Earnings Labs

HP Inc. (HPQ)

Q4 2007 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 20, 2007

$19.78

+0.08%

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

-1.38%

1 Week

+2.36%

1 Month

+4.98%

vs S&P

+2.56%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Catina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Plantronics Q4 Fiscal Year 2007 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Greg Klaben, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Greg Klaben, you may begin your conference.

Greg Klaben

Management

Thank you operator. Joining me today to discuss our fourth quarter and fiscal 2007 finance results are Ken Kannappan, Plantronics President and CEO, and Barbara Scherer, Senor Vice President of Finance Administration and CFO, and Greg Tyrrell, Director of Finance of EMEA. I would like to remind you that during the course of today's conference call we may make certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. As we highlighted before, the risk factors discussion in these files are not standard boiler plate. We update these risk factors every quarter adding and dropping language and changing the order depending upon the timing and potential impact of concerns that we foresee. We believe forecasting, our result of operations is becoming increasingly difficult and we ask you to focus particular attention on these risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by any such statements. For further information, please refer to the company's Form 10-K, 10-Q, today's press release, and other SEC feelings. Revenue for Q4 was $194.7 million, and was within previously provided guidance. The range of $190 million to $200 million. Our GAAP EPS wars $0.21 versus guidance of $0.16 to $0.21, and non-GAAP EPS was $0.28 versus guidance of $0.22 to $0.27. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Ken.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Thank you Greg, and I would like to thank you all on the line for joining us. I'll start with the key takeaways from our fourth quarter fiscal 2007, and then provide business update and overview, followed by our objectives for fiscal 2008, and I will turn the call over to Barbara to go through the financial results. Following that portion of call, we will open it up for Q&A. We believes the most important points from our results this quarter and progress we've made over the past year are as follows. First, we are entering fiscal 2008 on a stronger strategic position than we had a year ago, and we've rich product portfolio we won this year through all of our major headset product lines. Second, our marketing programs in B2B appear to be working, as evidenced by the renewed growth in office wireless product, which increased 28% compared to Q4 last year. Third, our mobile Bluetooth portfolio is very competitive and those in the pipeline to release in fiscal 2008, will continue to offer, what we think is a compelling differentiation for the consumer. Fourth, Altec's performance is primarily result of the product portfolio that is not efficiently sufficiently competitive, resulting in lost market share of profitability. However, we are confident in our ability to improve the portfolio and ultimately be very competitive. Plantronics’ mission is to enhance communications and entertainment. Our strategy for doing this is to excel, inspire, simplicity and balance. The strength of our product offerings are a combination of customer insight and success in delivering those brand benefits in our product. Let me turn to each of our product groups. In B2B, our office and contact center market, ending fiscal 2008, much stronger competitively than we were a year ago. Office wireless our best…

Barbara Scherer

Management

Thanks, Ken. Our overall financial performance was slightly better than the guidance provided due to continued momentum and strength in the Audio Communications Group segment, partially offset by lower performance than anticipated in AEG. Our headset business continues to be strong, and we currently expect ACG revenues and profits to grow further in Q1, though AEG’s financial results for Q1 are likely to be about the same as they were in Q4. With that said, I'll cover the Audio Communication Group segment, first. ACG revenues of $173.2 million were up 2.5% or $4 million compared to the year ago quarter. The growth was driven primarily by office wireless, which was up 28% compared to the fourth quarter a year ago. You’ll recall that we saw growth resume in this important product category last quarter after three quarters of relatively flat sequential performance. In the December quarter that growth was really epicentered in EMEA, growth this quarter was broad geographically, and we believe the resumption of growth is due in part to our newer demand generation program. Bluetooth grew 14% compared to a year ago, due to an improved product portfolio and increase listings at retail. Our OCC corded products were relatively flat compared to the year ago quarter. The increases were partially offset by continued decline in our mobile corded revenues as well as declines in our computer and clarity revenues. With office wireless revenues remaining strong in the quarter, total wireless products contributed 53% of total net revenue as same as the December quarter. Contributing approximately $60 million of net revenue, wireless office headsets represented approximately 34% of ACG segment revenue and 47% of OCC. Net revenues from Bluetooth mobile headsets contributed approximately $30 million representing 17% of total ACG revenues, in comparison to 15% or $26 million a…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from John Bright with Avondale Partners.

