Doron Abramovitch
Analyst · Oppenheimer
Thank you, Roy. Before I review our first quarter results, I would like to say a few words to address the COVID-19 situation here at Radware from operational point of view. Starting with the organization, the health and safety of our employees and communities is our top priority and we adhere to the guidelines of the Health and governmental authorities in all territories in which we operate. Beginning in mid-March, most of our teams started working from home and avoiding unnecessary travel and we are pleased to report that this change had a minimal impact on our work and productivity. From an internal operations perspective, we operate in accordance with a very detailed pre-existing business continuity plan. The impact on customer service and equipment delivery and implementation is also been contained because our customer service is predominantly based on remote access using teams across the globe simultaneously, we can comply with the committed SLAs to our customers with no disruption. In a few of locations delivery were delayed due to airport lockdown and this had some impact on revenue recognition in Q1 results and we continue to monitor the situation closely., Other than that, we have not seen any meaningful negative impact on our supply chain and we believe we are managing well in this front. With that I will turn to the results of the first quarter. Revenues for the quarter were $60 million, 2% below Q1 ‘19 and below our guidance. Revenues from Asia-Pacific region were down 31% from Q1 last year to $12.6 million as this region was the most affected from the Corona virus in Q1. Revenues from EMEA were down 1% year-over-year to $18.2 million, predominantly due to the continued weakness in some selected countries. Revenues from the Americas increased 19% year-over-year to $29.2 million, reflecting successful execution of our various growth initiatives as well as several wins related to project supporting the increased remote access environment. As Roy mentioned, our recurring revenues for the first quarter represented 65% of the total. This is up from Q4 2019’s 63%. The total deferred revenue balance was approximately $181 million as of the end of March, up 14% from $159 million as of the end of March 2019. Out of the total balance, 62% or approximately $113 million is due to for recognition in the next 12 months, up 10% from $103 million that was due for recognition within 12 months from March 2019. I will now discuss expenses and profit all in non-GAAP terms. The differences between the GAAP and non-GAAP results for the quarter are detailed in our press release. Gross margin for the first quarter was 83.1%, slightly up from last year’s 82.8%. Operating expenses in Q1 were below our expectations at $45 million compared with $43.2 million in Q1 2019. Throughout most of the quarter, our activities were in line with our initial plan, including increased investment in our workforce in our cloud infrastructure. The difference from our expectations is reflective of normal activity in January and February, but lower travel expenses and to a certain extent lower marketing expenses as a result of event cancellations in March. We continue to invest in the business for the long term and continued hiring during the quarter. Our emphasis is to strengthening our sales talent, especially in the U.S. where we believe the market opportunities are fundamentally strong despite COVID-19 uncertainties. Headcount at the end of March was 1,112, up 18 people from December 2019. Operating profit and margin in Q1 ‘20 were $4.8 million and 8% respectively. Net income for the first quarter was $6.6 million or $0.14 per diluted share, in line with our guidance, lower travel expenses in this and cost discipline compensated for the small revenue shortfall. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow items, we have a very strong balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $427 million in cash and financial investments. Most of our cash are invested in U.S. dollar marketable securities and deposits. Net cash provided by operating activities in the quarter were $21 million, driven by another quarter of strong collections. As for the use of capital, during the first quarter, we spent approximately $19 million on repurchasing approximately 880,000 of our own shares. During the quarter, we utilized the April 2019 share repurchase plan almost in full as discussed in our last earnings call. In March, we announced $20 million stock repurchase plan. Today, we announced an additional 1-year $40 million share repurchase plan. So combined, we have $57 million outstanding on our buyback plan. I will now move to our guidance for the second quarter and our outlook for the rest of 2020. Given the level of uncertainty about the length of the COVID-19 impact and the economic recovery attempting to focus especially second half of 2020 is very complicated. We are therefore withdrawing our full year financial guidance for 2020. We believe this is the prudent thing to do until the environment stabilizes, but this no way diminishes our optimism regarding Radware’s bright future. For the second quarter, we expect revenues to be between $57 million and $61 million. We continue to expect gross margin to be approximately 83%. Operating expenses are expected to be slightly lower than in Q1 and between $44 million and $45 million mainly due continued travel restrictions. We continue to support our sales and marketing initiatives through increased digital marketing and digital alternatives to physical meetings and events. We believe we are aligned with the market environment, successfully addressing customer needs and capturing market opportunities. We expect EPS for Q2 to be between $0.12 and $0.14. I will turn the call back to Roy to summarize.