Radcom Ltd (RDCM) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Radcom Limited results conference call for the third-quarter of 2023. All participants are present in a listen only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and will be available for replay on the company's website at www.radcom.com later today.

On the call are Eyal Harari, Radcom CEO; and Hadar Rahav, Radcom's CFO. Please note the management has prepared a presentation for your reference that will be used during the call. If you have not downloaded it yet, you may do so through the link in the Investor section of Radcom's website at www.radcom.com/investor dash relations.

Before we begin, I would like to review the Safe Harbor provision. Forward-looking statements in the conference call involve several risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the company's statements about its full year 2023 revenue guidance, the potential to scale up to a mid sized software company levels of gross margin, further increases to revenues and profitability in 2024 operating and stock-based compensation expenses head count expectations regarding continued rollouts in the 5G market and investments in networks, sales opportunities, pipeline, momentum, potential and expected growth.

The effect of the warrant Israel its expectations with respect to investments in research and development and sales and marketing, as well as grants from the Israel Innovation Authority, deployment of its 5G solutions in multiple cloud environments and the potential benefits to its clients, the potential of the company's product with respect to artificial intelligence and generate of AI and customer satisfaction.

The company does not undertake to update forward looking statements. The full safe harbor provisions, including the risks that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements are outlined in the presentation and the company's SEC filings. In this conference call management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, which are provided to enhance the user's overall understanding of the company's financial performance by excluding certain noncash stock-based compensation expenses, acquisition-related expenses and amortization of intangible assets related to acquisitions.

Non-GAAP results provide information helpful in assessing Radcom's core operating performance and evaluating and comparing the result of its operations consistently from period to period. The presentation of this additional information is not meant to be considered a substitute for the corresponding financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures included in the quarter's earnings release available on our website.

Now I would like to turn over the call to Eyal. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for third-quarter 2023 earnings call. I wanted to start by commenting on the terrorist attack on October 7th and the situation in Israel. The Radcom family is appealed by the attach and wishes to extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to those affected.

This was the worst attack in Israel 75 year history and has been felt on global scale. With victims from at least 30 nations affected by the strategy and over 240 people kidnapped, our heart is with them and we hope they will come home safely. We also pray for the victims, their families and their loved ones. We empathize with every individual impacted and slowly condemn the acts of violence that has occurred.

We are confident in Israel strengths that will not let their or win. I want to thank all of our customers, partners and stakeholders for their unwavering support and best wishes and we are grateful for their continued confidence in Radcom. Our operations in Israel continue without interruption, and we are attending to our employees and their families needs and well-being. Our business continuity plan has been activated and while we are closely monitoring this situation, our Israel office is fully operational and running on all cylinders.

Looking at the broader picture, most of our workforce is outside of Israel. So, we don't expect these events to impact our overall business. As a software company, our operations are in the cloud, which means we are agile and can adapt to the evolving situation. Our global support centers span multiple regions are all running as planned.

We continue fulfilling our customer commitments, providing 24/7 support and focusing on growing the business. We remain steadfast in our commitment to driving the company forward. Our team continues to work diligently to fulfill our obligation for 2023 and pave the way for 2024. I want to express my appreciation for the hard work and devotion.

Turning to Q3 results. The positive business momentum for the first six months continued in the third quarter of 2023. We achieved record quarterly revenues of $13.2 million, up double digit percentage and delivers 17th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth. Net income in the third quarter reached six year high, and we continue to improve our gross margin.

Strong team execution led to good financial performance, driving revenue growth and improving our bottom line. We believe that during the fourth quarter of this year, revenue growth and profitability improvements will continue and extending to 2024, as we provide operators with AI-powered analytics to ensure excellent customer experiences. This reinforce our guidance, as we expect to deliver a fourth consecutive growth year in 2023 and scale up and mid-sized software company for the first time in the company's history.

Turning to our customers. We have made good progress in our existing a new accounts. Thanks to our focus team performance. With additional accounts activities increased by further customer expansions during the year, our existing teams scale to meet their higher demand and continue to provide value and deliver cutting-edge software releases to our customer base.

