iRobot Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 7, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to the Irobot Second Quarter 20 24 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the company's prepared remarks. Today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to David Calusdian of the company's Investor Relations firm, Sharon Merrill Advisors.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on today's call are Gary Koehling, Irobot's CEO and Julie Zeiler, Executive Vice President and CFO. At the outset, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward looking statements regarding future events and our future financial performance. These statements reflect our views as of today only and should not be considered as representing our views as of any subsequent date. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations reflected in the forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

A discussion of these risk factors is fully detailed under the caption Risk Factors in our filings with the SEC. Related to our financial disclosures during this conference call, we will reference certain non GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G, including non GAAP gross margin, non GAAP operating expenses, non GAAP research and development, non GAAP sales and marketing, non GAAP operating loss and non GAAP net loss per share. We believe that our non GAAP financial results help provide additional transparency in dryrobot's underlying operating performance and potential. Our definitions of these non GAAP financial measures and reconciliation of each of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure are provided in the earnings presentation included in the Q2 2024 earnings conference call event details, which which is available on our website at www.irobot.com. Also, unless stated otherwise, our Q2 financial metrics that will be discussed on today's conference call, including the financial metrics provided in our outlook will be on a non GAAP basis only and all historical comparisons are with the Q2 of 2023.

Speaker 1

For today's call, our agenda is as follows. Gary will briefly cover the company's quarterly results, review important strategic milestones and outline the company's expectations for the second half of the year. Julie will review Irobot's financial results and offer additional insights regarding the company's full year outlook. Gary will then provide closing remarks before we open the call for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Gary and welcome him to what is his first earnings call as Irobot's new CEO.

Speaker 2

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. It is a pleasure to speak to you on my first earnings call as Irobot's CEO. I'm very excited to be here as we start a new chapter in Irobot's history and build on the company's legacy of innovation. In my 3 months thus far at Irobot, I have had the opportunity to meet with our teams, major retailers, distributors and key constituents around the globe.

Speaker 2

I've learned about what makes this a great company and I've gained a deeper understanding of our capabilities, challenges and opportunities. We're in the midst of a turnaround and I am more confident than ever that we will be successful. For today's call, I will begin with an overview of my background and discuss why I decided to join Irobot. I will then provide highlights of our Q2 performance and outline our opportunities to position Irobot for a bright future. I will then turn the call over to Julie to review our financial results in more detail and to provide our outlook.

Speaker 2

Following our prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q and A. My passion is building brands and I've had the opportunity to build iconic brands in many diverse categories of consumer goods. While I pride myself on marketing and innovation, I have significant experience in R and D and have run Asia Sourcing and Global Operations. I directed businesses successfully through the pandemic and recent global supply challenges, and I have operated across all environments and stages of performance from turnaround and crisis management to stabilization and growth. Over my career, I have architected and led the strategy, the organization and operating platform that ultimately drove sustainable and profitable growth.

Speaker 2

I joined Irobot because it is an iconic brand that has a strong relationship with consumers and retail and distribution partners. In fact, even in turnaround, iRobot continues to be the leader in several markets. We have a culture of innovation that is evident in our passionate and talented employees and I know that we can innovate our way to growth and value creation. I see incredible opportunities for this company. For the past 25 years, I have worked in leadership roles with consumer companies, many of which were turnarounds.

Speaker 2

I find it rewarding to enable positive change while energizing teams to work together to leverage skill sets, adapt best practices and implement strategic plans that provide the framework for consistent profitable growth. When I worked on the Oral B brand at Gillette, I inherited an empty pipeline and built an innovation engine that delivered dozens of new products in a 5 year period. While at Playtex, I repositioned Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic and they became the fastest growing products at the company. And most recently at Qualitor, I built a talented U. S.-based R and D team that designed and developed new product IP that was then sourced and manufactured in Asia, a similar model to what we are perfecting at Irobot.

