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Earnings Call: Q1 2020

Apr 29, 2020

Operator

Greetings, welcome to the Align Technology first quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Shirley Stacy, VP of Corporate and Investor Communications. Thank you. You may begin.

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Joining me today is Joe Hogan, President and CEO, and John Morici, CFO. We issued first quarter 2020 financial results today via GlobeNewswire, which is available on our website at investor.aligntech.com. Today's conference call is being audio webcast and will be archived on our website for approximately one month. Telephone replay will be available today by approximately 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time through 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time on May 13th. To access the telephone replay, domestic callers should dial 877-660-6853 with conference number 13701221, followed by pound. International callers should dial 201-612-7415 with the same conference number. As a reminder, the information that the presenters discuss today will include forward-looking statements, including statements about Align's future events and product outlook.

These forward-looking statements are only predictions and involve risks and uncertainties that are set forth in more detail in our most recent periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available on our website and at sec.gov. Actual results may vary significantly, and Align expressly assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. We have posted historical financial statements, including the corresponding reconciliations, if applicable, and our first quarter 2020 conference and earnings release and conference call slides on our website under quarterly results. Please refer to these files for more detailed information. With that, I'll turn the call over to Align Technology's President and CEO, Joe Hogan. Joe?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Thanks, Shirley. Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us. I hope that you and your families are well. Given the significant disruption to our business caused by the extraordinary measures taken by governments, public and private institutions, and businesses around the world to fight the spread of COVID-19, most of the performance metrics I would normally discuss are less meaningful. On our call today, in addition to the highlights from our Q1 results, I'll discuss the trends that we're seeing through early March, prior to the escalation in the COVID-19 cases that resulted in shutdowns across Europe and North America and compounded the initial impact from similar shutdowns in China beginning in January. I'll also talk about our view of recovery and strategy to help our doctor customers navigate this challenging environment and ensure our business continuity.

John will provide more detail on our financial performance and comment on the current trends across our business globally, including the momentum we're beginning to see in China. Following that, I'll come back and summarize a few key points and open up the call to questions. With that, let me start with a few comments on our first quarter results through early March. At that time, China was progressing in line with our original guidance for Q1, which included approximately 20,000-25,000 fewer cases and $30 million-$35 million less revenues for Invisalign and iTero products, and other regions were performing ahead of our Q1 outlook. However, the situation quickly changed in mid-March, as most governments in EMEA and North America closed down non-essential businesses and initiated stay-at-home orders.

As a result, a vast majority of Invisalign practices shut down and stopped seeing patients. Our business fell off sharply. We believe the incremental impact of COVID-19 on our Q1 results was approximately 50,000 fewer cases and approximately $85 million less revenues for Invisalign and iTero products. At the same time, while EMEA, North America, and other parts of APAC fell off in mid-March, we began to see improvements in China as the country started to open up again. While it's still early in the recovery process and the situation is different in every city and for every practice, we're working closely with our doctors to support their current needs and ensure they have a game plan to resume operations in a very different environment for the foreseeable future. More on that in a few minutes. Let's go through our first quarter results.

For Q1, total revenues were $551 million, down 15.2% sequentially and unchanged year-over-year, reflecting significantly lower than expected sales of Invisalign clear aligners and iTero scanners due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenues from clear aligners were $481.6 million, and iTero scanners and services were $69.4 million. Clear aligner shipments were 359.4 thousand cases. Notwithstanding the impact of COVID-19, shipment volumes were up 2.9% year-over-year, reflecting solid growth from non-comprehensive products driven by Invisalign Go systems across all regions, as well as Invisalign Moderate. This was offset by a lower mix of comprehensive products, primarily due to the shortfall in China. For the quarter, we shipped Invisalign cases to approximately 61,000 doctors, of which 4,100 were first-time customers. We also trained over 4,600 new doctors in Q1, including 2,600 international doctors.

Overall, for the teen market in Q1, 104,000 teens and preteens started treatment with Invisalign clear aligners, representing 29% of total cases shipped, reflecting growth from EMEA and the Americas regions, and across comprehensive products. During the quarter, we reached another major milestone with our two millionth Invisalign teenage patient, Caitlin Ratliff, a student and athlete who started treatment recently with Dr. Tom Hartsock, a U.S.-based orthodontist in Kentucky. Dr. Hartsock has been a terrific practicing orthodontic for about 30 years and credits Invisalign with revitalizing his practice at a time when a lot of doctors think about slowing down. He says his approach is to lead with Invisalign, and he's got a new digital mindset now, and we're excited he's going to share more about that at our upcoming Invisalign Teen Forum Virtual Edition this July. The teen segment represents the largest portion of existing orthodontic case starts each year.

As we head into the summer season, the busiest time in an ortho's practice, we are working to help doctors capture as much of the teen season as possible under the circumstances. Now let's turn to specifics around our first quarter results, starting with the Americas region. For the Americas region, through early March, solid sequential growth was driven primarily by North American GP dentists and DSOs, along with continued strength from Latin American doctors. On a reported basis, Q1 Invisalign case volume was down 5.5% sequentially and up 5.2% year-over-year, reflecting significantly less than expected Invisalign case shipments in March due to the impact of COVID-19. Year-over-year growth for Q1 reflects growth from both orthodontist and GP dentist channels, which were up 5.6% and 4.6% respectively. Latin America volume was up 83% year-over-year, led by strong growth from Brazil.

For our international business, through early March, with the exception of China, the EMEA and APAC regions were performing well. On a reported basis, Q1 Invisalign case volume was down 22.3% sequentially, reflecting significant decrease in APAC, primarily China, due to the impact from COVID-19, partially offset by growth in EMEA. On a year-over-year basis, international shipments were flat, reflecting growth from EMEA offset by a decline in APAC. For EMEA, Q1 volumes were down sequentially and up 11.1% on a year-over-year basis, driven by growth in Spain, the U.K., and Germany, along with our expansion markets led by Central Eastern Europe and Benelux, including the teen segment. For APAC, Q1 was down sequentially as expected, reflecting a significant reduction in volume in China due to COVID-19.

On a year-over-year basis, APAC was down 18.2% compared to the prior year, reflecting a longer duration of COVID-19 measures implemented in China, and was the only region down year-over-year. Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and India all continued year-over-year growth in Q1, and as noted earlier, we began to see signs of improvement in China in early March as the government began to relax some or all of the restrictions and business began the road to recovery. Our consumer marketing is focused on building the clear aligner category and driving demand for Invisalign treatment through a doctor's office. In Q1, we saw strong digital engagement globally, including 7.1 million unique visitors to our websites and 274,000 leads, both metrics growing by more than 40%.

