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Lantronix, Inc. (LTRX)

Q3 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, May 3, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Third Quarter Fiscal 2012 Lantronix Incorporated Conference Call. My name is Larry and I’ll be your operator for today. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today Ms. E.E. Wang of Investors Relations for Lantronix. Please proceed.

E.E. Wang Lukowski

Analyst

Thank you, Larry. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining Lantronix third quarter fiscal 2012 conference call. Joining us on the call today are Kurt Busch, Lantronix’s Chief Executive Officer, and Jeremy Whitaker, Lantronix’s Chief Financial Officer. A live and archived webcast of today’s call will be available on the company’s website at www.lantronix.com. In addition a phone replay will be available through May 10 by dialing 888-286-8010 in the United States or for international callers 617-801-6888 and entering the passcode 11466881. As a reminder, during the course of this conference call management may forward-looking statements in their prepared remarks and in response to your questions and statements regarding products strategy, marketing plans, and future financial metrics including revenue, profitability, operating expenses, cash flow, and working capital. These forward-looking statements are based on Lantronix’s current expectations and are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s results for future business, financial condition, results or operation, or performance to differ materially from the historical results for those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made in this conference call. For a more detailed discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties facing our business, see the company’s recent SEC filings including its annual report on Form 10-K filed for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011 and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q also for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2011, which are available through the investor relations portion of our website at www.latronix.com. Lantronix’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012 also will be made available through the investor relations portion of our website. Readers and listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as the date hereof…

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Thank you, E.E. Before Jeremy gets into the details regarding our financial performance for the third quarter of fiscal 2012, I wanted to share with you a few thoughts on our performance during the March 2012 quarter and more recent events. As outlined in our 3 previous conference calls, the key elements of our fiscal 2012 plan are to recruit the right leadership and resources, improve margins, decrease inventory, and ensure that strong financial discipline is in place; develop a new product strategy that is intended to provide innovative new products that will increase market share as well as expand the markets we address; and take action to create a strong market driven product development machine. During the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2012, we began to see the initial results from the execution of our strategy. These results include the first production shipments of 2 new products; the xPrintServer Network Edition and the PremierWave-XN, meeting our commitment of on average 1 new product released to production per quarter. We announced and began sampling a new embedded product, the xPico, the world’s smallest device server. We increased net revenue from the prior quarter, reduced GAAP operating expenses to the lowest level in 3 years, reduced inventory to the lowest level in 2 years, as well as stabilized working capital. These activities culminated with the achievement of the best financial results the company has seen in 4 quarters. As we reduced GAAP lost to 41,000 and reported non-GAAP net income of 471,000. While we are pleased with the results we have achieved thus far, the management team and I are well aware that our work is just beginning. Continued aggressive execution of our growth plan will be critically important to achieve profitable growth. To that point, last week we completed 2…

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

Thank you, Kurt. Turning to our financial results for the 3 and 9 months ended March 31, 2012. Net revenue for the 3 months ended March 31, 2012 was $12.1 million, a decrease of 2% compared to $12.4 million for the 3 months ended March 31, 2011. And sequentially, an increase in 16% compared to $10.5 million for the 3months ended December 31, 2011. The year-over-year decrease was due to lower sales of external device enablement and device management products. The sequential increase in that revenue was primarily due to a $1.1 million increase in our device enablement product line as a result of a recovery in embedded sales in our EMEA and America’s regions, and a $0.6 million increase in our device management product line, the majority of which were the result of sales from the xPrintServer Network Edition which we began taking preorders on December 13, 2011. For the 9 months ended March 31, 2012 net revenues were $33.8 million compared to $37.3 million for the 9 months ended March 31, 2011. Gross profit as a percentage of net revenue for the 3 months ended March 31, 2012, was 48.8% compared to 51.4% for the 3 months ended March 31, 2011 and 48.2% for the 3 months ended December 31, 2011. With 3 sequential quarters of margin improvement, we believe that we have made significant progress towards brining margins back in line with our corporate target of 49 to 51%. Gross profit as a percentage of net revenue for the 9 months ended March 31, 2012, was 48.2% compared to 50.6% for the 9 months ended March 31, 2011. GAAP operating expenses were $5.9 million for the 3 months ended March 31, 2012, a decrease of $0.8 million or 12% compared to $6.7 million for the 3 months…

