Q4 2023 Proto Labs Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Jason Frankman
Rob Bodor
Dan Schumacher
Brian Drab
Jim Ricchiuti
Greg Palm
Presentation
Operator
Greetings. Welcome to Proto Labs Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) Please note that this conference is being recorded.
At this time I'll now turn the conference over to Jason Frankman, Vice President and Corporate Controller. Mr. Franklin, you may begin.
Jason Frankman
Thank you, Rob, and welcome, everyone, to Proto Labs' Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Rob Bodor, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Schumacher, Chief Financial Officer.
This morning, Proto Labs issued a press release announcing its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31st, 2023. 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. Our discussion today 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 presentation at the Investor Relations section of our Company website for a complete reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results.
Now I'll turn the call over to Robert or Rob.
Rob Bodor
Thanks, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. We continued to execute well on our priorities through the fourth quarter, resulting in a record year and strong financial and operational results for the full year 2023, we generated revenue above 500 million for the first time in Protolabs 25 year history, while delivering improved earnings, robust cash flow and returning substantial capital to shareholders every day at Proto Labs were guided by our mission, which is to empower the world's most innovative companies to bring their new ideas to market by offering the fastest and most comprehensive digital manufacturing service. We manufacture high-quality custom complex parts for the next generation of innovative solutions to the world's challenges.
I'll now share a few examples of how we enable customers to accelerate innovation across pioneer in industry.
First, I want to share two examples from the electric vehicle industry, which is a growing sector of our business. Proto Labs has been heavily involved in creating a more sustainable future through the electrification of vehicles with various customers.
One prominent EV manufacturer has been a Proto Labs factory customer for years as our reliable and rapid lead times, help them move fast and bridge supply chain challenges as they introduce new vehicles and options. This customer recently received their first order fulfilled through our manufacturing partner network, which we rebranded from hubs to Proto Labs network in January, Proto Labs' network manufactured quality injection molded prototype parts, which were beyond our factories capabilities due to their size and complexity as EV manufacturers have very different development and supply chain requirements than traditional auto manufacturers. The flexibility of our combined offerings provides the agility and adaptability that EV manufacturers need. We are incredibly excited to continue our work with this customer and help create a more sustainable future through emissions free vehicles.
In addition to electric cars, our advanced digital manufacturing capabilities also support innovation in the electric aerospace industry kinetics, a company that has developed an electric motor for commercial regional jets and narrow-body aircraft, leveraged our manufacturing, precision and speed to have a new complex metal component manufactured. This part was 3D printed in our Digital Factory due to its complex design that maximizes surface area and improves the power to weight ratio. Our services allow kinetics to accelerate innovation in aircraft motors. Proto Labs is also involved in rapid innovation in the commercial space exploration sector, where speed to market is critical. Our ability to quickly provide high quality precision parts through comprehensive manufacturing services allows companies like SpaceX Inventor to develop satellite systems and advance aerospace technology space and center turn to Proto Labs in order to meet stringent project time lines. We manufacture several CNC machined components for structural elements and complex brackets in a variety of specialized materials for their satellites. Crucially, with our industry-leading turnaround times new rapidly manufactured and delivered quality components while significantly expediting station center's design process.
One final example to highlight today comes from the agricultural machinery industry. Proto Labs recently worked with a leading equipment manufacturer that drives sustainable progress in ag. This customer had an unexpected delay arise at an existing supplier when supply chain disruptions arise. Protolabs always has capacity available to ensure customers can continue to innovate. We provided quality, cost-efficient, CNC machined components through both the factory and the network. Proto Labs' speed and comprehensive offering allowed this customer to meet scheduled phase gates and keep a critical program on track. These are just four short examples of the innovations we get to accelerate every day in exciting industries, which positively impact the world. We serve over 53,000 customers in 2023 and empowered customer innovations in many different applications. I'm proud to say that in 2023, we contributed to the greater good while successfully executing against our business priorities.
2023 was a successful Protolabs. We confirmed that our strategy to combine the factory and network offers the right ones demonstrated by 70% growth in Proto Labs network and continued customer adoption of the combined offer in the presence of a challenging global manufacturing demand environment that experienced contraction throughout the year. Our comprehensive offering enabled Proto Labs to take share in our market. Our leadership team executed on our strategic objectives, and I'm proud of what we accomplished. As you'll recall, we entered 2023 with two priority areas. First, to narrow our focus to drive revenue growth and our two largest services injection molding and CNC machining, and second, to improve shareholder value through increased profitability. I am pleased to report that we successfully delivered on both of those priorities and on our fourth quarter earnings call. One year ago, we stated that we expected year-over-year growth in injection molding. For the full year, we met our goal of achieving injection molding growth in 2023, driven by the value we provide as a single source injection molded parts supplier, winning larger orders with strategic customers, investments in digital quality, competitive pricing and consultative design services have contributed to success with larger production oriented orders. Collectively, these investments have been key to transforming our injection molding business, allowing Proto Labs to serve as a true strategic partner for our customers. In addition, we continue to win more injection molding orders for our customers' benefit from combined factory and network footprint.
