Earnings Call: Q2 2021

May 12, 2021

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sonos Second Quarter Fiscal 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. And after the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Cameron McLaughlin, please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Sonos' 2nd quarter fiscal 2021 earnings conference Call. I am Cameron McLaughlin, and with me today are Sonos' CEO, Patrick Spence Brittany Bagley, CFO and Eddie Lazarus, Chief Legal Officer. For those who joined the call early, today's hold music included highlights from the recently launched artist curated stations by MIA and Ghostface Killah on Sonos Radio HD. Before I hand it over to Patrick, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include Forward looking statements regarding future events and our future financial performance. These statements reflect our views as of today only and should not be considered as representing our views of any subsequent date. These statements are also subject to material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations reflected in the forward looking statements. A discussion of these risk factors is fully detailed under the caption Risk Factors in our filings with the SEC. During this call, we will also refer to certain non GAAP For information regarding our non GAAP financials and a reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP measures, please refer to today's press release regarding our Q2 results posted to the Investor Relations portion of our website. As a reminder, the press release, A supplemental earnings presentation and conference call transcript will be available on our Investor Relations website at investors. Sonos.com. I will now turn the call over to Patrick. Thanks, Cameron, and hello, everyone. We are thrilled to yet again report a record quarter for Sonos. I first want to recognize the fantastic work by our people and our partners during this challenging time. These results are to all of the hard work they put in every day and I am so proud and very grateful. Our second quarter results exceeded our expectations As we experienced even stronger than expected demand for all of our products and our team did an incredible job meeting as much demand as they could in the quarter. As a result of our strong second quarter performance, we are increasing our revenue and adjusted EBITDA outlook for the year. Our strong results are a testament to the fact we have a unique model that serves customers and enables us to build a sustainable profitable business. The power of our business model is that customers can start with one product and expand more over time, and our customers have proven that they do just that. We are experiencing tremendous demand for our newest product, Roam, from new and existing customers alike. Roam is not only our smartest and most versatile speaker, it's also our most affordable. Rome provides the opportunity for millions of new customers to get started with Sonos And is the right product at the right time as the weather warms up and we begin to gather again with friends and family. During the pre order period, Rome far exceeded our expectations with sales reaching over 150% of our pre order forecast in our DTC channel. Several 100 journalist reviews have been published globally, highlighting the product's incredible sound and ultra portability with Rolling Stone calling it quote, the new standard for portable smart speakers. We are confident that we've delivered another fantastic product that customers love and helps the Sonos flywheel. As we look toward the remainder of fiscal 2021 and beyond, there are 3 macro trends that will fuel our continued growth. First, this is the golden age of audio. The sheer volume of music, audiobooks and podcasts we have access to now is incredible. As more and more people become creators, We believe we will spend even more time with audio and find interesting new audio formats like social audio. The second trend is that we are seeing more and more video content going direct to home. We have seen a decade of change in the past year with companies like Disney and HBO bringing the newest movies right into our homes. It's not enough to have a great visual experience. Customers are demanding a theater like audio experience in the home, and this is something we deliver better than anyone. And the 3rd trend behind our growth is the great reshuffling. This is the untethering of people from their communities and offices, which has really enabled people to reevaluate and where they want to live. Given more and more companies are offering their people, especially the kind of people who are in our target market, The flexibility to work anywhere, we think this will be a multiyear cultural trend that benefits Sonos significantly. As we look toward our opportunity ahead, we believe that Sonos is just getting started and has barely scratched the surface of our large and growing addressable market. As of the end of fiscal 2020, we were in 11,000,000 homes or approximately 9% of the 116,000,000 affluent homes we believe are most addressable for us today in our existing markets. We have tremendous runway to add tens of millions of more households to the Sonos Ecosystem. On the revenue side, based on our upwardly revised fiscal 2021 revenue outlook, Sonos will only account for approximately 9% of the total spend in the $18,000,000,000 premium home audio market, And that's an even smaller fraction of the broader $89,000,000,000 global audio market that we expect to expand into over the long term. We've come a long way, but we have a ton of opportunity to take a lot more of the home audio market and even more as we begin to expand into the broader audio market. This is a huge and growing market. We will seize the significant opportunity ahead by focusing really on 3 key strategic initiatives. The first is the expansion of our brand. This is all about understanding our customers better than anyone and how we're evolving our brand and marketing strategies to reach more of these customers. Moving forward, you'll see us continue to partner with other premium brands as we invite a broader swath of consumers into the Sonos experience. To support the launch of Roam, for example, we have partnered with The North Face. Together, we'll showcase Roam's durability, portability, and of course, sound quality. More on that in a few months. 2nd, the expansion of our offerings, we have a tremendous opportunity ahead just in the categories we play in today, But we have ambitious plans to expand it in new categories to expand it in new customer segments and to layer services on top of everything we do. We remain focused on our efforts to introduce at least 2 new products each year and have already exceeded this target for fiscal 2021. Thus far, we've introduced Sonos Radio HD, Rome and taken our first step into auto with our partnership with Audi. And we're not done. Some of you may have seen the recent social media posts from IKEA and Sonos. We are excited about the products we're working on together and are looking forward to sharing more in the near future. Our long term product roadmap remains robust and we are excited to unveil what comes next. As it relates to services, we continue to be pleased with our early success with Sonos Radio and Sonos Radio HD. Sonos Radio is the 3rd most listened to music service on our platform and we remain focused on our long term aspiration to reach over 500,000 subscribers to Sonos Radio HD. We see significant opportunities in services over the long term. Our 3rd strategic priority is driving operational excellence to achieve sustainable profitable growth for the long term. You are seeing us continue to execute ahead of our plan and deliver margin expansion and healthy top line growth. I've never been more excited about the future of Sonos. We continue to see strong demand and we are in the best position we have ever been. We have a huge opportunity in front of us and we are just getting started. Now I'll turn the call over to Eddie to provide a brief update on our Google litigation. Thanks, Patrick. So let me provide just a brief update on our cases against Google. As background, and as I shared at our Investor event in March, We estimate that Google infringes over 150 U. S. Utility patents from 30 different patent families. All of those patent families are still alive And we continue to obtain high value patents from them. We included 5 patents in our action against Google at the International Trade Commission. It's basically the limit of what you can fit in one case. Those patents were directed to grouping and synchronizing playback Among smart devices, volume control for group and individual devices, stereo pairing and SEM. A few months ago, we finished trial at the ITC and we remain confident with strength of our case. We had expected a preliminary decision on May 11. However, as those of you following the case know, the presiding judge extended the timeline for decision to August 13th this year due to his increased workload as he assumed the cases of another judge who recently retired. We look forward to that ITC decision. But in the meantime, we're very pleased to share an update regarding another matter with Google. We are today reporting that a court in Germany has just granted a preliminary injunction The order prohibits the offer or sale in Germany of Google's Cast technology, some aspects of which are implicated in Sonos' patented issue And encompasses such products as Pixel A smartphone, Nest Audio speakers and the YouTube Music app. We see the ruling as a powerful demonstration of the strength of Sonos' patent portfolio and of our conviction that Google is a widespread infringer of our IP. Now let me turn the call over to Brittney to provide more details on our results and our outlook. Thank you, Eddie. We are excited to report another quarter of stellar results, further solidifying our ability to deliver a record year. The strong demand for our products and the fact that our customers have proven that they will wait as we work to fulfill their orders further demonstrates the power of our offering and brand. Let me add some color to our results starting with the 2nd quarter. