Earnings Labs

3D Systems Corporation (DDD)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 23, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the 3D Systems conference call and audio webcast to discuss the results of the fourth quarter and full year 2011. My name is Fabiola, and I will facilitate the audio portion of today's interactive broadcast. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Stacey Witten with 3D Systems.

Stacey Witten

Analyst

Good morning, and welcome to 3D Systems' conference call. I am Stacey Witten and with me on the call are Abe Reichental, our CEO; Damon Gregoire, our CFO; and Bob Grace, our General Counsel. The webcast portion of this call contains a slide presentation that we'll refer to during the call. Those following along on the phone who wish to access the slide portion of this presentation may do so via the Web at investor.3dsystems.com. Participants who would like to ask questions at the end of the session related to matters discussed in this conference call should call in using the phone numbers provided here on Slide 3. The phone numbers are also provided in the press release that we issued this morning. For those who have access to the streaming portion of the webcast, please be aware that there's a 5-second delay and that you will not be able to post questions via the web. Before we begin the discussion, I would like to mention the statement regarding forward-looking information that appears on Slide 4. This presentation contains forward-looking statements as defined by federal and state securities laws. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, expectations, intentions, projections, developments, future events, performance or products, underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminologies such as may, will, should, hope, expects, intends, plans, anticipates, contemplates, believes, estimates, predicts, projects, potential, continue and other similar terminologies or the negative of these terms. From time to time, we may publish or otherwise make available forward-looking statements of this nature. All such forward-looking statements, whether written or oral and whether made by us or on our behalf, are expressly qualified by the cautionary statements described on this…

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking the time to listen to our call this morning. As you know, earlier today we released our operating results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2011 and filed our Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This morning, Damon and I will recap our quarterly and annual highlights and share with you several key accomplishments. We will go over our financial results in more depth, explain why we decided to report non-GAAP financial measures, and review our non-GAAP methodology and reconciliation for net income and earnings per share. We will also update you on our integration progress for our recent acquisitions and provide an outlook for the first quarter and full year, including the initiation of revenue and non-GAAP earnings guidance for 2012. Let me begin by saying that we had an incredible year of growth and benefited substantially from our focused growth initiatives. We extended our revenue leadership position, growing annual revenue by 44% to an all-time record of $230.4 million, and grew our gross profit by 47%. We assumed printer unit sales leadership, growing annual units by 242% and driving substantial print materials growth that contributed to significant improvement in our net income and earnings for the year. And importantly, we grew our business organically for both the fourth quarter and annually by 19%. During 2011, we extended our -- we also extended our innovation and technology leadership into new manufacturing and consumer opportunities, introduced a significant number of new products, and extended our print engines and materials portfolio. We completed several key acquisitions in line with our growth initiatives, doubled our reseller coverage and put in place many of the required building blocks of future growth. We are excited that, both on a quarterly and annual basis,…

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Thanks, Dave. Good morning, everyone. As Dave just mentioned, earlier this morning we introduced non-GAAP financial measures. I will give some consolidated results on both GAAP and non-GAAP and quickly get into a much more detailed explanation of our non-GAAP measures and reconciliation back to GAAP. Fourth quarter revenue increased 35% over the 2010 quarter, with a gross profit improvement of only 32%, which is primarily driven by the concentration of newly acquired on-demand parts businesses with lower initial gross profit margin. I will further explain this temporary anomaly shortly. On a non-GAAP basis, our total operating expenses increased to $16.8 million but declined to 24% of revenue, reflecting a rise in compensation cost driven by sales commissions from increased revenue and the initial operating and compensation costs of newly acquired businesses. Specifically, our fourth quarter operating expenses included a $2.5-million increase in compensation cost, primarily from higher on increased revenue and from a higher concentration of new acquisitions. Our quarterly expenses also included a $1.8-million increase in R&D expenditures, primarily from the timing of several new product launches and the beta release of our Cubify.com consumer destination. As a result of our strong revenue growth and expanded gross profit, we generated non-GAAP adjusted net income of $13.8 million and earned $0.27 per share. On a GAAP basis we earned $0.16 a share for the quarter. Record materials and services revenue more than offset the planned printers mix shift towards our lower-priced printers on continued strong demand for our personal, professional and production printer categories. For the full year of 2011, revenue increased 44% over 2010. This increase was well distributed across all revenue categories. On a non-GAAP basis, total operating expenses increased to $63 million but decreased as a percentage of revenue to 27% from 31% in 2010. This…

