Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ituran Third Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. All participants are at present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If you have not received it, please contact Ituran's investor relations team at GK Investor & Public Relations at 1-212-378-8040, or view it in the news section of the company's website www.ituran.com. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Ehud Helft of GK Investor Relations. Mr. Helft, would you like to begin, please?
Thank you, operator. Good day to all of you, and welcome to Ituran conference call to discuss the third quarter 2021 results. I would like to thank Ituran management for hosting this conference call. With me today on the call are Mr. Eyal Sheratzky, the CEO, Mr. Udi Mizrahi, Deputy CEO and VP Finance, and Mr. Eli Kamer, the CFO of Ituran. Eyal will begin with a summary of the quarter results, followed by Eli with a summary of the financials. We will then open the call for the questions and answer session. I'd like to remind everyone that the safe harbor in the press release also covers the content of this conference call. Now, Eyal, would you like to begin, please?
Thank you, Ehud. I'd like to welcome all of you and thank you for joining us today. We are very pleased with the results of the third quarter, which were again ahead of our expectations. We grew our subscriber base at the highest rate we have seen for TWO years with 25,000 net adds. The OEM segment is showing a recovery with 4,000 net adds, and our aftermarket segment saw above average growth of 21,000 net adds. This is ahead of our typically expected range of between 15,000 and 20,000. The growth we experience in subscriber adds is a positive indication with regard to revenue growth in the quarter ahead. We continue to see strong aftermarket subscriber growth in many of the geographies in which we operate, even in a quarter which is seasonally weaker due to the holiday season in Israel.
In particular, we see increasing contribution from one of our growth engine, usage-based insurance or UBI. The consumer market is now becoming increasingly educated to the value that they gain by using a usage-based insurance plan rather than fixed. This has led to increased traction, and we are now working with all seven major insurance companies in Israel. The corona slowdown created plenty of new markets and opportunities, and over that time, new car sales around the world went down. We identified a very strong second-hand car market in many of our geographies in Latin America. New fintech startups, as well as the large banks, have come in to provide the financing in this specific market.
However, they all need a location-based and connected car technology service provider, such as Ituran, to monitor the cars and driver behavior, and by this, reduce the risk of loss against the cars. We therefore initiated an approach to these financing companies and offered our solution. Following on from these efforts, we are now working with a number of partners in this area, and we see great potential in which to expand this business. While currently we are only in the initial stage, we see the interest, and we therefore believe this has the potential to be significant growth engine for Ituran starting from the H2 of 2022 and beyond. I would like to discuss the electronic component shortage and increasing prices. That has been widely reported and is increasingly become an issue for everyone. To date, we have successfully been managing through the shortages.
It's important to note that as primarily a subscriber service business, the impact on Ituran to date has been low, primarily on the product revenue side, which has smaller effect on our bottom line. There is also a potentially indirect impact due to the potential slowing of new car sales, simply because of the inability of car manufacturers to produce cars at the required quantity. However, Ituran has a number of growth engines which will increasingly benefit us in the quarters ahead, which will compensate for slows in global sales of new cars. In summary, we are performing well, but most importantly, we are seeding new growth engines which will accelerate our growth in the years ahead. I am more excited now than ever with our long-term potential over the coming years. I will now hand the call over to Eli for a financial summary. Eli?
Thanks, Eyal. Revenue for the third quarter 2021 was $65.7 million, a 9% increase compared with revenue of $60.3 million in the third quarter of 2020. Revenue from subscription fees was $48.3 million, up 9% year-over-year. The subscriber base amounted to 1,857,000 as of September 30th, 2021, an increase of 25,000 net over that of the end of the prior quarter, and an increase of 85,000 since the end of the third quarter of last year. During the quarter, there was both an increase of 21,000 in the aftermarket subscriber base and an increase of 4,000 in the OEM subscriber base. Product revenues were $17.4 million, up 10% year-over-year.
