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Enphase Energy, Inc. (ENPH)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 17, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Enphase Energy’s Fourth Quarter 2014 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Christina Carrabino. Ma'am, you may begin.

Christina Carrabino

Analyst

Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on today’s conference call to discuss Enphase Energy’s fourth quarter and year ended 2014 results. This call is also being broadcast live over the Web, and can be accessed in the Investors section of Enphase Energy’s Web site at www.enphase.com. On today’s call are Paul Nahi, Enphase Energy’s President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kris Sennesael, Chief Financial Officer. After the market closed today, Enphase issued a press release announcing the results for its fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2014. We are providing an accompanying presentation with our earnings call that you can access in the Investors section of our Company’s Web site. During the course of this conference call, Enphase management will make forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements related to Enphase Energy’s financial performance, market demands for its microinverters, advantages of its technology, market trends, future products and future financial performance. These forward-looking statements are based on the Company’s current expectations and inherently involve significant risks and uncertainties. Enphase Energy’s actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause results to be different from these statements include, factors the Company describes in its press release of today, especially under the section entitled Forward-Looking Statements, as well as those detailed in the section entitled Risk Factors of the Company’s report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. Additional information will also be set forth in those sections in Enphase Energy’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014 which will be filed with the SEC in the first quarter of 2015. Copies of these documents may be obtained from the SEC or by visiting the Investors section of the Company’s Web site. Enphase Energy cautions you not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and undertakes no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or changes in its expectations. Also, please note that certain financial measures used on this call are expressed on a non-GAAP basis and have been adjusted to exclude certain charges. The Company has provided reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures in its earnings release posted today, which can also be found in the Investor Relations section of its Web site. Now, I’d like to introduce Paul Nahi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Enphase Energy. Paul?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Good afternoon and thanks for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and year ended 2014 financial results. We closed 2014 on a high note with an exceptional fourth quarter. We reported record financial results including revenue of $105.2 million an increase of 57% year-over-year. We also reported record non-GAAP gross margins of 33.5%. The combination of accelerated top-line growth and further gross margin expansion resulted in another quarter of positive operating income and net income along with non-GAAP diluted earnings of $0.07 per share. For the full year of 2014 we reported record revenue of $343.9 million up 48% over 2013. Non-GAAP gross margin was a record 33.1% and we recorded our first full year of non-GAAP profitability with non-GAAP net income of $2.7 million or $0.06 per share. Kris will review the fine points regarding our fourth quarter and 2014 financials, but I will say that I'm extremely pleased with our financial results. The revenue growth of almost 50% year-over-year was driven by strong demand in the U.S. residential and small commercial markets where Enphase is the leading inverter company, as well as market share gains in the UK and Australia. And Enphase has made great strides in positioning itself as a leading energy solutions company. In the U.S. market fourth quarter revenue was up 57% year-over-year as we continue to experience significant demand for our microinverter systems from both current and new customers. During 2014 we continued to increase our U.S. residential and small commercial market share which we estimated to be in the low-to-mid 40% range based on megawatts shipped and substantially higher based on revenue. We've been growing our business with our key customers and further diversifying our customer base with the addition of multiple large, medium and small accounts. We're currently selling into…

