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Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call· Wed, Jan 27, 2010

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Super Micro Computer Incorporated second quarter and fiscal year 2010 financial results conference call. One note that today’s call is being recorded. And now, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Perry Hayes, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Perry Hayes

Management

As a reminder, this call is being recorded Tuesday, January 26th, 2010. A replay of the call will be accessible until midnight, February 9th by dialing 1-888-203-1112 and entering the conference ID number, 6448603. International callers should dial 1-719-457-0820. With me today are Charles Liang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Howard Hideshima, Chief Financial Officer. And now I would like to advice you of upcoming investor conferences in which Super Micro will be participating. On February 9th, we will attend the Technology and Telecom Conference in San Francisco, sponsored by Thomas Weisel Partners, and we will present and participate in one-on-one meetings. On February 23rd, we will attend Piper Jaffray’s Clean Technology Conference in New York, where we will present and hold one-on-one meetings with investors. Our presentations at both conferences will be webcast. By now, you should have received a copy of today’s news release that was distributed at the close of regular trading and is available on the company’s Website. As a reminder, during today’s call, the company will refer to a presentation that is available to participants in the Investor Relations section of the company’s Website under the Events and Presentations tab. Please turn to slide two. Before we start, I will remind you that our remarks include forward-looking statements. There are a number of risk factors that could cause Super Micro's future results to differ materially from our expectations. You can learn more about these risks in the press release we issued earlier this afternoon, our Form 10-K for fiscal 2009, and our other SEC filings. All of those documents are available from the Investor Relations page of Super Micro's website at www.supermicro.com. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Most of today’s presentation will refer to non-GAAP financial results and outlook. For an explanation of our non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to slide 3 of this presentation, or to our press release published earlier today. In addition, a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results is contained in today's press release and in the supplemental information attached to today's presentation. I will now turn the call over to Charles Liang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Charles Liang

Chairman

Thank you, Perry, and good afternoon everyone. Please turn to slide 4. First, let me provide you with the highlights of the second quarter. We are pleased that our second quarter revenue was $182 million or 22.5% higher quarter-over-quarter, and 41.5% higher year-over-year. This result is a record high for Super Micro. Non-GAAP net income was $9.2 million or 58.4% higher quarter-over-quarter, and 37.2% higher compared to last year. Super Micro's non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.22 per diluted share compared to $0.15 last quarter or $0.17 last year. Slide 5 please. Last quarter was our strongest on record. Not only was our revenue a record high for our quarter, but we also achieved a second consecutive quarter of greater than 20% growth, making the beginning of fiscal 2010 our fastest start over. We grew in all product categories, especially in Nehalem-based served products, storage, Blades and GPUs. We also grew in all geographies, which demonstrates the increased focus we have in European and Asian business. Our growth is a result, are the strongest, (inaudible) have at Super Micro. With such a strong product, we have been asked to competitively bid by more and more companies and be in larger and larger opportunities. Super Micro continues to benefit from our offering that our customer value in this economy, especially on maximizing performance per watt and per dollar. Clearly, the December quarter provides evidence of the French cycle, that is underway. Due to the recession, companies extended their use for life of their IT system longer than new year, with system architecture and process technologies that provide the companies with higher performance and lower energy costs. The total cost of ownership is reduced to rise that our OI has tremendously improved. As an example, in recent Super Micro win, our client…

Howard Hideshima

CFO

Thank you, Charles, and good afternoon everyone. I will refocus my remarks on earnings, gross margins, operating expenses and similar items on a non-GAAP basis which reflect the adjustments to exclude stock compensation expenses. Reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP is included in the financial statements of the company in today's earnings release and in the supplemental details in this slide presentation accompanying this conference call. Let me begin with a review of the second quarter income statement. Please turn to slide eight. Revenue was a record $182 million, up 41.5% from the same quarter a year ago and up 22.5% sequentially. The increase in revenue from last year was fairly widespread among our customer base, which we believe was primarily attributable to the continuing improvement in the global economy and new products which were introduced since then. The sequential increase in revenue from last quarter was primarily due to increases in our storage UIO and Nehalem-based products. Slide 9. Turning to product mix, the portion of revenues from server systems was 36% of total revenues, which was a decrease from 41% a year ago and an increase from 34.5% last quarter. ASPs for servers was about $1,400 per unit, which is up from $1,300 per unit last year and comparable to the $1,400 last quarter. The increase in absolute dollars of server products from a year ago and sequentially was primarily due to increased shipments of servers to OEM and end customers. We shipped approximately 48,000 servers in the second quarter and 803,000 sub systems and accessories. We continue to maintain a diverse revenue base with none of our over 400 customers making up more than 10% of our net sales in the second quarter. Furthermore, 57.6% of our revenues came from the US, and 68.5% from our distributors and…

Charles Liang

Chairman

Thank you, Howard. The first half beginning to our fiscal 2010 have been very strong, which is record results for Super Micro. Having our strong product line and growing brand name recognition, we are well positioned to continue this record pace into the second half of this year. I will now turn the call back to Perry.

