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NCR Voyix Corporation (VYX)

Q3 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 18, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. [Operator Instructions] Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. And I'd now like to introduce the Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Gavin Bell. Sir, you may begin.

Gavin Bell

Analyst

Thank you, Michelle. Good afternoon, and thanks to everyone for joining us for our third quarter 2012 earnings call. Bill Nuti, NCR's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will lead our conference call this afternoon. After Bill's opening remarks, Peter Leav, EVP and President, Industry and Field Operations, will update you on progress with respect to certain key initiatives. Bob Fishman, NCR's Chief Financial Officer, will then provide comments on NCR's total company financial results. Our discussion today includes forecasts and other information that are considered forward-looking statements. While these statements reflect our current outlook, they are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially. These risk factors are described in NCR's periodic filings with the SEC and in our annual report to stockholders. On today's call, Bill will be referring to a presentation posted on our website. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial information such as free cash flow and results excluding the impact of pension and other items. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial results to our reported and forecasted GAAP results and other information concerning such measures are included in our earnings press release and are also available on the Investor page of NCR's website. A replay of this conference call will be available later today on NCR's website, ncr.com. For those listening to the replay of this call, please keep in mind that the information discussed is as of October 18, 2012, and NCR assumes no obligation to update or revise this information, including this conference call, whether as a result of new information or future results. Before I turn the call over to Bill Nuti, I wanted to update you with respect to the company's internal investigation of the anonymous allegations of a purported whistleblower, as previously disclosed in our Form 8-K filed on August 14, 2012. Together with our outside counsel, we are making good progress towards completing our internal investigation in a thorough and expeditious manner. The goal of the investigation is to refute those allegations that are untrue and to take appropriate remedial action with respect to allegations that may be true. The company is cooperating fully with the authorities with respect to this matter, including with the Office of Foreign Assets Control; the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is investigating and has served a subpoena on the company; and the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia, through which the company has voluntarily provided requested copies of the whistleblower communications. In addition, the Board of Directors has received a demand letter from an individual shareholder demanding that the board investigate and take appropriate action in connection with certain of the whistleblower allegations. The board has formed a special committee to investigate and respond to the demand. Given that our investigation is ongoing, we will have no further comment on this matter during the earnings call. With that, I will now turn the call over to Bill Nuti.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes, thank you, Gavin, and good afternoon to all of you. I'm going to take you through some key takeaways from the third quarter, highlights of our lines of businesses and then really talk a bit about Radiant. And well, we're now about a year into the acquisition, and I promised all of you at this time to give you an update on how we are doing. I also want to talk a bit about operational excellence today from the point of view that while NCR has orchestrated a growth-oriented strategy and executed well, we remain focused on the fundamentals, on the basics of running our company. And then I'll close my section with a pension update and give you a view to where we are today vis-à-vis pension. Everything I discuss will be drilled down on both by Peter and Bob subsequent to my initial comments. Let me refer to you Slide #3 in the deck. The title slide is Q3 2012 Key Takeaways. The first comment I'd make is that I'm pleased with our overall revenue growth, 6% as reported, 9% growth on a constant currency basis. The growth really stems from a variety of areas, but it really does, I think, underpin the diversity of NCR, the great diversity of the number of industries we are in, the number of geographies we're in and product segments. Gross margin has been a great story for NCR for a long time. We have executed well relative to a consistent gross margin improvement plan, and we hit a record in Q3. Our gross -- operational gross margin was up 260 basis points to 27.3%, an excellent performance on the part of this team, driven by software and software revenues, as well as good performance on the part of the core…

