Earnings Labs

TransAct Technologies Incorporated (TACT)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 6, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the TransAct Technologies Fourth Quarter 2013 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Richard Land. Please proceed.

Richard Land

Analyst

Thanks, Charlotte. Good afternoon, and welcome to TransAct Technologies 2013 Fourth Quarter Conference Call. Joining us today from the company are Chairman and CEO, Bart Shuldman; and President and CFO, Steve DeMartino. Today's call will include a discussion of the company's key operating strategies and progress against these initiatives and details on the fourth quarter and full year financial results. We will then open the call to participants for questions. As a reminder, this conference call contains statements about future events and expectations which are forward-looking in nature. Statements on this call may be deemed as forward-looking and the actual results may differ materially. For a full list of risks inherent to the business and the company, please refer to the company’s SEC filings, including its report on Form 10-K and 10-Q. TransAct undertakes no obligations to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the call. Today's call and webcast will include non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of SEC Regulation G. When required, a reconciliation of all non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, can be found in today’s press release, as well as on the company’s website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Bart Shuldman. Bart?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Thank you, Rich, and welcome, everybody, for joining us on this afternoon's conference call and webcast. It's clear from this afternoon's reported results that the fourth quarter for TransAct was a challenging period in which we experienced declines in a number of our financial metrics. The fourth quarter results also skewed our full year results and, as a result, had the effect of masking much of the progress we achieved throughout the year. Steve will review the financial results in detail in a few moments, but I want to start by just briefly highlighting our results in the fourth quarter. First, I want to remind everyone that through the first 9 months of 2013, our newly introduced products were key drivers of year-over-year growth in gross profit, operating income, adjusted operating income, EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, net income and adjusted net income. In fact, while total sales declined approximately 2% through the first 9 months of 2013, primarily due to lower sales in our lottery unit and the deemphasis of some of our historical lower-margin businesses, gross profit was up nearly 10% and adjusted operating income, which normalizes for nonrecurring items, was up nearly 22% and represented 11.2% of sales compared to 9% of sales in 2012. Adjusted EBITDA was also up over 57% for the year through the end of the third quarter. I think this progress provides clear evidence of the value our newest products bring to customers in high-growth markets and their potential to drive long-term growth. Unfortunately, the fourth quarter was different, which is evident in the results we just reported. Clearly, our casino and gaming sales unit was pressured by the decline in slot machine sales in the U.S. compared to the prior year quarter. That said, while casino and gaming sales were down year-over-year, we…

Steven A. DeMartino

Analyst

Thanks, Bart, and good afternoon to everyone. 2013 fourth quarter net sales were $12.5 million compared to $19.6 million in the year-ago quarter, which included the benefit of a $4.8 million last-buy of an older generation printer by GTECH. In the 2013 fourth quarter, lottery sales were in line with the minimum contractual volume we normally see from GTECH. On a full year basis, our net sales for 2013 were $60.1 million compared $68.4 million in 2012. While net sales declined approximately 12% from 2012, total gross profit of $25.1 million was only about 3% lower. For the full year, our gross margin rose 370 basis points to 41.7%, which is a good indication that as we ramp up our higher-margin businesses, such as food safety and Epicentral, and deemphasize some historical, low-margin businesses, we'll be favorably positioned to consistently grow our gross profit. Now looking at our sales by market for the fourth quarter, casino and gaming sales declined approximately 12% or $800,000 to $5.7 million. The year-over-year decline reflects lower North American market sales partially offset by a $200,000 increase in sales to international markets. A bright spot for us in the fourth quarter 2013 was Epicentral, which as Bart noted, was a strong quarter for Epicentral installs. On a full year basis, Epicentral sales were a significant contributor to our improved gross margin during 2013. As I noted earlier, we had tough year-over-year lottery comps throughout 2013. However, as expected, fourth quarter 2013 lottery sales were about 50% higher on a quarterly sequential basis. For 2014, we expect quarterly run rates in lottery sales to be in line with those reported in 2013. Food safety POS and banking sales were a good story for us in 2013, growing close to 20% to $11.3 million for the year,…

