Startek Inc (SRT) 2022 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Startek's financial results for the Second Quarter Ended June 30, 2022. Joining us today are Startek's Global CEO, Bharat Rao; the company's Global CFO, Nishit Shah; and the company's Head of business transformation, Ronald Gillette. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for your questions.

大家下午好，感謝大家參加今天的電話會議，討論 Startek 截至 2022 年 6 月 30 日的第二季度財務業績。今天加入我們的是 Startek 的全球首席執行官 Bharat Rao；該公司的全球首席財務官 Nishit Shah；以及公司業務轉型主管羅納德·吉列 (Ronald Gillette)。在他們發表講話後，我們將開始電話詢問您的問題。

Before we continue, we would like to remind all participants that the discussion today may contain certain statements which are forward-looking in nature, pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Laws. These statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Startek advises all of those listening to this call to review the latest 10-Q and 10-K posted on its website for a summary of these risks and uncertainties. Startek does not undertake the responsibility to update any forward-looking statements.

在繼續之前，我們想提醒所有參與者，根據聯邦證券法的安全港條款，今天的討論可能包含某些前瞻性陳述。這些陳述基於我們目前掌握的信息，並受到各種風險和不確定性的影響，可能導致實際結果出現重大差異。 Startek 建議所有收聽本次電話會議的人員查看其網站上發布的最新 10-Q 和 10-K，以總結這些風險和不確定性。 Startek 不承擔更新任何前瞻性陳述的責任。

Further, the discussion today may include some non-GAAP measures. In accordance with the Regulation G, the company has reconciled this amount back to the closest GAAP-based measurement. The reconciliations can be found in the earnings release on the investors section of their website.

此外，今天的討論可能包括一些非公認會計準則措施。根據 G 條例，該公司已將這一金額調整為最接近的基於 GAAP 的衡量標準。調節表可以在其網站投資者部分的收益發布中找到。

I would like to remind everyone that a webcast replay of today's call will be available via the Investors section of the company's website at www.startek.com.

我想提醒大家，今天電話會議的網絡廣播重播將通過公司網站 www.startek.com 的投資者部分提供。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Startek's Global CEO, Bharat Rao. Sir, please, you may proceed.

現在我想將電話轉給 Startek 的全球首席執行官 Bharat Rao。先生，請您繼續。

Thank you, Renan. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you all for joining. Our second quarter results were in line with our internal expectations as we operated against the backdrop of shifting market conditions. While we experienced soft year-on-year declines in revenue, the prior-year quarter received a large benefit of one-off revenue opportunities with the CDC, as well as general market tailwinds.

謝謝你，雷南。大家下午好，感謝大家的加入。我們第二季度的業績符合我們的內部預期，因為我們是在市場條件變化的背景下運營的。儘管我們的收入同比略有下降，但上年同期從 CDC 的一次性收入機會以及總體市場順風中受益匪淺。

Our priority during the second quarter was the ongoing ramp-up of client services in several verticals by training and hiring additional agents to expand our capacity. While this process inevitably comes with a margin compression, we expect to recapture the profitability impact in the coming quarters. Both our core telecom and financial and business service verticals continued to perform well and show consistent year-over-year growth through the expansion of services we drove to our existing clients. Through our telecom vertical, we deepened our relationships with our clients across the U.S. and South Africa as these territories represent valuable growth opportunities for our company.

第二季度我們的首要任務是通過培訓和僱用更多代理來擴大我們的能力，從而不斷提高多個垂直領域的客戶服務。雖然這一過程不可避免地會導致利潤率壓縮，但我們預計將在未來幾個季度重新獲得盈利能力的影響。我們的核心電信以及金融和商業服務垂直領域繼續表現良好，並通過我們向現有客戶提供的服務擴展，呈現出持續的同比增長。通過我們的電信垂直領域，我們加深了與美國和南非客戶的關係，因為這些地區為我們公司提供了寶貴的增長機會。

Travel and hospitality has proved to be slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels, showing consistent growth for the past few quarters and for this last quarter as well. Whilst still soft compared to pre-COVID, we do expect the vertical to continue on its consistent trajectory based on normalized activity levels. Our healthcare vertical showed a large decline, though this is due to the prior-year quarter, netting a one-off vaccination support program that contributed an outsized portion of our revenue to our mix.