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Thank you, Paul. I will provide some more details related to our financial results and then I will provide our business outlook for the first quarter of 2015. As a reminder, the financial measures that I'm going to provide are on a non-GAAP basis unless otherwise noted. As Paul already indicated we finished 2014 with a very strong fourth quarter. Total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 was an all-time revenue record of $105.2 million, an increase of 57% compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. We exceeded our revenue outlook of $98 million to $103 million that we provided last quarter. The large year-over-year growth was driven by overall strong demand for Enphase energy microinverter systems in our core U.S. residential and small commercial markets as well as further market share gains in the international markets, especially in the UK and Australia. We shipped 180 megawatts AC or approximately 207 megawatts DC during the fourth quarter of 2014, an increase of 67% on a year-over-year basis. The 180 megawatt shipped represents approximately 799,000 microinverters of which 88% was our fourth generation microinverter system. The Enphase M250 represented approximately 28% of all units shipped. Gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2014 was 33.5%, an increase of 120 basis points compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Our gross margin of 33.5% was better than expected and exceeded our outlook of 31% to 33% that we provided last quarter, mainly driven by a stronger product mix including more M250 microinverter systems. In addition, the engineering and operations teams continue to execute very well on our cost reduction roadmap and we incurred less than expected freight and expedite costs as our operations team successfully handled the labor dispute at the port of Auckland. Pricing during the fourth quarter came in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Colin Rusch of Northland Capital. Your line is now open.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Thanks guys. Can you just walk us through the guidance for 60% revenue growth year-over-year roughly or I should say unit growth in your expectations and I know you are not guiding for the full year, but you've talked historically around kind of 30% to 50% growth, how do you reconcile that, are you expecting a slowdown through the balance of the year or given the weather in the Northeast you're expecting some sort of acceleration in end market segments throughout the balance of the year?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Well, as Kris just mentioned Colin, we are expecting all the markets that we currently play in to continue to remain strong, clearly seasonality has an effect and it has a disproportionate effect in the Northeast, but nevertheless we're seeing strong growth in the U.S. residential market. That's to be obviously offset by the normal price declines that we've seen year-over-year, but good strong growth in the U.S. residential market, strong growth in the commercial market as well as in our international markets. So, I think that as we look forward into 2015, we feel very good about the year in the different markets and the different segments and that's especially true when you consider the move towards a total energy management solution with the advent of the AC Battery storage solution as well as the load management capability. So, I would say just in general, we remain bullish on the year in every segment and in every geography.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Great, and then if we just take a clear look at pricing quarter-over-quarter it looks like you're about flat on a megawatt basis or a per watt basis. Can you just talk a little bit about the value sale that you guys are seeing right now? I think there's a lot of concern around competition with relatively low gross margin starting to chip away at pricing, but you guys have done a better than expected job with holding up pricing over the last several years. Can you just talk about the sale dynamics and how you're negotiating pricing with your customers and nearly continuing to capture what looks like a very healthy planned competition?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Well, there clearly is a class of cheap inverters out there whether generally string inverters with or without DC optimizers that have traditionally put a lot of pricing pressure on the market. But the value proposition that Enphase brings to the table and that is specifically the fact that we can provide a better return on investment for the owner of a system and we can create a simpler more efficient business model for an installer by simplifying the design, the installation and the operations and maintenance of solar system, that value proposition continues to resonate. Now that doesn't mean that we don't need to be aggressive on pricing, we certainly do and we're working very closely with many of our customers to make sure that we're providing them a solution that enables them to thrive, that helps them be and stay competitive in their environment. But let's remember while we have a very keen eye on costs and making sure that we're providing them with a very cost-effective solution, we continuously add features and functions. As an energy technology company, we are very much in our sweet spot when we're developing and innovating new products. So whether it is, we just talked about the AC Battery storage solution, which is absolutely revolutionary in its concept and initial interest and demand is far exceeding our expectation, whether it's the advent of more energy management solutions, now for both the commercial as well as the residential space. We're continuously driving our business by looking at both costs and future enhancements and building a more holistic energy solution so that our customers, our installer partners have the best solution that they can sell.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

And then one just final quick question. Can you just talk about the growth prospects for the service business? Obviously, you know, with a growing fleet of systems out there and their growing capabilities that looks to us like a relatively high end margin segment that could be exceeding the overall growth of the company, can you just walk us through that opportunity?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Sure. So it is accretive to gross margin. It is definitely a very well-run business and we're very excited about what that means for Enphase. Remember that we provide what we believe to be world class, best in class service to our customers, whether that's the end customer or whether those are our installer partners and we fully expect to continue upon that and build upon that reputation. And as we move into more of an energy system as opposed to a solar system the OEM requirements are going to do nothing but grow. Even if you look at the numbers today, if we are around 500,000 solar roofs in the U.S., residential roofs in the U.S. we're moving to a point in time where there will be millions of solar roofs in the U.S. alone. And we are building an infrastructure that can support that, that can provide the services our customers, both the end-user and our solar partners need and want and we want to do so in a very profitable manner and I think that's the path that we're on will allow us to do that.

Colin Rusch

Analyst

Great, thanks so much guys.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thanks Colin.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Edwin Mok of Needham & Company. Your line is now opened.