Consumer engagement growth for Invisalign was enabled by the launch of our new consumer campaign, Invis Is, strong media spend, and a robust omni-channel presence. Our Invisalign concierge team is nurturing consumer leads and virtually until doctors' offices open, which is key to realizing and converting consumer interest into cases. Further, our modeling indicates that consumer marketing drove incremental growth in Q1 and reinforces our strategy to invest in brand building and maintain high visibility with consumers through the COVID-19 crisis. Other key metrics show an increased activity and engagement with the Invisalign brand and are included in our Q1 quarterly slides. For our iTero scanner and services business, Q1 revenues were down sequentially as expected, following a seasonally strong Q4 and consistent with trends in the capital equipment market.

Q1 also reflects the impact of COVID-19 across all regions, and especially North America, Australia, China, Japan, and other APAC countries. On a year-over-year basis, iTero scanner revenues were down 13.1% due to lower sales in North America and APAC region, primarily due to COVID-19, despite increased revenues in EMEA and Latin America, reflecting the addition of Zimmer Biomet distribution agreement, the introduction of our iTero Element 5D going direct to Mexico, and additional LatAm distributor markets. The total year-over-year decrease in scanner revenue was slightly offset by increased services revenue from a larger iTero installed base. Cumulatively, over 23 million orthodontic scans, 5.2 million restorative scans, have been performed with iTero scanners. For Q1, total Invisalign cases submitted with a digital scanner in the Americas increased to 80.5% from 76.1% in Q1 last year.

International scans increased 68.7%, up from 59.3% in the same quarter last year. We're pleased to see that within the Americas, 93.6% of cases submitted by North American orthodontists were submitted digitally. I'm also pleased to share that we received an FDA 510(k) clearance for our iTero Element 5D imaging system. The iTero Element 5D imaging system seamlessly combines 3 scanning technologies, 3D data, intraoral color photos, and NIRI images. NIRI is near-infrared imaging technology, which allows you to see caries in different aspects from a dentition standpoint.

It's an integrated scan, and we're excited to bring the advancement in intraoral scanning technology to the United States market to help doctors provide better oral care for their patients. At this time, we're mindful of the current environment and the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having across the world, and are focused on customer education and training regarding this new technology while so many dental practices in the U.S. are operating on a limited schedule. We remain confident that the iTero business will continue to help drive our overall long-term growth and help increase adoption of the digital platform with Invisalign treatment. To that end, during the quarter, we announced the acquisition of exocad, a global CAD/CAM software leader, and completed the transaction on April 1st.

John will talk more about the acquisition in a moment. Let me say just that the rise in consumer awareness around dentistry extends beyond the benefits of straight teeth and orthodontics. There are significant opportunities for all kinds of treatments, from simple cosmetic fixes to ortho-restorative. That can help us accelerate growth of our digital solutions for ortho-restorative cases and really drive growth and adoption of the Invisalign iTero digital platform. I'm very excited about the addition of exocad's proven restorative experience, expertise, and functionality to our platform. I want to welcome exocad founders, Till Steinbrecher and Maik Gerth, and the entire exocad team to Align. Let me now turn to some of the initiatives we've taken to support our doctors and their patients. We recognize the enormous hardship that COVID-19 has caused Invisalign practices around the world.

We're working in every region to support doctors and find ways to minimize disruptions to their businesses and to strengthen the experiences their patients have with Invisalign treatment. We have learned a lot from our doctor partners and teams in the Asia Pacific region, and we've been navigating the impact of COVID-19 for months. We're applying their experiences and insights across all regions. Many of our customers are sharing creative ideas and suggestions as we all work to manage the situation together. One of the first things we did was address clinical education, an integral part of doctor engagement. Across all three of our regions, we moved most of our education programs to online digital platforms, continuing to provide hundreds of valuable Invisalign and iTero training and education resources, many peer-to-peer, for doctors and their teams in a virtual setting.

We also identified opportunities to collaborate with Invisalign practices to manage ongoing cases and explore new ways for doctors to conduct consultations. Early on, many doctors began using video calls, texts, and patient-submitted photos through a variety of platforms to help monitor patient progress, reduce in-office appointments, and ensure continuity of patient care during treatment. It quickly became clear that doctors needed a better way to connect and monitor patients, so we accelerated the launch of new tools that were still in pilot mode. The Invisalign Virtual Appointment tool enables doctors to easily set up HIPAA-compliant video appointments to monitor existing patients and to have an initial conversation with patients interested in learning more about Invisalign clear aligner treatment for the doctor. The Invisalign Virtual Care program can also use video appointments and enables doctors to monitor treatment progress and stay connected with patients through a virtual platform.

Patients use the intuitive My Invisalign app to stay engaged in the treatment and convey progress photos to their doctors, who review these photos on their Invisalign Doctor Site, communicates any needed instruction, and ensures treatment is on track. These tools are available through our Invisalign Doctor Site, IDS, and the My Invisalign app and work as part of the end-to-end digital platform for Invisalign treatment. While both tools are still in early stages of rollout, our goal is to provide doctors with a way to maintain care until patients are again able to visit the doctor's office. Feedback to date has been relatively positive, and we believe that doctors will continue using these tools to improve patient experience and increase office efficiencies well after COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.

We're also supporting doctors through financial and operating challenges and are providing additional resources, including industry experts, to help them navigate this ongoing crisis. This includes webcasts, e-blasts, and microsites on IDS, again, the Invisalign Doctor Site, with advice on extending aligner wear and holding patients at specific treatment stages, options for redirecting aligner shipments, and helping address customer cash flow concerns caused by the pandemic. We're creating programs with partners like LendingPoint that are part of recovery playbooks to help doctors with speed to cash that is expected to launch on May 1st. Before I turn the call over to John, I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about the strength and resiliency of Align and our business model and our view of the path to recovery.

There's no question that we are in uncharted territory, and while supporting our doctors in their current situation is still critical right now, planning for recovery is just as important. Overcoming challenges is not new to Align and our employees. Our response to COVID-19 and decisions and investments we are making now to anticipate customer needs and adapt in a dynamic environment are based in part on the lessons learned throughout our history, and will further our competitive advantage and position us to capitalize on the market as it returns. We serve a huge under-penetrated market, and our share of more than 300 million people who want a better smile is less than 3%. Teens are an important segment, and our share is a small fraction of the market, and yet we know that teens remain the heart and soul of orthodontic practices and will drive their recovery.