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Thanks, Damon. On January 3 of this year, we successfully completed the acquisition of Z Corp and Vidar. We believe that this complementary combination, together with 3D Systems' portfolio, uniquely positions us for accelerated growth in the rapidly growing 3D content to print space by filling specific product performance and price gaps with complementary products and technology and by the effective doubling of our reseller coverage globally. We expect that our combined channel of over 330 resellers strong will drive acceleration of revenue growth from sales of the combined portfolio through the combined channel. Additionally, ZPrinter portfolio perfectly filled the price and performance gap that we had in our product line, with differentiated products that combine speed and ease-of-use with the only full-color 3D printer available in the marketplace today. We also believe that Vidar's extensive digitizing technology and reputable product manufacturing quality, together with its global brand recognition, will serve as a springboard to accelerate the overall growth of our profitable health care solutions. I'm happy to report that, as of today, we substantially completed all our organizational, financial, ERP and operational integration activities that were required to deliver on all the identified customer and company synergies. Our product line is stronger, our integrated team is in place and our resellers are embracing the strategy by opting in. In January we also unveiled our first ever true home 3D printer: the Cube, an affordable, simple-to-use 3D printer for children and adults alike, priced at $1,300. Concurrently we also launched in a beta release, Cubify.com, a unique marketplace and meeting place destination where artists, designers, kids and makers can sell their 3D designs and anyone can download, customize and 3D print. Cubify provides a new business model and a powerful platform for individuals and garage entrepreneurs to access the same…

Stacey Witten

Analyst

[Operator Instructions]

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And your first question will come from the line of Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company.

James Ricchiuti

Analyst

Can you talk a little bit about Q1? Normally, you'd see some sequential, seasonal weakening. It sounds like you're entering the year with a fairly strong momentum. Not only some backlog, but just in general you're seeing pretty good demand across the product portfolio and geographies. What can you say about Q1 in terms of what you normally would see?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well I don't know, Jim, that normally applies as much, which is why we tried to provide more definitive annual guidance. And the reason that normally doesn't apply as much is just given the addition of recently acquired businesses in the latter part and the changing of the mix. It's true that, historically within our business, we always experienced a historical reset between Q1 and Q4 and a steady stairstep-ing throughout the year. But we can't tell you that, that kind of pattern will or will not repeat. It's better to focus on the annual guidance and try to discern from that how we may have been through the year. We have good sales momentum, we have good backlog and our portfolio enjoys strong demand.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Jay Harris of Goldman [ph] -- Goldsmith.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Abe, I presume, from your comments about Europe, that the installation and sales of new printers helped your business mask what other companies had experienced late in December as an inventory correction. Can you provide any insights? Do you see a -- as the first quarter, January, early February developed, was there a re-acceleration? I can't imagine that you did not get some impact from, in your revenue base, from what other companies have experienced.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well I think, Jay, that first, let me say that we're not in the inventory corrections space. That is more appropriate to retail consumer and manufacturing companies. We're more linked to R&D spending, new product development cycles and the emergence of new manufacturing activities, and if you look at what has happened in R&D spending worldwide, inclusive of Europe, it has performed at a healthy multiple to any regional GDP, and that bodes well for the kind of end-user behavior that we are experiencing. And as long as that continues, we expect that we would continue to perform accordingly, and reflecting specifically on our European performance, we've enjoyed very strong performance. And in fact, the rest of the world held its part as a percentage of total revenue, notwithstanding the significant North American growth. So all that we can say is that we continued to enjoy strong worldwide performance from every region and that we believe that, that largely has to do with trends. Product development cycles are shorter and more frequent, and most companies are spending more on R&D in the last 2 years than they did previously, and they have to do it and we fit very well into that cycle.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Bill Gibson of Legend Merchant.

