👀 Copy Legendary Investors' Portfolios in One ClickCopy For Free

Earnings call transcript: IDT Corp. posts strong Q1 results, stock rises

Published 12/05/2024, 08:40 AM
IDT
-

IDT Corporation reported robust financial performance for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, surpassing earnings expectations and driving its stock price up in after-hours trading. The company achieved record levels in gross profit and adjusted EBITDA, while revenue continued its upward trend for the third consecutive quarter. IDT's stock rose 2.81% in aftermarket trading, reflecting positive investor sentiment.

Key Takeaways

  • IDT's Q1 EPS of $0.71 exceeded forecasts, contributing to a stock price increase.
  • Revenue grew sequentially for three quarters, highlighting continued business momentum.
  • The NRS segment saw increased adoption of payment processing services.
  • Foreign exchange fluctuations impacted international operations.
  • The company remains focused on U.S. market expansion and product innovation.

Company Performance

IDT Corporation delivered a strong performance in the first quarter, with significant growth in key financial metrics. The company achieved record gross profit levels and saw a sequential increase in consolidated revenue for three consecutive quarters. This performance is notable amidst a challenging economic environment, where foreign exchange fluctuations have posed challenges for international operations.

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue: $309.6 million, marking a sequential increase.
  • Earnings per share: $0.71, surpassing forecasts.
  • Gross profit and adjusted EBITDA reached record levels.

Earnings vs. Forecast

IDT's earnings per share of $0.71 exceeded market expectations, contributing to a positive surprise in the company's financial performance. This beat is significant compared to previous quarters, where earnings met or slightly exceeded forecasts. The revenue of $309.6 million also aligns with the company's growth trajectory.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, IDT's stock price increased by 2.81% in after-hours trading, reaching $52. This movement positions the stock near its 52-week high of $52.55, indicating strong investor confidence. The stock's performance contrasts with broader market trends, where volatility has been prevalent.

Company Outlook

IDT Corporation remains optimistic about its growth prospects, emphasizing continued investment in new products and services. The company plans to focus on the U.S. market, which offers high profitability, while monitoring foreign exchange impacts. IDT anticipates further growth in the U.S. and Latin American markets.

Executive Commentary

CEO Shmuel Jonas highlighted the company's commitment to product improvement, stating, "We continue to focus on improving the product every day." CFO Marcelo Fischer noted the resilience of local markets, saying, "Those markets in local currencies are really doing very well." These comments underscore the company's strategic focus and operational resilience.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of immigration on the Boss Money segment, foreign exchange challenges for Nettoone, and seasonality in the NRS segment. These discussions provided insights into the company's strategies to navigate macroeconomic challenges.

Risks and Challenges

  • Foreign exchange volatility: The strength of the U.S. dollar poses risks to international revenue.
  • Market dynamics: Changes in immigration and economic conditions may affect business segments.
  • Competitive pressure: The payment processing market remains highly competitive.
  • Regulatory changes: Potential regulatory shifts could impact operations in key markets.
  • Economic uncertainty: Global economic conditions could influence consumer spending and business investment.

Full transcript - IDT Corp (IDT) Q1 2025:

John, Conference Call Moderator, IDT Corporation: Good evening, and welcome to the IDT Corporation's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Call. In today's presentation, IDT's management will discuss IDT's financial and operational results for the 3 month period ended October 31, 2024. During prepared remarks by IDT's Chief Executive Officer, Shmuel Jonas, all participants will be in listen only mode. After Mr. Jonas' remarks, Marcelo Fischer, IDT's Chief Financial Officer, will join Mr.

Jonas for Q and A with investors. Any forward looking statement made during this conference call, either in the prepared remarks or in the Q and A session, whether general or specific in nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those which the company anticipates. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, specific risks and uncertainties discussed in the reports that IDT files periodically with the SEC. IDT assumes no obligation either to update any forward looking statements that they have made or may make or to update the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that they forecast. In their presentation or in the Q and A session, IDT's management may make reference to non GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA, non GAAP net income and non GAAP earnings per share.

A schedule provided in the IDT earnings release reconciles adjusted EBITDA, non GAAP net income and non GAAP earnings per share to the nearest corresponding GAAP measures. Please note that the IDT earnings release is available on the Investor Relations page of the IDT Corporation website. The earnings release has also been filed on our Form 8 ks with the SEC. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Jonas.

Shmuel Jonas, Chief Executive Officer, IDT Corporation: Thank you, John. I apologize for my voice. Welcome to IDT's earnings conference call. My remarks today focus on the Q1 of our fiscal year 2025, the 3 12 months ended October 31. For a more detailed discussion of our financial and operational results for the quarter, please read our earnings release filed earlier today and our Form 10 ks that we expect to file with the SEC next Tuesday.

Building on our momentum from fiscal 2024, IDT delivered strong financial results in the Q1 of fiscal 2025, including record levels of gross profit, gross profit margin and adjusted EBITDA. Consolidated revenue has now increased sequentially for 3 consecutive quarters. NRS along with our FinTech segment powered by Boss Money and Nettoone each achieved robust increases in revenue, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA. At NRS, we are focused on providing solutions to address the needs of our independent retailer market, while heavily investing to develop

Marcelo Fischer, Chief Financial Officer, IDT Corporation: new products and services to broaden our addressable markets. In Q1, we continue to

Shmuel Jonas, Chief Executive Officer, IDT Corporation: achieve increased In Q1, we continue to achieve increased adoption rates on our payment processing offerings and SaaS feature plans. We look forward to continuing this momentum through the remainder of the fiscal year. Boss Money's Q1 results reflected our decision to enhance margins, particularly within our retail channel. As a result, Boss Money's gross margin expanded significantly and transaction growth slowed somewhat. The enhanced margins boosted FinTech's Q1 income from operations by $4,600,000 year over year.

