Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) Q4 2012 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, everyone and welcome to the Garmin Ltd. Fourth Quarter 2012 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Ms. Kerri Thurston. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We'd like to welcome you to Garmin Ltd's. Fourth Quarter 2012 Earnings Call. Please note that the earnings press release and related slides are available at Garmin's Investor Relations site on the Internet. The archive of the webcast and related transcript will also be available on our website until March 29th. This earnings call includes projections and other forward-looking statements regarding Garmin Ltd. and its business. Any statements regarding our future financial position, revenues, earnings, market shares, product introductions, future demand for our products and objectives are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this earnings call may not occur, and actual results could differ materially as a result of risk factors affecting Garmin. Information concerning these risk factors is contained in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011, which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our 2012 filing will occur next week. Attending on behalf of Garmin Ltd. this morning are Cliff Pemble, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kevin Rauckman, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Cliff.

Thank you, Kerri, and good morning, everyone. As we announced earlier this morning, business trends for Garmin decelerated in the fourth quarter with consolidated revenues down 16% year-over-year. Gross margins remained strong at 48.6% and operating expenses declined 4% in the period. However, operating margins declined to 19.5% due to the weakness in revenues. As a group, our traditional market segments of Aviation, Marine, Outdoor and Fitness contributed 66% of our total operating income in the quarter. We generated $163 million in free cash flow during the quarter, resulting in a cash balance of just under $2.9 billion. Though these results did not meet our expectations for the quarter, we were pleased with our continued strong profitability and cash flow generation. Reviewing the full year, consolidated revenue declined 2%. However, pro forma EPS grew 4% as margins exceeded the expectations we established at the beginning of the year. Operating income grew 9% to $604 million, with all segments, excluding Marine, contributing to the growth. As a group, our traditional market segments posted revenue growth and contributed over $1.2 billion in total revenue for the year. The revenue growth in these segments, combined with our strong margin profiles, generated 63% of our operating income. We delivered approximately 15.4 million units in 2012, a decline of only 3% year-over-year. Lower PND unit shipments were partially offset by growth in auto OEM, Outdoor and Fitness. We generated $646 million in free cash flow in the year, which is partially used to fund our quarterly dividend and small acquisitions throughout 2012. Next, I will review each of our business segments highlighting 2012 performance, 2013 outlook and a summary of long-term strategic initiatives for each one. Looking first at the Marine segment, on a full year basis, we reported year-over-year revenue decline of 6%, driven…

Thanks, Cliff, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to begin by reviewing our income statement for the quarter and full year and then segment results, move to the balance sheet and cash flow statement and then finally conclude with some comments regarding our full year 2013 expectations. We posted revenue of $769 million for the quarter, with pro forma net income of $133 million. Our pro forma EPS was $0.68 per share, which excludes foreign currency loss during the period. Our revenue represents a decrease of 16% year-over-year. Gross margin came in at 49% which was a 90 basis point improvement from the prior year. I'll discuss margin results in further detail by segment. Operating margin was 19.5%, down 250 basis points from the prior year. The components of this were gross margin, 9 bps [ph] favorable, offset by an unfavorable operating expense impact of 340 basis points. Total operating expenses decreased by $10 million in the quarter, driven by a $9 million decrease in advertising. Each of the operating expense categories will be discussed further on a later slide. Pro forma EPS of $0.68 represents a 29% decrease year-over-year, driven by decreasing revenues, declining operating margins and an increase on our effective tax rate, which reduced earnings per share by $0.05. Units shipped decreased 17% year-over-year, as just over 5 million units were delivered during the quarter. Looking at full year results, we posted revenue of $2.7 billion for the year, with net income of $542 million. Our pro forma EPS was $2.85 per share, which excludes foreign currency losses. Our revenue decreased 2% year-over-year, while pro forma EPS increased 4%, when excluding FX. Our gross margin at 53% was a 400 basis -- 450 basis point improvement over the prior year. Operating income increased 9% to $604 million…

Lisa, would you like to open the queue to our investors and analysts?

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from Mark Sue with RBC Capital Markets. And we'll now go to Rich Valera with Needham & Company. Richard Valera - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: A question on the PND growth outlook. I thought about a month ago, you thought that, that market would be down around 10% to 15% in '13, and now it sounds like we're talking about 15% to 20%. So I'm wondering what's changed, whether it's a more detailed analysis of what you saw in 4Q or something you've seen in the last month that makes you more cautious on the PND outlook for '13?

