Ituran Location and Control Ltd (ITRN) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ituran fourth-quarter of 2024 results conference call. All participants are present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If you have not received it, please contact Ituran's Investor Relations team at EK Global Investor Relations at 1212-378-8040 or view it in the new section of the company's website www.ituran.com. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Kenny Green of EK Global Investor Relations. Mr. Green, would you like to begin?

Thank you. Good day to all of you, and welcome to Ituran's conference call to discuss the fourth quarter of 2024 results. I would like to thank Ituran's management for hosting this conference call. With me today on the call are Mr. Eyal Sheratzky, CEO; Mr. Udi Mizrahi, Deputy CEO on BP Finance; and Mr. Eli Kamer, CFO. Eyal will begin with a summary of the quarter's results, followed by Eli with a summary of the financials. We will then open the call for the question-and-answer session.

I would like to remind everyone that the Safe Harbor statement in the press release also covers the contents of this conference call. And now. Eyal, would you like to begin, please?

Thank you, Kenny. I'd like to welcome all of you to our fourth quarter in full year 2024 results call and thank you for joining us today.

We are pleased with our fourth quarter results, presenting another quarter of year-over-year growth in revenue and profit across the geographies in which we operate. I want to add that while we still show growth in USD terms, the strengthening of the dollar versus many of the local currencies in which we operate, in particular, the BRL and MXN had a negative impact on our financial results when denominate in USD. In local currencies in each of our regions, we grew ahead of what our USD dominated results suggest.

In the fourth quarter, we were very happy to report the high level of 40,000 net subscribers ads in the quarter, which came in at the top end of our expectations of between 350 and 40,000 net per quarter. This is actually the third quarter in Rome where subscriber ads were above or at the very top of our expected range. The hard work we have done over the past year in bringing new and attractive applications, products and services as broad based positive results. And looking ahead, we believe the subscriber rate will be even higher.

For 2025, we believe the subscriber rates will accelerate to between 180,000 and 200,000 for the year, over 20% ahead of the 2024 rates. Our success reflects ongoing and growing demand for our location-based products and telematic services in all our regions, as well as traction from our new initiatives and services. Looking back, we had a very good 2024, and I just want to summarize some of the main success of the year, which will contribute to the accelerated growth in our subscriber base in the coming years.

In December, we announced that our JV in India with LUMAX successfully concluded a validation and trial with Daimler India, commercial vehicles for its vehicles sold to the Indian market. Daimler fully tested Ituran's device on around 15,000 vehicles operating in India, and we expect that over the time, we will sell tens of thousands of connected devices to Daimler annually.

In November, we signed a 5-year contract with Nissan in Chile initially covering 3 vehicle models. Following their car purchase, Nissan's customer will have a year free trial of Ituran service paid for by Nissan Chile. Iran will provide a pre-installed vehicle location unit and a suite of telematics and stolen vehicle recovery services to Nissan and its customers throughout Chile. This new agreement in Chile is the culmination of well overused discussions on how we can replicate our strong service for Nissan customers in Mexico and bring these services to their customers in Chile.

And just to touch on our relationship with Nissan in Mexico. In October, we were awarded the supplier of the year in the after-sales-accessory category. Demonstrating how happy they are with the high-quality service we are supplying to them and their customers.

We are also in active discussions with a number of major OEM car manufacturers in addition to those that we already work with. We are looking to bring new OEM partners as well as broaden the services we provide existing OEMs to additional countries in South America. We see strong long-term growth potential via this initiative.

Our usage-based insurance business in Israel continue to gain strong traction, bringing us new subscribers and it is one of the reasons why we continue to see strong subscriber growth in Israel. This as well, a high car theft rate in Israel is enabling us to reach additional subscribers from part of the market that were previously untapped by us, such as lower price new vehicles or the second-hand car market.

We launched a product for motorcycles early in 2024 and is gained strong traction across all the geographies in South America in which we have launched it. Motorcycles represent a very significant untapped market for us in the region which significantly increases our total addressable market.

Given our strong net cash position of over $77 million our ongoing cash generation which came to almost $23 million in the quarter, the Board of Directors decided that from this quarter, to increase the quarterly dividend payment to shareholders by 25% from $8 million per quarter to $10 million per quarter.

Our dividend yield on an analyzed basis represents a return of 5%, which is a very solid return. From a strong and stable company, we see our ongoing dividend as a reward to our shareholders for their loyalty and long-term support of our company.

In summary, we remain pleased with Ituran's performance. 2024 represented a record for Ituran in terms of top line revenue and subscriber costs, and we believe 2025 will be even better. While currencies impact us because our business is fundamentally strong in each of our regions over a long period, the impact should balance out.

Most importantly, our effort to accelerate our subscriber growth is gaining traction, and we can see this in the strong subscribers net ads in 2024 and the accelerated growth we expect in 2025. At the same time, we look for more avenues for accelerating our business even further across all our regions. I look forward to updating you on our projects again in the coming quarter, and with that,

I hand over to Eli. Eli, please go ahead.

Thanks, Eyal. I will provide a short summary of the financial results. You can find the more detailed results that we issued in the press release earlier today.