Speaker 2

During the past 3 months, I have identified several inefficiencies within our business that I believe have hindered Irobot's ability to maximize the potential of our powerful technology, brand and consumer appeal. We had a high cost product line that is now in the process of being refreshed in order to enhance our competitiveness and improve our profitability. At the same time, we had an organizational structure with too many layers that was built for a much larger company and that slowed decision making. Additionally, the R and D model carry too much overhead in high cost countries for too many non core ideas. Our restructuring plan addresses all of these issues.

Speaker 2

Since I have joined, we have made several changes to our executive leadership team and reorganized the R and D to be better aligned with our vision of how to deliver new products. In fact, I am pleased to announce Jeff Engel has officially joined Irobot as President and Chief Operating Officer reporting to me. Jeff has been with Irobot for 7 months as our Chief Restructuring Officer and Advisor. He will be responsible for R and D, Operations and Supply Chain and Product Management and will continue his duties as CRO since our work in this area is not completed. Jeff's willingness to join Irobot at this time and his faith in our turnaround speaks volumes to the company's growth prospects.

Speaker 2

And he has been instrumental in helping us deliver against our restructuring targets. Our second quarter results demonstrate that our restructuring plan is on track and delivering the expected results. We have made tough but appropriate decisions to achieve our planned operating expense and headcount reduction targets. We have also reduced inefficient marketing spend and improved our product margins via our new contract manufacturing strategy. One driver of this was the launch of our margin accretive essentials product line, which is gaining traction in many markets and is now the unit leader in Japan.

Speaker 2

Furthermore, we have continued to reduce our finished goods inventory and narrowed our operating losses despite incurring one time charges. We also lessened our use of operating cash. While we are making progress, we recognize that turnarounds take time. And in the near term, we will continue to operate in a dynamic operating environment. This is reflected in our revised 2024 outlook.

Speaker 2

Julie will discuss our Q3 and 2024 outlook shortly. As we navigate near term headwinds, we remain in our ability to build on Irobot's legacy of innovation to advance our long term growth initiatives. To that end, we have launched I, Robot Elevate, which is a new strategy centered on improving our financial performance, increasing consumer focus to elevate our brand, bringing innovative products to market in an entirely new and more profitable way, continuing our operational and organization improvements and developing and retaining our best talent. We are evaluating everything we do at Irobot to enhance our performance for the benefit of all stakeholders. Our restructuring is focused on cost savings and improving our gross margin and cash flow.

Speaker 2

Elevate is about growth. A big part of Elevate will be developing and commercializing new products. Last month, we announced our smartest and best cleaning robot yet, the Roomba Combo 10 Max. This 2 in 1 robot vacuum and mop takes independent cleaning to a new level with more intelligence and our first multifunction auto wash dock. It is engineered to powerfully vacuum and mop multiple floor types, while the dock automatically refills and recharges the robot, washes and dries the mopping pad, empties debris and self cleans.

Speaker 2

The Roomba Combo 10 Max will be followed by another new product in Q4 2024 and then an entire revamp of our 2025 lineup, including an unprecedented number of new product launches across our good, better and best price points. We are also announcing the creation of Irobot Labs, which will serve as the company's innovation center. IRobot Labs is a global initiative and will harness the strength of our internal product and software engineering talent and selected partners around the world. The team will focus on reducing our time to market and securing the technological leadership that our company is known for. Overall, we are embarking on an exciting journey to reclaim our position as the global innovation leader in consumer robots for the home and beyond.

Speaker 2

We're a consumer products company that is backed by technology and serves a purpose for consumers around the world. We operate in a sizable global segment that has the potential for value expansion. This is demonstrated by the growth in multifunctional cleaning devices in our European market. As the category creator and innovator, we plan to lead and drive the global value expansion with new products. Our products enable our consumers to have more free time to enjoy their lives.