There is no single blueprint for us to follow in this recovery. Our underlying business is healthy. We have an excellent balance sheet with no debt. Over the last 5 years, we've grown a business that has generated 25% compounded revenue growth and consistently delivered 72% gross margins, 22% operating margins, and generated cash flow from operations in excess of 22% of revenues each year. We also have operational resiliency in terms of global manufacturing that has taken us years to develop and is simply unmatched, and is a key reason why we're able to continue operations in the crisis and expect to ramp up quickly in recovery. The core components being supply chain, digital treatment planning, Treat, aligner fabrication, AFAB, supply chain. During normal business, we carry enough buffer stock in our warehouse to handle two disruptions to the supply chain.

If a batch goes sideways, we can handle that twice. After COVID-19 broke in China, we anticipated that we needed to mobilize existing suppliers and add 3 to 6 months of additional inventory so that we could weather the potential storm. For many of our suppliers, we have alternative redundant suppliers in case a shutdown in one geography impacts a supplier. Treat, the investments we have made over the years in having Treat in multiple locations, allows us some flexibility in business continuity to respond to customer needs. Before COVID-19, we had evaluated the potential for doing treatment planning from home or remote locations, and the implications to hardware needs, data security, and productivity. When COVID-19 hit China, we ramped up our ability to do that and started transitioning our CAD designers to do treatment planning at home, and have been successful in that sense.

We are confident we could have maintained 80% of our normal output. Volumes fell off before we could prove that point. China hit first. We load balanced with our other Treat locations, so as this went from east to west, we didn't have significant issues in our treatment operations. This is our model. We'll continue to strengthen it going forward. Aligner fabrication. We have aligner fabrication operations in Ziyang, China and Juarez, Mexico, and plans for a third facility in Europe that we're looking to accelerate into 2021. Our facilities have excess capacity built in, and while we never have 100% redundancy, we do have the ability to shift production volumes based on that excess capacity. Worst case scenario, if one of these facilities goes down, then customers wait a little longer for their aligners, but production will continue, and we believe we can recover swiftly.

In short, when we have an issue in one part of the world, we have designed our operations to enable us to load balance across facilities. We've had to do this because of our growth and huge growth spurts that made it necessary to remain flexible. Additionally, the steps we've implemented during COVID-19 crisis, like work from home for CAD designers, gives us even more flexibility, and we'll leverage that going forward as we evaluate facilities requirements and potential cost savings. Beyond our business strength and operational resiliency, we are at the forefront of digital dentistry, and this pandemic has exposed the weakness of analog approaches and strengthens and benefits the digital technology in every aspect of our life. There's been a lot of concern over the years about digital driving us apart and keeping people from interacting.

People focused on their screens and social media rather than with each other, interacting with businesses online rather than in person, et cetera. I think what we're seeing through this terrible situation is that digital actually unites us. It keeps us connected, gives us flexibility and options. Without digital technology during this crisis, how would kids go to school? How would any of us be productive working from home? How would universities and public health experts model the curve without data mining and AI? I am proud and thankful of our digital platform is able to keep Invisalign patients moving forward in treatment while physical practices are closed. It can connect doctors and patients to monitor issues and track treatment. Because of digital, we can get a replacement aligner or some new retainers to a kid sheltering in place.

Together with doctors, we're going to leverage that power of digital for dentistry and orthodontics more than ever. Doctors are not going back to before. We all know that digital dentistry is the future, that is a part of why Align is weathering this pandemic, why I believe we are well positioned for success going into recovery. With that, I'll now turn it over to John.

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Thanks, Joe. For our Q1 financial results. Total revenue for the first quarter was $551 million, down 15.2% from the prior quarter and up 0.4% from the corresponding quarter a year ago. For clear aligners, Q1 revenues of $481.6 million was down 11.4% sequentially across all regions, driven by Asia Pacific. Year-over-year clear aligner revenues growth of 2.6% reflects growth from EMEA and the Americas, offset by APAC. Clear aligner revenue growth was unfavorably impacted by approximately $6 million, or approximately 1 point year-over-year, from foreign exchange. Q1 Invisalign ASPs were up sequentially by approximately $15 to $1,255, primarily due to lower net deferrals due to a decrease in primary case shipments across all regions.

On a year-over-year basis, Q1 Invisalign ASPs increased approximately $10, primarily reflecting price increases in all regions and increased additional aligner revenues, partially offset by promotional discounts and unfavorable foreign exchange. Total Q1 Invisalign shipments of 359.4 thousand cases were down 13.1% sequentially and up 2.9% year-over-year. Our scanner and services revenue for the first quarter was $69.4 million, down 34.7% sequentially due to volume decreases in all regions. Year-over-year revenues were down 13.1%, primarily due to volume decreases in North America, partially offset by increases in EMEA and LatAm, and increases in service revenue off an increased install base. Moving on to gross margin. First quarter overall gross margin was 71.6%, down one point sequentially and down 1.6 points year-over-year.

On a non-GAAP basis, excluding stock-based compensation expense, overall gross margin was 71.8% for the first quarter, down one point sequentially and down 1.6 points year-over-year. Clear aligner gross margin for the first quarter was 73%, down 1.1 points sequentially and down 1.9 points year-over-year, primarily due to lower volumes and higher cost per case, partially offset by an increase in Invisalign ASPs. Scanner gross margin for the first quarter was 61.8%, down 3.1 points sequentially and 1.8 points year-over-year due to increased manufacturing variances, lower ASPs, and partially offset by higher service revenue. Q1 operating expenses were $324.4 million, up sequentially 1.1% and up 3.2% year-over-year. The sequential increase in operating expenses reflects higher legal and outside services.

Year-over-year, the increase reflects our continued investment in sales and R&D activities, including increased compensation from additional headcount and consumer marketing spend, partially offset by the $29.8 million charge related to the Invisalign store closure costs recorded in Q1 of 2019. Our first quarter operating income was $69.9 million, down 53.7% sequentially and down 20.3% year-over-year. Our first quarter operating margin was 12.7%, down 10.6 points sequentially and down 3.3 points year-over-year. The sequential decrease in operating income and operating margin are primarily attributed to lower volume, revenue, and gross margin as a result of the COVID-19 impacts. Operating margin was impacted by approximately 0.8 points year-over-year from foreign exchange.

