Earnings Labs

Sequans Communications S.A. (SQNS)

Q3 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 25, 2012

$3.50

-1.41%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-4.11%

1 Week

+17.12%

1 Month

-2.67%

vs S&P

-3.16%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to Sequans’ Third Quarter 2012 Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, today’s conference is being recorded. Before I turn the conference over to our host Mr. Georges Karam, I would like to remind you of the following important information on behalf of Sequans. This call may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding the future events or our future financial performance. All statements other than present and historical facts and conditions discussed in this call, including any statements regarding our future results of operations and financial positions, business strategy, plans and our objectives for our future operations, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements are only predictions and reflect our current beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risk and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. We operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. Given the risk factors and uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. More information on factors that could affect our business and financial results are included in our public filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please go ahead sir.

Georges Karam

Management

Thank you. Good morning everybody, this is Georges speaking. I’m with Deborah Choate, our CFO and we are pleased to welcome you to our third quarter 2012 results conference call. First let me say that we are pleased to report that Q3 was another quarter of significant progress in several areas. On the financial front, we reported revenue in line with our guidance and by controlling our operating expenses. We were able to report earning results that were significantly better than our guidance. More general on the business front, we continue to gain additional traction in several LTE markets. We have added new customer design wins during this quarter. And also we strengthen our relationship with several key operators and passed important certification milestones. Last but not least, we have brought innovative new products to market even as we manage to keep tight control of our expenses. To review in more detailed update, I will discuss now the various segments that we focus on. first, in the BWA/Greenfield segment, we are ready with our customers such as Genentech and Greenpacket plus we are still gaining more traction in this market with more design wins. In India, which is a big market of this segment, Reliance industries is building a Greenfield network. They are progressing well, but this is taking more time than originally predicted. Our revenues in India are coming from initial trials as they are not yet in full launch mode. Reliance is now expecting to launch commercial service in Mumbai and Delhi during the first half of 2013. Our assumption is that it will be in Q2, closer to midyear. At that point, we should see revenue from India pick up significantly. We are well positioned to address this market with design wins from data devices for data…

Deborah Choate

Management

Hello everyone. I would like to add some details about our Q3 financial results and the outlook. Revenues in the third quarter were inline with our guidance at $8 million for the quarter, and this is a sequential increase of 13% quarter-on-quarter and a 70% decrease compared to the third quarter of 2011. In the quarter, we shipped about 700,000 units, compared to over 400,000 units in Q2. And we had two 10% customers in Q3, HTC and as well Huawei. We realized an overall IFRS gross margin of 48%, this was below the 54.2% we reported in Q2, as well as a 53.6% gross margin in Q3 of 2011. The difference in gross margin primarily reflects changes in revenue mix, including our hybrid portion of product sales versus licenses. Product gross margin was 44.9% in the third quarter compared to 47% in the second quarter and 53.2% in the third quarter of 2011. The decreases in gross margin reflected continued low absorption of fixed costs and a less favorable product mix in Q3 2012 versus prior periods. The full benefit of the headcount reduction implemented in the second quarter was apparent in our operating expenses in the third quarter, which were $9.8 million compared to $11.8 million in Q2 and $12.2 million a year ago. Operating loss in the third quarter, which includes stock-based compensation expense were $6 million compared to operating loss of $8 million in the second quarter and an operating profit of $1.9 million in the third quarter of 2011. To facilitate comparisons, we have asked to report our results on a non-IFRS basis which excludes stock-based compensation expense from operating profit or loss. Non-IFRS operating loss was $5.2 million in Q3 2012 compared to an operating loss of $7 million in Q2 and a non-IFRS…

Operator

Operator

Yes. (Operator Instructions) And our first question is from the line of Quinn Bolton with Needham & Company. Please go ahead. Quinn Bolton – Needham & Company, LLC: Hi Georges, hi Deborah. I think I have a few questions, first just wanted to look at sort of the WiMAX business obviously, it looks like you had some decent revenue from HTC in the third quarter but not expecting much in the fourth quarter. Can you just give us some sense of what the emerging markets WiMAX business is doing and how you see that business trending. I think that was a segment that you thought might be more stable than the HTC WiMAX Stream?