William Gibson

Analyst

I've got -- it's actually like 1.5 questions closely related. You had the big spike in unit shipments and you said you took over leadership in that regard. Was that a fourth quarter phenomena or full-year phenomena? And then secondly, what on a rough percentage basis, is V-Flash of that increase?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Okay. So first let me ask -- let me answer that it's not an either/or. It's both. So when we say that we took unit sales leadership, it's for the quarter and annually. And in fact, if you look at it, you can see that the acceleration happened over the year, because the year-over-year unit growth is about 240% and the quarter -- year-over-year quarter increase is 190%. And so, as the increase -- as the base is getting -- or as comparable periods are getting larger, we have seen some reduction in the rate of growth, but in absolute units it's increasing. And so the answer is both. We, as a matter of fact, at this point in time, nearly came to the end of V-Flash and are replacing V-Flash with the ProJet 1000 and 1500, which are in our personal printer category. And our principal printer category is obviously leading the charge. Between the PJ 1000, 1500, the 3DTouch and the RapMan, that category is leading unit growth. And as Damon said earlier, personal and professional printers combined grew some 35%.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is a follow-up from the line of Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company.

James Ricchiuti

Analyst

Abe, when we look at your full year guidance, can you talk a little bit about what some of the drivers might be to get you to the high end of the guidance, whether it's strength in the personal/professional, materials? And to what extent have you -- can you talk a little bit about the savings that you are expecting from Z Corp? To what extent is that baked into the full year earnings guidance? You've given a range, I believe, of $5 million to $10 million of cost savings, half of which I think you talked about in the first year.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Yes. I'll let Damon talk about the baked-in savings and then I'll talk about what would get us to one point in the range versus another.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

So for the savings, you're exactly right, Jim. When we originally had announced the details around the acquisitions of Z Corp and Vidar, we said we expected synergies in the range of $5 million to $10 million, and that -- around that half for the first year. Those are baked in at about the half, but you also -- about the half of those synergies, but you also got to realize that we have, in this guidance number, future investments in like our Cubify space and our consumer space that we have in there that's partially offsetting some of those. So we don't have just the good in this guidance; we have the other spending that we think is going to help drive our business much farther and much faster.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Yes. And in terms, Jim, of what gets us to one point in the guidance range versus another, that will be largely mix-driven and it would be the timing of how quickly we succeed in leveraging the full impact of the combined channel and the full impact of our cost-downs and initiatives. We think that the top line growth rate is fairly conservative. It reflects the current economic realities worldwide as we understand them, and the bottom line range really reflects timing and mix.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Ben Reitzes with Barclays Capital.

Benjamin Reitzes

Analyst

My question is, for modeling purposes, just given there's a lot of changes, what is the Vidar -- the Z Corp and Vidar contribution for 2012 roughly? And then, I wanted you to just reiterate your non-GAAP gross margin outlook for the year.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

All right. So the Z Corp and Vidar -- when we signed Z Corp and Vidar, we put some information out there about what their revenues were and that the actual results for the last 12 months haven't changed substantially. It was right around $56 million in revenue together, so that's what's feeding into that. And what was the other question?

Benjamin Reitzes

Analyst

What's your non-GAAP gross margin assumption for the year? I think you mentioned, on the call, 300-basis-points improvement. I wanted to see if that was clear.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

No, no. What that was, when we were talking about the 300-basis-points improvement was based on -- that's when we were looking back at what the impact of acquisitions were. The 300-basis-point improvement was, if you looked at our core business, per se, our businesses before the acquisitions, we've been able to keep expanding that. And then, even as we've added acquisitions that were sort of like fully baked in, in 2011, so that we have done in 2009 and 2010, we continue to have margin improvement. As far as this model goes -- I mean, let me first start by saying that this guidance is meant to just supplement the model that we have out there. We haven't changed our business view or the model substantially or fundamentally. This is a simpler way to look at it. That's driven by the same drivers. If you look at our non-GAAP items for gross profit margin, I mean, it's -- there's really only one part of amortization that's in there and if you look at it, it was like $200,000 for the quarter, $275,000 for the quarter. So that's not the driver. Non-GAAP and GAAP gross profit margin are similar. And if you end up looking at our bottom line here, on the guidance, $330 million to $360 million. So $360 million, our net income -- our non-GAAP net income, is between 18% and 19% and that's been rising as we move throughout the years. Our target model, at $400 million, had a non-GAAP net income of 20%. So you can see we're converging on that model as we move forward and we're really just affirming the model by this guidance also.

