Earnings Call Transcript - PRLB Q2 2021

Operator, Operator

Greetings, welcome to the Protolabs Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. I will now turn the call over to Dan Schumacher. You may begin.

Dan Schumacher, Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, Stacy, and good morning, everyone. With me today are Rob Bodor, Protolabs' President and Chief Executive Officer; and John Way, our Chief Financial Officer. This morning, Protolabs issued a press release announcing its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30th, 2021. The release is available on the company's website. In addition, a prepared slide presentation is available online at the web address provided in our press release. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that our discussion will include statements relating to future performance and expectations that are or may be considered forward-looking statements, and subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Please refer to our earnings press release and recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for information on certain risks that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially and adversely from any forward-looking statements made today. The results and guidance we will discuss include non-GAAP financial measures consistent with our past practice. Please refer to our press release and the accompanying slide presentations at the Investor Relations section of the company website for our complete reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP results. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Rob Bodor, for a summary of our second quarter performance. Rob?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. I will begin with commentary on recent industry developments and an overview of our second quarter business performance. John will then provide details on our second quarter financial results and our outlook for the third quarter. During the first half of 2021, several emerging companies that offer online access to manufacturing have entered or announced plans to enter the public markets. This is not unexpected given the trends toward manufacturing 4.0 in recent years. These recent developments further highlight the very attractive digital contract manufacturing space and industry that Protolabs created in 1999. Protolabs remains unique. It's the only company to digitally manufacture parts across a range of services, both additive and traditional. We remain the only company to have transformed these manufacturing processes, enabling us to be the fastest and most reliable manufacturer of custom parts in the world. We began to revolutionize manufacturing in 1999, and have over 20 years of experience and manufacturing data to drive continuous improvement in our systems and processes. With the acquisition of Hubs earlier this year, our ability to offer market-leading speed and consistency with a premium network of manufacturing partners will allow us to serve nearly all customer use cases by combining our unique visual thread with the Hubs digital network. We believe the combination of Protolabs' internal manufacturing capabilities and Hubs' network of premium manufacturing partners is superior to competing offerings and provides the broadest set of capabilities and lead times in the world. We're focused on serving our customers in a sustainable manner that will, in turn, deliver long-term shareholder value. Protolabs has the best-in-class financial profile, driven by our software-enabled manufacturing and superior customer offerings. Through the continued integration of Hubs and further expansion of our internal capabilities, we will also have the broadest digital manufacturing offer in the market to serve our existing customers and to attract new customers. We invented the digital manufacturing space two decades ago. Our combination of the digital thread for manufacturing and our premium digital network is the winning model, and we will outperform other companies in the space, long-term. We are very excited about the future. Turning now to our second quarter performance. Strong order growth resulted in record quarterly revenues of $123 million within our guidance range and representing year-over-year growth of 15.5%. As a reminder, in the second quarter of 2020, we generated $12 million of revenue from parts with COVID-19 related applications, including testing supplies, personal protective equipment, and life-saving medical devices. Excluding that revenue, year-over-year growth was 30%. Our results include a full quarter of revenue from our recent acquisition of Hubs. Hubs showed strong growth at 45% over the prior year and contributed $8.9 million in revenue in the second quarter. Consistent with many businesses that have been experiencing surging demand, we are also facing tight supply in markets for labor and certain materials. Labor shortages, especially in the U.S., are well-documented and have led to wage inflation and difficulties in adding staff to service the healthy order volumes. Despite the challenges, we generated record quarterly revenue largely due to our software-enabled digital manufacturing processes that are far less labor-intensive than our peers. Continuing with our second quarter revenue performance by service outlined on slides 6 and 7, Injection Molding revenue was a record $58.2 million in the second quarter, excluding the COVID-19 related Injection Molding revenue in the second quarter of 2020. This service grew 27%. We continue to