Peter A. Leav

Analyst

Thank you, Bill. As Bill mentioned, Q3 revenues increased 6% on an as-reported basis and 9% on a constant currency basis. Excluding the impact of the timing of orders in Brazil, total global orders in Q3 were down 4% on a constant currency basis. Quarter-ending backlog was up 7% constant currency versus last year's Q3. Given our current outlook for Q4 orders, we expect total year-end backlog to be up approximately 10% on a constant currency basis. As a reminder, orders do not include hospitality, consumables or customer services. In Financial Services, our customers around the world remain enthusiastic about our technologies and solutions and continue to see NCR as a critical business partner that can help them improve customer service levels, deploy converged multichannel solutions and distinguish them from the competition. Overall, the business is healthy, and new technologies that help point the way to branch transformation serve as an underlying driver for ongoing demand for our solutions. Branch transformation can ultimately be larger than the ATM business, and we are extremely pleased with the results of current pilots underway. One solution under the umbrella of branch transformation is our APTRA Interactive Teller, which incorporates integrated 2-way video conferencing capabilities that give bank customers access to a live teller capable of delivering a multitude of in-branch transactions both during and after typical branch hours. APTRA Interactive Teller is securing new wins for us. The FirstOntario Credit Union became the first Canadian financial institution to deploy APTRA Interactive Teller, while Dollar Bank will be deploying the technology in multiple locations in Pittsburgh. Furthermore, we just announced wins at LowellBank in Massachusetts and Salin Bank in Indiana. APTRA Interactive Teller will enable these institutions to provide more personalized services to their customers around the clock and can run more efficient branch…

Robert P. Fishman

Analyst

Thanks, Peter. NCR's total reported revenue in the second quarter was $1.44 billion, up 6% versus Q3 2011 and up 9% on a constant currency basis. We reported GAAP income from continuing operations of $58 million or $0.35 per diluted share. This compares to GAAP income from continuing operations of $23 million or $0.14 per diluted share in Q3 2011. NCR's results from continuing operations include special items in both periods. Excluding pension and special items, non-GAAP diluted income per share was $0.64 per share in Q3 2012 versus $0.57 in Q3 2011. To analyze NCR's operational performance without the effect of special items and pension expense, please see the supplemental financial schedule included in our earnings press release and the supplementary non-GAAP materials in the slides that Bill referred to earlier that reconcile our GAAP to non-GAAP results. Excluding the impact of special items and pension expense, our Q3 2012 gross margin was 27.3%, up 260 basis points from 24.7% in the prior year period, resulting from higher product and services sales, favorable customer and product mix, including significantly more software, and the continued successful implementation of cost-reduction initiatives. And operating expenses, excluding pension expense and special items, were approximately 16.7% as a percent of revenue due to continued investment in sales and R&D. Non-GAAP income from operations, or NPOI, was $153 million in the third quarter compared to $123 million in the prior year period, an increase of 24%. Segment operating margins for Financial Services slightly decreased to 10.1% versus 10.5%, mainly due to an increased mix of revenues from emerging markets and investment in services and R&D. Retail Solutions increased to 6.7% from 4.1%, mainly due to a favorable mix of revenue, including more software. Hospitality increased to 17.8% from 13.9%. And Emerging Industries increased to 23.4%…

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Thank you, Bob and thank you, Peter. Well, as I mentioned in the upcoming statements or the original statements I made about the quarter, I'm pretty pleased with how Q3 shaped up for the company. We had solid revenue growth. I'm particularly pleased in terms of where we are going and the progress we've made on gross margins. Our focus in terms of shaping our revenue stream for tomorrow, more software, more recurring high-margin revenue, is on track and in some cases, ahead of our expectations. We are pleased with the increasing guidance vis-à-vis NPOI, and in doing so, making investments in the business we know will pay dividends long term and with some headwinds, a higher share count being one of them and higher interest expense being the other. We're generating more cash as an organization. That, to me, is always an important -- or the important metric in running a company. And I feel great about the kind of cash flow we'll be able to deliver next year. And operationally, this company is performing quite well across the board. On the balance sheet, we're on the right path vis-à-vis pension to continue to de-risk and also to improve volatility going forward, and we'll be better positioned next year to take the next steps. With that, we'll go to questions. Thanks. Operator, please open up to questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from Katy Huberty.

Kathryn L. Huberty - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

Great quarter on a tough environment. I just want to ask about order growth in Retail and ATMs. How did it compare to the single-digit growth last quarter if you exclude Brazil? And then specifically on the Retail business, you talk about 5 big customer wins this quarter, improving order and backlog growth. What is the offset in the business that's causing the downtick in growth for the year as you look to the fourth quarter?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes. The way I'd characterize it for you, Katy, is Financial Services, when you kind of strip out everything and you look at it in a company level, I think the company level number is more telling, it was -- we're down slightly year-on-year. But again, very difficult compares. And frankly, the order volume we're seeing in Q4 is encouraging across the board but particularly in Retail. Retail, frankly, was up on a like-for-like basis in Q3. Again, that's the second quarter in a row. In the mid-single digits, very solid. And we're encouraged with the Q4 outlook for Retail as well. So I think we're in good position in both markets. I think Financial Services had a more difficult quarter than Retail but not by much. And again, the tough compare doesn't make that any easier.

