Xpel Inc (XPEL) 2020 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to XPEL Inc.'s Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, John Nesbett, with IMS Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, and welcome to our conference call to discuss XPEL's financial results for the 2020, third quarter. On the call today, Ryan Pape, XPEL's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Barry Wood, XPEL's, Chief Financial Officer, will provide an overview of the business operations and review the company's financial results. Immediately after the prepared remarks, we will take questions from call participants.

Let me take a moment to review the safe harbor statement. During the course of this call, we will make certain forward-looking statements regarding XPEL, Inc. and its business, which may include, but not be limited to, anticipated use of proceeds from capital transactions, expansion into new markets, the execution of the company's growth strategy. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, as expected, expects, scheduled, intends, contemplates, anticipates, believes, proposes or variations, including negative variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or to be achieved. Such statements are based on the current expectations of management of XPEL. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed on this call may not occur by certain specified dates or at all and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affected by the company, performance and acceptance of the company's products, economic factors, competition, the equity markets generally and other factors beyond the control of XPEL.

Although XPEL has attempted to identify certain important factors that could cause actual actions, events, results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed, except as required by applicable securities law, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date in which they are made, and XPEL undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Okay. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Ryan. Go ahead, Ryan.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter 2020 conference call. By all measures, Q3 was the best quarter we've ever had at XPEL. We had record revenue, $46.1 million, coupled with record net income of $6.6 million and record EBITDA of $9 million. Revenue for the quarter grew just south of 30% and was led by robust 40% year-over-year growth in the U.S. region, our largest.

Momentum we saw beginning in the second half of Q2 carried over into Q3, which is great to see. The revenue growth was broad-based. As I mentioned, our U.S. business grew 40% year-over-year to $22 million, which was a record for the region. In fact, we had records in almost every region and almost every financial metric this quarter with just a handful of exceptions.

We've seen good performance in the U.S. auto industry in Q3, generally speaking, with really tight inventory for those that follow the sector and really tight dealer inventory for us could be a blessing or a curse depending on how you look at it. But in the current dynamic, it certainly hasn't caused us a problem. We've seen that momentum in the U.S. business carry into -- so far into Q4, which is very encouraging.

China region was flat quarter-over-quarter and down about 6% sequentially versus Q2. This was a bit less than our previous estimates as we talked in Q2, as we ended up pushing several orders from Q3 to Q4 due to our own operational needs in a busy quarter. Sales in China from our distributor to the rest of the network in China we're up over 30% year-over-year according to our in-country sales reporting. And China auto sales have continued to do well and grow during the third quarter. So momentum seems to be continuing there.

At this point, it's an open question as to China revenue in Q4, mainly due to timing of shipments and making up for delays we incurred in Q3. China Q4 2019 was the highest revenue in the history for China that we've had at $13.5 million. So it would be a tough comp for us either way, as expected, due to the acceleration of orders from Q1 2020 into Q4 2019 that we've been talking about over the course of the year.

So for Q4 2020 for China, we could end up with sequential gains of our Q2, Q3 run rate for China, which would still leave us a little bit off from Q4 2019 or we may see some orders push due to operational reasons in which case, Q4 will be closer to Q2, China revenue of around $10 million and will be set up for a really awesome Q1, 2021 for China. So irrespective of the shipment timing in Q4 versus Q1, we expect the 30% plus or minus in-country sales growth that we've seen in Q3 to continue.

So a very strong performance in China. This will be a big driver of our overall top line revenue growth for Q4 in terms of timing, but the China business is performing great. We're seeing increased adoption of our other products now beyond just paint protection film.

Outside of China, our Asia Pacific business came back with nice growth, of 24.4% as the region recovered from the pandemic. As we mentioned previously, this region can be volatile and small size for us, and we have a lot of distributors that we sell through everywhere, but Taiwan, also it creates some volatility, but we expect continued good performance there in Q4.

Canada returned to solid growth during the quarter, with U.S. dollar revenue increasing almost 26% as the country came out of their lockdowns in Q2. I'll note the performance of our Protex Centre acquisition, which we completed in February, exceeds our expectations, which is really great and helped contribute to a good quarter. And we have a really great team in Québec, who's performing excellent.

In Continental Europe, really knocked it out of the park with revenue growth of 88% to a record USD 3.7 million for the quarter. This strong growth, again, it's broad-based across all countries in which we operate and sell to in our European segment. As product awareness and adoption increases in the region, we want to make sure that we're there to meet demand. And we have been. Growth also helped by continuing success of some of the OEM projects we have in play at the region as well.