The geographic breakdown of revenues in the third quarter was as follows: Israel 62%, Brazil 24%, rest of world 24%. Operating income for the quarter was $13.9 million or 21.1% of revenues, an increase of 32% compared with an operating income of $10.5 million or 17.5% of revenue in the third quarter of last year. EBITDA for the quarter was $18.5 million or 28.1% of revenues, an increase of 23% compared with an EBITDA of $15 million or 24.9% of revenue in the third quarter of last year. Financial expenses for the quarter was $2.7 million compared with a financial income of $2.8 million in the third quarter of last year.
The difference being primarily due to the change in the SaferOne market capitalization during each quarter. Adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2021, which excludes the non-cash financial impact related to SaferOne, was $9.6 million or 14.6% of revenue, or diluted earnings per share of $0.46, compared with $6 million or 10% of revenues or diluted earnings per share of $0.29. Cash flow from operations for the third quarter of 2021 was $11.5 million. As of September 30th, 2021, the company had cash, including marketable securities, of $67 million and debt of $34.6 million, amounting to a net cash of $32.4 million.
This is compared with cash, including marketable securities, of $78.8 million and a debt of $54.5 million, amounting to a net cash of $24.3 million as of December 31st, 2020. For the third quarter of 2021, a dividend of $3 million was declared. During the quarter, Ituran purchased 71,000 shares for a total of $1.9 million until the end of September 30, 2021. Share repurchases were funded by available cash, and repurchases of Ituran's ordinary shares were made based on SEC Rule 10b-18. With that, I'd like to open the call for the question-and-answer session. Operator?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Please stand by while we poll for your questions. The first question is from Tavy Rosner of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for the presentation. I have three questions to you. First one is just maintenance on my end, but with regards to SaferOne, what's the accounting treatment here? Are you mark-to-market your stake on a quarterly basis or you had it recorded at a certain value, and given the fluctuation you had to record an adjustment?
Hi, Tavy. Actually, it's a mark-to-market. It's like a financial asset.
Okay, understood. Okay, with that out of the way, I wanted to talk about the OEM dynamics a little bit. If I remember correctly, I think you had a 1,000 increase last quarter, 4,000. Is it fair to assume it's coming from Latin America? I guess, can you remind us in the accounting of those OEM new adds, if any of it include, you know, free trial period that like you give to OEM? I think at some point you used to give out 3 months that went down to 1 month. Can you walk me through this?
First of all, it's included; most of it is a free trial. The only country which the free trial is for one month and it's a very few thousand customers compared to the rest of the markets is Brazil and a few hundred in Argentina, because this is kind of the end of a phase out of the business in those markets. But the rest, which is the major, high majority of these OEM subscribers, are at least for 12 months, some of them are even more, and I'm talking mainly about Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador. The free trial, as I said, is for 12 months as the minimum.
Okay. Understood. Lastly, talk about, you know, the new growth engines that you mentioned and you talked about, you know, financial players that might be interested in your solution. Would you believe that it would work in similar way to the agreement you have for UBI and the insurance company, whereby they will purchase it from you and then pass on the cost to the end user?
Okay. Basically, as we found a new segment when we realized that we don't want to be dependent only on SVR, and we developed a state-of-the-art UBI solution, which today, by the way, I would say it's close to 100% market share in Israel. By the way, most of the insurance companies are running multimillion-dollar campaigns in the TV and in the digital. Most of it is white labeled by Ituran, almost all of it. We are talking today without getting to a specific number, thousands of new subscribers per month growing exponentially. This is in regard to UBI.
When the corona time came and we've been in a situation that the car plants were closed, specifically in Latin America, again, we had to think about how we can expand the markets, what segments we can offer. When we realized that there is, I think, a market which wasn't very clear before the corona, is the secondhand market and the subprime poor, the subprime customers. This is something that we do in the U.S. almost for 15 years, which many people know it as buy here, pay here.
In some dealers or many dealers in the States, when they finance the car, they use a system such as Ituran in order to recover the car, in order to get data on the payments and on the location, and sometimes in order to notify the people that take the loans that they missed some payments. We decide to enter some banks in Brazil and in Mexico at the beginning, and offer this solution in order for them to extend giving money or financing cars for people that the credit lines are low. When we convince them that with our solution, they can have a better control on those payments and on those customers, they agreed to start working with us.
