenues, mainly as a result of our Swedish distribution partner returning to more normalized ordering patterns as they have optimized their inventory levels and are cycling new flavor launches when compared to the prior year. North America growth was driven from reorders from new accounts such as Target, CVS and Wawa, which we began sell-through during the quarter. In addition, we experienced strong growth from existing accounts as a result of the expansion in our consumer base and demand for our products. Our production has returned to more normalized traditional levels, following the challenges we face during the second quarter as we continue to add additional co-packers to alleviate bottlenecks and lay the foundation for accelerated growth. Third quarter reflects strong demand as we continue to capitalize on today's global health and wellness trends, targeting active health-minded consumers. These growing trends are present in every market, and the continued solid execution of our strategy to increase demand through a diversity of channels and geographic location continues to drive significant results. Most notably, we significantly expanded our presence in China with broader distribution to the modern trade through our previously established partner, Qifeng Food Technology, a national wholesale distributor of food and beverages. As you may recall, we began our partnership with Qifeng Food's more than a year ago when we initially entered China market with placements in small selection across Tier 1 cities including Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen as well as more than 30 other small markets across 14 provinces. The majority of our placements were in smaller, less mainstream retailers, albeit the consumer response was overwhelmingly positive. With their network of distributors, national expertise and proven ability to execute operationally, Qifeng Foods has successfully placed CELSIUS in more than 45 cities across 33,000 locations across China, including 15,000 key accounts. Achieving broader distribution with larger retailers in China is a significant milestone in our efforts to increase product availability internationally. And we are positioning CELSIUS as a global beverage leader for active health-minded consumers. With our investment of more than $8 million in the Asian markets to date, we have established a local infrastructure, including distribution, sales, marketing and operational logistics that will support exponential growth as we continue to strengthen our foothold in the region. As we look into 2019, we are exploring further opportunities to partner with local influential strategic partners to further leverage our established operations, local infrastructure and local subsidiaries as well as further leveraging our existing local established networks to capitalize on today's health and wellness trends in the region, driving further availability and awareness for CELSIUS. Domestically, we have impressive gains in new distribution with placements on the energy drink shelves in Target, a key national retailer, broadening our national footprint. Additionally, our convenience store channel expansion continues with notable retailers such as Wawa, 7-Eleven, Sunoco, Circle K along with many others where we're seeing excellent product acceptance. CELSIUS also saw a key expansion during the quarter at CVS, which provides significant opportunity for future growth and national exposure. With Target, initial placements included three SKUs: Sparkling Orange, Peach Mango and Sparkling Watermelon in single-serve 12-ounce cans now in more than over 1,000 of the over 1,800 location Target stores throughout the nation. Achieving placements at such a high profile, esteemed retailer as Target, our brand - takes our brand recognition to the next level. Target's focus on health-minded conscious millennials strategically aligns with one of our top audiences we are aiming to reach. The initial launch exceeded our expectations, and the buyer is already making plans to add additional flavors. In addition, during the quarter, we drove continued momentum in existing accounts, which was one of the key drivers of our growth in North America during the third quarter. Domestic sales was a record $11.4 million, which was up 92% year-over-year as a direct result of the work we are doing to increase brand awareness through our strategic investments in sales and marketing. We remain at record levels of production, and this, coupled with our strong network of distributors, puts us in the prime condition for a strong finish in 2018. We continue to focus on optimizing our routes to market in key regions with strong partners, where we have ongoing discussions with major distributor networks, which we are looking to leverage in 2019 as we continue to expand our footprint and availability. In addition, during the quarter, we continue to target consumers with a live, work and play, and our CELSIUS Original's core line was added to over 5,000 vending machines, in micromarkets of national refreshment solution providers, leading a new wave of healthy energy near the vending channel. Placement in the vending channel provides additional exposure to new customers while allowing customers to try a single-serve cold can of CELSIUS. Opportunities in this channel are showing significant upside. Initial feedback has been extremely positive, and we are exceeding our partner's expectations in both micromarket and glass front vending. With a dedicated team focused on growing this channel, we view vending as a key channel for future sales growth. It is yet another avenue for reaching consumers with a live, work and play. Our products are perfect for the vending channel who are demanding healthier energy options at work, on the go and on campus. As previously mentioned, the increases in North America and Asia were partially offset by the 15% decrease in European revenues, mainly as a result of our Swedish distribution partner returning to more normalized ordering patterns and as they have optimized their inventory levels and are cycling new flavors when compared to the prior year, although our distribution partner continued to see positive sales growth. We remain encouraged by the near-term prospect of adding several new key retailers to expand our distribution in Finland and Norway this year, which we believe will further our penetration and availability in those markets. Our military channel continues to exceed our distributors' and buyers' expectations. They are currently selling over 16,000 units per week, and the forward sales trajectory continues to trend upward for this channel. Demand for healthy, functional energy sets remain robust, our SPINS IRI data as of September 9, 2018, provides definitive proof and points that demand for our products in particular in the line - in line with market trends. The convenience channel market has growth of over 5.8% over the past 12 months, which compares to our growth with CELSIUS at a 41.8% growth rate in the same market. We are outpacing the category growth in the convenience channel by a measure of seven. We remain highly active with our sales and marketing initiatives, including programs during the quarter such as Tough Mudder, a series of competitive events for a range of athletic performances from beginner to the elite, with courses engineered for teamwork, where we attended over 18 events during the quarter and sampled over 75,000 health-minded consumers. Our marketing activities are in full swing with multiple events each and every weekend, with demonstrations and weekly guerilla sampling programs taking place between events. Through our targeted guerilla sampling events, we sampled over 150,000 consumers this year and growing. In addition, our team attended multiple consumer and trade events including Mr. Olympia in Vegas, where we sampled to an additional 12,000 health-minded consumers. Sequentially, to the end of the quarter, we added an additional Executive Vice President of Marketing, Matt Kahn, to serve for the company and lead our marketing initiatives. He brings over 20 years of marketing experience to CELSIUS, having served a majority of his career in the beverage industry for companies with great brands such as Coca-Cola, glacéau vitaminwater, smartwater, Powerade and Heineken as well. And he has a proven track record of building brands, driving innovation and motivating teams to deliver exceptional results. And he has an impressive outlook for our future. We're excited for him to join our team. The momentum of our business is continuing to accelerate with significant progress being made to expand distribution, increase brand awareness through our targeted and proactive marketing campaigns and management of production and cost of goods, all against a backdrop of increased consumer demand. We are encouraged by our progress we are making and energized by the opportunity before us. I look forward to providing you further additional updates as we head towards a strong 2018 finish. I will now turn the call over to Edwin Negron-Carballo, Chief Financial Officer, for his prepared remarks. Edwin?