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Thanks, Steve. Before opening up the call to questions, I want to emphasize again that despite a challenging fourth quarter, the progress we achieved in 2013 with the introduction of new products is notable and has certainly strengthened our long-term foundation for growth and shareholder value creation. Even with the lower revenue, TransAct still achieved gross margins in excess of 40%. The success of the Ithaca 9700, our Epic printers, Epicentral and the Printrex oil and gas printers is an excellent indicator of the progress in our business. We have leveraged our deep understanding of the printing and software needs for the transaction-based businesses to identify opportunities in current and new markets. We can develop value-added solutions that help customers grow their business. And we'll introduce new products this year that once again demonstrate the value we can bring to new and different markets. In doing so, we'll continue to diversify into new high-growth industries with higher-margin products. And with our solid balance sheet and consistent generation of free cash flow from operations, we have the financial flexibility to further invest in new product development, support the commercialization of new products and consistently return capital to shareholders. Before I open up the call to questions, I would like to personally thank our employees who have worked hard to create the new TransAct. Your dedication to our strategy is clearly appreciated. And I would like to thank our shareholders for your support of our company and our efforts. Finally, I'd like to mention that I will be presenting at the Roth Capital Investment Conference on Tuesday, next week, March 11. And I will also be available for one-and-ones and small group meetings. In addition, if you'd like to arrange a call with Steve or I and arrange for a meeting at our office, please reach out to Investor Relations firm, JCIR, at (212) 835-8500. We have a lot going on, and we will be glad to speak with any of you at the Roth conference next Tuesday or any time after. With that, let's open up the call to questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will be coming from the line of Todd Eilers from Eilers Research.

Todd Eilers - Eilers Research, LLC

Analyst

I wanted to start off on the casino and gaming segment. Obviously, a little challenging in the quarter. I was wondering if you could, Bart, maybe if you could just speak to your expectation for that business, I guess, going forward here in 2014? And then also, obviously, the new relationship with Suzo-Happ, maybe refresh our memory on when that officially kicked in and what sort of benefit are you starting to see at this point and looking into 2014?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

So let's talk about the Suzo-Happ just because that was the last thing you asked. And that relationship really started right around G2E. So we closed the deal -- closed the sales agreement with them and then started transitioning them from selling our competitor's product to our product. It takes a couple of months to get everybody trained on the product, as you can imagine, so we really look at their impact to -- the positive impact to our business will be this year. I think the big thing about the casino industry, Todd, and I'm sure you're writing about and all that, is the difficult environment that we're in domestically. It's hard to really gauge whether it's going to be an up or down market. So we're pretty much looking, from a printer side, as flat. Domestic could be down a little. Europe could be up a little and Asia should be up a little. In fact, I just came back from Asia and I'm really excited about what sales look like, not only this year, but more in 2015 and 2016. But what's really going to grow the business this year is clearly Epicentral. And we do believe that we'll close more deals this year. And that tends to drive, of course, revenue. Once we close the deal and install it. But also it can drive incremental printer sales, because if the casino has some of our competitor's product, we'll have to change them out. I can say, Todd, that on Epicentral, for the first time, we're really seeing the customers around the world and Las Vegas looking at the product. So before, we were really focused on the locals market because it's a great tool for repeat visitors. We've had some phenomenal success. In fact, the casino…

Todd Eilers - Eilers Research, LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great, that's helpful. Just -- and a follow-up on the international side of the business there. I know one potential new market opportunity would be Greece on the VLT side. Given the relationship you guys have with GTECH and SPIELO, I would assume that they would do well on that market. Can you maybe give us your best guess in terms of when we might start to see some printer sales resulting from that new market?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

You've seen our inventory come up a little. And we were -- the forecast had Greece. It's been in the forecast for quite a while. I mean, some of the inventory was also the growing 9700 sales that the team was forecasting that we expect to now come in a little later. But we're prepared for Greece. We've got great relationships. As you know, we probably won 70% to 80% of the Italy market. So we were able to be quite successful there. And we have the necessary relationships with the companies that are bidding on Greece to win that business. There's been a lot of discussion, is it one company owning it all? Is it one company having half? And it's about 35,000 VLTs. There's one story out there that one company is going to get half of it and then the other half is going to be split between 5 companies; and then the other story is one company is going to win it all. So we're following it very closely. Truthfully, in the numbers that I just gave you, how we see the year, Greece is not in those numbers because they would have a meaningful impact to our business. So we are not thinking about how the year looks. And I'm talking about kind of a flat printer business this year and an up software side, Greece -- there's no Greece in any of those numbers.