In our other priority growth area, CNC machining, we successfully unlocked greater growth potential through the most complete and comprehensive offer in the industry CNC machining revenue fulfilled by the Proto Labs network grew 80% in 2023. Customers took advantage of the combined offer, leveraging lower prices at longer lead times, improve tolerances, broader finishing options and larger and more complex part designs through the Protolabs network. We also invested to expand our CNC offer in the Digital Factory, launching scaled plating anodizing at our best-in-class lead times.
Finally, in 2023, we drove shareholder value through improved profitability and returning capital to shareholders. Proto Labs' differentiated business model generated significant profitability and cash flow throughout the year. Both factory and network gross margins improved year over year and 2023. Non-gaap earnings per share grew 6% over 2022. We generated 73 million in cash from operations, the highest in our industry. And we paid back 97% of our free cash flow to shareholders through 44 million in share repurchases. Our strong execution on the strategic priorities set out at the beginning of 2023 provides a robust foundation for continued success in 2024. This year, we expect to grow revenue to do so.
Our 2024 priority areas are as follows.
First, we will strive to increase revenue per customer by growing the number of customers using the combined factory and network offer, and second will drive larger orders in all services.
Success in these priority areas will lead to improved financial performance and continued shareholder value creation. Specifically, we're focused on driving growth in users of the combined offer, which will drive revenue through both the factory and the network. This number increased substantially in 2023, and I expect significant growth in 2024. Our go-to-market teams are aligned and well-equipped to promote and sell the combined offer to existing and new customers.
Next, our emphasis on driving larger orders through both the factory and the network includes a shift from prototyping to production, which is a larger overall market, specifically for injection molding, which has the highest revenue per customer of our four services, we will focus on satisfying the needs of the production customer with its lower priced longer lead time offer. The prototypes for lab network generate higher average order value than the factory, and we will expand on these larger orders through the network in 2020 for these areas of emphasis, highlight the importance of increasing customer share of wallet since our initial public offering in 2012, our primary focus was to add new customers while continuing to serve our existing customers in their times of need. While this is still important, our focus with the combined offer is to go deeper with larger strategic customers and serve more of their custom parts needs as a true prototype to production single source supplier in 2024. We will also continue to invest in our most important internal resource. Our people, Proto Labs' employees enabled us to continue revolutionizing manufacturing and accelerating innovation. Proto Labs is a great place to work and we will improve the employee experience through continued investments in areas like talent, acquisition, training and development and total awards just a few weeks ago at our annual kickoff meetings, we introduced a fully refreshed set of company values for the first time in over 10 years to help guide us into the future. We look forward to doing more for and investing in our amazing talent at Proto Labs this year and beyond. We are encouraged by our strong finish to 2023 and believe we have the right strategy and priorities in place for continued success. Resilient execution in 2023 enabled us to meet our commitments and take share in the market. Despite headwinds from manufacturing contraction. We remain focused on becoming the strategic partner to the world's innovators, maintaining our industry-leading financial model and increasing value for our shareholders.
I want to thank our more than 2,400 employees for delivering excellent 2023 results and positioning the Company for success and value creation in 2024 and beyond.
Thank you for your comment. Continued commitment to Protolabs Dan will now provide a quarter and full year financial information as well as our outlook for the first quarter of 2024.
Yes.
Dan Schumacher
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Our financial results beginning on Slide 13 of the slide presentation. Looking first at fourth quarter performance, revenue of 125 million grew 7.2% year over year in constant currencies. Core Lab Network revenue was 22.5 million in the quarter, up 49% in constant currencies.
Looking at revenue by service on Slide 15, fourth quarter. Injection Molding revenue grew approximately 14% year over year in constant currencies as we saw an increase in larger parts orders. Cnc machining grew 4% year over year in constant currency, driven by continued growth of Proto Labs network. Fourth quarter 3D printing revenue grew 3% year over year. In constant currencies. Cheap metal revenue declined 8% year over year in constant currencies. Fourth quarter non-GAAP gross margin decreased 70 basis points sequentially to 45.3%, primarily due to lower factory volume. Fourth quarter Proto Labs network non-GAAP gross margin was 33.6% compared to 33.7% in the third quarter fourth quarter non-GAAP diluted net income per share was $0.46, adjusted EPS came in higher than our guidance midpoint of $0.3 for several reasons. First, higher than expected volume revenue came in at the top end of our guidance range.