I think we were evaluating business trends. We knew we had come through the fourth quarter with a steeper decline on the PND and that we evaluated global trends across all of our markets. We realized that the decline was in fact steeper than we'd earlier thought. So there really isn't any detailed analysis other than we evaluated the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions and realized that those growth -- those changes in PND shipments were actually not going to get better. So we feel like this is a more accurate outlook on what the overall market is doing. I think we pointed out that this isn't due to any kind of market share declines, just really the fact that we've been gaining share and we anticipate we're going to track more in line with what the overall market is going forward. Richard Valera - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: Obviously, the seasonality was significantly less than what you've seen historically in the fourth quarter. Do you think this is kind of the new normal that we should think of that you don't see nearly as pronounced a seasonal uptick in 4Q as you historically have particularly in the PND segment?

I think that's our expectation now. Of course, we don't have great visibility in the fourth quarter, but we believe that there will be less seasonality. I mean, we'll have some seasonality due to the holiday season, but the numbers won't be as significant as they've been in the last 3 or 4 years. Richard Valera - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay. And just wondering what your expectations are for auto OEM in '13. I think you've talked about that being kind of a $160 million, $170 million business. Do you expect growth in that in '13? And can you give any color on maybe how much growth, if you do expect growth?

Yes, Rich. We do expect some incremental growth. We don't expect it to be as strong as 2012 because there were quite a few models and programs ramping up, particularly at Chrysler in 2012. But we're forecasting some slight amount of growth and still something that's starting to be a meaningful part of our Auto/Mobile business. Richard Valera - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: And for the K2, obviously, pretty significant lead times for revenue for a platform like that into the auto OEM market. But any sense of when you might see -- start seeing revenue for the K2, if you could secure wins, say, in the first half of '13?

It's really hard to predict. I think that each automaker in each particular project or program would have its own set of requirements and time lines. Typically in the auto industry, when you start talking about a new system, it can take anywhere from 3 to 5 years to come to fruition. Richard Valera - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: Great, just one final one. On Marine, obviously, you had some sort of nonrecurring pressure there [indiscernible] gross margin [indiscernible] promotions discounts. Should we assume that, that bounces back towards [indiscernible]

So I think right now the market is definitely pressured [indiscernible] with quite a few competitors. And our product line, which we're refreshing significantly in 2013 is a little bit late to market. So our existing products have been discounted. We do anticipate that the gross margin will probably be down somewhat from the historically high levels, but we would also expect it to bounce back some.

[Operator Instructions] We now go to Charlie Anderson with Dougherty & Company. Charles L. Anderson - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: I wanted to talk about Fitness. I noticed in the slide you talked about identifying opportunities to offer best-in-class sensors to expand the TAM. I wondered if you could give us a little bit more color on what you're talking about there. And then also just a big picture question on Fitness. Where is the market on runners' watches and then cycling computers? Insofar as your market share, just how are those markets growing relative to one another?

Yes. Charlie, in terms of sensors, Garmin has been in the sensor business for quite a while, offering things outside of what you normally think of us for, the GPS watches. So for example, we offer what we call foot pods, which very accurately track steps and distances traveled without the use of the GPS. And those are typically paired with a lower-end watch or in partnership with another brand or provider in the industry that has some specialized applications. So we've been doing that for quite some time, and we believe our sensors, particularly in the speed and distance area, are superior to others in terms of their accuracy. And your second question, could you please repeat that? Charles L. Anderson - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: Yes, sure. I'm just kind of wondering the total industry market for GPS running watches and then cycling computers. Kind of insofar, your market share more than the industry, how are those growing relative to one another in terms of what you're baking into your guidance for '13? And I'm also curious, on that, are you baking into your guidance some of these extensions that you talked about with new sensors to achieve that growth rate?

Yes. So definitely, we're wrapping everything together to give our total view of Fitness. In terms of the running watch market, we're strongest in the GPS-enabled running watch, which is something we pretty much pioneered in terms of an integrated device. And so we believe we have very strong market share in that segment, probably greater than 50%. Although it's -- even though the volumes are somewhat interesting, it's a niche kind of volume compared to like a PND, so there's not a lot of market research that goes into that. On the bike side, it's a very similar situation, where we're specializing the GPS-enabled portion of the market. The volumes compared to all bike computers is on the lower side but, obviously, the price and the performance and the features are on the high side. So it's a growing category. Cyclists are starting to appreciate the benefits of GPS-enabled cycling. And when we do come out with our Vector power meter later in the year, we'll have a total solution for people high-end head unit with power meter, which is what cyclists really want. Charles L. Anderson - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: Great. And then just real quickly on Aviation, up 10% to 15%. Without Part 25, will we be looking at sort of a flat market? I'm just curious, is all the growth coming from that? Or are you getting any growth from sort of your legacy market there?