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $48,500,000 compared to a loss of $28,400,000 last year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 14.6% during the quarter. We were able to deliver this tremendous result strong gross margin, top line growth and ongoing operating expense leverage. This is also the first Q2 in our history where we have been net income positive and we are pleased to see more consistent profitability across our quarters. Revenue in the quarter increased 90% to nearly 333,000,000 This anniversary of the 17% year over year revenue decline in the prior year quarter, which stems from partner inventory rebalancing and Vacation was largely a result of our ability to fulfill more demand. This was driven by ongoing supply chain capacity investments as well as improved shipping and logistics processes. Even with the improved supply position in the quarter, We continue to be out of stock on a number of our products, which further points to the strong demand we are seeing. The Americas grew 90% and EMEA grew 100% or 83% on a constant currency basis. APAC grew 56%. The Americas and EMEA both continued to see incredibly strong demand across our products. APAC grew slightly less quickly than our other regions given the softness in IKEA. IKEA continues to be impacted by store closures and the transition in our product cycle. As Patrick mentioned, we are working on a new product release system, which we will share more details on in the near future. Sonos speaker revenue was up 130% year over year, driven in part by comping the 27% in Q2 last year and was particularly helped by the continued success of ARC and SUB. Sonos System Products revenue increased 10%, comping 22% growth last year and driven by the 16%, driven by accessories and Zomance, offset by lower IKEA revenue. Gross margins were incredibly strong in the quarter and reached a record 49.8%, an improvement of 810 basis points versus last year, of which 300 basis points is due to lower tariff expense. We had approximately $2,000,000 of net tariff that's impacting gross profit during the Q2. Excluding tariffs, the 510 basis points of gross margin improvement was primarily due Comping our at home with Sonos promotion last year, as well as a shift into higher margin products and channels and fixed cost leverage on the higher Q2 sales volume. This gross margin expansion comes even with an increase in component as well as ongoing higher industry wide shipping and logistics costs. Turning to operating expenses, We saw significant leverage during the Q2, largely due to the benefit of higher second quarter revenue. We experienced year over year increases In all OpEx lines, as a result of increasing investments to support our higher top line growth this year and into the future. We also have higher incentive compensation assumptions given our increased outlook. During the Q2, we used $39,000,000 in cash from operations and had negative free cash flow of $47,000,000 largely due to the timing of working capital and accrued expenses driven by seasonality. We are ending the quarter with $639,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents, continues to put us in a strong position to invest organically in our business, pursue M and A and return capital to shareholders through our authorized share repurchase. We currently have no debt on our balance sheet as we paid down our outstanding $25,000,000 in January. Overall, we believe Q2 demonstrates a really impressive quarter for the company and helps us deliver on a strong fiscal 2021. Now turning to our outlook. Despite our outperformance in Q2, as I'm sure you're largely aware, The global supply situation has only gotten more challenging as we look towards the second half of the year. We and others across the industry We are seeing significant increases in constraints on a variety of components. Our team continues to work tirelessly to mitigate as much as we can to deliver on the incredible demand we see. We appreciate that our customers have proven that they will wait for our product, which is to help us navigate through this challenge and deliver tremendous results. Obviously, this has been a difficult year to forecast. We remain aware of the continued uncertainty in the broader macro environment, but feel confident in our fiscal 2021 outlook Given our strong first half performance and the continued strong demand for our products as we enter the remainder of the year, We are providing the best update we can given what we see from a demand perspective and what we currently know about the global supply chain. With those considerations in mind, we are increasing our adjusted EBITDA to $225,000,000 to 250,000,000 Up from our prior outlook of $195,000,000 to $225,000,000 and well ahead of our initial fiscal 2021 guidance of $170,000,000 to $205,000,000 This new outlook represents 13.8% to 14.9 percent adjusted EBITDA margin. This is an expansion of 560 basis points to 6 70 basis points from the prior year. We are maintaining our gross margin outlook of 46% to 46.5% because we expect increasing cost of components, The need for additional airfreight to mitigate the impact of the industry wide supply shortages and a smaller benefit from product mix. We continue to have $27,500,000 of tariff refunds we expect to receive. However, as a reminder, given the timing is Certain, this is not included in our outlook and will be recognized only upon acceptance of the refund request. We will continue to call out this impact each quarter for transparency. As we stated last quarter, we expect to continue making additional OpEx Investments in our products, marketing and operations to support the higher revenue volume and long term growth initiatives. We also expect higher incentive compensation to support the increased top line growth and profitability, while delivering on attractive OpEx leverage for the year. We are increasing our total revenue for fiscal 2021 to $1,625,000,000 to 1,675,000,000 representing growth of 23% to 26%. Excluding 2020, this represents growth of 25% to 29% for the year. This compares to our prior outlook From $1,525,000,000 to $1,575,000,000 provided last quarter and our initial fiscal 2021 revenue guidance of $1,440,000,000 