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Immersion Corporation (IMMR)

Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 1, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Immersion Corporation Second Quarter 2013 Conference Call. During today’s presentation all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation the conference will be open for questions. (Operator Instructions). This conference is being recorded today, Thursday, August 1, 2013. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jennifer Jarman of The Blueshirt Group. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Jennifer Jarman

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today on Immersion’s second quarter fiscal 2013 conference call. This call is also being broadcast live over the web and can be accessed from the Investor Relations section of the company’s website at www.immersion.com. With me on today’s call are Vic Viegas, President and CEO, and Paul Norris, CFO. During this call we may make forward-looking statements, which may include projected financial results or operating metrics, business strategies, anticipated future products, anticipated market demand or opportunities and other forward-looking topics. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Accordingly, actual results could differ materially. For a listing of the risks that could cause this please see our latest Form 10-Q filed with the SEC, as well as the factors identified in the press release we issued today after market close. Additionally, please note that during this call we may discuss non-GAAP financial measures. For each non-GAAP financial measure discussed, a presentation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and a reconciliation of the differences between the non-GAAP financial measure discussed and the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure is available in today’s press release. With that said, I’ll turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Vic Viegas. Vic?

Victor Viegas

Management

Thank you Jennifer and thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon. I am very pleased to report that in the second quarter of 2013 Immersion generated 10.2 million in revenues reflecting robust growth and up 58% from the year-ago period. This represent a record for Immersion, the highest second quarter revenue in the history of the company. We earned $776,000 or $0.03 per share in net income and $2.4 million of adjusted EBITDA. These strong results illustrate the scalability of our licensing business model and underscore the success we've had in establishing the value for Immersion's haptic technology and mobility in other markets. During the quarter we introduced new tools to help our developers create great haptic games and our licensees continue to launch new products showcasing our technologies and using haptic effects to communicate relevant and rich information to users. In addition we saw renewed enthusiasm for haptics in the gaming market with the announcement of new consoles from Sony and Microsoft and new peripherals coming out of the E3 conference. In a few minutes I'll discuss our recent business developments but first I will ask Paul to provide a detailed review of our second quarter financial results. Paul?

Paul F. Norris

Management

Thanks, Vic. As Vic mentioned we had record revenues of $10.2 million in our seasonally lighter second quarter of 2013, up 58% from revenues -- compared to revenues of $6.5 million in the year-ago period. Revenues from royalties and licenses of $10.0 million were up 68% compared to royalty revenues of $5.9 million in the second quarter of 2012. While revenue mix for our line of business is expected to fluctuate on a quarterly basis due to seasonality patterns, for the second quarter of 2013, our breakdown by line of business as a percentage of total revenues was as follows: 55% from mobility, 22% from gaming, 7% from Medical and 6% from Auto. Our gaming revenues during the quarter including ongoing licensing fees as well as amounts which were secured through our royalty licensing compliance program. Gross profit was $10.1 million or 99% of revenues compared to gross profit of $6.3 million or 97% of revenues in the second quarter of 2012. Excluding cost of revenues total operating expenses were $9.3 million in the second quarter of 2013 compared to $8.6 million in the second quarter of 2012. This includes non-cash charges related to depreciation and amortization of $532,000 and stock-based compensation of $1.2 million. Litigation related expense for the quarter was $470,000. The overall increase in expenses versus the prior year quarter was driven primarily by compensation related costs including stock-based compensation, offset in part by a reduction in litigation expenses. The increase in compensation costs reflects in part a 15% year-over-year increase in sales and marketing and research and development head count as we strengthened our presence in key geographies and accelerated our development efforts on strategic initiatives. As our HTC lawsuit proceeds in the District Court in Delaware we are forecasting that expense for this litigation will…