Benjamin Reitzes

Analyst

So you're saying, on the other targets like gross margin, just use the prior target model as a guide to kind of get to...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Basically, we did 2 things here, Ben. We said that we're affirming our long-term target model and we're providing specific guidance to enable all of you to assign timelines to the progress that we make. And we're trying to basically make it much simpler by saying, "Here is where we see revenue going. Here are the ranges. Here is what we expect of net income and EPS and so forth." And if you look at it, I think Damon has some very good comments when he talked about that, and he basically said, if you look at it -- where is that? Give me one second; I'll specifically reiterate what Damon said, because I think that, that could help you in your modeling. No, no. I was looking at the guidance script. There we go. So Damon specifically said that management believes that these ranges correspond to adjusted net income of 16% of revenue and 18% of revenue. And that, that depicts earning power extension within those ranges of between 25% to 55% over our 2011 non-GAAP adjusted results. And if you take those percentages, you can very quickly link it to the target model and see that it is completely consistent with the target model.

Benjamin Reitzes

Analyst

Okay. And then, I guess finally is just, you mentioned in the first quarter you would have incremental restructuring charges. Did you mean that those charges were on top of the 2.5 that you had in the last quarter, amounting to around 5? Or did you just mean the total restructuring...

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

The ones that we reported in this last quarter were last quarter, and we're trying to make everybody aware of that. These restructuring charges for this year, primarily in the first quarter, will be $2 million to $2.5 million.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Marcelo Desio with CrossLink.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Can you just tell us what organic growth rate was in the quarter for the systems business? And also, what -- in your guidance, what kind of tax rate are you expecting?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Sure. Now organic growth rate for the systems -- I mean, all of our systems growth was organic.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

190...

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Yes. So, exactly. It's that, for the -- annually it was 22% and then it was the other percentage for the quarter. For the tax rate in our guidance, what we've given is, we've actually said it's a full tax rate. The 35...

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

So 38%?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

35% to 38%, depending on the breakdown that we had between international and U.S.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

So for your guidance that you're giving on EPS, it's a 35% annual tax rate.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Yes. It depends on where we are in the range, between 35% to 38%, and that's just based on the mix. So, yes, it's a fully converted tax rate.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Most analysts are using a 12% to 15% type of tax rate. So you're saying they should change that to 38% -- 35% to 38%.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

This takes the full burden tax rate and it also takes into account that we would have -- that on the non-GAAP basis we back out any releases of the tax reserve, the fully reserved tax reserves that we have, of which we have about $16 million that's available for future release.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Okay. And so you didn't actually answer the first question, which was on the systems business, the organic growth rate for the quarter, not...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

All of the system growth is organic at this point, so there is no...

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Right. What was the actual number? It looks like it was up only $1 million year-over-year.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Hang on a second. We'll find it for you. Yes, in units we have grown 190% and in revenue we'll find the number for you. We're looking at the 10-K. We'll find it for you in a second.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Yes. And we did break out what we said as -- I mean, the personal and professional printers grew by 35% versus the last year's quarter and the production printers grew by 10%.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

By 10%, correct.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Right, so what was, organically, the growth vehicle...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

That's all organic. There is no acquisitions in printer sales. It's all organic.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

If you back out the materials revenue from...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

There is no material revenue in printers. Printers are just printers.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Right. So what was the printer revenue number, the actual printer revenue number for the quarter? I come up with about a $21.5-million number. Is that correct?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Hang on one second...

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Yes, that's approximately -- yes...