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Thank you, Jeremy. Jeremy has just spend the last few minutes giving you the financial details of what occurred during the 3 and 9months ended March 31, 2012. As I stated earlier, the actions we took to instill greater financial and operational discipline over the last 2 quarters have been instrumental in creating the initial positive results that we achieved in the March 2012 quarter. More importantly, we have instilled an entrepreneurial and energized product development mentality that will continue to build momentum as we drive forward towards profitable growth. Our focus from the beginning has been to build a product development machine that leverages its strengths of Lantronix’s existing IP portfolio, its strong sales channel, and its reputation as an innovator in creating M2M solutions that are simple and elegant to use. Earlier this fiscal year, I committed to you that we would launch, on average, 1 new product into production each quarter. In the December quarter we released to production the EDS-MD, a next-generation advanced medical aggregator based on our award winning EDS device enablement product line, specifically designed for the stringent requirements of the medical market. The EDS-MD provides mission-critical device aggregation and allows central and remote management of multiple medical devices. In January we release to production the xPrintServer Network Edition, the first member of an entirely new device management product line that allows Apple iOS users to print to virtually any networked printer. Since its introduction in mid-December, the industry response to this solution has been phenomenal with the xPrintServer Network Edition receiving numerous industry awards and accolades. In addition to being showcased as CES, Embedded World and Mac World, the xPrintServer was demonstrated at the Morgan Stanley Emerging Technology and Media conference in February and the 2012 Roth Capital conference in March. While awards…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first questions comes from the line of Paul Johnson of Nicusa.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Couple questions I guess for Kurt and for Jeremy separate. It sounds like the gross margin was hurt a little bit in the quarter partially because of absorption, partially because of expediting freight. It sounds like you would have shipped more if you’d had more product in stock, is that fair, or you just have to get it there, it was just expensive getting it there?

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

Yes, we did end the quarter with some unfulfilled backlog. A lot of that likely would have gone into the distribution channel as inventory, and it’s hard to put our arms around how much of that could have been revenue, but we were impacted by supply constraints during the quarter.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Are you confident you’ll be able to get those supply constraints under control in the current June quarter?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Thank you for your question, Paul. We’re doing everything that we can to remove the supply constraints, and actually the working capital raise that we just completed will definitely help in that matter.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

That’s our second question, so bounce up there and come back and say another question. Kurt, what was the biggest constraint from not having more liquid working capital? Sounds like being able to meet demand?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Actually, the biggest constraint for the March 2012 quarter, if I understand the question correctly really was on the demand side. So, we did end with some supply constraints as Jeremy said. But we do believe most of that probably would have gone into distribution inventory.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Not necessarily into ultimate revenues, but clearly you had some customers that did not get all the product that they wanted in the quarter?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Exactly.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

And part of that is supply change part of it is working capital, both of which you’ve been working on. Obviously the working capital was sort of problem.

Kurt Busch

Analyst

That is correct.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Jeremy, not to pin you don’t but it sounds like gross margins would have been higher in the quarter if you hadn’t had the freight acceleration and the lower absorption. Order of magnitude, a lot higher, a little bit higher?

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

We’re not going to give specifics on that, but it would have been a little bit higher.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

So you end the quarter with things that was suggested the quarter could have been a little bit better if you had the working capital frankly?

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

Yes.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Inventory turns, do you have a target, not necessarily specifics, but you’ve brought inventories down a lot, sort of the lowest level they been in an awfully long time. Is there more to go, or are you sort of where you want to be, and now you just work on the mix of it?

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

I think at this point we’re about where we want to be. I mean our target is 3 to 4, and as we begin to release new products, and as revenues increase we may need to slightly increase inventory levels. So I think we’re pretty close to where we think we should be in that 3 to 4 range.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Obviously you guys have talked about growing absolute dollars with inventory. You’d like them to go up because you need to, because of your growing revenues. So I assume we should start to think about turns, roughly in here. The level will tract revenue as you grow revenue. Actual inventory dollars could go up?

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

That is correct. High quality problem, right?

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Kurt, on the recent [indiscernible] you guys started talking about a longer term business model, can you kind of review that and the [indiscernible] profitability, things like that?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Actually I’ll [indiscernible] probably should refer everyone on the call to the recent AK, that describes long term model. But I’ll let Jeremy actually walk through the actual numbers.

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

Was there a specific question that you had on that Paul?

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Just to talk about it because you guys have put out now -- - because the new management has been there for a little while. You’ve gotten your sense of the operation. There was lots of progress in terms of operating metrics in the current quarter. Obviously the new products are starting to ship, profitability is going up. You got -- I don’t know, I haven’t looked all the way back, but better operating result than you had in an awfully long time, and now you’re starting to talk about a longer term model. I’d just love to have you walked through it. That’s new news, obviously you’d put it out there was some level of confidence, which I’d love to touch on for a moment if we could?

Jeremy Whitaker

Analyst

Sure. You know the basic assumptions we made were, you know, a growth rate in the low to mid-teen’s, and also the assumption in that we bring our margins back up to our corporate historical average of between 49 to 51%. You know, this last quarter we had 48.8%, so we made good progress in getting the margins up to where they needed to be for the target model. And with that sort of revenue growth rate, and that gross margin level, we believe that within the next 1 to 2 years, we can have a target model with, you know, non-GAAP operating income, or non-GAAP incomes of about 3 to 6% compared to, I think, the first half of 2012, which was about negative 6%. So we think there’s quite a bit of leverage in our model. And we do assume some slight increases in OpEx primarily in sales in R&D that will need to be make to support the low to mid-teen revenue growth that we have in this model.

