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Plantronics Inc (PLT) Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

PLT earnings call for the period ending June 30, 2019. Read More...
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<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Plantronics Inc&nbsp;(NYSE: PLT)
Q1&nbsp;2020 Earnings Call
Aug 6, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET” data-reactid=”23″>Plantronics Inc (NYSE: PLT)
Q1 2020 Earnings Call
Aug 6, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks
  • Questions and Answers
  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”30″>Operator

(Starts Abruptly) And I’ll be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Poly Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

It is now my pleasure to introduce the program over to Mr. Mike Iburg. Sir, the floor is yours.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Michael IburgVice President, Investor Relations” data-reactid=”33″>Michael IburgVice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, Jay. Welcome to Poly’s financial results conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020. My name is Mike Iburg, Head of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Joe Burton, President and CEO; and Chuck Boynton, Executive Vice President and CFO.

The information presented and discussed today includes forward-looking statements, which are made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The risks and uncertainties related to such statements are detailed in our most recent 10-Q, 10-K and today’s press release and earnings presentation. Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons discussed today will be to the same quarter and the prior year.

Throughout today’s remarks, we will make reference to specific slides from our Q1 FY’20 earnings presentation. You should also refer to the materials we provided today for an explanation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed in the call along with the reconciliations of those measures to the nearest applicable GAAP measure. These materials are posted on our Investor Relations website at investor.poly.com.

With that I will now turn the call over to Joe.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”38″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Mike, and thank you, everyone for joining us today. Poly delivered strong bottom line results in Q1 driven by synergy execution and cost discipline as we completed our two-year $105 million cost synergy target several quarters ahead of schedule. We’ve also identified additional cost savings that underpin our reiterated full year guidance and our long-term financial model.

In the quarter, as we disclosed in June, we experienced several revenue challenges that were either macro or transitory in nature. At the macro level we were impacted by trade tensions in China. A weaker gaming market and foreign currency headwinds all of which Chuck will address in more detail.

Regarding transitory issues. As we completed our integration, sales channel and systems issues have impacted the quarter. However, with our systems and partners now in place, we’ve seen positive results. In addition, while we have Microsoft Teams products in the markets today, the acceleration of the Skype to Teams transition is putting focus on the Need for Teams solutions. We expect to fully participate in this opportunity when new products are launched in the back half of the year.

As we move forward, the company is focused on the following three areas. First, increasing profitability and cash flow to achieve our delevering targets while achieving our full year profitability guidance. Second, delivering our next generation product road map and third, leveraging the newly implemented go-to-market model to improve sales execution, customer focus and ease of doing business.

Moving to the highlights of the quarter. UC headsets continue to grow at double-digit rates with 12% growth in the quarter leading to 4% growth in our headset category, while desktop phones had a solid quarter growing 7%. Poly Studio revenues more than doubled sequentially as we continue to see strong market adoption of our first huddle room product. With the huddle room category, Poly was recognized by Synergy Research for quickly establishing itself as a top vendor in the USB conferencing market.

Expanding further on our opportunity in the huddle room, Poly Studio was recently certified for Zoom Rooms. Zoom continues to see tremendous success in the huddle room space. We are incredibly pleased to expand our relationship with Zoom and help them deliver the best experience for their customers by leveraging Poly solutions.

For the medium and large conference rooms, we also announced the Poly G7500 content sharing and videoconferencing solution. The first product built on our next-generation video architecture. Looking forward, we have an exciting lineup of new products leveraging this new architecture in the pipeline.

With that I’ll turn the call over to Chuck to discuss the financial results in more detail.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”51″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Joe. As I walk through the financials, I’ll be referencing the specific page numbers in the earnings presentation deck, where you can find the details along with additional information. As Joe outlined, we experienced lower-than-expected non-GAAP revenue this quarter of $460 million up 108% on an as-reported basis, but down 8% on a combined comparative basis.

Slide 18 shows the breakdown by product and geography. Consumer was lower-than-expected driven by the upcoming console gaming refresh cycle. The strategic review of the Consumer business is progressing well. While we can’t guarantee a sale will happen, we believe that if we consummate a transaction it will close before the end of the calendar year.

As Joe mentioned we also experienced a top line FX impact, which was directly offset by a benefit to operating expenses and neutral to the bottom line. Americas results were up sequentially and roughly in line year-over-year. APAC results were directly impacted by trade tensions in China. Given that China this quarter was approximately $15 million of product sales we see minimal incremental downside to the market.