Victor Viegas

Management

Thanks, Paul our financial performance reflects the successful execution, our basic haptics strategy and the continued success of products using Immersion's TouchSense software. As you know the strength of our IP portfolio has now been widely recognized in the mobile marketplace which has given us an opportunity to secure additional basic haptic licensing as well as the ability to charge an appropriate premium for our advanced TouchSense and Integrator software solutions. With this foundation in place we are very pleased with executing at a higher level and tracking toward a record year for revenue. Also given the current license agreements in place we believe we have good visibility and predictable revenue growth over the next 12 to 24 months. While we continue execute our double pronged IP and software licensing strategy, our new and existing licensees are advancing the haptic ecosystem by using our TouchSense software to create innovative new tactile features that enrich end user experiences. For example Samsung has used our TouchSense software to power new and unique haptic features in its recently released Galaxy S4 smartphone. Users of the (inaudible) flagship Samsung phone benefit immediately from smart alerts, touch feedbacks that let them know if they have new voice mail, text or emails all without even looking at the phone. Also when users interact with their Galaxy S4 phone using Samsung’s new gesture base air view feature they could feel reassuring TouchSense power tactile effects confirm you that they have successfully completed the desired action. This novel the Immersion technology illustrates nicely how haptics can add substantial value to cutting edge interfaces, even those that allow users they control devices without touching the screen. We are pleased and excited to see Samsung continue to innovate with Immersion Technology and tactile effect to deliver meaningful information in new…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from the line of Jeff Schreiner with Feltl & Company. Please go ahead. Jeffrey Schreiner - Feltl & Company: Yes, good day gentlemen thank you very much for taking my questions. I guess the first question is what has changed or gives you new confidence to kind of tighten the overall guidance and why did you choose to lower the bottom end of the range and may be not expand the top end?

Victor Viegas

Management

Sure we actually raised the bottom end so the bottom end is now 45 to 48. As I did mention in the script the current agreements that we have in place today give us some very good visibility over the next 12 to 24 months. So we have with a great deal of precision to forecast with our Q3 and Q4 and it's that confidence give us the comfort that we can raise the bottom end of the guidance. So that we’re comfortable with the guidance, we’re comfortable with the business and obviously we hope to continue to exceed expectations and deliver great growth and great results. Jeffrey Schreiner - Feltl & Company: And a question I guess regarding your current agreements they have been revised to expand the scope of some of these agreements. What is covered by some of the agreements with your leading customers right now, is it just smartphones or are Android based tablets which these manufacturers release also falling under kind of the basic haptic functionality.

Victor Viegas

Management

Yeah, I would say our standard agreements cover both smartphones and tablets. We don’t distinguish between the two so they are covered and as we begun increasing the number of licensees to the basic haptic technology that’s built a base of revenue that we are now enjoying. So Motorola, LG, Samsung those agreements all cover basic haptics Android like devices for smartphones and tablets. It covers and provides us revenue stream. Over the last few quarters you have seeing that benefit whereas prior to that we were not monetizing those basic haptic devices. Jeffrey Schreiner - Feltl & Company: I guess that -- I will step out for now. Appreciate the time gentlemen.

Victor Viegas

Management

Thanks Jeff.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from the of Charlie Anderson with Dougherty & Company. Please go ahead. Charlie Anderson - Dougherty & Company: Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. So just a couple of housekeeping questions. I wondered if you had a 10%, any 10% customer if you could just give us the percentage of. That’s my first one.

Paul F. Norris

Management

Yes, we had an approximately 50% customer the same as we had last quarter. Charlie Anderson - Dougherty & Company: Perfect. And then in terms of the year-over-year growth in the R&D and then the sales and marketing would you kind of expect it to stay at those levels through the rest of the year, I notice you didn’t change anything in the guidance on profitability. So pretty steady as she goes there.

Paul F. Norris

Management

Yes I would say steady as she goes. None of the increase is unexpected from our standpoint we are seeing opportunities as Vic mentioned in various areas, in making appropriate investments but we are doing it prudently and consistently with our plan. So I think you can expect to see OpEx gaining pretty well under control for the remainder of the year. Charlie Anderson - Dougherty & Company: And then I think I heard you said you got maybe a royalty true up in gaming what was the extent of that?