We're factoring most of that as growth in the Part 25, the new certifications. There are some of the new products that we've announced that will contribute to both retrofit and OEM, but generally the growth is driven by Part 25.

We will now go to Simona Jankowski with Goldman Sachs.

I just wanted to ask you first, and I apologize if I missed it on the call. But what were your underlying assumptions for units and ASPs within the auto PND guidance for this year?

So we didn't address much on the ASP, but we're expecting fairly nominal changes on pricing, but we're looking at overall unit declines globally of around 20% on the PND market, and that's pretty consistent between the Americas and EMEA, which are the 2 largest markets, those both being down at least that level. So those are our assumptions baked in the Auto/Mobile guidance.

Okay. And the 20% global decline for the market, is that what you're expecting for your own units as well?

We're looking at both industry and Garmin expectations to be pretty consistent, so yes.

Okay. So it sounds like you're embedding a slight increase perhaps on the ASP side?

No, I think ASPs are -- the difference in -- we're looking -- like first of all, a PND within our Auto/Mobile, of course, that includes mobile, auto OEM and PND. So we're not anticipating any price increases right now.

Okay, got it. And then you haven't really announced any new infotainment wins for the 2014 models. Is that window now closed? Or would we still potentially expect to see something new there following to your Suzuki win from last year?

The window is not closed, and we are working on some additional opportunities, but don't have any details we can share right now.

Okay. And as I understand, the investment in the auto OEM opportunity is a pretty significant to the point where you have nominal, if not negative, operating margins in that segment. When should we expect margins there to turn positive? And also, at what revenue level can we expect them to kind of hit your longer-term target of about 10% or so?

I think it does require significant investment, and we're not at the point where we're achieving the scale there to really turn the needle towards more the number that you mentioned. Although I'd point out that 10% in the auto OEM business is really considered a pretty healthy kind of operating margin. But we would expect in a few years' time, as our revenues grow, that we should be able to turn the corner.

Great. And then just last quick one. If you can just expand on the Vector product. What does your Fitness guidance assume for that? And how should we think about the revenue and margin opportunity there?

We don't break it out by product segment. As I mentioned, we would expect the product to be to market in midyear. That's a little bit late for the season, but we still think that we'll be able to catch some sales in the back half of the year. We're only anticipating some modest impact to Fitness because of that. The margin profile is good on that product, particularly the margin dollars. But again, it's coming a little late, so we're not overfactoring that right now.

We will now go to Jonathan Ho with William Blair. Jonathan Ho - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Just wanted to understand a little bit in terms of your guidance what your assumptions are around the worldwide macro environment. And does your guidance take into account the share buyback that you announced today?

We assume that we would be buying some back but we didn't put all of the $300 million in the full year. The board actually approved that the $300 million buyback could extend past 2013, so we did assume that we would be buying back, but we didn't -- again, not all $100 million -- or $300 million of that would be bought in 1 year. Jonathan Ho - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Got it. And in terms of your guidance for the worldwide macro environment, I just want to understand sort of your viewpoint, are you assuming that Europe kind of stays the same? Or does that have much of a bearing on your thought process there?

I think we definitely factored those things in. Europe's situation is really pretty challenging, and we don't foresee that, that gets materially better. We're also not predicting it gets much worse either, but we feel like we probably hit kind of a bottom there. The North American market is stable to gradually improving, and we think a lot of our performance there and in Europe as well really depends on the introduction of our new products, which always generate new interest and new sales. Jonathan Ho - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Got it, got it. And just in terms of your Auto/Mobile viewpoint, in terms of where the market potentially could stabilize, has that changed at all at this point? Or how should we think about where you think maybe the end market ends up longer term?

Well, it's difficult to say. We did go through a pretty rapid change in Q4, where we saw the trends come down more significantly than we have in the past. So predicting an endpoint is a little bit challenging. I would say that we are being more conservative in terms of where that might be in our overall planning, but it is difficult to say exactly where it lands. Jonathan Ho - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: And in terms of the Marine business, can you talk a little bit about maybe your expectations around seasonality this year, just given sort of the new product releases, whether we would expect maybe the growth to pick up a little bit earlier in the year or perhaps later?