Speaker 2

We are working tirelessly to delight our consumers with every aspect of their Roomba experience. This includes opening the box, starting the robot for the first time, the initial cleaning experience and using the app. Our plans include rebuilding our mobile app and delivering a new and improved user experience for our consumers. We have a lot of work in front of us to reduce unproductive costs and become a more agile business. We will continue to make the difficult, but necessary decisions to ensure that we will reduce our operating and cash flow losses and have line of sight to achieve positive operating income and cash flow from operations over time.

Speaker 2

Our near term goal is to stabilize the business, improve the balance sheet and launch new products that set us on a path to revenue growth. I am confident in our turnaround plan, pleased with our early returns and energized by our future potential. Turnarounds are challenging, take time, energy and commitment. I have done it before and I plan to do it again. I look forward to sharing updates with you on future calls.

Speaker 2

With that, I'll turn the call over to Julie.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Gary. Hello, everyone. As David noted, my review of our financial results and outlook will be done on a non GAAP basis. Unless otherwise noted, each mention of gross margin, operating expense, operating loss, operating margin and net loss per share will mean the corresponding non GAAP metric. As Gary mentioned, our Q2 results reflected a more challenging consumer spending environment, heightened competition in our market segment and a greater than expected foreign currency impact.

Speaker 3

2nd quarter 2024 revenue came in at the low end of our guidance range and totaled 100 and $66,400,000 compared with $236,600,000 in Q2 of 2023. Geographically in the Q2, revenue declined 36% in the U. S, 35% in Japan and 22% in EMEA. Our Japan results reflect continued weakness in the yen against the dollar. Excluding the unfavorable foreign currency impact, Japan revenue decreased 28% over the prior year period.

Speaker 3

From a product mix perspective, 2 in-one products represented 51% of total robot sales in Q2. Accessory revenue in the quarter grew 13% over the prior year and represented approximately 11% of total revenue. Revenue from mid tier robots with an MSRP between $300 $4.99 and premium robots with an MSRP of $500 or more represented 76% of total robot sales compared with 84% in the year ago period, reflecting the Q1 introduction of the Roomba Combo Essential, which provides the iRobot 2 in-one cleaning experience at a lower price point. Our 2nd quarter direct to consumer or D2C sales declined 6% from the year ago period with 2% growth in North America and EMEA offset by a 21% decline in Japan or a decline of 14% excluding the currency impact. In the Q2, our D2C revenue represented 23% of total revenue.

Speaker 3

Our Q2 results include a non recurring $18,400,000 charge for the write off of excess component inventory and the losses on non cancelable purchase commitments. This manufacturing transition charge is entirely included in cost of product revenue and is due to the transition to the new product development paradigm with our contract manufacturers as well as changes to our 2025 product roadmap. As a result of the manufacturing transition charge, which impacted gross margin by 11.1 percentage points, Q2 gross margin was 16.7 percent compared with 24.6% in Q1 of 2024 and 23.2 percent in Q2 of 2023. I'll note that this charge obscures the significant progress we made and continue to make in reducing cost of product revenue. Excluding the impact from the manufacturing transition charge, which is a one time charge taken in Q2 of 2024, we are on track with our gross margin improvement plan, which is driven by new products with a better cost profile as well as cost reductions on existing products.

Speaker 3

Operating expenses for Q2 2024 totaled $75,900,000 compared with $105,400,000 in the year ago period, representing a year over year decline of 28%. This decrease primarily reflects the impact of our aggressive restructuring plans and disciplined spending during the quarter. The key drivers of the reduction were people related spending across all functions associated with the previously announced restructuring efforts, reduced marketing spend, a more disciplined approach to demand generation and a continued focus on efficiencies across the organization. Q2 GAAP results include an 8 point $2,000,000 charge related to our restructuring plan primarily for severance and related costs. Regarding expenses, I want to provide a quick update on where we are with respect to our full year production goals for R and D, sales and marketing and headcount that we set out on our Q4 call in February of this year.