experience very high demand in our Injection Molding business. During this period of tight supply, our value proposition of best-in-class lead times has resonated with customers. The impacts of labor and material shortages have been most pronounced in our Injection Molding business, creating a substantial backlog of orders that we carry into next quarter. CNC Machining revenue was a record $41.6 million in the second quarter. CNC Machining revenue in the quarter was up 45% over the second quarter of 2020, excluding Hubs, and our legacy CNC Machining business grew 23% due to the strong order volume as market demand continues to improve from the historic lows of 2020. Additionally, during the second quarter, we launched a new flexible lead time manufacturing option in our Protolabs CNC service. We still offer the fastest lead times in the market through our standard and expedite options, and we've now expanded our CNC offerings with an economy offer that provides customers with a broader range of lead time and price point options, allowing them to make the decision that best suits their specific use case. Furthermore, this offering expansion benefited from our new Protolabs 2.0 platform. Protolabs 2.0 enabled us to launch this new offer to the market faster than would have been possible in our prior environment. 3D Printing revenue was a record high at $18.2 million in the second quarter. 3D Printing revenue increased 28% year-over-year or 12%, excluding Hubs, indicating continued strong demand for our 3D Printing services. Lastly, Sheet Metal increased 1% year-over-year. During the second quarter, we consolidated our Sheet Metal operations in New Hampshire into one facility to help create operational efficiencies. This move impacted Sheet Metal revenues and lead times briefly during the second quarter but will provide benefits for our business going forward. Moving to earnings, we reported second quarter non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.39. Labor and certain resin availability issues have constrained product shipments as we continue to emerge from the economic impacts of the global pandemic, impacting both our reported revenue and earnings this quarter. Due to higher-than-anticipated labor costs and medical expenses, our second quarter non-GAAP gross margin was lower than the guidance range we provided in May. As we move forward, we will continue to deploy innovative strategies to build openings in our manufacturing operations and deliver quality parts to our customers. In addition, we will continue to work on actively mitigating labor and material cost impacts through pricing and other operating efficiencies. Transitioning now to Hubs, the business we acquired in January. Hubs recently rebranded and dropped the 3D from its name. Since its founding in 2013 as a peer-to-peer 3D printing service, Hubs has evolved to offer Protolabs' full range of manufacturing services via a network of premium manufacturing partners. The Hubs brand better reflects the full range of manufacturing services and capabilities currently offered. The rebrand occurred in early May and had been planned since before the acquisition in January. We're very excited with how the rebranding went, and I want to thank the Hubs team for their great work on this. In addition to the rebrand, our priority is the integration of Hubs capabilities into our broader customer offering. After launching Protolabs 2.0 in the first quarter of 2021, the integration is now our top priority for the remainder of the year. While both organizations continue to operate semi-independently and execute on their respective business plans, we work together to incorporate Hubs' capabilities to provide one unified, seamless customer experience with the broadest digital manufacturing offer for custom parts in the world. At our May '20, Virtual Investor Day, we provided further insight into our long-term strategy and our plan for execution over the next five years. The presentation included prepared remarks with supporting slides as well as a 45-minute live Q&A session with several members of our executive leadership team. This was our first Investor Day event since late 2017, and we included a great amount of detail on our strategy, including forward-looking financial targets. If you've not already seen it, I welcome you to watch the recording of this presentation, which you can access via the Investor Relations section of our website. Now, John will provide a detailed summary of our second quarter financial performance as well as our outlook for the third quarter. John?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Rob. Our detailed second quarter financial results begin on Page 11 of our presentation. With the Hubs acquisition occurring during the first quarter, this was our first full quarter reflecting the impact of the Hubs financials. Second quarter revenue of $123 million represents a 15.5% year-over-year increase or 5.3% organic growth in constant currencies. Hubs produced strong results, contributing $8.9 million of revenue in the second quarter, representing growth of 45% in this business. Changes in foreign currency had a $1.9 million favorable impact on the second quarter revenue, in line with our expectations. We served 23,250 unique product developers in the second quarter, up 6,200 or 36% year-over-year, and 650 or 3% sequentially. Year-over-year product developer growth was driven by approximately 4,000 developers served on the Hubs platform, with the remainder representing growth in our legacy business. Turning