Earnings Labs

VeriSign, Inc. (VRSN)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 28, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone. Welcome to VeriSign's first quarter 2016 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded, and unauthorized recording of this call is not permitted. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. David Atchley, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer. Please go ahead, sir. David Atchley, CFA - Vice President, Treasury & Investor Relations: Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to VeriSign's first quarter 2016 earnings call. With me are Jim Bidzos, Executive Chairman, President and CEO; Todd Strubbe, Executive Vice President and COO; and George Kilguss, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call and our presentation are being webcast from the Investor Relations section of our verisign.com website. There, you will also find our first quarter 2016 earnings release. At the end of this call, the presentation will be available on that site and within a few hours, the replay of the call will be posted. Financial results in our earnings release are unaudited. And our remarks include forward-looking statements that are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discuss in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically, the most recent reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which identify risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. VeriSign retains its longstanding policy not to comment on financial performance or guidance during the quarter, unless it is done through a public disclosure. The financial results in today's call and the matters we will be discussing today include GAAP and non-GAAP measures used by VeriSign. GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation information is appended to our earnings release and slide presentation, as applicable, each of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website. In a moment, Jim…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Steve Ashley with Robert W. Baird. Steve M. Ashley - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Thank you very much. So, I guess I'd like to ask, in terms of the revenue growth rate, revenue grew 9.1% year-over-year, but the name file grew 7.1%. Historically, if you look at those two, they've been very close to one another within 10 basis points, and here you have 200 basis points different. Do you have any insight into why the revenue growth rate might have been 200 basis points stronger than the name growth rate? George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Sure, Steve. I think a couple of factors. One, as we mentioned last quarter, we did have a .net price increase that took effect in February of this year. Also really the timing of when the ads came in, we clearly had a very strong 4Q of name additions, and we also had a very strong 1Q name additions. And so, as that revenue waterfalls, that also helped. While not material, our BFS business continue to grow in the quarter as well. Steve M. Ashley - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Great. And then, you mentioned China, the expectation is that, that should normalize here in the second quarter. What gives you confidence or what leads you to believe that that's going to be the situation? George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Well, I think the short answer is, as we look at the trends, we've seen the demand that happened in the second half of the first quarter kind of ebb and flow. So we saw it come. It was pretty strong for a few weeks and then it came back to more than normalized path. So we don't have a perfect crystal ball, but based on the trends that we've seen that we've been tracking, it seems to be back on the normalized path for that particular region, at least as what we've seen historically. Steve M. Ashley - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Great. That's helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Sterling Auty with JPMorgan.

Unknown Speaker

Management

Hi. This is (14:37) for Sterling. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about the Japanese IDN, which I believe is in the (14:44) space. (14:45) at this point, are you able to disclose the pricing for the registry fees and also what will be the subsequent IDN fee – what will the subsequent IDN fee priced similarly? Thanks. D. James Bidzos - President, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Chairman: I'm sorry but that was completely unreadable on our end. I don't know if you are on a cell phone, but none of us in this room could get a word of it, I apologize.

Unknown Speaker

Management

Hello. Can you – is this better? D. James Bidzos - President, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Chairman: Oh, that's much better.

Unknown Speaker

Management

Sorry. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Just quickly, I wanted to ask about the Japanese IDN. Are you able to disclose the pricing for the registry fee at this point? And will the subsequent IDNs be priced similarly? Todd B. Strubbe - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, so in Japan – hi, this is Todd Strubbe. In Japan, we are currently in our limited release one phase and we enter a GA in June. Our pricing right now has a combination of base pricing and we have lunched premium pricing, so it's a combination. Our general availability pricing is established at $8 for the registrars and then has several tiers associated with premium pricing. Our Korea launch, we just announced, will go into Sunrise phase in May, as Jim said, with the targeted general availability for both Korea streams, the .com and the .net, in late August. And that pricing will likely be very similar to what we have priced in Japan.

Unknown Speaker

Management

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll hear next from Gregg Moskowitz with Cowen & Company. Gregg Moskowitz - Cowen & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. Out of the 2.65 million net names that were added in the quarter, about how much of that came from Asia-Pac? George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: So, we don't break out the gross adds by particular region, but what I can tell you is the incremental names that happened in the quarter that were – kind of surprised us was about a million names. So about a million incremental names in the quarter were over and above the trend line that we typically see in China. Gregg Moskowitz - Cowen & Co. LLC: Okay. And I guess, George, just getting back to your commentary on the ebbs and flows with respect to the second half of Q1 in China. If we sort of think back to Q4, if I recall, you had an extremely strong first six weeks in that quarter and then the activity seemed to die down quite a bit as well. Is the thought on normalization in Q2 a function of seasonality being stronger in Q1 versus Q4? I guess just any commentary there would be helpful. George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. Clearly, seasonality has some to do with it. Q2 tends to be a little bit less than Q1. Q1 does tend to be our strongest quarter. But when we look at the trends from that particular market, it just deviated from the normal trend that we were expecting. And then again, subsequent to the end of the quarter, it came pretty much back on our expectations. The only other color I can give you…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Walter Pritchard with Citi.

