Universal Electronics Inc. (UEIC) on Q1 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Operator: Good day. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the First Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kirsten Chapman, LHA Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Kirsten Chapman: Thank you, Mary, and thank you all for joining us for the Universal Electronics First Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. By now you should have received a copy of the press release. If you’ve not please contact LHA at 415-433-3777 or visit the Investor Relations section of the website. This call is being broadcast live over the Internet. A webcast replay will be available for one year at uei.com. Any additional updated material non-public information that might be discussed during this call will be provided on the company’s website where it will be retained for at least one year. You may also access that information by listening to the webcast replay.
Paul Arling: Good afternoon and thanks for joining us today. During the first quarter of 2021, we continued to leverage our strengths of technology innovation, strong customer relations and operational excellence to deliver results as guided. Net sales were $150.7 million, gross margin was 31.4% and EPS was $0.89 per share. In mid-March, many of you joined us for our Investor Day, during which we highlighted our core tenants and demonstrated our latest technology. The event was very well received. In case you missed it, we hosted a Virtual Mini CES for our investors, analysts and interested parties. During the event, we provided an overview of our business operations, reviewed go-to-market strategies in our primary sales channels and provided in-depth product demonstrations and new feature capabilities that will be – we will be introducing later this year. You can catch the webcast on our newly revamped website. I’ll summarize the key takeaways and add in a few of the examples we showcased. UEI creates smarter living. Our wireless device innovation leads the industry as evidenced by numerous accolades for our voice control, QuickSet and other connectivity solutions. Last week, our Nevo Butler Entertainment and Smart Home Hub won Red Dot Design Award. Other new products presented at the Investor Day included the QuickSet widget, a turnkey connectivity solution that adds intelligence and QuickSet Cloud to connected products and enables digital transformation of the customer experience. The UEI comfort family in ambient aware line of connected Thermostats and UEI Virtual Agent, our AI powered technology that enables self-help capabilities for device onboarding and troubleshooting on any screen. Our intellectual property has an increasing array of applications that continues to broaden potential use cases and enable us to diversify our markets served, including providers of in-home entertainment, security, IoT, HVAC, hospitality, home automation, and any combination thereof. Many of our largest customers have embraced our product and technology roadmaps and we continue to work alongside them to integrate our solutions into their next-generation platforms. Such names is Samsung, LG, Sony, Comcast, AT&T, Dish, Liberty, Sky and Charter to name a few have been working with us for years to ensure they continually delight their users. Some others are newer and/or requested confidentiality, regardless, when cable, satellite, consumer electronics, home automation and telecom providers want advanced wireless control technology, UEI is consistently selected as the preferred provider.
Bryan Hackworth: Thank you, Paul. First, I’ll review the results for the first quarter of 2021 compared to the first quarter of 2020. Net sales were $150.7 million compared to $152 million for the first quarter of 2020. Our focus increase in R&D spend over the past couple of years has favorably impacted our sales mix as both royalties and high margin chip sales have increased substantially over this time period, including Q1 2021 over the prior year quarter.
Paul Arling: Thanks, Bryan. Consumer entertainment and smart living choices continue to grow, expanding home entertainment and home automation markets as well as creating the opportunity for the convergence of the two. Our ongoing strategic investment in product development, innovation and intellectual property, continually broadens our advanced technologies, which will fuel both our product and technology licensing opportunities. We know the path to grow fast twist in turns. And in our 35 plus years of operation we have definitely managed all headwinds that came our way. There is no doubt we will do so again. What’s critical is that we have established protocols and an experienced team that can quickly address challenges to mitigate short-term impacts. Importantly, we maintain our focus on the future and we are confident we will continue to exceed customer and end consumer expectations to drive long-term stakeholder value. Many leading home control companies particularly in HVAC have adopted our platforms for their next generation products. Most of the leading home entertainment companies on this planet have chosen our products and technologies for configuration, control and ease of everyday use within their new advanced hybrid platforms. Given the leadership position we have achieved within our industry, we’ve never been more excited about our future prospects. As always stay tuned. Operator, we can now open up the call for questions.
Operator: Thank you. First question comes from the line of Jeff Van Sinderen of B. Riley and Company. Your line is now open.
Jeff Van Sinderen: Yes, hi. I guess first of all, let me say, terrific work on the bottom line for the quarter. I guess if there’s any more you can give us on what you’re experiencing in supply chain for components. It sounds like, it didn’t impact your business for Q1, but that there are two elements in sales relevant to supply for Q2, it sounds like both for you and then for some of the customers that you supply? I guess what is the outlook do you think or relief or improvement in component supply? And then finally, do you think that the tight supply will be limited to the current component shortages or are there other components that aren’t being impacted currently that are of concern going forward? There’s a lot in that.
