Avantax Inc (AVTA) 2002 Q4 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good day everyone and welcome to the Infospace fourth quarter year end 2002 financial results conference call.

  • Today's call is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions I would like to turn the call over to Nicole Knowles, the Director of Investor Relations for Infospace. Please go ahead.

  • Nicole Knowles - Director of Investor Relations

  • Good afternoon we are pleased you could join us today to review the fourth quarter and year end 2002 financial results. Our earnings press release crossed the wire at approximately 1 15 p.m. Pacific time today.

  • Participating in today's call are, Infospace’s recently appointed, chairman, CEO and President, Jim Voelker, Ed Belsheim, our Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President of Wireless, Wireline, and Merchant Jan Claesson, York Baur, Prakash Kondepudi and Tammy Halstead our Chief Financial Officer. At the end of our prepared remarks you will have the opportunity to ask questions.

  • Before we begin I must advise you this announcement contains forward looking statements relating to the development of the company's products and services and future operating results. These statements are a subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.

  • Factors that could affect the company's actual results of operations include the product and cost related to the development of our product and applications services, the timing of market acceptance of those products and services, the performance of our systems, the effectiveness of the development and implementation of our strategy, and the ability to retain customer contracts and key personnel and the impact of changes in general economic conditions.

  • A more detailed description of certain factors that could affect actual results of operations include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the company's most recent form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange commission under the seconds entitled factors affecting our operating results, business prospects and market price of stock. Listeners are cautioned not to rely on the forward looking statements which speak to the company's prospects only as of the date of this conference call.

  • The company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward looking statements due to now information, events or circumstances after the date of this conference call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

  • EPS information during this call will be presented on a pro forma basis and our 1 for 10 reverse stock split approved by our stockholders on September 12, 2002. Pro forma results exclude noncash charge, nonrecurring charges and items unrelated to the company's cooperation. These results include noncash restricted stock compensation expense, amortization and impairment of intangibles, restructuring and other nonrecurring charges, impairment or gains on investments and the cumulative effective changes in accounting principles. As you know, we provide both GAAP and pro forma results in our earning press release and we also provide a reconciliation between GAAP and pro forma in our release.

  • We believe the pro forma results provide meaningful supplemental information for our investors. You can view this release, a tabular reconstruction of our results and other financial information in the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at www.InfospaceINC.com. In addition we are hosting a simultaneous live broadcast of this call on our website. Investors may access a replay of the call in the Investor Relations section of our site until 4 p.m. Pacific time on Monday February 3 . Also, in consideration of the SEC regulation,FD or fair disclosure, this call will serve as the primary form of communication with analysts on building their financial models. I would now like to turn the call over to Tammy Halstead. Our Chief Financial Officer.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • Thank you, Nicole. Just as a reminder EPS information throughout this conference calorie reflects the 1 for 10 reverse stock split approved by Infospace’s shareholders on September 12, 2002. For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2002, we reported revenues of $36.1 million a 15% increase over revenues of 31.4 million for the same period a year ago. Fourth quarter revenues exceeded our previous guidance of 31 to 32 million primarily due to the seasonally high usage level of our payment, search and shopping services.

  • Pro forma net income for the fourth quarter was 1.7 million. This number includes 4.1 million of noncash depreciation expense. For the same period last year we reported a pro forma net loss of 5.5 million. Pro forma EPS for the quarter was 5 cents per fully diluted share exceeding our guidance of a loss of 8 to 10 cents per share. The GAAP net loss for the quarter was 64 million or a loss of $2.07 per basic share.

  • The principle difference between the GAAP net loss and the pro forma net income for the quarter was a noncash charge for the impairment of goodwill and other intangibles in the amount of 60.9 million including 56.1 million for the write-off of goodwill attributed to the Wireless business unit. Please note the impairment amount is based on a preliminary independent evaluation report. This report will be finalized prior to the filing of our form 10-K.