Edwin Mok

Analyst

Great, thanks for taking my question. Congrats for the great quarter. So first question I have is maybe touch on the U.S. commercial side of the business. I guess two part question. First is, it seems like based on your commentary, U.S. commercial grew in a similar rate as the U.S. residential or your total U.S. revenue which grew like 50% this year. Am I correct on that, or is it still growing at lower rate than that? That's the first part and the second thing is, with the C250 now commercially available right? Can you give us some color in terms of upticks on that product and if you expect that product is not start conquering growth in this quarter?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Sure. So the growth rate in the small commercial market, where we are the dominant inverter today with again somewhere in the low 40% market share range has grown at approximately the same rate as the residential market, give or take there are obviously fluctuations quarter-on-quarter, but we're definitely seeing some similar growth rates. The C250, very excitingly presents an opportunity for us to move into the large commercial market and the discussions that we've had with a lot of existing and new installers are really proving out the fact that we can provide a better LCOE, a better ROI for customers than the traditional string inverters, not to mention that we have a O&M package that makes the entire backend much simpler and we can take the entire solution from concept through installation through with the aid of Enlighten. The challenge in this market is that it is a fragmented market and the design cycles are longer than they are in the residential market. So the fact that it's a fragmented market is a good thing. It represented I think a very healthy business dynamic, but it does take a little bit longer to reach more installers and because the design cycles are longer that will naturally increase the amount of time between when we start some of the product and we start seeing meaningful revenue. So what we've said is that we are shipping today the C250. The reception has been outstanding. We expect to start seeing significant installs by the end of this year and then we expect to have the revenue to be very meaningful in 2015.

Edwin Mok

Analyst

Okay, great and then I guess I'll have two questions to that and in terms of pricing on the ASP or blender ASP as well as gross margin, has that ramped, do you expect that to have some headwinds on your blender ASP, EPS versus your gross margin of your business?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Yeah, we've said before that the commercial product is at a slightly lower gross margin than the residential product, but again we have multiple cost reduction initiatives underway that are addressing that and when you look at the blended gross margin there's a lot to take into account there. And Kris enumerated many of these factors whether it's 4x whether it’s the product mix, whether it's freight and expedite charges, so clearly this - the gross margin on the commercial are today somewhat lower, but again we're working on that both on the cost level and as I said when you look at it inclusively, the aggregate gross margins our view doesn't change.

Edwin Mok

Analyst

I see okay. I guess one more followup question on gross margin. You mentioned that M250 was 20% of unit shipment. Should we just ask forward a year or two for now that we expect that to be maturity or when do you expect that to become maturity

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

No, there will be a continuously gradually move to the higher power M250 is not going to jump in the next couple of quarters. We've seen a slow move to that higher power microinverter. It all depends on the availability of the higher power modules and the rate of our customers shifting to pay t o those higher power modules and so it will continue over the next multiple quarters.

Edwin Mok

Analyst

I see. One last question, I'll let you guys go. On the OpEx increase this quarter, meaning sorry, in the fourth quarter as well as in the first quarter, is there any kind of one time that rate increase or anything that one time things that we should bake or put into our assumption?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

In the fourth quarter we definitely have some one-time expenses related to SPI, the solar trade show and looking into Q1 of course you have the start of the social charges that pick up again, but absent of that there is no abnormal one-time elements in that.

Edwin Mok

Analyst

Great, that's all I have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Philip Shen of ROTH Capital. Your line is now opened.

Philip Shen

Analyst

Paul, Kris, congrats on a great quarter.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thank you.

Philip Shen

Analyst

Hey, I'd like to talk about or explore the international opportunity. It sounds like you guys had a nice growth in the quarter there for UK and Australia, can you tell us what the actual mix was of international sales in Q4 and then importantly, how you expect that to trend throughout 2015?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Yeah, Phil, So currently our U.S. versus international mix is 85:15, that has been for a couple of quarters and that was also the case in the fourth quarter. As you know, our U.S. business is growing so fast that it's really hard to outpace that growth internationally, but having said that in 2015, I do expect that mix to shift from currently 85:15 towards 80:20. And that of course you know that our longer term target model three to five years down the road is to further move that shift to a 50-50, meaning 50% from the U.S., 50% outside of the U.S.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

And just to elaborate on that, I would say that the success that we're experiencing in these markets, whether it's the UK, whether it's Australia or France, where we're the number two residential inverter already, I think further validates the value proposition resonates in every country we're in. The question that we ask ourselves internally is, what is the rate of expansion that's still keeps in step our profitable growth strategy? But we're looking at several new countries for this year and for next. I'm going to continue that global expansion for the next couple of years.