to Slide 12 and our detailed income statement. Our non-GAAP gross margin in the quarter of 46.8% compares to 48.5% in the first quarter of 2021, and our guidance range of 47.5% to 48.5%. Our second quarter gross margin was impacted by higher personnel costs in the form of medical costs and overtime and contractor spend in our manufacturing facilities due to the tight labor markets, as Rob referenced earlier in the call. In addition, Hubs' second quarter gross margin was slightly lower than our projection for this business as global logistics costs, including freight and customs costs, remained at elevated levels. Overall, Hubs represented a 260 basis point headwind on second quarter gross margins due to the lower margin nature of the outsourced manufacturing model. Our total non-GAAP operating expenses were $42.8 million, slightly below our expectations and consistent with $42.4 million in the first quarter of 2021. Our non-GAAP operating expenses increased from $34.6 million in the second quarter of 2020. The Hubs acquisition added $3.2 million of operating expense in the quarter. Other year-over-year increases included Protolabs 2.0 depreciation of $1.4 million, investment in R&D of $1.3 million, and investment in sales and marketing of $1.4 million. Our GAAP operating expenses in the second quarter include the impact of a revaluation of contingent consideration associated with the Hubs acquisition. GAAP accounting regulations require that we revalue the contingent consideration on a quarterly basis until the contingent consideration period concludes at the end of 2022, which may introduce some volatility in our GAAP financials. We have adjusted the impact of the revaluation in our non-GAAP reporting as this is a non-cash financial benefit and does not relate to the ongoing operations of the business. Moving to taxes. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate in the second quarter was 26.7%, above our expectations and up from 22.7% in the prior quarter, and 18.1% in the second quarter of 2020. The sequential increase in our effective tax rate was primarily due to the tax law changes in the U.K., increasing the tax rate from 19% to 25% in 2023. This tax law change requires us to revalue our deferred tax assets and liabilities and resulted in a one-time expense of $300,000. The net result was non-GAAP diluted earnings per share in the quarter of $0.39, representing a $0.21 per share decrease from the prior year and a sequential decrease of $0.01 per share. Our non-GAAP adjustments are consistent with our prior practices, with the addition of the contingent consideration adjustment described earlier, and are detailed in the appendix of our presentation. The year-over-year change in non-GAAP earnings per share consisted of the following components: first, volume in our legacy business represented a year-over-year increase of $0.04 per share, partially offset by gross margin compression of $0.02 per share. The addition of the Hubs business represented a $0.09 per share decrease as we continue to invest in and scale that business. The increase in Protolabs 2.0 depreciation represented a $0.04 per share impact. Our increased investment in R&D resulted in a $0.04 per share decrease. And finally, the increase in the effective tax rate had a $0.05 per share unfavorable impact in the quarter. Transitioning now to the cash flow statement and balance sheet, summarized on Slide 13. We generated $14.3 million in cash from operations in the second quarter. Our operating cash flow this quarter was impacted by investments to continue to build out and scale our manufacturing partner model and our product offering, as well as timing of cash receipts and payments, resulting in an increase in our working capital, including an increase in our accounts receivable balance. We also repurchased $1.2 million under our stock repurchase program in the quarter. On June 30, our cash and investment balance was $89 million, and our balance sheet remains free of debt. Turning now to our outlook for the third quarter of 2021. Consistent with past practice, we will provide formal revenue range and a qualitative summary of our cost expectations for the quarter as outlined on Slide 15. We expect to produce record quarterly revenue in the third quarter in the range of $123 million to $133 million, representing year-over-year growth of 14% to 24%, and sequential growth of up to 8%. We expect foreign currency to have an approximately $1.5 million favorable impact on revenue compared to the prior year, assuming foreign currency rates remain at current levels. Now turning to expenses. We expect our third quarter non-GAAP gross margin to be approximately 47%, plus or minus 50 basis points. Our gross margin projection remains in line with our second quarter results as we anticipate continued wage and raw material inflation costs, which we are actively working to mitigate through pricing and other operating efficiencies. As a reminder, business mix is a larger variable in gross margin performance with the addition of Hubs, as the outsourced manufacturing model carries a lower gross margin than our internal manufacturing operations. Turning to operating expense, we expect total non-GAAP selling, general and administrative expenses to be between 44 and $46 million. And we currently estimate our non-GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 24%. That concludes our prepared remarks. Now Rob and I will gladly take your questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallam Capital Group.