  • For the fourth quarter of 2001 we reported a GAAP net loss of 102 million. For the quarter two customers Overture and Verizon Information Services each accounted for more than 10% of total revenues. We expect this to be true in Q1 as well. Revenue for the full year were 136.1 million. Compared to the 161.9 million recorded in 2001. The change year over year was primarily due to a reduction in barter and warrant revenues. One of our stated strategic financial goals during the second half of 2001 and throughout 2002 was to focus on driving sustainable revenue strengths.. In 2001 barter revenues totaled 13.8 million or 8.5% of total revenues. In 2002 barter revenues were [inaudible] for the full year. We did not have any barter revenues in Q3 or Q4 in 2002 and do not anticipate any for 2003. In addition, we reported 14 million of warrant revenue in 2001 compared to the 2.4 million recorded in 2002. We expect warrant revenue to further decline in 2003.

  • For the full year, we reported a pro forma net loss of 11.8 million or a loss of 38 cents per share. This compares to a pro forma net loss of 20 million for 2001 or a loss of 63 cents per share. For the full year, the GAAP net loss was 344.8 million or a loss of 11.16 cents per share which included the cumulative effect of a change in accounting principle of 206.6 million for the adoption of SFAS 142, the accounting standard relating for goodwill and other intangible assets.

  • For 2001, we reported a GAAP net loss of 502.1 million or a net loss of $15.77 per share. Gross profit margins were 76% for the quarter compared to 68% for the same quarter last year. Our gross margins were 73% for the full year consistent with our previous guidance. We invested 7.5 million in product development in Q4 and 34.8 million for the full year. SG&A expenses were 20.2 million for Q4 and 89.6 million for the full year. For 2001, our SG&A expenses were 118.3 million and product development expenses were 39.3 million.

  • This means we reduced our operating expenses by more than 33.3 million year over year. These savings were primarily due to reductions in cost of salaries and benefits, facilities, T&E, revenue share, bad debt expense and depreciation expense. For those of you who have listened to our prior conference calls you have heard me say on more than one occasion that we are focused on margin improvement and cost reduction at every level of the organization.

  • The significant absolute dollar decrease in operating expenses across all categories demonstrates the results of these efforts. Basic average shares outstanding for the quarter were 30.9 million, diluted average shares outstanding for the quarter were $31.9 million. We exited Q4 as we did Q3 with an even stronger balance sheet. We ended the quarter with a combination of cash and investments available for sale totaling 276.2 million and of course our balance sheet remains free of debt. Infospace invests its excess cash in high quality marketable investments which are rated at least A1P1. These investments including commercial paper, certificates of deposit, money markets, and U.S. government securities. Under our investment policy, no investments final maturity may exceed two years and the maximum weighted average maturity of the portfolio does not exceed 360 days.

  • On December 31, 2002, we had cash and cash equivalents of 138.4 million and short-term investments of $137.8 million for a combined total of $276.2 million. This is an increase of $1 million from September 30, 2002. In addition, we also had investments in private and public securities totaling $25.8 million. Now I'd like to turn to the key operating matrix for the quarter.

  • Wireline revenues were 16.1 million or 45% of total revenue for the quarter. Wireline revenues for the full year were 56.5 million or 42% of revenue. Our Wireline services recorded over 2.7 billion queries for the quarter. A query is defined as a request made to an Infospace service. Average revenue per query was .005 consistent with our previous guidance of a range of .003 to .007 per query. . The per query rate is a blended rate of all the revenues generated from our Wireline services. In Wireline, we provide search directory and broadband services. For search and directory we are paid on a per query basis.

  • In broadband we generate revenues on a per subscriber basis. Wireline's primary focus is meta-search which allows users to search multiple search engines at once returning comprehensive and relevant results. Research has found that nearly 85% of users find web pages through search engines and of those 85% of users, 86% of those users search with the intent to buy.

