Earnings Labs

Tucows Inc. (TCX)

Q1 2006 Earnings Call· Thu, Jun 22, 2006

$15.96

-2.36%

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

+0.00%

1 Week

+16.67%

1 Month

+8.33%

vs S&P

+6.57%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Tucows first quarter fiscal 2006 financial results conference call. Please note that today's presentation will be archived for replay both by telephone and via the Internet beginning approximately one hour following the completion of the call. To access the archived conference call by telephone, dial 416-695-5800 or 1-800-408-3053 and enter the passcode 3185448#. The telephone replay will be available until March 11, 2007 at midnight. To access the archived conference call via the Internet, go to www.tucowsinc.com and click on Investor Relations. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Hilda Kelly, Investor Relations Resource, Tucows Inc. This call is being recorded Thursday May 4th, 2006. Please go ahead, Ms. Kelly.

Hilda Kelly

Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone and thanks for joining us for today's call. With me is Elliot Noss, Tucows' President and Chief Executive Officer; and Michael Cooperman, our Chief Financial Officer. Today following market close, Tucows issued a news release reporting the Company's results for the first quarter of fiscal 2006 ended March 31, 2006. The news release is available on our corporate website, www.tucowsinc.com, under the heading ‘What's New at Tucows’, or by clicking on Investor Relations and then on Quarterly Financials. You can also contact me directly for a copy of the news release by telephone at 416-538-5493 or by email at ir@tucows.com and I will send it to you. If you would like to receive future news releases by email, again, please contact me. Before we begin today, I'd like to point out that the matters we will be discussing include forward-looking statements, and as such, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risk factors are described in detail in our documents filed with the SEC; specifically, the most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. We urge you to read our securities filings for a full description of the risk factors applicable to our business. I would now like to turn the call over to Elliot.

Elliot Noss

President

Thank you, Hilda. Good afternoon and thanks for joining us today. Today's call will follow our usual format. I'll begin with an overview of the highlights of what was a strong first quarter; Mike will then provide a detailed review of our financial results for the quarter; and finally, I will return to discuss some of our future plans. Let me begin with the financial highlights for the quarter. The first quarter was one of the strongest quarters in our history from both an operational and a financial perspective. Net revenue for the quarter increased almost 30% to $15.3 million, compared to the first quarter of last year. This was our best quarter ever, and adjusting for the one-time accounting transaction in the third quarter of fiscal 2004, it was our 12th consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Deferred revenue at the end of the quarter increased 15% compared to the same point the previous year, to a record $41.1 million. I'll note that compared to the preceding quarter, deferred revenue increased 8%, which is a rather large gain, reflecting a strong quarter in terms of domain registrations and digital certificates. Turning to our profitability, there were a number of items during the quarter that are not ongoing in nature, the largest of which were the integration costs related to the acquisition of the Critical Path hosted email assets. Excluding these items, adjusted EBITDA -- which Mike will discuss more in a few minutes -- grew 48% compared to the first quarter of last year, and 56% compared to Q4 of last year; and, as a percentage of revenue, increased to 10% from 9% a year ago. We recorded our 18th consecutive quarter of positive cash flow from operations at $1.8 million. There is one other metric that I would like…

Mike Cooperman

Management

Thanks, Elliot. The first quarter marked a strong beginning to 2006, as we delivered solid financial performance highlighted by record revenue, growth in adjusted EBITDA, continued generation of positive cash flow from operations and continued growth in deferred revenue. This was the first quarter that included results of the acquisition of the Critical Path hosted messaging assets. As Elliot mentioned, we are pleased to be able to report that the integration is progressing well and remains on track to be substantially completed by the end of the second quarter, per our plan. Net revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2006 increased by 30% to $15.3 million from $11.8 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2005. Net revenue from domain name and other Internet services -- which we previously referred to as ancillary services -- increased by 33% to $14.4 million from $10.8 million. Revenue from other Internet services accounted for 18.5% of revenue, up 12 percentage points from 7.2% for the first quarter of last year. Revenue from domain names, while up 16% on an absolute basis, accounted for just 76% of revenue, down 9 percentage points from 84.5% for the first quarter of last year. This shift in sales mix between domain name and other Internet services revenue was primarily as a result of the contribution from hosted email. Revenue from advertising and other content sources for the first quarter decreased 14% to 844,000 from 981,000 for the first quarter of last year; and, as a proportion of total revenue, fell to 5.5% from 8.3% for the first quarter of last year. As Elliot mentioned, however, we have begun to see a positive trend emerging for this revenue stream and we expect this number to recover back to levels we experienced before the redesign within the next…