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

All right. So last year you had $20.7 million in revenues in the quarter, in system. So the growth in systems was less than 5%.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

The revenue, remember that the shift that we're making towards lower-price printers, both within our personal...

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

I understand that. I just want an actual revenue number for system.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

And we've given it to you. But it's also important to understand that, for us, the significance is that these lower-priced units pump and consume as much material as the units that we sold. So a year ago we sold fewer units for higher ASP, and this quarter we sold 190% more units at far lower ASPs that have the same output of material consumption, which is what matters to us.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Okay. I mean, I'm still -- so you're saying the systems revenues were around $21.5 million, which is less than 5% year-over-year growth.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

In revenue.

Marcelo Desio

Analyst

Yes, in revenues. Okay. And there's one last question. In the 10-K there was about a $7 million -- $7.9 million capitalized software development cost in the quarter. Can you just address that?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

The -- any of the capitalized items were due to the acquisition costs, so when we -- the acquisitions that we incurred through that quarter are what they are. We do not internally capitalize any of our internally developed software.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Troy Jensen with Piper Jaffray.

Troy Jensen

Analyst

Two quick questions if I could. Just to follow-up on Marcelo's question. Could you guys just specifically talk about SLA and SLS? Clearly, the low-ends business is really strong. You get good growth there. I get that. But can you just talk about -- is the SLA and SLS business growing for you?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Yes. And so the SLA and SLS business falls into the production printer category and production printers have grown by 10%. And what's important to understand here, Troy, is that we have been systematically reducing ASPs by introducing new price points in all 3 categories. This is not a low-end versus a high-end discussion. This is an all-in discussion. We have been reducing price points in what you called the low-end from $9,900 a few years ago, all the way to $1,300, with many price points in between. We've been reducing -- within our professional category the price is down. But also within our SLA and SLS category, we have been introducing new price points and migrating from well over $0.5 million to the ranges of between $150,000 and $350,000. That allows us to place more systems and accelerate adoption and, obviously, that is not fully reflected in revenue, but is fully reflected in units.

Troy Jensen

Analyst

Okay, I got it. And just for Damon, I appreciate the full-year guidance. Could you just help us out with -- how about the OpEx lines in Q1, given that you've got Z Corp and Vidar coming online? What is R&D and SG&A going to look like? Just to help us on the modeling side.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

From the side, if we're looking, again, at the couple of components that would be non-GAAP related because, obviously, once Z Corp and Vidar are in, they're also in addition to the other acquisitions. The amortization of the intangibles is a larger number. So we talk about this non-GAAP ratio and it really -- again, I'll point you back to target model that was there and saying that even with the revenue that you're adding, and these expenses associated with Z Corp and Vidar, are not averse to what we put out for our model.

Troy Jensen

Analyst

But can you just help us with dollar amounts? I mean is R&D going to be $6 million or higher? Is SG&A going to be -- I mean, just if you could help out that'd be appreciated.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Well, I mean, we really haven't said anything. If I start saying those numbers, I guess, I'm sort of going to say where we are in the range of the $330 million to $360 million, which is...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Yes. We're not ready, Troy, to begin to give quarterly guidance. I think that we've taken a significant step forward here in providing annual guidance, and we've given quite a bit of detail on any extraordinary charges that we expect to take in the first quarter. Outside of that, we can't tell you much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is a follow-up from the line of Jim Ricchiuti.

James Ricchiuti

Analyst

I guess, I was wondering, it's still early days in terms of where you are in the integration, but can you talk a little bit about how this combination of the Z Corp and 3D channel is going? And maybe if you could also give us a number in terms of how many resellers you have currently and whether you see that bleeding out a little bit.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, it's not that early days in the sense that we, internally, completed all of the integration steps and goals that we had for ourselves, with 6 to 7 weeks into this. And we are in the midst of completing, at the end of this week, the first round of sales meetings with the combined channel in all regions of the world. And we haven't lost a single reseller in the process, so we're still talking 330 resellers as of today. And the measurement of success here, over time, is how quickly each and every reseller embraces the full product line and how quickly they'll come up to speed, and how do we accelerate that. That becomes the measure of success. But in terms of progress, both organizationally, financially and market-facing-wise, we have moved very decisively and very quickly and so far we're very pleased.