Paul F. Norris

Management

So Charlie we have a compliance program and have for some time and the compliance program includes verification of reports, in many cases we utilize a third party auditing firm to confirm and verify reports and shipments from our licensee. So I would say almost every quarter there is some amount of activity, there is some number of true-up activities that occur and we highlight those periodically when the number gets a reasonable percent of [any of the] growth in a year before. So during this quarter in the gaming space we had some compliance hiccups in the quarter and that’s what you are seeing and that’s what we are calling out. Charlie Anderson - Dougherty & Company: Got it. It looks like maybe I mean just looking the historical patterns you are maybe under 1 million bucks right I mean it's not -- there wasn’t a huge?

Paul F. Norris

Management

I think that’s a fair assumption. Charlie Anderson - Dougherty & Company: Yeah. Okay and then one thing I noticed is that the mobility revenue on a sequential basis was down a lot more than it was a year ago. You have some of these basic haptic license so you have little bit broader coverage I feel like there might be some fixed elements of those so I was thinking that maybe we would be a little flatter in mobility than we are seeing I just wondered if you can give me any there just think about how we model this new customer group we have relative to patterns we have seen historically?

Paul F. Norris

Management

I think as far as modeling goes the general profile or seasonality that we have had in prior year if you looked at the future period is not a bad starting point we spent a bit time talking about our revenue in first quarter and mentioned that with some of these broad expanded agreements it’s not that we had one time payments it’s not that they were loaded up on the front but there were some overlap between the expiration of older agreements and the initiations of the new agreement that give slight extra pop in the first quarter. So again going forward I would look for similar seasonality and growth. Charlie Anderson - Dougherty & Company: Got it. Thanks so much.

Victor Viegas

Management

Thanks Charlie.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

Good afternoon and thanks for taking the questions. Congratulations on the quarter.

Victor Viegas

Management

Thank you Paolo.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

Is there comments you can make about where Immersion's IP stands as far as wearable computing?

Victor Viegas

Management

Yes we have been actively developing solutions in the wearable space. We see a number of different key market applications. One from a medical standpoint monitoring, body functions providing appropriate alerts and so on. So we see it as an extension of medical business and as you know for quite some time we have been active in developing solutions and generating IP. In addition there is also consumer uses for sports, health monitoring productivity and those also are areas that we’ve been actively involved. So we have quite a bit of IP in the space. We have solutions that we’re developing and dialog with companies who are building such devices. So we are feeling pretty comfortable that as wearables become a part of the common user interface on daily basis that haptics will have a meeting role and that Immersion will be able to monetize that opportunity.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

And just another point really on two partners, L.G. and Motorola. Is there any comment you can make on the new just launched Motorola X phone which seems to have I read just from a report customizable haptic abilities.

Victor Viegas

Management

We as you know have a license agreement with Motorola. It’s a basic Haptics license agreement and there isn’t too much we can specifically say about what technology they’re implementing in the new phone. I know they just did release the Moto X phone. They’ve also had basic haptic functionality in prior phones that was the reason why we involved in litigation in the first place. We have only announced a patent license agreement with them. At this point we do not have a software agreement relationship that we have discussed.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

Perfect and I was trying to understand if it is something more than just basic haptics.

Victor Viegas

Management

I think clearly basic Haptics is covered. There is the ability to incorporate TouchSense 2000 via our licensing chip partners. So until the product is out we had a chance to examine it, it’s probably limited to two areas. We could have some advanced functionality but the current relationship is not yet at the level of TouchSense 3000.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

Okay, thanks. And just for L.G. it seems that they are executing a great come back in the smartphone sector so is there any additional color you can make? I mean if they seem to be a steady third manufacturer right now in this space?