Yes. I think our products, as I mentioned, are a little bit late for the season. We really should have them in the market right now in order to take full advantage of the seasonality. That said, we have good pricing on our existing products and we would expect some improvement in those sales. But probably the impact from the new products won't be seen until the middle half to the end of the year. Jonathan Ho - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Got it. And just one final question in terms of operating expenses. If you were to see perhaps more acceleration in terms of declines around the Auto/Mobile business, how would we -- how should we think about sort of your philosophy around operating expenses and whether you would potentially cut those to hold the margins? Or how should we just think about that generally speaking?

I think in general, we're watching the situation closely. We also recognize that it's been only just a short amount of time since we recognized this change, so we want to make sure that anything we do is in line with where the market is going to head long term. That said, there's still some needs across the organization. We feel like we have a very agile workforce that we can redeploy into certain other areas. And so we're taking steps right now to try to maximize our efficiency and make sure that we take advantage of all the opportunities we see.

One other point on that, Jonathan, from an operating expense, really, the only the area that we're seeing any growth in, in 2013 is in the R&D side, so we're managing advertising well. And also, from an SG&A perspective, we're expecting that to decline year-over-year, too.

And we'll go now to Paul Coster with JPMorgan. Paul Coster - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I just want to go back to the PND for a second, if you don't mind. When you talk -- at least your market research, does it tell you that it's going to stabilize? Or does it tell you that it might go to 0?

Well, we don't believe, and we never have believed, that it goes to 0. I think the real question, Paul, is what is the level it stabilizes that. And I think market experts, as well as any number of PND providers can probably debate that point for a long time, but we feel like there's still utility and there's still a market for certain kinds of devices long into the future, and the question is how much. Paul Coster - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. Kevin, did you give any guidance for free cash flow or cash flow from operations for the full year?

We didn't specifically. We do expect strong free cash flow. At this point, we're looking probably at the level of around $525 million, given the operating income numbers that we put into our guidance. So we don't see a lot of movement on working capital. And of course depreciation, amortization stayed about the same. So overall, about $525 million for the year. Paul Coster - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: And then my last question is, is there any intellectual property here that can help you defend your very strong leadership position in the Fitness space, which is obviously becoming more competitive?

We've always focused on protecting our best ideas and the most general ideas that are enabling to the industry. So we're constantly filing patents and we're constantly thinking ahead in terms of where the market might go. So we feel like we're in a reasonably strong position. I think intellectual property is always a very tricky area, and there's all kinds of situations that are out there in terms of patent law and patent practice. But in general, we feel good about where we stand.

And we'll now go to John Bright with Avondale Partners.

Can you guys discuss specific aviation or auto [ph] OEM opportunities in '13? And also, where do you -- at what level do you start from in Aviation and Auto/Mobile and OEM?

Well, I think to answer your first question, we've been pretty open about the 5 unique certifications in the Part 25, beginning with the Learjet 70 75 and then ending the year with 3 different Cessna certifications, which are the Sovereign, the Citation X and the M2. So we're going to be more back-end loaded because of the timing of the certification. But as Cliff said earlier, that's what's driving all of the revenue growth for the full year.

But for new opportunities?

New opportunities, we also have some additional wins that are not coming until future years, 2014, 2015. But we do feel like we have a good path forward and new incremental opportunities for several years out.

Next question is a follow-up on a past one. You were asked about free cash flow for calendar '13. A lot of people have asked about deferred revenues, and is that a meaningful portion of the free cash flow, for instance, for '12? Can you address that?

It has been a meaningful impact because of the difference between what we record on the P&L and then the actual cash benefit. For 2013, we're expecting for the first time that we'll actually get a positive treatment on that. So that from now on, we believe that the deferred revenue numbers actually is going to be favorable on the P&L. In the past year, for example, in 2012, I think we had about a $67 million deferred revenue benefit due to cash.

Two final ones for you. Kevin, on the -- in the M&A discussion, you mentioned adjacent niche markets you might expand into. Give us a thought process, or Cliff, give us a thought process of what you're thinking about there?

Well, again, if you look at our history, the types of opportunities that we've been able to secure, are ones that are very -- mostly related to the businesses that we're in, and either extend our products, technology or resources in those areas. So for example, Tri-Tronics gave us additional presence in the outdoor market, particularly in the dog training area that complements our dog tracking type of products. And then in Marine, we, this year, acquired Nexus, which gives us an additional presence in the sailing side of the instrumentation markets, where we weren't -- have been historically not very strong.