At the same time, if you know, the entire fintech world is now very growing. Many digital companies now offering cars with finance to cars, et cetera, on a digital ways. We also approach them, and we get really open mind from those big players, I must say. Today we are having about three large customers. It's still at the beginning, as I said, because we are educating them. They are educating the market, and it works in the same way as the UBI, meaning they are our customers. It's a B2B market. Those are, again, big players with a high equity, and there is no risk. It's like insurance companies.
they finance a specific cars, they ask us to install this unit. We install it, they pay for the unit, and they pay for three years of the finance contract for us, kind of a monthly fees. The output today is on the same average output as we have for the aftermarket sales in Brazil and Argentina, which is quite impressive with high margins, but this is only in the beginning. It's growing exponentially. I must say that if it will continue, this is really going to be very important toward 2023, 2024. It can be a very strong leg because it's a new market. Up until now, when we compete for those customers, we won the customer, and we are the only supplier.
This is important for me to mention, because again, the corona, sometimes bad things create people looking out of the box, and that's what we did. This market was zero players in Mexico and Brazil, and today we are growing it, we are educating the market, and we're talking about the potential of millions of cars a year in each market. I'm not saying that this is going to be our market share, but this is the potential of the market every year in these two market, Brazil and Mexico.
Great. I appreciate the color. I'll get back to you.
The next question is from David Kelley of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe to start, I was hoping you could elaborate on the aftermarket net sub-strength in the quarter and specifically the regional dynamics. You know, we were just curious that the momentum in Israel and then in Brazil, I think there was some sort of signs of stabilization last quarter. I was hoping you could provide color on what you're seeing there as well.
Okay. The main aftermarket growth comes from our traditional business to the aftermarket, which is Israel and Brazil. Of course, we have some contribution from the other geographies, but the majority aftermarket subscribers comes from Israel and Brazil. I will divide it. I'll talk about these two geographies. In Israel, we have three main segments, the stolen vehicle recovery, the fleet management, and the UBI. The stolen vehicle recovery and the fleet management is continued to grow, very correlating to the new car sales in Israel. Since it's many years of operation in this segment, we still have, you know, the churn because we have customers of 10 years, eight years, and more.
The growth, the net growth at this segment, it's not significant, but it's continued to grow. There was years that we were in stable, in zero. This year, I must say that even in these segments, we succeed to grow. But the most growth engine in 2021 for subscribers in Israel was the UBI. Because we get more and more customers, we get more and more insurance companies integrating our system, and it grows exponentially. This is the three segments that continue to grow, but the UBI now is the main growth. Don't forget that since the UBI is quite new, the churn of customers is still very low. The contribution to the net adds in Israel of the UBI is substantial, is important. This is in Israel.
Now, looking ahead, we have to understand that the car importers in Israel are forecasting for the coming quarters a decline in selling cars. By the way, the important thing is that the request for cars in Israel, the demand is highest ever. I spoke with some car importers in Israel, and for example, if in Israel there was 280,000 or 300,000, the highest year, which is this year, they say that if they could bring 500,000 cars a year, they would sell it now. People waiting a year for a car, and they're willing to pay and wait.
It's important because in one day, the demand is more important because it show the potential than, for example, a situation where there is no demand. Now, the problem is the offering, the car industry. We know the problem. This is one of the reason that can a little bit slowing down our growth in subscribers in Israel. I must say that the nice thing in Ituran we mentioned it at the beginning of this discussion is that we saw it in the corona. Most of the churn in the customers of the aftermarket in Israel, and also in Brazil, by the way, is when a person want to buy a new car.
He sell his car, his car is old, and the new buyer sometimes has no motivation to renew or to come and be our subscribers. This is the main reason for churn. One's car, people cannot buy a new car, they still stay with their old car, and the churn is not high. That's what happened in the corona. If you look backwards, you'll see we didn't lose many subscribers in the corona. This is the situation in Israel, and this is the situation that we forecast for the future. In selling hardware in Israel, probably there will be decline. The profit margins at this point is very low. Sometimes we even lose some money to sell the hardware.
