Juergen Stark
Analyst · Lake Street
Thanks, John. I'll finish with some comments on what we see for the market and update on our expected results for 2021. To quickly recap our strategy, over the last two years, we have expanded into new categories, significantly increasing our addressable market, and we will continue to add new categories over time. The global gaming market has a $94 billion addressable market in hardware, $188 billion in software, and $3 billion in services. And all of those segments are expected to grow at mid- to high single-digit rates or more over the next several years. We currently compete only in the hardware market. I say only, even though the gaming hardware market is nearly $100 billion in size. Within this market backdrop, we see tremendous opportunities to, one, continue our leadership in console headsets and participate in what we expect will be continued strong demand following the new console launches; two, continue our rapid expansion into the $3.5 billion PC accessories market with our expanding portfolio of ROCCAT products; three, expand into the $2.3 billion market for microphones, with the first products coming from Neat soon; and four, continue to launch into new categories within that enormous, growing $100 billion market. And while all of that is focused on hardware, software and services are of high interest to us over time as well. And there are certainly categories within those markets which would be highly complementary to our gaming hardware business. As I said before, we are not just looking to enter new categories. Our long-term goal very simply is to lead each category in which we compete. I realize this is ambitious, but we've led in the console gaming headset market for more than a decade by delivering high-quality products with innovations that create a better experience or even a competitive advantage for all levels of gamers. That's a core part of our formula for building the strong Turtle Beach brand and gamer fan base. We're applying that same formula in our ROCCAT PC headsets, keyboards, and mice with the goal to lead those categories over time. Our newly acquired Neat microphones team has exactly the same mindset with their coming portfolio. Frankly, they are very determined to, again, redefine the microphone market like they did years ago with blue microphones. When combined with our exceptionally strong retail relationships and great execution, we believe we can lead in every category we pursue over time, and that's our goal. We intend to continue to make organic investments to expand into new product categories. In spring last year, recognizing that we were headed for a strong year financially, we proactively invested into that strength and began working on multiple new products in adjacent gaming accessory categories, which we'll launch this year. Those adjacent category investments, as well as continued growth in PC accessories, are meaningful contributors to our results this year, and we expect them to continue to grow significantly in the coming years. We also intend to grow through acquisitions. We're very selective and make the decision to acquire only when a stringent set of financial and strategic criteria are met, including high-quality products, a strong team with a culture and mindset that matches ours, and underlying deal economics that can generate a superior return within a reasonable period. We are also highly confident that our performance culture, strong execution, and rigorous operational processes can add value to any company we acquire, like we have with ROCCAT. From a financial standpoint, this boils down to a simple set of long-term goals: number one, maintain the goal of 10% to 20% top-line growth over time; number two, deliver category-leading EBITDA margins while making investments to drive that growth; number three, utilize our strong balance sheet to enable the above, including organic investments and selective acquisitions of companies that meet our criteria. Let's turn now to our increased outlook for 2021 and beyond. Our view of how the gaming accessory market will play out in 2021 is consistent with what we shared two months ago, when we first laid out our 2021 outlook. We believe the incredible market surge in 2020 led to another step-function increase in the total base of gamers, just as it did in 2018 with the Fortnite surge and, as a result, significantly increased the size of the market. Q1 U.S. console headset retail sales being up over 50% from Q1 2019 is a good indicator of this. Of course, it's going to create some tough comps, particularly in the second and third quarters, where stay-at-home surge was focused. But as you can see from the first quarter market stats I covered, the gaming market continues to be very robust in all segments. And in our case, we expect revenue growth on top of the underlying markets given our progress in growing share in the PC accessories market, our entry into the microphone market, and our entry into two new gaming categories over the coming months. With that context, we are raising our revenue outlook to approximately $385 million this year, up from our prior guidance of $370 million and up 7% from the record $360 million in revenue we delivered last year. We raised our target for adjusted EBITDA margin to 13% of revenue, up from our prior target of 12%, which would bring our EBITDA in 2021 to roughly $50 million, up from our prior guidance of approximately $45 million. We believe a 13% EBITDA margin compares quite favorably to others in our category despite our somewhat smaller size. The approximately $50 million in expected EBITDA reflects several important dynamics we expect this year. So let me quickly review those. First, gross margins starting in Q2 of 2020 were benefited by significantly lower-than-normal promotional levels given constrained supply for several quarters. The benefit from that unusual lower promotional spending was large and flowed directly to gross margin and EBITDA. Our guidance anticipates promotional levels that return to more normal levels this year, starting in the second quarter. Second, gross margins last year were negatively impacted by a higher-than-normal airfreight to expedite supply and capture the surge in market demand. The airfreight spend at around $9 million was much higher than the normal few-million-dollar level we typically have. We expect airfreight this year to be much lower than last year, although it could be a bit higher than our normal annual spend due to supply and logistics constraints. Note that our revised guidance has factored in our current view of semiconductor supply, associated expediting costs, and increased shipping time frames and costs. Nevertheless, the situation on components and logistics, both of which have been and continue to be constrained, is very dynamic and could change for the better or for the worse over the course of the year. Third, in addition to staff and infrastructure to support a business that's expected to be 60% higher than it was in 2019, we will continue to invest in sales and marketing to support the targeted growth this year, as well as set us up for continued growth in 2022 and beyond. As a result of the higher revenue and adjusted EBITDA expectations, we now expect adjusted net income per diluted share to be approximately $1.50 for 2021, up from our prior guidance of $1.35, using an average share count of roughly 18 million and a tax rate of approximately 27%. As a reminder about expected revenue phasing this year and our expectations for Q2, as we pointed out last year, revenue phasing in 2020 was different from past years. Q1 started soft, as expected, ahead of the new console launches, stay-at-home orders caused an enormous spike in Q2, and the replenishment of channel inventory, as well as continued strong sell-through, caused an even bigger increase in Q3 sales. In Q4, things started to normalize, but strong sell-through continued with the launch of the new consoles. We expect 2021 to have similarly atypical quarterly revenue phasing. This means quarterly year-over-year comps, in essence, trying to compare an unusual year with another unusual year, won't be a good indicator of the underlying markets or our financial progress. So we continue to encourage investors to remain focused on annual results. That said, we expect our revenue in Q2 of this year to be approximately $70 million. We're expecting second-quarter adjusted EBITDA to be approximately $2 million. That Q2 EBITDA expectation reflects alignment of staff and infrastructure to support our now much larger business, as well as the fact that many of our new product announcements, supported by the corresponding marketing campaigns, are actually coming in Q2. So we will have more of our full-year marketing spending in Q2 than normal. For the second quarter of 2021, we expect adjusted net loss per share to be approximately $0.07. We are very pleased with our strong start to 2021 and the opportunity to further increase our expectations for the year. We continue to put ourselves in a position to achieve our long-term goals of 10% to 20% growth while delivering category-leading EBITDA margins and strong cash flow. And we've, again, demonstrated an ability to execute extremely well across our entire business. Our balance sheet has never been stronger, and we continue to be laser-focused on progressing our business forward to continue increasing shareholder value. Let me reiterate in closing my appreciation for the global Turtle Beach team members. It may seem like delivering these stellar results has become routine, but it doesn't happen without the incredible performance and dedication of every person at the company. Our people are what makes Turtle Beach succeed, and I'm very proud to be a part of this great team with you. Operator, we're now ready to take questions.