Mark Anderson Watkins
Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Terry. I'll begin by discussing our quarterly results, and we'll then review our updated guidance for the year. For the three months ended March 31, 2018, net revenue was $61.0 million, up 102% compared to $30.1 million in the prior year period. The revenue increase was primarily due to higher demand for our mattresses and other products in our direct consumer channel. Supporting the growth were increased marketing investments promoting our new mattress offerings, our improved manufacturing capacity, and to a lesser extend increased contributions from our wholesale channel that comprised 6% of our net revenue for the quarter. Gross profit dollars were up 84.7% to $26.4 million during the first quarter of 2018, compared to $14.3 million during the same period in 2017 with gross margin of 43.3% compared to 47.5% in the first quarter of 2017. The first quarter of 2017 gross margin included adjustments that were not reflective of the full-year operations with the full year 2017, reported gross margin at 43.7% of net revenue as a better comparison. That said the first quarter 2018 gross margin was less than expected for two primary reasons. First, we incurred inventory adjustments related to inefficiencies we experienced in quality control and manufacturing process as we scaled the production of the new mattresses to meet higher than expected demand. Second, we experienced higher freight costs during the first quarter associated with the online launch of the new mattress models as we initially flat-packed the new models as opposed to rolling them to achieve our February launch date. In late April, we resolved this issue, and began rolling the new mattress models and therefore expect to continued headwind to gross margin from increased freight costs in part of Q2. But expect lower freight costs in the second half of the year. These additional freight costs were partially offset by higher product margins of our new models. Operating expenses were $29.3 million in the first quarter of 2018 versus $16.3 million in the prior year period. The increase in operating expenses during the quarter is mainly attributed to a higher marketing spend, incurred an effort to expand our brand awareness and drive online direct consumer demand for our products. In addition, operating expenses included $2.4 million of one-time, non-recurring costs related to the business combination transaction with Global Partner Acquisition Corp as well as severance costs. During the first quarter, we reported an operating loss of $2.9 million compared to an operating loss of $2.0 million in the first quarter of 2017. After adjusting first quarter 2018 for the transaction and severance costs, adjusted operating loss was $600,000 compared to an adjusted operating loss of $1.9 million in the first quarter of 2017. Net loss for the quarter was $3.6 million compared to a net loss of $2.0 million in the first quarter of 2017. And EBITDA was negative for the quarter at $2.5 million compared to negative $1.9 million in the first quarter of 2017. Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes the same non-recurring costs, I just mentioned, was negative $100,000 versus adjusted EBITDA of negative $1.9 million in the first quarter of 2017. Moving to our balance sheet. As of March 31, 2018, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $26.8 million as compared to $3.6 million at the end of 2017, reflecting the funding from the business combination with GPAC and our term debt finalized on February 2 of this year. Net inventories totaled $26.6 million at March 31, compared with $13.3 million at the end of 2017. The increase to inventory at the end of the first quarter was due to an expanded product line, the growing demand for our products and the stocking of new models at third-party regional distribution center. Turning to our guidance for the second quarter of 2018, we anticipate net revenue to be in the range of $70 million to $73 million and adjusted EBITDA to be between a loss of $3 million and a loss of $1 million. For the full-year, we now expect net revenue to be between $290 million and $310 million, an increase of between 47% and 57% over 2017. We are still forecasting 2018 adjusted EBITDA to be approximately breakeven. The decision to adopt a more conservative top line outlook for the remainder of the year was driven by a number of factors. First, we are dedicated to driving long-term sustainable and profitable growth. During the first part of Q2, we determine that the ability to drive top line growth rates at levels required to hit our previous guidance we drive significant bottom line losses in the near-term. This is for several reasons, all of which have to do with diminishing returns of our advertising spend. The competitive landscape and general increases in the cost of digital marketing and put pressure on our marketing effectiveness, as we continue to see a raise in the cost of acquired customers. By pacing our growth, we can better optimize ad spend as we grow our target audience, we are also diversifying our ad spend across multiple platform, improving our understanding of our key consumer segment and utilizing technology to maximize conversion rate. The second reason for more conservative top line outlook is that our wholesale channel forecast has been impacted by slower than anticipated rollout with retail partners. While, the primary relationships that drove our previous forecasts are still in place is taking time to see the benefits. This goes from Mattress Firm as well as other partners, such as the 1,000-door retailer we have alluded to previously. We have not changed our long-term outlook for our wholesale channel, and in fact, we have evidenced supporting into future success. Third, we are choosing to place our focus on winning in the U.S. with our current sleep and sit categories. We view international expansion of the future growth driver that can be leveraged, when we believe the time is right. We also continue to hold our position not compete purely on price, as we believe our differentiated product provides consumers' premium experience and therefore discounting with negatively impact Purple's positioning and the long-term health of our brand. We are continuously taking steps to widen the net of our marketing activities to reaching the broader consumer segments than we have historically. As evidenced by recent television and cinema advertisements, as well as through activities with other digital initiatives. We are committed to building a brand for the long-term and that we can proud of. Despite the reduction in the 2018 forecast, my confidence in the future opportunities of Purple has not changed. We participate in the large and growing industry with a highly differentiated product. Our team and our full vertical integration gives us levers we need to drive long-term sustainable growth. As a side note, before I turn the call back to Terry, I want to point out that as part of our first quarter accounting close, we discovered an issue with our 2017 year-end inventory balance, and 2017 cost of revenues there has been revised in our 10-Q filed just this afternoon. The revision reduced our inventory balance and increased our cost of revenues by $2.5 million for the 2017 period. The control deficiency that resulted in this issue has been remediated. I will now turn the call back to Terry for some closing remarks. Terry?