John Bright - Avondale Partners

Analyst

Thank you, and good afternoon, Ken and Barbara. Ken, you know, you deliver a strong quarter here on the office side of the equation, the office wireless side of the equation. We've now got the mobile Bluetooth returning to grow some cost improvements taking place in the strong basis there. And now we're reworking Altec, can you give me a better sense of the multi year plan you are talking about to expand your brand distribution and some of the operational improvement you are looking at as well as the product refresh?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Just to be clear, John, those last three questions were referring only to Altec?

John Bright - Avondale Partners

Analyst

That's correct.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Okay. So in terms of the, lets me just start with the product side, the company has been involved in this market for some time and they have, you know, got a set of research out on the business, having said that, the level of insight in terms of the use of the products, particularly some of the new emerging segments, such as with iPods and other MP3 players was somewhat limited. And a lot of the feedback they had was from channel partners and what is what I would call shorter cycle rather than deep insight in terms of what it is it the consumers are really doing with the products and trying to experience both from a functional perspective, as well from a emotional perspective. And so the key thing here is trying to really make sure we nail the target, and we looked at some of the new product, like the iM 600, it’s been achieved with some success, with really by your kind of loading the feature set or on to the product, which doesn't allow you to get to the right gross margin. So first and for most is really making sure we kind of die deep and truly understanding from an end user level that we've done the homework, and we understand what they really want, because I think we have excellent competencies to execute on that once we get there. We believe that we are going to be making progress during the course of this year, kind of tied to those new products, but at the same time, you know, it’s very easy to say okay, what was wrong here, but to really get what was right, we will probably have to get closer over a couple of gem. We expect it will…

John Bright - Avondale Partners

Analyst

On the, I'll shift over now to the wireless side of the equation, or the office wireless side of the equation. Very strong quarter on the office wireless side of the equation, a core competency of Plantronics, what is rejuvenated? You have got some new products in place; have pulled additional levers that you think might have helped you to rejuvenate this particular market segment that you might see using also on the Altec side?

Ken Kannappan

Management

No, I think it's different marketing in to be candid, I think that in Altec's case, the markets are really quite vibrant, very good and we just haven't been competing successfully for our share of them, and once we have the target down, I think we can execute very, very well combined with that knowledge. On the Plantronics side of things, it's been quite different; we've been competing well for market share and our tail end tend to grow the overall market. I think we, as we've been doing a lot of marketing experiments over the last few years, we were seeing things, working and things that weren't working, I don’t want to kind of get away all the formula, but maximum level, what we are trying to do obviously is kind of more of the things that we are working. I do want to say that we've always believed the pattern of growth on this was probably not going to be a steady pattern, but what we are seeing is very positive word of mouth, and I'll tell you this. The single most encouraging thing that we have out there is that people's expectations of what they will get and how much they will like a wireless headset. It's substantially below what they actual experience when they try one, so our key challenge is to narrow that gap.

John Bright - Avondale Partners

Analyst

Last one, Barbara, from a financial standpoint, the balance sheet looks, continues to improve and strong cash generation, you are now debt free. What, when you look forward, you are payment dividend uses of your cash as you generate looking forward?

Barbara Scherer

Management

So I think you are probably really asking when are we going to do a share buyback again? And we have done share buybacks consistently over the years. At this point, I think we need to improve the performance at Altec a bit further, and we also need to build up our domestic cash balances, our overall cash is still heavily weighted towards international, which can't actually be used for share repurchase. But as we move forward with our recovery plan and get some of the improvements in inventory management, which we expect through this score initiative, we'll start to further build up our cash reserves and be in a position when it's kind of right opportunistically to buyback stock again at some point.