Turning to the 5G market. We see operators continue to rollout 5G and invest in their networks. The market direction is clear, while the pace may vary. We are engaged in multiple opportunities at different stages of maturity. These engagements include mix of new and current customers, as operator continue their 5G plans formation. Therefore, we increase our investment in sales and marketing to meet the expected demand for our career guide solutions.

A couple of weeks ago, Opensignal publishing its latest mobile experience report on highly competitive Japanese market. It showed just a 3.5 year after launching record and mobile efforts to deliver high-quality easily accessible mobile services had been validated by expert research. The report stated that the country's newest operator performs highly in several key measures.

DISH announced another world first, second, a significant simultaneous uplink, downlink speed in the United States. DISH can offer faster 5G speed and low latency, delivering better customer experience for data heavy application like video conferencing and uploads. Also, AT&T recently delivers strong results in the United States with solid 5G growth, as they continue to invest in best-in-class 5G connectivity and enhance the largest wireless network in North America.

In all these examples, we believe assurance solution are vital in managing the complexities, ensuring subscribers receive excellent customer experiences and enjoy high quality services. So, we continue to invest in R&D to enhance our product portfolio and provide customers with the best in class assurance solutions to help them drive the networks forward and innovate.

Operators play in a highly competitive market, especially in the current economic climate, is there pressure to control costs and streamline their processes. This trend leads them to rely on assurance to improve efficiencies across their operations. This could generate new opportunities for Radcom, as they turn to the next generation cloud technology to optimize cost and roll out 5G.

We continue to work within the 5G cloud ecosystem. We offer potential customers integration with all three leading public cloud providers, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. In previous calls, I mentioned the importance of generative AI, Gen-AI and all the leading public cloud providers or hyperscalers are emerging as having a pivotal role in the Gen-AI ecosystem.

We see an opportunity to bring our unique telco centric assurance skill set to have these hyperscaler, boost their push into the cloud space. The team is already working hard on embedding Gen-AI technology into our solutions to enable innovations to help operator manage their networks more dynamically and efficiently. So, AI and automation. We hope to share some of those exciting updates in the fourth quarter.

Turning to our pipeline. Our pipeline continues to be healthy, offering further scope to grow the business with new and existing logos. Demand for our advanced Assurance Solution continue to be strong, boosted by the integration of continual unique technologies that has enriched our cloud focused portfolio. So, we continue investing in the sales and marketing to create more sales engagement that can lead additional multiyear contracts and increase our market share.

We continue to deliver innovative solutions and [unify] our software with additional automation, intelligence and AI based capabilities to bring value and expand use cases for our customers, as 5G technology moves forward. Over the last 10 months, we have announced multiple innovative capabilities and features to our solution. Our product strategy is making network more intelligent and autonomous swallow AI-powered analytics, as we begin our internal audit well-planned discussions for 2024 and beyond, we use these two pillars to guide our strategy that continue to drive the growth and transformation of the company. We will expand on this in our fourth quarter and the full year results.

To summarize, we have made good progress in advancing our business performance, increasing revenues and improving profitability, while seeking sustainable growth. We believe this positive momentum will continue in Q4 and beyond, as we innovate and deliver value to our customers. Our pipeline continue to be healthy, offering growth opportunities with new and existing logos. I will call this in our overall business strategy demonstrates the value of our solutions and the strengths of our business model. Therefore, we reiterate 2023 revenue guidance of $50 million to $53 million.

With that, I would like to turn the call over to Hardar Rahav, our CFO, who will discuss the financial results in detail.

Thank you, Eyal, and good morning, everyone. To help you understand the results, I will refer mainly to non-GAAP numbers, excluding share-based compensation, acquisition-related expenses and amortization of intangible acquisition assets.

Now please turn to slide 8 for the financial highlights. We achieved record revenues in the third quarter, reaching $13.2 million, representing a 17 consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth and an increase from $12.4 in the second quarter of 2023.

Third quarter revenue grew by double digit with year-over-year growth of 10%. This resulted in non-GAAP net income for the quarter of $2.4 million, a six year high. At the same time, we continue to take a deliberate approach to managing our expenses with a strong focus on innovation and investing in the business efficiently.

Our gross margin on a non-GAAP basis in the third quarter of 2023 was 75%. Please note that our gross margin may fluctuate between the quarters depending on the revenue mix. We expect that the fourth quarter will remain at a similar level. Our gross R&D expenses for the third quarter of 2023 on a non-GAAP basis were $4.3 million, a decrease of $302,000 compared to the third quarter of 2022.