I will cover supply side issues shortly. Finally, while all geographies were affected by the channel and sales consolidation issues that Joe mentioned earlier. The largest impact was in Europe.

Turning to slide 19. Gross margins were up 230 basis points to 55.8% as lower consumer and China revenues provided a positive mix shift and COGS synergies benefited our margin profile. Operating expenses were down $25 million primarily due to cost synergies of $16 million. Favorable FX rates of $5 million and a $4 million benefit from nonrecurring items. We expect run rate operating expenses to be slightly above the results we saw this quarter, but as a percent of sales should continue to decline.

Jumping ahead for a moment to slide 25. As Joe mentioned, we have executed plans that will yield the entire two-year cost synergy target of $105 million significantly ahead of schedule. In today’s results, we realized $20 million of actual savings in the P&L and expect actual savings to increase to $27 million per quarter by fiscal Q4. Now that we’ve completed the integration, the strategic advantage of bringing these two companies together is more apparent than ever.

Having executed on the original two-year synergy plan, we have now identified an additional $40 million of incremental cost saving opportunities allowing us to reiterate fiscal year ’20 earnings guidance and our long-term financial model. As a result of the improvements in gross margin and operating expenses, operating income climbed 19% to $86 million and operating margins improved 420 basis points from 18.6% from 14.4%.

Moving to slide 20. Adjusted EBITDA was $98 million in the quarter up 14%, which brings our trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA at $413 million, a record for the company. Earnings per share was $1.32 above the midpoint of the guidance range due to improved profitability and a favorable non-GAAP tax rate.

Moving to slide 21. We ended the quarter with $206 million in cash and investments roughly right on our corporate target of $300 million of liquidity, which includes our $100 million undrawn revolver. Cash flow from operations was $8 million in the quarter and as expected continued to be significantly impacted by integration and restructuring outflows, which were $41 million.

In addition, working capital continues to impact cash flow. Inventory levels have increased due to lower than forecasted revenues and a temporary increase in inventory as we continue to optimize our supply chain.

As you can see on slide 10, our upstream organization has a flexible manufacturing platform that provides us with a unique ability to shift production capacity quickly. We believe we can leverage our flexible manufacturing strategy to mitigate the recently announced tariffs on August 1st and do not expect a material financial impact.

We see cash generation improving as integration and restructuring payments taper-off and working capital stabilizes. In addition the pending sale of our consumer business may generate additional cash proceeds. We, therefore continue to review our capital allocation strategy. And while we do not see the dividend as a critical element of our strategy, we believe it is appropriate to maintain it at this time.

As outlined previously, we plan to direct excess cash to delever and are confident we can achieve three turns of leverage by the end of this fiscal year. However with the current stock price dislocation, we may opportunistically repurchase shares using the 1.4 million shares currently authorized.

Moving to guidance on slide 24 for Q2. We expect GAAP revenues of $456 million to $496 million. We expect non-GAAP revenues of $465 million to $505 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $94 million to $110 million. And non-GAAP EPS is expected to be in the range of $1.20 to $1.50.

Looking at fiscal year 2020, we are lowering revenue guidance while reiterating our earnings and cash outlook. We expect GAAP revenues of $1.87 billion to $1.97 billion. Non-GAAP revenue of $1.9 billion to $2 billion. We reiterate adjusted EBITDA of $410 million to $460 million and non-GAAP EPS of $5.35 to $6.35.

With that I’ll turn the call back over to Joe. Joe?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”68″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Before we open the call to Q&A, I’d like to speak to the four key industry trends we expect to drive long-term revenue growth for the company.

First, the transition from proprietary PBX systems to cloud-based platforms is driving demand for next-generation endpoints. This transition is in its early stages and will generate increased demand for many years. As the cloud wins, Poly wins, too. Second, the open office increases opportunities as companies tear down walls and repurpose private offices in favor of communal desk and collaborative spaces. In the process, employees are experiencing greater and more numerous distractions. This creates fast growing markets like the huddle room, but also drives long-term growth in existing markets like UC headsets where we offer the broadest portfolio of enterprise headsets equipped with noise cancellation.

