Earnings Labs

Tucows Inc. (TCX)

Q2 2019 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 7, 2019

$16.34

-1.39%

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

+3.95%

1 Week

+2.87%

1 Month

+16.30%

vs S&P

+12.75%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Tucows’ second quarter 2019 management commentary. We have pre-recorded prepared remarks regarding the quarter and outlook for the Company. A transcript of these remarks is also available on the Company’s website. In lieu of a live question-and-answer period following the prepared remarks, shareholders, analysts and prospective investors are invited to submit their questions to Tucows’ management via email at ir@tucows.com. Management will address your questions directly, or in a recorded audio response and transcript that will be posted to the Tucows website on Tuesday, August 20th at approximately 4 p.m. eastern time. We would also like to remind you of the Tucows quarterly KPI summary that we began publishing on our website in Q4 2018, and which provides key metrics for all of our businesses by quarter since Q1, 2018. The updated version is available now in the Investors section of the website, along with the updated Ting Build Scorecard. Now, on to management’s prepared remarks. On Wednesday, August 7th, Tucows issued a news release reporting its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2019. That news release, and the company’s financial statements are available on the company's website at tucows.com, under the Investors page. Please note that the following discussion may include forward-looking statements, which, as such, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risk factors are described in detail in the company’s documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on the Forms 10-K and 10-Q. The company urges you to read its security filings for a full description of the risk factors applicable for its business. I would now like to turn the call over to Tucows’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Elliot Noss.

Elliot Noss

Analyst

Thanks, Monica. I will begin our remarks with a review of the quarter. Dave Singh, our Chief Financial Officer, will then review the second quarter financial results in detail. And I’ll return for some concluding comments. Now on to the quarter. The second quarter was highlighted by a return to year-over-year growth in both revenue and gross margin. Total revenue increased 4% to $84.1 million from $81.1 million for Q2 last year, while gross margin dollars increased 14% when correcting for the purchase price accounting treatment for the Ascio transaction, which is a completely non-cash effect. The number would be11% uncorrected. Net income was $2.6 million, compared with $3.6 million in Q2 last year, and adjusted EBITDA increased to $11.5 million, from $11.2 million in Q2 last year. I’ll now review the performance of the individual businesses. Our Domains business delivered another quarter of consistent performance, clearly demonstrating the positive impact of our focus on managing this business for gross margin contribution. Beginning with the Wholesale channel, gross margin was up 20% year-over-year. Within these results, Domain Services gross margin was up 30%, while Value-Added Services gross margin increased 5%. For Domain Services, approximately 40% of the increase was generated by our legacy business, primarily due to the pricing alignment implemented last year. The other 60% was generated by the recently-acquired Ascio resellers. And again, the Ascio contribution was dampened by the accounting treatment I mentioned earlier. Total Wholesale registrations for Q2 increased 1% year-over-year to 4 million, with this year’s total benefitting from the Ascio acquisition. Excluding transactions resulting from the Ascio acquisition, and adjusted for the second portion of the bulk transfer of names last year, total registrations were down 3.5% year-over-year. The strong growth in gross margin dollars on lower transactions reflects our ongoing focus on higher-quality…

Dave Singh

Analyst

Thanks, Elliot. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2019 was $84.1 million, an increase of 4% from $81.1 million for the second quarter of 2018. The increase was primarily driven by growth in the wholesale demands channel as well as incremental contribution of the Ting Internet business which were partially offset by lower revenue from our non-core demands portfolio and Ting Mobile. Cost of revenues before network costs increased 1% to $54.9 million from $54.5 million for the same period last year, with a slight increase due primarily to the higher year-over-year revenue. As a percentage of revenue, however, cost of revenues before network costs decreased by 200 basis points to 65% from 67%. Gross margin before network costs for Q2 increased 10% to $29.2 million from $26.6 million or as a percentage of revenue, increased to 35% from 33% for the same period last year. I’ll now review gross margin for each of the Domain Services and Network Access businesses. Starting with Domain Services, gross margin for the second quarter increased 12% to $17.4million from $15.5 million for Q2 of last year. As a percentage of revenue, gross margin for Domain Services for Q2 of this year increased to 29% from 27% for Q2 last year. As a reminder, as a result of the purchase price accounting on the Ascio acquisition completed on March 18th of this year, overall Domain Services gross margin was negatively impacted by the amortization into revenue of the deferred revenue that was recorded at fair value at closing of the transaction. That had the impact of lowering overall Q2 gross margin for domains by approximately $0.7 million. That brings the cumulative impact for Q1 and Q2 of this year to approximately $0.8 million of the total impact of about $2 million, the majority…

Elliot Noss

Analyst

We are now halfway through 2019, and are able to turn into the back half of the year with clarity in mobile and a full plate. We have a clear path in each of our three lines of business. Each is lucrative, each provides fantastic visibility and reliability and each provides opportunities for growth, with Ting Internet of course providing the greatest growth potential. First, I wish to reiterate our guidance provided earlier in this quarter, of $52 million in cash EBITDA for 2019.Next, in the Domains business, we are clearly the scale player with the low margins and high switching costs in this business providing a great moat around it. You can see the value in the incredible predictability and reliability in this business. This low beta is especially attractive in a yield-starved world. We are now at the point in domains where old technology barriers have been removed and we are seeing operating efficiencies and opportunities to pursue new service offerings in a meaningful way for the first time in years. We are likely to have mostly moved on from owning our own portfolio of premium domain names by the end of the year, but we retain our collection of surname domain names, which we consider a valuable strategic asset. More efficient operations with new opportunities for the first time in years has us feeling good about the domains business. In the Ting mobile business, we can finally move beyond some of our carrier headwinds and focus forward. We will be moving forward without significant carrier guarantees after this year. And we move forward knowing we have one of the most efficient MVNOs in the world, with high gross margins and high net profitability. We are not trading profits for growth, as we have a business that is…