  • As a result, Q4 is typically a seasonally high usage quarter of search and this was particularly true this past holiday season. Search represented 65% of Wireline revenues in Q4 and 56% for the full year. Turning to merchant, our merchant business represented 37% of total revenues for the quarter and 37% of revenues for the full year. We generate revenue in our merchant business from four sources. Payments, our payment gateway solutions which we market under the name of authorize.net.

  • Promotions which is primarily our yellow page services, shopping and hosting. We are primarily focused on small to medium sized businesses, or FMBs, which are defined as merchants with revenues of 150 million or less. There are over 8 million FMBs in the United States. According to bisrate.com, online shopping soared to 7.9 billion during the past season which was between November 25 and December 25, an increase of 23% over 2001 figures. The compressed shopping season sent more shoppers on line this year.

  • As you would expect, our merchant business specifically our payment gateway and shopping services were also positively impacted by the intense online shopping season. Our payment gateway solutions accounted for 44% of total merchant revenues in Q4 and 42% of merchant revenues for 2002. We processed more than 28 million transactions up from the the 22 million processed in Q3 and this compares to the 12 million transactions reported for the same period a year ago. This quarter we had 76,000 total active merchants using our secure payment gateway solutions an increase from the 71,000 active merchants reported last quarter.

  • Promotions, accounted for 36% of total merchant revenues in Q4 and 38% of merchant revenue for the full year. Typically, our agreements with our YP partners provide for payment on a per query basis to a contractual cap. We met the cap in 2002 and we expect to meet the cap again in 2003. And the cap for 2003 are similar to those set for 2002. Now turning to our Wireless business area.

  • Our Wireless business recorded revenues of 6.7 million or 18% of total revenues for the quarter and 29.2 million or 21% of revenues for the full year. Wireless revenues were down from Q3 due to the one-time restructuring payment in Q3 from our Brazil partner of 1.3 million and the anticipated decline in Wireless subscribers and revenues from the termination of our Verizon Wireless relationship.

  • For the fourth quarter we had 1.42 million average monthly active subscribers compared to the 1.45 million reported for Q3. The effective revenue per monthly active subscriber for Q4 was $1.56 compared to $1.69 for Q3. This is consistent with our previous guidance of a dollar to 2 dollars per active subscriber per month. To be counted as a monthly active subscriber a user must use an Infospace Wireless service at least once during the month.

  • Overall we are extremely please to report that despite this challenging economy we turned in a quarter with sequential revenue growth and cost reductions. We have made significant progress on our strategic financial goals. We are pleased our efforts to monitor costs have resulted in significantly reduced operating expenses. And for the second quarter in a row our cash and investment balance and working capital grew. Now turning to the first quarter of 2003. We believe it's prudent to provide one quarter's guidance at this time due to the current economic climate and the fact that certain of our revenues are driven by consumer behavior. As I have explained Q4 was a seasonally high quarter for search payments and shopping therefore we expect Q1 revenues to be in the range of 32.5 to 33.5 million. For the first quarter of 2003 we expect revenues from our business units to be comprised as follows.

  • Wireline to be approximately 45 to 47% of total revenues, search will represent approximately 65 to 70% of total Wireline revenues in Q 1. Merchant, approximately 39 to 41% of total revenues. Payments and promotions will represent approximately 80 to 85% of total merchant revenues in Q1 and Wireless will be approximately 16 to 18% of total revenues. We expect growth margin to the in the mid 70s. We expect a pro forma net loss in the range of 500,000 to 1.4 million or a pro forma net loss per share in the range of two to five cents. We assume basic weighted average share -- basic weighted average shares of 31.2 million for Q1. As we head into 2003 our strategic financial goal remain unchanged. Continue to drive predictable and sustainable revenue stream, continue to focus on cost reduction and margin improvement and generate positive operating cash flow. Thank you and now I'd like to turn the call over to Ed Belsheim, our Chief Operating Officer.