Bryan Hackworth: Yes, no, problem. This is – hey, Jeff, it’s Bryan. Yes, you’re correct in that. In Q1, the component shortage issue didn’t really affect us very much at all, but the component issue, it’s fluid, it’s changing sometimes week-to-week. I think our ops team continues to work closely with suppliers and they’ve taken several steps to mitigate the issue, such as qualifying more suppliers, they are providing forecast for the remainder of the year, they’re spot buying and they’re working with customers to qualify substitute parts. So they’ve done a great job. As of today, I don’t think the effect on the back half of the year will be appreciably different than what we mentioned for Q2. So I mean it’s fluid. We’re playing it day-by-day, but right now I don’t see anything or any reason why the back half would be much different than the effect we said will take place – that we think will take place in the second quarter.
Jeff Van Sinderen: Okay, fair enough. And then any other color you can give us on how you’re thinking about, just overall, the – I mean you gave a little bit there, but kind of thinking beyond as far as the quarterly revenue and margin progression. Are there are other components, we need to think about as far as gross margin for remainder of the year based on what you can see today. I guess I’m just wondering, do you think that Q3 given the component tightness, do you think the Q3 will still ramp? Do you think that’s your largest revenue quarter of the year or how should we think about it?
Bryan Hackworth: From revenue, it’s difficult to tell. Right now, we’re still seeing lockdown still has effects. I know certain places and certain jurisdictions are opening up. But as we mentioned in the prepared remarks that currently in North America, we still see operators that are on their old system, there is ordering less so, trying to predict exactly when things will accelerate is difficult right now. I mean I think as Paul mentioned, things are going well and different parts of the business, where Europe, we’ve launched some new platforms are going well, APAC with the TV OEMs is going extremely well. So there’s definitely some pluses in the business. Right now, I think from a North American standpoint, we’re going to open up, things are going to get back to normal, but right now, it’s hard for me to predict exactly when that acceleration will take place. From a gross margin perspective, that’s always difficult to predict. I don’t like to quantify that specifically. And I think right now, you always have pluses and minuses, when it comes to gross margin. I mean you got fluctuations in foreign currency rates. You’ve got commodity pricing. But then you also have favorability and royalties growing. So there’s pluses and minuses throughout the gross margin line, and so far, I think we’ve done a great job in keeping that 30% plus margin. So I think we’re still in good shape.
Jeff Van Sinderen: Okay. Thanks for taking my questions and good luck for the rest of the quarter.
Bryan Hackworth: Thank you.
Paul Arling: Thanks.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Greg Burns of Sidoti and Company. Your line is now open.
Greg Burns: Yes, gentlemen. The component to supply shortages that’s in any one particular product or with one any one particular customer. Was it vocalized or just kind of broad-based across the company?
Paul Arling: Yes, I wouldn’t say it’s a specific customer. It’s basically the integrated circuit components and some of the ancillary products, like you get some boosters and accelerometers and things of that nature, but it’s basically the integrated circuits that’s a worldwide shortage on. We went through something similar just a couple of years ago with the capacitor issue. You probably remember where we had – there was a worldwide shortage, we had to go out, we had to bid for products. So this isn’t the first time this has happened. We’ll get through this. There’ll be eventually supply or equal demand. But in the short term, this is a little of an issue, we have to navigate it but, like I mentioned a few months ago, I think our operations team has done a very good job in doing everything they can to mitigate the effect.
Greg Burns: Okay. And is this limiting or delaying any projects like being rolled out? Is it impacting kind of existing customers, existing programs or is it also kind of delaying the rollout of some of these projects you’ve talked about in the past?
Paul Arling: No, it hasn’t delayed the launch dates or projects at all. It’s just some we’ll get the orders in and because of the supply shortage, like I said for Q2, I think we’re – our best guess is that we’re going to maybe shorten about $5 million on sales relative to the demand forecast. But it hasn’t – it has not adversely affected the launch dates or any projects to date.
Greg Burns: Okay. And then maybe you can give us an update on some of the projects you’ve talked about in the past. It sounds like you’re making some progress on – in the hospitality market. I know you’ve talked about having an Apple TV customer too preparing to rollout. Maybe you could just give us an update on some of these advanced control technology projects you’ve talked about in the last couple of quarters, the timing and the progress you’re making in terms of rollout there and then on maybe the rest of the year in terms of convert some more projects in your pipeline? Thank you.
