Earnings Labs

InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 19, 2015

$352.08

-2.71%

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Same-Day

+2.66%

1 Week

+4.69%

1 Month

+7.47%

vs S&P

+7.46%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the InterDigital Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Patrick Van de Wille. Please go ahead. Patrick Van de Wille - Vice President-Communications & Investor Relations: Thank you very much, Lexie. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to InterDigital's fourth quarter and full year 2014 earnings conference call. With me this morning are Bill Merritt, our President and CEO; and Rich Brezski, our CFO. We'll offer some highlights about the quarter and year and our outlook, and then we'll open the call up for questions. Before we begin our remarks, I need to remind you that in this call we will make forward-looking statements regarding our current beliefs, plans and expectations, which are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from results and events contemplated by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those set forth in our earnings release published this morning and detailed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014 and from time-to-time in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of them whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. In addition, today's presentation may contain references to free cash flow and pro forma operating expenses, which are non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of free cash flow to net cash used in operating activities and pro forma operating expenses to operating expenses, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, are included in our fourth…

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our first question from Darrin Peller with Barclays.

James Robert Berkley - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Thanks, guys, for taking my question. This is James Berkley stepping in for Darrin here. I guess, I'll just start real quick on ZTE. I believe there were five patents involved in the appeal, four of which would aid cell phones using less power than they otherwise would, and one that allows a device to use various networks to transfer data. That data related patent, as I understand it, was declared invalid. Could you comment on that, and why that patent was called out specifically as well as how important it was relative to your ZTE opportunity, and how we should think about your approach to ZTE going forward? William J. Merritt - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, you're right, there was a number of patents involved in the appeal. But that said, they still represent a very, very small number of the patents that the company holds, and they were, for example, different than the patents that are being used in the Delaware litigation, the active litigation against ZTE. So, while the decision itself was disappointing and, we think, pretty flawed, as we mentioned yesterday in the release, we don't think that the decision is controlling with respect to the other active litigations we have going on against ZTE or controlling as to the Microsoft 613 investigation.

James Robert Berkley - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great, thanks. Turning to Pegatron real quick, is it fair to assume that the current agreement stands as is until the challenge by Pegatron reaches a resolution, or would Pegatron potentially try and withhold payment until that time? We can assume that that revenue stream is safe, correct? William J. Merritt - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So, James, what I can tell you is, typically one of the conditions for us recognizing revenue is looking at the considerations around collection. So if we generally aren't collecting the money, we'll typically defer. That's a bit of a generalization, I think that's probably valid here.

James Robert Berkley - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, thanks. And then just lastly, when thinking about the $340 million number recurring revenue you spoke to, previously, you were at $300 million and talking about a $600 million opportunity. Given some of the licensing arrangements in there, how should we think about the $600 million number now? And then if you could just speak to, obviously, your guidance was very strong for the first quarter. How should we think about that recurring revenue number for 2015 as well? William J. Merritt - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, in terms of the target, the goal for the company in terms of its revenue off the licensing business, we talked about $500 million to $600 million. I think we're still comfortable with that range, and obviously the performance we're seeing now off the licensing business makes us even more comfortable with respect to achieving those numbers. So, we got – we still have some work to do and sign up some new folks, but as we mentioned in the script, a really strong year last year, very good positioning this year, so we're definitely on track, as far as management is concerned towards that opportunity. On terms, I think Rich mentioned in the script in terms of Q1, obviously there were some product introductions that drove that Q1 guidance. So – and I think there's a lot of information in the market and people can probably kind of figure out pretty well what those introductions were and how they could relate to our sales. So, Q1 obviously is very strong, but I wouldn't necessarily take Q1 as the baseline for the remainder of the year.

James Robert Berkley - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, that's fair. I guess just lastly, would you potentially be able to breakout that $40 million incremental increase, and like how, just like you could provide any color on what drove that from the $300 million to $340 million? Richard J. Brezski - Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Yeah. I think I provided about as much color as I can. Well, the $300 million to $340 million, in that case, you're talking about Q2 to Q4. So what I can do there is refer you to the financial metrics where we track our revenue concentrations greater than 10%. And you can see, if you look at the contributions that participants made in that category, you can get a sense for it. As for comparing that to our Q1 guidance, we typically don't provide any more detail than we already have at this stage.

James Robert Berkley - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

All right, guys. Thanks a lot. I'll turn it over. William J. Merritt - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. Richard J. Brezski - Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Thanks. Patrick Van de Wille - Vice President-Communications & Investor Relations: Thanks very much, sir.

Operator

Operator

And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks. Patrick Van de Wille - Vice President-Communications & Investor Relations: Well, thank you very much, Lexie, and thanks everybody for joining the call today. Not too many questions, but I'll take it as satisfaction that we've had a good quarter and a good year. Thanks for joining and we'll talk to you soon.