  • Ed Belsheim - Chief Operating Officer

  • Thank you, Tammy. It's my pleasure to introduce Jim Voelker, our new chairman, CEO and President. Jim's election was the result of an extensive search conducted by our board primarily through a search committee and an executive recruiting firm, [Cornedferry]. As you may recall, we announced a search last July. More than 50 candidates were identified and a dozen were seriously considered. The board was looking for someone with proven leadership skills. The ability to drive the strategic direction of the company, to help the company with attractive customers, markets and a strong balance sheet achieve its full long-term potential. We will -- we were also looking for someone with unquestioned integrity. Having demonstrated an ability to establish trust with customers, employees, and the financial community. We wanted someone who had prior experience running a public company and we wanted a good fit culturally, someone who was excited about the opportunities as well as realistic about the challenges we face.

  • Based on these criteria, Jim emerged as the clear and convincing candidate. He has successfully built not one but several organizations from the ground up. His integrity is exceptional. And he has successfully lead a public company. He's also a good fit, having been on our board since July which has given him an opportunity to get to know us, and us an opportunity to get to know him. With optimism and enthusiasm I introduce to you Jim Voelker.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • Well, thanks, Ed, Tammy, Nicole. Good afternoon. As Ed said I'm Jim Voelker and it's my pleasure to be here today and have the opportunity to address our shareholders and the investment community in general. As Tammy so ably reported we had a solid fourth quarter. And while we have challenges ahead, I share the confidence -- I share Ed's confidence and optimism about our prospects. Before we take a few minutes to discuss each of the business units. I'd like to tell you about myself, my philosophy and activities to date and why I'm here.

  • I've been working in telecommunications sector for more than 20 years. During that period I served as CEO of two companies and most recently as President of Nex-link communications from 94 to 98. At Nex-link I directed the strategic and operational mission and was responsible for the development and execution of the tactical plans organization structures of recruiting employees and capital fund-raising. During my tenure we raised nearly 2.5 billion in capital including an IPL. I've served on several public and private company boards and today I serve as an independent director for Relay Mobile Wireless and as an advisor to Providence Equity Partners and Pivotal Partners as well.. As Ed mentioned earlier, I joined Infospace as a director in July and have had the opportunity to learn about the company, its products, and its people. These are the elements that attracted me to Infospace. Our assets are readily identifiable. We have attractive customers, products, people, and a strong balance sheet. What I hope to add is a sharper focus on the markets we serve, some tangible goals for us to achieve, and overall the spirit of teamwork and empowerment that typifies great companies. We've got a solid platform to build from and I look forward to combining our efforts and success.

  • My first month at Infospace has been focused on meeting our customers, our business partners and, of course, the employees. I visited Los Angeles, San Francisco bay area and New York. Have had the opportunity to make sales calls and hear about our company from several external perspectives. This is an imperative for me as I strongly believe in a customer first philosophy. You know, in my experience, successful organizations have ordered their activities, that's customer, company, and self. We've assembled a team that is diving deep into the company's businesses to answer the simple question, what is the real long-term potential for each line of business? Now I define that potential by a number of characteristics. Including market size and growth rate, margin sustainability, scalability, broad customer appeal and market leadership potential. This in-depth analysis will focus our collective effort and resources to drive long-term growth and profitability which in turn creates sustainable shareholder value.

  • We are pleased with our fourth quarter and the tangible results of the teams efforts at growing core revenues and aligning our costs. While there's certainly much to be done we've accomplished a great deal and created positive momentum.

  • Turning to the highlights of each of our business units, I'll begin with the Wireline unit. The Wireline's business unit has been on product quality, in particular to web search. We rebuilt and launched a new meta-search technology at each of our search properties, which included Dogpile, Excite search, WebCrawler and MetaCrawler. This innovation has yielded more relevant and comprehensive search results to our millions of users and is directly responsible for the growth we are seeing in our search business again as Tammy reported.