事實證明，旅行和酒店業正在慢慢恢復到大流行前的水平，在過去幾個季度和最後一個季度都顯示出持續增長。雖然與新冠疫情之前相比仍然疲軟，但我們確實預計垂直市場將繼續沿著基於正常化活動水平的一致軌跡發展。我們的醫療保健垂直領域出現大幅下降，儘管這是由於上一年季度造成的，一次性疫苗接種支持計劃為我們的收入貢獻了很大一部分。

Our sales ecosystem showed improvement through the quarter as we added 7 new logos with several more in advanced discussions. Our investment in our sales team and marketing initiatives have greatly bolstered our existing sales pipeline, with the greatest effect occurring in our U.S. territory. Driven by our brand awareness campaigns, we're beginning to receive an influx of incoming calls and requests for proposals by prospective clients all across the U.S. Our redefined marketing strategy has provided immense value in bringing greater awareness and visibility to Startek, while our revamped sales team tangibly build our sales pipeline for future expansion.

我們的銷售生態系統在本季度有所改善，我們添加了 7 個新徽標，並在高級討論中添加了更多徽標。我們對銷售團隊和營銷計劃的投資極大地增強了我們現有的銷售渠道，其中在我們的美國領土上產生的影響最大。在我們的品牌知名度活動的推動下，我們開始收到來自全美各地潛在客戶的大量來電和提案請求。我們重新定義的營銷策略為提高 Startek 的知名度和知名度提供了巨大的價值，而我們改組後的銷售團隊則為未來的擴張切實建立了我們的銷售渠道。

As 1 of the 3 main pillars of growth we have identified, we will continue to lean upon our sales ecosystem to expand our footprint across the industry. As we continue to expand our platform, we're ensuring that our capabilities remain at the forefront of the industry. Last quarter, we entered into a partnership with Genesys to leverage their leading technologies in cloud software, customer experience services and call center capabilities.

作為我們確定的三大增長支柱之一，我們將繼續依靠我們的銷售生態系統來擴大我們在整個行業的足跡。隨著我們不斷擴展我們的平台，我們確保我們的能力保持在行業的前沿。上季度，我們與 Genesys 建立了合作夥伴關係，利用他們在雲軟件、客戶體驗服務和呼叫中心功能方面的領先技術。

At Startek, our goal has been to provide highly empathetic customer experience solutions to our clients, and we will continue to identify and partner with emerging technologies that allow our agents to effortlessly do so. Genesys and their seamless contact center experience is a natural fit for our platform and has meaningfully streamlined our agents work processes to allow them to better focus on personalizing their conversations with customers. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Genesys and further leveraging their technology to provide best-in-class services to our customers.

在 Startek，我們的目標是為客戶提供高度同理心的客戶體驗解決方案，我們將繼續識別新興技術並與之合作，使我們的客服人員能夠輕鬆做到這一點。 Genesys 及其無縫聯絡中心體驗非常適合我們的平台，並有意義地簡化了我們的座席工作流程，使他們能夠更好地專注於與客戶進行個性化對話。我們期待繼續與 Genesys 合作，並進一步利用他們的技術為我們的客戶提供一流的服務。

Alongside our digital partnerships, last quarter, we announced the launch of Startek Agent AI, a modular platform that combines AI-powered solutions to enhance and deliver a superior agent and customer service experience. Our platform supports our agents across the globe and will allow us to onboard faster, cultivate new skills more efficiently and reduce the burden of repetitive manual tasks. As mentioned earlier, we are focused on providing the necessary tools to allow our agents to provide best-in-class services to all our clients.

