Kenton K. Alder
Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus
Okay. Thank you, Diane, and good afternoon and thanks for joining us for our third quarter 2012 conference call. As usual, I'll begin with a review of our business, and then Steve will follow with a discussion of our financial performance. And then we'll open the call for your questions. So let's start with a review of the highlights for the quarter. Net sales were $339 million; gross margin, 15.4%. Non-GAAP net income was $18.1 million or $0.22 per diluted share. GAAP net loss attributable to stockholders was $208.3 million or $2.54 per share. Adjusted for onetime expenses, GAAP net income would have been $8.3 million or $0.10 per diluted share, and we'll add some more color and give more details later on in the call. We're disappointed with our results for this third quarter. While a number of anticipated product launches occurred during the quarter, key program launches took place later in the quarter than we expected. Higher labor costs and other manufacturing inefficiencies associated with bringing on workers to support the delayed programs negatively impacted our gross margin for the quarter. Consequently, our third quarter results did not improve as we expected. The global softening of demand for printed circuit boards also impacted our performance in what was typically a seasonally strong quarter. Our North American results declined from Q2 due to softer demand, and our Asia Pacific performance was affected by program timing for a couple of customers. During the third quarter, the percentage of advanced HDI product remain unchanged from the last quarter, comprising approximately 23% of our Asia Pacific segment's revenue. Our HDI percentage did not increase as expected due to the delays in program timing. With the continued ramp of multiple customer programs that utilize advanced HDIs in the fourth quarter, we expect that advanced HDI will resume growing as a portion of our overall product mix. I'd like to comment quickly now on some of the results of our operating segments for the third quarter, and then Steve will add more during his portion of the call. Asia Pacific had sales of $215.7 million in the third quarter, up from $195.6 million in the second quarter. Our rigid-flex and flexible printed circuit board and assembly business accounted for 12% of sales in the third quarter, an increase from 5% in the second quarter. Gross margin for the Asia Pacific segment was 14.6% in the third quarter compared to 15.4% in the second quarter. As noted, the decline in gross margin was primarily due to higher operating expenses as we increased headcount and added additional advanced HDI capacity in support of customer program launches. In addition, the flex assembly work has a higher material content that allows us to broaden our product offering to some key customers. Capacity utilization in our HDI facilities increased slightly, and our conventional capacity utilization decreased slightly. On a blended basis, our Q3 utilization in Asia Pacific during the quarter was about the same as it was in the second quarter in the mid-70s. In the fourth quarter, we anticipate increased revenue from our touchpad tablet and smartphone customers, which we expect will improve margin and earnings. The North America segment recorded third quarter sales of $123.9 million, down from $132.3 million in the second quarter. The decline in revenue was primarily due to softer demand from our networking/communications and high-end computing customers. On a dollar basis, revenue in our aerospace and defense end market increased from the second quarter. Gross margin for our North America segment was 16.8% compared to 18.5% in the second quarter. This margin decline reflects our lower facility utilization in our commercial printed circuit board factories. Our capacity utilization in North America was approximately 65% in the third quarter compared to the low to mid-70s in the second quarter. In the fourth quarter, we expect continued soft demand with our network and high-end computing customers. Therefore, we are continuing a furlough program in Chippewa Falls and implementing other cost management actions in our commercial printed circuit board business to more closely align our labor costs with customer demand. On a year-over-year basis, third quarter sales in Asia Pacific declined 2.9% from $223 million in 2011. In North America, sales decreased 9.8% from $137.4 million in 2011. Now moving on to our end markets. Third quarter sales in our largest end market, networking/communications, comprised 29% of total sales compared to 32% in the second quarter. Sales in this end market declined sequentially due to lower global demand. We continue to counter the softer demand with our participation in a broad range of market segments such as enterprise, service provider, Internet and telecom infrastructure, and we believe the long-term prospects for this end market remain solid. However, we expect conditions in this end market to remain challenging in the fourth quarter and revenue to be down sequentially. Computing storage peripherals is our second largest end market. Sales in this end market represented 21% of total sales, the same as in the second quarter. Sales to touchpad tablet customers grew substantially in the third quarter. However, this increase was offset by softer demand from our high-end server customers. In the fourth quarter, we expect sales on this end market to increase as we continue to ramp production through various touchpad tablet programs. Consistent with last quarter, the aerospace and defense end market represented 16% of third quarter sales. We are seeing solid growth from our commercial aerospace customers within this end market. On the defense side of the business, we continue to benefit from our broad program penetration and participation levels. In addition, revenue associated with foreign military sales programs is helping to offset the weaker demand conditions for our U.S. defense-related business. Like others serving the defense market, we will closely follow developments on sequestration. We expect sales in the fourth quarter to be down slightly due primarily to program and calendar timing. As expected, sales in the cellphone end market increased significantly in the third quarter and represented 15% of sales compared to 12% in the second quarter. Growth in this end market was fueled by the launch of a new program for a key customer. We expect sales to further increase in the fourth quarter in this end market. The medical/industrial/instrumentation end market represented 8% of sales in the third quarter compared to 9% in the second quarter. This slight decline was primarily due to softer demand from medical customers. We expect sales in this end market to be flat in the fourth quarter. Sales in the other end market increased to 11% of sales in the third quarter from 10% in the second quarter. The increase in sales was due to a strong demand for wireless modular substrate printed circuit boards for handheld devices, as well as sales for eReader products in the third quarter. We expect this market to be down in the fourth quarter but with growth to resume in future quarters. Our top 5 customers accounted for 31% of sales in the third quarter compared with 29% of sales in the second quarter. In alphabetical order, our top 5 OEM customers were Apple, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei and IBM, the same as last quarter; and we had one customer who accounted for 14% of sales during the quarter. ASPs increased due to product mix shifts in both Asia Pacific and North America. Asia Pacific's ASP increased 1% from the second quarter, reflecting higher substrate business as well as an increase in our flexible printed circuit board assembly business. In North America, ASPs increased approximately 4%, primarily due to a shift in our product mix toward aerospace and defense. As we have previously noted, our capital investments, our focus on advanced HDI expansion and technological improvements, we are on track to invest $120 million to $135 million in 2012 as we expand our manufacturing capabilities in advanced HDI, which provides the best growth opportunity for our business. In summary, we are pleased with our broad customer engagement, which expanded during the third quarter with some highly anticipated product launches. And given the uncertainties in the macro environment, we believe our diversification across end markets and customers continues to serve us well. Our focus remains on driving operational performance by expanding our market share of advanced HDI, optimizing efficiencies and providing customers with excellent global service. In the fourth quarter, we expect increased contributions to our financial performance from our advanced HDI, flex and rigid-flex business for touchpad tablets, smartphones and eReaders, but we also expect that continued headwinds in the conventional side of our business, particularly within network and the communications end markets, will be a drag on earnings. And now I'll turn the time over to Steve, and he can review our financial performance for the third quarter.