You may recall, last month, we announced our intent to acquire assets of France Auto Racing, which is a distributor of ours serving France. We did close that acquisition last week. And France is another underpenetrated market for us. Consistent with our acquisition strategy, which centers around this notion of getting close to the customer to provide better service and drive increased product adoption, the acquisition of our distributor in France is certainly consistent with that strategy. France will be managed as part of our Netherlands European head -- based European headquarters. We welcome our new team members in France and look forward to growing that team next year. As we've mentioned in the past, we still expect to use up our excess cash and our cash flow from operations, primarily on acquisitions, and we have multiple acquisitions that we are currently pursuing.

Our U.K. region came back strong, coming out of one of the most restrictive lockdowns growing 43.5% for the quarter, which was also a record for the region. Perhaps there's some pent-up demand, but the momentum has continued into Q4. We'll be watching the U.K. and COVID restrictions in Q4. They've reported some resurgence and government taking escalating steps, but they seem to be more measured than they were the first time around.

Latin America revenue declined just under 7%. Again, with the exception of Mexico, Latin America is comprised of largely distributors, and so you've got order timing. But our Mexico business continues to perform well. And in U.S. dollar terms, doubled revenue this quarter compared to Q3 2019. So this was another region that faced severe lockdowns and the reemergence out of that in Mexico has been really strong.

We're also planning on moving the management of our Latin America region to our Mexico office in 2021. This is a big move for us. Really looking at the rest of Latin America, which we expect will help drive development of the market, leveraging, obviously, common language for the most part and other operational efficiencies. So that's a big plan for next year.

And finally, Middle East had strong growth, 72%, which was another record. Once again, we had tremendous performance of our window film product line in the quarter, which grew just under 79% to $6.3 million, representing 13.7% of total revenue. As in past quarters, growth here is broad-based across regions, for sure. Our VISION product line will not get material to our overall total revenue, continues to make solid progress. We had highest revenue of VISION since launch during the quarter. We're working hard with the new product, and you'll certainly be hearing more about it in future quarters. It's an exciting area of growth for the company.

We also had record sales for our automotive ceramic coating product, FUSION PLUS during Q3. In October, we launched 5 new FUSION PLUS product line extensions to complement our core ceramic coating product. These are designed to protect glass, wheels, plastic trim and other surfaces. This gives our customers more opportunity to increase their revenue per vehicle while simultaneously provides more coverage options for the car owner. So another important add to that channel as we build out that product line.

Also of note, in the FUSION PLUS product line is a marine product, but it's really to complement the automotive lineup. And marine applications exist across our product line, paint protection film, the coating, as I just mentioned, and for window film. So we're going to look to focus on this next year to really highlight and develop these applications.

As we talked about previously, we will be increasing our inventory levels between now and the beginning of Q2 2021. We're doing this for 2 reasons. First, we will immediately realize cost efficiencies that outweigh any carrying cost of additional inventory. And the ramp-up after COVID-19, we and our customers resorted to expensive air shipments as demand recovered faster than we had planned. This weighed on shipping costs that, for us, show up in COGS and SG&A even in Q3 with really the outstanding gross margin and SG&A numbers. Those are still negatively impacted actually by those excess logistics costs.

And secondly, having more inventory in our various locations will mitigate risks that we've identified coming out of our analysis of COVID-19 impact. While we did not suffer any direct supply chain impact, like we've been talking about the past 2 quarters, we believe there's still risk we can further mitigate should similar disruptions happen again. So we're looking for increased inventory level into Q2 of approximately $5 million or $6 million above our current run rate.

More on-hand inventory will also let us move faster in a situation of higher-than-expected demand, like we saw in Q3 that necessitated pushing back some of the orders to China. In the case of China, there was no end customer impact from delaying those orders as China has plenty of inventory in the channel, but we should build more margin for air in our operations going forward. And increasing inventory will help do that in a modest way.

Barry will be -- will provide some more color on gross margin and SG&A. But I'd like to specifically note that our SG&A as a percent of revenue finished at 16.5% for the quarter, which was a great result for us. We talked in Q2 that we benefited from some reduction in SG&A due to the COVID-19 impact on travel, marketing and some other areas that we saved. That largely reversed in Q3 with the exception of a handful of marketing events that weren't held which aren't overly material. So we're really kind of back with a few exceptions, including some reduced travel expense to a more normal SG&A run rate. So it's really great performance.