Todd Eilers - Eilers Research, LLC

Analyst

Okay. Okay, great, that's helpful. And then just, I guess, maybe looking at the food safety business or opportunity there, can you maybe help us understand how the trials are going versus the last conference call? Obviously, it looks like you've got more total trials ongoing. Can you maybe also speak to -- is that 30 new on top of the 120 last quarter? Or is that more of a net number where you converted a few of the previous trials and actually added some more? Just trying to kind of understand the ins and outs there and just, obviously, it looks like you expect that the ramp-up here starting in the middle of the year. But I think just kind of help us understand what you're seeing with the trials, the feedback from customers and just how we should look at that this year?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

So let me break it up into 2 ways. It's a great question, Todd, and hopefully, our shareholders will get an appreciation for it. We have some restaurant companies, more on the casual restaurant side, where they control what their restaurants are doing. So what we do there is we work with the corporate office. And that takes a couple of months to get the menu right. They trial it in their lab, and then they'll put 5 or 10 in the field. A lot of times, it could be a restaurant right next to their headquarters or something. They'll get the feedback from the field, the General Manager, the manager of the restaurant, and then they'll go back into headquarters and then we'll negotiate either ourselves or through our partner and soon-to-be partners. We'll negotiate what they need and roll it out. So that's kind of on the casual restaurant side. And that takes -- you're talking about a restaurant company that's been running their back-of-the-house operation a certain way for many, many years and coming in and changing how that works. So they no longer are going to ride on labels. They no longer are going to buy labels. And they're not going to buy any sharpies anymore. They're going to buy a terminal. They're going to put it in, they're going to wire it up and all that. And truthfully, Todd, it takes about 1 year, 9 months to 1 year. It could take a little longer. That's kind of the casual side. So they were working at the top end and they're pushing it out to all their restaurant chains. And we've got a host of them that we're working with. In the quick-serve, well, in the McDonald's side, corporate decided and pushed it down through…

Todd Eilers - Eilers Research, LLC

Analyst

Okay, great. Bart, that's very helpful. Appreciate the update there. Just one final question and I apologize if you talked about this in the commentary already. But on the TransAct Services segment, it looked like it was a little weaker than normal, certainly below our expectations. Can you maybe talk a little bit about what might've happened in the quarter there? Was there any kind of onetime issues there? And just kind of your expectations for that business going forward?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes, what you see us doing, Todd, is with our deemphasis to the point-of-sale business, and we are deemphasizing our inkjet printers. So with those inkjet printers come those cartridge sales, the HP cartridge sales. And truthfully, those HP cartridge sales were nowhere near the margin levels that we wanted in our business. So we deemphasized that, and what you're seeing is it's kind of like what's going on in our printer business. Those cartridge sales will continue to decline as the consumable sales of oil and gas, both the paper, the inkjet cartridges for the office printer, the waste buckets, the heads. As those accelerate with more and more printers going out, eventually, that decline will go away and we'll see the increase in sales. But what you'll see also is the margin popped also because we're replacing very low-margin HP cartridge sales with very high-margin consumable sales for oil and gas. So that's being driven -- that decline is being driven by our focus away from the low-margin commodity point-of-sale business. And Todd, just so I can help answer that, it's difficult to forecast the whole decline and the whole increase, so we watch it as it goes. One printer can equal so many cartridges in the point-of-sale side. One printer for the oil and gas will equal so many cartridges for instance. A lot of the printers that we sold in our 980 business in our office, which has $50,000 worth of recurring revenue per printer, it could take 2 or 3 months. By the time we ship it to the customer, it could take 3 months for the customer to get it online. There are all kinds of special reports that our customers are printing, and it could take 2 or 3 months to get all the drivers right and get them to use that. But once they do, those sales kick in. So it's a little tough to forecast on our side the drop at a low-margin inkjet cartridge sales and the increase in the high-margin inkjet cartridge sales, but that's all up going on right now.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Mitchell Sacks from Grand Slam Asset Management.