On a year-over-year basis, the decrease in operating margin primarily reflects lower gross profit and higher operating expenses related to go-to-market activities, partially offset by the $29.8 million charge related to the Invisalign store closure in Q1 2019. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes stock-based compensation, acquisition-related costs, and impairment and other costs related to Invisalign store closures in the prior year, operating margin for the first quarter was 17.1%, down 9.3 points sequentially and down 8.1 points year over year. Interest and other income expense net for the first quarter was an expense of $16.9 million, including a $9.2 million hedge loss related to the anticipated exocad acquisition. Excluding the hedge loss, interest and other income expense net was $7.4 million expense on a non-GAAP basis.

With regards to the first quarter tax provision, our tax rate was -2,745%, which includes a one-time tax benefit of approximately $1.5 billion associated with the recognition of a deferred tax asset related to the intra-entity sale of certain intellectual property rights resulting from our corporate structure reorganization completed during the quarter. This deferred tax benefit will be amortized starting in 2020 and continue into subsequent quarters and years. The period over which the tax benefit will be recognized depends on the profitability of our Swiss headquarters and is still under assessment and review with the Swiss tax authorities. Excluding the tax benefit related to our corporate structure reorganization and the related tax effects on stock-based compensation and other non-GAAP adjustments, the first quarter tax rate on a non-GAAP basis was 33.2% compared to 20.9% in prior quarter and 22.8% in the same quarter a year ago.

The non-GAAP tax rate was higher than forecasted due to lower than expected profits in regions outside the U.S. First quarter diluted earnings per share was $19.21, up $17.68 sequentially and up $18.32 compared to the prior year. On a non-GAAP basis, diluted earnings per share was $0.73 for the first quarter, down $1.03 sequentially and down $0.52 year-over-year. Moving on to the balance sheet. As of March 31st, 2020, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $790.7 million, a decrease of approximately $77.9 million from the prior quarter, which is primarily due to the annual bonus payout and the purchase of an additional San Jose, California, facility, combined with slower AR collections. Of our $790.7 million of cash and cash equivalents, $119.2 million was held in the U.S., and $671.5 million was held by our international entities.

Q1 accounts receivable balance was $533 million, down approximately 3.1% sequentially. Our overall days sales outstanding, DSOs, was 87 days, up 11 days sequentially and up nine days as compared to Q1 last year. We expect DSOs to increase in Q2 as a result of anticipated lower collections. Cash flow from operations for the first quarter was $9.8 million. Capital expenditures for the first quarter were $46.1 million, primarily related to our continued investment in increasing the liner capacity and facilities. Free cash flow, defined as cash flow from operations, less capital expenditures, amounted to -$36.3 million. Under our May 2018 repurchase program, we still have $100 million available for repurchase of our common stock. On April 1st, 2020, we completed the acquisition of privately held exocad Global Holdings GmbH, a global leader in the dental CAD/CAM software market, for a purchase price of approximately $430 million in cash.

The acquisition of exocad broadens our digital platform reach by adding technology that addresses restorative needs in an end-to-end digital platform workflow to facilitate ortho restorative and comprehensive dentistry, and also brings exocad's expertise in restorative dentistry, implantology, guided surgery, and smile design of the Align Technology portfolio. We expect to complement and extend our Invisalign and iTero digital solutions, paving the way for new, seamless, cross-disciplinary dentistry in the lab and at chairside. exocad also broadens our platform reach in the digital dentistry, with close to 200 partners and more than 35,000 licenses installed worldwide. Let me turn to our outlook. As Joe described earlier, through early March, our business was performing well, and we believed we would exceed our Q1 guidance.

However, things quickly changed in the latter part of March as the majority of Invisalign practices in our core markets in EMEA and the Americas regions closed their offices and stopped seeing patients, which caused Invisalign case receipts to drop rapidly and continue into April. At this time, due to the fluid market condition caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are not providing guidance for Q2, and we are withdrawing our prior commentary regarding our full year 2020. What I can offer is the following directional commentary. For China, which was the first major country impacted by COVID-19 and was shut down almost overnight at the end of January, as reflected in our Q1 guidance provided on the January earnings call. It has shown continued improvement beginning in early March.

Our case receipts or orders in China are currently running at 80% plus of mid-January's level, but with fair amount of variability week-to-week and between various provinces and cities. Keep in mind that there is about a three-to-four-week lag between case receipts and orders to case shipments. China provinces are not uniform in their recovery, all continue to improve. Guangdong, Shanghai, and Zhejiang are now at or above pre-pandemic levels. Beijing and Hubei's slower recovery is consistent with later reopening and/or heavier restrictions. Early indications of patient flow is also positive, it's too early to determine if it is pent-up demand due to the lockdown. We also heard today that China is lifting travel restrictions within China, which should facilitate business.

APAC, excluding China, is still very fluid as Japan shut down later than the rest of APAC, and other countries like Taiwan and Korea are also improving but are trailing China. For the Americas, it is unclear how volume will evolve due to staggered lockdowns and subsequent staggered reopenings by state. We would expect the situation in the U.S. to be similar to what we've seen in China, with recovery starting in the states in the middle of the country and working its way out to the coast on a city-by-city basis. In LATAM, it is still fluid as it shut down later than the rest of the Americas. The EMEA market is beginning to open up, and Germany is making good strides.

We are monitoring each market to see how each is responding to the various government isolation regulations and is still fluid and a lot of variability week to week. For iTero, as a result of COVID-19, we did see some deferral of purchase decisions at the end of the quarter, and I would expect that to continue. We finished Q1 with $791 million in cash and cash equivalents. Since then, we have closed our purchase of exocad for $431 million on April 1st. Align's priorities during the pandemic are to take care of our employees, customers, and shareholders. With these priorities in mind, we are taking actions to ensure the business is well positioned to weather the pandemic. In order to maintain our financial health, we are taking the following actions.

