Earnings Labs

Clearfield, Inc. (CLFD)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Jan 25, 2017

$27.70

-5.36%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.26%

1 Week

-7.94%

1 Month

-13.23%

vs S&P

-16.51%

Transcript

Cheryl Beranek

Management

Hello, this is Cheryl Beranek, President and CEO of Clearfield. Welcome to our Fiscal First Quarter 2017 FieldReport. Before we begin today, I'd like to provide some important cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during today's presentation. Certain important factors could have a material impact on the company's performance including those set forth in the slide entitled Important Cautions Regarding Forward-looking Statements as well as the factors set forth in Clearfield's annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It's an exciting time for Clearfield. The momentum established in FY '16 continues into this new fiscal year as we prove out how our fiber management and pathway products reduce the total cost of ownership of broadband networks for telco cable, wireless and municipal networks. Revenues for the quarter increased consistent with the outlook we have provided. Moreover, as announcements accelerate regarding the hundreds of planned fiber deployments throughout the country, our market development initiatives are in full force throughout the broadband service community aimed at gaining incremental approvals and the potential of issuing accelerated growth outlook projections. Revenue for the first quarter grew by 16% year-over-year to $18.3 million, reflecting strong growth in our wireline and wireless markets despite a seasonally-driven reduction in demand from our cable TV customers. Our sales to the Tier 1 group represented nearly 10% of our total revenue for the quarter in comparison to representing 4% of all fiscal 2016's revenue. Complementing our continued success in our wireline markets was yet another quarter of encouraging growth in our revenue from the wireless market, which increased by 38% compared to the same period a year ago. Partly because of the advances we made in penetrating the Tier 1 group, our gross margins for the quarter came in slightly below our 40% to 42% target range. We believe this reflects our initial success in selling to the Tier 1 customers, which we are striving to build upon by achieving the necessary industry certifications to sell to them more aggressively. As we have stated before, these certifications do require a lot of time and investment, but we are confident that we are moving nicely along the individual testing phases and that achieving these certifications will only enhance our supplier position within each of the major Tier 1 players. But before I discuss our operational results, growth strategies and future outlook in greater detail, I would like to turn the presentation over to our CFO, Dan Herzog, who will walk us through the financial performance for the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Daniel Herzog

Management

Thank you, Cheri. Now looking at our financial results in more detail. Our revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 increased 16% to $18.3 million from $15.7 million during the same year-ago period. The improvement for the quarter was driven primarily by an increase in sales to our wireline and wireless customers, which was partially offset by a decrease in our sales to cable TV customers. As Cheri had alluded to earlier, we experienced some winter seasonality and demand from our cable TV customers. This, along with some of the delays associated with the recent M&A activity in this market, contributed to us experiencing lower revenues from this customer group. International revenue in fiscal Q1 more than doubled to $1.6 million or 9% of total revenue from $700,000 or 5% of total revenue in fiscal Q1 2016. After a period of sluggish growth from our international business, we're starting to experience a healthy pickup in demand as favorable market conditions and increased sales efforts from both our direct sales teams and distribution partners combine to increase our growth outside the U.S. Gross profit for the fiscal first quarter of 2017 increased 8% to $7.2 million or 39.5% of total revenue. This compares to $6.7 million or 42.6% of total revenue in the same year-ago period. Gross margin for the quarter decreased due to increased sales to Tier 1 customers, overall mix of products sold and higher percentage of sales driven by our distribution partners. Our sales to the Tier 1 customer group demonstrate the emerging opportunity to significantly expand our business, but it should be noted that products into this customer group have yet to be cost reduced. We are confident in the long-term execution of our gross profit goals as our sales to this group ramps up. We…

Cheryl Beranek

Management

Thanks, Dan. As a company, we've been seeing the industry focus increasingly more on optical connectivity in the access network, whether that includes fiber-to-the-home business, antenna or virtually any desired endpoint. This increasing focus, along with our best-in-class lead time, has allowed us to generate strong revenue growth across nearly every one of our key markets. To start with, our wireline business continues to demonstrate solid growth for the quarter, representing a total of 65% of our total revenue of $18.3 million. Of this amount, 9% came from the Tier 1 customer group compared to 4% contribution to revenue for the entire fiscal 2016. As I mentioned earlier, this reflects the progress we have already made penetrating these customers as our solutions pend certification approval. Our wireless and cable TV business, both in the U.S. and internationally, also contributed to the overall 16% year-over-year revenue growth for the quarter, despite making up a smaller percentage of our total revenues. Within this area of our business, sales to wireless customers increased by 38% over the same year-ago period. Although sales to cable TV customers were down for the quarter due to the winter seasonality and deployment delays caused by industry consolidation, we believe that the entire customer group including wireless will be a strong driver for us throughout fiscal 2017, as these service providers continue to densify their networks, support their wireless backhaul and invest to prevent customer churn. Overall, we believe we are steadily increasing our market share across our key markets and are positioned to leverage our best-in-class lead times to meet supplier network demands and achieve our growth initiatives for fiscal 2017. These initiatives are part of a multi-tiered strategy for fiscal 2017 to expand our sales and marketing capacity, continue to build solutions around our customers' unique…