除了我們的數字合作夥伴關係之外，上季度我們還宣布推出 Startek Agent AI，這是一個模塊化平台，結合了人工智能驅動的解決方案，以增強和提供卓越的代理和客戶服務體驗。我們的平台為全球各地的代理商提供支持，使我們能夠更快地入職，更有效地培養新技能，並減輕重複性手動任務的負擔。如前所述，我們致力於提供必要的工具，使我們的代理商能夠為所有客戶提供一流的服務。

Startek Agent AI builds upon the success of our award-winning Startek cloud platform, and with combined capabilities, our customers can be confident that they can deliver a world-class customer experience through our platform. In the second quarter, Startek was named the winner of the Comparably Award for Best CEOs for Diversity, an award that I was honored to accept on behalf of the company. It has been an incredible privilege to work with our diversity, equity and inclusion committee to foster a diverse and inclusive work environment for our 46,000 associates around the globe.

Startek Agent AI 建立在我們屢獲殊榮的 Startek 雲平台的成功基礎上，憑藉綜合功能，我們的客戶可以確信他們可以通過我們的平台提供世界一流的客戶體驗。第二季度，Startek 被評為“多元化最佳首席執行官比較獎”獲得者，我很榮幸代表公司接受這一獎項。能夠與我們的多元化、公平和包容性委員會合作，為我們全球 46,000 名員工營造多元化和包容性的工作環境，我感到非常榮幸。

I am proud of the culture that we have built for ourselves, and we will continue our commitment in nurturing an environment that promotes the voice of all our employees. We continue to evaluate our hybrid work structures and our mix of physical contact centers as the macro environment evolves. To ensure we remain a lean and efficient organization, we recently exited one more site in the U.S. and will continue evaluating our physical infrastructure across all geographies.

我為我們為自己建立的文化感到自豪，我們將繼續致力於營造一個促進所有員工發聲的環境。隨著宏觀環境的發展，我們將繼續評估我們的混合工作結構和物理聯絡中心的組合。為了確保我們仍然是一個精簡而高效的組織，我們最近退出了美國的另一個站點，並將繼續評估我們在所有地區的物理基礎設施。

We also remain committed to optimizing our fixed cost structure to eliminate excess expenditures and reallocate those savings toward sales, marketing and digital efforts. Overall, we had another exciting quarter where we continue to capitalize on our investments and position Startek for growth. The work we have done this quarter was necessary in preparing our platform for the ongoing ramp-up with new and existing clients.

我們還繼續致力於優化我們的固定成本結構，以消除多餘的支出，並將這些節省的資金重新分配給銷售、營銷和數字化工作。總體而言，我們又度過了一個激動人心的季度，我們繼續利用我們的投資並為 Startek 的增長做好準備。我們本季度所做的工作對於我們的平台為新客戶和現有客戶的持續提升做好準備是必要的。

As we continue to invest within our sales ecosystem and marketing teams, we must be prepared for the future demand that we are aggressively generating. While we did not achieve our year-on-year top-line and bottom-line growth, our focus on preparing our platform for the future has positioned Startek to return greater value back to shareholders. Just to note that we are not going to discuss today the nonbinding proposal made by Capital Square Partners for the latest statement by the Special Committee, I direct everybody to the press release dated June 21, 2022 that is available on our website.

當我們繼續投資我們的銷售生態系統和營銷團隊時，我們必須為我們積極產生的未來需求做好準備。雖然我們沒有實現同比的營收和利潤增長，但我們專注於為未來做好平台準備，這使得 Startek 能夠向股東回報更大的價值。請注意，我們今天不打算討論 Capital Square Partners 為特別委員會最新聲明提出的不具約束力的提案，我請大家參閱我們網站上發布的 2022 年 6 月 21 日的新聞稿。

I'd now like to turn over the call to Nishit Shah to provide further details on our second quarter financial results. After Nishit concludes his review of our financial performance, he's going to turn over the call to Startek's Head of Transformation, Ron Gillette, to provide more insights into our strategic initiatives for the remainder of the year and beyond.