Regarding subscribers, this is because of the operational leverage. I think that the problem of selling cars in Israel probably will hurt very little for our growth in the subscribers, if at all, but it will affect some. Brazil, the market is different. We are selling mainly B2C, which is ICS, Ituran Com Seguro. This contributes the highest in the last two years for our subscriber base that we show in the quarter, because during the corona, we saw a negative churn. We get to a point which was about even, and now we have back after more than two years to a positive net few thousand subscribers per month in Brazil. We are less affected by the new car sales in Brazil.
Most of the segment that we are very dominant in the Brazilian market is the second-hand cars, old cars. Most of the people in Brazil, they are insured only brand-new cars for one or two years, then they decide to quit, and sometimes they don't insure their cars, sometimes they look for a solution, such as we offer. I believe that in Brazil, we will continue to grow our subscribers and add to this something that is still in a very low contribution is Fleet Management or the B2B market, which in Brazil, I wouldn't say it was neglected, but we were very focused only on the B2C.
Again, during the corona, we had enough time, and we have a situation that we add some resources to approach the segments of the B2B, and we add more fleets, and we are adding more, as I said, more financial. Let's call it financial partners or financial banks that needs our services to generate more more lenders for people that will use their financial services. This is another segment which is now contribute a little bit, but as I see it now, for the coming years, this can provide a very high push to the net new subscribers of the aftermarket in Brazil. Overall, I'm expecting. Although there is a problem with the car sales, the new car sales, I'm expecting that we will continue to grow our net subscribers, specifically in the aftermarket.
Okay, got it. That's helpful. Thank you. Then maybe the last one for me, operating expenses. We started to see general and administrative costs, pick up again in the quarter. How are you thinking about the OpEx trajectory, you know, just assuming that the post-COVID normalization continues here?
Okay. There are two things I think that's relevant to this. First of all, this specific quarter, I think it will be a representative number for OpEx. Before that, there were some items that still were not executed, I would say. We still have some salary cuts because of the corona, and it added on the Q2 and full of it came to Q3. Since we grow, we had some budget for advertisement in Brazil, et cetera. I think that this is a representative quarter of OpEx.
Second, we have to understand that in some divisions around the world, the main segment, it's the R&D people, which we found that it's more difficult, specifically in Israel, but also in other countries to recruit people, because the world probably feel that everything is now high price, and it's very difficult to recruit people. I'm expecting some additional costs in some salaries, but I think that it will not be material, and we can continue to look on the OpEx of this quarter as, I would say, the right number.
Okay, great. Thanks so much.
The next question is from Sasha Karim of IPI. Please go ahead.
Hi, Eyal. In the statement you mentioned the potential for buy here, pay here in LatAm to generate a significant acceleration in subscriber growth in the H2 of 2022. Just now, you also mentioned that the ARPU on those subs is similar to your LatAm aftermarket business. You know, that sounds like it should accelerate service revenue growth as well over that period. It does sound different to in the U.S., where buy here, pay here subs are low ARPU and low margin. Could you tell us, is there a reason for that difference to persist between LatAm and the U.S.? Or do you expect the ARPU on buy here, pay here in LatAm to also decline significantly over time?
Well, the U.S. market is totally different than, I would say, I don't know to say emerging market or Latin America. It's a totally different business. In the U.S., first of all, the competitive landscape. Second is the way that the dealers are many times financing their customers, and they have other offers, such as extended warranties and things like this. It's a different market. The way we sell it in the U.S. for 15 years, it's totally different, which of course, it's influenced on our ARPU in the States specifically. In Latin America, it's a different model. The model is more, I would say, more similar to, as I said, with the UBI, to the B2B business, where we are actually leasing the hardware.
By the way, in the States, we sell the hardware to the dealers, and they have some margins. Here it's different. We sell it, we call it a comodato. The hardware is stay on our balance sheet, so it's different, and we get the monthly returns together with the monthly services along two or three or five years, and this allow us by this model and to show higher, first higher ARPU, and second, it's a different mentality of the business model. I'm not expecting it will drop. Of course, if we get too many, to a large volume for a specific customers, no doubt that we will have some different grades of price per customer.