  • On the merchant side we're primarily focused on providing the tools, small and medium size merchants need to leverage the internet. Infospace's merchant business unit experienced strong growth throughout the year, again particularly in the fourth quarter and the seasonally high holiday shopping season. In Q4 our payment processing platform, which we call authorize.net processed more than 28 million transactions up from 22 million reported last quarter. This compares really well over last year's number of 12 million transaction for the same period. Also, at the end of the fourth quarter active merchants utilizing our payment services totaled 76,000, up 5,000 from last quarter.

  • On the Wireless side, our Wireless business unit provides solutions designed to help carriers maximize the revenue opportunities presented by data services over both current and next generations. Wireless continues to focus on leveraging the proven success of push messaging technologies such as SMS and MMS. During the fourth quarter, we launch new SMS services with several carrier customers.

  • To summarize, again, we had a solid quarter. We're in the process of better aligning our assets and opportunities and we will be sharpening our focus over the next several months. I really appreciate your time and interest today and look forward to keeping you apprised of our progress each quarter. Now we're happy to answer any questions you have. I'll turn the call back over to Nicole to facilitate the Q&A.

  • Nicole Knowles - Director of Investor Relations

  • Great, thank you, Jim. Josh can you please go over the instructions for asking the question again?

  • Operator

  • Yes, thank you. Today's question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to signal to ask a question please press the star key followed by the digit one on you touch tone telephone. That is star one for question and we'll take our first question from Safa Rashtchy from U.S. Bancorp.

  • Safa Rashtchy - Analyst

  • Good Afternoon and Congratulations on a very good quarter. Could you talk about the future of search vertical in particular? I have a follow-up on that but I want to start with search because obviously it's growing very rapidly for you guys and do you see the revenue growth that you've seen in Q4 as mostly driven by the increase in the prices and activity in Q4 or do you see a trend in traffic that could benefit you?

  • What I'm getting at in particular is there is more talk about the trend towards search being concentrated in the top portals, as you have the meta-search engines, what do you see in terms of traffic trends and, therefore, the future of the search modernization? And I have a quick follow-up. Thanks.

  • Nicole Knowles - Director of Investor Relations

  • We'd like York Baur, head of our Wireline business unit to take it on.

  • York Baur - Executive Vice President, Wireline and Broadband

  • You went over a lot of stuff there. The short response would be that the results of our performance in Q4 we believe is as was mentioned the results of an intense focus on product quality. And we have seen our usage grow. It's not just a rate growth, it's also a usage growth. The other thing I would comment on is that our position is a meta-search provider allows us to benefit from the trends of the industry overall and so -- this is a space you follow closely, obviously. Of course we're the benefactor of those things but we're also able to benefit from not just a single provider but the growth and increased quality from all of our providers. The only final thing I would say 87% of people use more than one search engine, so we believe while there's concentration we play a long-term role in that market.

  • Safa Rashtchy - Analyst

  • Great. And Overture being one of your top 10 clients, can you comment at least quantitatively about the revenue from other search providers you have had versus Overture? I understand you have deals with Looksmart and others?

  • York Baur - Executive Vice President, Wireline and Broadband

  • Maybe I'll -- I believe that's confidential.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • We haven't released each kind of revenue by contract. We are prohibited under confidentiality provisions under those contracts.

  • Safa Rashtchy - Analyst

  • Okay. Great. One final question for you, Jim.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • Sure.

  • Safa Rashtchy - Analyst

  • As you take the helm of the company no doubt you kind of are looking at the different assets as a portfolio, some are much higher growth than others. What are kind of your top areas of focus in terms of areas that you feel need to be enhanced or maybe even eliminated, certainly improved on. What will you be working on.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • I guess going backwards there's probably nothing hear that we can't improve on. We can always improve. Right now it's kind of to your end, we certainly look at the search business and are pretty enthusiastic about really the overall growth and importance of the business. And secondly about our position in it. You know, I might add to what York said or really just kind of give you my summary of it. I think in the quarter there we had four real major impacts on our revenue. One, quality of product, two we're in a growing market. Three revenues and rates are growing in that market and, four we had a good holiday season where we saw online business overall grow. We felt it in the merchant side, too. So it will be interesting for us to watch here in the first and second quarters when the seasonality gets washed out just exactly how strong our growth is but we feel confident about it and it is in particular a real particular area of focus for us to try and continue to grow.