And as I've said in the past, our strong revenue growth, coupled with good gross margins and that SG&A management drives tremendous leverage. And that's what we saw in Q3. This is the result we're striving for in our business. Levers will vary from quarter-to-quarter. But clearly, Q3 was a phenomenal quarter in this regard. And really not remarkable in terms of what we did and what we intend to do in future quarters.

As I mentioned earlier, we have that uncertainty in terms of timing of China shipments for the balance of the year versus Q1. We expect continued strong results across our other regions like we've been seeing this year. For that reason, we won't be providing revenue guidance for Q4, except to say there'll certainly be lower growth rate than Q3, given the Q4 2019 China comp and depending on the timing of the shipments around year-end, what's Q4 and what's Q1.

Finally, we just completed our 2021 planning process, really excited as ever about the growth opportunities that lie ahead. I know I'd say it on most calls, but I couldn't be more proud of our team and their efforts to serve and take care of our customers. That's what really sets XPEL apart and I'm really honored to be part of it and look forward to continuing that for the long term.

So with that, I will turn it over to Barry, and then we'll take some questions. Barry, go ahead.

Thanks, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. As Ryan alluded to, we had record revenues in many of our regions during the quarter. Q3 total revenue was up 29.5% versus Q3 2019 to a record $46.1 million, and on a year-to-date basis through September, revenue grew 22% compared to the same period last year.

Product revenue in the quarter grew 28.3% to approximately $39.5 million, which was a record high for this category. And in this revenue category, product revenue, paint protection film grew 20.5% to $32 million. Again, this growth was broad-based and led by the U.S. region. And as Ryan said, we also saw another strong performance from our window film product line with window film revenue growing 78.9% to $6.3 million, which was another record for us. And on a year-to-date basis, product revenue growth was 21.9%.

Q3 2020 service revenue grew 37.3% for the quarter and 22.3% for the first 9 months of the year. And in this category, software revenue grew 3.5% for the quarter and 7.2% for the first 9 months of the year. And one quick note on our software revenue. As many of you know, our software is a significant competitive differentiator for us, and we continue to add users to our software every day. But depending on the channel, we may or may not charge for our software and say, for example, as we penetrate more and more dealerships. So we expect to continue to see low growth rates on this line item as we move forward.

Cutbank credit revenue increased 17.8% for the quarter and 0.8% for the first 9 months of the year. And as we've discussed in the past, our cutbank revenue, just to remind everybody, is the value assigned to the square footage added to customers' cutbank when they buy our film, and it's effectively a reclass out of product revenue. And this increase in this strong performance was mainly due to the resurgence we saw in quarter -- in the quarter, primarily in the U.S. and Canada.

Installation labor revenue grew 77.3% for the quarter and 60.4% for the first 9 months of the year. Our total installation revenue, which combines product and labor, increased a little over 77% and represented 8.4% of our total revenue. Clearly, our installation centers had a very busy quarter, and we continue to see solid results from our various OEM projects across Europe.

Training revenues for the quarter declined 7.4% due to continued impact from COVID-19, but we continue to see that rebound and expect more as travel restrictions are curtailed. Our training classes continue to be scheduled out, and we've also reduced occupancy in some classes for safety reasons. This is another area where our revenue performance from quarter-to-quarter could vary depending on our channel strategy, where we may or may not charge for training for certain customers.

Gross margin for the quarter grew 30.6% to $16 million and -- which was another record for us, and our gross margin percentage was up slightly to 34.8% versus 34.5% in Q3 2019, and was up sequentially from Q2 2020, which came in at 32.8%. Our China revenue mix was about 20% in Q3, which contributed to this sequential improvement.

Gross margin for the first 9 months grew 22.6% and represented 34.5% of sales, which was slightly higher than the same period last year. And we expect to see gross margins in the 33% to 35% range in the near term, depending on the mix, but we should begin to see some enhancement outside of this range as we move through 2021. As we execute on our planned initiatives around gross margin.

Our Q3 2020 SG&A expense was $7.6 million, growing 15.3% versus Q3 2019 and represented 16.5% of total revenue, which for us was a record low. And for the 9 months ended September 30, 2020, total SG&A expenses were up 16.3% and represented 20% of revenue.