Georges Karam

Management

Well, I mean as you see, we have one, we reported by the way two customers for this quarter HTC and Huawei. And Huawei is one of our main customers addressing this emerging market, we have others as well. And Joe, you’re right; yes absolutely you are right in the sense that this market is stable. It’s also evolving from WiMAX 20 when I talk about the dual mode, portion of this is evolving from WiMAX 20 and we are actively engaged there. Some of them that obviously slowed down a little bit in the phase of transition, so it’s – you add some slowdown of this, but still active. and I believe it will go, it will continue next year, I would say ramping up back when the provision for WiMAX 20 is happening. So we have in Q4, we expect some WiMAX revenue to continue coming; I will say from this market but then possibly we new to this HTC portion, which is big in our revenue, this makes the lumpiness much perceivable I’ll say when we have one quarter, the quarter the following quarter lesser order but this makes the change for us. Quinn Bolton – Needham & Company, LLC: Okay. And I guess sort of on that note with WiMAX to HTC being insignificant in the fourth quarter and in emerging WiMAX revenue probably soft as well in Q4. Is LTE revenue or will LTE revenue in the fourth quarter actually exceed WiMAX revenue?

Georges Karam

Management

Yeah. I mean this is what we said. we believe that our plan our target that LTE is ramping even slower than that we would like to see, because this ramp is not compositing for the lumpiness of WiMAX what we are seeing from HTC, but definitely, we see the percentage and absolute number growing in Q4 versus Q3 and Q2 whatever. Quinn Bolton – Needham & Company, LLC: Just to clarify LTE revenue, you’d expect it to be greater than WiMAX revenue in the fourth quarter?

Georges Karam

Management

Yes. Quinn Bolton – Needham & Company, LLC: Okay, great. Second question just wanted to ask on the Verizon certification, I believe on the last quarterly conference call, you have thought that you might be able to keep that certification of Verizon either late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter. can you give us an update on that certification and when you expect to receive it?

Georges Karam

Management

Absolutely, first of all, the certification inside Verizon, it’s a process where we have various steps. So we completed very important step now, which is we call it step two in this, which is essentially, major step before you are ready and we are in the last step of certification. So we are in the process. we have and we should exit from this in Q4. So we are not able to announce it and we didn’t finish out in Q3, we have sometimes dependent on the lab availability and all this process. So it’s not related to our readiness, but this should go out in Q4 definitely. Quinn Bolton – Needham & Company, LLC: Okay, great. And then just my last question, George, you went through sort of the three targeted markets for LTE sort of the Greenfield, BWA operators, China Mobile and then lastly the CDMA operators. Can you sort of give us a rank order of which of those three, do you think will be the largest, which will be the smallest in 2013? it sounds like India may be at the top of the list and trying to figure out whether a Verizon or the CDMA operator is a bigger opportunity in 2013 and China Mobile, but just trying to get some relative ranking of those various opportunities in 2013?

Georges Karam

Management

I mean the ranking I believe when you’re asking about our portion there not the size of the market itself, because China Mobile obviously is a huge. but definitely, the market share we expect there will be less than other places. So, if I’m just talking here about our ability to achieve our timings in those markets and the size of our share in those markets. So I intend to say, today BWA will be the first market that will materialize for us, because we are ready and product is ready, and we open up on the energy there specifically India and as this will be ramping we’ll be going there. The CDMA, this is a market that we see there is more the second half next year materializing, because it takes time to finish all the certification and this is a market that we start engaging with just only in the last nine months, I would say at the end of the last year, and China Mobile, because next year, it will be only extended trial that is there will be some different volume coming from there, because personally I believe to test 200,000 base station you need some devices and hopefully we’ll get some market share participating to this test. But relatively for us it will be the third portion will be China Mobile next year and between BWA and CDMA I don’t know it’s almost at parity I will say, because CDMA will be bigger, but it will materialize more at the second half of the year. BWA is smaller, but we can realize revenue even in the first half of the year. So BWA is a full year business, while CDMA we see it as a half year business in 2013. Quinn Bolton – Needham & Co. LLC: Great. Thank you very much.

Georges Karam

Management

Thanks, Quinn.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Jay Srivatsa with Chardan. Please go ahead. Jay Srivatsa – Chardan Capital Markets LLC: Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Georges I’m sure you saw the announcement of SoftBank investing in Sprint. SoftBank is typically played in the TTD space versus Sprint you just talked about FDD. What is it due to your relationship with Sprint and how do you hope to leverage your expertise with this investment by SoftBank?