Kathryn L. Huberty - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

And the reason you're not seeing an uptick in revenues in 4Q off of the better orders in Retail is just a matter of timing?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

It's all about timing, yes. Some of these deals will be large, and they'll roll out over time. In fact, I suspect we'll be announcing one of them here shortly in the next week or 2 that you'll see and you'll recognize, and you'll understand why it will take some time to roll out. So these are big deals, important deals for us and in great segments like self-checkout, and they'll take several quarters to roll out.

Operator

Operator

Kartik Mehta.

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Analyst

Bill, I was just wondering if you could provide a little bit more perspective on ATM growth by region just because I saw that on a constant currency basis, the segment was up pretty good at 8%. But I think you also made some comments that maybe Middle East, Africa might be a little slow. So just getting just your perspective on how the regions currently look.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes. On the revenue side -- let me just give you some perspective and color here. So if you look at region revenue and you look at the Americas, for example, in financial, they were up slightly year-on-year. It was a pretty good quarter, actually, for the Americas. Europe was about flat year-on-year, which is a good -- actually, good outcome. I think I've been signaling that Europe will be flat for the most part for a while now, and that's been consistent. On the AMEA side, which is Asia, Middle East and Africa, the MEA portion of that is doing well. It's very solid and continues to do well. It's really portions of Asia that are a bit slower. So the fact that we were down a bit in AMEA is largely as a result of some secular markets. I think China was probably one of the ones that were down a bit for us, but MEA was strong. Japan, Korea, really not a lot to talk about there, Kartik. And then in Brazil, just a very difficult compare because of the lumpiness of that business. But from a revenue perspective, it was up almost 350%. So obviously, it looks big, and the dollars are getting a lot bigger. But again, it's lumpy.

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Analyst

And then just finally, Bill, on the margins on the ATM side, year-over-year decline. And one of the reasons you stated in the press release, and you said so on the call, was just the growth in the emerging markets. And then it sounds like from the order perspective and everything you're doing, the emerging markets are doing well there. Would that imply that the margin pressure could continue into -- over the next couple of years as that business continues to grow?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Well, that's not the plan. And I don't mean that to sound cute, Kartik. It's just the good news is that we're having great success in markets like Brazil and other emerging markets. And we're still young from an operational point of view in these markets and learning how to be better and drive out cost. I do think we're going to get better and better over time in places like India and in Brazil and other low-margin markets. So I would not characterize these markets as having a dampening effect frankly on our gross margins going forward or operating margins going forward. As we get better there, and we compare ourselves to where we are today, they're going to get better, and in some cases, significantly better. So I feel good about the penetration we've had in the emerging markets. I feel good that our team is working on cost improvement programs and taking ourselves from immaturity to maturity, and our operational supply chain is an example. And I feel good about the extension of our business into other spaces in these markets, like branch automation being an example. I mean, just to put something in perspective for you, there are 200,000 branches in China alone, and that's a market we're just now getting into. So I'd say that I think on an operating income basis, what you're seeing in Q3, yes, some mix of emerging market revenue that impacts us because it's at lower margin, and we'll fix that, but also the investments in services we made in the quarter negatively impacted the operating income margin. And that won't go on forever as well. But we are going to continue to invest there because we want to make sure our service levels are best in class, and we're dedicated to doing that. We think by developing a service capability that's really, quite frankly, a competitive advantage in the market, we can gain even more share over time.