Danny Eggerichs, Analyst

This is Danny Eggerichs on for Greg today. I guess just digging into gross margin a little bit more. I appreciate the color on the labor shortage, wage inflation, and that kind of stuff. Obviously, it's compressed in Q2 and looks to be more of the same in Q3. I guess just looking out beyond that, if it's not going to be necessarily a revenue growth. What's going to be the drivers behind that starting to expand again towards that 50%?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Danny, as I mentioned earlier, the mix will significantly impact our gross margin moving forward. The Hubs business and the outsourced manufacturing model have a lower gross margin compared to our internal operations. As you consider the mix, this business is growing well, and we anticipate that trend to continue. This growth in that sector will put pressure on our gross margin percentage. In terms of our internal operations, as we've indicated, we are facing some inflationary costs related to labor and certain materials. We are actively collaborating with customers on pricing and improving our internal efficiencies, and we plan to keep doing this as we navigate through these challenges.

Danny Eggerichs, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. I guess just jumping into Hubs now and that integration, how should we think about that progressing, I guess, initial synergies you're realizing? Any initial feedback from the customer base?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Yes, sure. I can take that. So the Hubs integration has gone well. The two teams are working together on the integration plan. As you think about this, we're going to be rolling out customer-facing capabilities incrementally. Our primary objective is to ensure that it's a really seamless and great customer experience. Those are the things that we're working on right now together. At the same time, we're still running the companies pretty independently. Hubs has their own set of growth targets that they're working towards. They just grew 45% in the last quarter. We're happy with that. So we're working the two in parallel as we work through the systems and backend to be able to present these capabilities to our customers on the frontend, and we'll be doing that incrementally by service.

Dan Schumacher, Chief Operating Officer

Yes. Any change in the way you're thinking about that Hubs contribution for 2021?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

No. I think the growth that we talked about, 45% growth this quarter, is kind of in line with our expectations, and it's trending. I think the gross margins are a little bit softer than we had originally anticipated, and we're working through solving that challenge.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Ben Rose, Battle Road Research.

Ben Rose, Analyst

This is Jonathan Rowe filling in for Ben. I'm just wondering if you can highlight any trends in average order size at Protolabs during Q2?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

I'm sorry, could you repeat that? We had some trouble hearing you.

Ben Rose, Analyst

Yes. Yes. Can you hear me now?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Yes.

Ben Rose, Analyst

So I'm wondering if you can highlight any trends in average order size during Q2?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Trends in average order size. Yes, so I would say that the average order size on our individual services remains pretty much in line with what they have been historically. I would say that in our Injection Molding service, we are experiencing strong orders, and those orders tend to be a little bit larger in quantities and size, given that we've kind of built up the backlog. It's a little bit of a shift in the mix during this quarter. But as you look at the individual services and the underlying data, the average order sizes are remaining relatively consistent.

