OCZ: Fiscal 3Q12 Financial Results

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. reports its third quarter results for the fiscal year 2012 (Q3’12), which ended on November 30, 2011.

Q3’12 Financial Highlights

• Net revenue in Q3’12 was a record $103.1 million, and increased 94% compared with net revenue of $53.2 million reported in Q3’11, and increased 31% compared with net revenue of $78.5 million reported in Q2’12.
• SSD revenue reached a record $95.5 million, an increase of 130% compared with Q3’11 SSD revenue of $41.5 million, and a 34% increase compared with Q2’12 SSD revenue of $71.1 million.
• On a trailing twelve month basis, SSD revenue was approximately $294 million, up 237% compared with $87 million in the prior trailing twelve months period.
• Gross margin increased to 22.5% compared with 14.4% in Q3’11, and 21.6% in Q2’12.
• GAAP net loss for Q3’12 was $0.9 million or $0.02 loss per share compared with a GAAP net loss of $8.3 million or $0.29 loss per share in Q3’11.
• Non-GAAP net income for Q3’12 was $3.0 million or $0.06 income per share as compared with a non-GAAP net loss for Q3’11 of $0.9 million, or $0.03 loss per share.

"We are pleased to report another quarter of record revenue and increased margins. This trend is being driven by an increase in market adoption of our SSDs, and is supported by OCZ’s substantially increased investments in R&D and the ability to execute on bringing new leading-edge products to market ahead of the competition," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "Looking forward, we believe OCZ’s momentum positions us well to continue to increase market share in what is widely regarded as one of the fastest growing markets in technology."

"Exiting the quarter, we saw a material increase in demand for our higher margin products, specifically our PCIe line. This trend, when taken together with the continuing expansion of OCZ products now being shipped with our Indilinx controllers, supports an increase in the rate of our gross margin expansion on a go forward basis," added Petersen.

"Also, today we announced the acquisition of flash virtualization pioneer Sanrad Inc. Sanrad’s field proven virtualization products have numerous enterprise deployments and the VXL software platform delivers application optimized caching and virtualization technology for VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix Xen-based server virtualization platforms. This acquisition can be transformational for OCZ as, by integrating the Sanrad virtualization software with products such as our Z-Drive series of PCIe SSDs, we can now offer a complete solution for the virtualization of even the most intensive applications," concluded Mr. Petersen.

Recent Business Highlights

• Demonstrated at Storage Visions our next generation Z-Drive R5, A PCIe Gen 3 Solid State Storage Solution, running in the IBM System x3650 M3. The Z-Drive R5 utilizes the Kilimanjaro Native PCIe SSD controller platform to deliver in excess of 2.5 Million IOPS and 7GB/s of bandwidth.
• Announced the Z-Drive R4 CloudServ equipped HP ProLiant DL370 G6 Server running more than 3 Million IOPs with up to 16TB of PCIe-based flash storage per PCIe device.
• Launched several Indilinx Everest platform based products including the Petrol SATA 6 Gbps Series of SSDs, utilizing the next generation NAND flash technology and reduces SSD per gigabyte costs by as much as 30%, and the Octane SATA 3.0 and SATA 2.0 SSD series SSDs which are 1TB capacity SSD in a 2.5 inch format.
• Completed the acquisition and integration of the Abingdon UK-based storage team from PLX Technology, and substantial associated intellectual property.
• Announced the acquisition of certified VMware partner, Sanrad Inc. for $15 million in OCZ common stock.
• Signed a proposal letter with Wells Fargo Capital Finance for a $50 million senior secured credit facility to replace the current $25 million credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank which expires in early February 2012. As in the current SVB facility, borrowings under the WFCF facility will be limited to the borrowing base based on OCZ’s receivables. This new credit facility is subject to finalization of a definitive agreement and final WFCF approval. It also provides for a potential expansion to $75 million if certain conditions are met.

Recent Sales Highlights

• OCZ Indilinx SSDs based on the Everest Series SATA 3.0 (6Gbps) platform are the default storage solution for the newest LG Electronics’ notebook, the XNote Z300 based on the Intel(R) Ultrabook(TM) initiative.
• OCZ’s range of mSATA SSDs have recently been certified by Intel for integration into Intel Ultrabook thin form factor notebooks.
• OCZ SSDs were selected by Voxel for managed hosting in custom, on-demand dedicated servers.
• OCZ Deneva 2 SSD Series was qualified by PSSC Labs for integration into workstations, HPC servers, and datacenter appliances.
• OCZ PCIe SSDs were selected by CIARA for integration into the company’s premium KRONOS S Line Workstations.
• OCZ Deneva 2 was qualified and integrated into OliveHD’s O4HD and O6HD music servers.

Hard Drive Shortage Capitalization
The widely reported HDD shortage had minimal impact on revenue during the third quarter, however, based on continuing strength in market demand resulting from the Thailand floods, the company plans to aggressively address the areas of the market that it feels represent permanent conversions to SSDs from HDDs. The company anticipates the ability to begin addressing this demand by its first fiscal quarter.

In support of this initiative, the company took steps late in the quarter to opportunistically build inventory of NAND flash wafer, and plans to increase its working capital availability with the Wells Fargo credit facility described above.

Business Outlook
OCZ expects revenue for its 4th fiscal quarter ending February 29, 2012, to be in the range of $105 to $120 million, and revenue for its fiscal year ending February 29, 2012 to be in the range of $360 to $375 million. GAAP Gross margins are expected to be between 23.5% and 25.5% for its 4th fiscal quarter.