John Bright - Avondale Partners

Analyst

Thank you.

Barbara Scherer

Management

You're welcome.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Paul Coster with J.P. Morgan.

Paul Coster - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · J.P. Morgan.

Yes, thank you. Ken, I wonder if you are in a position to talk about the competitive landscape in the ACG segment in particular, how the Bluetooth world is evolving, and what do you see in the contact center and professional side of the business as well, please?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Sure. Well, first of all, I would say that the markets from our perspective continue to be competitive overall within the Bluetooth market, one of our key goals has been to become the leading independent brand in that market and we think we've made a tremendous amount of progress there, as well as, in establishing ourselves as a leader in what I would call the premium spaces, in particular the Discovery 665, and that’s some of this is measured of course by revenues and market share. Some of this also measured by a word, press coverage and so forth, which has been uniformly blowing about that product, and we think it's enhancing our inventory. We are finding that repeat customers are becoming increasingly conscious that the performance of the Plantronics products is considerably better than the other products out there, and we think that bodes well for the long term. Having said that, as I started out, it's still a price competitive market, and it's, our strategy to improve profitability in addition to strengthen the position, comes down doing a more effective job of cost reduction, platforming and supply chain and that’s really where we think we can make further progress from where we see today. On the contact center and office side, we don't think we've seen a dramatic change in competitive type conditions, we do believe having said that, that this products that we announce today is going to be by far best of calls product, it is going to be an extremely successful one in the market.

Paul Coster - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · J.P. Morgan.

Okay. Barbara, I guess we have been asking several quarters now, when you're going to issue long-term business model objective again like I said, the world has changed a bit as you've been going through this operational turn-around. Are you closer to being able to talk about what kind of margin structure we should be looking for long-term? Or is it still a little way off?

Barbara Scherer

Management

Actually, we're confirming the business model that we've had, which is 15% to 18% overall with 18% to 20% operating margin target for ACG, and 5% to 10% for AEG, and the kind of growth rate target from an industry perspective so, would be it’s about 16% for the headset industry taking into account, you know, very slow growth in the contact center, 10% to 15% growth in office, about 20% for mobile, etcetera. That blends out to around 16%, and on the consumer audio side, it's about a $1 billion market growing at about 12% rate, so it blends, we believe, without any changes in market share to about a 15% overall top-line growth target on a secular basis. So, we think the 15 to 18 is still the right target, with respect to this coming fiscal year, we expect to make some progress towards the ACG target, but not get to that 18 to 20 and obviously, we’re going to have losses all year for AEG, so we’re not even close to that model, but we believe that we can get within that range in the second half of fiscal '09.

Paul Coster - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · J.P. Morgan.

Okay, then I stand corrected, but I'm happy, I asked the question anyway, because that was helpful. The margin, the gross margin outlook, is that something you are prepared to comment on as well?

Barbara Scherer

Management

Yeah, so the ACG target is 45%to 48%. We've been getting of late close to it, I mean, we actually hit it in the fourth quarter it, not yet for the year as a whole. And on AEG, the target remains 30% to 35%. And that's going to take a couple of years to get, targeting back in that range second half of fiscal '09.

Paul Coster - J.P. Morgan

Analyst · J.P. Morgan.

Great. Thank you very much.

Barbara Scherer

Management

You're welcome, Paul.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jason Ader with Thomas Weisel.

Jason Ader - Thomas Weisel Partners

Analyst · Thomas Weisel.

