Earnings Labs

Socket Mobile, Inc. (SCKT)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 22, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Socket Mobile 2011 annual and fourth quarter conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Jim Byers at MKR Group. Thank you Mr. Byers you may now begin.

Jim Byers

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome to Socket’s conference call today to review financial results for its 2011 fourth quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2011. On the call today from Socket are Kevin Mills, President and CEO; and Dave Dunlap, Chief Financial Officer. Socket Mobile distributed its earnings release over the wire service at the close of the market today. The release has also been posted on Socket’s website at www.socketmobile.com. In addition, a replay of today’s call will be available at www.vcall.com shortly after the call’s completion and a transcript of this call will be posted on Socket’s website within a few days. We’ve also posted replay numbers in today’s press release for those wishing to replay this call by phone. The phone replays will be available for one week. And before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27-A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21-E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding mobile computer data collection and OEM products including details on timing, distribution and market acceptance of products and statements predicting trends, sales and market conditions and opportunities in the markets in which Socket sells its products. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from the results anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of a number factors including, but not limited to, the risk that manufacture of our products may be delayed or not rolled out as predicated due to technological, market or financial factors, including the availability of product components and necessary working capital, the risk that market acceptance and sales opportunities may not happen as anticipated, the risk that our application partners and current distribution channels may choose not to distribute the products or may be not successful in doing so. The risk that acceptance of our products and vertical application markets may not happen as anticipated and other risks described in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Socket does not undertake any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Now with that said, I’d like to turn the call over to Socket’s President and CEO, Kevin Mills.

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today. In today’s call, I will begin with a brief review of our progress in 2011, then discuss the business opportunities we see ahead and our outlook for 2012. We made substantial progress in 2011 and believe our initiative to strengthen our overall business and enhance our product offerings have set the stage for meaningful growth ahead. Our full-year revenue for 2011 were 17.5 million, up 30% over last year that includes solid year-over-year growth in revenue from both our handheld computer and cordless scanning family of products. On a year-over-year basis, we also improved gross margin, reduced our operating expenses and strengthened our balance sheet. Our 2011 annual EBITDA performance also improved significantly to a loss of $154,000 or $0.04 per share compared to a loss of $2.5 million or $0.66 per share in 2010. Overall 2011 was a good turnaround year for Socket Mobile. Our revenue for the fourth quarter was $4.4 million consisting of $2.4 million of SoMo related sales, $1.7 million of cordless scanning related sales and $300,000 dollars from service and other legacy related products. While the Q4 total is up significantly year-over-year from $2.6 million in Q4 last year, we are disappointed in Q4 revenue which was impacted by less than expected sales of our SoMo that we believe is primarily a timing issue and not related to underlying market demand. We were able to clear our long pending backlog of SoMos in Q4 and shipped almost 6,000 SoMo units to our distribution channel in the quarter. Unfortunately, a significant portion of these units did not clear the channels prior to year end and therefore didn’t count from a revenue point of view for our revenue recognition policy. The good news is that our supply…

Dave Dunlap

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you Kevin. 2011 was the year of positive achievement for Socket Mobile including significantly improving financial results and laying the groundwork for continued positive momentum in 2012. Our 2011 revenue of $17.5 million grew 30% over 2010 results. Our cordless scanning product revenue of $5.2 million was the largest growth driver up a 181% from the previous year. Cordless barcode scanning has grown from being 14% of our revenue in 2010 to being 29%of our revenue in 2011. Our ability to provide professional, mobile bar code scanning for smartphones and tablets combined with a growing adoption by developers for mobile applications with our easy-to-use software developer kit and the growing adoption in the industry of 2D barcode scanning all benefitted our revenue in 2011. We firstly c introduced our model 7X 2D bar code scanner in 2010 to initially work with many smartphones and tablets including Android based smartphones from Google, Blackberry smartphones and tablets from RIM and windows based mobile phones from Microsoft. This product could be used in a HID or direct access mode with Apple devices. In 2011 we added Apple MFI certification through our 2D barcode scanner with the model 7Xi enabling the use of our software developers kit with Apple iOS 4 devices. This announcement of apple MFI certification, we’ve been announcing the adoption of Apple version of our 2D bar code scanner by developers in Apple based applications who have integrated our barcode scanners into their applications and are promoting views of our products. We’ve sold to-date more than a hundred software developer kits and we expect many more applications integrating barcode scanning into Apple and other smartphone and tablet devices to be released in 2012. And finally the announcement yesterday of the pending new release of an Apple MFI certified low cost…

Brian Swift - Security Research Associates

Management

Could you give me a little help on the, I heard the ASP on the handheld at 648 was that for the new model 655 and how does that compare to the 650 ASP?

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

Well first of all let me just say that we only quote MSRP which is Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price and then products are sold at a discount to that through to the distribution channels. Generally speaking, the devices are available somewhere between 5% and 10% lower than that price through various outlets. And so that would put you into the high 500s and I would say generally speaking it will be 10% no more than 10% higher than the current 650 model.

Brian Swift - Security Research Associates

Management

And that’s because it has the wireless LAN?

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

It has a number of additional benefits including the improved wireless LAN with BGN and about 4 gigabytes of memory and it will have a more robust connecting and charging arrangement which I think people will like and able to support things like charging in the unit cases with added case to the SoMo to make it even more durable and historically we’ve been unable to charge the devices in those cases which was a negative for people and that they had to remove the device or some portion of the case. So with a lot of feed back and improvements in the device it will also shift with Windows Mobile 6.5 instead of 6.1. So those are the highlights of the features. I think for many customers the fact that its software compatible will allow them to continue to run the many programs that already are developed either for the 650 or for the [iPAQ].

Brian Swift - Security Research Associates

Management

And that’s available in Q2 is that?

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

Yeah, so we will start shipping in Q2. I think as Dave mentioned, we are already sampling and we have a beta program in place. We are working with key resellers and developers to make sure that everything is working well and making sure all the feedback is incorporated before we go into full production.

Brian Swift - Security Research Associates

Management

So that's part of the transition issue that you are referring to; the potential they can have from where customers decide they want to have the 655 but it’s not going to be shipped until next quarter if that could have an impact on this quarter?

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

Yeah, so I think that’s I mean transitions are never easy, but they are always required; so most of our customers basically take I would say 90 to 120 days to qualify hardware with their applications. We eventually are announcing it now and providing samples to key customers so that we can have I think a stronger Q2 and through the rest of the year. Obviously, some existing customers will slow down their deployments to wait for the 655 if it solves or improves their deployment issues and that solves I think a part of the challenge with the transition.

Brian Swift - Security Research Associates

Management

And secondly, could you give us the – David talked about the spillover from what you shipped to (inaudible)?

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

5.3, yeah.

Brian Swift - Security Research Associates

Management

Recorded 4.4 so do you have a little bit of a head start into the quarter. How are things looking so far as you are more than half way through?

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

Okay, so I think that’s about, first of all in general, one of the reasons that things been through this channel is we eventually cleared our backlog; it was, I would say late November, New Year and Thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday period in general and also our traditional situation is, January is a pretty soft month for everyone in the AIDC. I would say this year we’re running in line maybe marginally ahead of our January was last year and nothing significant. But we see good momentum in the market right now. So I mean things are I would say on-track, so I wouldn’t describe it must being overly robust or concerning. But January is traditionally a very weak month every year and this year was no different and we are seeing a more robust February.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) We have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Kevin Mills for closing comments.

Kevin Mills

President and CEO

Thank you very much. I would just like to thank everyone for participating in today’s call and we look forward to announcing results in April. And thank you all very much and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does concludes today teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.