Georges Karam

Management

Thanks Jay for the question. Well, I mean it’s absolutely important. I mean many things happen around the TD-LTE echo system by the way. On one side I mentioned this in my brief talk here, talking about the China Mobile also decided to open the full band 190 megahertz, this band is exactly what’s Clearwire on in the U.S. In other words if you look to the spectrum available in the world today, what Clearwire has it’s exactly what the China government, not China Mobile. The China government is opening and very likely maybe another player other than China Mobile will get a portion of this to play. And now as SoftBank, which just to be as well has a TD-LTE player, even if we self buying they have, they are part of the 3GPP, UMTS, 3G role. They have TD-LTE spectrum that they’re launching in Japan and the fact that they are coming to this game with the Sprint behind its Clearwire, this creates really a much larger ecosystem in the TD-LTE, which as I see the positive sign for us. Specifically as well you know the fact that we are collaborating with the Clearwire and the Sprint for all this TD-LTE and FDD handover how to handle the two bandwidths together. We have engagement as well with Softbank even we’re not mentioning this, but we have some activity going on. We have good relationship with the SoftBank as well. So we see all this positive obviously in the near-term it’s very hard to see any impact you know, but down the road we see it positive to the industry in general and to Sequans in particular as this address reinforce the TD-LTE ecosystem, where we are quite strong and many of the players are not able to address this today. Jay Srivatsa – Chardan Capital Markets LLC: All right, in terms of the new product that you announced this morning. What’s the impetus of that? Do you expect some of these devices will ramp up sooner than some of your revenue contribution from the handset and tablet side? Is that the rational, can you kind of set the stage for what was the thinking behind introduction of these products?

Georges Karam

Management

Yeah, I mean the thinking is obviously you see that point that Sequans our strong point is the 4G, this is where we are and I believe we are the best with our technology here in comparison to all what we see in the market. The challenge we have and you know it which is that we lag the 2G, 3G, the legacy component and in some of the devices where you need to combine all this, it position us somehow in a weak position versus the competition able to offer a comprehensive solution with Legacy and 4G. Obviously on our side, what we were trying to do as a team is really to look to the segment where the 4G alone can play primary role and give us enough market there, where we can play and grow our business and grow this company. In this segment not neglecting I will say the multi-mode because we are playing in multi-mode specifically in China Mobile and so on with partners, but rely at least on some segment where only Sequans alone can execute and deliver there and win and a success of our business that depends on our technology only. And part of those segment obviously when you talk about BWA and other segment this is one of them, but we realize that in the developing country and here we are not talking about emerging country. We are talking really about U.S., Europe and so on. We realizing that the consumer electronic there is a tendency today, if you look to the carriers for example, they are more and more opening, what they are call shared data plan. Shared data plan in other words, if you are the subscriber, you have your Smartphone subscription, but if you pay $5 or $10…

Georges Karam

Management

Jay Srivatsa – Chardan Capital Markets: All right. Last question for Deborah in terms of operating expense clearly, if cut it down quite a bit. Is this the run rate we should be looking at going forward or are you expecting further reductions in Q4 and beyond?

Deborah Choate

Management

We are not expecting to fundamentally change in the near-term. The run rate for the third quarter was perhaps a little bit low because we had a lot of vacation period. But we definitely continued to see this as a baseline and in Q4, we’ve got a few product development expenses that may come in. So, we can see, could see Q4 coming up a little bit, but I think this is definitely the target baseline going forward with some variability depending on what kind of one-off expenses relate to products that might fall on the quarter? Jay Srivatsa – Chardan Capital Markets: Thank you, good luck

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We will open the line of Daniel with the Daniel Marquardt with Baird. Please go ahead. Daniel K. Marquardt – Robert W. Baird & Co. Equity Capital Markets: Hi, this is Daniel on behalf of Tristan Gerra. Could you give us an idea of what you mix LTE shipments to WiMAX Shipments was in the quarter?

Deborah Choate

Management

In the third quarter, the shipments were really dominated by WiMAX in particular to HTC and LTE was probably closer to about 10% of our revenues in the quarter. Daniel K. Marquardt – Robert W. Baird & Co. Equity Capital Markets: Okay and then on when, so I mean if I understand correctly, expect kind of your significantly Greenfield ramp to be in India, and how are you guys sizing that market in terms of not only the size, but also the share you would expect to get? May should we be thinking this as like a 100,000 units less more just kind of curious about the opportunity that you guys see?

Georges Karam

Management

So I believe we are building everything there to get decent market share from last we have good relationship with the carrier as well. Its oldest to say we believe, we should have decent market share now obviously in orders that should we say that how much will be successful we will make 20% or 30%, its – I don’t want to give you and its depends on what will happen, but we are in a very well position you know that’s all I can say there. And the market should be bigger than we talk I believe India in general I was expecting more than kind of $1 million, $1.5 million unit in a year driving. Daniel K. Marquardt – Robert W. Baird & Co. Equity Capital Markets: All right. Thank you. That’s it.

Operator

Operator

And at this time there are no other questions in queue, please continue.

Georges Karam

Management

Okay. So if there is no question thank you very much guys for your presence and for the questions obviously. Thanks very much and give you hope to see on the next conference call in a quarter from now. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive Teleconference Service. You may now disconnect.