Thank you. On the Bluetooth side of the business, what's been happening on your ASPs? That's the first question. The second question is a year ago, I believe it was about a year ago, you talked about your contacts inner business based on the economy slowing down? And I think in retrospect, certainly the economy didn't really slow down a lot in '06, but it looks like obviously in Q1 of '07 it has slowed down. So maybe you can give us some color on the impact of the economy so far this year on your contact center business.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Okay. Well, first of all, as it turns out, we don't have Bluetooth ASP data with us. So you know, we can try to follow up with you on that subsequently, but let me just say, as a broad point, we have not seen a dramatic transition in the price point since our last call. Most of the consumer price points have been relatively more stable particularly in the U.SF. We've seen a little bit of a drift-down in Europe. But nothing indicating that the pace of productions is increasing. If anything, I would say the pace is probably been slowing over that short period.

Jason Ader - Thomas Weisel Partners

Analyst · Thomas Weisel.

And is your mix shifted at all in terms of the high end versus lower end products?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Yeah, well, I mean, clearly the 665 has done very well for us, and for our market share, there is better and has been building having said that, the bulk of the volume in the market is still at the lower price points, so our overall unit volume is still heavily weighted, so given that disparity at the, I'm sure it's risen some, but keep in mind that the bulk of our volume is still going to be at the explorer price point. I think the second question you asked was about economic cycle and the influence on the contact center?

Jason Ader - Thomas Weisel Partners

Analyst · Thomas Weisel.

Yes.

Ken Kannappan

Management

So we have not seen a significant impact on the contact center business from the cycle, it's only just as a little bit difficult for us to ascertain because while clearly the office is graduating more so to wireless products than the contact center is, we do sell corded products into both contact centers as well as into office. We've continued to see growth internationally in contact centers, and we continue to see what we view to be extremely flat market conditions in the more developed markets. All of the markets are improving their efficiency in the use of this equipment which we've been stretching out utilize this product it tends to have the time been a greater impact on us than the overall economic cycle. So quick answers we've not seen a negative effect on the contact center business in Q1 as a result of the cycle.

Jason Ader - Thomas Weisel Partners

Analyst · Thomas Weisel.

That business is still 5% type of growth business?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Well, actually I think it's probably even flatter than that. You know, our long term growth rate that we've got in there are in 2 to 4% range, and really, very, very close to 0% in the most developed market if you’re in the largest market such as United States. Of course, Europe is getting a lift in part from currency, translation which kind of artificially is growing that share of the market and there is some real growth in some of the outsource regions which will continue.

Jason Ader - Thomas Weisel Partners

Analyst · Thomas Weisel.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Manny Recarey with Kaufman Brothers.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Hi, Manny.

Manny Recarey - Kaufman Brothers

Analyst · Kaufman Brothers.

Good afternoon Barbara and Ken. Three questions. The first one is the, you gave some color on the outlook for the ACG business for revenue. Is it, what kind of gives you the confidence, is it just the new product that you put out or is it changes in the overall market or competitive environment that has given you the confidence for this quarter?

Ken Kannappan

Management

It's not…

Manny Recarey - Kaufman Brothers

Analyst · Kaufman Brothers.

The second question would be on wireless, that is typically lower gross margin than the wired business, but as that grows as a percentage of the total, is it move to China going to be offsetting that or is it still going to be a little bit of a drag just from a product mix and the gross margin? And the last question will be on the AEG business, is the way to think of is that the way you reach operating profitability would be more towards just driving the topline as opposed to taking cost out of the business?

Ken Kannappan

Management

So you've asked several questions, and we’re going to try to remember them all and respond. If we miss one, just remind us. Let me kind of start with the question about why we think the ACG business is going to growing, and I believe this is primarily related to wireless revenue. Let me make a comment on this. It's not that we have perfect visibility in our market, we've made that point a couple of times, and people don't plan a wireless headset purchase months in advance kind of to rollout. Forecast as to what's really going to happen, some of the things that we try to do are we try to make sure that the information we do have is as free of noise as possible so it provides a good signal. What we do in order to try to achieve that is we try to eliminate as much possible inventory by our channel partners in the field so that when they get orders, hopefully this provides us a pretty good indication because they need to flow those through to us in the form of orders. So we can track a run rate. We tend to measure these run rates overtime and its seasonality and other things so that we can extrapolate from those run rates somewhat incredibly as to what they have indicated towards the past about the business. We always overlay any known other dynamics related to what information we receive from partners. Their level of business outlook, order activity we overlay it with infecting the other known new products or other issues we think will effect the flow of business. Overall, at this point in time, given the indications we have from our customers and the order of activity to-date, we think we are providing…