Third, companies have a more distributed and flexible workforce than ever before, creating a need for audio and video solutions that enable active collaboration between remote workers, which drives incremental endpoint demand.

Finally, analytics and remote management continue to be differentiators for us. Customers are demanding intelligent endpoints that can do more than simply connect their meetings. Poly products and services allow customers to leverage data to improve communications and generate key insights into their business processes.

Our end markets remain healthy. Next-generation product families such as Voyager and Blackwire headsets, VVX desk phones and Poly Studio continue to grow rapidly and our key partners continue to recommend our products to their growing number of customers. Our cost and cash discipline coupled with our innovative pipeline positions us to create long-term value for our shareholders.

Thank you all for taking the time to attend today’s earnings call. With that I’ll ask the operator to open the call for Q&A. Jay?

Questions and Answers:

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”76″>Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Amit Daryanani from Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst” data-reactid=”78″>Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst

Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I have a couple. First one I was hoping if you guys could just maybe elaborate a little bit on the transitory issues that you guys called out in terms of the revenue headwind. What’s giving you the confidence that these issues are behind you and they’ve been fully resolved? What’s the timeline to get them resolved? Maybe can you just talk about the transitory issues and then how much of the revenue curtailment for the full year of 500, 600 basis points that you guys are doing is related to that versus macro?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”80″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Hi, Amit, this is Joe. I’ll get started on that and Chuck can chime in here and there as well. On the product side really what we were talking about was primarily the Microsoft Skype for Business to Teams transition. So at Poly, of course we have products that work natively with Microsoft Teams and with Microsoft Skype for Business. We’ve been a great partner for theirs for years. Today, our products tend to be native with Skype for Business. Skype for Business is Microsoft’s current generation platform. They’ve had out for several years. They sell Skype for Business. We sell the headsets, the phones, and the videoconferencing endpoints that work with that.

Microsoft announced a year or so they were transitioning from Skype for Business to a new collaboration platform called Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams has a different user experience. And while our older products are compatible with Microsoft Teams, they don’t fully support the native interface that Microsoft is going to have going forward. So, frankly, we’re seeing a little bit of a drop-off in revenues related to that transition until we come out with our native Teams products later in the year.

So, to be real clear, headsets are already fully compatible and natively support both Skype for Business and Teams. On the phone and video sides where we’ve seen this little air pocket. We have native products coming out over the next couple of quarters and we expect this tailwind to actually turn around and become a headwind.

Overall, across the entire year, we expect this to be maybe as much as $70 million total across the products and FX that are related to this. Makes sense?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst” data-reactid=”85″>Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst

Yes. That’s really helpful. And I guess just a couple more for me. In terms of the incremental $40 million in savings, perhaps I missed this, but what’s the split between OpEx versus COGS for the new $40 million of savings and when do you expect to fully realize that?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”87″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Amit, hey, it’s Chuck. Thanks for the question. We haven’t outlined the exact split between COGS and OpEx. It’s probably a little more balanced to COGS versus OpEx and that we’ll get those savings over the next, call it, 18 months. And so that helps us bring our OpEx down. Just in terms of the overall run rate, as I mentioned in the prepared events, OpEx will be a little bit higher than it was this quarter due to some one timers.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst” data-reactid=”89″>Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst

Perfect. I’ll step back in the queue. Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”91″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Amit.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”93″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”95″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Next question?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”97″>Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Greg Burns from Sidoti. Your line is open.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Gregory BurnsSidoti &amp; Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”99″>Gregory BurnsSidoti & Company — Analyst

Hi. Can you just give us a little bit more color on the dynamic in Europe around your sales and channel reorganization kind of how that impacted the quarter from a revenue perspective and your outlook for maybe the headwinds in that transition over the next few quarters? Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”101″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Thanks, Greg. Very shortly as we put the two companies together. We, of course, had a set of distributors that distributed Plantronics. In some cases, a different set of distributors that distributed Polycom.

And what we really needed to do was rationalize come to a single distribution and set of channel partners that could sell headsets, phones, and video on a single contract to make it very, very easy to do business with customers. As we were rationalizing the distributors, rewriting contracts, and putting the sales force together, frankly, we had a lot and a lot of systems issues that we went through.