Elliot Noss

President

Thanks, Mike. I have three separate things I'd like to talk about before opening the call to questions. First, as we have referenced in the past, we will now be engaging in more active efforts to market the Company to the investment community. This will always be a management team that will speak first and foremost through results. But, now that we have successfully improved our listing, now that we have generated some analyst coverage, now that we have broadened our institutional shareholder base, we think it appropriate that we be more proactive in telling our story. We have more formally engaged the services of a respected investor relations firm. We expect to spend some time actively marketing the Company each quarter, and we will endeavor to appear at public equity conferences. We have had clear feedback from both large and small investors that Tucows is a well-kept secret, and they would appreciate it if we would work to change that. Be assured that we are listening. Next, there is one area of the Tucows business that I would like to discuss, that I don't believe I have talked about in any conference call in the past. That is our Domain Direct business. As you know, our primary distribution of Internet services is on a wholesale basis through our relationships with web hosting companies, ISPs and web designers. However, we do have a small retail business, Domain Direct, through which we offer a set of Internet services directly to end users. It has been around for more than ten years. It has more than 100,000 customers to whom it sells domain name registrations, email, email defense, blogware, et cetera. It was one of the pioneers in the marketing of domain services. Because our primary focus is on the wholesale business,…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. I will start off with some financial questions. First, just to make sure I got the transitional costs straight: it is $814,000 in the quarter, with $474,000 of that being in OpEx, the rest in gross margin?

Mike Cooperman

Management

Yes, that’s right.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

Great. Did the Critical Path acquisition add anything to deferred revenue and to the prepaid domain and other expense line?

Mike Cooperman

Management

No, Thanos, all of that business is done on a monthly basis.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

So nothing additive from the acquisition. But as you subsequently sign new business with Critical Path, it would be showing up in those lines, would it not? It is not a deferred revenue business, is what you are saying?

Mike Cooperman

Management

It is not a deferred revenue stream. It is a revenue stream where we enter into a contract, but only charge them monthly, for the month, as the service agreement.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

As far as the depreciation and amortization lines, should those look pretty steady going forward?

Mike Cooperman

Management

I'm sorry, could you say that again?

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

The depreciation and amortization lines, now with the acquisition having been done, is that what the run rate will be for the next little while?

Mike Cooperman

Management

It is subject to the fact that obviously we will be taking care of business and we will be replacing equipment and infrastructure as we need it. Yes, that is fair. We did indicate that we would be spending some monies on additional fixed assets this year. But it won't be more than a point or two higher than last year.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

You haven't owned Critical Path for very long, but what would you say the sales cycle looks like on that, as far as closing new business? In general, what has it done to the sales cycle for your overall email business, now that you have expanded it greatly?

Elliot Noss

President

There are two elements that I would pull out of that. The sales cycle we're finding for email is pretty similar to what we were experiencing for blogware or email defense, subject to the same constraints around customers' roadmap and customers' need. The one thing that is a little bit easier here with blogware, with outsourcing email defense, there's a little bit more work that needs to be done upfront educating our customers about why they might want to outsource EMD; or why blogging will fit into their business. With email, everybody gets it; you've got that conceptual hurdle overcome. Could you repeat the second part again? I was going to answer it, but I want to make sure I'm getting the right part there.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

The sales cycle. I mean, you were in the email business before, obviously, and now you have extended it with Critical Path. Does the fact that you have an increased size and presence in that market, has that changed the sales cycle at all, as far as making it easier to close business?

Elliot Noss

President

Yes, that was really the point that I was calling out -- perhaps too opaquely. We have seen a much greater acceptance of us as a serious player in that space. There are probably two very reasonable-sized pieces of business that we have already won I would say that, absent the transaction, we would not have won. That is obviously very encouraging and exciting for everybody in the building. Again, that is part of the excitement that I was referring to as well. In addition, we are seeing more in the way of RFIs or RFPs. The flow is greatly accelerated by this. I think that was something that when you go into any transaction, you hope for, but that's clearly an area that has exceeded our expectations; just that perception piece and the impact that could have.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

The expired names business sounds like it’s off to a good launch. Could you provide any metrics specifically? Or is it a bit early to do that at this point?

