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UTStarcom Holdings Corp. (UTSI)

Q3 2011 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 9, 2011

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by for UTStarcom’s Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Ms. Jing Ou Yang, Investor Relations Director for UTStarcom. You may begin.

Jing Ou Yang

Management

Hello everyone. Welcome to UTStarcom’s third quarter 2011 earnings conference call. We distributed our earnings press release earlier today and you can find a copy on newswire services or on our website at www.utstar.com. In addition we have posted a presentation on our website which you can download and use to follow along with today’s call. On our call today we have Mr. Jack Lu, our President and CEO; and Ms. Jin Jiang, UTStarcom CFO. Before we get started I will read the company’s advisory and forward-looking statements. This call will include forward-looking statements on topics that include, but may not be limited to the company’s restructuring initiatives, IPTV revenues, profit margins and projected business model. Forward-looking statements are generally indicated by such words as will, expect, estimate, goals, plans or similar words. These statements are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. This includes risks and uncertainties regarding the ability of the company to realize anticipated results of operational improvements, the company’s ability to successfully launch Internet TV platform, continue to integrate recent acquisitions, successfully operate new service business, execute on its business plan and manage regulatory matters, as well as risk factors identified in its latest Annual Report on Form 10-K, 10 K/A, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 6-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assures no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. I will not turn the call over to our President and CEO Mr. Jack Lu.

Jack Lu

Management

Thank you, Jing and hello to everybody on the call. As Jing mentioned you can follow along on today’s call by downloading the presentation from our website at www.utstar.com also unless otherwise stated all figures mentioned during this conference are in U.S. dollars. Let’s start with slide four and then talk briefly about our third quarter highlights. Net income attributable to UTStarcom’s shareholders was $8 million, or basic earnings per share of $0.05 in the third quarter of 2011. Total revenue increased 35% year-over-year to $83.3 million in the third quarter of 2011 from $61.4 million for the same period in year 2010. Gross margin was 38.4% in the third quarter of 2011compared to 19.7% in the third quarter of 2010. 37.6% in the second quarter of 2011 and 31.1% in the first quarter of 2011. Operating income was $14.2 million in the third quarter of 2011. Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments were $305.9 million as of September 30, 2011. The third quarter was our second consecutive profitable growth. Our strong bottom line supplements was driven mainly by improved gross profit of margin and the steadily decreasing operating expenses. Our main priority going forward will be achieving sustainable long-term profitability. We’re pleased to see that some of our restructuring and the reorganization efforts have gained attraction. Management have targeted the key growth driver for our company to achieve sustained profitability namely a move away from being entirely equivalent dependent to a more blended business model that include higher value and thus higher-margin services. Of course, this type of shift was not occurred overnight, but we hope investors maintain a long-term perspective as we reinvest resources in areas that we believe will drive the growth of our business. Moving onto slide number five, we did missed profit margin improvement in…

Jin Jiang

Management

Thank you very much Jack. Hello everyone, as Jack mentioned earlier on the call we have seen an imprudent in gross margin the third quarter both year-over-year and sequentially quarter-to-quarter. We will continue to be disciplined in managing our costs while still investing in the business in order to achieve sustainable profitability. Please turn to slide 9. In the third quarter, we recorded 83.3 million in revenue, this was a 35.7% or $21.9 million increase compared to $61.4 million in the third quarter of 2010. Significant items included the following, increased sales of PTN products in Japan and some products in India and Japan, rolling stream infrastructure products in India and Thailand, and EPON and set-top boxes in China. For the first nine months of 2011 revenue was $237.1 million, an increase of 10.1% or $21.7 million compared to $215.4 million in the first nine months of 2010. On slide 10, let’s look at the booking trend for the segment sales and the equipment based services business. Our book to-bill ratio in the third quarter was 0.98 without the PAS deferred revenue and 0.7 with the PAS deferred revenue. Our actual booking amount in the third quarter of 2011 was $58 million which is a positive trend as you can see from the chart. On slide 11, you can see that gross profit margins was 38.4% for the third quarter of 2011, compared to 19.7% in the third quarter of 2010. Gross profit margin for the first nine months of 2011 was 36.2%, an improvement from 28.9% in the corresponding period of 2010. As we mentioned earlier the improvements in gross margin was primarily the result of increased sales of TTM products with higher gross margins as well as improved margins in the China market. In addition gross profit in…