Philip Shen

Analyst

Great and then I have a quick follow-up on pricing, historically you've experienced 7% to 10% year-over-year ASP decline. We actually saw some a sequential potential strength in ASP in Q4. Can you just talk about what you see for pricing throughout the year? Should we expect a 7% to 10% decline, I know you've addressed it in parts earlier, but any color on that would be helpful?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Right, so again, I would caution everyone not to over think fluctuations on a quarter-to-quarter basis, because as we talk about there's so many factors that go into that. It's hard to use that as an appropriate proxy for anything else. What I would say is, that to your point, we've seen, call it 8% to 12%, 8% to 14% price reductions over the past some number of years. Given the current environment we don't see that the general trend of price reduction is going to change and our job is to stay ahead of that through cost reduction as well as future enhancement.

Philip Shen

Analyst

Great. One last question, I'll jump back in queue. In terms of the next-generation I think it's the S275, can you give us an update on how that development is coming along and do you still expect a mid 2015 launch? Thank you.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

The progress on our next generation, our fifth generation microinverter is going along extremely well. It is as you know the most advanced microinverter on the planet with full advanced grid functions, bidirectional power capabilities. It is really quite a little powerhouse and we are expecting to launch it on time.

Philip Shen

Analyst

Great, thanks Paul, congrats again.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thanks Phil.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Krish Sankar of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now opened.

Andrew Hughes

Analyst

Good afternoon guys. This is Andrew Hughes on Krish and congrats on another strong quarter.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thank you.

Andrew Hughes

Analyst

Just quickly on the competitive landscape, curious if you're seeing it evolve at all in your favor as I think we've all seen SMA encounter some headwinds recently and AEIS looking to at least diminish their focus on that part of the businesses as well, have you seen it evolve in your favor or are you expecting it to as you look at towards 2015?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Well, we definitely see it evolving and clearly I think if we just look at the historical evidence we've been growing. We've been getting new customers. We've been growing in every market, every channel and every geography. And you're absolutely right. I think some other inverter companies are facing some very significant challenges. In the end I think what we provide, which is a very simple, straightforward design installation and operations and maintenance of a product allows that installer to have a more functional, a more profitable business, at the same time providing a consumer with a better return on investment. That value proposition definitely does resonate and we're definitely seeing customers, more and more customers interested in that, for exactly those reasons. Now at the same time your question about what we're seeing in 2015 and let's go out to 2016, we have to be very well aware that this market is very dynamic and it is changing and as proud as we are of the product and the solution and the presence that we have, we have to continue to innovate, that the energy market is changing and that storage will become an essential part of that energy mix. And with storage you have to have a comprehensive energy management solution on top of that. So, I do feel that we're in a very, very good position to leverage the brand and the technologies that we've developed so far and we accelerate our technology innovation to make sure that we are one or two steps ahead of where the market is going to be at any given time so we can continue to lead that space.

Andrew Hughes

Analyst

Great and then just another one on the O&M business. Can you give us a sense of who your customers are, whether there are any of the big integrators, installers or sort of the smaller group and where you, where that revenue is sort of percentage of the total is today, where you see it going and how big it might get before we see it broken out as a separate line item?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Sure, so I'll take the first part of that and I'll turn over the second part of your question to Kris. So the mix on O&M is really quite broad. We have some of the largest hardware manufacturers and developers. We also have a whole set of smaller ones and they expand the residential, the commercial, and even some beginning of utility scale business. We see it definitely very broad-based and we do see it growing. And I'll turn it over to Kris to talk about the specific financials.

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Yes. So with the NPS acquisition, Next Phase Solar, their revenue was approximately $4 million during 2014 and growing fast substantially. So for Q1 we expect approximately $1 million of revenue. That number is actually too small to break it out separately, but we will in the next couple of quarters continue to provide some more color as the service business continue to grow and add more strategic value to our global offering.

Andrew Hughes

Analyst

Great, thanks guys. I'll jump back in the queue.

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Good.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Pierre Maccagno of Dougherty & Company. Your line is now opened.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

Hey Paul, Kris, congratulations on such a great quarter.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thank you.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

So, a little more feedback there on the O&M business, can you give us some idea of what type of the operating margins you have for that?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

We haven't. We'll disclose that, but gross margins are slightly above Enphase Company average and the whole business is accretive to the bottom line from day one.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

Yeah, but it requires R&D or is it just SG&A would you say?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

No, it's they have approximately 30 employees service people. There is a very small management layer on top on that, but there is very, very minimal OpEx that goes with that business.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

And part of the beauty behind this is that it does very exactly specifically leverage the R&D that we're already doing. When you look at what Enphase does right now, Enlighten is very likely one of the largest if not the largest solar O&M ecosystems on the planet. By leveraging Enlighten, by leveraging the O&M infrastructure that we already have we are actually developing products and software to support an O&M infrastructure. What Next Phase will do as part of EES is be able to leverage that both in the U.S. and globally.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