If for example, a bank will commit for 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000, he will get different prices. This is a regular commercial life. Currently, when we talk about numbers with no specific commitment, this is the ARPU. I prefer to have commitment for a large number and reducing the ARPU because in the end, large numbers, because it's an operating leverage model, large numbers, it's very important to increase the profits, even if we hit a little bit the ARPU.
Yes, that's a good problem to have. Can I also just ask, though, about this industry in general, and this applies to the U.S. as well. How sustainable is the growth, the recent growth in buy here, pay here? Do you think that the industry, the growth may unwind somewhat once the pandemic truly ends, perhaps because people were buying cars this way to avoid using public transport, and they had no other way of getting a car?
First of all, I don't know what to tell you about the U.S. The U.S., we do it 15 years. We are now increasing because we increased our market share. I'm not sure if the market grows. This is regarding the U.S. Again, I must be honest, in the U.S., our market share is quite low. We are not dominating the market. In Latin America, what was started recently, I think that we will dominate the market. Currently, we are the main player. I assume that the competition always people see success, and they will join like FM in Brazil is the ICS. Today, we are still dominating the market, and the second player, I think, is a way behind us. I hope that we will succeed to do it also in the finance segment in Brazil and Mexico now.
I don't think it's something that happened because of the corona. I think that we had to think what we do when new car sales is declining. We identified it, but it was there always. What we realized, for example, without giving names, one of the largest commercial bank in Latin America, which provide loans to buy cars for tens of millions of cars, when we approach him, he made a survey, and he got it to a results that there are a few million cars that he gave up only because of this reason. Now, we allowed him to come back and get those few million loans. It's interest. He lives from interest. He can increase the interest, he reduces risk. We can extend the potential customer base for those banks.
It hasn't happened because of the corona. Unfortunately, we didn't do it before the corona because we were very, very busy with this stolen vehicle recovery and with the fleet management, et cetera. When we had to look for a solution, sometimes when you feel pressure, that's what actually happened. I think that the buy here, pay here in Latin America, specifically because it's emerging markets, because people's salaries are low, because people's savings are low, I think that we identified through the corona that this market exists. This market will continue. The question, what will be our market share? This is a question mark. I don't want to be arrogant, but I really believe in our state-of-the-art technology. I believe that we have the best services.
I believe that we, as we have trust from all insurance companies, we will have trust from all financial institutions, and we will lead this market. If we lead this market in a year or two, it will be a very substantial number that will contribute to our results that we showed now. I'm saying again, it's taking time. We increase now the subscriber base of this segment. Once we have a substantial number, it will be a dramatically influence on our profits.
Thanks. That sounds very encouraging. My last one, if I could you just give an update on two segments I don't think we've touched upon, Ituran Com Seguro in Mexico, how that's going, any improvement there? Fleet Management, which you said last quarter was going to experience very strong growth. Just like to check if that's still coming through.
Okay. Regarding ICS in Mexico, as I said, there was a delay at the beginning because of the corona, because we had to find the right timing to launch it. We launched it. The numbers today are growing even exponentially. Again, when we have 1.8 million subscribers, still hundreds per month, it's not material, so we are not providing too much data and information about it. It's now under kind of a soft launch, I would say, yet. I don't know. We see a very good attraction and interest, and people are getting to buy through the website. Again, I can't, and I don't know yet to say whether this is going to be a material number. The time that it's operating is quite low.
We started only beginning of this year. For a new segment, educating the market, it's a B2C. Don't forget, it's a B2C. B2B, you have to convince three, four, five big players. B2C, you have to convincing and educating millions of people in order to attract few thousand per month, which will take more time, but it looks good, and it looks promising. This is regarding fleet management. Fleet management, I think that I touch it when I talk before. Fleet Management, mainly in Brazil, is now growing together with the finance customer. We'll put it on the same. By the way, it's under the same, let's say, brand. I call it fleet management because it's a B2B. It's divided to two. It's divided to the finance, which is still low number.
Second is B2B to sell it to commercial, co-corporates that use it for control, manage, and get data from their fleets. This is growing, and this is now, I think, one of the main growth engines in Brazil. In its 2022, and now I think it's very promising, and it will contribute, as I say, to the 2022 numbers. It will be important contribution.