Walter H. Pritchard - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Thanks. Could you help us understand as you look out at maybe 1Q 2017? I know you're not providing 2017 guidance in total. But do you expect kind of the same dynamic in that period to persist from what you're seeing in 4Q given the overage in registrations coming out of Asia in the current or in the most recent reported quarter? D. James Bidzos - President, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Chairman: I think it's just too early to speculate as to what will happen in Q1, but certainly what happened in Q1 of 2016 is very different than what happened in Q4 of 2015. So, the impact that we're anticipating in Q4 of 2016 really wouldn't be the same in the subsequent quarter. And I think it's sort of a favorable development that there's more of a concentration of .com registrations in the sort of increase in activity in Q1 of 2016 So, it's early to say, but I think there's just a larger number of renewing names, that ratio that exists in Q4 of 2016 is not very likely to be the same in subsequent quarters, it almost certainly won't. George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: And the only other thing I'll say is that – when we start seeing these names start to renew late in Q3 and Q4, we'll get some additional information that will help us to answer that question for Q1 and when we provide guidance on our fourth quarter call.

Walter H. Pritchard - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay. Great. And then, just as, Jim, as it relates to the contract processes, you said you're in the final stages there. I assume the next stage here would be a posting of that contract and – posting the agreements in the public comment period. And could you just let us know what your expected dates are to have that process wrapped up? D. James Bidzos - President, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Chairman: Yeah. I can't speak for all the parties involved. So, I can't give you a date. I can just tell you that we've moved down the road in drafting the agreement and we're much further along in that process and we certainly are making progress and I'm sure that, we'll certainly know more by the next time we talk to you in the following quarter, and it's very possible that something could happen before that.

Walter H. Pritchard - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay. And then just last question for George, on the guide for the year, you did raise your revenue guidance on the back of the strengthened demands. You didn't change your margin guidance, is there a corresponding increase in spending that you're pushing through or what else would explain the difference between higher revenue and margins not going up? George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Looking in our business with the recurring revenue model, we're clearly looking to continue to drive growth that we see various opportunities in various markets and we're trying to be flexible in making investments and marking to drive additional growth. And so we're always putting plans in place for future periods. We do have some variable costs, as it relates to the fees that are charged for domain names that we pay to ICANN as these fees right up, so we do have some variable costs there. And if you look at some of our costs quarter-over-quarter, we have been investing in the business, but, yeah, I think, what you should imply is that as revenue grows, we're looking to invest in the business and maintain margins in the range we guided to.

Walter H. Pritchard - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our last question from Gray Powell with Wells Fargo Securities.

Gray W. Powell - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple. So how should we think about the pace of internationalized.com and .net trans order agents (24:27) coming on or going GA over the rest of the year? And do you have any indications of early demand? George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: I think, Gray, and I think it's just too early. The limited release phase that we're in right now, those who are able to buy the .komo (24:53), the Japanese name, are limited to those who have the .com and they have to do that sort of the registrar, they have the .com, so the combination of those two has limited the addressable market in that limited release phase. So we'll really start to see once we hit general availability in the June timeframe and the 30, 60, 90 days after that. Same thing with Korea. Korea will be different in that we have both a .com and a .net there, so that will be the first time we'll test both of those strings in that market. And our follow-on plans past Korea, we're working on them and as we learn from Japan and Korea, both will help determine what we do next.

Gray W. Powell - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Can any of those strings hit in the second half of the year or is it just too early to say? George E. Kilguss III - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: I think we're – we would be targeting probably two more strings by the second half of the year, maybe a third. So, we – that would be the high level plans, I'd say, but still not ready to share those yet.

Gray W. Powell - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Okay, fair enough. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

At this time, I'll turn the call back over to David Atchley for final comments. David Atchley, CFA - Vice President, Treasury & Investor Relations: Thank you, operator. Please call the Investor Relations department with any follow-up questions from this call. Thank you for your participation. This concludes our call. Have a good evening.