Ben Rose, Analyst

Okay. Great. And then I'm just wondering if there's been any recent trends towards customers being willing to pay a premium for faster turnaround on different parts or prototypes?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Well, I mean, our historical model is to offer the fastest lead times in the world. Our standard pricing does have premiums as you increase the speed of that delivery. So whether that's in Injection Molding, CNC, 3D Printing, or Sheet Metal, there's a premium. For example, in CNC, as you move from 3-day to 2-day to 1-day to same day, there are premiums at every level there. And that's very standard for us.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Drab with William Blair.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Okay. I had to dial back in. We had some technical difficulties here. On Hubs, it seems, John, you haven't mentioned what the gross margin is, or can you tell us what gross margin was in the second quarter?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, gross margin was in the low teens. So in that 12% to 13% range, Brian, this quarter. A little lower.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Okay. And why is that again? What are the main issues?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

The main issues are the freight costs and customs and due to these things that we're incurring.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Okay. And that doesn't include at this point any of the movement of some of the costs between COGS and SG&A? I mean, is that sorted out? These are...

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. That's consistent with how we report our gross margin.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Got it. The $8.9 million in revenue for Hubs is a strong figure. Can you remind me how Hubs is benefiting from being part of the Protolabs platform, if at all? When I look for quotes, it still appears to operate like an independent company, much like Protolabs. I have to visit their website to place an order. Do you believe they are gaining any advantages from being integrated with Protolabs in this quarter?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Yes. So Brian, as we talked about it, we're still running the two independently as we're working through the platform to integrate them. So the plan is that we'll bring them on right and expose those capabilities to the Protolabs customers through the Protolabs website. We have not done that yet. That's not the stage that we're at. So they're operating independently at this point.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Are they able to offer any additional services, though, being part of the Protolabs family now?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

At this stage, we're still working through the integration and how to plug those in effectively. There's a few orders that are being passed back and forth. But for the most part, I think that both businesses are relatively organic in Q2.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Okay. Got it. And then just quickly on the Sheet Metal, I missed what the reasons were why that was down sequentially, but also, I'm just wondering if you could maybe elaborate on that? And also remind us when that should be tied into Protolabs 2.0?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Yes. Regarding the first question, we streamlined our operations in Sheet Metal during the last quarter. We moved from two facilities to one, which is a beneficial long-term decision to enhance operational efficiencies and improve lead times. However, this consolidation caused some disruption in the quarter, affecting revenue and lead times temporarily. We are now fully operational again. As for the integration into 2.0, we are currently assessing that. The plan is to incorporate Sheet Metal into 2.0 for a unified offering, including Hubs. At this moment, we are in the integration planning phase and determining prioritization, so we are not announcing a specific timeline right now.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Right. And Rob, what's the biggest challenge in incorporating Sheet Metal in the Protolabs 2.0?

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

It's simply a matter of prioritization. We have resources focused on enhancing the front end. Our goal is to incorporate Hubs and the legacy business as well. It's important to note that when we introduced 2.0, it was intentionally scoped to exclude Sheet Metal initially. We launched with our first three services, and Sheet Metal was always intended to come later, which remains part of our plan.

Brian Drab, Analyst

Got it. And just one last question. You provided guidance for the third quarter regarding gross margin. Can you look a bit further ahead? For the fourth quarter, do you anticipate gross margin will continue to improve? Or should we consider the growth in Hubs and their lower gross margin as a factor that might put pressure on gross margin for the remainder of the year?

John Way, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, I believe it will be dependent on the mix. It will likely introduce some variability into the gross margin as we examine projections. Factors like growth rates will affect these percentages. Overall, I expect gross margins to remain relatively stable for the rest of the year as we work to reduce some of the labor and inflation-related costs in our internal businesses. However, we may face challenges due to the strong growth we are experiencing in the Hubs business.

Operator, Operator

I will now turn the floor over to Rob Bodor for closing remarks.

Robert Bodor, President & CEO

Thank you for your time this morning. I'm pleased with our performance in the second quarter of 2021, and remain confident in our long-term strategic objectives. We're focused on creating long-term shareholder value through continued integration of Hubs and improvements to our customer offer. I'd like to thank our employees around the globe for their continued efforts as we move into the second half of 2021, a very important year for our business. I also want to thank our shareholders for their continued support of Protolabs. We look forward to updating you on our performance next quarter. Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.