And in November, following the quarter's close, transaction growth rebounded led by D2C. Nettofone increased seats served over 400,000 driving a 13% increase in subscription revenue despite the negative FX impact to its Latin American operations from a strong U. S. Dollar. NetClone's financial discipline also contributed to healthy increases in income from operations and adjusted EBITDA.

In the traditional communications segment, our underlying services units improved our economics and that continued to pay off in Q1. The year over year revenue decrease was 4%, while income from operations increased by 2%. In light of the strong financial performance across our key businesses this quarter, we are now on track to significantly beat the EBITDA projections that we previously had. I'll wrap by wishing the entire ID team, including all of our colleagues across the globe, retail partners and investors, a very joyous holiday season shared with family and friends. We very much appreciate your support and hard work and look forward to sharing more good IDT news with you in 2025.

Now, Marcello and I will be happy to take your questions.

John, Conference Call Moderator, IDT Corporation: Your first question comes from Anigu Alonso.

Anigu Alonso, Analyst: I have questions on the 3 growing businesses. I'll start with a double question on Netsu Phone and Boss Money. Boss Money has had extraordinary growth in the last couple of years, and a lot of that growth has been driven by the mass immigration into the U. S. During the last presidential term.

So how confident do you feel on your ability to keep growing at those rates and instilling market share from your competitors if the immigration policies into the U. S. Tighten? And then the second question about NetSuPhon is we have over 50% of the revenues coming from Latin America. And with the strengthening of the USD, we are seeing the ForEx impact.

Last week, we had a huge event in the Brazilian real with devaluation on that currency where you're really strong. I was wondering on your confidence level to achieve double digit revenue growth this year. Thank you.

Shmuel Jonas, Chief Executive Officer, IDT Corporation: Okay. So I'll try to answer your question on immigration first. It's really, in my opinion, too early to tell what will really be the end result of the new administration's policies. My personal opinion is that you can't build things in America and make America stronger without immigration into this country. So, if you're going to have tariffs, you need immigrants to work hard and help build America like they always have.

That's my personal opinion. But as for what really happened, I don't know. One thing I would say is that we continue to focus on improving the product every day and that is, in my opinion, what really drives the results, not how many people cross the border on a daily basis. But that's my own opinion. Yes.

Marcelo Fischer, Chief Financial Officer, IDT Corporation: I'll answer the question to you on Nattofone. So, you're absolutely right. The exchange rates are not helping Nattofone right now. As you know, a significant portion of the business comes from Latin American countries, Brazil and Mexico in particular. When you look about year over year, Q1 versus Q1, the Brazilian real is down about 14%, Mexican peso is down about 11%.

So, those clearly impact the business when you cancel it into U. S. Dollars. Our subscription revenue growth was 13% for Q1. If not for this FX impact, it would have been 16%.

So, we are looking at it carefully. We keep on monitoring that. And also, some of the cost inputs in operating the business in Latin America are really U. S. Pegged, if not U.

S. Not denominated necessarily. So, that has also a slight impact on the economics, on the profitability, not just on the cancellation side. And NetSol team and ourselves are really focusing very much on how we could offset some of those cost implications as well as the growth rates going forward. Now, because it does sound like the U.

S. Dollar will continue to be strong for the foreseeable future. That being said, those markets in local currencies are really doing very well and continue to grow at a real nice pace and we feel very positive about the long term success and growth.

Shmuel Jonas, Chief Executive Officer, IDT Corporation: Yes. And I'll just say to add on to what Marcelo already said is that, it also lets us put more investment into the U. S. Market where we already have by far the best profitability. So, if anything, it gets us to focus our energies in the places where we get the most payoff from it.

So, not a completely bad story in my opinion.

Anigu Alonso, Analyst: Okay. Can I ask about NRS? So, NRS, this quarter, there was seasonal churn. I would appreciate if you can provide a little bit of color on that seasonality of the terminal deployments. And I also noted that the terminal sales were lower.

And I wonder if this is due to the kiosk run out that you mentioned last quarter or there's different impacts here?

Shmuel Jonas, Chief Executive Officer, IDT Corporation: Yes. I mean, so we have a large seasonal customer in the fireworks business that comes and goes. They were larger this year than they have been previously, which is both good and bad. And so that's really the seasonal impact. As far as your questions related to the kiosk, it definitely did have an effect.

And we also had a lot of new product launches in terms of our software plans. And that also really, I think, unfortunately, I'll say shifted some of the sales people's attention to educating customers on those new plans and away from pushing out more units, but we're back on track.

Anigu Alonso, Analyst: Okay. And one final question on NRS. In the last few quarters, you have mentioned how you are offering new forms of advertisement beyond the initial customer facing checkout screens. I was wondering what categories of real estate of businesses you are targeting for these new screens. Are these screens located in outdoors high traffic areas?

Or are they inside businesses? How many of these screens did you place in Q1, for example?

Shmuel Jonas, Chief Executive Officer, IDT Corporation: I don't have the numbers off hand how many we placed in Q1. I do know that we ordered over 3,000 new screens. I don't believe that they've all arrived yet. And we've mostly placed them into hotels and entertainment attractions, and all of them are pretty highly trafficked.

Anigu Alonso, Analyst: Okay. Thank you

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.