Paul Johnson

Analyst

Helpful. Final question, I guess, back to Kurt. Last fall I asked what was the most important metric from the outside we should look for, and you had suggested new products would be an important one from your perspective. Obviously now you’re throwing out, I assume, some profitability measures, not meaning over the next 3 or 6 months, but over the next couple of years. I assume those are the 2 you’d want us to look at continuing new products, shipments and development, as well as increased profitability increase financial metrics.

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Yes Paul, actually right now I’d like to emphasize that many of the initial goals that we set out to achieve: basically reduction of inventory, increase of margins, putting the management team and the strategy in place. I think that now is all the foundation along with the recent capital rates, really puts the foundation of Lantronix moving forward. So, now really the way to measure the company is on the financial results, and those financial results are going to be driven by the new product introduction.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Krishna Shankar of Roth Capital.

Krishna Shankar

Analyst

Can you talk about, you know, how bookings were during the quarter, and I know that you don’t give guidance, but can you give us some sense based on bookings and what you see in terms of business trends. What kind of good trajectory, what we might expect for the June quarter?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Krishna, we don’t give -- as you know we don’t give guidance, but we can say that our current bookings today are in line with the previous quarter.

Krishna Shankar

Analyst

Okay. And the growth in the June quarter will be -- - can you describe what will be some of the drivers for growth in the June quarter, between some of the new products that you have and the old products that you’re already shipping? Where will the growth come from?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

We’re not giving that level of detail at this point Krishna, I’m sorry.

Krishna Shankar

Analyst

But you are seeing very good traction with the xPrintServer and now that you have working capital, I guess you could fulfill more demand for the Apple xPrintServer application.

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Exactly.

Krishna Shankar

Analyst

And then, PremierWave XN and xPico I guess that could take 6 to 9 months in terms of getting to volume revenues?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

So typically if you review the 3 types of products that Lantronix offers, the embedded product such as the xPico can take anywhere of, let’s say a year to really ramp into decent production volumes. Yet they live for quite some time, say 5 years or 6 years plus. And then the external products such as the PremierWave XN have a qualification cycle, but not quite as long as the design N cycle. So typically you start seeing orders in the 3 to 6 month timeframe and then ramp from there. And then the IP management products such as the xPrintServer, with the results we saw in the previous quarter, you can see revenue in those products pretty much immediately from launch or as soon as these things get into production.

Krishna Shankar

Analyst

Okay. And then the supply constraints in the March quarter, was that due to some of the issues that we had in Thailand and in the contract manufacturing supply channel, or what kind of supply constraints were these?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

These supply constraints were primarily self-generated due to a working capital crunch within the company.

Krishna Shankar

Analyst

Okay. And then, I missed the part where you talked about the cellular version of the product and then also the sensors. Can you just highlight again the state of development of those 2 new products? The cellular version of PremierWave and then the sensor?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

The question is regarding what is our plans for the cellular as well as the analog sensor products. The cellular products and the analog sensor products will be going to full production in this calendar year. The cellular product is very far along in its development. We are currently in beta testing of the cellular products and we expect to go to production in the near future. The analog product is a little bit farther out and we are doing, I’d say, active internal testing on the analog product.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of J.D. Abouchar of GRT Capital.

John Abouchar

Analyst

Just had a question following up on Krishna’s about the analog and cellular markets. Those are big new opportunities for the company. Do we have the distribution channel in place for this? Is this a different sale? How does this affect SG&A and the ability to penetrate those markets?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

The cellular product is really an ideal fit for the current distribution channel. We currently sell into our customer base both wired and wireless solutions, which are primarily Wi-Fi solutions, or actually entirely Wi-Fi solutions today. And those customers have been asking us for cellular products today. So the distribution channel is very straight forward. It’s the same value proposition, the same ease of use of Lantronix products, new network interface, same sales channel, and more often than not actually selling more to the same customers. So that’s a very nice fit and a very nice way for us to grow revenue in the near future. The analog sensor products are a little bit different. Many of our current customers are interested in these types of products, so it does fit nicely into the current sales channel. But we will be developing new sale channels that are, somewhat new to Lantronix, but still very much related in selling the analog sensor products. So I think they’re both a nice fit, but there will definitely be some more expansion on the sale side on the analog products. To answer your question on the SG&A area, is we currently believe that we have the sales force to do this, but we are slightly expanding the sales force, we do have some open recs in both sales and engineering today to help with our growth strategy.

John Abouchar

Analyst

Can you quantify maybe the company is working on a pretty thin shoestring there in terms of working capital, and you mentioned on that server affected supply constraints, and therefore to some extent sales. Does it help us though now that you’ve got some working capital being more solid, does that help in just perception and sales going forward and maybe the ability to negotiate better supply contracts, because you have a little bit more visibility and can buy stuff little bit longer term?

Kurt Busch

Analyst

We definitely expect it to help in all of those things.

Operator

Operator

With no further questions, I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Kurt Busch

Analyst

Thank you operator. I’d like to thank you all for your participation on our call today. We look forward to updating you on our progress, achievements, and actions when we report our year-end fiscal results.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today’s conference. Thank you for your participation, you may disconnect at this time. Have a great day.