Barbara Scherer

Management

Yes. Our guidance forecast of 205 to 210 as indicated almost all of that growth is expected in ACG. And so call that $10 million plus, and yes, it's true that wireless office is lower than corded office, but it is, has a very good gross margin and Bluetooth has an improving gross margin so when we are looking at the quarter sequentially, that level of anticipated revenue growth in ACG does drop down incremental operating profit in comparison to the fourth quarter. So, if you look at the standard margin, the mix would be less robust than the Q4 mix, but there are also improvements we were making in and transformation costs, and some of those dampen some of that mix effect, but overall, it's, it is a good gross margin business, it's growing $10 million plus is a good level of growth, and we expect it to provide incremental operating income compared to the fourth quarter.

Manny Recarey - Kaufman Brothers

Analyst · Kaufman Brothers.

Okay. Thanks, and good job remembering all the questions.

Barbara Scherer

Management

Thanks, Manny.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Ted Chung with Bear Stearns.

Ted Chung - Bear Stearns

Analyst · Bear Stearns.

Thank you. Just a quick question. Your VP of Operations, Terry Walter’s resigned end of February. Have you found a replacement for him? And what was the cause behind that?

Ken Kannappan

Management

I think the question is on Terry Walters? The short story is that Terry retired from Plantronics. He had given us full notice and we have conducted a search of internal and external candidates and believe that we're in good shape with respect to that process.

Ted Chung - Bear Stearns

Analyst · Bear Stearns.

And just quick clarification, what was the breakdown within the AEG group in terms revenue split?

Barbara Scherer

Management

Let me come right back to you on that. I'll get my hands on the number. Do you have another question?

Ted Chung - Bear Stearns

Analyst · Bear Stearns.

No, that was it.

Barbara Scherer

Management

Okay.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Great, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next questions come from Tavis McCourt with Morgan Keegan.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Hi, Barbara and Ken couple of quick questions forgive me if you went through this during the earning season shuffle here to conference call but, looks like the guidance revenues were up sequentially. It looks like your guiding gross margins on both divisions, flattish to maybe modestly up on ACG, but earnings expectations are flat. Is there an increase in OpEx there and if so what are the cause of that increase?

Barbara Scherer

Management

There is going to be some increase in OpEx but the tax rate is also going up sequentially and both non-GAAP and GAAP, and that is actually making a pretty big difference, we expect the operating income itself to increase on a, in ACG and on a therefore consolidated base, because what we say, we expect AEG to be about the same. But the tax rate non-GAAP was 15.7% in Q4 and we're for casting between 24% and 25% and one of the reasons, there are a number of reasons, but we're also changing the way that we do the tax provision to something called the forecasted method from the discrete method, which we've been using last year, and this is in connection with preparing for FIN.48, and under the forecasted method. You look at your entire year and all the factors that you expect to influence your tax rate during the year, and then you actually provide at that rate each quarter as opposed to looking at all the elements just discretely within the quarter by itself. So we basically got a 10-point pick-up on the tax rate there1

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Okay. So you got to build in your expectation of Altec Lansing becoming less diluted in the back half of the year to the tax rate?

Barbara Scherer

Management

That, and we have only three quarters of the R&D tax credit in the FO8 tax rate because it's due to expire 12, 31. And last year, we actually had five quarters of benefits, because it was reinstated. We had a solar energy credit last year, we don't have that anymore this year, so there are a few items like that.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

And for those of us that are building separate models for AEG and ACG, where do you get the tax rate to be assuming that at some point AEG becomes kind of neutral to earnings?

