Barry Rowan
Analyst · Dougherty. Your line is open
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Let’s jump right into the numbers. We delivered another strong quarter of growth with $173 million in total revenue, up 17% from the prior year. Service revenue grew 21% to a record $254 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $9.9 million was lower than the prior year as it includes approximately $14 million in incremental expenses related to planned investments, all of which will continue – will contribute to future growth and profitability. Included in these costs were investments the launch 2Ku service on five airlines, OEM program costs and next generation ATG development. We previously provided guidance that we expect to incur approximately $50 million in incremental expenses during 2017 to launch new airlines and for next-generation ATG development. During the first half of 2017, we invested $30 million in these initiatives, which included some accelerated expenses associated with our OEM programs. We expect these expenses for the full year to be somewhat higher than previously planned. Let me now turn to the results for our individual business segments. For Commercial Aviation North America, service revenue increased 10% over the prior year to $99 million. As a result of an increased number of aircraft online to nearly 2,800 and stronger ARPA. For the quarter, ARPA grew 3% to $141,000, on 8% growth in passenger connectivity revenue and nearly 50% growth in passenger entertainment and connected aircraft revenue. Our take rate increased over 20% to 7.7%, up from 6.3% a year ago, largely due to the success of our multi-payer partnerships. We expect a continued uplift in take rates based on the additional bandwidth from more 2Ku aircraft online and the expansion of our multi-payer partnerships. CA North America segment profit of $16 million reflects the impact of the investments we previously discussed, resulting in a segment profit margin of 16%. Excluding these investments, CA-NA segment profit margin was 20%, demonstrating the underlying profitability of this business. Turning to CA Rest of World, total revenue for the quarter more than doubled for the second straight quarter to $14 million, driven by exceptionally strong annualized ARPA of $226,000, up 56%, and a 28% increase in aircraft online. We expect ARPA to remain at approximately these levels for existing airlines, but we do expect some ARPA dilutions in the coming quarters as new airlines come into service. We believe this ARPA performance demonstrates the strength of our ROW and North American business models made possible by more bandwidth availability and tailored airline partner connectivity programs. Aircraft online increased to 318, up 69 versus the prior year, and we will nearly triple this number as the more than 600 aircraft in backlog come online. We continue to expect roughly 150 2Ku installations for ROW in 2017. Rest of World segment loss for the quarter increased to $31 million from $23 million in the prior year and was up $5 million sequentially, reflecting the cost associated with bringing new airlines online, including 4 in CA-ROW during this quarter alone. It’s important to view these ROW results in their strategic and financial context. We are clearly making significant investments to pursue the world’s most important untapped connectivity opportunity, which is outside of North America. Based on a number of aircraft online and in backlog, CA-ROW have sufficient critical mass to achieve profitability. And we expect to announce more ROW airline wins this year. These factors meaningfully de-risk the financial dimensions of pursuing this important market. Let’s now turn to our Business Aviation segment. BA continues to outperform. Total revenue was $58 million for the quarter. Service revenue was up 30% to a record $42 million, with a 17% growth in ATG aircraft online to over 4,400 and a 14% increase in ATG service ARPU to nearly $2,900 per month. Our unlimited Gogo Biz Data Pro plan, which was introduced in April 2015, is being very well received by customers and is the primary contributor to the strong ARPU results. BA equipment revenue was $16 million for the quarter. As John noted, we began shipping Gogo Biz 4G in June and have started recognizing some of the $5.7 million of deferred revenue. BA continues to achieve outstanding levels of profitability with segment profit up 33% to $25 million, representing a 44% segment profit margin. This is up 5 percentage points from last year, led by our high-margin service revenue. Turning to cash and CapEx, we ended Q2 with $380 million of cash on hand and the funds used during the quarter were consistent with our full year expectations. Consolidated cash CapEx of $66 million was $26 million higher than the prior year, largely related to increased airborne equipment purchases to support 2Ku installations. Let me expand briefly on the profile of our capital expenditures. As you know, our key driver of our CapEx spend is the capital we invest to bring new 2Ku aircraft online, particularly the cost and installation of airborne equipment. We believe it is helpful to look at the business before and after the success-based investment. Segregating the financials in this way helps reveal the underlying economics of the ongoing business by breaking out our coinvestment with our airline partners for new installations. While this airborne equipment represents significant current investments, it is a source of future growth and profitability. We expect approximately 70% of the $230 million to $260 million in 2017 CapEx to be for the success-based 2Ku airborne equipment costs, and it will continue to represent a significant portion of our CapEx as we install our 2Ku backlog. The returns associated with this investment represent attractive customer economics, and we expect the net cost to Gogo for the airborne equipment and installations to come down in 2018 versus 2017. As we look to the second half of the year, we reaffirm our 2017 and long-term guidance provided in the fourth quarter 2016 earnings press release. While our guidance remains unchanged, let me offer some additional perspective as to how we see the balance of the year unfolding. Based on the strength of our revenue performance, particularly from CA-ROW and our Business Aviation segment, we expect revenue to come in at the high-end of the $670 million to $695 million range provided. Regarding EBITDA, we have made significant investments in our next-generation technologies and bringing new aircraft online during the first half of the year. Based on expected revenue growth and some abatement in investments in the back half of the year, we expect EBITDA to approximately double from the first half of 2017 to the second half, putting us at the low end of the $60 million to $75 million EBITDA guidance we provided. We continue to expect EBITDA to be significantly higher in 2018 than 2017 and reaffirm our guidance of achieving positive free cash flow in 2019. Operator, we are now ready for our first question.