Operator

Operator

Ian Zaffino. Ian A. Zaffino - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: A couple of questions here. Can you give us a little -- and I might have missed this because I hopped in a little bit late. But can you give us an update on what OFAC [ph] is doing as far as internal investigations, how you look at it when we should get a resolution, what they found and kind of where you're leaning?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

It's Bill. Yes, at the front end of the call, you missed it. But Gavin kind of went through an overview, and he can take you through that offline if you like. We'd love to talk about this issue more than we can today, but we want to respect the process underway. We want to respect the fact that we're working with the regulators on closing this out. We did -- by the way, we do think we're getting closer to the end of the internal investigation. So we feel good about that. So ultimately, I think the best option is to talk with Gavin after the call, and he'll kind of run you through the script. Ian A. Zaffino - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Okay. But basically -- I mean, I can pull it up myself. But basically, I mean, the resolution is something that we should expect in the next, call it, 3 to 6 months? Or is it something that we should expect to drag on for longer than that?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

So the goal is to have the internal investigation done, the independent internal investigation on our side, shortly. So I think 3 to 6 months is reasonable. Ian A. Zaffino - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Okay, good. And then help me square the circle a little bit. We've seen some of your competitors report less-than-stellar results, and yours have been significantly better. Maybe just a different way, maybe help us understand how the market is growing, where the market is growing and how you're growing vis-à-vis the market and kind of what's helping that or what's aiding that?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

So I think both myself and Peter will take this one on. First of all, I think what is important to recognize about NCR is the diversity of the businesses we are in and the number of industries we're in and how big they have become. This is a message for my team. I don't think they get enough credit for the strategic execution over the many years we've been working on our plan together here to build a very diverse business that can, if needed, withstand any particular issues in any geography or industry. So we're not, if you will, so sensitive to an industry that may move in a different direction or a particular geography. Secondly, as it relates to financial, in particular, first of all, I have a lot of respect for Diebold and Wincor and all of our competition in that space, and I think they're great companies. I want to say that at the outset. But they are niche competitors in a given industry for us. And they're international competitors when we're a global company, meaning most of our competition is competing with us in key markets. For example, you might find one of them just a European-based company, another just really a U.S. and Brazilian-based company. NCR is a global platform in financial. We also have executed well with regard to market share gains, to be very candid with you, and we're proud of that. We've put a lot of focus on gaining more share in the Financial Services space, and the team under Peter's leadership has executed brilliantly, particularly in the Americas and the U.S. So when it comes to individual markets, we have competitors in each one of these markets. We are very focused on them. We're quite a competitive culture here,…

Peter A. Leav

Analyst

I think just to echo a few comments and add a few, we've been very focused on the strategy in Financial, and much of that had to do with the opportunities that we saw globally from a market share gain perspective. So Bill talked a bit earlier about hundreds of new accounts in the U.S. market. And as Bill outlined, much of that had to do with technology, as we discussed, SDM and other technology that you'll continue to see on the branch side that continues to help us differentiate ourselves and our customers differentiate themselves. We also have been very focused on market share gains, as you all know, in Brazil, more recently in India, which has been a big focus for us, and in Latin America. So that continues to be a key area for us within the confines of financial. But I think looking at the company, the balance and the broad portfolio, we talked about Radiant contribution, our bullishness on Retail and where we're headed, the travel business continuing to really make strides. And I think one other key differentiator is we are a truly global services organization that cover the gamut, and that's continuing to serve us well. So just a few additional comments on differentiation.

Operator

Operator

Zahid Siddique. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: I have a couple of questions. One, in your ATM business, did your margins get impacted by a higher portion of regional banking business? Or was the margin compression mainly from emerging markets? That's my first...

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Let me answer the first one, Zahid. The answer is no. We had a good regional mix in the quarter, frankly. So -- and by the way, regional bank revenue was up 60% year to date. So we had a good mix in the quarter. We are having great success on the year, and that does help us. This particular quarter, the margins were slightly down as a result of a higher mix coming from emerging markets like India, like Brazil in particular, and of course, the investments we decided to make proactively in services, which were significant and obviously would hit the Financial Services line of business in terms of contribution more than others. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: How much was the regional revenue up in the quarter?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

I don't know the answer. Do you know the answer to that?