And we did had a little bit of a pocket where it was slow to take orders, slow to process orders and get that going. This particular quarter, we actually thought that impacted us somewhere in the $10 million or $11 million range. We think that’s broadly behind us, may impact us a couple of million bucks over the next quarter or so, and then we’ll be really position to rock and roll going forward. So, mostly already behind us.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Gregory BurnsSidoti &amp; Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”105″>Gregory BurnsSidoti & Company — Analyst

Okay. And the dynamic in China, how do you see that over the remainder of the year. I mean is this just a function of domestic companies not buying American like what’s driving the decline in China specifically? Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”107″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Well, I think there is certainly the trade tensions in the political environment has been tough. I think for a lot of American companies. We have great products in China, built in China for China and we’re bullish in this trend in the long-term value prop in China for our company.

But this past quarter, we were off approximately $10 million in China. We did sort of hit maybe a low point as our product sales in China were about $15 million. So, we think that there’s things should get better from here, but it’s hard to predict what will happen given the trade tensions.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Gregory BurnsSidoti &amp; Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”110″>Gregory BurnsSidoti & Company — Analyst

Okay. And then I just wanted to go back to the Teams transition. Was this something that accelerated or caught you off guard or it just moved faster than your product development road map was progressing. I just wanted to kind of understand why this has become an issue now?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”112″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

You bet. Combination of two of the things that you said, Greg. So, first of all, the Skype to Teams transition somewhat to Microsoft’s credit has actually gone faster and larger than many of us in the market predicted. So if you would have asked me when I would have expected that to really hit the mainstream, I would have said early next calendar year. And that’s actually pulled in by about six months. People are really making the switch.

Microsoft also announced very recently that Skype for Business is moving toward end of sale. That happened a little quicker than, I think, a lot of the people in the market had thought. So, the transitions happening a quarter or two quicker than we thought.

Also the decision was made by Polycom pre-integration that they were really going to take their time and do their Teams products right. They took a strategy of — maybe not being first to market, but being best to market when they got there. We stayed on that strategy.

We have fantastic products coming out over the next quarter or two and we think we’re going to have some really nice growth in the Teams area when that happens. But we’re out of sequence by a quarter or so.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Gregory BurnsSidoti &amp; Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”117″>Gregory BurnsSidoti & Company — Analyst

Okay, thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”119″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks Greg.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”121″>Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Silverstein from Cowen and Co. Your line is open.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”123″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

Thanks for taking the question, guys. Two or three questions, if I may. First off and I apologize I’m working with [Indecipherable]. So I haven’t had a chance remembering the numbers yet. But you changed revenue guidance and reiterated EPS guidance for the year. Is that all from the reiteration EPS with the lower revenue? Is that due all to OpEx are you also expecting some incremental margin upside in order to maintain that EPS with a lower revenue?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”125″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

So, Paul, it’s Chuck. Thanks for the question. So basically, for the year, we’ve taken from midpoint-to-midpoint revenue down $140 million. Of that, Consumer is $40 million and China is in the neighborhood of $25 million to $30 million. Because China and Consumer have lower margin, there’s a mixed benefit that’s helping us to effectively reiterate earnings and cash guidance.

In addition to that, we’ve pulled in the cost savings that we announced earlier, the $105 million. We pulled those in by a couple of quarters and that’s been a benefit to us. And then in addition, we’ve identified additional cost savings as we finished the first round and have found areas to have additional savings. So, when you put all those together with a mix shift, additional cost reduction, we’re able to maintain bottom line.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”128″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

All right. But the summary of that is both expense reduction and some gross margin upside. I appreciate the details, but it’s coming from both that’s why you [Indecipherable] maintenance EPS and that’s up. All right. Secondly, you’re entitled to make whatever assumptions you want in China. I’m not sure why you’re not allowing for the possibility of China going to zero given the nature of this trade war. But the simple question is in your guidance, are you not assuming China goes to zero? You are in fact assuming that China stabilizes at this level.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”130″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, in our guidance, we’ve assumed that China is at where it is today, roughly $15 million a quarter of product sales and growing a little bit. We have some new products being released that are built in China, made for China. And so we think those will have a decent market uptake.