Okay, then following up on Vivint, any feedback on them under second source, what are your thoughts there?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

That's the same thing that we've been saying for well over a year now. They made it very clear that they are going to bring on a second source. We fully understand. I believe they're well on the way to doing that and we feel very comfortable about our position now. And importantly, if you look at our broader customer base, it continues to grow both domestically in the U.S. residential market, in the commercial market, internationally. We are feeling very good about the breadth and growth of our, both residential and customer installation base. In fact if you think about it, by entering the U.S. commercial market we really are effectively doubling our TAM and we're just trying to penetrate that market.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

Great. Regarding the residential market, your opportunity there for further growth is about 10% to 15% of the market correct? I mean, do you believe you are going to capture a large share of that within a short timeframe?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Well, what we've said there is that we're obviously very proud of the market share that we currently have and we do believe that we're going to be able to increase market share, but at the same time with a finite amount of OpEx we're going to apply those resources where we feel we can get the most amount of leverage. So while we continue to grow share in the residential market, we are looking at getting to that same level of market share in the large commercial market in the UK and Australia and areas that we believe we can see more leverage with the OpEx. But having said that, remember that the U.S. market is growing and there are lot of new entrants entering this market. There are still customers that are outstanding customers for Enphase, but we may not be 100% of their revenue and we can work hard to earn their trust and become a larger percentage of their business as well. I would say even in the U.S. residential market there is a lot happening, it’s very exciting and we are continuously staying aggressive.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

Great. And my final question is regarding the battery storage business, what is your estimate of the market size there and when do you think you are going to start shipping and what type of market shares do you think initially you might get?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Right. The storage market is a tough one, because it doesn’t really exists yet, and you can make the case that in the U.S. residential market today, there isn’t an economic case forward because we have that metering and I think that’s certainly true. At the same time we know that storage is not just about, there is not just, simple economic cause, but it’s also about grid stabilization, it’s about grid resiliency. It is very possible that we see in some areas of the U.S. people will adopt storage in order to be able to have a higher penetration of solar. We are seeing something very similar happen in Queensland in Australia. There are different initiatives going on in the UK as well. So, it’s a burgeoning market, it will require policy changes, it’s going to require different ways to look at financing. But having said all that, we do believe very strongly that the growth of renewables have to be associated with a storage solution and for the reasons that I've outlined in the past, we believe that our AC Battery solution is an absolutely revolutionary product in storage and I'm extremely confident that with that we will lead the storage market. In terms of how big it is, hard to say, as I said, but I'd would be surprised if it wasn’t in the tens of billions of dollars in the next five to ten years.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

And do you think initially it’s going to be the U.S. and say you have net metering that’s a difficulty; could it be some other country that you start growing or any ideas there?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Oh, absolutely. I think, you know again, in the U.S. as you mentioned the economic case in the residential market is harder to make; however, there is an economic case in the commercial market, so it may be that the U.S. commercial market starts first. But then you are exactly correct, we are looking internationally for the storage solution and we are seeing demand for it come from the Asia Pacific region or EMEA so it is certainly not a U.S. only product.

Pierre Maccagno

Analyst

Right. Thank you very much.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vishal Shah of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now opened.

Vishal Shah

Analyst

Thanks very much. Paul, do you may be talk about your targets economics of storage product that you are working on, your longer term targets that you may have in terms of cost per kWh of the solution and given the point you are making about the growth expectations of that product?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

So, we're not announcing either cost or pricing yet, but what we have said is this, that we believe it can be margin accretive. We believe that the system itself can very likely be the simplest the most plug and play, the most cost effective solution for our installer partners and our customers and because of that we believe that we can take a very dominant position with the storage solution. Having said that, we are not really, we are not guiding either to price or to cost yet.

Vishal Shah

Analyst

Okay, but you know some of the targets out there you know call for $150, $200 per megawatt hour, are you looking at that kind price range or are we looking at a much different number?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

So as I said, I'm not guiding any specific prices, but I will say this, that you have to look at the entire system. You have to look at, if you like looking at a solar system and making a new judgment on the cost of solar system by the cost of the solar panel. You have to look at the storage, the chemistry. You have to look at the inverter technology. You have to look at the integration into the rest of the system. You have to look at mounting. You have to look at it holistically. No one element will drive this. And even when you look at, even when you look at chemistry, remember we're in the very, very early days of storage. Chemistry is going to change a lot. There is a lot of largest battery companies in the world are bringing on lot of capacity and there is some amazing young company some startups that we are tracking very closely with some technology that technology that could present could be quite revolutionary. So very early days and we have a lot to learn, but there is a lot happening here. But if you look at the entire solution, not just the chemistry, the entire solution, I do feel very, very confident that we can provide a vey cost effective solution.