我現在想將電話轉給 Nishit Shah，以提供有關我們第二季度財務業績的更多詳細信息。在 Nishit 結束對我們財務業績的審查後，他將把電話轉給 Startek 的轉型主管 Ron Gillette，以提供有關我們今年剩餘時間及以後的戰略計劃的更多見解。

Thank you all for joining us, and I'll be available to answer any questions you may have during the Q&A session at the end of this call. Nishit, I'll now pass over the call to you. Thank you.

感謝大家加入我們，我將在本次電話會議結束時的問答環節回答您可能提出的任何問題。 Nishit，我現在把電話轉給你。謝謝。

Thanks, Bharat. Starting on the top line. Net revenue in Q2 was $167.6 million, compared to $189 million in the year-ago quarter. On a constant-currency basis, net revenue decreased by 9% compared to year-ago quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by the aforementioned one-off COVID vaccination program, contributing an oversized benefit to our revenue in the prior-year quarter. We also experienced a decline due to termination of our e-commerce client in the first quarter of 2022, offsetted by the continued strength of our core verticals.

謝謝，巴拉特。從頂行開始。第二季度淨收入為 1.676 億美元，而去年同期淨收入為 1.89 億美元。按固定匯率計算，淨收入較去年同期下降 9%。這一下降主要是由上述一次性新冠疫苗接種計劃推動的，該計劃為我們上一季度的收入帶來了巨大的收益。由於我們的電子商務客戶在 2022 年第一季度終止，我們的業績也出現了下滑，但我們的核心垂直行業的持續強勢抵消了這一下滑。

Gross profit was $16.7 million, compared to $24.6 million in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 10%, compared to 13% in the year-ago quarter. The decline was driven by multiple factors. First, inflation had a material impact. As informed in the previous quarters, we had taken wage increases in some of our geographies to factor decade-high inflation levels.

毛利潤為 1,670 萬美元，而去年同期為 2,460 萬美元。毛利率為 10%，而去年同期為 13%。下降是由多種因素推動的。首先，通貨膨脹產生了重大影響。正如前幾個季度所告知的，我們已將部分地區的工資上漲考慮到了十年來的高通脹水平。

Furthermore, this quarter saw some significant client work ramp in India, where we needed to hire and train resources in advance. These resources will be billable from next quarter. This also impacted our margins in the current quarter. We expect to claw-back some of the current margin declines in the second half of the year as some of the above factor normalize.

此外，本季度印度的一些重要客戶工作量增加，我們需要提前僱用和培訓資源。這些資源將從下個季度開始計費。這也影響了我們本季度的利潤率。隨著上述一些因素正常化，我們預計今年下半年將彌補目前利潤率的部分下降。

Selling, general and administrative, SG&A expenses for the second quarter was $13.7 million, compared to $12.3 million in the year-ago quarter. As a percentage of revenue, SG&A was 8.2%, compared to 6.5% in the year-ago quarter. The increase is primarily due to our ongoing investments in sales and marketing initiatives. Please also note that expenses accrued on account of ongoing take-private offer is also booked under SG&A expenses. These expenses are, however, added back to adjusted EBITDA.

第二季度的銷售、一般和管理、SG&A 費用為 1,370 萬美元，而去年同期為 1,230 萬美元。 SG&A 佔收入的百分比為 8.2%，而去年同期為 6.5%。這一增長主要是由於我們對銷售和營銷計劃的持續投資。另請注意，因持續私有化要約而產生的費用也記入 SG&A 費用。然而，這些費用會加回到調整後的 EBITDA 中。

Net income attributable to Startek shareholders for quarter 2 was $1.9 million or $0.05 per share, compared to a net income of $6.9 million or $0.17 per share in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted net income attributable to Startek shareholders for Q2 was $5.2 million or $0.13 per diluted share, compared to $9.9 million or $0.24 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter.