Jack Lu

Management

Thank you, Jim. In closing, we will like to turn your attention to our 2011 outlook. Firstly, our total revenue OpEx and annual break even outlook remains unchanged. We expect our total revenues for full year 2011 to be in the same range of $300 million to $320 million and our annualized operating expenses less than $100 million. Secondly, as Jim mentioned earlier, our OSS business will play an important role in our company’s future growth and the profitability. We’ve been very particular in the deliveries in identifying acquisition targets and the revenue sharing partners. Our goal is to find the most suitable targets at the right valuation and as such we had a very rigorous intelligence process. We hope Director will be patient regarding this new business line as we push to provide increased value to our shareholders. Now, I’d like to take any questions you may have. Thank you all for listening. Operator, please open the line for Q&A

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). Our first question is from Mr. Jun Zhang of Wedge Partners. Please go ahead. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Hello.

Operator

Operator

Mr. Zhang, are you there? Mr. Zhang have you placed your phone on mute? My apologies, it appears as though Mr. Zhang, may not be hearing us. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Hello.

Operator

Operator

Mr. Zhang, are you there? Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Yes.

Operator

Operator

Please go ahead. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Sorry, I muted the phone. Hey, Jack and Jing.

Operator

Operator

Please go ahead. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Hey, Jack and Jing.

Jack Lu

Management

Hi. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Congrats on the third quarter. I have two questions, one is I would like Jack to talk about the cable spending in China. I just saw you announce a great deal with Wasu Digital. So I think may be Jack could talk about the outlook for the business from cable side and the mix between the cable and telecom business going forward. Thanks.

Jack Lu

Management

So, while people still keep a very high interest on China’s triple convergence network – convergence. So we still keep the preliminary market analysis that we have from the third party analysis. So the total spending related to three network convergence in the next three years will be reach as high as RMB688 billion, including about RMB250 billion per agreement in a network building and also RMB440 billion related to active media user demand. So both factors are actually of our targeted market. So now we are fully engaged in agreement and network build up and while increasingly get involved in the active media user demand as well. According to our information and also I just mentioned, the Chinese government is going to announce the second – bunch of trial cities by the end of this year or sometime early next year. That might answer your question. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Yes, thanks. The other question, talk about – you mentioned earlier about – the cash auditing and – do you have any updates on that? And also could you talk a little bit about the outlook for the cash burn in the – in the remaining of this year? And what’s your plan for the next year? Thanks.

Jin Jiang

Management

Okay. Let me address your first question regarding the cash clarification process. Currently, the audit committee is carrying out an independent cash confirmation procedure and we will be able to report the outcome once it is complete. And I think it will be fairly soon, you will be seeing a report. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Okay. Thanks.

Jin Jiang

Management

Okay. And then, to answer your second question, I think you’re asking about the Q4 cash flow forecast, right. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Yeah, right.

Jin Jiang

Management

As I have mentioned, I think it is going to be our continuing effort to improve our cash flow performance and we have a few initiatives that we’re looking at to improve that performance. And Q3 result is a very normalized level for the company and we anticipate Q4 will pretty be – pretty close to Q3 levels. Jun Zhang – Wedge Partners: Okay. That’s great. Thanks. Thanks a lot. That’s all my question. Congrats again on the good great quarter. Thank You.

Jack Lu

Management

Thank You.

Jin Jiang

Management

Thank You.