James Ricchiuti

Analyst

Well, as an organization you may have, but I'm just -- as I think of the channel partners, when -- in terms of seeing the benefits starting to flow through, is that something you would anticipate in Q1 or -- given the training involved and whatnot? Is that something that maybe begins to become more meaningful in Q2?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, we expect some visible benefit in Q1, but we expect to see the full impact of the benefit starting in Q2.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Jay Harris with Goldsmith & Harris.

Jay Harris

Analyst

I may have missed it, but if not, perhaps you could give us, in terms of your revenue guidance for 2012, how much of that would be organic growth?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

We haven't broken, Jay, the growth between organic and inorganic because that would have added, we think at this point in time, some confusion. So we kept it very simple. But it's based on all businesses that we have had as of today. So it does not contemplate -- the guidance does not contemplate any additional acquisitions that we may make later in the year.

Jay Harris

Analyst

But you made enough acquisitions last year that haven't -- that you haven't owned for 12 months yet that there's a...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

That's correct, but we haven't broken the ranges here between organic and inorganic.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Well, do you see any change in the trend thus far this year in terms of organic growth versus last year?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

We don't see any discernible changes as of yet.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Jim Bartlett with Bartlett Investors.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

Where is mid-brand FOC and Sutton [ph] Studio in the revenues from the organization? Where is that in the product breakdown?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

They're broken out in a couple of different places. The majority is in services with a smaller portion that's up in products.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

And did you give out the gross margin for on-demand parts in the fourth quarter?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

In the fourth quarter, I don't -- it wasn't in here, but it was...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

We have it in the K, though.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

I may have missed it in the K.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

It was 39% for the quarter.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

39%. One final thing. I believe -- the introduction that you had just mentioned, the first ever integrated design-to-print experience with the free plug-in. How significant is this?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

You're talking about the announcement that we made yesterday or the day before about Print3D.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

Right.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Yes. Print3D is a plug-in that we have been developing. We initially acquired this technology and continue to develop it internally. We think that it's a very significant dynamic design feedback tool that can reside on any designer's CAD software and allow them to, as they design, with every design change that they make, to get costing feedback so they could make design trade-offs between complexity, the number of halls and machining paths and so on and so forth, wall thicknesses that would allow them to make intelligent decisions. And when they're ready, without ever sending their design for an online quote, they could actually place an order with us directly from their desktop. We think that this -- for many companies that are cost conscious and want to design against specific cost objectives and refine the skills of their designers to do it, and companies that worry about design security and safety, this may be a preferred way for both reasons. So it could, over time, change the way that people design and buy on-demand parts and that's why we launched it. We think that it could be a game changer.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

And could you just give us a little update on how Quickparts did last year and how they're progressing?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Quickparts has done extremely well last year and they have grown their revenues consistent and at the high-end of our expectations, as well as helped us a great deal in our overall year-over-year margin extension, which was over 1,600 basis points. Damon mentioned that earlier. And in fact, we are at the conclusion of integrating Quickparts parts and Pro-Parts activities onto a single proprietary platform that further drives our sales and marketing effectiveness and at the same time puts, in the hands of our users, cutting-edge quoting, ordering and project management technology.

Jim Bartlett

Analyst

And when will that be combined?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

It's in final stages so within the next few weeks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Bill Gibson with Legend Merchant.

William Gibson

Analyst

Just one last bookkeeping item. How many employees did you have at year end?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

I believe it's about 900.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, at the end year, it was about 724, I believe. Or 14 -- 714, and as of the completion of the Z Corp and Vidar acquisitions we're close to 900.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question is a follow-up from the line of Jim Ricchiuti.

James Ricchiuti

Analyst

Last question for me. But this may help address the earlier question about printer revenue growth. Is there a way for you to look at, and maybe help us understand, what the ASP decline has been, for example, in production printers and in personal and professional printers? Because I mean, I think in part, that helps explain what's happening in that line item.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Well first if you break it down and if you look at the product mix, in total, there would be an ASP design, but it's not saying that for the products that were -- we're not reducing our prices on existing products. It's by introducing new products at lower price points. And we still have the same range, like in the production printers up to almost $1 million, but there's much more down near the $500,000 range that's available to consumers alike -- or production people alike.