Next, gross margin exceeded our expectations in the fourth quarter due to due largely to stronger than anticipated revenues in injection molding, one of our higher-margin services.
Lastly, our fourth quarter selling, general and administrative expenses were below forecast, driven partially by lower incentive compensation.
Turning to cash flow and balance sheet highlights on Slide 16. Cash flow from operations was $17.2 million and we repurchased $4.9 million of common shares in the fourth quarter. On December 31st, 2023, we had $110.8 million of cash and investments on our balance sheet and zero debt.
Now let's look at some of these results for the full year, which begin on slide 18. Total revenue increased 5% over 2022 in constant currencies and excluding Japan at 504 million, total revenue surpassed 500 million for the first time in our history, both factory and network gross margins increased year over year. However, total company GAAP gross margins were flat at 44.1% due to a higher mix of network revenue, 2023 per lead. The network revenue of 82.6 million grew 69% year over year in constant currencies and network gross margin for the full year was 30.6% compared to 25.8% in 2022. We served 53,464 customer contacts in 2023 and revenue per contract increased 9% over 2020 to 2023. Non-gaap earnings per share increased 6% to $1.59, and we generated 83.2 million in adjusted EBITDA, cash generated from operations in 2023 was 73.3 million, up from $62.1 million in 2022. Our business model generates industry-leading cash flows, allowing allowing us to invest in organic growth and return capital to shareholders.
During 2023, we paid 97% of our free cash flows to shareholders through share repurchases.
Turning now to forward-looking guidance. We will continue to guide on a quarterly basis due to the quick turn nature of our business and continued macroeconomic uncertainty. Our guidance for the first quarter of 2024. As outlined on slide 23, we expect to generate first quarter of 2020 for revenue between 120 and $128 million. This guidance reflects a softer start to 2024 due to December and early January order levels being lower than historical periods. However, recent performance has been more in line with historical trends, and our guidance assumes that will continue through the end of March. We expect foreign currency to have between a 500,001 million favorable impact on revenue compared to the first quarter of 2023.
Moving to earnings guidance. We anticipate non-GAAP add-backs in the first quarter to include stock-based compensation expense of approximately $4.5 million and amortization expense of 1 million. We currently estimate a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 21% plus or minus 50 basis points in the first quarter. In summary, we expect first quarter non-GAAP earnings per share between 26 and $0.34.
That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator?
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Brian Drab with William Blair.
Please proceed.
With your question.
Brian Drab
Good morning. Congratulations on a really solid year in a tough environment.I think, Rob, so first, just there's no significance really in the terminology changes there from now using customer contacts and previously at the longer term unique product developers and engineers served, I guess it's just the being more efficient with the towards forward or is there any wealth in those terms?
Rob Bodor
Thank you for the question. I think what was done, what we're looking to signal is that what we're seeing is well, in the past, our customers were primarily engineers and product designers.
Given that our business was primarily a prototyping business, you can see that a lot of our growth in 23 came from increasing production rate and customers using us more deeply for higher volumes and taking the prototyping business that they've been used to using us for and converting that into production.
Staying with us through the product lifecycle.
And so we just found that home naming all our customers, the product designers probably not correct anymore, right? So that's why that's why we made that, yes, that makes sense.
Brian Drab
And a good segue into my next question is that when you look at the revenue per contact that this year is up 10%, and I guess that that's mainly attributable to your success going deeper with these enterprises going deeper with the big customers in doing more production work? Is that a trend I guess that we should continue as you're looking into 2024 now on, do you expect that you can we'll grow that revenue per contact on substantially again in 2024?
Rob Bodor
Yes, absolutely. I'm very pleased with our increase in revenue per customer in 2023. I think it's a strong indication of the success of our strategy, and I want to recognize the work of our sales and marketing teams in terms of how they've engaged with our customers to make sure that they're aware of our broader capabilities in terms of production, right, the investments that we've made into expanding our offering, both in the factory and in the network now allow us to work with our customers outside of prototyping. We said we serve 53,000 customers last year and our customers are used to partnering with us and relying on us for their prototypes. And now we can transitioned those prototyping work into production work. And we're starting to see good traction in that. So we will continue to report average revenue per customer and are driving to increase that number.