Victor Viegas

Management

We are very excited to see L.G. continue to succeed and grow. We have quite field application engineering team in Korea whose primary activity is to support LG as well as Samsung. And so we work with them closely on new applications, new ways to use our technology. They are an innovative company and they look utilize haptics as a way to differentiate the product. So we’re excited to see their growth. We’re happy to continue to work closely with them to innovate.

Paul F. Norris

Management

We recently expanded our relationship with them and we’d like very much for them to include more of our high end solutions in their product. So it’s very nice they are doing well.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

Just lastly do you think you will introduce quarterly guidance -- you mentioned this visibility into 12 to 24 months, you are only giving some kind of consolidated guidance for the company?

Victor Viegas

Management

Yeah I would say at this point I do not see us providing quarterly guidance, if we do gain that kind of confidence on a quarterly basis then we’ll consider but right now I think the idea of providing annual guidance and then each quarter providing an update is the right way to our process. As I said we do have very good visibility 12 to 24 months out. But sometimes the revenue leap from one quarter. So to be as very precise in any given quarter I think we want make sure that we are giving the right level of information that is accurate. And so let’s stick to the annual guidance for now.

Paolo Gorgo - Nortia Research

Analyst · Paolo Gorgo with Nortia Research. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks for taking the questions.

Victor Viegas

Management

Thank you Paolo. Nice to talk to you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). Our next question is from the line of James Faust with Dialectic Capital. Please go ahead.

James Faust - Dialectic Capital Management

Analyst · James Faust with Dialectic Capital. Please go ahead

Hey guys. Thanks for taking my question. Couple of questions one is if you could talk a little bit more about some of the studies that you have done on Reverb potentially making video content more compelling and how that feeds into your sense to kind of go out to the advertising market? And second question has to do with whether or not you guys believe for some of the next generation consoles that are going to be coming to market whether you think they will include haptic capabilities?

Victor Viegas

Management

Sure James. On the media content opportunity as you mentioned we have done a number of studies. One, we have published, we used 33 different individuals who are provided with a series of content type with and without haptics and we measured things such as skin conductance which really measures the amount of rouse that is derived from the haptic experience and we know there is a substantial increase in the response. We measured video rating, so how an individual rates the video and we noticed that with haptic it was 10% higher. Brand sentiment, we noticed that it brought about a 5% increase in positive sentiment when we measured the likelihood of an individual to see a movie when they watch the trailer with haptics there were 15% more likely to go see the movie than if they didn’t. And then lastly on the movie sentiment and the sense of being here and emotional response it generated a 10% to 15% increase in improved response. So these are very meaningful improvements and we are continuing to develop more content and initiating substantially larger studies with not only ourselves with some partners or potential partners to measure the benefit. And as I mentioned previously in the script these kinds of differences in improvement in recognition these are significant to people who pay ad dollars and want you to consume their content. So we are very confident very pleased with the results and the direction that this is headed we made good progress on the quarter we feel very good about where we are headed into the future. In terms of next generation we thought it was terrific to see Microsoft launch a controller with triggering mechanism. It adds another dimension to game play, gives us some opportunity to work with their third party controller supplier, potentially license them and in terms of Sony PlayStation IV I think they have announced advanced [tremble] capability we haven’t yet seen the product but we are optimistic that they have haptics to provide an immersive experience. So we are very optimistic that this will yield additional revenue for Immersion.

James Faust - Dialectic Capital Management

Analyst · James Faust with Dialectic Capital. Please go ahead

Thanks guys.

Victor Viegas

Management

Thanks James.

Operator

Operator

I show there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to management for any closing remarks.

Victor Viegas

Management

Okay. Well great thank you everyone for being on the call with us today. We look forward to updating you again on our next quarterly call. Good day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen if you like to listen to a replay of today’s conference call you may dial 1800-406-7325 or 303-590-3030 and enter the access code 462-5303 followed by pound sign. Those numbers are again 1800-406-7325 or 303-590-3030 and enter the access code 4625303 followed by the pound sign. This concludes the Immersion Corporation's second quarter 2013 conference call. Thank you for your participation You may now disconnect.