  • Safa Rashtchy - Analyst

  • Great. Thank you.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • Thanks. Can we have our next question, please?

  • Operator

  • Our next question comes from Jeff Fieler with Bear Stearns.

  • Jeff Fieler - Analyst

  • Hi, good afternoon. I wanted to ask a question on the Wireless side of the business. The number in Q4 came in a little ahead of what I was expecting but it looks like you are guiding towards, you know, maybe a 10 or 15% sequential decline in that segment in Q1, if I'm doing the math right. Is there something going on there? Was there maybe a one-time license payment in Q4 or what's the cause of that trend in the numbers there?

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • Sure, Jeff, let me take a shot at that and then I can see if Jan has anything to add. We did have in the fourth quarter the Verizon Wireless agreement for one month but what we are seeing as we talked about in the third quarter and Jan spent some time in the conference call talking about a migration to a revenue model with our carriers where it's more of a shared risk reward. I think we are seeing some pricing pressure and we're just taking it, you know, conservative forecast as we go into 2003. Anything you care to add in that regard?

  • Jan Claesson - Executive Vice President, Merchant

  • I would say we had a very positive fourth quarter in regards to that, yes, Verizon went away but the other key customers stepped up so with regards to messaging volume and number of unique customers we pretty much came out the same as Q3 which was better than we had anticipated.

  • Jeff Fieler - Analyst

  • So in terms of the revenue then you would characterize it then as one where pricing is difficult but volumes are actually growing?

  • Jan Claesson - Executive Vice President, Merchant

  • There's also price pressure in this market and we are optimistic in terms of how volume will grow. Key there is what contracts we renew going forward. One reason the revenues are going down specific terms from Q4 to Q1 are specific contract transitions where their amortization is ending as of the last quarter which simply are not continued in Q1.

  • Jeff Fieler - Analyst

  • Then just one question for Jim, if I could. Can you talk about the strategic review in terms of looking at each line of business and trying to assess where it is in terms of, you know, market opportunity and scalability and financial results? I guess, you know, it's probably too soon to ask you what your conclusions are on that but certainly would be interested to know if you have a time line for when you might be able to get back to us and share conclusions.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • Well, it is -- I'm trying, Jeff, not to draw conclusions yet until I've learned quite a bit more. And I'd say that the time line will be somewhere after the end of the first quarter. We should -- we should have the information and be able to distill it by that time. And I would also say that we're, you know, as we look across this we are in several different kinds of businesses and there's strong opportunities in all. What we're really looking for is to try and find where the strongest long-term opportunities are.

  • Jeff Fieler - Analyst

  • That's fair enough. I look forward to hearing more.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • Thank as lot, Jeff.

  • Nicole Knowles - Director of Investor Relations

  • Can we have our next question please?

  • Operator

  • Yes we would like to remind everyone that it is star one for a question or comment. Next we go to Scott Sutherland with Wedbush securities.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • I want to start on the Wireline side. You said in the first quarter, that matrix, that 65% was from queries. What was the other 35%? Is that mostly advertising on your properties to monetize it or other areas?

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • That percentage is actually coming from search and the rest would be coming from advertising and directory and some of our co-brand relationships.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • Okay. When I look at the search you had 2.7 billion searches for the quarter and last quarter you reported 2.9 billion. Can you talk about the difference between the two numbers, why it went down but yet overall it seemed a pretty solid quarter. You gained more revenue per search.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • York would you go ahead and address that question?