Speaker 3

In the 1st 6 months of the year, we have made significant progress in improving our cost structure, including reducing operating expenses by 50 $2,800,000 We reduced R and D expenses by 18,700,000 dollars compared with a full year target of approximately $25,000,000 At the same time, we reduced overall sales and marketing expenses by $27,000,000 including $14,600,000 in working marketing compared with a full year target of $40,000,000 which included a decrease in working marketing of approximately $20,000,000 Lastly, we've reduced our workforce by 387 or 35% versus year end 2023. This compares with an original target of 350 or 31%. Turning to operating loss. For Q2, we narrowed our operating loss to $48,200,000 compared with an operating loss of $50,500,000 in the year ago period. When you consider that the operating loss number includes an 18 point $4,000,000 manufacturing transition charge, you can see the progress we have made here.

Speaker 3

2nd quarter non operating expense was $8,600,000 reflecting interest expense and the impact of fair value accounting associated with our term loan. This was partially offset by interest income on cash balances. Our Q2 tax expense was $700,000 and net loss per share of 1.96 dollars which included $0.63 per share for the manufacturing transition charge. We ended Q2 with 108 point $5,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents, a sequential decline of $9,800,000 from the end of Q1. Restricted cash totaled $41,900,000 with $40,500,000 set aside for future repayment of the term loan and subject to limited rights for inventory purchases in the 3rd quarters of fiscal 2024 2025.

Speaker 3

In Q2, our cash outflow from operations was $21,700,000 compared with a cash inflow from operations of $1,400,000 in Q1 of this year. As disclosed in our Q1 2024 call, Q1 2024 cash flow from operations benefited from the one time net proceeds of $75,000,000 from the Amazon termination fee. Excluding the Amazon termination fee received in Q1, we improved cash flow from operations by $52,000,000 sequentially. 2nd quarter DSO was 37 days compared with 28 days in the year ago period due primarily to customer mix. Our quarter end inventory balance was $101,400,000 or 67 days and reflects our continued focus on carefully managing inventory balances and the impact of the manufacturing transition charge.

Speaker 3

As discussed on our Q1 call, we filed a shelf S3 registration statement in February to discuss to enhance our liquidity and provide capital planning flexibility. The Shelf offering includes an at the market or ATM offering program for the sale of the company's common stock. During the Q2, we sold 1,100,000 shares for total net proceeds of $12,300,000 As of the end of Q2, we had $81,100,000 remaining under the ATM program. Careful cash management of our working and our working capital efficiency remains a priority and we have continued to make progress in managing our key working capital levers. Turning to our outlook, we are introducing our 3rd quarter outlook and revising our full year.

Speaker 3

For Q3, we expect revenue in the range of 217 $1,000,000 and gross margin in the range of 33% to 34%. Operating income is expected to be in the range of $7,000,000 to $10,000,000 and net loss per share is expected to be in the range of $0.11 to $0.01 per share. Due to persistent foreign currency headwinds and consumer market softness, we are updating the full year revenue outlook that we provided on May 7. Regarding full year gross margin, operating loss and net loss per share, our revised outlook primarily reflects the impact of the non recurring $18,400,000 manufacturing transition charge recorded in Q2. For full year 2024, we expect revenue to be in the range of 7 $65,000,000 to $800,000,000 and gross margin in the range of 28% to 29%.

Speaker 3

In order to meet our original full year goals for operating loss and net loss per share that we provided on our Q1 call on May 7, we are now targeting full year operating expenses in the range of $291,000,000 to $295,000,000 or approximately 37% to 38% of revenue. The anticipated decrease from full year 2023 primarily reflects previously announced efforts to align our cost structure more closely with near term revenue expectations along with further actions to optimize the organizational structure, reduce inefficiencies and minimize discretionary spending. We anticipate full year operating margin of approximately negative 8% to negative 10% with an operating profit in the second half of twenty twenty four. We continue to make progress in improving our cash flow from operations and expect to generate modest positive cash flow from operations during the second half of the year. In terms of other notable modeling assumptions for 2024, we anticipate other expense of around $30,000,000 including approximately $14,000,000 in net cash interest expense and $15,000,000 in estimated fair value adjustments associated with our term loan and full year tax expense of approximately $3,000,000 driven by our foreign jurisdictions.