Robert P. Fishman

Analyst

Largely flat to up slightly in the quarter in just Q3, Zahid. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: Yes, yes. And then I might have missed this, did you mention the ATM orders for Q3?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

No, we did not. No, we did not. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: Is that something that you can mention?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

I think on an overall basis, what we're trying to get focused on, Zahid, is the company's overall orders. What's happening, I think, for us and for you that you need to be mindful of is while orders is a very important metric, it's becoming less relevant because what's not included in the orders metric, for example, orders for consumables, orders for Radiant, for Hospitality and orders for other areas of the business like services and customer services. So we're getting a bit more cautious about using it for each of the lines of business because it's not necessarily reflective of the future quite that well. But I would say this about Financial Services. I think the company is in good position. We wouldn't be raising guidance on revenue if we didn't feel comfortable about our position on the year. And there's no question that to some extent, it slowed down a bit around the world. But we're also encouraged about what can happen in 2013, particularly in branch transformation.

Operator

Operator

Matt Summerville.

Matt J. Summerville - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Bill, just to your last comment, I'm still not sure I understand what you said when you mentioned that orders aren't necessarily reflective of the future. Can you help me understand that? And then for a number of quarters now, you've actually given pretty good order granularity, and it sort of looks to me at a time when things have slowed a little bit, you don't want to give that granularity anymore. And I would sort of argue that you can have it both ways.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

I don't think you can have it both ways, Matt. We're not trying to be cute. I think that when you look at the order numbers for the company and you look at the order numbers for Financial, there's a lot not included in there. And we want to be careful we don't mislead you with regard to what's occurred in the quarter and what's in backlog and what's going forward. So if you look at NCR, we're giving you NCR order numbers. We're kind of telling you where everything is landing for the company in aggregate so you can understand the company outlook for orders and revenue even though the company outlook for orders, again, does not include any activity in Radiant or consumables or customer services. So it's not picking and choosing per se, it's starting to redefine a bit the metrics we use to define our success as a company and what we want to give you going forward.

Matt J. Summerville - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay. From a regional standpoint, can you give some sort of granularity -- I mean, well, here. I'll just ask it this way. So basically, you've gone from giving a lot of order data to just giving the total company, and that's the way it is going forward even though you've consistently mentioned that your historical order data doesn't include consumables, doesn't include Radiant and Hospitality. I still don't get this change.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Well, if you can -- if you look at our results this quarter, Matt, it's pretty simple. At the end of the day, we had a great quarter. And last quarter, when we gave you order information about Financial, it didn't look so good, but we're raising guidance for Financial. So as you can see, it's not reflective of the business. So we're not trying to not give information to be less transparent, we're actually trying to give information to be more transparent about NCR and NCR's success. So the information we gave in the past was, for example, in regionals, which I just gave I think by the way, was to give you a sense for success we're having in a segment that we were not really participating in. And now we're quite mature in that segment. We're doing quite well. We've had a number of customers that have moved over to NCR. So again, we think that it's important to make sure you have enough information to model out what the company's future looks like. But in financial, had I gave you last quarter's numbers, you would have thought this quarter might not have been so good and our guidance might have come down, but it didn't.

Matt J. Summerville - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then just one last one, and then I'll hop off. Just sticking with regionals, when do you think that group of banks or that market segment starts to come back and go down the road in a more firm fashion towards deposit automation? And what's your assessment of how ready their back office is for that, if you will?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

I think in the regional space, Matt, you're going to continue to see steady implementation in deposit automation. We are seeing it. We're experiencing it. So it hasn't stopped. I think that it depends upon your size though, frankly. Small institutions, credit unions and small banks may not move as aggressively as a result of productivity gains or labor arbitrage or transaction migration simply because the math doesn't work for them. The larger you get, the more the math works for you. There are about 150-ish thousand ATMs left out there to upgrade in that segment and when you combine nationals and regionals together. I think what people tend to take a look at is about half of that space being essentially the market for an Intelligent Deposit Solutions so, call it, 75,000 left to go. And as I said in the past, I think that, that rolls out over the next few years, call it, 2013, '14. And by the way, I think you're also going to see the next generation of deposit automation start to roll out in '14, '15 for large banks. So that's coming next.

Operator

Operator

Our final question is from Gil Luria.