Very good. Thank you. The next question is from Abba Horowitz of OSP. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. I was wondering if you mentioned it at all, Bringg, and if you didn't, could you speak about it?
Yes. Bringg is a company that we have 17%, and we are the largest market share, and we have the higher board representative. Bringg is a company that developed a solution for the last mile and for the deliveries. The last round was done in the last quarter. We discussed it in our last conference call, but I will repeat. The round was on evaluation. The company raised $100 million on evaluation of $1 billion. The company is a typical SaaS company, which growing, which has a very unique offer to enterprise groups and also to small and mid businesses. Most of the customers are in the U.S.
Recently, thanks to the round, they open accounts in Europe and in Latin America, which allow the company to expand its growth. I believe that the money that the company has and the growth that it show will allow the company to, first of all, not to go for another round soon, and at least expect, hope, and believe that the next time it will be or an IPO or an M&A. Again, this is something that nobody can forecast, but this is the goal of the company.
The value is actually hiding in Ituran balance sheet because it's different than SaferOne. Here it's because we have I would say major portion of the accounting regulation looks on this investment as kind of an equity investment. It's zero on our balance sheet because we already had to take part of the losses during the last five years, which actually balanced the investment to zero. Once we will realize value by liquidating our shares, it will be a full 100% to our profit, of course, without the taxes. The value of our holdings now, the total value is about, based on the last round, is about $170 million.
Okay. First of all, that's an off-balance sheet asset that, in my understanding, is a very good asset.
Yes.
Do you have any sense what the timeframe means for them to IPO? I've heard that they want to IPO. You know better than me. I'm just telling you what I've heard. You said M&A potentially. Is there a sense when this could happen? Is this a 2022 event? Is it later than that? Do you believe whatever will happen will happen in 2022?
Anyway, first of all, if there will be actual things, I wouldn't be able to disclose it. Being more honest, there is no plan today, any actual things taking place to make an IPO. With my experience, if it's not taking place now, it will not happen in 6-8 months because this is a time always needed, and in all startup it's even maybe need more. I'm not expecting it will happen in 2022. I can't forecast whether it's happen in 2023 or 2024 because all of us know that IPO sometimes depends on the market condition and not always on the company condition.
M&A is something that I mentioned, not as a goal, but I think that always a company that touches a market where there are large enterprise companies that need solutions for deliveries, for last mile, et cetera. I'm not saying that it's something impossible that one of those giants will need this solution. No, I don't think that without any reason, Salesforce and Siemens are one of the main investors in Bringg. So I said it only because of my thoughts and the list, but nothing is based on any actual things. I believe that if it's a good company, it will continue to grow. It has a unique technology. We know what happens in the world. I hope that this will be the next stage. Whether it will be one or two years from now, I have no really any something specific that I can count on.
Just a final question on that is, I mean, when we look at this, it's about $8-$8.5 of real value, asset value based on the valuation that it's given right now, and it is all an off-balance sheet asset, meaning that it's zero on your books, and that's substantial. That's not, you know, often companies have a dollar or two. This is $8-$8.5 of real value that's not being recognized in the stock at all. I'm wondering, A, is there a way to do that, or would that really just require some sort of event, such as an IPO or an M&A? If I may add, I remember when your asset was worth under $50 million.
We can do two things. One, to talk about it because it's real, and second, buy shares. The rest not depend on us. People knows about it, and this is actually exactly how you described it. But until the moment that we will realize this value to money or to public shares, it's something that on the accounting regulation will not appear in our, I would say, our direct financial statements. But you're right. This is a value. Everybody can know about it and can decide whether they include it in their valuations or not. But you're right.
All right, thanks. This should be our biggest problem, right? Okay. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Before I ask Mr. Sheratzky to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind participants that a replay of this call will be available tomorrow on Ituran's website, www.ituran.com. Mr. Sheratzky, would you like to make your concluding statement?
On behalf of the management of Ituran, I would like to thank you, our shareholders, for your continued interest and long-term support of our business. I do look forward to speaking with you next quarter and hope that we will all see better times by then. Have a good day.
Thank you. This concludes the Ituran third quarter 2021 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.