Speaker 3

We anticipate a share count of approximately 29,500,000 shares exclusive of any additional issuances under our ATM. As a result, we expect a full year net loss per share in the range of $3.77 to $3.31 Our business remains minimally capital intensive and we now expect full year capital spending to be approximately $2,000,000 As a reminder, we manage our business on a full year basis and encourage our investors to focus on our annual targets given that the timing of orders is challenging to forecast even under ideal conditions. Large orders that shift from 1 quarter to the next can cause material fluctuations in our quarterly growth rates and cash flow performance. Additionally, our revenue expectations for the remainder of the year contemplate a euro exchange rate of 1.1 and a Japanese yen exchange rate of 153 to 156 based on a Reuters FX poll. Before I turn the call back over to Gary, I want to mention that we will be participating in Needham's 13th Annual Virtual Industrial Tech, Robotics and Cleantech 1 on 1 Conference on Monday, August 19.

Speaker 3

We hope you can join us. Gary?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Julie. We are delivering our commitments to increase product margins, reduce operating expenses and improve cash flow from operations. Our restructuring plan is on track. The execution of our Elevate strategy gives us confidence that we can return to growth. Elevate is focused on financial improvement, consumer and brand building, new product innovation, operational improvements and talent management.

Speaker 2

Before opening the call up for questions, I want to acknowledge and thank our dedicated and talented employees who are working harder than ever to support our ambitious objectives. Our employees are passionate about what they do and our mission, and they have a strong affinity for the brand and our company and our unique and innovative culture. I'm so proud of our people and know that together we can accomplish great things. In closing, we are mindful of the market and operational challenges ahead and believe our actions will elevate Irobot's overall performance and ultimately generate long term growth and shareholder value. We will now open the call to questions.

Speaker 2

Operator, please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Our first question is coming from Mike Latimore with Northland Capital Markets.

Speaker 4

All right, great. Yes, good morning. Thank you. I guess on the part of the strategy I think this year was to kind of reinvigorate your channel retail customer base, and then maybe I would think add another few retailers or channel partners. Can you just kind of provide an update on what you're thinking in that regard?

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. Hi, Mike. We have a lot of points of distribution and we're actively engaged with customers, some of whom who left during the Amazon transition. And we have active conversations and we are working with them on their timing and resets. So, we're very optimistic about the product line launches that we talked about and that will get us healthy discussions and the distribution that we're expecting.

Speaker 4

Great. And it sounds like you indicated that in 2025 you'll have a fairly significant product portfolio update. Can you give us just some color around the thinking there? I know you can't sort of pre release these things, but what would be some enhancements you might see in a new product set?

Speaker 2

We're very excited about the 2025 roadmap. We know that there are several price point areas that we have gaps in performance and our aim is to fill those gaps with consumer appealing products in all of those segments. So we'll be focusing on channels and we'll be focusing on price points as we roll out the product line.

Speaker 4

Great. And then just last question on, maybe too early, but what do you think the gross margin of Irobot can be longer term?

Speaker 3

Yes, Mike, this is Julie. Nice to hear from you. We've talked over the last number of quarters about the work that we are doing to expand our gross margin. Our move to a new to rely more on the mature supply chains of our contract manufacturing partners and our new innovation paradigm with them has been something we've been working on for the last number of periods and we are seeing encouraging results in the new products that we're bringing to market at a better cost profile as well as continuing to take cost out of our existing products. So we as we look and you can see in the expectations that we've given for our full year, we expect to expand our gross margins and that will continue to be a focus of ours as we go

Speaker 4

forward. Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the floor back over to Gary Cohn for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you again for joining us today. I'm looking forward to meeting many of you at the Needham Conference on the 19th and in the coming weeks. Have a great day everyone.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes our financial results conference call. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day.

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