And we have a pretty good services business that is in backlog and deferred and that we have good revenue visibility on. So, I think, you’re right, there is potential downside in China. But given the margin profile, we don’t think it would have a material impact or a real adverse impact on our bottom line.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”133″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

Chuck, let me push you on that. So China did go to zero in a worst case scenario. You don’t think it would have a meaningful adverse impact on EPS?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”135″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

It would have a — it depends on the definition of meaningful. I think it would have an adverse impact. We don’t expect it to go to zero, so premature hypothetical. But, yes, it would have an impact. But we think that at this level we can manage it.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”137″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

All right. And third if I could ask you all by product line if I think of your business in terms of video, headsets, desktop phones. What are you expecting for growth rates in those businesses as you look out through the year?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”139″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

So effectively, we’ve looked at industry growth and the industry growth rates for headsets are going to be in the range of low double-digits. And again we break out legacy in UC. UC, we had really strong growth in Q1. We expect that strong growth to continue.

As it relates to our video business, we see that being a couple of quarter of transition, as Joe mentioned, and having pretty strong growth in Q4 as the new products are out. On the voice side, we’ve seen pretty strong desk phone growth and industry is growing at kind of 4% to 8%, 7%.

We’re growing sort of at industry rates on desktop and audio conferencing will sort of fall in between video and voice. And so that gives you a broad, I don’t know Joe if you want to add any more color to the overall profile.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”143″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

I think that’s it. What we’re actually seeing out there in the market is probably still a very, very healthy business. Voice once again being mid to high single digits. Enterprise headsets blended between UC and legacy being probably mid to high single digits. Video is really the interesting market and that we really see a tail of two videos, if you will. So, the high-end kind of installed video that you might put in a boardroom is kind of a minus 2% to plus 2% grower depending on the quarter coupled with the huddle room that is absolutely explosive. So, at the low end of the market, we’re seeing market growth rates up in the 25% to 40% depending on the quarter.

We’re nascent in that business, but as we said in the opening remarks, we literally went from not in that market two quarters ago to releasing a award-winning product that’s grabbed 7% share in less than two quarters. We expect that to continue ramping with more products to come. So, bringing all that together, you get to a growth or video growth rate of kind of the low to mid single digits.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”146″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

Got it. One more question, if I may. And I apologize if you already gave us the number. But given your commentary last quarter, your commentary this quarter in the video piece, you’ve now got your second product, I think, you set out in the market. I think you said you were in the single-digit million last quarter on the first platform. Can you tell us where you are from a revenue standpoint with respect to the new huddle room platforms?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”148″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. You want to cover the huddle room real quick and I’ll talk a little more about the —

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”150″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. We haven’t provided exact details, but it was a low single-digit millions in our first quarter. It doubled last quarter and we expect that growth to continue where it’s meaningful in Q4. And so we’re not quite at double-digit millions in revenue in this past first quarter.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”152″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

I think what’s exciting about video in general, as we talk about this, I’m extremely bullish on this market. If we go back two quarters ago, we were not in the huddle room, and we had a well-respected, but perhaps aging product line. At this point, we’ve released our first entry-level product into the huddle room grabbed 7% market share in less than two quarters and continued to ramp rapidly.

On the other end of the video portfolio, we released our new flagship product at the very high end. The G7500 video and collaboration platform is the industry-leading product for large installed video like we go into a boardroom, and we expect that to be recognized pretty quickly.

Now it’s all about filling in between the book ends. So, we started out with Studio. We got it in the market. We certified it with Microsoft. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve certified it with Zoom. We’ve got it certified in all the other countries, so that should really ramp.

Now you’ll see other products build on the same architecture that we build our new high-end platform on. So we really believe we’ll have a compelling end-to-end video story fully refreshed and rocking and rolling over the next quarter or so.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”157″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

I’m going to apologize to you and others on the call, but I’m hoping you can indulge me with one more question, which is given the breadth of the range on your guidance, it’s a pretty broad range. And given the past quarter you just had, which is a reminder, not that really a reminder, the forecast by definition is difficult in the best of times and that’s much more difficult in challenging times. Would that big wind up, that when you look out over this quarter and over the year? What is the greatest downside risk that will cause your model to come in either at the low end or below the guidance you provided us.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”159″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

So, this is Chuck. I’ll go first and Joe can add some additional color. Certainly, there are some new products that are coming out, but they are primarily in Q4. So, downside risk could be that products come out a little bit later than planned.