Mitchell Lester Sacks - Grand Slam Asset Management, LLC

Analyst

Todd was pretty efficient with the questions. So I sort of really have one left, which has to do with the -- you mentioned in the release, you've got a bunch of new products you're hoping to release this year. Can you at least give us some framework around how to think about it or how to look at what those products either maybe? Or when will we know more about that?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes. Look, our goal always, as a company, is to inform our investors that we're working on new technology and that you should expect to see something. You will see -- we will announce 2 new products within the next couple of months. The way we look at it, Mitch, is we've identified now 3 markets that we're very focused on, right? Casino market, both printers and software; oil and gas, which is, really, with the dominant black-and-white player. And we're really trying to move this very large industry to color. And it's actually quite exciting when I go out to Houston and go meet with the customers and hear what they're saying. And then there's food safety, and food safety is really a market that we're creating. And there's a fair amount of opportunity in that market that we see that we believe that we can bring technology to. So I've mentioned in the call, we think the food safety market is the biggest opportunity this company has ever seen. And like anything, it just takes time to bring out enough products to really create this very large market. And we're focused on that. We're also focused on areas where we believe technology is changing. And in all fairness, printers are needed for printers can be needed. But there's no printing solution today. In fact, we only think about food safety was a lot like that, right? There was no real printing solution until we came out with our integrated terminal. So we've identified a new market where we believe that, over time, as much as there's a lot of technology that's going to be brought out in that market and developed for that market and there's been a lot of discussion about it just the last 3, 4…

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Larry Haverty from GAMCO.

Lawrence J. Haverty - Gabelli Multimedia Trust Inc.

Analyst

I'm just wondering if, in fact, you've got too many opportunities. And I'm concerned with some of the commentary vis-a-vis the casino industry. You have 6,000 or so installations of these machines in the United States, and you're seeking business abroad. There's 800,000 machines, or somewhere close to that, in North America. So you penetrated less than 1% of the market and you need to go abroad. You have 3 major customers in regional casinos and gaming, at Pinnacle and Boyd, that understand that they have got a very, very weak business in the low end, a nonrated player. You threw out some pretty incredible numbers here. I just don't understand the disconnect between the inability to execute sales, the numbers and why you're going abroad. Could you walk me through that?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

It's a good -- yes, good question, Larry. And look, it's one of the reasons why we decided to team up with Suzo-Happ. So when we look at the geographic footprint -- now first of all, we're following our customers around the world. So with Wind Casino, we're following Wind to -- from Las Vegas to Macau to Kotai. So we're following Resorts World, right? Resorts World is one of TransAct's customers. They're going to put in Epicentral in New York. As we know, they're installing it right now.

Lawrence J. Haverty - Gabelli Multimedia Trust Inc.

Analyst

Well, that's more than 5,000 machines in that, Bart. That's way less than the number of machines you indicated were going to be installed. That doesn't add up either.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes. So what Resorts World is going to do is they're going to put -- they're on 2 floors and they're going to put Epicentral, and as we put in our press release when we announced it, they're going to put it on 1 floor. So they're going to start with 1 floor and 2,500 slot machines. So once they get that up and running, then we believe they're going go to the next 2,500, which would be a second order for us. So you're right, I mean, it's 2,500 out of the 5,000. But as you know, it's...

Lawrence J. Haverty - Gabelli Multimedia Trust Inc.

Analyst

That's more than you indicated for the whole country. So you have 1 order for...

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

No, no, no. Those orders we already have. So those are installations that we're planning on doing. So what we're telling our shareholders is over the next couple of months, we've already won those orders, and expect those orders to -- expect the software to get installed and then those casinos to go live. And in order for us to collect our revenue, Larry, is the casino has got to go live. So we don't consider that revenue until the casino goes live. So we have -- in fact, we have Resorts World in the docket. Our team and their team is working. It's kind of an interesting application. It's been wonderful for us. We're turning every slot machine into a kiosk. The only way that they could give out their coupons was to take a player away from the slot machine and send them over to a kiosk and then they would get their coupon and then walk back to a slot machine. And, as you know, it's quite crowded, they might even lose their seats. We're now turning every slot machine into a kiosk, so it's not just even Epicentral that we're doing. In fact, we told our shareholders we want an additional software contract because we're doing this very sophisticated system for them that's going to turn every slot machine on the first floor into a kiosk. So now a player can sit there, play, and if they want to get their coupons, they don't have to leave the slot machine. And that's the beauty of Epicentral. So that's in the plan and that's already won. I mean, clearly, I don't disagree with you when you go "Well, we've got this very large market." One way -- and so in answering your sales question, one of the reasons why we teamed up with Suzo-Happ is they gave us additional salespeople in the U.S. So we have -- we went from 3 salespeople to 11 salespeople calling on casinos around the country, demonstrating our technology and working with them to understand how it can benefit them and go from those meetings to marketing to IT to contract to winning and installing. I don't disagree with you, by the way, that some of these regional casinos are seeing tough times. However, they're also in markets with high tax areas. So a lot of them, because of the tough times, kind of look at it and say, "We're not ready to go yet because we don't have that much money to spend because the state tax on that game or that casino is a lot higher." What we are seeing is...