Holding our current headcount level steady to support the initiatives Joe discussed while making sure we are prepared for the market recovery. Controlling discretionary spending such as travel and meeting-related expenses. Slowing some of our capital expenditures and working with many vendors who have allowed us to increase payment terms while providing extended payment terms to many of our customers. As always, we are balancing future investments to drive growth in a vastly under-penetrated market versus making the appropriate cost reductions and cash actions that have less impact to the business. With that, I'll turn it over to Joe for final comments. Joe?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Thanks, John. Thanks again for joining us today. Before I close, I want to take a minute to talk about some of Align's actions to support relief efforts in the communities in which we live and work. One of the things that makes Align a great place to work is the concern our employees have for the world around us and their commitment to helping others. The passion is core to our purpose of transforming smiles and changing lives. In this time of need, how we support our employees and customers and serve our communities is more important than ever. Early on in the outbreak, we donated RMB 1 million to the Red Cross Society of China to support relief efforts in what were then some of the hardest hit areas.

More recently, we committed $1 million to the Align Foundation, Align's donor-advised fund through Fidelity Charitable, and our teams have been working together to source and supply additional personal protection equipment, or PPE, and medical supply donations for frontline healthcare workers in the communities we serve. There's some slides that give you more details on this. Thanks to the ingenuity and diligence of our manufacturing engineering team, we're able to leverage our 3D printing technology and manufacturing expertise to produce face shields and medical swabs for COVID-19 testing kits. Through our network of connections with hospitals across the globe, we're donating them to hospitals with the most critical needs. As our existing 3D printing equipment is highly customized for Align fabrication and can't be reconfigured, we acquired some new separate 3D printers to specifically help with relief efforts.

I'm extremely proud of what our employees are doing individually to make a difference in what Align is doing as a business overall. In summary, we're all operating in a tough environment, and even as we start to see signs of recovery in some geographies, we don't know when we'll get back to normal or even near normal operations. As always, we're committed to the safety and wellbeing of our employees, doctor partners, their staff, and patients. That remains our top priority in the weeks and months ahead. That and working with our stakeholders and communities to get through this together. With that said, I want to make it clear that we are not resting on our laurels waiting for the business and better days.

Align Technology believes in playing offense and investing for our future, and that includes, first and foremost, protecting the jobs of our employees and keeping them ready to pivot for a fast recovery. That means no furloughs, no reduced salaries, staying focused on our long-term strategy. Employees remain our most strategic asset. Closing the exocad acquisition in early April to help expand our digital platform for the ortho restorative treatment. We are very excited about this opportunity. Adding resources to support international expansion. For example, approximately 100 new sales reps in China. Improving virtual treatment options and releasing new products and digital tools to meet our customers' needs, like Invisalign Virtual Appointment and Invisalign Virtual Care to help doctors and patients connect while practices are closed and beyond. Key to expanding our digital platform in a post COVID-19 environment.

Investing in marketing and media to reach our consumers while they're at home during the pandemic and keep our brand top of mind, something that other companies have stopped to conserve cash. Extending our working capital to help our customers manage their cash flow and expenses. We are very aware of the near-term volume challenges of consumers sheltering in place, closed ortho and dental offices, and possible delays in new treatment as consumers go back to work and evaluate their priorities. We're still focused on and investing in a vastly under-penetrated market and believe that Align is uniquely positioned for recovery and continued growth coming out of the pandemic. COVID-19 will continue to have significant implications to the world and to our industry.

Our digital platform has made it possible for thousands of doctors and patients to continue Invisalign treatments throughout this global disruption, thanks to the digital orthodontics of Invisalign aligners, digital treatment planning, and virtual monitoring and care. I think coming out of this, more doctors than ever will have experienced the benefit of digital treatment and digital tools for their practices, and many will have seen firsthand the limitations and frustrations of the traditional analog approach to patient treatment, like wires and brackets. With that said, I want to thank you again for joining the call. I look forward to updating you on our progress as the year unfolds. Now I'll turn the call over to our operator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for your question. Our first question comes from the line of Nathan Rich with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Nathan Rich
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Good afternoon. Thanks for the question, hope you and the Align team are all doing well. Appreciate all the color you gave on the call. I guess, Joe, maybe starting with China, serving potentially as a guide for how the U.S. and EMEA might recover. Was there anything that you would call out in terms of either the types of cases or the channels that started to come back first, I guess, in China? As we think about if China does serve as a guide for the U.S., does that sort of mean that we're looking at three to four months for those case receipts to get back to that 80% level that you referenced in your remarks?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Yeah, Nathan, first of all, China's China, right? China had very rigid lockdown procedures. They were into this first. I don't think you can really take a vector from China and just work it from the U.S. or from a Western geography in general. We also see, as John indicated in his written script, is that this is coming up in China by city. We see Beijing and Wuhan area and Hubei province being behind in that sense. I think as you look at the U.S. too, N.Y. and California will come up differently than the middle part of the nation, is what we're seeing right now too.

When you talk about some segmentation in the sense of how it's come back in China too, remember, it's primarily a Comprehensive product base that we have in China, and we're selling some Moderate there and some different things, but it's primarily coming back as a Comprehensive piece. Again, I don't think that's a vector that we'll use when you look at other areas too. There's no question, Nathan, the other countries will come back. I just am very reluctant to take a vector from China and really relate that to the Western economies and different countries, because it's all being handled differently around the world.

Nathan Rich
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Okay. Joe, appreciate that. I guess just a quick follow-up. When you think about these practices kind of opening back up, and you made some comments about how you're supporting customers. Are there any changes that you're thinking about from, like, a marketing or levers that you've kind of used in the past, maybe gearing those up, as you think about helping volumes start to kind of get back to more normalized levels?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

We honestly feel that, particularly in the orthodontic community, there'll be a much harder leaning toward a digital kind of environment because, with the chance of reinfection rates with COVID-19 and concerns about future shutdowns or slowdowns, as we mentioned in our script, you just have a lot of variability and flexibility that you can use in a digital format that you can't use in an analog format. We'll be going to our customers with programs that really help them through to figure out how to convert more and more of their volume to a digital environment. Not that we haven't done that before, but we'll be very specific about it. As we move into teen season, you know teen season, second quarter, you'll see us really focused on teens because we know orthos will be focused on teens too. That's a different demographic.

It segments differently in the sense of our product lines, like First and Math, and we'll also be ready with PPE equipment and other things that'll prepare doctors for the concerns that they're going to have of protecting their patients and also their employees too. Did I miss anything, John, or anything you'd add?

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

No, that's good.

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Thanks, Nathan. Next question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brandon Couillard with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Brandon Couillard
Analyst, Jefferies

Hey, thanks so much.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hi, Brandon.