But given we have modest expectations in Q4, I think, primarily that is probably a lower downside risk. There’s a — the China question earlier I think is a fair one. But I think given where the model is and where we are from a guidance standpoint. We feel very comfortable with our expectations.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”162″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

So I think that’s right. Obviously, we got hit with a couple of things this quarter from a product transition that happened a little quicker than we expected with the Skype to Teams. There’s not another thing out there that much of our revenue depends on that is likely to transition in the next couple of quarters. It would truly be the China thing, and I think we’ve appropriately modeled caution into that. I feel pretty good about all this at this point.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”164″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

I appreciate it. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”166″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”168″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Paul.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”170″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Next question?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”172″>Operator

We have another question comes from the line of David Eller. Your line is open.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst” data-reactid=”174″>David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Chuck, could you go back a second on the OpEx comments you made. You said it was lower this quarter, but you expect the run rate to be higher. I think you said due to some one timers. Were you saying there were some benefits in this quarter that won’t repeat or what exactly is going to cost that to be higher on a go-forward basis?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”176″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. That’s right. We had a really strong OpEx quarter. Our teams really performed well across the board here at Poly. We did have a $4 million onetime benefit that helped our comparison. We also have had the traditional things like merit increases and some of those. So, I think, ultimately, I don’t see it going up radically. But if I had to give you a range, I would say, about $175 million a quarter would be a kind of leveling. And then over time, we think that there’ll be some costs we can take out and some costs that we’ll add. But I think you’ll see in the next few quarters it leveling in that kind of that mid $175 million range.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst” data-reactid=”178″>David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst

Got it. And then you kind of talked about transitory issues from trade tensions. But as you talk to your customers, what are you hearing from them in terms of how that’s going to affect their spending or deployment on kind of voice and audio equipment. I mean, I think about the IT purchaser and their priorities maybe this equipment might fall, might be more somewhat discretionary. So maybe could be pushed or delayed further to the year. So, if you’re hearing any of that from your buyers?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”180″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

So, this is Joe jumping in. Nothing meaningful on that. There’s always puts and takes, right. There’s a few people that maybe looking toward slight delays. The big however on this though is back to that major, major transition that really Poly is based on the move from the proprietary PBX to the cloud. In many, many cases those proprietary PBXs are end of support, end of life, can’t even get parts for them anymore. So the move to the cloud is very real, very broad, and very deep.

So we’re seeing it in mid-market. We’re seeing it with big customers. No real back-off on that because they don’t have much of a choice. Maybe many years into the future, when we’re at steady state in the cloud and they’re looking at going from one platform to another maybe we’ll see that. But at that moment, no meaningful softness, thankfully.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst” data-reactid=”183″>David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst

Okay. And then could you just talk broadly if you’re seeing any impact from Brexit to date or like what kind of preparations you’re making there?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”185″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

We have seen an impact certainly. Obviously, FX rates, but that aside, we have definitely seen some issues in UK as it relates to ordering and volumes. We are hopeful that sort of at a moderate level, but UK is not a huge portion of our overall annual revenue. So, it’s probably not a material impact to the financials.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst” data-reactid=”187″>David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst

Okay. And then kind of last question for me. Chuck, I didn’t quite catch all of your comment on the dividend, but it did sound like you do have some thoughts there. Could you kind of give us a little bit more color on maybe your longer-term strategy there?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”189″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Certainly. I think on one hand not many investors own our stock for the dividend payment. And given the current share price, I guess, I’d prefer to be buying back stock versus paying dividends. But I think given kind of where the share price is and where we are as a company, we think it’s appropriate to maintain the dividend for the foreseeable future. And we thought long and hard about that. That’s been a point of buying back stock we think would make more sense. But I think signaling a change right now is probably not appropriate.

So as we look at our capital allocation strategy, we think that we’ll have a lot of free cash flow coming in the next few quarters and into the future. And so our current priority is paying down debt. We’re going to pay the dividend. It’s not a very big number anyways.

But then we may opportunistically buy back additional stock as well on top of paying down the debt. Again, that’s just based on the current dislocation in our share price.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst” data-reactid=”193″>David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst

Okay. All right. That’s very helpful. Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”195″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, David.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”197″>Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Fahad Najam. Your line is open.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”199″>Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst

Thank you for taking my questions. You noted that you had some favorable benefit to your bottom line from FX. I was wondering if you could quantify it. And also how much of the headwind to your revenue was from FX? And if you could quantify the other transitory headwinds. How much of the contributed to the revenue headwind in the quarter?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”201″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Certainly. So I guess first on the FX side. It really was neutral to the bottom line. It was about a $5 million reduction in revenue and a $5 million reduction in OpEx approximately. So, it really didn’t hurt or help the bottom line.