Brian Drab
Okay, great. And then I just want to be really clear and this or make sure that I'm clear on it. You said in the guidance that you're assuming, I think what you're saying is that your you saw the typical seasonal softness in December and January. And your guidance assumes that you don't see the seasonal, the typical seasonal uptick. And Dan, you're kind of assuming that that seasonal softness persists through the first quarter. Am I understanding that right?
Dan Schumacher
Brian, this is Dan. Thanks for the question. Let me reframe. So we saw a lower than historical levels starting to like mid December and then that that persisted into January. And so things did not pick up at the same historical time. It was later than usual, but we're happy with where the levels are now both from an order and according perspective and the guidance assumes that that will be at those levels through the quarter.
Brian Drab
So you saw a December that was lower than typical second, second half of December, and I don't know on.
Dan Schumacher
Yes, Brian, we're talking to customers on a lot of them work away for a longer period of time than historical, both within Europe and the US, I don't know if that had something to do with the timing of the holidays where they were from their budgets, right, as they close the year and started the new year, but it was lower than we normally see a seasonal dip, but that dip was lower than than what it had been in prior years.
And now we're back to.
Rob Bodor
And then just in closing for me, I just want to say at the beginning of the year, when we were talking about growing the injection molding business for the full year, and you've just done 45 million and injection molding in the fourth quarter. I think a lot of people were skeptical. So congrats on achieving that goal. It seems like a stretch goal at the time. I'll talk to you more later. Thank you.
Brian Drab
Thanks so much.
Operator
Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Co.
Jim Ricchiuti
Thank you, and good morning, gents. I just want to go back to the way the queue we started off. You talked about some slowing in activity in the early part of October and then clearly things picked up. And I'm just wondering, as you're shifting more toward production oriented business, it sounds like you're seeing some almost similar trends in the current quarter. Is there any change in the linearity of the quarter with respect to what you're doing on the production side of the business.
Dan Schumacher
Jim, this is Dan. Let me kind of walk you through what we were seeing when I when I talked on the last quarter call what we were seeing was softness specifically in CNC is what I pointed out on. But in the fourth quarter, as you could see from the results, we had a really strong injection molding orders and larger orders in the quarter right now, as we close down the quarter, as I was just talking to Brian about it next holiday did was lower than it normally had been and then it was slower to kind of rebound into January in terms of like seasonality and what we're seeing some for sure, as we get some of these larger orders coming in, some that can disrupt maybe what some of the seasonal trends are as we see strength in that area.
And let me flip it over to Rob to talk a little bit about what we're seeing in those production orders?
Rob Bodor
Thanks, Dan. And Jim, I mean, I'm pleased with our performance in Q4 overall with the growth we saw there and in 2023 as a whole, right.
And I'm particularly glad that we could have that kind of performance in the presence of contraction in the manufacturing sector right now. I think we attributed it to our ability to have done more production work with our customers across all of our services and seeing that growth. But in particular, in injection molding. I think that's really been successful for us with more and more of our customers to be able to do those larger orders. And as I look forward, I expect that we will have more and more of those larger orders, and that will help to create more of that TAM consistency, right.
Jim Ricchiuti
As we look at the business going forward, and the other thing I'm struck by Robin. So I feel like this is the strongest growth you've shown in the US for some time. And I assume that's what you're describing as really driving to accelerating growth in the U.S., which frankly, over the last year or so has been the growth rate's been somewhat tepid and it picked up quite a bit it seems like in the US?
Rob Bodor
Yes, I'm very pleased with the fact that we're getting traction with our customers as a result of this strategy.
Jim Ricchiuti
So So which of these production I actually think about you're Our last question for me, but I think that yes, what you're trying to do in terms of driving more production business through through the Company through the network, where are you seeing the most traction in terms of verticals? You highlighted some use cases. I'm just thinking in general, if any one vertical market vertical is more receptive to this?
Yes.
Rob Bodor
In the fourth quarter, we saw strength with aerospace and with automotive kind of per some of the examples that I shared in the use cases in the prepared remarks and medical continued.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital.
Greg Palm
Please use your quest first morning to all offer my congratulations as well to a good end to the year. I'm curious, as we think about the guide for Q1 and specifically sort of the bridge from Q4 to Q1 revenue at the midpoint flat to down a little bit, but profitability, you know, whether it's EPS or applied EBITDA down pretty substantially from Q4. So can you just maybe help us understand that, you know, higher OpEx? Is that lower margins, maybe some of the puts and takes associated with that great.
Rob Bodor
Thanks for the question, Tom. So a couple of things are going on quarter over quarter one.