Perry Hayes

Operator

Operator, at this time, we are ready for questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) We will go first to Doug Reid with Thomas Weisel Partners. Vivek Manipadam – Thomas Weisel Partners: Hi, this is Vivek Manipadam in for Doug Reid. It would be great to get your thoughts on what you felt the pricing environment was in the current quarter, and whether you felt there was a lot of pressure to reduce prices in order to win business?

Charles Liang

Chairman

Yes, we fear the competition continue very strong, and (inaudible) However because we have a very strong new product line, new architecture, GPU, Twin². So, I believe we can maintain the best margin we believe it has been for us. And again, yes, we try to be aggressive in price to grow our market share. Vivek Manipadam – Thomas Weisel Partners: Speaking of the margin, would you all be able to provide some guidance regarding what you expect margins to be in the March quarter?

Charles Liang

Chairman

March, again, also new product lines still new and still popular. So, I don’t feel we will have a challenge here. So, it should be growing mostly. Vivek Manipadam – Thomas Weisel Partners: Okay, great. And just one follow-up, would you all share your opinion on how you have seen component prices react in the December quarter?

Charles Liang

Chairman

Yes, there are a lot of shortages, because our recovery of our economy. So, we are facing some shortages, but not big of an issue, because we used to keep a very good safety inventory. Vivek Manipadam – Thomas Weisel Partners: Okay, and when you say shortages, could you specify which particular component?

Charles Liang

Chairman

You know, it’s close to the product line, memory, hard drive, even capacitor, FET, but again because we keep good safety inventory, so the impact to us should be reasonable, accessible. Vivek Manipadam – Thomas Weisel Partners: Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Charles Liang

Chairman

Yes, thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will move on to Alex Kurtz with Merriman & Company. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: Hi guys, can you hear me okay?

Charles Liang

Chairman

Yes. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: Congratulations on a great quarter. Howard, can you just talk a bit about, you know, the strength in the servers quarter-over-quarter, what verticals, what product lines really stood out for you guys?

Howard Hideshima

CFO

I think, Alex, as Charles mentioned earlier, storage area was pretty strong for us this quarter as well as GPUs. You know, we continue to gain traction there. Obviously our Nehalem line is very strong also. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: And are you starting to see the, the GPUs starting to kick in on ASPs yet, is that starting to help the overall ASP as well as margin?

Howard Hideshima

CFO

I think so, Alex. You know, we just introduced that probably about a quarter or so ago. So, it’s just at the very beginning of its ramp up for us, but we have seen very good traction in it. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: Okay. And if you could just revisit for us what you think your long-term growth profile is for the company, and behind that, just remind us what the target operating model is, and sort of what the timing of that could be? Do you see that as something that you could accomplish exciting fiscal 2011? Just some updated color on that behind these strong results today. Thank you.

Charles Liang

Chairman

Yes. For March quarter, because both Intel and AMD have a new CPU kind of Westmere and G34, both will be launched by March, end of March indeed. So, we believe we would have to be conservative for March quarter, but you know, with so many new technologies, second half of this fiscal year should be a greater year to us. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: But Charles, do you think you guys can get back to those 30% kind of growth rates again over the next couple of years?

Charles Liang

Chairman

At this moment, we feel very confident. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: And Howard, just on the target operating model and sort of the timing around that?

Howard Hideshima

CFO

Right. As we said before, Alex, the target operating model, you know, has basically an operating margin about 9 to 12, gross margins about 19 to 20 [ph], and we set it about one to three years out. We still feel confident. Alex Kurtz – Merriman & Company: Okay, so no comment on timing. Okay, thank you guys.

Operator

Operator

And we will move on to Glenn Hanus with Needham & Company. Glenn Hanus – Needham & Company: Good afternoon. Just a follow-up in clarifying the gross margin. You feel like gross margins going forward can be flat to slightly up, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, and then just sort of a puts and takes on the next quarter on the gross margin?

Howard Hideshima

CFO

Yes, Glenn, this is Howard. Yes, you are right. As Charles mentioned, we feel that, you know, the gross margin to be very stable. I think the puts and takes of it will be as we ramp up some of the European and overseas expansion, we will get some benefits from that as we bring that facility up, reducing our logistical costs and our shipping costs. Obviously new product introductions typically help us. And then on the other side of that would be growing our market share, still important to us basically growing our economies of scale. Glenn Hanus – Needham & Company: Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) And it appears at this time, we have no further questions. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Liang for any additional or closing comments.

Charles Liang

Chairman

Yes. Thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to talking to you again at the end of this quarter. Thank you everyone. Have a great day. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That does conclude the Super Micro second quarter fiscal year 2010 conference call. We do appreciate your participation. You may now disconnect at this time. Thank you.