Barbara Scherer

Management

So, sort of a longer term picture?

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Yeah, I mean, my understanding is one of the reasons tax rates have been low is the net losses at AEG, if that's correct, where would the tax rate be or where will the tax be is that approaches more of a breakeven type profitability?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Right. So, it wouldn’t move up, you can use the 24 to 25 obviously for the whole fiscal '08, and then probably like to do a little, I actually like to refer to a document that I have on that that but I don't have handy right here, but I think it will move up a point or two and out here but I can…

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Okay, but not going to the mid 30s or anything like that?

Barbara Scherer

Management

No.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Okay.

Barbara Scherer

Management

Then I just wants to come back to the other question, which was on portable versus powered, so portable was $9.5 million in the quarter down from $22.3 a year ago. Powered was $15 million compared to basically $16 million a year ago. Other was 2.6 versus 4.4 a year ago. And those are all gross before reserves contract item.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

And then another clarification on the guidance, Barbara. You mentioned inventories and DSO's up sequentially, I think what is the driver of that?

Barbara Scherer

Management

So, on inventor, the key driver is, there's actually several key drivers. One is the volume that we're anticipating for this quarter, but also volumes that we’re anticipating for the September quarter. The September quarter includes key retail reset points, and you need to bring in some of the inventory even in the June quarter to get ready for that. We're also putting some inventory, sort of safety stock and contingency as we're transferring production of consumer Bluetooth to China, so we're putting some just in case inventory in place. We're also getting ready to be able to service our, the customers that we share with AEG would like to give us a consolidated order, and have it pick packed and shipped out of a single warehouse right, and get their Altec products and their Plantronics headset products all in one shipment. And we're getting ready to support that, we’ll actually be able to start doing that effective July 1, but it means putting some ACG inventory finished goods into some of the AEG warehouses, and moving some Altec inventory into Plamex to get ready to do that. So those are the key factors.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Got you. And Ken, as a happy CS70 user, what is the kind of primary improvement that, on the CS70 in that was announced today relative to the CS07?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Yeah, so for a lot of the CS50, CS60 users they operate in help desks and other very loud environments. And it may be that you've got a private office and the CS70 works very well for you. But for those nosier applications, the CS70N with the noise canceling performance represents the great upgrade opportunity, and so there is just a lot of those sorts of environment where you really have not had this type of performance or with a noise canceling product. But having said that, hopefully you like to design, hopefully you find it comfortable, because in general, we are getting very, very good remarks for that. Coupled that with first class noise canceling performance, and you have an idea of what we think the CS70N offers.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

And then the noise canceling performance was not available on the 50 or 55 either?

Ken Kannappan

Management

No. Those are noise canceling products, but we believe the CS70 platform represents a greater level of comfort over the years, and has a more attractive style.

Barbara Scherer

Management

Yes I would summarize it like this, relative to the CS50, it's more comfortable and attractive, relative to the CS70, it has noise canceling.

Tavis McCourt - Morgan Keegan

Analyst

Got you. Great summer. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Daryl Armstrong with Citigroup.

Daryl Armstrong - Citigroup

Analyst · Citigroup.

Thank you very much. A couple of things, first of all, in terms of the Altec business, clearly a big part of the turn around is a function of your belief that you will be able to sink your product portfolio with customer requirements and process in the marketplace. Given the fact that we are talking fairly far into the future, well left to occurrence, what gives you the levels of confidence that we aren't shooting for a moving target? That the product platform and development that you are anticipating to development a few years down the line, will stink with what the mark is requesting at that time.

