Paul Arling
Analyst · Steven Frankel of Dougherty. Your line is now open
Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us today. Our third quarter net sales were $175.5 million, up 3% from the year-ago period. EPS was $0.81 this quarter versus $0.93 in the year-ago quarter. Our sales in Q3 came in lighter than the expected due to softness in the U.S. subscription broadcasting market. With the rollout of advanced control products to some of our customers during Q4 and to many of our customers into 2018, we expect this affect to be temporal as we are finalizing advanced projects with a number of key customers and we’re beginning to see the shipments of those products ramp now. This is evident in our fourth quarter sales forecast, which reflects a 7% to 12% year-over-year growth rate. Our customers continue to adopt new platforms that include the latest in radio frequency and voice technologies, as well as a host of UEI-inspired features such as QuickSet, UAPI, One Touch View and adaptive control. In Q3 of this year, we began shipping a new voice remote control that works with new and current DISH Network set-top boxes already deployed in millions of U.S. households. This remote features the latest and advanced voice-recognition technology for the ultimate in content search and navigation. The remote is also fully featured for today’s connected digital subscriber with cutomizable button that enable users to create their own personalized experience to launch over-the-top services such as Netflix or YouTube. As well as backlit buttons for ease of operation in the middle of the dark lit room and even a remote locator function that is amongst the most highly demanded features by consumers. Similar to the U.S. market, European broadcasters continue to make solid investments in advanced TV services. Liberty Global announced growth in its premium video subscribers primarily by growth in its Virgin, Media Tivo and Horizon service, for which UEI is currently shipping advanced remote controls. Reflecting the global demand and popularity for voice remote controls, during the third quarter we also introduced the first voice remote control supporting Hebrew for a leading Israeli pay-TV operator. During the quarter, we also launched new control products to major over-the-top and IP service partners in countries such as Korea, with SKB and Japan, with soft bank, where penetration of these IP delivered services is prevalent. We expect this trend to continue in the Q4 this year, as we ride to the over-the-top momentum with rollouts of Android TV service controllers for key customers in India and Israel. As I’ve mentioned previously, the timing and duration of the various planning, development and testing periods, as well as the initial rollout and then the more aggressive rollout are all subject to change as our customers focus on optimizing their platforms. This process can often involve multiple development and testing stages, both before and after initial rollouts. Depending on how extensive the changes are, this process can take weeks or months. In our OEM channel, we are currently in the midst of a very exciting new product development collaboration with a leading TV manufacturer that should begin shipping in 2018. At this time, we cannot disclose too much around the details of this product development, but suffice to say that we are continuing our legacy of bringing first to market innovations that redefine entertainment control in the home. We will bring you more on this later in the year and into 2018. During the third quarter, our home security products performed well, particularly our XFINITY Home line of products. Comcast is seeing strong traction at its XFINITY Home security service, which launched in 2012. According to Comcast, subscriber count has doubled to more than $1 million in the last two years and Comcast sees this $9 billion market as key to its future growth. We are excited to be part of this opportunity. During Q3, the Ecolink engineering team has been actively working on a line of new sensing and monitoring products for a major consumer IoT brand. At this time, we cannot disclose the name of the brand, but we will provide more details when the projects begin shipping later this year. We continue to see strong demand for new smart home control products more than previous years. This year we have introduced 11 new products that focus on advanced control for non-Entertainment centric applications, including Daikin and Aircon in temperature control, NEC in lighting control and Toto in personal hygiene. We continue to make good strides in this channel and have many more products planned in 2018. Once again, we are excited to exhibit at our international consumer electronic show in Las Vegas, January 9 through 12. As you might expect, we are actively working to showcase new and existing products and services that reflect our strategy to bring together key elements of our broad product and technology portfolio, to create a truly smart living experience. As presented previously, product transitions out of our Southern China factory and into our Northern and Western factories continue to provide challenges. While we have definitely felt the short term impact of these transitions, when asked knowing what you know, would you still change factories? The answer is a resounding yes. And when asked would you still introduce the great number of the industry-leading new products? Again, the answer is absolutely. Has the effect of these factory transitions combined with the addition of a record number of advanced new home control decks, particularly in the fourth quarter, driven higher-than-expected costs at our factories in the near term? For sure they have. Despite this, we firmly believe that these will drive both top and bottom line returns in the long run. With that, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Bryan Hackworth for review of the financials.