We do expect gross margin to come down quarter over quarter. There's a couple of reasons for that first, Tom, we expect to have a higher mix of the network business in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter. When I talked about that blip that that impacted the factory business more that's that softening at the end of December, started January impacted the factory business more than it impacted the network business. So we're going to have a headwind from a mix percentage perspective on second, you did mention it, but the volume we expect the volume at the midpoint to be down quarter over quarter because of that softness we saw. And in addition, because the factory business is going to be a little bit softer, their margins are going to be a little bit lower or lower from fourth to first quarter because of not having as much volume to absorb absorb those costs.
And then last, SG&A will be up quarter over quarter.
We have some timing things as we started out the year. Some of those are accounting issues dealing with incentive comp in terms of payroll, tax accruals, vacation accruals, those type of things, Tom, as well as increased investment in the network as it grows, those things create a headwind quarter over quarter in SG&A.
Okay.
Greg Palm
That is helpful color. And Rob, I think I heard you mention in the prepared that you do expect revenue growth on a year-over-year basis. I'm not sure if I missed it, but I didn't hear any commentary on whether you think that profitability, whether it's EPS or EBITDA will also grow on a year-over-year basis. So do you care to comment on that?
Rob Bodor
So yes, we're coming off of a strong year, right in which we grew despite challenging economic conditions with contraction in the manufacturing sector we were able to take share last year. I'm very pleased with that, and we expect to do that again in 2024?
I'll let I'll let Dan talk so on the revenue side, I'll let Dan respond because I guess what I talked about in the call in terms of how 2023 played out.
Dan Schumacher
We had improved the gross margin, both in the factory and in the network. From a from a factory perspective, we're deploying more and more automation into our factory. We have more robotics that are going on within our factory that that allow us to bump very our labor as volume comes through on the network side. We've also improved our margin in 2023, and that's through improvements in our AI enabled pricing algorithms that we have within the network. And we expect to do that in a similar basis, Greg, next year, right? So that there's more automation we can bring into the factory. We have more productivity projects in the pack factory to make them more efficient. And we also expect on the on the network side that we're going to continue to work on those AI algorithms to continue to maximize the margin we have in this environment. Now that being said, if you noticed last year, our overall margin, it was flat. So we do expect the network to grow more than what the factory is in 2024. And depending on how that plays out will kind of tell us if we're if our margins are going to stay flat or not, right? So we're driving to offer the solution to the customer that they want in this period of time. And we feel that is that is the business model that is the best way for us to grow but that may have some impact on margin as we go through 2020.
Greg Palm
Okay, understood. And then lastly, as it relates to kind of a broader strategic initiative, what kind of data or metrics, are you tracking that gives you some sort of success a sense for the success of this combined offering and the strategy associated with that? I mean, like what's more important? Is it growing new customers? Is it growing wallet share with existing accounts? How do you view that?
Rob Bodor
Great question. So of course, we want to grow both our new customers and our existing customers and you and we've got initiatives in place and our salespeople are focused in our marketing teams on on really on driving both of those. But what I would say from a existing customer standpoint is we've got it the largest customer base in our industry. Last year, we served 53,000 customers from individual entrepreneurs to the Fortune 500, right, within the Fortune 500, we serve 85% of the companies in our target industries. And so we've got a great customer base of innovative customers. I think there's a tremendous opportunity for us to grow and expand within our existing customer base, right? Our customers are used to relying on us for their prototyping. They've been telling us for years that they'd love to use us more. And we just haven't had offers in the past. We've now put together between investments in the factory and the network offerings that serve them for production that allow them to go from prototype through production through end of life that allows them to use us for quantity one or quantity, 1 million right. We haven't had that capability in the past, and I think there's just tremendous opportunity for us to grow with our existing customers. And so what we're measuring to make sure that we're on top of that, maybe we talked about of the number of our customers. We talked about average revenue per customer. We also talked about tracking the number of customers that are using the combined offerings, right, buying from both the factory and the network.
Greg Palm
And there's a number of other things kind of internally that we look at to make sure that we're making this progress, but I'm quite pleased with the progress that we showed last year on one at some point is some of those KPIs associated with a number of customers using, you know, either or both of the services? Is that something that you might start disclosing?
Rob Bodor
Yes, Greg, the answer is yes, in own. I think you know, in this industry in this space right on being able to, um, you know, serve a customer more get more of their wallet share of our existing customers is some good is going to generate a more profitable business long term rather than having to continue to chase the new customer every year. Of course, we're still going to grow new customers. We're doing that, but but for sure, as they come in the future, we will share some of these metrics.
Operator
Thank you.
We've reached the end of our question and answer session.
And this will also conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.