  • York Baur - Executive Vice President, Wireline and Broadband

  • It's a great question. The overall number of queries that we represented , that Tammy stated in her presentation, is any – queries defined as any request of an Infospace service but the high value queries that we see are to our search and our directory products which represent less than 25% of those overall. And so really what we're seeing is a decline that's in the non-core areas, those that we've chosen to deemphasize but not in the core areas that we're focused on.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • The last segment of the Wireline, if you mentioned 65% was from search, do you have a number positive the last quarter?

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • I do. Hang on a second. 57%.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • Okay. Going into the merchant side. You guys stopped reporting the dollar volume of transactions. Do you have a number or can you report that?

  • Tammy Halstead. It was 2 billion.

  • Unidentified

  • Up from 1.7 billion in --

  • Ed Belsheim - Chief Operating Officer

  • Scott, I'll take responsibility for that. It's just really not a meaningful number. The meaningful number for us is the way we get paid which is transactions and so felt that showing a large dollar volume number was really you know, not germane to judging our success.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • I think on a go forward basis Scott and we've talked a little bit about this, the best way to model the merchant business really is to look at promotions and look at payments. Yes I mean shopping and hyper mart represent the other 20%. If you take a look at promotions and model it based on the percentage of revenue and model payments based on the percentage of the merchant revenue I think that will be a better way to look at the merchant business.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • Okay. Great. Lastly moving to the Wireless space. That one question for Jim on investments going forward, looking at Wireless, you know, you guys used to have a kind of portal type service. With the carriers and now you guys are moving to much more messaging, promotions with some of the European partners, is the business model illustrative of this segment or are you going to per message fee with some of your partners now?

  • Jan Claesson - Executive Vice President, Merchant

  • What we're talking about here is trying to figure out what kind of pricing method are the carriers using to their customers. Today we have a hybrid where some of it is based on users and others are usage or a combination there off. I expect us to continue to work with our customers to fit in to their business model and make it a win-win business scenario.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • Can you give some color on your carrier partners over the last few quarters? We know you lost Verizon. Have you been adding other partners and not announced it at this point?

  • Jan Claesson - Executive Vice President, Merchant

  • Let me start with Verizon. We continue to talk to Verizon and we have just launched some applications with Verizon and we continue to have a relationship with them, clearly not the scope we have before. We have done several wins over the past couple of months that we are not in the stage of announcing at this stage.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • My last question for Jim, you know, looking at the model your guidance for Q1 it looks like there's some slight increase in operating expenses. Is some of this attributable to the consulting, looking at the product lines and strategies in one quarter issue of increasing expenses or do you look to increase expenses going forward?

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • I'm sorry, Scott, I missed that last question.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • Tammy let me take it. Slight increase in operating expenses in the first quarter. For Q4.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • Hang on a second.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • That may be -- let me put it this way. I don't think it's related to the consulting expenses. I don't pay consultants that well so -- I doubt you'd be able to recognize that here.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • You know, what, Scott I don't have that in front of me. Let me take that offline with you and I'll give you a call back. It's not --

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • It does register to me -- it doesn't register to me that it's a big issue.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • The only other comment I want to make, in regards to following up on something Jan said, was I think what we did see in the fourth quarter was an increase in usage by the users -- Team Mobile and Cingular we were very pleased with that.

  • Scott Sutherland - Analyst

  • Great.

  • Tammy Halstead - Chief Financial Officer

  • Thanks, Scott.

  • Nicole Knowles - Director of Investor Relations

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • We have no further questions in queue at this time so I would like to turn the conference back over to Ms. Knowles for any additional or closing remarks.

  • Nicole Knowles - Director of Investor Relations

  • I would like to thank everyone for participating in today's call.

  • Jim Voelker - Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President

  • Thank you all.

  • Ed Belsheim - Chief Operating Officer

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • This does conclude today's conference call, you may now disconnect. We do appreciate your participation.--- 0