Vishal Shah

Analyst

That’s helpful. Can you may be talk about the mix of residential versus commercial products and then the guidance for the first quarter or may be even fourth quarter and what kind of margin differential you see right now?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

So, resi versus commercial today is somewhere in the 85%-15% range. And again, remember the vast majority of that is small commercial. The C250 the product we just introduced is the product that is purposed built for large commercial market, it has the features and functions that we haven’t had before to address that. So, that will certainly change our presence in the large commercial market. And again, we said that gross margins on commercial are slightly lower, but blended with the rest of the company, coupled with the cost reduction plans that we have in place doesn’t change our view on our corporate gross margin.

Vishal Shah

Analyst

That’s helpful. And then you know, when you think about OpEx you guys have done a good job on reducing the OpEx percent of revenue last year, how should we think about this year’s trajectory are we looking at further reduction in terms of absolute percentages in OpEx in 2015?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Yeah, absolutely Vishal, driving leverage in our operating expense remains big part of our balance profitable growth strategy. And we have an internal rule that we have communicated to the investor community as well where we allow our operating expense to grow at half the speed of revenue growth. And we are going to try to stick to that rule. It is a challenge because we have lot of opportunities to go and continue to further develop new technology building blocks and invest in the future of the company and we will not hesitate doing that, but we're also going to do it in a financially responsible way and stick to our guideline in terms of OpEx growth that we have communicated before.

Vishal Shah

Analyst

That’s great, and one last question. I think you mentioned 80:20 U.S. versus international revenue mix in 2015, are you seeing any slowdown in any particular international markets such as the UK or are you seeing similar strong growth in all markets and what are the new markets are you guys looking at this year? Thank you.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Well, in general we are seeing strong growth in all these markets. Clearly, when you get to continental Europe it’s a country-by-country, but even there we are seeing good growth in the Netherlands and although France, the France residential market I think is a little bit subdued. The French commercial market looks like it’s getting some stem. We play in all these markets of course, so that’s what makes us confident that we can continue seeing that growth. And as we've said in the past we won’t announce a country before we land in it with one exception of Japan. Japan is definitely a country that we are very focused on. We are working away through the regulatory requirements. The progress there is looking very good and we're engaged in multiple discussions with multiple potential partners to help expedite their go-to-market strategy. So, Japan is definitely on our radar as are other countries, both in EMEA as well as APAC, but we'll be making those announcements throughout this year and next.

Vishal Shah

Analyst

Thank you.

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Pavel Molchanov of Raymond James. Your line is now opened.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Hey guys, thanks for taking the question, first just a kind of a small housekeeping item, warranty obligations on the balance sheet barely budged from a year ago despite the revenue increase and I recall of course that you guys had the accounting change. Going forward, would you expect the trajectory of warranty to kind of follow the revenue number?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

No, going forward we expect similar pattern as we had in 2014 so continuously small increase of the amount on the balance sheet.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

So, it’s slower than revenue growth?

Kris Sennesael

Analyst

Yeah, absolutely.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Okay and then just quick follow up to the prior question specifically about the UK, as I understand that the UK ring new obligation credit come to an end March 31st,so how big a headwind is that kind of beyond Q1 as far as that market goes?

Paul Nahi

Analyst

We're not seeing much in the way of that expression being a headwind. I think the UK actually has a very sensible policy. There is a regular reduction based on megawatt shipped every six months that policy has enabled the growth of the UK market. Oil prices continue to drop and oil subsidies continue to drop, so in fact if anything, it gives us confidence that the UK represents a very stable long-term market.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

All right, I appreciate it guys.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I’m not showing any further questions. I’d like to turn the call back to Paul Nahi for closing comments.

Paul Nahi

Analyst

Thank you for joining us on our call today. Strong execution across the board in 2014, helped achieve our growth. We're carrying this momentum into 2015 and I'm very excited about the enormous opportunities in front of us, including the further growth of our microinverter systems business as well as the transition towards becoming a major energy technology company. I'm looking forward to speaking with you again next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude today’s program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.