to $1,500,000,000 provided at the start of the year. Even as the world begins to Open up again, the demand for our products has never been stronger. We're incredibly pleased with what we have been able to deliver in Q2. We are focused on continued execution to deliver on our increased fiscal 2021 outlook, which is significantly higher than what we set out to deliver. As a reminder, we have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us. There is a clear path to achieving our fiscal 2024 target Of $2,250,000,000 in revenue, 45% to 47% sustainable gross margins And 15% to 18% adjusted EBITDA margin. With that, I would like to turn the call over to questions. Our first question will come from Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon and congratulations on Really strong results. As I think through guidance, you pass through the revenue upside from the March quarter And some incremental upside that you're assuming from it sounds like the room, but the EBITDA outlook So the next two quarters is lower than 3 months ago. So can you just walk through some of the Pressures in more detail that you expect over the next couple of quarters? It sounds like it's a combination of mix And the supply chain dynamic? And then maybe on supply, just comment on where you're seeing the biggest Bottlenecks and where you see costs increasing in the back half of the year? Katie, yes, happy to. So as a reminder, we don't give quarterly guidance, we give annual guidance. And so we are increasing our annual outlook. We're really excited with the increase we're able to provide on both revenue and EBITDA. But we are not increasing our gross margin outlook even though we had pretty incredible gross margins in Q2. And that's really because we're expecting increasing component costs, some need for additional airfreight to mitigate the impact of those component shortages And the smaller benefit from product mix in the second half of the year. So that's really impacting the gross margin hold relative to our non renewal guidance last quarter. In terms of supply, We are seeing the same impact that I'm sure you're hearing from all the companies across the CE landscape, which is there's a general Semiconductor shortage out there and everyone is trying to figure out how to get their components in the volume And we're in the same place on that as the broader industry. Okay. Thank you. And then can I just ask a follow-up to Eddie, just on the back of The ruling in Germany today and expected ruling in August in the U? S, one of the questions That I hear from investors is what happens after these rulings? What's the typical timeline or the construct in which Financial payment or stream of payments would be decided once these rulings come in. Katie, thanks for the question. I wish I had a definitive answer for you. It's going to depend, I think, in large part On what the ITC rules and exactly what the details of that are. We feel very good about our position at the ITC, What's involved with the ITC is not a damages case, but an importation ban. And what the implications would be on that for Discussions between Sonos and Google is just going to have to wait and see exactly what the court rules. From our perspective, The real importance of the German case is that it's a demonstration. It's a ruling that shows we have Strong and valid patents, not only here in the United States, but also in Europe, and that Google does in fact infringe them. And we're going to keep pursuing that line and showing over and over again whether it's at the ITC or in Europe or in Texas So wherever it may be that that is the case. And we hope and expect that Google will Recognize the validity of our position and come to the table with it. Thank you very much. Your next question will come from Tom Ford with D. A. Davidson. Please go ahead. Great. One question and one follow-up. So the first question I have is, I know it's early as far as the product was just released, But how are you thinking about the ability to roam to bring new customers to Sonos and then the opportunity to get them to buy Like you said, it's early, but we think this is one that could not have been better timed as the world reopens. You've probably seen the just tidal wave of positive reviews that have been out around the product. The momentum, as I mentioned My comments has been tremendous and I'm seeing on social media and hearing anecdotally of a lot of new people that are coming into Sonos as a result. So I believe this is going to be a key driver as we think about new homes going forward and tapping deeper into The kind of audience that we've been trying to penetrate and I think we'll learn over time, but I don't see any reason why Starting with a Rome won't have the long term kind of products per home that we've seen With our mix overall and getting close to that, getting basically, I think we're at 2.9 products per home right now. So I expect it to be another one. It's part of the system. It's the 1st Bluetooth product that works both in the home and then also out. And so I think that as well makes it more Valuable to people and more versatile. So very excited about this and it as a new home driver. Excellent. And then for my second question, one of the things and you did many calendar last year during the pandemic was advanced your direct to consumer efforts. How should we think at a high level about your direct to consumer levers As physical stores are reopening and pandemic restrictions are easing and customers may be returning to the stores more At least versus last year. Yes, it's definitely a different year when it comes to kind of approaching that. But I think what we've We've set out DTC continues to be important in terms of telling our story and putting our good foot forward in terms of what we're doing. But if Q2 has taught us anything, it's that right across the board, we're seeing great engagement from all of our channels, And we expect that to continue through the year. So we're seeing growth across the board and expect that to continue because I think there's opportunity in all of the channels that we're working in. Great. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Tom. Your next question will come from Rod Hall of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yes, thanks for the question. I guess I wanted to start with the inventory level. In March, it's up more than what we've seen in prior Marches and the days of inventory I just wonder, are you guys linked some component inventory on to try to mitigate some of the supply issues? Is that one of the ways that you plan to Correct for that. And do you should we be expecting higher level of inventory maybe next quarter as well? And then I've got a follow-up. Hey, Rod, it's Britney. Thank you for the question. So most of the inventory you're On our balance sheet right now is actually finished goods inventory and that is because we are supporting significantly Higher demand this Q2 than we are had supported in other Q2s. So part of it is just to support the higher sales volume. And then I would say another part is just timing around when we have in transit inventory sort of quarter to quarter. So that's really the dynamic you're seeing. Obviously, we're doing everything we turn on components as is everyone else right now, but We're pretty much turning those components into finished goods as fast as we can, so we can go meet the back orders and the demand that we're seeing. Okay. That's great, Brendon. That makes sense. The second question I had for you guys was on inflation. We've had a lot of different companies talking about Inflating inputs, I know semi's is inflating, but I'm wondering if you've seen after your products, do you see other things, basic Inputs to the products inflating in price or do you anticipate that as we move through the year? We've seen some on the shipping and logistics side as we've been calling out as we go through the year. And Yes, we are seeing it in component costs, which we're particularly calling out for the second half of the year. That increase, the majority of that component cost increase that we're calling out in the second half of the year really is on the semiconductor side, Given the shortages that industry is seeing. Great. Okay. Thanks a lot, Bernie. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And we as I mentioned, we baked as much of that as we can foresee into our forecast. So it's All incorporated right now, as much as we have the visibility. Yes, makes sense. Thank you. And your next question will come from Brent Thill of Jefferies. Please go ahead. Patrick, is there a common thread that you saw in that 100 and Percent of forecasted demand on the room. I know my kids grabbed a hold of it and took off and it's gone. I don't even have it in my office anymore. So It seems like a younger audience is getting pulled in. Is there any other common themes you're seeing that are surprising you out of the initial launch here? And I guess Follow-up to Britney, a visit to your website today is a full month out now to get the room on June 11. Do you run the risk of losing some demand to others if they're looking for a portable in the short term? And how do you ensure you take care of the customers' response on that at this point? Yes, Brent, you can always buy another one. So, I think the nice thing is we're going to see Multiple rooms in some homes as well. I mean, it definitely is speaking to, I think, new people in the existing homes And then as well, new customers. And so you know that the Bluetooth speaker market is a massive one in its Right, that the ultra portable Bluetooth speaker market. And we've got the unique Sonos value proposition of it being a great Speaker in the home and outside, and as well having things like SoundSwap, the better sound quality, all of the things that we've done to it. So I just think it's going to help us disrupt that category in the way that we have many of the others that are there. And I'll actually take the question in terms of the delay right now, if you order on Sonos. One of the things we've looked at over the past few months, not even relative just specifically to Rome, but overall on products is what the cancellation rate The orders look like, right, because we've been in a situation where products like ARC or AMP have had delays along the way. And we are seeing incredible strength in terms of those orders. They do not appear to be perishable. In any way, people do not come back and cancel. We've seen that in terms of the at any Significant rate and the rate has not changed, despite some of the shipping dates pushing it further. So we feel good about where The product quality is and how it stands out and the brand overall. And once people are in the system, like I think this is where It makes a big difference to be part of the system as opposed to just another product, right, or a typical hardware company. And so Being part of the system, I think means more people will wait