Sales and marketing expenses increased 28.9% during the quarter as we ramped up our spending post-COVID restrictions. These expense increases related mainly to the hiring of additional sales and marketing personnel and the resumption of some of our marketing activities. And on a year-to-date basis, sales and marketing expenses increased 27.8%.

Q3 2020, general and administrative expenses grew 10.2% versus Q3 2019. And for the 9 months ended September 30, 2020, general and administrative expenses were up 11.7%.

And clearly, we experienced tremendous leverage in the quarter with EBITDA increasing 50.5% to $9 million, reflecting a 19.5% EBITDA margin. And both this dollar amount and the EBITDA margin were record highs for us. Our Q3 year-to-date EBITDA grew 30.5% versus the same period last year, reflecting an EBITDA margin of 15.6%.

Q3 2020 net income increased 46.5% versus Q3 2019 to $6.6 million, reflecting a 14.3% net margin. Again, these were both record highs for XPEL. EPS for the quarter was $0.24 per share. And on a year-to-date basis, net income grew 30% and represented 11.1% of total revenue.

Q3 cash flow from ops was $2.5 million with increases in EBITDA, offset by other working capital changes, including increases in inventory. We exited the quarter with a little over $27.2 million in cash and about $19 million in inventory. And as Ryan alluded to, we plan to increase our inventory levels in the near-term quarters by $5 million to $6 million, which will allow us to maximize certain cost efficiencies and sufficiently meet anticipated rising demand.

I think we're doing a nice job of managing our working capital as evidenced by our continuing improvement in our cash conversion cycle trends, and we're well positioned financially to execute on our inventory plan as we move forward.

So obviously, a great quarter for us, and the revenue momentum has continued into Q4 and notwithstanding the Q4 China comp and uncertainty about our shipping schedule Q4 is shaping up, we think, to be another great quarter for us.

And with that, operator, we'll turn the call over for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Steve Dyer with Craig-Hallum.

Another really nice quarter. Congrats to you both.

Thanks, Steve.

Very comprehensive review, as you always do, so just a few from me. As it relates to China, it sounds like some of this is a little bit your decision when you shipped. Is it -- is there a little bit of destocking going on? Or how would you kind of classify sell-through versus sell-in, in China in Q3 and then anticipation in Q4?

Sure. Yes. So I think as you're familiar and many of you followed the inventory expansion or contraction on-hand in China is always a big driver of these numbers. We had a period in the past where we really saw inventory build in China. The reality today is that coming out of the COVID impact, we took steps whether it was employees lost to attrition. But operationally, we slimmed down a bit. And then coming out of that, at the end of Q2 and into Q3, it's really been operationally challenging for us just to have process and convert and ensure we have enough inventory.

So with China, where we're selling through a distributor, and there's product in the channel, we have the flexibility to make decisions like delaying shipments by a couple of weeks, which might buy us time or buy us satisfaction with other customers or allow us to get other things out on time. So we definitely are taking advantage of that to meet our overall operational need.

So when you look at the Q3 decisions into Q4, yes, that's absolutely our decision to delay those orders by really just a few weeks or a month, that has the effect of shifting to Q3 and Q4. As a result, there is less inventory in the channel than there would have been otherwise, but it buys us significant flexibility operationally. And we wouldn't do that if it had a negative impact to the customer, but it just doesn't at this point. So we're taking advantage of that flexibility to provide sort of the best overall service to all our customers globally.

Yes. Got it. I guess, jumping to the U.S., your business, I think my math was revenue up 40% year-over-year. And I think overall car sales, which I know is not a one-to-one comparison because you guys do some aftermarket stuff. But overall car sales were still down 10%, even though they were up much nicer than in Q2. But your Q3 business, did it feel like there was some pent-up demand given that Q2 much -- a lot of things were shut down? Or was that -- do you feel like you're just gaining that much penetration in the new business?

No. I would say we don't feel like Q3 is a result of pent-up demand. We really had that question when we looked at June, which was so strong. And then July, which was really strong. We said, okay, coming out of some of these shutdowns, maybe that's the pent-up demand. But the reality is what we saw in the balance of Q3 really wasn't any different. So I don't think it's a result of pent-up demand. I think it's just a result of everything we're doing. Adding the new products, the different product mix, the growth in attach rate, the paint protection film and just sort of the core blocking and tackling that we're doing.

Great. I guess a good segue. With respect to the window film, that's now a $25-odd-million run rate business and growing extremely quickly. What do you think that business looks like in 2021? I mean it's probably not realistic to be growing close to 100% every year, but it's still fairly early stages for you guys. How do you think about that?

