Tim Leyden
Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open
Thank you, John. The WD team once again delivered strong results in the September quarter, as we continue to pay attention to the business fundamentals of supply-demand balance, cost management, fixed asset efficiency and conservative cash and working capital management. The macroeconomic conditions during the quarter resulted in a more subdued growth up-tick in September from what we have seen in previous years. Revenue for our first fiscal quarter was $2.1 billion, up 19% from the prior year; hard drive revenue was up 22% from the prior year and 7% sequentially, and hard drive shipments totaled 39.4 million units, up 34% from the prior year and 12% sequentially. Average hard drives selling price was approximately $53, down $3 from the June quarter and $6 from the year ago quarter. Our Q1 ASP reflects the ready availability of comparable products from most competitors across the entire product range, compounded by the continuing competitive pricing environment. We shipped 14.6 million 2.5-inch drives in the September quarter, as compared to 11.7 million in the June quarter, and 5.9 million in the year ago quarter. These increases were driven by continued strength in notebook PC and external storage demand. In consumer electronics, we shipped 3.9 million 3.5-inch drives for use in digital video recorders in the September (inaudible), 4.1 million in the June quarter, and 3.7 million in the year ago quarter. Sequentially, desktop showed sustained growth, branded revenues were essentially flat, and sales of our enterprise products were inline with our expectation. Hard drive channel revenue was 56% OEM, 26 % distribution, and 18% branded products in the September quarter, compared with 57%, 24% and 19% in the June quarter, and 50%, 31% and 19% in the year ago quarter respectively. There was one customer namely Dell, that comprised more than 10% of total revenue. The Q4 geographic breakdown of our hard drive revenue is 22% Americas, 29% Europe, and 48% Asia. As compared to 29%, 25% and 46% in the June quarter, and 34%, 33%, and 33% in the year ago quarter. Our continuing strength in Asia is driven by our increasing 2.5-inch shipment. And though this is the region where the product is requested and integrated by our customers, many of these drives are incorporated in computer products that are marketed and sold in other regions. Our gross margin percentage for the quarter was 20.1% versus 21.3% in the June quarter, and 18% in the year ago quarter. This gross margin was achieved, despite the competitive pricing, through excellent team execution of improvements in cost, resource utilization and product mix, together with increased volume. Our media operation continues to perform in line with our expectation, and we are on track to achieve the 300 basis points cost improvement that we anticipated by the end of the December quarter. Operating expenses totaled $190 million or 9% of revenue, up slightly from the June quarter. As a result of increased R&D spending. As compared to the prior year, R&D expenses are higher due to the integration media operation and the addition of in-house hard disk controller and software development activities, as well as expansion of our new product and technology capabilities. SG&A increases reflect investments in our sales and marketing infrastructure, in support of our expanding product line and customer base. Prior year's operating expenses included $49 million of in-process R&D related to the acquisition of Komag. Operating income was $234 million or 11.1% of revenue. Interest and other non-operating expenses were approximately $4 million. This includes about $3 million of unrealized losses on our previously disclosed investments and option rate securities. These investments totaled $25 million at the end of the quarter. Tax expense for the September quarter was $19 million or approximately 8% of income before taxes. For fiscal 2009, we expect our book effective tax rate to range between 7% and 10%, as we take into account our expected continuing profitability and the global mix of income by geographic location. Fiscal 2009's cash tax rate is expected to be between 1% and 2%. Our net income totaled $211 million or $0.93 per share. Turning to the balance sheet; our cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter totaled $1.2 billion, as compared to $1.1 billion at the end of June. We generated $301 million in cash flow from operations during the September quarter. Capital expenditures for the September quarter were $162 million, and our non-cash charges for depreciation and amortization expense totaled $117 million. We now expect fiscal 2009 capital expenditures to be about $750 million, including about $150 million for our ongoing 8-inch wafer fab conversion. This is down from the 800 million that we anticipated in our July call, as we take into account the uncertain demand environment. Depreciation and amortization for fiscal 2009 is expected to be about $475 million. We have repurchased 1.2 million shares of stock at a total cost of $35.6 million during the September quarter. Since May 2004, we have repurchased 17.8 million shares at a total cost of $284 million, for an average price of about $16 per share. A total of $466 million remains under our existing stock repurchase authorization. We believe that in times of economic uncertainty and tightness of credit, a robust cash balance is an important strength. Going forward, and against this background of prevailing market and credit conditions, we will be selective with our cash usage, as we weigh opportunities between growth of the current business, new market entries, strategic investments, share repurchases, and prepayments of the outstanding debt. As of the end of September, we had 47 days of receivables outstanding, 26 days of inventory of 14 times and 66 days of payables. This resulted in the cash conversion cycle up seven days. Before I address Q2 earnings guidance, I want to once again remind you that WD will have a 14 week quarter in this fiscal year, and we will include that extra week in our fourth fiscal quarter that will end on July 3rd, 2009. Now I will discuss our expectations for the second quarter of our fiscal year 2009. First let me outline the market situation as we see it. Historically, the December quarter's sequential unit growth has been in the range of 6% to 9%. However, in light of the current uncertain macroeconomic environment, the tightening of credit worldwide, and the impact of Seagate's 14 week September quarter on current quarter demand, we are modeling on all modest expectations of market demand growth of approximately 5% for the December quarter. We also expect that average setting price on an absolute basis, will show some degradation contrary to historical trends. In addition, you should also note, that for year-on-year competitive purposes, our fiscal Q2 revenue numbers last year included approximately $120 million of revenue for external media sales, as we fulfilled Komag’s pre-acquisition contractual obligation. While we have continued our leadership in 2.5-inch hard drives, with the September launch of our 500 gigabyte WD Caviar Blue hard drives and My Passport mobile stores solution, most HDD competitors are in a position to provide other mainstream capacities across the entire 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch product lines in this quarter. Taking these factors into account, we expect current quarter revenue for WD to be essentially flat quarter-to-quarter. Consequently, we are forecasting total revenues for the current quarter to be between $2.025 billion to $2.15 billion. We are [maddening] gross margins 19.3%. Operating expenses are projected to be approximately $190 million. Our net interest expense is projected to be about $6 million. We anticipate our tax rate to be 7% of pre-tax income and our share count to be approximately flat with the September quarter. Accordingly, we estimate earnings per share of between $0.80 to $0.90 for the December quarter. Operator, we are now ready to open the call for questions.