Brandon Couillard
Analyst, Jefferies

Joe or John, could you sort of just talk about the flexibility you have in your cost structure, how much of OpEx is discretionary or variable? It sounds like you're focused on kind of holding the line in terms of headcount and marketing, but how should we think about just the leverage you have to kind of control costs during this period right now?

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Hey, Brandon, this is John. As we said, there are levers that we could pull. As we accelerate growth, there's levers we pull. When we look at our existing OpEx, as we look to spend some of our marketing dollars, where we spend it, how we spend it, there's levers around that spend. As with the travel restrictions and less conferences and so on, there's a lot of other operating expenditures that can be pushed out and not spent currently. We're focused in on and still investing for the future to be able to work with our doctors, as Joe has mentioned, on a lot of new technologies, and making sure that we keep the employees and the focus that we have on our structure that we have. We'll modulate as we need to going forward if it's needed.

Brandon Couillard
Analyst, Jefferies

Yeah, thanks. A follow-up for Joe. As you think about sort of the leverage you have to drive demand, would you expect to be somewhat more aggressive in terms of ASPs? Are you planning to adjust your advantage program levels or hurdles to give dentists a bit of a break given they've had their offices closed? Thanks.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Brandon, we've already extended from an advantage tier standpoint with our customers when they went into that. I don't know how much of an effect that'll have on an ASP standpoint because we'd basically be holding them to where they are. Overall, it's not price, it's our strategy here as we come up out of here. It's how do we support our customers in a digital environment. We're trying to explain how do we really support them from a PPE standpoint and an expert standpoint. We talk about loans, different things from a cash flow standpoint. We know many of them are going to be challenged in that way, and we have been offering some payables relief and deferral going forward. There's a broad aspect of needs we think our customers will have.

Advantage is just one part of that, but it's what we can bring to these customers holistically to help their practices and help them grow.

Brandon Couillard
Analyst, Jefferies

Great. Thanks.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Yep.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Block with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Jonathan Block
Analyst, Stifel

Great. Thanks, guys.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hey, John.

Jonathan Block
Analyst, Stifel

Hey, Joe. Joe, you mentioned protecting employees, no furloughs or salary cuts. I'm just curious about the competition and has anything changed in the marketplace around the competitive landscape? We've heard some chatter about sort of, call it cutbacks in the orthodontic divisions of some of the other players, but maybe you can elaborate on what you're hearing or seeing out there.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hey, John. I don't want to be specific, most of our competitors have had layoffs or cutbacks in some way. We've just been blessed with a really strong balance sheet going into this to allow us to have the flexibility and do it as we do. We're a growth business. You know that, John, well. We're set up for 20%-30% kind of growth, we have to position ourselves for that. In that sense, making sure that our production capacity is ready, that our employee base is ready too. Our sales teams are really critical in that sense too. It's wonderful. We can see some of the investments like Invisalign virtual assistants and things that we're working with customers right now, that we can launch those products and continue to drive those products going forward, with a full force engineering team also.

From a competitor standpoint, we're seeing varying degrees of cutbacks and moves in that sense. We're not focused on that, John, really. We're just focused on what we think we should do, what's important in our portfolio, and how we can help our doctors out.

Jonathan Block
Analyst, Stifel

Okay, helpful. The second one's a little bit long, but just on Swift, I know you kicked off a pilot recently. I think it's an important sort of initiative long term to better get after the lower acuity market. I'm just curious, Joe, you kicked it off when there was a lot going on, so did you get enough of a signal during that time to share some takeaways from the Swift initiative? Could we see you lean on that a little bit more in coming months? It is a little bit more price sensitive for the consumer, it has a monthly, and in this environment of job uncertainty, might really resonate. Curious your thoughts there. Thanks, guys.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Yeah, John, when we launched Swift, the timing couldn't be worse in that sense because COVID-19 hit pretty far after that. We got a pretty strong signal in that we think we understand at least parts of the demand equation. We're going to look at rolling that out in a broader sense going forward, in the United States and maybe in different parts of the world. I think when you talked about the price point on ASP and different things, and obviously we broached that with the doctors who were part of the Swift program. John, you know this, I want to make sure our callers understand, our margins on this product line are accretive to our gross margin area and how we're going into it. It's real important in how we position that going forward.

Again, those 300 million patients out there, we know there's some price sensitivity. Then there's some clinical aspects from a simplicity standpoint that we're going after with that product line, and we think it will respond real well in a broader sense as we begin to roll that out.

Jonathan Block
Analyst, Stifel

Okay, perfect. Thanks, guys.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Thanks, John.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Valiquette with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hi, Steve.

Hi, Steve.

Steve Valiquette
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Hey there. Thanks for the time here. I also wanted to ask, in a way, about Swift, but with a very different angle. As we think about the operating environment prospectively for some amount of time, people are going to be concerned about safety. I wonder to what extent, and you definitely alluded to this in your prepared remarks, can you flex some of the technology that you have with Swift and some of the things you have in development to decrease the amount of face-to-face contact? I know you alluded to this, but I wonder if you could take it a few steps further, give us more context, a little bit more insight into your plans.

How do you think about making Invisalign treatment achievable with a minimum of in-person interaction for those who might be concerned about that, even in an environment where PPE is more widely used?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Steve, that's top of mind as we do things today, too. Actually, even before COVID, when we designed Swift was designed for basically two to three doctor direct contacts, and that's it. That was part of making the equation for doctors a profitable equation, too. You roll in our remote monitoring capability we just rolled out, which gives doctors a tool to be able to do that, and we'll be able to enhance that tool going forward. There's a limited amount of attachments in IPR on things like Swift, too. It's not that our clinical protocols are going to, in some way, decrease in the sense of what the clinical capability are and what we can do. We're also cognizant in the sense of time in mouth, and we'll adjust that. We might time those things differently to help doctors, too.

There's a lot of different things that we're contemplating. We talked about, at the conference last year, about direct printed attachments and those kinds of things that, in the future, and not too distant future, will allow a lot less contact and a lot of speed from a productivity standpoint with doctors and patients to be able to do those things. It's the right line of questioning, Steve. Remote monitoring, a digital platform that allows us to anticipate exactly when you'll be seeing a patient and what will need to be done in that sense, not duplicating treatments at the office that don't need to be done, and keeping up with patients in the sense remotely and only calling them in when something goes awry or a doctor has a concern in some way.

We feel our digital platform and the things we have in the pipeline, Steve, are really well positioned to address that.