第二季度歸屬於 Startek 股東的淨利潤為 190 萬美元，即每股 0.05 美元，而去年同期的淨利潤為 690 萬美元，即每股 0.17 美元。第二季度調整後歸屬於 Startek 股東的淨利潤為 520 萬美元，即稀釋後每股收益 0.13 美元，而去年同期為 990 萬美元，即稀釋後每股收益 0.24 美元。

Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $11.1 million, compared to $19.6 million in the year-ago quarter. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted EBITDA was 6.6%, compared to 10.4% in the year-ago quarter. The decrease was primarily a result of an increase in investments in sales, marketing and digital assets, as well as aforementioned decline in gross profit.

第二季度調整後 EBITDA 為 1,110 萬美元，而去年同期為 1,960 萬美元。調整後 EBITDA 佔收入的百分比為 6.6%，而去年同期為 10.4%。下降的主要原因是銷售、營銷和數字資產投資增加，以及上述毛利潤下降。

From a balance sheet perspective, at June 30, 2022, our cash and restricted cash balance stands at $55.8 million, compared to $52.2 million at March 31, 2022. Total debt at June 30, 2022 was $170.7 million, compared to $169.5 million at March 31, 2022. Net debt, excluding restricted cash at June 30, 2022 was $123.5 million, compared to $126.2 million at March 31, 2022.

從資產負債表的角度來看，截至2022年6月30日，我們的現金和限制性現金餘額為5580萬美元，而2022年3月31日為5220萬美元。截至2022年6月30日的總債務為1.707億美元，而2022年3月31日為1.695億美元。截至2022年6月30日，不包括限制性現金的淨債務為1.235億美元，相比之下，2022 年 3 月 31 日為 1.262 億美元。

This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the call over to Ron. Thank you.

我準備好的發言到此結束。我現在將把電話轉給羅恩。謝謝。

Thanks, Nishit. I'm going to use this time to discuss our strategic focus going forward. For the back half of the year, we'll be focused on growing and capitalizing on our bolstered sales pipeline to drive new logos. With our capacity and footprint ready to handle additional ramp-ups, we look forward to expanding our services and acquiring new customers across the U.S. and India. We plan to add new sales leaders to our U.S. team this current quarter as we make an aggressive push on our sales efforts in the U.S. We will also continue our work in deepening our existing relationships and expanding our services to clients.

謝謝，尼希特。我將利用這段時間討論我們未來的戰略重點。今年下半年，我們將專注於發展和利用我們強大的銷售渠道來推動新徽標的發展。憑藉我們的產能和足跡準備應對額外的增長，我們期待擴大我們的服務並在美國和印度收購新客戶。我們計劃在本季度為我們的美國團隊增加新的銷售領導者，因為我們將積極推動我們在美國的銷售工作。我們還將繼續深化我們現有的關係並擴大我們對客戶的服務。

In fact, we are working to strengthen our program management and account management teams who can focus on deepening our client relationships, while also increasing awareness about our integrated digital solutions that can provide greater benefits to our clients, both in delivering better services and reducing cost of delivery.

事實上，我們正​​在努力加強我們的項目管理和客戶管理團隊，他們可以專注於深化我們的客戶關係，同時提高人們對我們的集成數字解決方案的認識，這些解決方案可以為我們的客戶提供更大的利益，包括提供更好的服務和降低交付成本。

Additionally, we have accelerated our marketing efforts as we aim to increase our brand awareness across markets. In the past quarter, we sponsored Customer Contact Week, Las Vegas, as part of the world's largest customer contact event series, where we also co-hosted a networking event with one of our digital partners.

此外，我們還加快了營銷力度，旨在提高我們在市場上的品牌知名度。在上個季度，我們贊助了拉斯維加斯客戶聯繫週，作為全球最大的客戶聯繫活動系列的一部分，我們還與我們的數字合作夥伴之一共同主辦了一場社交活動。

Our focus on sponsorships will continue in Q3 when we will also see our thought leadership approach come to life. This will include presenting research results conducted in association with HFS and a collaboration with Everest Group. These 2 initiatives will be showcased through our webinar series, which kicked off in Q2 and explores emerging trends in the digital customer experience space, in partnership with thought leaders, vendors and clients.