Paul Arling: Sure. Yes. As far as some of the projects are concerned, hospitality, which you were asking about, we have a lot of great ideas on features in products for that segment, for environment control and of course AV control. Obviously that industry went into a real difficult spot during COVID. So it is slowly emerging. They are beginning to engage on their futures and frankly some of the ideas we have actually help on that front for touchless control and smart control of your home away from home, which is the lodging industry. So there is a lot of traction there with designs. They probably won’t affect much as far as our financials this year, but we think it’s an important – hotels will come back ultimately and they are your home away from home. Your home has gotten a lot smarter over the last 10 years. The hotel rooms that you stay in, you probably haven’t stayed in one in a while, but there the technology that was in your home often 10 years ago. So the lodging industry will transform over the course of the next years to give you a smarter experience and we have a lot of product that will bring that about in that area. As far as the Apple project is concerned, we can’t talk a lot about a lot of details there. There are many customers engaged on that product, and you’ll see results on that this year. Just generally, this whole movement toward hybrid platforms, Apple is built a – as always a brilliant product here that bridges the gap between linear TV, Live TV and all of the SVOD or AVOD apps that people enjoy, the Netflix, Prime, etc and an easy to use interface to use all of that and are working with MVPDs across the world to implement this as a solution. So you’ll see some activity on that as this year progresses. We’re already shipping units, but you’ll see more on this as larger and larger customers go into launch on this very product. At that point, we are hoping to be able to talk about a little bit more detail, but of course we have to let our customers lead the way on that. We also will have Nevo Butler out this year. We’re working with a – as we’ve said before, a major telecom. They are still working on the technical development, but it’s getting closer to the date of launch, and again we’ll have more on that as time progresses. So a lot of interesting things going on. There is obviously a lot of operators that had been working on advanced platforms, hybrid platforms, voice driven, IP-enabled that we’ve launched this year. And we’ve had a lot of success as I mentioned earlier in Europe, with some of the major players there launching those products. So that’s helped a little bit.
Greg Burns: Okay. So, Bryan, you talked about kind of the North American market still being a little bit impacted by COVID. My thought was always you had these incremental projects kind of rolling out to pickup that slack and the momentum on those will build throughout the year and kind of help to offset that. Is that kind of...
Bryan Hackworth: Yes.
Greg Burns: Still a valid view for how the year could progress, I mean with all – with these kind of newer projects rolling out, gaining some momentum as the year progresses. Should we expect the back half of the year to be stronger than the first half on shortages side?
Paul Arling: Yes, that – Greg, that would be our expectation. Obviously any operator in any of the high ARPU markets here in North America, in Europe, etc, many of the major markets in Asia, anybody who is in those markets is – that – wishes to grow into the future is building these hybrid platforms. The platforms, we’re talking about that have been struggling during COVID are not the modern hybrid platform, they are typically a point-to-point solution, many times IR controlled, infrared controlled, with no IP backdrop. So these products are difficult to install. So, they require a human to come into your home typically. I mean, I suppose it’s possible for a consumer to install them, but that would be about 1% of consumers, 99% of people will not attempt to install these systems. And they’ve struggled. So as those companies move to these advanced platforms, it will bring with it the ability to self-install. So these products can essentially be put on your front door step and you could take them in the house, plug them into the wall, plug the devices into each other and software takes over, including QuickSet and QuickSet Cloud. So there are implementations of that that are – have yet to be seen, and we’re working with customers to get that done, and as that happens, more and more of these platforms will be unaffected by things like COVID, because again as soon as a consumer can self-install, it’s simple for them to do themselves. But we still – we’ve had that issue for the last year during COVID and as Bryan highlighted, while we are – while it seems we are beginning to emerge from the difficulty of COVID-19, we haven’t completely opened up yet. Consumers are still – many consumers are still reluctant. So I don’t think we’re back to normal yet. We’re not back to 2019 environment yet. Do we think we’ll get there? Well, of course, I don’t think this lasts forever. I think it will take time. But in the meantime, we’re going to design programs where it won’t matter. We’re going to design products with customers where none of that will matter. And that’s what we’re doing.
Greg Burns: Okay, great. And Bryan, can you just give us the 10% customers?
Bryan Hackworth: Yes. Comcast was 18.1% and Daikin this quarter was 11.6%. So, there are two 10% customers.
Greg Burns: Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator: There are no further questions in the queue. Paul Arling you may continue.
Paul Arling: Okay, thank you for joining us today, and for your continued support of Universal Electronics. We hope to see you at several investor events. On May 19, we will participate in Needham’s Annual Virtual Technology and Media Conference and in June at Baird’s Global Consumer Technology and Services Conference. We’ll give more details on those as time goes on, but again Needham’s on May 19 and Baird’s in June. Thanks. Thank you again and have a great day.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You many now disconnect. And have a good day.