And we'll now go to Ben Bollin with Cleveland Research.

I wanted to first ask -- I didn't hear, can you give the split between the automotive OEM business and the PND business for '12?

Yes. It's because we didn't really break it out. We kind of had said historically, it's around a 10% level of our total Auto/Mobile segment, but we haven't given absolute numbers.

Okay. And Kevin, you talked a little bit about the Fitness business, '13. You said gross margins, roughly flat. Any thoughts on how gross margin trends in the other business segments throughout '13?

Well, I think we're expecting fairly stable margins -- gross margins in the Outdoor area. As I said, Fitness is very close. Aviation, we think that's a stable number, too, around 70%. And then the auto PND, we don't expect much deterioration there. So because pricing isn't moving and our bill of material, our costs are fairly stable as well. We believe that all of those are sustainable. Marine is the one, that Cliff mentioned earlier, it's going to be better than what we reported in Q4 but probably a little bit down year-over-year.

Okay. And my last question, looking at the current deferred revenue, it's up about $60 million year-on-year in 4Q. Is there anything happening, which would imply the incremental margin on that revenue is declining? Are your assumptions changing on how much you're deferring per unit? Or anything else that's driving a decline in the incremental margin of that revenue?

No, there's no change in either -- any of those assumptions, no.

And we'll go next to James Faucette with Pacific Crest.

Just a couple of follow-up questions for me. First, you mentioned that you have and you expect growth in in-dash in 2013. Right now, do you have enough visibility to say that in-dash can continue to grow into 2014? Or would that necessitate incremental design wins for the 2014 period?

I think we're really not prepared to be able to break it out and particularly talk about 2014. I think a lot can happen between now and then, particularly the OEM carmakers tend to make some rapid decisions around extending models or are changing equipment on models. And so as a result, it's kind of difficult to predict.

And then Kevin, questions for you is in the past you've talked about, particularly with Aviation and Marine, returning to meaningful growth, that there is room for operating margin expansion in those segments. Can you talk about how we should think about kind of at least target operating margin levels for those company -- or for those segments, excuse me, and kind of what kinds of revenue levels we might have to get to, to see those levels?

So I think, first of all, on the Aviation, as you know, we've been putting some significant investments on the certifications on Part 25, and those are going to continue. I think the fact that gross margins are moving, it's just a matter of growing the top line, and so we're seeing 10% to 15% for the upcoming year, which don't -- doesn't really move us back to the historical levels. But with continued new business that we'll see going down the road the next few years, we believe that the operating margins will move back to above the current levels that we've been reporting. Marine, on the other hand, Marine is -- we feel like it's not to the point where we can say it's going to move back up into the -- even in the 20s or 30s, but we have some really some work to do there to be more efficient in that business and to get the biggest bang for our R&D investment there. So I think that may be -- Marine may be a little bit more difficult to return to those levels.

Great. And then, I guess just a general execution question is that as we look at the initial outlook at least for 2013, you indicated that you've got a couple of products in Marine that you're -- you've been a little bit late on. You also indicated the Vector power meter in particular is going to be later maybe than you had anticipated and certainly later than you thought when you first talked about that product. Is there something that's happened, I guess, organizationally and from an execution perspective that is leading us to kind of see this string of later products? Or are you kind of thinking about those as being one-offs right now? And I guess I'm just wondering how we could see some improvement there, in getting new products to market in time frames you target?

James, I think that's a really good question. I think in general, we would always like to do better in bringing our products to market faster. Sometimes, it's a little bit challenging, depending on when those products are initiated, whether or not they can meet the time line, particularly of a seasonality sensitive market like Marine, and that's kind of the situation that we find ourselves in, in that market in particular. Vector is -- every product has its own story. But Vector is a very complicated and precise instrument, and we felt like we needed to take more time to make sure we could meet the expectations of customers who are going to be very, very demanding in that particular market space. So those are the 2 examples that you referenced. But in general, I would say we're working to do better to meet some of those time lines, and I think many of our segments show that they're doing very well in that regard and being able to meet the time lines of the market.

And at that time -- at this time, that concludes today's question-and-answer session. Mr. Rauckman, I'll turn the call back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Well, as always, we appreciate everyone's interest. Happy to move forward and really meet or exceed our expectations as we go through. And we, again, look forward to updating each of you, as we do that throughout the year. So thanks, again, and we'll talk later.

And ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.