for the product and they've had a good Experience with their entire Sonos system and they know what they're going to get when they get any of our new products. So, we're seeing we're not seeing perishable demand. Thanks, Patrick. We're also trying pretty hard to do the best job from a customer standpoint that we possibly can given the back order situation that we're in. So I know our teams are working really hard to make When we make commitments about shipping dates, we hit those shipping dates and we're delivering on expectations. I think we all Recognize that that relationship with the customer and doing a good job there is more important now than ever. So that's the other piece of it for us. Thanks. Your next question comes from John Babcock of Bank of America. Please go ahead. Thanks. Good evening and thanks for taking my questions. I might have missed this earlier, but were any patents in the German case with gazelle overlapping with the case in the United States? Not directly overlapping, but relatively similar to patents at issue in the Texas case. It's a direct control patent over in Germany and we have several direct control patents in the Texas case. Okay. Thanks. And then next question, just wanted to kind of talk about inflation a bit again here. Assuming this You know isn't necessarily transitory, you know and I guess we'll see how that plays out. What opportunities does Sonos to have to offset that, Whether that comes from commercial opportunities or whether that comes from cost adjustments, if you could kind of talk about that, that would be helpful. Yes, thanks. I mean, what I would say is we're very committed to continuing to deliver on that long term gross margin target Our ability to continue to hit that and deliver on that year over year. We are a premium product. We're a really strong brand. We'll look at all of our options as needed over time. The other thing I would say is we are in a particularly tight global Supply chain situation and while I can't call at all when that will end, certainly There will be investments to add more capacity in the semiconductor industry over time, which over time should be a good long term trend relative to the Current price increases we're seeing. Got you. And also, I don't The extent to which you can comment on this, it is a little bit early. But broadly, could you give us some sense of what the impact might be for Sonos on the tax side Some proposals making their way through Congress? Yes. So, we obviously watch that really closely, but we are not a cash Taxpayer right now. And so right now, what that would really do would be increasing the value of the NOLs and the R and D tax credits We have on the book. So we'll keep a close eye on that, but it will become much more critical to us as we move into being a cash Not fair, which we are not today. Okay. Thanks, Budd. Your next question will come from Matt Sheerin of Stifel. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you for all the details so far. Just another question regarding the supply constraints you're seeing. It seems like You don't really have any visibility into when that eases. I know you previously had talked about coming out of Q2 and things seem to have gotten worse. And so anything you're hearing from your manufacturing partners in terms of when that eases in? And I also know that you're in the middle of Switching or moving manufacturing out of China into other parts of Asia. And could you update us on how that's going? Yes, absolutely. So I'll start with the second one. So we have been actively diversifying into Malaysia. It is Important to us, I think that you can see from the magnitude of the tariff numbers that we have this quarter relative to what we were talking about A year ago that we had significantly mitigated the impact of tariffs through that Malaysia strategy. We are well on our way to hit our milestones and targets from that perspective. And then really what Has changed is rather than focusing on mitigating tariffs or dealing with supply chain and logistics, You are seeing incredible tightness in semiconductor components across the industry. So just to be very clear, it's sort of Not us. It's not something that is directly in our control. It is an industry wide issue. And so Certainly, we talked to our manufacturing partners that there are CEOs of major semiconductor companies talking about this on TV and stuff like that and giving Various answers in terms of when they're going to be ramping capacity up and when they see this ending. And so I'm certainly no smarter on this than they are. And the best we can do is continue to secure the components we can secure to meet really incredible demand that we have. And It'll just be that balance for us as we go through the rest of this year and for as long as this lasts. So no State, on when we're going to be back fully in stock because the landscape has just shifted and honestly, our demand has been so strong that It's hard to keep up, which is a great problem to have, but it's one that we've continued to see. For sure. Okay, that's it for me. Thanks so much. Thank you. And for all the questions we have today, I'll now turn the call back over to Patrick Spence for closing remarks. Thank you very much and thank you to all of you for attending. We think we've taken another great step On our way to our long term ambitions, as I outlined, the opportunity ahead is enormous And we're just getting started. So thanks everybody and we'll see you next quarter.