Fourth quarter revenues were $82.9 million, a 7% increase compared with revenue of $77.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The trunking of the USD in the fourth quarter versus the various local currencies in which Ituran operate in impacted the revenues when translated into USD. In local currency, revenues grew by 11% year over year.

Revenue from subscription fees in the quarter were $61.5 million an increase of 4% year over year and in local currency, an increase of 9%. Product revenues in the quarter were $21.3 million an increase of 16% year over year and no different in local currencies.

The subsidy base expanded to 2,409,000 by the end of the fourth quarter, an increase of 40,000 from the end of the previous quarter. The geographic breakdown of revenues in the fourth quarter was as follows Israel 52%, Brazil 25%, rest of the world 23%.

EBITDA for the quarter was $22.5 million or 27.2% of revenues and increases of 3% compared with EBITDA of $21.9 million or 28.2% of revenues in the fourth quarter of last year. In local currency, EBITDA grew by 10% year over year.

Net income for the fourth quarter was $13.8 million or diluted earning per share of $0.70, an increase of 15% compared to $12 million of diluted earning per share of $0.60 in the fourth quarter of last year. In local currency, net income grew by 22% year over year. Cash flow from operation for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $22.7 million.

Now, taking a look at the full year 2024 results. Revenues for 2024 were a record $336 million, a 5% increase over the $320 million reported in 2023. 72% of revenues were from location-based service subscription fees, and 28% were from product revenues. In local currency, revenues grew by 8% year over year.

Revenues from subscription fees were $242.5 million representing an increase of 3% over 2023. In local currency, subscription fees revenues grew by 7% year over year. Product revenues were $93.8 million representing an increase of 10% compared with 2023. In local currency, product revenues grew by more or less the same as 10% year over year.

EBITDA for 2024 was $91.3 million, 27.1% of revenues, an increase of 5% compared to $87 million, 27.2% of revenues in 2023. In local currency, EBITDA grew by 8% year over year.

Net income in 2024 was $53.7 million, 16% of revenues, or fully diluted earning per share of $2.70, an increase of 11% compared with net income of $48.1 million, 50% of revenues of fully diluted earning per share of $2.41 in 2023. In local currency, net income grew by 15% year over year.

Cash flow from operation for the year was $74.3 million. As of December 30, 2024, the company had cash, including multiple securities of $77.4 million and a debt of $0.1 million amounting to a net cash position of $77.3 million. This is compared with cash, including multiple securities of $53.6 million and a debt of $0.6 million amounting to a net cash position of $53 million as of year-end 2023.

The Board of Directors increased the dividend policy for the current quarter and quarters ahead. A dividend of $10 million was declared for the quarter and upcoming quarters, representing a 25% increase over the dividends issued in the period quarters. The current dividend takes into account the company's counting, strong profitability, ongoing positive cash flow, and strong balance sheet.

And with that, I'd like to open the call for the question-and-answer session.

(Operator Instructions)

Sergey Glinyanov, Freedom Broker.

And in the press release, you mentioned product mix impacted on gross margin. Would you put some colors about that? Is the primary effect from sales for two-wheeled vehicles?

The gross margin is being affected on the mixture and the product, the mixture that we have in a -- in what we sell. Basically, it depends on the -- we have selling in many regions, many countries, different type of products, all of this is changing, there is volatility between the quarters and things like that. This is usually what is the main effect.

Okay, got it. And I would like to talk a little bit about, yeah, each own perspectives. And yeah, you outlined a pretty positive subscribers best growth expectation. What is the main point of growth do you see over the year or 2025?

I will divide it from the different geographies, and I will start with Israel. In Israel, we are gaining more and more market share in one hand. While at the same time, the cost of rate in Israel is in a very high rate these days. It started during the end of '23, 2024 as well, and now. we see it's continued.

When this situation happens, it's means that more people look for security systems, insurance companies' demands increasing, and as long as we provide state of the art technology and services, and we keep our high-rate of recovery. We fit the demand and it's allow us to grow in Israel. Also, the UBI, the usage-based insurance solution and more and more increase among insurance companies in Israel. And we see recently also a higher and growing demand which we believe will contribute more materially during 2025. This is regarding the Israeli market which just remind present about 50% of the total revenues that we published.

We got Brazil. The motorcycle solution also taking more and more attraction. We are talking with motorcycle dealerswe as well as motorcycle manufacturers, as well as insurance companies that are usually afraid of providing insurance for motorcycles. But we succeed to, I think, to find the right solution to increase the security of motorcycles as well as growing our finance segment.

As you remember, we started with the Santander which we hope that we will continue to expand this contract as well as now offering it to more and more banks which we feel and we think that during 2025, we will have it, we will sign a contract or we -- we're aiming to attract and sign with more banks, more subscribers.

Another thing which are relevant for 2025 in our expectations is the OEM, which to remind everyone, up until now, we worked with General Motors and with Nissan in some of our geographies. And we put a lot of focus in the OEM segment to attract more international brands, and we expect or we do our best that we will be able to sign contract with more logos and this also will contribute maybe more to the second half of 2025. But this is why we are positive and optimistic regard the additional growing the subscriber base during 2025.