Yes. I mean we certainly wouldn't say we're going to maintain the same growth rate on a bigger base. But for us, as we're taking market share and executing in that product and doing it globally, not all regions are equally penetrated, it's still going to result in a significant growth opportunity for us. And as it's smaller, probably still continues to grow faster year-over-year than paint protection does up until the point it becomes probably even a larger percent of our overall sales. So we have big expectations for growth there next year to continue.

Got it. Last one for me, and I'll hop back. Just as it relates to the M&A environment, you have a little bit of cash. Most of what you've done from an M&A perspective has been sort of small tuck-in and certainly accretive by the looks of the model. Is there anything out there sort of transformational that you could or would do? Or is the game plan to sort of continue to kind of do it the way you've been doing it small, tuck-ins, installation centers, et cetera?

Sure. Thanks, Steve. Yes, I think that we're always open with the platform we have now to something transformational, but the reality is that most of what we see are small tuck-in relative to our channel strategy. And then to a lesser extent, related to the product set, either adding product or doing something to expand the product line. And I think that more than likely, that's going to be what you see from us. The transformational opportunities, I think, are probably fewer and farther between, but it doesn't mean they don't exist, but that's certainly not the primary focus of our M&A strategy.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley.

Let me add my congratulations on terrific Q3 metrics. Can you speak a little bit more about some of the underlying channel trends in terms of dealers added versus selling more products through existing dealers? And maybe give us a sense of whether you're adding more independent dealers, more auto dealers? Any metrics you can share there. I know there's sort of an indirect element there? And then maybe touch on...

Yes. So...

Sorry. I was just going to say -- and also a multipart question here, sorry about that. Also maybe touch on adding new products to existing dealers and what you expect there going forward?

Sure. No, thanks, Jeff. Yes. So I think that the dynamics that we're seeing are pretty consistent with what we've seen even over a longer period of time, which is that it's really a mixture of multiple factors. We see growth in the core product, the paint protection film from our current dealers and customers. We're always adding new product dealers. But as you know and you see, we don't talk a lot about number of dealers because we just don't find it a very useful metric in and of itself because the composition of our customer base is so varied. Some can be much smaller than others. But the fact is that number continues to grow.

And then we see increased adoption of the new products by our current dealer base. Window film is still a new product for some. The ceramic coating products are new. And I think the thing that we all have to remember is that just because you're our customer already doesn't mean that by default, we deserve the business when we come out with a new product. We've got to earn the business. And that involves working with our customers, showing them about our products, the new products and hopefully allowing them on why they're better and why they're a good fit. So that process continues as we move forward.

And then I think on the last part, there are more and more dealership relationships that we have. That's a component of our strategy. We do see a lot of adoption in the dealerships with the window film. In some cases, we're actually leading with window film, and then looking to add paint protection later only because many of the dealerships from an in-house perspective are more familiar with window film because it's more established. So that's kind of a bit of a reversal in the dealership market than what you might see in the aftermarket. But it's all of the above, and it's very consistent quarter-to-quarter. There's no remarkable shift in that trend for Q3.

Okay. Terrific. That's my multipart question. So as far as the architectural window film, didn't hear you mention much on that? Just wondering if there's an update on that?

Yes. No, we had a record quarter there, still a small percent of our overall revenue, but that's an area we continue to focus on. We are tracking there how many dealers that we have carrying the product because in order to do some of the marketing and accelerate some of the marketing we want to do, we need a critical mass of installer base to benefit from that. So we're actually making good progress with that. You'll see a lot more coming from us in terms of highlighting that product and the applications. There's a lot more content coming out from us now really in the past 90 days. So that's a big push for next year to do that and build that to critical mass.

Okay. Great. And then 1 more, if I could squeeze it in. Just any other thoughts on growing your EU business next year?

Any other thoughts? Yes. I mean the European market when you compare to U.S. or Canada, our revenue per capita is still significantly less. So we're focused on kind of our core strategy there of getting our own people in the right places to build a network, to build relationships and build out each country. And we're cognizant that doing that in Europe is going to be different than how we do that in the U.S., hence, things like getting on the ground in France, which is required for the language and culture and to develop the market. And in Europe overall, we're looking to do that in even more places next year within Europe because we think that's instrumental to the strategy, and we know that it works.

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.

I want to thank everybody for joining us today and look forward to speaking with everybody next year. Appreciate it.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.