Elliot Noss

President

Yes, we are playing around with and we're talking internally about what the right metrics are. I think that the pieces of the business are still coming into sharper relief. A great example of that is if you were to ask me right now, two years from now, where do I think our greatest contributions will come in terms of selling expired names, I think that will be on the agency side. But we could, in fact, find that is in the primary inventory that we are piling up for ourselves. On the pay-per-click side, should we be talking about revenue or users or sessions, et cetera? So it is something we're thinking about. Happy to take any input and any thoughts you might have. We'll point out that what we have seen as metrics in this business, when we see deals shopped on The Street or we see some of the discussion that goes on, tend to be what I would call classic content business metrics. Based on our experience in the content business, some of it we don't think apply. I'll give you a great example there, which is unique users. Unique users in the content business, if you're Yahoo!, that is a very material concept and is going to be some small number compared to your total page views. In parked pages it's almost a 1:1 ratio. So what is the right way to judge it? We're still playing with all of that. I must also tell you that we have to play with that in the context of the whole book of business growing quite aggressively. So what is the organic growth inside of that? It’s complicated.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

Any thoughts on the acquisition of eNom earlier in the week? Would that have any implications on you guys or on the landscape?

Elliot Noss

President

Well, I think there are two things that we think are clear implications there. One, you know, that was specifically the additional pool of capital that I was referring to coming into the space. I think certainly any time that very credible institutional players put a large bet on the table -- this is, again, the fourth nine-figure bet as far as we look at it that has been placed in the space. That is a real validation of this as a real market space with some long-term potential. We think the second implication there is that eNom is a company that we have always competed with, to some extent, in that core wholesale business. We can't read that there's anything but a signaling of them moving somewhat away from that business. In other words, all of the messaging that we have seen externally referenced as the secondary market and pay-per-click and content and building out of content; that is clearly not about supplying in relationship with web hosting companies and ISPs. So that bodes well. We think it's perhaps one less rod fishing in our pond.

Thanos Moschopoulos - BMO Nesbitt Burns

Analyst

Great. Thank you. I will pass the line for now.

Elliot Noss

President

Thanks, Thanos.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from David Shore, Desjardins Securities.

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

Thanks. Hi, guys. Can you give us some of the stats around the domain names under management?

Elliot Noss

President

Yes, sure.

Mike Cooperman

Management

The number of domain names under management at the end of the first quarter is 5.1 million, Dave.

Elliot Noss

President

What was the second part? Domains under management and--?

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

You usually give direct and indirect. Is that included in direct?

Elliot Noss

President

No, no, that is just direct.

Mike Cooperman

Management

That is direct only.

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

And indirect?

Elliot Noss

President

While Mike is digging it up, I will tell you David, that last quarter was the first time that we didn't go into detail around those. The thinking was really that we saw very clearly that the business was transitioning. We don't know how informative those numbers are for investors. I will tell you that we saw good growth in the quarter. We saw growth in that low to mid-teens range, which for that business is pretty good. We were also hiving the registration business off from the other elements of that business. I think Mike is struggling to find that number, so why don't we get it to you offline?

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

Okay. The usability revamp on the blogging side that you have talked about previously, how is that going?

Elliot Noss

President

Quite good. I have been impressed with some of the early things that I have seen there. I think what you'll start to see in the not too distant future -- I don't know that I want to say Q3 or not, but not too far from there -- you will start to see, really a greater integration across services. So if you think about a task like sharing of photos, that is something that touches both email and blogging. We think that if we want to make the most out of everything that we have, we are really trying to move our thinking from looking at those as very siloed services to part of a complete user experience that really needs to work together very well. I think that as you start to see some of the things that we are going to roll out through the rest of '06, you will get a better sense of what I am talking about and I suspect you will be fairly impressed.

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

One of the things you talked about, Elliot, when you bought the Critical Path assets is the cross-sell opportunities. They had some large customers that you had some good potential with. Could you talk a little bit about how that goes? Are there other opportunities there that you are uncovering as you've done the integration?

Elliot Noss

President

The short answer is yes. Again, the folks, for whatever reason, that were the service providers, especially that came out of that business, really didn't do much in the way of broader Internet services. In fact, it is probably inside of that Critical Path customer base where we will first start to deliver some of that integrated approach that I was referring to earlier. So we are quite excited about that.

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

That's it for me for now.

Mike Cooperman

Management

David, let me just answer that question for you. The number of indirect domains is around 940,000. That is up from around 400,000 at March 2005.

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

I'm sorry, Mike, I had one more question. On the cost of goods, could you just break out the numbers again between domain and other, and what percentages they were?

Mike Cooperman

Management

Sure. The cost of domain names as a proportion of total cost of sales fell to 76.3% from 89.7% in the first quarter of last year. Other Internet services were 5.7%, up from 4.6%. Obviously, advertising and other services have no cost of sales. The rest is made up from our network costs.

David Shore - Desjardins Securities

Analyst

Great, thank you.

Elliot Noss

President

Thanks, David.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions)There are no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Noss.

Elliot Noss

President

Thanks very much. Thank you all for joining us this quarter. We look forward to having you join us again next quarter. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The conference has now ended.