Operator

Operator

(Operators Instruction). Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Oh! I apologize; someone just came into the question queue. One moment please. The next question is from Jon Gruber with Gruber & McBaine. Please go ahead. Jon Gruber – Gruber & McBaine: Good morning. Question on outlook for 2012, what is the revenue outlook for 2012 given that we have to overcome the 96 million that goes away in ‘11. So how do you see 2012 revenue at this juncture?

Jin Jiang

Management

Hi Jon. At this moment we’re really not ready to give out the outlook for next year. We will share with you as our visibility towards 2012 in more beginning of next year. Looking forward towards 2012, we are anticipating a healthy growth of our business, primarily driven by a steady pipeline of PTN products and also the opportunity that we mentioned today in the China domestic cable market. Jon Gruber – Gruber & McBaine: I mean, do you see, what’s the – earlier, you thought was, you possibly could have flat revenue which would entail a very healthy growth in the base business because of the 96 million dropping off, I mean, is that – that doesn’t seem real possible now, is it – is that possible?

Jin Jiang

Management

I think we will – currently the company is going through a very rigorous budgeting and forecasting process. And I think we will – once we have more visibility, we will share with you probably in the beginning of next year. Jack Lu Maybe I can just add more. So, although we don’t have the accurate and the final budgeting and forecasted result, but basically we will pursue the growth of real business and the real revenue that is out of the addressed business (inaudible) in the part from organic growth of our equipment sales and there were also some parts from our OSS and potentially also M&A for our OSS portion, but we really don’t have the exact number at this moment, but we still confident that the health grows from our current business is possible. Jon Gruber – Gruber & McBaine: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Lily Wu with TGRA Capital. Go ahead please. Lily Wu – TGRA Capital: Yes, hi. I was wondering if you could give us some color on services revenue – the equipment services was a decrease, I guess for this quarter due to the phase-out of PHS and operational support services is still relatively small. Was it fair to assume that services should be a growth driver in the future? And how do you envision that happening?

Jin Jiang

Management

Our service revenue mainly consists of few portions. One is our Equipment Related Services, and the other one is our new Operational Support Services. And we are anticipating our Operational Support Services to generate a higher profit margins compared to our equipment service relate – Equipment Related Services. Jack Lu And as you mentioned the PHS along with the PHUA service stayed out, the Equipment Related Services is going down that is foreseeable. And for the OSS portion, we will achieve that from a combination of organic development from internal just like our iTV.cn and our revenue partnership with some local operators – cable operators and some highly selective M&A that aligned with our overall strategy. So that is our direction to arrive at. Lily Wu – TGRA Capital: Okay.

Jack Lu

Management

But, sorry, but OSS as you know it is still in early stage but we have to keep our commitment to invest and in that both capital and resources to make it happen. Lily Wu – TGRA Capital: Okay. So we can – what’s the timeframe for OSS in terms of, if we look at organic growth or M&A opportunities. Is that something that will be meaningful in 2012 or still at a very low level?

Jack Lu

Management

I don’t think it is right time to give a very accurate forecast, but you can see we just – for example we just launched our Internet TV services in U.S. And we are engaged in Internet TV service authorization in Southeast Asian countries. Sorry, I can’t just due to competition reason, we are not allowed to disclose the operator’s name. But along with, we first were agreed to pursue healthy and rapid growing of subscriber numbers, and then we can see the income and revenue from subscription and also advertising income. So that takes some time. For me, I think we need to see at least one or two quarters, and gradually we’re going to build up the revenue growing and also subscriber growing models at that time. Lily Wu – TGRA Capital: Okay, great. Thanks. We look forward to that.

Jack Lu

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the conference back to management for closing comments.

Jing Ou Yang

Management

Thank you for joining us on our third quarter 2011 earnings conference call. We look forward to updating you on our fourth quarter 2011 result in a few months time. Feel free to get in touch with us any time if you have further questions concerns or comments. Thank you everyone.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect your lines.