James Ricchiuti

Analyst

But you are seeing this mixed shift toward lower ASP printers in both categories, but presumably that's also driving your materials revenue.

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

We're definitely seeing the volume of those printers at the lower ASP going up and those printers at the lower ASP are still capable of going through the same amount of materials, if not more, than some of the other printers.

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

I mean, Jim, let me try, maybe a little bit, another tack here to explain this. We now have, in our professional category, printers that traditionally would have been considered production SLA printers, like the ProJet 6000, which is a crossover. We have created printers that are priced from $350,000 to $400,000 and $500,000 in the iPro 8000 series, which brought ASP down from the 9000. Because for a period of time, there was only a 9000 and the 9000 XL. In the SLS category, we created a whole new range of products in the sPro 60 SD and HD that brought those price points down from the over $0.5 million to a range of between $250,000 and $400,000. And so this has been a systematic and deliberate move that allowed us to create additional demand for these printers. Now the beauty for us is that whether we sell a production printer for $175,000 or $575,000, the consumption of material through these printers is largely identical. And so as we move price points down, not through discounting but through proliferation of products, it substantially increases our consumable generation power. And that's what we're focusing on, which is why we're not that focused on absolute revenue increase from the printer category and laser-sharp focus on the unit increase.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Herb Buchbinder with Wells Fargo Advisors.

Herbert Buchbinder

Analyst

With all the acquisitions you made, can you give us an idea of what some of the percentage of end-use markets, like how much you're selling to medical and dental, defense? Has there been a dramatic change in -- how much do you look at that at this point?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, we continue to look at medical and dental, in particular, because that continues to be an important part of health care. And as you know, health care solutions today include dental, hearing aids, prosthetic, orthopedic and aligners. It has grown year-over-year by 29%, and for the full year 2011, it represented $27.9 million of total revenue, which I believe put it in the range of 12% to 14% of total revenue, something like that.

Herbert Buchbinder

Analyst

Are there any advances being made or more usage in digital dentistry that you can talk about? And who are there some of the companies that you might be working with in that area?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, there are lots of advances that are being made and I believe that just in the last couple of days we made some announcements in connection with some dental applications and events. And so we're developing new printing capabilities; we're developing new print materials; we have a brand-new Vidar dental digitizer that we just began to sell; and we have the first benefit, if you will, of Vidar and ZPrinter and our dental know how, in putting together a system that can take a Vidar scan and turn it into a dental model in full-color that we're also going to showcase in the up-and-coming midwinter lab event in Chicago. So there are lots of advancements. We're also making great inroads on orthopedic and prosthetic development and we remain very, very excited about this health care segment, which is a very fast growing segment.

Herbert Buchbinder

Analyst

And your European business, is there a disproportionate amount of health care? Or is it -- your European business spread out?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Our European business is well distributed and it largely mimics what we see in North America, which means we have a growing participation in automotive motor sports, durable goods, health care and the likes.

Herbert Buchbinder

Analyst

You haven't seen much weakness in Europe?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

We haven't seen -- well, you can see our numbers. We haven't seen a noticeable weakness in Europe and we attribute this to the fact that we're more closely linked to R&D spending pattern and not so much to the other stuff.

Herbert Buchbinder

Analyst

Okay, last. Are there any write offs you're going to have to take for Z-Flash [ph]? It sounds like -- I thought you said Z-Flash [ph] is sort of being phased out? Is that correct?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

It's the end of -- we've had V-Flash for several years and it was succeeded by its next-generation, which is the ProJet 1000 and 1500. Both the ProJet 1000 and 1500 are based on the V-Flash technology, still transfer imaging, and it's consistent with our new product road map and we continue to obsolete ourselves with better and newer product, and we don't anticipate any write-offs. It's the end of the season. The shelves are empty of the old and filled with the new.