Ken Kannappan

Management

You know, Daryl, just to be clear on this, no one bats a thousand on new product, maybe if you've got some exception, but in general, out here in corporate America a few are batting a thousand on a new product. Having said that the more you understand the customers needs, certainly this needs of course don't even change. Some of them change because the ecosystem changes and the and the opportunities change, life-styles change, that kind of stuff, but certain the core functional need tend not to change as much. Some of the emotional needs design trend, other things; tend to be a little bit more fluid. For some of the technical possibilities should realize functional desires can absolutely, evolve within that becomes clear. So we are at a early stage of learning on this new market, what the basic level needs are. If you look at the drop-off that Barbara noted in the portable category and compare it with the drop off in the power category, the power drop off was pretty small. The portable drop off was much larger, so it is an early category. There wasn't enough effort to go up that learning curve, really absorb and under what needs to be done. It is something we understand how to do. Now we are not experts on the headset side of the business, on the music listener, but it is something that we know how to do and we know what has been done and its some thing that can be achieved. Does that mean we will necessarily get there right away? No, because there is a moving target, competition will come along, the will get better too, but we have a large gap and we can surely close that gap over time. But the other advantage I think we have is I don't think anybody can do a bur job than we can once we have that target in place of delivering great design, great sound, and great eagle ease of use. Daryl Armstrong – Citigroup: Right. And then just one last follow-up. Clearly, it seems like you have a fairly well thought out strategy in terms of turnaround, the Altec business, but as you surely will acknowledge, there's been a lot of commentary from your investor base to maybe at least consider a plan B. Given the level of confidence that you have in your existing plan, should it be safe to assume there's no plan B in the near, in immediate term horizon that you are going to take this turnaround plan to all the way to completion?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Well, our let me just say this, our job is to try to increase shareholder value, and try to make good decisions each point of the way. We are all unhappy that Altec performance has been as good as we wanted it to be. We had what we think was a well thought-out strategy; we still think the strategy has been validated. The execution platform is clearly off. Then if the question is, at this point in time do we believe and kind we kind of look in the mirror and can we review with our board, everybody believes that we have actually, we have a credible plan that is going to add more shareholder value than the alternative. And we have to be able to answer that question honestly at each step of the way, and if we get off track, or even if we get on track, if there's something that makes more sense to the shareholders, we ought to be clear and conscious of it, and make sure we're doing the right thing. Right now, if we look at as an example, alternatives has been surfaced, we don't think that we would realize more shareholder value by selling that business at its current performance level or shutting it down. We think we can clearly with support of that team and with their learning curves and with our execution competency turn that business around, and not only does it become profitable, but augments to total ability we have to execute the strategy, which is the direction we think customers are going. If something happens that makes us feel that we can't, that's no longer realizable, we shouldn't be close minded. We shouldn't ever pour good money after bad and we got to be positive in the shareholder value. Right now, we really do believe that this is extremely achievable overtime, and that overtime the uncertainty and risks are disclosed and are diminished as we get a better understanding of what it is that really needs to be executed there.

Daryl Armstrong - Citigroup

Analyst · Citigroup.

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Rob Crystal with Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Rob Crystal - Goldman Sachs Asset Management

Analyst · Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

I guess, following up on the last question, just sort of, I guess you’re confidence in turning around the Altec business is pretty high. So, I guess coming back to the buyback, why wouldn't you be buying back stock today, given sort of, it doesn’t seem like cash needs are particularly high and, you generate a lot of cash last fiscal year and historically have generated lot of cash? Thanks.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Rob there is couple of points on this. First of all, while our confidence is high the Altec turnaround as -- it's high as a function of time. We know we can eventually get it, it doesn’t mean we know we can get it right away, as fully our aim is going to improve as we understand the first products what's right, what’s wrong, how can we improve them. So, that's the first point. The second point is that, although, we talked about the improved performance in the Bluetooth part, but also acknowledged it to be volatile and wanting a little bit more of timeline it. The third point is that Barbara outlined is actually most of the cash we have on the book is international cash, not domestic cash. We don't feel like we need to be hasty about this sort of things. To be sure there's some opportunity costs, if you know downstream the stock prices is higher, but we think it's probably more important and that there is more value for our shareholders and making sure that we realize the operating leverage and the improved intranets performance than what we will realize by buying X number of shares at a slightly lower price. So we just don't wants to compound the situation with financial activities at this point.