The other transitory issues that we outlined were really Skype to Teams, which is sort of a product transition and the integration of the two systems where we had some sales and channel consolidation issues. Those were in the $20ish million range together for the quarter.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”204″>Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst

Got it. I appreciate that. Regarding the transition to Teams, if I’m not mistaken, there has been a fundamental retooling of Microsoft’s platform that have used new protocols, which previously may not have been something that you were open to. How much of a realistic time do you need in order to update your platform and your products to be fully compatible with the new Teams experience? And do you think it is realistic to expect that by fourth quarter by 4Q, calendar 4Q ’19 that most of your products will incorporate those that full experience?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”206″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

It’s a great question. Let me break that down a little further without going all the way down into total engineering space. So, you’re absolutely right that the Teams platform, which has a really great user experience is fundamentally different than the Skype for Business platform that it replaces. They speak different languages between the Microsoft product and the endpoint that’s provided by Poly. So, if we used to speak Spanish to talk back and forth to Skype for Business, we got to speak Portuguese to talk to the Teams. Now to do that retooling in a quarter and a half would not happen. The real key here is to understand that we got started working very closely with Microsoft on these new products well over a year ago.

So, this has been going on for a year and a half or so, building these products, co-creating, making sure that together Microsoft plus Poly would be able to deliver something really great. Those products have always been scheduled to deliver late Q3, by Q4 of this fiscal year.

So, we’re right on target with our plan from the beginning. The only reason we’re seeing this little air pocket is because the transition on the customer side is happened a little quicker than we originally predicted. But nothing has slipped. No crash course to get this done early. Things are right on plan.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”210″>Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst

I appreciate that color. And if I may just add one more question regarding this new Teams product. What is the net upside opportunity for you to sell into the Teams given the new experience and the new platform. Is there any potential upside if I were to compare Skype for Business to Teams. On an average I guess spend value perspective, how much do you expect your customers up spend with you on Teams. Is there a potential up spend opportunity?

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”212″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

There’s a couple of things there and I’m speaking strategically. I don’t know that we have numbers ready to throw around on the potential upside here. But a couple of things that we find very exciting. First of all, an individual endpoint, so if we sold a phone for Skype for Business, if we sell a phone for Microsoft Teams, roughly the same price. So, prices aren’t going up. Prices aren’t going down.

However, a few thing. Number one, the fact that customers are craving new native Teams devices. Number one, obviously, implies a refresh cycle that could be quite significant. Number two, looking at public Microsoft data, we see them announcing all the time, Teams is really taking off. The adoption of this product is pretty quick, pretty steep.

So, we see the opportunity to then voice and video enable Teams to be quite significant in the future. So, a little bit of a headwind now turning into a very nice tailwind for us as we get into Q4 and then the next fiscal year.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”216″>Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst

Awesome. Thank you. Actually, I’ve got the next question I was going to ask, but I’ll take it offline. Thank you.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”218″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Fahad.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”220″>Operator

[Operator Instructions]

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”222″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, operator. If there are no further questions, we’ll go ahead and wrap up the call. I’d like to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon to review our fiscal Q1 financial results, and we look forward to our next earnings call after our Q2 concludes. Thank you very much. Bye.

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Operator” data-reactid=”224″>Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Duration: 43 minutes” data-reactid=”226″>Duration: 43 minutes

Call participants:

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Michael IburgVice President, Investor Relations” data-reactid=”228″>Michael IburgVice President, Investor Relations

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer” data-reactid=”229″>Joseph BurtonPresident and Chief Executive Officer

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer” data-reactid=”230″>Charles BoyntonExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst” data-reactid=”231″>Amit DaryananiEvercore ISI — Analyst

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Gregory BurnsSidoti &amp; Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”232″>Gregory BurnsSidoti & Company — Analyst

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”233″>Paul SilversteinCowen and Company — Analyst

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst” data-reactid=”234″>David EllerWells Fargo Securities — Analyst

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst” data-reactid=”235″>Fahad NajamCowen and Company — Analyst

<p class="canvas-atom canvas-text Mb(1.0em) Mb(0)–sm Mt(0.8em)–sm" type="text" content="More PLT analysis” data-reactid=”236″>More PLT analysis

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