We received a grant of $104,000 from the Israel Innovation Authority during the quarter compared to $187,000 in the third quarter of last year. As a result, on a non-GAAP basis, our net R&D expenses for the third quarter of 2023, we have $4.2 million compared to $4.5 million in the third quarter of 2022. We expect the Israel Innovation Authority grant in the fourth quarter to remain at a similar level. Certain marketing expenses for the third quarter of 2023 were $3.4 million on a non-GAAP basis, an increase of $524,000 compared to the third quarter of 2022.

G&A expenses for the third quarter of 2023 were $952,000 on a non-GAAP basis, similar to the third quarter of 2022. Operating income on a non-GAAP basis for the third quarter of 2023 was $1.4 million compared to an operating income of $5 million for the third quarter of 2022, the increased revenue drove this growth.

Our financial income for the third quarter of 2023 was $1 million, mainly due to interest rate income on short-term bank deposits. Net income for the third quarter of 2023 on a non-GAAP basis was $2.4 million or net income of $0.15 per diluted share compared to a net income of $1 million. Our net income of $0.06 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2022.

On a GAAP basis, as you can see on slide 7, our net loss for the third quarter of 2023 was $0.2 million or a net loss of $0.02 per diluted share. This compares to a net loss of $0.4 million or a net loss of $0.03 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2022. This quarter, we recognized stock-based compensation expenses in the amount of $2.5 million compared to $1.2 million in the first and the second quarters of the year.

The increase in the third quarter resulted from a change in a forfeiture rate estimation that led to a one-time expense this quarter of $1.3 million. This estimation change reflects the company's success in retaining its key employees in deficiency of DARCO guanfacine from October 2021. We expect the stock-based compensation expenses in the fourth quarter to be similar to previous levels. At the end of the third quarter of 2023, our headcount was 301. We expect our account to rise slightly in the fourth quarter.

Turning to the balance sheet, as shown on slide 11, our cash, cash equivalents and short-term bank deposits as of September 30, 2023 was $78.6 million.

That ends our prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back to the operator for your questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will begin the question and answer session (Operator Instructions).

Arjun Bhatia, William Blair.

Hi. It's straight on for Arjun. Just a couple questions for you guys. We talked about overall, the direction is clear in the market that 5G rollout is here. But can you talk about, maybe how the pace is varying and being on the different sides and locations and what you guys are seeing there?

Hi, good morning. So, I think the most important to emphasize is that we see that we are able to continue our revenue growth with another consecutive quarter of double digit improvement to our revenue. And you can also see the immediate impact on our bottom line. We see that our net income about [triple], both for this quarter and also, if we look on the nine months.

We see that, if the market is progressing even in the current pace, we are able to continue our growth and we are still very optimistic with the 5G development as we see, as I mentioned, in my previous remarks that operators see 5G strategically. While overall pace varies between customers, we see this as an industry and there is more and more activity in this space, while there are some operators going slow, there are many more operators that are invested now in 5G.

So, it's a matter of timing like always in Telco. I think the most encouraging part for us is that we are managing to grow and continue to improve our performance, KPIs very, very consistently.

Okay. Thanks for the color on that. And then just another quick one. I know you guys called out, you are working on embedding more AI solutions across the platform and you are going to be announcing these in the next quarter. So, but, if you have to talk high level, where you know the general priorities are and what are customers asking for, where do these kind of concentrate across your platform?

So, Radcom invested in AI in the last three years, as we feel that our cloud platform is an enabler to gain a lot of more value from the insurance platform we built. What we see that over and over today are mainly looking for cost savings and improving efficiencies. The only way to do it is to replace labor-intensive work with automation.

So, most of our AI efforts across the platform to see how we can increase the operator efficiency by taking actions that are today done manually and automate them and close the loop as possible to gain, not only the better efficiency in cost, but also when you do it with AI, you can gain much better quality that affects the customer experience.

So, we have the huge advantage, we have a lot of data sets collected from the network by our monitoring capabilities, and we leverage the AI technology to analyze them in real time and provide automation processes to close the loop and improve the network. And by that, getting those two goals. And I have mentioned I will elaborate more networking, once we share more about our 2024 plans.

