John Ritchie
Analyst · UBS
Thanks, Robert. And thank you all for joining us on our first quarter fiscal 2013 earnings call. As we mentioned in our last call, the results of the first quarter were going to be significantly impacted by the effects of counterfeiting on our end market. We'll provide more detail later in the prepared remarks, but we're seeing some very tangible and positive signs regarding the success we're having with our anti-counterfeiting and brand protection efforts. Now moving on to our results. For the first quarter, our revenues approached the low end of our range with revenues coming in at just over $61.5 million. Our non-GAAP net income for the quarter was $13.6 million, our non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.15, which exceeded low end of our previously stated guidance. This compared to $0.23 from the year-ago period. Now before I go into the numbers in more detail, I'd like to highlight some significant milestones we achieved in the quarter. We generated $23.7 million in cash flow from operations, continuing our strength of very strong cash flow quarters. Our new product category saw a strong quarter with revenues increasing 24% on a sequential basis with a unified AirFiber contributing the majority of the revenues for this category. And as a reminder, the products within this category contained the highest level of our anti-counterfeiting measures. And we also introduced EdgeMAX, our advanced routing technology, which combines industry-leading price-performance characteristics. Now I'll go to each category in more detail starting with our proprietary AirMax platform. Revenues came in at $32.1 million, down $17.8 million from the $49.8 million in the same period last year. On a sequential basis, AirMax revenues decreased to $26.9 million from $59 million in the June quarter. Again, we attribute this decrease to the previously discussed counterfeiting issues. AirMax revenues were 52% of total revenues for the quarter, down from 62% in the prior quarter and 63% in the year-ago period. The new product categories came in very strong with revenues for this category totaling $15.6 million, up $3 million or 24% on a sequential basis, and up $12.9 million or approximately 500% on a year-over-year basis. This category represented 25% of the September quarter revenues in total. The revenue growth in this category, again, was driven by the success of our recently introduced AirFiber product line. The last component of our systems category is our other systems products. This primarily consists of non-AirMax outdoor wireless product line. Revenues In this category contributed $3.8 million, down $9 million on a year-over-year basis and down $7 million sequentially. This product category, like our AirMax product line, is being negatively impacted by counterfeiting. Longer-term, we expect a steady decline in this category as our customers transition from this product line to our AirMax product line. Revenues for the embedded radio category were $1.7 million, down $300,000 sequentially and down $1.5 million on a year-over-year basis. As we've said in the last few earnings calls, we expect this category to decline in absolute terms as we move forward. And moving on to our last category, Antennas/other. Revenue there -- revenue in this category was $8.4 million, down $2.3 million for the same period last year and down $2.1 million sequentially. Revenues in this category are driven largely by the sale of non-integrated, stand-alone AirMax antennas and sales of brackets, cables and other miscellaneous accessories. A decline in this category was not unexpected as a large percentage of the revenues in this category are directly related to sales of our AirMax product line. Now moving on to our geographic revenue breakdown. North American revenues were $20.4 million, down 18% on a year-over-year basis and down 19% on a sequential basis. We believe the decline in North American revenue was a result of the prior quarter benefiting from pent-up demand from our distributors, who, for several quarters, were limited by our credit policies. We talked about this last quarter. Going to South America. Revenues there decreased 38% sequentially and 48% on a year-over-year basis to $10.2 million. The expected decline in South America was the result of the aforementioned counterfeit issues. Over the past couple of months, we have, however, seen some very positive signs coming out of the South American region. Our sales order volume has picked up significantly. We're seeing significant improvement in our credit exposure to this region as the pace of payment out of this region has improved in the past several weeks. We believe both of these facts clearly indicate the effective use of our IP protection and anti-counterfeiting efforts. The EMEA region, were in line with our expectations with revenues down 41% on a sequential basis and 7% on a year-over-year basis to $23.1 million. The EMEA region represented approximately 37% of revenues for the quarter. Revenue, in this region, is largely