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GSI Technology, Inc. (GSIT)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, May 1, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to GSI Technology's Fourth Quarter and Year End Fiscal 2014 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Before we begin today's call, the company has requested that I read the following Safe Harbor statement. The matters discussed in this conference call may include forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of GSI Technology that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks and uncertainties are described in the company's Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additionally, I have also been asked to advise you that this conference call is being recorded today, May 1, 2014, at the request of GSI Technology. Hosting the call today is Lee-Lean Shu, the company's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. With him are Douglas Schirle, Chief Financial Officer; and Didier Lasserre, Vice President of Sales. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Shu. Please go ahead, sir.

Lee-Lean Shu

Analyst

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, we reported fourth quarter net revenue of $12.8 million, within the range that we had projected earlier in the fourth quarter, and reflecting continued slowness in the telecommunications and the networking market, and in particular, continued weak sales in Asia. However, fourth quarter gross margin was very strong at 45.7%, well above our operating model, and up sequentially from the previous quarter, due to a favorable mix of higher margin products. As expected, we incurred substantial litigation-related expenses during the quarter accounting for approximately half of our net loss for the quarter as the discovery phase of the pending patent infringement litigation and our antitrust lawsuit against Cypress continues. We also incurred substantial research and development expense during the quarter related to 2 preproduction mask sets. We continue to believe that we have the most advanced technology in the SRAM industry, and we continue to compete on the basis of our superior technology and product performance. In this regard, we expect to see growth in orders for our SigmaQuad-IIIe product line in the coming quarters. During the March quarter, we tape-out our newest family, the 288-megabit SigmaQuad device that will be the highest-density monolithic SRAM in the market. This new SigmaQuad device, which we expect to introduce later this year, will be our first 40-nanometer product to further improve the performance of our industry-leading SRAM products. We also tape-out our next-generation LLDRAM device beyond our expectation for increased order for our existing SRAM customers. We are also excited about our entry into the low-density DRAM space, in which we expect to ship products in volume in fiscal 2015. We continue to believe the LLDRAM will be a significant growth driver in future years. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Doug.

Douglas Schirle

Analyst

For the year, we reported net loss of $6.2 million or $0.23 per diluted share on net revenues of $58.6 million compared to net income of $3.8 million or $0.14 per diluted share on net revenues of $66 million in the prior fiscal year ended March 31, 2013. Gross margin was 44.6% compared to 43.3% in the prior year. Research and development expenses were $13.1 million compared to $11.5 million in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013. And selling, general and administrative expense, which included litigation-related expenses, was up substantially to $18.8 million compared to $13.7 million in 2013. Research and development expense in fiscal 2014 included $1.5 million for 2 preproduction mask sets. There were no such expenses in fiscal 2013. Litigation-related expenses in fiscal 2014 were $8.7 million, up from $3 million in fiscal 2013. The litigation-related expenses, again, were primarily associated with pending patent infringement and antitrust litigation involving Cypress Semiconductor. Both lawsuits are currently in the discovery phase. Total operating expense increased by $6.7 million to $31.9 million from $25.2 million in fiscal 2013. We reported a net loss of $5.4 million, or $0.20 per diluted share, on net revenues of $12.8 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 compared to net income of $950,000, or $0.03 per diluted share, on net revenues of $15.7 million in the prior year quarter ended March 31, 2013, and a net loss of $734,000, or $0.03 per diluted share, on net revenues of $13.8 million for the preceding third quarter. Gross margin was 45.7% compared to 46.3% in the prior year period and 39% in the preceding third quarter. Because we recorded a cumulative 3-year loss on the U.S. tax basis for the period ended March 31, 2014, our fourth quarter results included a tax provision of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] At this time, no one has queued for any questions, so I turn the call back over to our speakers for any additional remarks.

Lee-Lean Shu

Analyst

Thank you, all, for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you in July, when we will report our fiscal first quarter results. Also, we will be presenting at the B. Riley & Co. 15th Annual Investor Conference in Santa Monica, California, later this month. Please contact your B. Riley representative if you would like to schedule a meeting with us at the event. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.