我們將在第三季度繼續關注贊助，屆時我們還將看到我們的思想領導方法成為現實。這將包括展示與 HFS 合作以及與 Everest Group 合作的研究成果。這兩項舉措將通過我們的網絡研討會系列進行展示，該系列研討會於第二季度開始，與思想領袖、供應商和客戶合作，探討數字客戶體驗領域的新興趨勢。

As we expand our platforms, we'll be focused on continuing our strategy of having a best-in-class service platform for our customers. While our internal teams are proactive in developing new technologies to refine our platform, especially in cybersecurity, we will also continue to drive new digital partnerships to enhance our existing offerings and remain ahead of our competition.

隨著我們擴展平台，我們將專注於繼續為客戶提供一流服務平台的戰略。雖然我們的內部團隊積極開發新技術來完善我們的平台，特別是在網絡安全方面，但我們還將繼續推動新的數字合作夥伴關係，以增強我們現有的產品並在競爭中保持領先地位。

Our focus continues to remain on disruptive, innovative innovation in voice and increasing use of AI within contact centers to enhance both agent and customer experiences. We expect the second half of the year to be slightly better than our first half. Part of this is due to our natural seasonality that occurs throughout our business. For example, in our Saudi region, a highly productive territory for us, we will have some pass-through on costs that we were not able to unlock in the first quarter due to Ramadan.

我們的重點仍然是語音方面的顛覆性創新，以及在聯絡中心內增加人工智能的使用，以增強座席和客戶的體驗。我們預計下半年的情況將略好於上半年。部分原因是我們整個業務中存在自然季節性。例如，在我們的沙特阿拉伯地區，這是我們生產力很高的地區，我們將有一些因齋月而無法在第一季度釋放的成本轉嫁。

While second half revenues will be relatively similar, we expect to recapture some of the margin compression that we incurred this quarter through the ramp-up of services with clients through our onboarded service agents. The logos we won this quarter will begin to have a material impact on our financials starting in 2023. And as Bharat discussed earlier, we are already in advanced discussions with several more.

雖然下半年的收入將相對相似，但我們預計將通過我們的入職服務代理增加與客戶的服務，重新獲得本季度遭受的部分利潤壓縮。我們本季度贏得的徽標將從 2023 年開始對我們的財務產生重大影響。正如 Bharat 之前討論的那樣，我們已經在與其他幾個企業進行高級討論。

We've continued to capitalize on the opportunities that we have identified through our revamped sales ecosystem, our refreshed market strategy and our expansion of services driven by digital partnerships. As always, our first priority is sustainably growing our company to return value back to our shareholders, and we are ready to execute on our growth strategy to do so.

我們繼續利用通過改進的銷售生態系統、更新的市場戰略以及數字合作夥伴關係驅動的服務擴展所發現的機會。一如既往，我們的首要任務是可持續發展公司，為股東回報價值，我們已準備好執行我們的增長戰略來實現這一目標。

With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator, over to you.

現在，我們將開始提問。接線員，交給你了。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from [Ethan Widell with B. Riley.]

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 [Ethan Widell 和 B. Riley。]

So I was wondering if you could provide a little additional color into your gross margins. Specifically, you addressed inflation and wage increases and other trading costs, I think. And I was wondering if you could highlight kind of the relative breakdown of those costs?

所以我想知道你們是否可以為你們的毛利率提供一些額外的色彩。具體來說，我認為您解決了通貨膨脹、工資上漲和其他交易成本問題。我想知道您是否可以強調一下這些成本的相對細目？

Ethan, I can start off, and then we can provide a little more color on the kind of breakdown. See, typically, if you take a step back and if you see our quarter 2 margins as business starts ramping up, et cetera, is normally less than quarter one, so that's no different in '21 or '22 versus that in '21.