Gil B. Luria - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

I had a couple. You talked a little bit about mobility, but it seems to be a big area of focus. Your acquisition of Radiant was very timely. They were very early innovators in terms of introducing mobility in the Retail and the restaurant context. Can you talk about how that changes your economics in those verticals? So if you have a large Retail or a large restaurant chain that tells you they want to extend their sales force or their servers to more of a mobile platform, but at the same time, buy less cash registers, buy less of the one -- of the hardware that they're buying now, how does that impact your economics? Is this a positive trend for you? What kind of products do you have to serve that population?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

It's a great question, Gil, because it's one of the areas we're focused on internally in terms of development of application. So we cited today on the phone call the fact that we're now delivering about 2.1 million boarding passes a month for mobile check-in at the airport on NCR technology. And we get -- the business model for that is we get paid about $0.11 per download. Similarly, the same business model is in place for Fandango where we're downloading about 0.5 million movie passes right now. And that application alone will be rolled out across all vertical markets over the course of the next few years. And there's various applications. You can think of downloading a ticket to your phone to enter an arena, a stadium, a football game, a soccer game, a concert. You can think about using it for rail and bus and mass transit. You can think about using it for coupons in the Retail space to download mobile coupons. You can think about it in a variety of different applications, and we're working on all of those. So the fact that the Mobiqa acquisition, which was done a few years ago, came with this unique IP and the growth of this space has on fire, we think that we've got a good opportunity to take this technology across all lines of business, including Hospitality, to your point, where Radiant is using this technology or will be using this technology for a variety of loyalty and couponing reasons. Any other comments, John, on that?

John G. Bruno

Analyst

Sure, Bill. This is John Bruno. I'd say that your question surrounded, in addition to Bill's comment, something about the endpoint, it's impact potentially on point-of-sale itself, potentially ATMs themselves and Financial and maybe even self-checkout. And I'll answer your question this way. As a platform, if mobile's integrated into POS, into our self-checkout and into our Financial Services included branch automation, it actually adds greater value to those devices. So we do not see a trend where many people talk about the absence of a point-of-sale terminal in a large retail environment or even in a mid-tier environment because mobile's been introduced into that space. What we're finding is, is that what people are looking for is integration, and that integration is the innovation that we're delivering. Because today, whether it's promotions on a mobile phone or potentially even integration between you as a consumer in a restaurant interacting more directly with the point-of-sale platform to add items to your bill, to see your bill in real time or ultimately to pay for your bill, is driving more value. It's optimizing more workflow, but it is not, it is not slowing down right now the amount of innovation that's going into the POS platform itself. Now we see that over time, change is based on segment, but there's still a lot of rich client functionality that our Tier 1 and Tier 2 customers require in this space, and they're looking for extensions with the mobile platform. And we're working very hard to ensure that our POS software platform integrates not only in the hardware at front end but in the aisles with a mobile phone as well. So that's really the trend we're on, and it's still very early days in that space. And my last point is it's not just the consumer. We have as much demand for store associates, management and others that want to use consumer devices in the aisle to do inventory check, realtime check, see what the performance a particular POS is doing, self-checkout lanes and others. So we're seeing a lot of integration, which Bill mentioned a product called Pulse that we see has a very promising future because it extends operating analytics and customer intimacy and customer resource management across that platform. That's where our focus is, and we see a nice future to that integration.

Gil B. Luria - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then as a follow-on, you bid -- you built NCR Silver really mobile first, and you're talking about having 2,600 sales reps contracted, another 7,500 in the pipeline. What's the nature of those sales reps? Are those your traditional Radiant distributors? Are those merchant acquirers? What's the nature of the sales reps that you referred to?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Most of them initially, Gil, will be merchant acquirers. We will have a retail channel up and running in Q4 for the Christmas season and the tax season, and that retail channel will be announced, we hope, within the next 30 days or sooner than that. We'll have a distribution channel made up of the following: merchant acquirers, where most of the headcount that we talked about today are in that space; we will also have traditional distributors, who sell to the small and medium-sized business, so think about large Master VARs, who have a great network of channel partners that sell into that space, participate. We'll use also online Internet-based retailers, of whom we're talking to right now, and we can't announce anyone yet in that space. And then we'll have feet on the street. We'll have NCR feet on the street, and we'll go out there and on an inside sales and external sales basis, cover some opportunities in dense urban areas.

Operator

Operator

There are no more questions.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Great. Well, thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you again in February.

Operator

Operator

Thanks for participating in today's call. You may disconnect at this time.