Rob Crystal - Goldman Sachs Asset Management

Analyst · Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Thank you very much. Good luck.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Reik Read with Robert W. Baird & Company. Reik Read - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Hi, good afternoon. Can you guys just talk a little bit more about the Bluetooth pricing? And Ken, I just wanted to clarify the pricing is still down, but I think what you were saying is that the pace is little bit more steady, i.e., there's always price pressure there just not -- you’re not seeing acceleration of that price pressure?

Ken Kannappan

Management

Yeah. But the question was framed to me as, I think, from January to April, just to be clear on that. So what I indicated was that we haven’t seen a lots of dramatic price drops in the U.S. market. There was a little bit more in Europe. Some of these price points, I think were also proving somewhat more stable, and we've clearly seen a category of customers actually gravitate up for having a poor experience, so they turnoff from the category, or do they try at better products. Some of them we know turnoff from the category, some of them try better products and that winds-up being a Plantronics and they've got a pretty good experience. So as we also said, we didn't bring the data on the Bluetooth pricing with us, and we can get back to you. But in general, I would say, I believe the pace has moderated, but also bear in mind, that's not the season where you typically see the greatest price decrease. Reik Read - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Okay. And then, just on Altec can you talk about would the fixes that you’re planning at this point, both on the marketing side and updating the products, is there a bump in incremental spending here, or is this simply refocusing kind of existing dollars?

Barbara Scherer

Management

There's really not much increase expected on the OpEx side. It's really how we -- the effectiveness of the spent there, so increases would be very small. Reik Read - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Okay. And then Barbara, I think it’s part of your comments, you said one of the programs that you have in place right now is really focused on cost reductions, irrespective of what you’re doing with the new products. Can you give us a sense, of -- there's presumably constant price pressure in this segment as well. What is your ability to stay ahead of some of that price pressure with some of the cost reduction initiatives that you have?

Barbara Scherer

Management

Specifically, you’re talking cost reduction in the AEG segment? Reik Read - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Correct.

Barbara Scherer

Management

Right. So, a large part of the issue that they’ve had there is committing to inventory and having an on-order position that has really limited the ability to get any cost reduction after that point. So part of it is designing for costs at the outside, understanding where prices are likely to go, but they are also, just like we are and we're working together on transformation costs broadly speaking for the AEG business, and we are confident there are both component costs and transformation costs, reductions that we can make with new products, primarily, not so much with the existing products.

Ken Kannappan

Management

Just wanted to add one explanation in case it wasn't clear. What Barbara is trying to say upfront is that if the initial order quantity turns out to be such a large percentage of the total volume, you don't really have a great opportunity to do further things, and that's the situation with the total revenue expectation being so much lower than originally expected. You don't really have the opportunity to go back and work on significant cost reductions, because almost all of the material everything else is in essence already committed. Reik Read - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Okay. And then just one last question, Barbara, you had said warranty costs were up and was one of the offsets on a gross margin, can you just tell us what that was? Or what that was related to?

Barbara Scherer

Management

It’s primarily a result of I would say kind of a growing wireless and consumer mix that tend to have somewhat higher return rates, and the wireless office products also have a higher cost. Higher selling price and it is a lower margin than quoted. So a high margin, but a high cost you and then the ability to repair that or if it's just, you know, buyers remorse thing, you don't get, you get an unit back that you need to expect to warranty, so I think it is a little bit of a mixed shift over time that is slightly affecting the warranty cost.

Ken Kannappan

Management

We have shifted from repairing products to simply replacing them and that's also effective.

Barbara Scherer

Management

Yeah. Reik Read - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Okay. Great. Thank you, guys.

Barbara Scherer

Management

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions.

Greg Klaben

Management

I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call, as always, we are available for any additional questions if you have them. Thank you again very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for participating in today's conference. You may now disconnect.