Right. Perfect. Well, that's it for me. Thank you, guys. Congrats again on the quarter.

Thank you.

Alex Henderson, Needham & Company.

Great. Thanks team. Just wanted to express my hearts with you guys, relative to this horrific terrorist attack on your country, and I hope all your employees and family are safe. Looking at the model, I think you commented that you expect gross margins to be similar to the third quarter in the fourth quarter, that's quite a bit higher than recent quarters, kind of above the normal range.

Can you talk a little bit about what in the mix is causing that and whether that's something that we should see persist into the '24 timeframe? Or will the mix regress back to well, like 72.5 type number that you posted in a number of historical quarters?

So Alex, as we mentioned before, we see our gross margin is trending to improve as the revenue grows. We create some efficiencies that allow us to improve with scale also the gross margin, and we are a software company and this allow us to be very profitable with the incremental revenue. What we are seeing now is dependent, as you recall on our revenue mix and trends that stimulate a higher level is what we are looking for in the long run.

This being said on a quarter-by-quarter, there might be some fluctuations and we expect to value between the range of the 70 to 75, most trend into the 75 ish range, as the revenue continues to grow. And this again is comment below what's driving that with the significant improvement of our profitability, which is starting to be very sizable.

Great. So, it's logical then? We are going to have a 74 ish type margin here for the year. Is it reasonable to think that we are at least 74 in '24? It sounds like a good --

It's very hard to estimate exactly because, there might be some fluctuations, but you see what our performance in the last couple of years, you see the trend and I think this is where we are heading.

Okay. On the OpEx side, can you remind us of what percentage of your cost structure is a shekel based and what portion is outside of Israel? Obviously, the shekel weaknesses is setting up for a pretty easy set of compares on the OpEx in Israel

So, about a 40% of our employees are based in Israel. Most of them are high paid employees. So, I believe around 60% or so 60% of our cost base on shekel.

So, have you guys done any hedging or are you--

No, legit no. Typically most of our cash is in USD and that we did in the past from time to time some very short and hedging, if required but currently we are with mainly leveraging the shekel weakness, and the part of what helps us to continue to improve profitability.

Giving guidance, but is there any reason to believe that it is going to be any more than 4% or 5% growth in OpEx because, given the shekel levels, it's a pretty good offset any spending growth. And what do you think the merit rate look like into '24?

Again, we are still building our (inaudible), as we speak. We are, if I look strategically, as mentioned, we keep our R&D in similar levels and we continue to incrementally increase our sales and marketing business. We see additional opportunities and we want to have a better coverage, of course, foreign exchange fluctuations are not something we can expect.

I guess, once we have the 2024 plans, we will have better modeling expectations, but the important part in this stage is that all things are trending, very consistent with the revenue growth, the profitability, the gross margin. So, I think you can get a good sense of model for the company and where we are headed.

Going down on the income statement. I was a little surprised interest income declined quarter-to- quarter, as you are generating solid cash, interest rates are rising. Is there some charge or something of that sort in that line that cause it to come down to $140,000 quarter-to-quarter?

So, Alex, can you repeat the question, I couldn't hear you well.

I am sorry. The interest income line declined to $140,000 quarter-to-quarter, given rising interest rates and rising cash balances, I would have thought it might have gone the other direction. Can you talk to why that occurred? Was there a charge or some offset and do we expect it to recover sequentially in the December quarter back to the June quarter level?

So, interest rates fluctuate a bit and they were lower in the previous quarter compared to the quarter before. We see also in the net income, also the changes in some of the foreign exchange that we have in some of our customer debt and so on. So, overall, you believe the current level is there, good estimation for what we expect in the future, but these things can probably due to both the change of interest rates and some foreign exchange that we are exposed to.

I was surprised interest rates decline. I thought interest rates were going up, but, okay. And any thoughts on the tax line? Last question for me.

Hardar?.

Sorry, can you repeat?

Any change in tax expectations going forward? I have heard that there is some increases in the euro taxes coming down the pike that you are operating in certain geographies that might impact you, anything?

No, it's going to be the same level of expense in the fourth quarter and (inaudible) 2024.

Alright, thanks. Appreciate your time.

Thank you, Alex

This concludes the Radcom third-quarter 2023 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.