Dave Dunlap
Analyst · Security Research Associates. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Kevin. As an overview, our third quarter and nine months financial results reflects sequential improvements in our operating results, including a third quarter profit of $530,000 or $0.10 per share up from a profit of $401,000 or $0.07 per share in the preceding quarter and a profit of $432,000 or $0.09 per share, in the third quarter a year ago. In the just completed third quarter, our total revenue of $4.5 million was flat compared to the previous quarter, but with 2% growth in barcode scanning revenues sequentially and with 4% growth over the third quarter a year ago. Our SoMo handheld computer revenue continued its downturn trend. We achieved higher margins of 49.5% from a combination of component price reductions and improved manufacturing efficiencies, up from margins of 47.2% in the previous quarter and margins of 43.6% a year ago. We maintained operating expenses of $1.6 million in the current quarter flat with the previous quarter and with the same quarter a year ago, and moderately reduced interest expense from $80,000 to $63,000, by reducing our debt balances outstanding during the quarter. Stockholders’ equity at September 30, increased from $1 million at last year end and $1.6 million at June 30 to $2,243,000 at the end of Q3, with growth and net capital driven primarily by profitable operating results. We generated approximately $680,000 in positive cash flow from operations during the quarter. We used the cash in multiple ways, a portion we used for working capital. We invested in a new accounting and operations management the ERP software system and we will further improve internal efficiencies and support future growth. We also invested in tooling for new products that will commence shipping in the first half of 2016, and we paid down a portion of our debt. Now the details; our third quarter revenue was $4.5 million. Cordless barcode scanning revenue for the quarter was a little over $4 million or 89% of this total. With the balance attributed to sales from handheld computers in service. Cordless barcode scanning revenue for the nine months was $11.4 million or 88% of our nine months revenue of $13 million. Cordless barcode scanning revenue continues to grow, up 2% from the previous quarter, and 4% from the same quarter a year ago. However, within these totals we identified specific deployments and we characterized the balances run rate business which is mostly smaller quantity sales by many end users through online resellers. Our largest online reseller is Amazon.com. The underlying growth of our run rate business in the third quarter, was up nearly 16% from the third quarter a year ago, and up more than 7% from the previous quarter, while deployments declined. Our deployment based revenue will vary from quarter-to-quarter, and we have a number of future deployments in our pipeline and these will be added, if through our run rate revenue as they happen. Total revenue growth continues to be impacted by our SoMo handheld computer sales, which have been in decline over the past several years. Total Q3 revenue dropped from $4.9 million a year ago, to $4.5 million in the third quarter of 2015, entirely due to declines in handheld computer revenue. Handheld computer revenue in the third quarter of 2015 was $379,000 or decline of $562,000 compared to the third quarter of 2014. Handheld computer revenue in the third quarter a year ago was $941,000 and included an order of $350,000 from a customer using the computer as a controller for a medical device. Mobile point of sale customers are the largest purchasers of our cordless barcode scanning products. With the peak season happening between late February and early November each year. Offsetting the seasonality, we have in shippable backlog this year, as Kevin mentioned, our non-recurring handheld computer order of $1.6 million with 60% expected to be shipped in Q4, and 40% to be shipped in the first quarter. As a result, we expect to maintain profitability in both our fourth and first quarters. Our higher margins of 49.5% reflect a number of positive trends which we believe are sustainable. Average margins on our cordless barcode scanners are higher than margins on our handheld computers. And our revenue has been trending upwards, as a percentage of cordless barcode scanning products increases. We continue to benefit from the supplier cost reductions due to our higher volumes for cordless barcode scanner sales, and we continue to reduce our overhead by improving the management of our inventories and reducing creation of waste costs including managing excess or obsolete inventories. We expect that higher handheld computer sales in the fourth quarter of 2015 will only decrease our average margins for the quarter by less than 1%. We carefully managed our operating costs, and kept them flat at $1.6 million and compared to the previous quarter and to the same quarter a year-ago. Our employees are our biggest expense. We’ve held our headcount flat, while supporting the development of new products. We’re supporting our growing base of registered developers by expanding the features of our software developer kit and keeping in current with operating system changes from Apple, Google and Microsoft. And we have completed a major upgrade of our website at socketmobile.com, including international localized versions in Japanese, German and French. We expect moderate future growth in fourth quarter operating expenses, as we’ve added a key marketing resource to better support and act even growing developer community and a key engineering resource to improve our capacity to more quickly update and expand the features of our software developer kit and barcode scanning software. In the third quarter of 2015, we generated cash from operations of approximately $640,000 and as an additional $40,000 from working capital changes for total cash flow from operations of approximately $680,000. Within our working capital balances, we used cash to fund higher receivables, funded the higher inventories needs to support our fourth quarter planned shipments and paydown our payables by $150,000. We generate a cash to cover these investments with paid increases in differed income of over $900,000, and we expect to recognize this revenue over the next two quarters. We invested $200,000, the cash generated by operations in the tooling for new products and into licenses for a new general ledger and operations management ERP software system, which we planned to activate in January. The tooling is for new products will be announced this or next quarter and will begin shipping during the first quarter and second quarters of 2016. The new ERP system replaces system reviews for more than 20 years and will ensure that our future growth is not limited by the internal systems that we use. We also acquired some of the additional cash generated by operations to reduce our bank credit line balance by $400,000 and to repay $100,000 of subordinated notes payable. We keep the credit line available to ensure our suppliers then we will have the capital to timely pay for larger orders. Our net capital balance of September 30, 2015, increased to $2.2 million up from $1.6 million at June 30, and up from $1 million at December 31 of 2014. The increase in capital in the third quarter of 2015, which totaled $624,000 was generated by profits of $530,000 plus stock option compensation expense which is added back to capital in the amount $55,000 and by stock option exercises during the quarter of $39,000. At September 30, 2015, we had outstanding invested and in the money stock options of $1.4 million and $170,000 in exercise of the warrants. We also have additional invested but out of the money stock options and unvested stock options totaling $2.9 million which maybe a source of capital in the future. Included in the total warrants our 75,000 warrants held by Hudson Bay Master Fund exercisable of the $25 with proceeds of the company of approximately $94,000. These warrants expire on May 20, 2016. Our stock trades on over-the-counter QB Exchange. At September 30, 2015 our net capital was $2.2 million. We plan to apply for returns in NASDAQ listing when we meet the minimum capital requirements for such listing up $4 million for a profitable company. I’d like to wrap up my remarks with a thank you to our stakeholders, for their continued support, including our investors, our suppliers, our distributors and retailers and our employees. Now let me turn the call back to our operator for your questions.