Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLFD) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Scott Searle: And one last one if I could, Dan, just to clarify on the gross margins, you’ve got the excess inventory reserves. Looking at your guidance, it seems like that continues into the June quarter. Just want to clarify how long does that continue? It seems like this is an accounting adjustment again, not for obsolete inventory. So at some point, you should see the benefit of that. But when do we see that kind of work its way through the system, if you will, from an accounting perspective?

Dan Herzog: Yes. It still stays there. I’d see it being a little bit lower, more like 3 million or so at least, plus or minus, but that’s what we’re looking at Q3 right now. And as revenues goes up, those things are going to go down and sequentially will go down as the revenues go up. So it’s still going to be around obviously if our revenues in Q4 are similar to our projections in Q3. So but probably more at that level that I just spoke to. And then as you keeps growing sequentially, those become smaller and recoveries become big will start to get into our numbers.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Jaeson Schmidt with Lake Street Capital.

Jaeson Schmidt: Most have been covered, but just curious if you could update us on how the cross-selling opportunities with the Nestor product portfolio has progressed since you brought that online?

Cheri Beranek: It’s continuing, but I’d say it’s still in the discovery phase. We have had the, the benefit of being able to be in front of some customers, in our current customers buying cable, and then prospective customers that would be associated more predominantly with connectivity in several European trade shows over the last few weeks, and we’ll be continuing at moving forward with [indiscernible] in Germany in just a couple of weeks. See, I think what’s important, here is it’s not about revenue right now. It’s really more about, being able to establish those partnerships. And what we’re really looking for is, we know the product sense that we feel is best, but what we really need to align ourselves with is to expand our channel offerings.

We have had, in the U.S., a very strong direct sales program, but more importantly, an extremely strong and well-developed distribution network. And so we’re looking at that distribution network in target countries and seeing what we can do to facilitate the product offerings that we have in play.

Jaeson Schmidt: And then just as a follow-up. Dan, you noted kind of managing OpEx here. It was down sequentially in March. How should we think about it ramping through the second half of this year?

Dan Herzog: Yes. We’ll have some additional variable costs that will go along with a little bit of increase in revenues here. So expect it to remain, not too different percentage wise, from where we would be in second quarter right now, plus or minus a little bit, but you could probably aim at the same relative percentage.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Cheri Beranek for closing comments. Cheri?

Cheri Beranek: Thank you. Once again, it’s been a pleasure to talk and speak with you. I think really in summary, we want to make sure that everyone understands that we’re excited about where we’re at right now, but we want to reassure that we’re at the beginning of a gradual U-shaped recovery like we’ve been talking about for the last couple of quarters. We see deployments continuing somewhat moving forward. Deployments are happening, although they’re somewhat thwarted by economic conditions. But we also see the gap between revenue and customer deployments, while it’s still present, we believe the build season will work to minimize it. Furthermore, and I think most importantly, I would close with that, we believe Clearfield is uniquely positioned to serve the 59 million homes that are anticipated to be passed with fiber over the course of the next 5 years. The next 5 years is really what Clearfield is looking for, and we hope you’re part of our journey.

Operator: Thank you. The conference of Clearfield has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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