Lawrence J. Haverty - Gabelli Multimedia Trust Inc.

Analyst

But the weakest part of their business, Bart, is low-end and nonrated. They say that in call after call.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

No doubt.

Lawrence J. Haverty - Gabelli Multimedia Trust Inc.

Analyst

If you've got a problem solved in that, I don't understand why you can't close.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Larry, you're singing our song. And that's exactly what we sit down with these casinos and talk to them about. And it's not like they don't know it. I think some of these guys want to see a couple of more casinos come online. We've got the early adopters that have put the technology in. I think Resorts World is going to be a wonderful installation for us because it's going to put pressure on Atlantic City. It's going to put pressure here in Connecticut. It's going to put pressure in Massachusetts because people are going to be able to see that they are getting coupons and benefiting their players. So I don't disagree. Those are the conversations we are having with them, Larry. And you're singing our song. You're singing the exact song that when we sit down with them, that we can say we've taken uncarded -- let's say carded play is 55%, we've taken it to 75%. We have real statistics. We have had casinos go to our existing casinos where Epicentral is live and have them talk to the management without us even in the meeting to ask them questions about how it's going. We've had one casino guy that's running our system actually fly to Paris and give a presentation on our behalf to talk about the benefit. So we are out there -- I think your question was how are we going to cover all of this? And one of the strategic moves we made was to bring on Suzo-Happ that gave us 8 additional salespeople for not a lot of cost. So that was a strategic move on our part, to win Suzo-Happ away from FutureLogic, get 8 additional people here in the U.S., so now we have 11 people doing that. In…

Operator

Operator

And our next question will be coming from the line of William Esposito [ph] who is a private investor.

Unknown Shareholder

Analyst

Just a quick question. Your cash balance position right now is around $2.9 million. Where would you -- how -- do you anticipate that building up a lot more over the next 6 or 7 months?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes, Bill, what we did is, because of the sales forecast -- because we had cash and no debt, when we were looking at the sales forecast for food safety, when we were looking at our forecast for oil and gas and even the forecast for the casino market, we decided to take our inventory up a little, which is what you saw. You saw a pop of a couple of million dollars of inventory. We will flush that out over the next, what, 4 or 5 months. As that inventory flushes out through the projected orders that we believe we'll get, while we're not increasing inventory, we'll actually take the inventory down. So all that, the operating income, plus the lower inventory, will drive cash. So we'll see cash -- Steve, we'll see cash coming in as we go through the second quarter, third quarter. You'll see the cash pop.

Steven A. DeMartino

Analyst

Yes, probably built more on the second half, though.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Look at it as a spigot. We open and close the spigot with our Asian manufacturers. So in the fourth quarter, we opened up the spigot a little just to make sure that if one restaurant chain surprised us and went in the fourth quarter then we have the product. We've got some -- we had some extra orders, actually, in the casino industry with IGT and what went on with Caesar's, so we were able to deal with that and we built back up the inventory because we believe something like that can happen again. So it's like a spigot. We open and close that spigot because we have cash and no debt. And it allows us to use our inventory to either win business or to make sure we have the products so if an order does come in, we can ship.

Unknown Shareholder

Analyst

I appreciate that. I think you've done a great job with that. I just -- when I got -- it's been reduced so much. But I just wanted reassurance that we were going to still see a nice positive cash position and not have to tap this credit line.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Oh, yes, no. And remember, we bought back a ton of stock. I mean, in the third quarter, we -- that wasn't in our plan when that stock became available. But what we did is we analyzed our cash position and the inventory and all that. And Steve's got it under control. With Steve running both operations and finance now, he understands that if he opens the spigot a little too much, his cash position is going to go down a little too much. So he does a really wonderful job at opening and closing. And right now, we've closed the spigot. So we won't have products coming in and then we'll flush out and then we'll open the spigot again.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from the line of Mark Delast [ph] who is a stockholder.

Unknown Shareholder

Analyst

Bart and Steve, I'm a bit confused about the new products. Are they within, for instance, the food safety industry or a completely new industry?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

The new products that are coming out?

