ClearOne Reports Record First Quarter Revenue and Net Income

SALT LAKE CITY, April 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- 

First Quarter 2015 Highlights

• Revenue up 7% to $13.6 million
• Gross margin increased to 62% from 61%
• Non-GAAP operating income up 83%
• Non-GAAP net income up 101%
• Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA up 76%

Financial Summary

ClearOne (NASDAQ: CLRO), a global provider of audio and visual communication solutions, today reported financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2015.

For the 2015 first quarter, revenue increased by 7% to $13.6 million, compared with $12.7 million for the first quarter of 2014.  Gross profit was $8.5 million, or 62% of revenue, compared with $7.7 million, or 61% of revenue, for the first quarter of 2014. Non-GAAP operating income increased 83% to $2.5 million from $1.4 million for the first quarter of 2014. Non-GAAP net income increased 101% to $1.7 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, from $0.8 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2014. Non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA increased 76% to $2.8 million, or $0.30 per diluted share, from $1.6 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2014.

Cash, cash equivalents and investments totaled $36.3 million at March 31, 2015, up from $33.6 million at December 31, 2014. The company continued to have no debt.

"Our record revenues and profits for the first quarter of 2015 follow an impressive milestone achieved with our 2014 financial results - five consecutive years of topline and bottomline growth," said Zee Hakimoglu, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Our solid first quarter financial performance was fueled by increased demand across all regions. More specifically, we saw continued strong sales for our innovative microphones, as well as network video streaming and media collaboration solutions."

"While the growth achieved in the first quarter was a great start to the year, we are even more excited about our immediate future. Our unique product offerings, combined with our product and sales strategy, will significantly disrupt current business models backed by obsolete technologies. In addition, we continue to make great strides in our drive to standardize ClearOne products amongst the Fortune 500 and other blue chip companies. Recent successes include adoption of our innovative solutions by the largest electronics company in the world, the largest online social networking company and the fastest growing automobile company in the world."

Hakimoglu continued, "We recently entered into a new relationship with a strategic reseller in China. This new partnership provides a perfect balance between the reseller's extensive technical and integration expertise and ClearOne's innovative audio, video and media collaboration solutions, enabling both companies to introduce compelling offerings in this vast market. Our new strategic reseller's comprehensive reach in China's government and private sectors will considerably grow ClearOne's market share in Asia and ultimately open new pipelines for ClearOne products."

Enhanced Wireless Microphone System with Built-in Dante^TM Technology

At the end of January, the company introduced a new version of its Digital Wireless Microphone products, now with support for Dante™ technology.  Dante is the industry's fastest growing media networking solution for digital audio networking. The new ClearOne microphone coupled with the Dante media interface is the most economical and versatile, easy to install, easy to use, and easy to scale wireless system in the market today. This newly released microphone system complements other professional audio products from ClearOne. It uses radio-frequency digital wireless signal transmission technology with highly secure encryption for privacy and security. The ClearOne Dante wireless microphone inter-operates with any other Dante device from any supplier, including ClearOne Dante products such as the new CONVERGE^® Matrix and CONNECT^™ Dante bridge for CONVERGE.

Network Media Streaming Product Line Broadened

At the beginning of February, the company announced its new value-priced VIEW^® Pro D210 decoder that enables high-quality, low-latency media streaming over existing IP networks. This cost-efficient network device from ClearOne is the ideal solution for less-demanding deployments such as digital signage applications. Such applications include displays at airports and transportation hubs, hotels, casinos and shopping malls.  With the addition of this economical decoder, ClearOne continues to be truly differentiated in the professional market by offering complete AV streaming and distribution systems that can scale to fulfill projects of any size and complexity, from light commercial to the very largest environments.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

ClearOne provides non-GAAP financial information in the form of non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) and corresponding earnings per share to investors to supplement GAAP financial information.  ClearOne believes that excluding certain items from GAAP results allows ClearOne's management to better understand ClearOne's consolidated financial performance from period to period as management does not believe that the excluded items are reflective of underlying operating performance.  Non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA and corresponding earnings per share excludes certain costs and expenses, the details of which are provided below in the tables containing the reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures.  The exclusion of these items in the non-GAAP presentation should not be interpreted as implying that these items are non-recurring, infrequent, or unusual.  ClearOne believes non-GAAP financial measures will provide investors with useful information to help them evaluate ClearOne's operating results and projections.  This non-GAAP financial information is not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for operating income, net income or other financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP.  There are limitations to the use of non-GAAP financial measures.  Other companies, including companies in ClearOne's industry, may calculate non-GAAP financial measures differently than ClearOne does, limiting the usefulness of those measures for comparative purposes.  A detailed reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included with this release.

About ClearOne

ClearOne is a global company that designs, develops and sells conferencing, collaboration, streaming and digital signage solutions for voice and visual communications.  The performance and simplicity of its advanced comprehensive solutions offer unprecedented levels of functionality, reliability and scalability.  More information about the company can be found at www.clearone.com.

This release contains "forward-looking" statements that are based on present circumstances and on ClearOne's predictions with respect to events that have not occurred, that may not occur, or that may occur with different consequences and timing than those now assumed or anticipated.  Such forward-looking statements and any statements of the plans and objectives of management for future operations and forecasts of future growth and value, are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from the events or results described in the forward-looking statements.  Such forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this release and ClearOne assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.  Readers should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

http://investors.clearone.com

Contact:
Investor Relations
801-975-7200
[email protected]

SOURCE ClearOne