Earnings Labs

UTStarcom Holdings Corp. (UTSI)

Q3 2009 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 5, 2009

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Laurie, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the UTStarcom third quarter 2009 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator instructions) Thank you. I will turn the call over to Barry Hutton, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Barry Hutton

Analyst

Good afternoon and thank you for joining our call today. Earlier this afternoon, we announced our financial results for the third quarter 2009. That press release is available on the company Web site. And today Peter Blackmore, our Chief Executive Officer will start the call by discussing certain business unit highlights including a new product launch and key customer wins. Peter will then give an update on our progress on the restructuring initiatives announced in June. Viraj Patel, our interim Chief Financial Officer, will then review the third quarter financial results and certain non-GAAP metrics. And then Peter will close the conference call with some comments about our expectations for next year. I remind you that this call will include forward-looking statements relating to among other things the Company's restructuring initiatives and projected business model. Forward-looking statements are generally indicated by such words as “will,” “expects,” “estimates,” “goals,” “plans” or similar words. These statements are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. These risks include the ability of the company to realize anticipated results from operational improvements and execute on its business plan as well as risk factors identified in its annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly report on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. And in addition, today's call will include certain pro forma non-GAAP financial measures. The most directly comparable direct GAAP information and a reconciliation between the pro forma non-GAAP and GAAP figures is attached to the earnings release issued earlier today and filed on a Form 8-K. The reconciliation is also available on our Web site in the Investor Relation section. And now I will turn the call over to Peter.

Peter Blackmore

Analyst

Thanks, Barry. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much for joining our call today. Earlier today we issued the press release that outlined our financial results quarter-after-quarter. As you saw the Q3 results include total revenues of $71 million, this is driven primarily by our IP-based products and services. This quarterly revenue also reflects our decision to minimize our Handset operations globally. During this has helped to improve our gross margins and reduce the working capital needs. Q3 gross margins were 34%, which included some benefits specific to the period that it also reflects that our margins improve as we focus on our IP infrastructure business. The operating expenses were 58 million. That includes 11 million in one-time charges related to our restructuring activities and a small loss from the divestiture of our career-based handset operation. The reduction in our run rate expenses is on track to hit our 2010 targets. Importantly, we ended the third quarter with 241 million in cash and short-term investments and we continue to manage cash well and manage it tightly. As always, the financial results are clearly important, but as you all know Q3 is a time of transition for the company. So, equally important to the results as the progress towards repositioning the Company for 2010 and beyond. During the second half of this year our management team has been very focused on three objectives, which I will discuss in some more detail. First, we continue to build the product portfolio and the customer pipeline to drive 2010 revenues we need. Second, we are aggressively executing the restructuring and this will streamline the business and reduce the OpEx flow 100 million for 2010 and whilst we're doing this we will maintain the Company's financial R&D and operation resources required to prosper in…

Viraj Patel

Analyst

Thanks, Peter. Good afternoon, everyone. I will start by highlighting the company-wide numbers presented both on GAAP and non-GAAP basis. In the third quarter 2009 we had GAAP revenue of 71 million versus 181 million a year ago. It's very important to recognize that the vast majority of the year-over-year differences was anticipated and it is directly attributable to lower revenues from past business. As you know, use of the PAS technology has been winding down for some time. And earlier in 2009, the China government formally reallocated the spectrum from PAS to 3G users. And such we had anticipated this decline in PAS revenues. The GAAP gross profit in Q3 was 24 million or 34% of revenues. This compares to gross profit of 57 million or 32% in the third quarter of 2008. As outlined in our press release the Q3 gross profit did benefit from the reversal of 6.5 million inventory charge. You recall that in prior periods, we wrote down certain handset inventory. Our GAAP operating expenses were 58 million and we're also impacted by certain significant one-time items totaling 10.6 million. First, in June, we had announced a significant restructuring charge and we took some related charges in Q2. As we continue to execute our plans we require an additional 8.9 million restructuring charge in Q3. We do expect to take an additional restructuring charge in Q4 as rest of the workforce reduction and is finalized. All of these charges are primarily related to one-time severance payment to identified employees. Second, we recognize 1.7 million non-cash loss related to divestiture of Korea handset operations. Even with these special charges we have been able to achieve 37% reduction in OpEx year-over-year. The reduction comes from a broad range of items across the SG&A category. We also lowered…

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) At this time, there are no questions. I will return the call to management for any closing remarks.

Peter Blackmore

Analyst

Well, thank you, operator. I know we've got calls later today and tomorrow with many of the investors so I'm sure we will have most of the questions there. I would like to thank you all very much for listening and look forward to talking to you. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's UTStarcom third quarter 2009 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.