Steve Valiquette
Analyst, Wolfe Research

Okay, good. Good to hear. The second question I wanted to ask actually relates to the practice status in the U.S. It's been, well, for some of us, months, but for practices, certainly many weeks. How do you think about the most likely, as you talk to the orthodontic and dental societies, the most likely path forward for practice reopening in the U.S.? I know it's a complicated question because there will be a lot of regional variation and staging, but to any extent you can you give us your sense for how you guys are thinking about that in your planning specific to the U.S.? Thanks.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Yeah, Steve, I think it's certainly not going to be uniform in the sense of how we go about that, whether it's in the U.S. or anywhere around the world. There are going to be certain government restrictions. I think there are going to be certain When I say restrictions, too, it's going to be equipment that's available from a PPE standpoint. What patients are going to be prepared to do. We see some, you look at treatment planning alternatives or when patients enter an office right now, they're not even coming into the office. At times, they stay in their car until they're summoned in some way, to make sure that there's less interaction and proper social distancing within the office itself. I can't really tell you. The only thing is, I think there's going to be a lot more caution about, obviously, transmission of disease.

That's going to include how you stage patients, how often you see these patients. I think from a dental versus orthodontic standpoint, there are obviously going to be different protocols because of the different procedures that take place there. See, there's an interesting article in The New York Times yesterday that really did an X, Y kind of a graph on different types of professions that interface with customers and which ones are most time from an intimacy standpoint and could transmit a virus. Dentistry came up almost on the top of that whole thing. That's going to be watched closely, and I think we have to make sure we work with our customers, I mean, doctors, and to help them through this too.

Thanks for the perspective there. Yeah. Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Elizabeth Anderson with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hi, Elizabeth.

I hope you guys are doing okay. I wanted to ask a question on the sort of digital apps and sort of what you guys can do in the near term. I know you said that you were sort of unveiling the app as sort of like a beta test, and you were rapidly rolling that forward and allowing more access and training and things to that. Can you speak to any more of the details in terms of sort of the uptake or how the training's going or the case use of that for ongoing patients?

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Elizabeth, just to make clear, you're talking about virtual appointment and virtual care, right?

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Yes.

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Yeah.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Elizabeth, are you talking about just training of doctors online rather than face-to-face?

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Oh, no. Sorry, I meant on the Virtual Care side.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Okay. Your question's on the workflow of that?

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Yeah.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Yeah

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

just sort of the workflow and sort of how have you seen the uptake of that so far? I assume that there's some sort of training that has to happen beforehand, or how have you been able to roll that out, considering that it was sort of in beta testing right before this all happened?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

I get it, Elizabeth. Look, first of all, we just rolled this out, but we've been working on it for over a year. We actually rushed this to the market. As we rushed it to the market, we were cautious in a sense of how many doctors you had in the program. We started here in the United States, and now we're gradually moving it to broader, to more doctors in the U.S. and across the world, too. We had to train the doctors to do this, but the great thing it is is on our IDS platform, and it has a great user interface that the team put together. From the feedback that I've gotten from the teams and the doctors, too, that user interface has been pretty simple in how they've been able to put that piece together.

Remember, the whole idea there is just that how do you stay in these kind of lockdown periods or future workflows where patients don't want to come into the office all the time to see a doctor, how in the world can you track treatment? How can you communicate? It's gone really well. We have actually more doctors who want it than we can give it to right now. We just want to make sure we don't burden them, and we just roll it out piece by piece to make sure that it's robust enough to handle more and more doctors over time.

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Okay, perfect. Just out of curiosity, you did a virtual visit with somebody that you could order, like a provider could order the next set of treatments, I believe, for a patient.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Yes. We have more than 2,000 doctors trained right now, trained and beginning to use Invisalign Virtual Care. Obviously we have tens of thousands of doctors out there that we'll want to roll this out to, and we think will have an interest in it.

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Okay, perfect. That's helpful. Thank you.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

We have over 3,500 appointments right now that have been done through virtual care. Elizabeth, when you think about this too, it just makes sense, right? I mean, in today's COVID-19 environment, it obviously makes sense to try to eliminate patients trying to have this person-to-person contact. I mean, going forward, too, in a digital kind of environment, having these kind of tools just makes sense from a productivity standpoint for both doctors and patients, too. We'll continue to invest pretty heavily in this to get better and better at it. This is our initial launch, but you'll see more and more iterations to help to enhance this platform.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Johnson with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hi, Jeff.

Hi, Jeff. Hey, Jeff.

Elizabeth Anderson
Analyst, Evercore ISI

Hi, Jeff.

Hi, Jeff.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hey, Jeff.

Hey, Jeff. Hey, Jeff. How are you? Good afternoon. Just two questions. I guess one, we've seen some news in the last couple days from one of your DTC competitors on some patents they were able to get and some Better Business Bureau recommendations on some advertising. Would love your view, not so much on what that means for them, but does that have any implications for you, either on the Swift product where some of that is kind of a monthly fee? I don't think any of that would trip any of the stuff in their new patent. Also if they have to rein in a little bit of their advertising, I would assume that's a good thing for you, but would just like to get your view.

Jeff, overall, that's not a model that competes with us. We go directly to doctors, and everything we do works through a doctor base. From what we know of the Well, I haven't looked at the patent or whatever. I just read most of the information that's out there. It has to do with Invisalign. It has to do with just scanning a patient in a store and transferring a file that never really reaches a doctor in any way except from a tele-dentistry standpoint. We don't see it being an issue for us at all.

Jeff Johnson
Analyst, Baird

Sorry, I was on mute. Thank you. Just my follow-up question. Obviously, we're all going to be watching PPE, we're all going to be watching patients' willingness to go into these offices. What are you hearing from the doctor side? From an orthodontist standpoint, the office is maybe a little cleaner, less aerosolization, if that's even a word, of fluids and what have you. Are your orthodontists especially kind of chomping at the bit to get back? I'm sure they are financially, but do they feel safe? Do they feel like this will be an environment they can bring their staff back into, they can bring patients into, things like that? Thanks.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

From an orthodontist standpoint, Jeff, you're right to segment those two, because obviously dentistry is a lot different than orthodontist and whatever. The orthodontists that we look to, I would say that they're not concerned, but they're cautious in the sense of what they have to do, the precautions they have to make with the patients and also, with their employees internally. They are anxious to get back, but there's a good degree of caution to make sure that they come back in the right way, in a thoughtful way, too. Again, I think this could vary by state also, in the sense of how it's applied and what kind of regulations are put in place. I know they're really interested to come back.