Great. And I think it's supposed to -- do you still expect $100 million EBITDA in 2025. Is it right?

Actually, all our global operations, in the local currencies which way they operate meet and even exceed our expectation in many cases, by the way. We set the guidance in USD as a target a year ago, and we said, just to remind you that it depends on today's currency level, today's was February 2024.

However, the currencies have significantly changed since then, which we think that it's make the guidance not really meaningful in USD terms anymore. So given the global strong recent currency volatility, especially since the new President in the US has taken over, makes it even harder to make a meaningful predictions. So having said that, If currencies move back to the levels of beyond that they were when we first issued the guidance in February 2024, it is possible that we will meet and even exceed this target.

So I do want to stress that even with all the currency volatility because we do have some natural edges in our business, since in each regions revenues and most of the expenses are in local currencies, so the currency exposure is only to the difference, the profit we make in each region. So while there is an impact of a few million dollars amounting to single digit percentage of EBITDA either up or down, it doesn't change the overall success.

So we decided that providing the EBITDA target for the year that depends on currencies which we have no control over is not that useful to investors, especially in the currencies continue to be so volatile. And by the way, instead, we continue to provide the guidance on something we do have much higher visibility, which is the subscriber rate, which shows the strength of the business. I hope this is clear.

Yeah, thank you. And I think the last one, are you going to increase subscription fees in 2025? And if yes, what rate should we expect in local currencies for Israel and Brazil?

We always think about pricing and just remind we have a lot of segments, a lot of a customer, which is very diversified, so we always do the best to maximize the profitability and the profit. Along the year, we will view it again. And if we find that the prices or the cost or inflation hurting us, so we will do as much as we can, but there is no any new decision for right now.

Chris Reimer, Barclays.

Can you comment -- sorry, you already mentioned a little bit your strategy relating to the OEMs. Could you give us any indication of what's the contribution of the OEM subscribers versus retail?

As I said a few quarters ago that we have today after we created synergy between the OEM, the geography that we acquired the business of OEM and our traditional businesses, there are many, I would say, overlapping between the services. some of the OEM, we make renewals, and we offer them more. So today, it's a little bit more, I would say, confused to provide it how it's divided.

But I still will say two things. One is that the OEM growing as a lower margins. This is the nature of do a large B2B commitment. For example, if we work with Nissan and they provide us hundreds of thousands per year, so of course, the margins are low compared to the retail market when we sell it to the end users, such as in Brazil or in Israel. So we are not providing a specific how it's divided.

Still, by the way, still, the major portion of our growth is coming from the from the retail market. I hope that the retail market will continue to grow as it grows in 2024. But as I said, and I put some color on new contract or new customer base from other logos that this will be additional. So still, the main growth will come from the retail, but we will add also from the OEM.

Got it, thanks. That's great. Just one more, you pointed out traction in the new products, but could you give us a sense of how much the new products represent in revenues versus total traditional products?

We have so many solutions and units, so there is not really something that I will disclose here. I just want to say again, when I said about the potential growth this year, I mentioned mainly SVR in Israel. Which is the traditional business, of course, we do it better. We have always new technologies, and we have to be always advanced, but the segment, it's a traditional one.

When I talked about UBI, of course, it's new but still already almost 4 years. A part number of it runs cells in Israel. When I speak about a motorcycle, it's quite new, but it's only in the beginning, so the contribution is still not very high. And when we talk about the financial customers like a bank that provide loans for car owners, this is something that we do almost 3 years with Santander. This is something that we expect to grow. It has its own contribution, but when I want to provide the ratio among the entire segment. Each one is not very big, but we are not disclosing how it's divided.

Boris Schneider, Moore Investments.

So, a couple of questions for me, mostly on ARPU. Just to understand, in this fourth quarter, there was a growth of 7% in your subscribers, but 9% in a constant currency in revenues from subscriptions. So is there any particular product or increase in prices that you can point out that contributed to this increase in ARPU in constant currency?

So there is no specific reasons other than the currency exchange effect. other than that, we are in local currencies the prices are more or less the same.

Okay. And how should we think of the ARPU excluding the currencies effect for '25, given your increase in the number of subscriber additions.

Since we are having a customer base of 2.4 million and we're expecting to grow something that will be closer to 200,000. So probably the mixture of the growth will be in a little bit lower output because part of it is a new solutions and more OEM contracts that are represent lower output. but still, when we talk about the base of 2.4, the influence on the absolute ARPU will be very little. So I would consider the current ARPU as the representing the output of the group.

Great. Congratulations on...

There is no any specific, strategic or economic reason that the output will go down. Some of the mixture can change, but the influence on the total 2.4 million or 2.5 million or 2.6 million will be very non-material.

Thanks. Congratulations on strong execution, as well as the presentation on Zoom. That's great effort. Thanks.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. The recording of the call will be available within 24 hours on our website. This concludes the Ituran fourth-quarter 2024 results conference call. Thank you for your participation.

There is a further question from Boris Schneider. Boris, would you like to ask another question?

No, sorry. No more questions.

Okay. This concludes the Ituran fourth-quarter 2024 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.