concentrated with distributors in Eastern Europe and, to a much lesser extent, the Middle East and Africa. As expected, this quarter, this region showed some of the same characteristics we've previously experienced in South America, with customers being hesitant to purchase until they have more confidence they're buying genuine Ubiquiti products. And lastly, moving on to the Asia Pac region. Sales there decreased 19% on a year-over-year basis to $7.8 million and 45% on a sequential basis. Let me move further down on the income statement, moving on to gross margin. Our non-GAAP gross margin on a year-over-year basis was approximately 40.8%, down 90 basis points from the 41.7% we realized in the year-ago period and down 250 basis points from 43.3% in the June quarter. Our gross margin decline year-over-year and sequentially is primarily due to the decreased revenue level and, to a lesser extent, changes in product mix and increasing variable operating costs expenses. Now moving on to the -- further down the P&L for the expense lines. Our non-GAAP expenses came in at $8.7 million up from $8.1 million or up 8% on a sequential basis and up from $5.2 million or up 68% on a year-over-year basis. The total OpEx came in approximately at 14% of revenues. The sequential increase was driven by an increase in SG&A spending partially offset by lower prototype expenses in the R&D expense line. Our non-GAAP operating expenses exclude the impact of stock-based compensation, which was $700,000 for the quarter. Non-GAAP operating margins came in at 27%, down from 36% last quarter and 35% in the year-ago period, again, all driven by the lower revenue levels. As you look ahead from this quarter, we expect to see an increase in operating expenses of approximately $500,000, with the largest component of this expected increase related to increased R&D cost and a modest increase in SG&A comps for the December quarter. Now moving below the operating income line. We have approximately $100,000 of net interest expense. The net interest expense -- as a reminder, the net interest expense is related to our line of credit. At today's interest rates, we expect net interest expense to be approximately $300,000 for the quarter as we draw down our credit facility to fund our buyback program. Now moving on to the last item of the P&L, our effective tax rate. For the quarter, the effective tax rate came in at 16%. We're currently planning on this rate to hold for the balance of 2013. As a reminder, our rate is largely driven by the geographic revenues flows. Turning to the balance sheet. We had a very strong cash generation quarter with cash flows from operations coming in at $23.7 million. Our gross cash balances grew $10.4 million to a total of $132.5 million for the quarter. As we have done in the past, we expect to generate significant free cash flow as we move forward with the majority of that cash being generated outside the U.S. For the quarter, our net inventory balance was essentially unchanged at $7.6 million. As we ramp up our distribution hub in China, we expect inventory levels will increase. We believe that the increased level -- inventory levels will allow us to reduce our lead time to our customers, which in turn, will more closely align our sell-in with our distributors' sell-through. For the quarter, accounts receivable decreased 20% or decreased $14.8 million to a total of $60.9 million down from $75.6 million at the end of last year. As expected, we saw a significant deterioration in our DSOs, which increased to 91 days from 73 days on a sequential basis. As a reminder, a side effect of the counterfeiting issue was a buildup in our channel inventory with our distributors. This inventory buildup resulted in slower payment cycles, which directly impacted our DSOs. One of the positive signs giving us comfort that our DSOs and our product's credit exposure in this region will improve is the fact that we've collected almost $30 million in accounts receivable since September 30. The vast majority of this cash was related to June 30 receivables. It will take a couple of quarters to get back to normalized DSOs, a more normalized DSO range, but we expect a significant improvement in the current quarter. Lastly, I'd like to provide an update in the status of our buyback program. As of yesterday, we have repurchased 3.7 million shares for a total of $37.8 million leaving approximately $62.2 million of our authorization available for further repurchases. Now for the second quarter in terms of our outlook. We expect revenues in the range of $70 million to $78 million. We expect non-GAAP earnings in the range of $0.18 to $0.21 a share. And lastly, as you know from the press release, I'll be leaving Ubiquiti, but will be helping to ensure a smooth transition. I want to take this opportunity to personally thank Robert for the opportunity he's given me to work here at Ubiquiti and to work with a very special, creative and dedicated team, and I wish the company much success in the future. Now with that, I will turn it over for questions.