The ones that really went into this with a significant amount of Invisalign feel good that they've been able to stay in contact with their patients and be able to send passive aligners or different things that's helped in any kind of course correction or holding patients to where they are. On the dentistry side, that's obviously going to be different. When you think about it, Invisalign is one of the least invasive procedures that you're going to see in dentistry, and we'll certainly be emphasizing that and trying to work with doctors to help them through. We talked about iGO and the growth of iGO, and when you think about a digital platform, that's a terrific product for GPs in the sense of being able to leverage that and then send the more difficult cases to the orthodontist side.

We'll be working with GPs to really help through that transition.

Jeff Johnson
Analyst, Baird

Understood. Thank you.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

All right, Jeff. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Kreger with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

John Kreger
Analyst, William Blair

Hi. Thanks very much. Joe, could you remind us, what's the lag time between order receipt from a customer from when to the point where you can actually ship the aligners?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

We call it CCA. A CCA would be an order. John can correct me on this, I'd say it's four days to five days.

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Well, from an order to an actual shipment, could be three to four weeks, because it's the back and forth. He's describing kind of initial to the actual shipment. It could be three to four weeks, depending on how much back and forth, as you know, John. Getting that treatment plan just exactly the way the doctor has and wants it, takes a number of iterations, then the actual manufacture and shipment can do. On the outset, it could be four weeks in total.

John Kreger
Analyst, William Blair

Okay, great. From a fabrication standpoint, for a region like the U.S. that got locked down in mid-March, that backlog probably would it be reasonable to assume that kind of carried through to mid-April?

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Well, there's still going to be back and forth that goes on. You have patients that have not been able to make it into the office to look at the final plan, for doctors to meet, other things that go on. It's going to vary by this until the doctor actually approves the treatment plan and then it gets manufactured. You remember, our business is a made-to-order business. There's no inventory, and as things change in the environment, when people can't come to the office to seek treatment or to make sure that they're going to approve that treatment plan, things shut down right away. It takes some time to see that ramp back up.

John Kreger
Analyst, William Blair

Great. Thanks. That's helpful. Anything you can give us in terms of contribution from exocad, since that'll be in there for the full second quarter?

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Yeah, nothing on that, John, that we're giving on any forward guidance other than what we had in our prepared remarks.

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Thanks, John. Next question, please.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Thanks, John.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Caliendo with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Kevin Caliendo
Analyst, UBS

Hi. Thank you. First question, you're talking about a digital and analog world, but if I think about Align a year from now, and hopefully we're through this, competitively, not just with other manufacturers, but against wires and brackets. Is there a marketing pitch here that the orthodontist can go and say, "Hey," instead of using wires and brackets, or you can even pitch to the orthodontist that there might be a greater demand to use clear aligners versus wires and brackets simply because you're able to keep patients out of the orthodontist office or the dentist office more frequently. Is that something that you've contemplated that could necessarily be a positive for market share for you?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Kevin, prior to the COVID-19, we have a program called ADAPT, where orthodontists would come to us and say, "Look, we want to go primarily 80%, 90% Invisalign. How do we do that?" Right? How do you do that? You're going to crank up your volume in a significant way. To do that, you just needed to drive more productivity. We were pushing that piece, because you don't have to see patients as often, right? You might have patients come back every three or four weeks to adjust wires and brackets. Likely, they're going to come back during their episode with a wire that comes out, and it's an emergency procedure. About 20% of an ortho's time that does a lot of wires and brackets are emergency cases.

We talked to doctors about how you can really control your schedule much better in a digital environment and how patients don't have to come back so often. We talk about 7 weeks, 8 weeks of seeing patients. That becomes even more magnified when you think about possibility of infection and concern about COVID-19. It's not just a productivity play, it's a way of being able to treat patients in a way that's safer for your staff and safer for those patients too. We'll certainly be emphasizing that. It just goes along with the digital platform. It's much more productive and doctors will need less time per patient. We've known that well from the millions of patients that we've done.

Kevin Caliendo
Analyst, UBS

One quick follow-up. The DSO spiked. I know you made some comments earlier about offering payment terms and loans and the like. Does that explain the bump up to nine-day? You said expect DSOs to continue to move higher. What was the impact of, I guess, would be improved payment terms for the doctors on your DSOs?

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Yeah. It varies by doctors and so on. As they have working capital concerns, we're in a fortunate position to be able to help. We work with them to kind of manage their cash flow in terms of paying us. The DSO impact is obviously impacted by lower revenue as well, which causes that to increase. We're working closely with our customers and making sure that they can help weather the storm, stay close with them, and as they start to ramp up, we want to be their partners with them, and cash is an important part of that.

Kevin Caliendo
Analyst, UBS

Great. Thanks. Stay safe, everybody.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Thanks.

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

Thanks, Kevin. You too.

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Thank you. Operator, we'll take one more question, please.

Operator

Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Richard Newitter with SVB Leerink. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 13

Hi, guys. This is Jamie on for Rich this afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a housekeeping one. You guys had said in the beginning of your prepared remarks, incremental impact from COVID-19 was about 50 fewer cases and I think $85 million less revenue. I just wanted to make sure that the way that we should be thinking about that is incremental to what you had originally contemplated in your 2022 guidance of, I think, about a 20,000-25,000 case impact and a $30 million-$35 million revenue impact.

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

That's correct, Jamie. You would think of that as incremental to how we guided.

Speaker 13

Got it. The fair way to think about then in total would be about $115 million to $120 million of impact to revenue from the coronavirus at the first quarter.

John Morici
CFO, Align Technology

That's correct.

Speaker 13

Got it. Okay. Just last one from me. Any sort of update on where you guys stand with launching the palate expander product?

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Hi, Jamie, I'll take that. We have the design. We're still working that piece. We have to find an effective way to manufacture it. I don't have a date that I can give you, but I can tell you that it's high on our priority list.

Speaker 13

Thank you.

Joe Hogan
President and CEO, Align Technology

Thank you, Jamie.

Operator

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Ms. Stacey Shirley for any closing remarks.

Shirley Stacy
VP of Corporate and Investor Communications, Align Technology

Well, thank you everyone for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you at upcoming virtual financial conferences in the future. If you have any questions, please contact investor relations, and hope you have a great day. Take care.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.