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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good morning. Welcome to NetSol Technologies Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today are Najeeb Ghauri, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Roger Almond, Chief Financial Officer; Patti McGlasson, General Counsel; Naeem Ghauri, CEO of OTOZ; and Asad Ghauri, Global Head of Sales. I would now like to turn the call over to Patti McGlasson who will provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during this call. Please proceed.
PM
Patti McGlasson
Management
Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. Following a review of the company’s business highlights and financial results, we will open up the call for questions. Before we begin, I would like to address the temporary delay in our filing and reporting, which was originally scheduled for Thursday, September 24, 2020. As stated in the press release issued last week, the delay was the result of additional time being needed by our auditor. Fiscal year ended June 30, 2020 was the first annual auditing period reviewed by our new firm, BF Borgers. Through this process, additional and first time reviews were conducted, which ultimately necessitated an extension beyond the period allocated. That said, we are pleased to report that after a comprehensive audit process, our financial statements were found to be satisfactory and no material changes were required. Yes, I am sorry I will now provide the necessary cautions regarding the forward-looking statements made by management during the call. Please note that all the information discussed on today’s call is covered under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. The company’s discussion may include forward-looking statements reflecting management’s current forecasts of certain aspects of the company’s future and our actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied. These forward-looking statements are qualified by the cautionary statements contained in NetSol’s press release and SEC filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. I would also like to point out that we will be discussing certain non-GAAP measures. The press release issued earlier today contains a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial results to their most comparable GAAP metrics. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this call will be recorded and made available for replay on our website at www.netsoltech.com and via a link available in today’s press release. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Najeeb. Najeeb?
NG
Najeeb Ghauri
Management
Thank you, Patti and good morning everyone. As you can see from the press release this morning, we are continuing to work our way through the COVID-impacted environment. While we are still facing a number of industry and macroeconomic headwinds, during the fiscal fourth quarter, we recorded meaningful sales milestones, drove incrementally, improved results, and were able to generate another year of profitability. Most notably, our revenue, gross profit, operating income, and EPS all improved sequentially over Q3, which was driven by mildly improved sales environment as well as cost control structures we implemented in response to the pandemic. As many of you listening this morning will remember, we entered fiscal 2020 coming off a record top and bottom line performance and the strongest position in our history of 2019 results. At the same time, we introduced a multi-pronged growth strategy design during regular economic conditions to diversify and expand our total and recurring revenue stream ultimately propelling NetSol to its next phase of commercial prosperity. However, over the past few months, we like most businesses, globally were forced to adapt to a radically different working environment than we had planned. As an international organization, NetSol directly witnessed the influence of COVID-19 and quickly expect through many of our operations around the world, impacting families, our employees, communities, and the global economy. During this period of increased uncertainty, we have closely monitored the evolving situation through all available information channels, including the latest news reports as well as updates from the CDC, the World Health Organization, and other regulatory authorities. Our operations in the second half of this year were meaningfully impacted by the global slowdown occurring in many other verticals we serve, including the greater leasing, finance, and automotive industries. Despite these unfavorable conditions, we have continued to forge…
RA
Roger Almond
Management
Thanks, Najeeb. Turning to our fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial results for the period ended June 30, our total revenues for the fourth quarter were $13.6 million compared to $17.3 million in the prior year period. The decrease in total net revenues was primarily due to a decrease in total license fees of $2.3 million and a decrease in total services revenue of $1.8 million, which was offset by an increase in total maintenance fees of $312,000. For all of fiscal 2020, total net revenues were $56.4 million compared to $67.8 million in fiscal 2019. The decrease in total net revenues was primarily due to a decrease in total license fees of $12.2 million and a decrease in total services fees of $2.7 million, which was offset by an increase in total maintenance fees of $3.4 million. Total license fees in Q4 were $1.2 million compared to $2.5 million in the prior year period. For the full year, total license fees were $4.6 million compared to $16.8 million in fiscal 2019. The decrease in license fees for both the quarter and year was primarily due to the absence of meaningful contributions from our 12-country, $110 million contract as well as other contracts to implement our NFS Ascent platform, which had a more pronounced contribution in the prior year period. Total maintenance fees in Q4 were $4.7 million compared to $4.4 million in the prior year period. For the year, total maintenance fees were $19 million compared to $15.5 million in the prior fiscal year. The increase in total maintenance fees for the year was due to the start of new maintenance agreements from customers who went live with our products during fiscal 2020. We anticipate maintenance fee to gradually increase as we implement both our NFS Legacy…
NG
Najeeb Ghauri
Operator
Thank you, Roger. And before I begin, I would like to provide some sales commentary that applies to our global operations as a whole. After that, I will be recapping some of the major operational highlights from the period within our three major operating regions respectively. For the past 5 plus months, our global teams have continued to operate largely in the remote capacity. As I mentioned before, our team has responded to this challenge and performed capably through this trial. Additionally, our maintenance and support staff has been operating on a full schedule for all international customers. Our teams are still very busy in conducting virtual demos, presentations, and negotiations. However, in the unpredictable environment we currently find ourselves, there have been understandable delays in decision-making, from potential new customers, both for our flagship and for the Ascent and OTOZ mobility. Additionally, despite the fact we are a technology first organization that does not mean there isn’t a human element to our sales process and our operations. As an industry leader, with two decades plus of domain expertise, many contracts we have won in years prior have helped us to win additional business or renew contracts later on is still an important consideration. While the future remains uncertain, we are cautiously optimistic that we are returning to some sort of normalcy. As an example, returned to [ph] our offices, where I have spent a great deal of time recently. Employees have started coming back to work. Right now, we have about 15% of 1,400 employees operating in/off on a rotational basis, and we hope to gradually increase those numbers from there. One other note on the current sales outlook as one might imagine with a number of the projects we have been working on, many of which we had…
NG
Naeem Ghauri
Analyst
Thank you, Najeeb. I will start with OTOZ. For those of you who are less familiar, OTOZ is a NetSol subsidiary and a digital platform that helps auto manufacturers, auto captives, fleet owners and startups to launch, orchestrate and scale mobility businesses. The OTOZ platform is built on a cutting-edge technology stack, which comprises of cloud-native architecture, micro services, AI, machine learning and blockchain. To-date, our team has grown to over 40 individuals across 7 nationalities. Our entry into the new smart mobility space is a result of a strategy that we embarked upon 18 months ago. And it comes at a defining moment for the automotive industry globally, but also specifically for the U.S. We have witnessed a shift in auto ownership in the 20 to 29-year-old demographic. These are younger people, more and more of whom are becoming part of the gig economy and our load to longer term commitments, surrounding full ownership of cars. We have seen similar trends of accelerated adoption with the music and entertainment industries, where downloads and streaming services have completely disrupted ownership of DVDs and CDs. Car ownership comes with a much bigger sticker price and costly maintenance over many years, while being a very fast depreciating asset. This model is ripe for disruption in adoption of on-demand and subscription products that provide the consumer the flexibility to use the car as needed, without the responsibility of full ownership. Every trend and in-depth study on the future of car ownership indicates not only a surge in adoption of on-demand mobility and flexible ownership around products such as monthly subscriptions, but also that car ownership is heading in the same direction as have recently been minted paradigms in music and entertainment. OTOZ has positioned itself firmly in this quickly evolving space as a…
NG
Najeeb Ghauri
Operator
Thank you for joining us today. I especially want to thank our investors for their continued support, our loyal customers and our dedicated employees for their ongoing contribution. I look forward to updating you on our next call in November for Q1. Thank you. Have a good day. Operator?
OP
Operator
Operator
Thank you. Thank you for joining us for NetSol’s fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.