Herbert Buchbinder

Analyst

That's what at, it there was a bunch of old units that you had to write-off, and I guess that's not the case.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Richard Wallman [ph] with George Weiss Associates [ph].

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Could you give us the earnings per share guidance on a GAAP basis?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

We haven't put out GAAP-basis guidance. We think that, given the impact of the recent acquisitions, looking at it in non-GAAP measures is more meaningful and so we provided the guidance only in non-GAAP.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

But you did say that the non-GAAP guidance would exclude the tax release for the tax sheltering?

Damon Gregoire

Analyst

Yes. And so, just as we're providing at a full tax rate, the benefit of a tax release will be excluded from non-GAAP also.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Kathie Grasser with Glen Group.

Kathie Grasser

Analyst

Yes. I would like to know, who do you expect to see to compete with your Z Corp full-color machine? And when is that likely to happen?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Okay. Well, we are fully commercial with the full-color high-speed ZPrinters, and we see those as ideal marketing and communication tools. They have been very effective for a variety of athletic wear companies, architectural companies, consumer display companies, trade show and marketing activities, fashion presale and pre-marketing, focus studies and the likes, and they also power new consumer applications like My Robot Nation and others. And so we see it as another good example where we are highly differentiated and can deliver the end solution in a way that nobody else can, because there is no other full-color 3D printer on the market today.

Kathie Grasser

Analyst

And when do you expect someone else to enter that category? Do you think it will be in the next year?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, we are not aware of anybody that reached that level of technological capability, so I can't comment on any disruptive activity. At the moment, we're the only company that can do this.

Operator

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Robert Hoffman with Princeton Opportunity Partners.

Robert Hoffman

Analyst

Two related questions. One, is Cubify.com in your numbers? And could you just elaborate a little on the business model? Because it seems -- it might be very intriguing. It almost sounds like you're setting up an iTunes platform for 3D product. Are you going to be taking a 20%? If I upload something and I want to sell it for $10, you're going to take $2 of that? How does that work?

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

Well, you're absolutely right that Cubify.com is very much like an Apple iTunes and app platform, and as we announced publicly, that we will allow the developers and designers to retain 60% of net sales and we would keep the rest. We -- in our guidance for next year, we have not put much weight into Cubify. It's all in the upside column at this point in time. It's a very intriguing business model for us, because we think that we are the first to remove all the friction that stands between this technology and mass adoption. And the friction is the need, today, for expertise to know how to use this, and we're looking to basically bring coloring book simplicity and gaming-like intuitiveness into the whole create-and-make process. And with that, we have high hopes for the Cube at homes, as the last toy that kids may ever need to get, because they will subsequently be able to print all their toys and create them and share them. And if you don't have a Cube, no problem. You can upload what you want to print and we will cloud print it and it will show on your doorstep.

Robert Hoffman

Analyst

It sounds like an accelerant for -- my kids are now over the age of what you're talking about, but one of the -- I would think one of the concerns would be, buy this $1,000 printer and what can they do it? Because they're not smart enough or experienced enough to create 3D product for themselves. But then if they can go out and find them and pay $1 here and $3 there and obviously those things that they're buying, you make the profit there, but obviously you're going to make a profit on the materials when they eventually...

Abraham Reichental

Analyst

And we're taking it a step further. We're saying, you and I, and our kids and grandkids, will be able to create in 3D without ever having to learn CAD, because we're going to give them apps and we're going to attract app developers to give them apps that will allow you to stretch and indent and chisel and create on a tablet. It will allow you to transform your voice into unique and distinct geometries and it will allow you, obviously, to download existing models and modify them. And so this is all about democratization, it's about the removal of friction and it's about unleashing people's creativity to work with the elements of a digital canvas that are available to them today -- their tablets, their smartphone, their laptop, their home computer -- without ever having to learn the first thing about CAD.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. There are no other questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Stacey Witten for closing remarks. Stacey?

Stacey Witten

Analyst

Thank you for joining us today and for your continued support of 3D Systems. The replay of this webcast will be made available after the call on the Investor Relations section of our website, investor.3dsystems.com.