Unknown Shareholder

Analyst

Yes, in the next couple of months.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

When we put out our announcement, you'll find out.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Sam Bergerman from -- I apologize, Bergman from Bayberry Asset Management.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

A couple of questions. In regard to Suzo-Happ, did you give an indication of when you expect some of the sales to start ramping with them? I know you said there's a training period. Are we looking for the second quarter more so than the first quarter?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes. Look, they are out there today selling on our behalf. So I would -- from what my salespeople have told me, we've already won a couple of casinos. So you'll see it ramp up all year long. I mean, there's 8 people now calling on these casinos in addition to the 3 we have. So yes, it'll just keep ramping up all year. It's been a wonderful move on TransAct to get the largest distributor for gaming and amusement technology actually in the world. So yes, it will ramp up all year. As I said to Todd, the big question is what is the domestic casino replacement market going to be? There's not a lot of openings this year. We've highlighted what the -- we track every opening and we're going after every one. But the real question is -- and you heard it from Larry Haverty, the locals market, casino market, is pretty dismal. And so it just really -- where is it going to be? We believe we're going to be flat this year because we're going to make up enough business around the world and some in the U.S., with our relationship with Suzo-Happ in Asia and Europe. We just don't know what the domestic market is going to be this year. If you get a positive surprise, it's going to be very good for us.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

In terms of authorization, you had an authorization to repurchase stock. Is that still ongoing or has that been canceled?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

It's over.

Steven A. DeMartino

Analyst

Expired.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Expired.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

It's expired?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

And going -- when you say the casino market could be flat this year, does that include Epicentral and what Epicentral will do for TransAct?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

No, no, no. That's just the printer market, Sam.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Just the printer market?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

We expect Epicentral to be up this year. It's just the printer market.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

You had said that between the first -- beginning of the year and the second quarter, you expect an installation of, what, 4,000 more machines?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes. Yes, we do.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Can you give us a better color of the pipeline of Epicentral? I know you mentioned Las Vegas looking at it. But I mean, are you in serious talks with casinos, percentage-wise, much greater than last year? I mean, can you give us a little color on that? I mean, who's looking at it? What's the increase in casinos looking at it?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes. I think the color I gave was we are now seeing interest around the world and -- including The Strip. So from a standpoint of giving you any more color than that, we just won't do that because I am sure listening on this conference call or listening on the tape of the call will be a wonderful competitor. So I think everybody can appreciate that we hold everything pretty close until we're ready to say something.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Okay. And last question. You recently, I guess, had a trade show with Kentucky Fried Chicken. Are they -- I assume they are beta testing your -- the food labeling product. Have they started any installations at all at this point?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

And do you expect their installations to become domestic and international? Or just domestic going through the rest of the year?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

We -- every company that we deal with, some are at the franchise level and some are at the corporate level. When we deal with the franchise level, we're dealing across the country. When we deal at the corporate level, once you get to the corporate level and they endorse the product, as we've watched with McDonald's, McDonald's now has us in 6 countries. So the trials are in 6 countries. So it's a combination.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Okay. So KFC right now has started a rollout? Is that what you're saying?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

No, no, no. And again, Sam, it's not in our best interest to talk about individual customers, so I'm going to -- after this, I'm going to have to stop it because I know that you would like it, but I'm sure my competitor would like to find every place I'm at and every customer and what we're doing. And that's just not right for us. We have -- you've asked us we had a trade show at Kentucky Fried Chicken? Yes, we were. You can see it on our website. We announced that we were there. And yes, some franchises have bought our technology.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Okay. The only other question I will ask is in terms of sales and marketing. I think Steve mentioned that it's going to uptick during the year. Is it more geared to having the revenue come in first and then the uptick? Or is it going to be...

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

No, the people, basically, already added. So the expenses already there.

Steven A. DeMartino

Analyst

So the expense is will precede revenue growth.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

So the people have been added already?

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

At this point, yes.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Shuldman for any closing remarks.

Bart C. Shuldman

Analyst

Yes. Thanks, Charlotte. Thank you, everybody, for joining us on today's call. Again, I'll be at the Roth conference, Tuesday, March 11. I think my presentation is very early afternoon, but I'll be there for the day available for one-on-ones. I'm told that the schedule is pretty packed, so if we need to, we can do some group meetings. Appreciate talking to everybody, and we'll talk again on the next conference call. Everybody, have a good night. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.