Richard Soloway
Analyst · The Benchmark Company. Please state your question
Kevin, thank you. NAPCO's business has two paradigm shifts, which are continuing to have a positive impact. The first being SaaS reoccurring revenue growth and the second is school safety and security. As Kevin just highlighted during his commentary, the growth of SaaS reoccurring revenue for the company continues at a very strong rate. The drivers for growth of our SaaS reoccurring revenue are coming from demand for alarm communications, which includes the connected home category, as well as the Internet of Things. We continue to see significant opportunity in school safety and security market. The total addressable market is very large with 100,000 K-12s and 10,000 colleges and universities in the US needing products to combat the constant threat of violent incidences. It is our expectation that the new spending for schools on security and safety products will continue at a strong rate for the foreseeable future. On channel partner relationships are very important to us and we hold them in the highest regard. Thus, we have our R&D staff working very hard to develop new products that will help them grow and succeed. When we design new products, our goal is for overall appeal and being feature packed for a great end user experience. Additionally, we continue to host dealer training throughout the US and participating continues to grow, thus indicating more interest NAPCO product from the dealers. The US alarm market is a multibillion dollar industry and we have a long history and a great reputation in the security industry. Recently, we were voted one of the best intrusion brands alongside industry titans such as Honeywell and Bosch, according to a survey from Security Sales and Integration Magazine, a top industry publication. It is a great honor and testament for NAPCO as it highlights our ability to compete with the industry giants. As traditional phone lines continue to disappear, our dealers are looking for solutions to get the alarm signal from the residents to the central stations and we believe that StarLink Connect is the perfect answer for that. Our iBridge smartphone tablet app, which works in tandem with the connect communicator, gives the end user customer interactive services such as control of the alarm system, lighting, door locks, thermostats and seeing live video, all on the end user's smartphone. Our StarLink Connect communicator was launched in the spring of 2017 and is doing well in the connected home products and services vertical. This product is used for new alarm jobs as well as upgrading large quantities of existing alarms for new smartphone connected home experience. The connected home/smart home vertical continues to grow and some homeowners may view the DIY products that we often hear about as the solution. However, according to a recent survey from Customer Product Experience 360, it states that more than one in three adults experience difficulty setting up or operating a DIY connected alarm device. Consumers have to take an average of eight steps to resolve the technical problem and spend as much as 1.5 hours doing so. Professional security dealers, such as the ones we have in our network, are able to install NAPCO's security systems and offer the interactive services to the homeowners while providing the comfort and ease of use we all desire. The unique features of the StarLink Connect are a big attraction for our dealer. It is compatible with many of our competitors' alarm system and saves time and money while doing installations. Remote troubleshooting is also a great feature, which can help dealers avoid having to send a truck to the residence or small business all while still collecting a service call fee. The market opportunity of StarLink Connect, we believe, is very large and is applicable for both new installs and retrofit. Currently, there are approximately 133 million households in the US and only 22 million have alarm systems installed. The potential opportunities are enormous. Beyond the StarLink Connect, we also have other products that are in the early stages of their launch. Specifically, these include the StarLink Dual-Path Fire Communicator, CA4K access control software and the ArchiTech series network locks. We continue to believe that the future outlook for these products is very positive. Currently, in the US, we are witnessing the construction of many new high-rise buildings, which include both residential and commercial tenants. Our ArchiTech network series locks are being used in these types of buildings and they are ideal access control solutions. The ArchiTech locks blend advanced wireless access control convenience with any décor and the choice of trims and finishes. The locks have the capability to control one door at a time or across a wireless network and the battery life is also the high quality with many, many years even in high-traffic areas. In addition, the use of ArchiTech network series creates cross-selling opportunities as, with use of every ArchiTech on the front doors, it drives the need for matching interior hardware. Recently, we announced that the University of California Berkeley will be installing StarLink Dual-Path Fire Communicator around their campus. The university is undertaking this project to replace older copper phone lines, improved fire and life safety, first response communications as well as become CA code compliant and overall cost savings. The project is a great example of the potential that the StarLink Dual-Path has going forward. It's a new product and already is, and will be, a great contributor to the growth of our recurring revenue line, which, as you know, continues to grow at a healthy rate for us. According to our internal research, there are millions of commercial buildings across the US, which need to be upgraded from existing plain old telephone lines that they are currently using as many of these major carriers are no longer supporting these lines. A great opportunity exists for the StarLink Dual-Path with these building and it gives our dealer an easy solution to the problem. We are focused on bringing more SaaS reoccurring revenue as it has been a great contributor to success in the last few years. Our R&D staff is working on new products, which will bring more recurring revenue to our sale. To that end, we are expanding into access control as a service, with the use of our recently launched CA4K software. CA4K enables NAPCO and its integrators the ability to offer cloud-based services, which will enable end users to eliminate the need for in-house staff to perform many tasks. Many of these tasks can now be outsourced such as badge creation, attendance report, deleting former employees in the system. NAPCO and the integrators would be able to share in recurring revenue that is generated from these services. Now, I would like to spend a moment discussing other paradigm shifts here at NAPCO, which is developing and supply school security and safety products. As many of you are aware, the violent incidences at many of our nation's schools continues to happen on a regular basis. Recently, there was a shooting incident at a high school in Kentucky where there were two fatalities and 18 injured, a tragic event. And also, a few days ago, there was a shooting in a middle school in LA area. We here at NAPCO are focused on doing our part to help prevent more of these incidences. NAPCO offers solutions that can fit every school budget needs from K-12 all the way to colleges and universities. During the last few years' conference calls, we have mentioned the potential for the school security funding to be included in the pending US infrastructure bill, which is being driven by the president – by a letter to the president from the non-profit organizations such as PATH. The future of this bill is uncertain, but we'll be watching closely to see what happens if and when infrastructure bill passes. Our school security wins are continuing to happen and our pipeline continues to build. We announced that the wins, as we're able to, with the school's approval. Finally, there is one additional item that I would like to share and we think will be beneficial to our business. At the end of 2017, the US tax reform bill was signed by President Trump. And included in the new law is an expansion of tax credit allowable under Section 179 of the tax code. Section 179 of the tax code allows the businesses that purchase qualifying equipment such as fire protection, alarm and security system to deduct the full purchase price in the current tax year. Previously, the deductions were required to be depreciated over the 39-year life of the building in which the equipment was installed. The new tax law, we believe, will have a beneficial impact on our non-SaaS recurring revenue business going forward as more commercial building owners decide to take advantage. We will begin our Q&A session portion of this call in a few minutes, but, first, I'd like to give a brief summary. NAPCO in a strong position to continue its growth in sales and profits going forward. We believe that our investments in R&D, sales and marketing are beginning to show returns, which will increase throughout the fiscal year 2018 and beyond. NAPCO's senior management maintains a high level of ownership in our equity, approximately 38%, and I would like to thank everyone for their support and for joining us in this exciting future we have. Our formal remarks are now included. We'd now like to open the call for the Q&A session. Operator, please proceed.