伊森，我可以開始，然後我們可以提供更多有關此類故障的信息。通常情況下，如果您退一步，如果您看到隨著業務開始增加，我們第二季度的利潤率通常低於第一季度，因此“21”或“22”與“21”沒有什麼不同。

Now, if you look at our margins in the first quarter of 2022, they were circa 12.5%, about 12.6%. And as ramp-ups start, you get to about 10% that we have in this quarter from a margin perspective. And we, of course, Ron talked about the festivities in the Middle East, which kind of dampens the margins as well in terms of additional costs we need to incur but pretty much seasonal.

現在，如果你看看我們 2022 年第一季度的利潤率，大約為 12.5%，大約 12.6%。隨著產能的增加，從利潤率的角度來看，本季度我們的利潤率將達到 10% 左右。當然，羅恩談到了中東的慶祝活動，這在某種程度上削弱了利潤率，而且我們需要承擔額外成本，但幾乎是季節性的。

And that -- those kind of ramps in any of these seasonal items even out as we go into quarter 3 and quarter 4, as you would have seen. So if I look at quarter one of '21 and quarter 2 of '21, you had a circa 2% difference between the gross margins in those 2 quarters. Very similar to what you see in quarter one and quarter 2 for 2022.

正如您所看到的，當我們進入第三季度和第四季度時，這些季節性商品中的任何一種都會出現這種增長。因此，如果我看看 21 年第一季度和 21 年第二季度，這兩個季度的毛利率之間大約有 2% 的差異。與 2022 年第一季度和第二季度的情況非常相似。

Now in quarter one of '22, you would recall, Ethan, we had talked about some margin pressure, obviously, just with the inflationary pressures, and we had talked about some of that kind of continuing into -- for a quarter or 2. So we are working in situations where we are getting contracts that are coming up to have a proper conversation around those to look at just adjusting those to the right level.

現在，伊森，你可能還記得，在 22 年第一季度，我們已經談到了一些利潤壓力，顯然，只是通貨膨脹壓力，而且我們已經談到了這種情況會持續一兩個季度。因此，我們正在處理的情況是，我們正在簽訂合同，圍繞這些壓力進行適當的對話，以考慮將其調整到正確的水平。

So to that extent, there's nothing significantly different we have in quarter 2 that of 2022 versus quarter one of 2022. Apart from the ramps, the significant ramps that we have seen, which is a positive, and Ron talked about that in terms of the longer-term impact to shareholder value and creating shareholder value. So the ramp costs that we have in this quarter will get relatively offset in the next 2 quarters.

因此，從這個意義上說，2022 年第二季度與 2022 年第一季度沒有什麼顯著不同。除了增長之外，我們看到的顯著增長是積極的，羅恩談到了對股東價值和創造股東價值的長期影響。因此，我們本季度的斜坡成本將在接下來的兩個季度中得到相對抵消。

I'll just take a pause and see if you -- if that kind of has any -- provide any more color. And if you want any specific areas, we can kind of peel the layer and then get into the next level of detail.

我會暫停一下，看看你是否——如果有的話——提供更多的顏色。如果您想要任何特定區域，我們可以剝離該層，然後進入下一個細節級別。

Certainly, that's very helpful. So do you expect for this to sort of be the trough for margins?

當然，這非常有幫助。那麼您認為這會成為利潤率的低谷嗎？

You mean to get back to the levels in quarter 3 and quarter 4 that you saw in quarter one, I think that would be a reasonable estimate.

你的意思是回到你在第一季度看到的第三季度和第四季度的水平，我認為這將是一個合理的估計。

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over back to Mr. Rao for closing remarks. Please proceed.

至此，我們的問答環節就結束了。我現在想將電話轉回饒先生致閉幕詞。請繼續。

Thank you, Renan. And thank you all for joining us this afternoon and for your continued support of Startek. I look forward to speaking with you next when we report our third quarter results.

謝謝你，雷南。感謝大家今天下午加入我們並感謝你們對 Startek 的持續支持。我期待著下次在我們報告第三季度業績時與您交談。

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.

謝謝你們，女士們、先生們。您現在可以斷開連接。