VDC Research: RFID, Barcode, Retail Automation & Self-Service Market Blog

Zebra Technologies beats EPS but integration to come at a higher cost

Zebra Technologies reported its Q3 2015 earnings on November 10th beating analysts’ EPS estimates by $0.16 while missing on revenue by $2.22 million. The company’s revenues grew 3% from Q2 2015. Net sales of $916.27 million for the quarter included $605.1 million contributed by the Enterprise business unit acquired from Motorola Solutions, a 5.6% increase from Q3 2014. Zebra’s legacy business (including barcode printers, card printers, consumables, location services) accounted for $314 million, up from $303.3 million in Q3 2014. The company’s gross margin now stands at 45.2% for the first 3 quarters in 2015, down from 50% for 2014; this is reflective of rebranding of legacy Motorola product, the change in product mix and the contribution of Enterprise solutions to the overall revenues, which tend to have a lower margin than legacy Zebra products. Although Zebra managed to exceed analyst expectations in EPS estimates, company shares have fallen almost 12% since the Q3 earnings release.

Here are some key insights from the company’s 2015 third quarter performance. 

• Zebra experienced a strong quarter for its data capture business unit driven by the increasing migration from 1D to 2D imagers and it plans to build on this momentum by actively engaging its installed client base. In addition, Zebra’s printing business experienced continued growth which was driven by the increased sales of table top and desktop printers.
• OS migration continues to play a major role in driving sales growth this year as Android-based mobile computer sales have increased by 170% through September this year in comparison to the same time period last year.
• North American sales were flat quarter on quarter with 3% growth. The company accomplished a number of new wins for mobile computers in retail and manufacturing engaging the Tier 2 & 3 markets. Growth for data capture came from Zebra’s scan engine business as more organizations transition and upgrade their scanning solutions to 2D imagers and the printing business continues to generate growth with the increased sales of tabletop and desktop printers. Zebra’s Latin America business was the only region to experience a decline this quarter with a 16% decline as a result of difficult currency and microeconomics challenges. The company plans to reengage the market once the regional economy improves. 
• EMEA sales were stable at 3% this quarter as anticipated with typical European slowdown during summers, in contrast to the unusually strong Q3 in 2014. Zebra’s price increase back in April 2015 appears to have had limited impact on European demand as the company achieved new wins across retail, manufacturing and government sectors.  Sales remained strong for mobile computers in Europe with Germany and UK leading the way while the company saw a slowdown (even decline) in parts of the Middle East and Eastern Europe due to geopolitical reasons.
• Asia Pacific led the way for most year-over-year growth with 23% in the quarter. In Asia, Zebra’s Enterprise division experienced strong sales in China, India, and Southeast Asia. The company saw success in the retail space for its mobile computing and data capture solutions driven by e-commerce adoption and upgrades. Increased sales of desktop printers to the healthcare and T&L verticals contributed to the positive growth for the printer business in Asia.
• The company continues to gain traction with e-commerce, mobility and OS transition leading the way for growth. Hardware upgrades and e-commerce have driven retail sales growth for both mobile computers and scanners. Printer sales were also strong as desktop printers saw increased deployment across health care and T&L verticals. Ongoing printer hardware refresh at some of Zebra’s largest clients is also a key growth driver.
• Zebra will continue to spend a substantial amount on integration and synergy operations. The company has expects synergy related expenses to increase to $180 million - $200 million which would see the company through to 2017 in its efforts to reduce costs and perform as one complete unit. Acquisition and integration related costs were $42.7 million this quarter, an increase from $35.2 million in 2014. As a part of its ongoing integration efforts, Zebra has carried out the removal of hundreds of Enterprise IT applications and Motorola service agreement items and is now focusing on the implementation of a companywide IT infrastructure and transitioning the Enterprise business onto Zebra Systems.  

With additional cost savings and cost controls being implemented, Zebra expects its positive growth to continue and plan to end on a high note in the fourth quarter. The company expects total revenues in the range of $945 million to $975 million. Zebra Technologies’ executive leadership is confident in its market standing and optimistic about market opportunities for the remainder of 2015.

Like we’ve mentioned in our previous posts, Zebra has its work cut out for it from a distribution and execution standpoint and needs to manage expectations via well-crafted messaging to both partners and customers. We will continue to follow the company’s progress and keep our readers updated.

(with Richa Gupta, Senior Analyst)

AutoID Market Shakeup: TSC Acquires Printronix’s Thermal Printer Business

Leading barcode printer vendor TSC AutoID Technology (TSC) announced on November 9 that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the thermal printing business of Printronix, a company focused on serving the industrial supply chain with its rugged, high-performance thermal label printer product line. This acquisition is expected to close in January 2016. I find this development equal parts interesting and refreshing. It has been a while since the market saw an acquisition by a vendor other than one of the AIDC conglomerates (Datalogic, Honeywell, Zebra Technologies, and the former Motorola Solutions).

TSC had a strong 2014, as indicated in VDC’s recently published 2015 Stationary Thermal Barcode Printers report, and has grown at consistently high rates in recent years while also outperforming overall market growth. The company is an especially strong competitor to Honeywell, SATO, Toshiba TEC, and Zebra Technologies in the Asian market. While TSC has made some headway into EMEA in recent months, its performance in the Americas left much to be desired. This will change with its Printronix acquisition as this vendor earns 90% of its revenues from the Americas and Europe. Printronix exclusively targets application environments in the industrial supply chain with its line of thermal label printers. The company had a lackluster 2014 in terms of sales growth, but saw a leadership change early in 2015 and started laying the groundwork for a new approach to building channel relationships. It is making its way into the low-end industrial market with its entry-level T2N series, priced aggressively at less than $1,000 for the 203dpi model. The company also recently released its second portable printer, M4L2, which is designed for use in industrial and warehousing environments. All of its recent investments prove its commitment to differentiating its product line from both Honeywell and Zebra. Printronix is also the only vendor that offers industrial label printers with in-line verification capability, giving the vendor a distinct advantage over its peers in industries like retail with strict labeling compliance requirements.

Market consolidation and over-distribution has given way to pent-up frustration with what is viewed as weak qualification criteria for premier partnership status especially as channel organizations look to enter/exit deals on a profitable note same as hardware vendors. With Printronix, TSC will now be able to take advantage of the company’s defensible niche position in the industrial label printer market. I expect more systems integrators and solution providers – including Lowry Solutions, Peak-Ryzex, and Supply Chain Services – to now seek out a partnership with TSC with an aim to broaden their solution offerings and include newer brands as part of the portfolio, especially if they can get better price exceptions and deals while also meeting unique customer requirements in the industrial supply chain with all-in-one products.

NFL Roundup: Zebra Technologies Makes a Big Play in Pro Sports with Embedded Sensors in Jerseys

With the 2015 NFL season underway, coaches, analysts, and fantasy football fans are hungry for the latest and most accurate stats for making vital decisions on and off the field. The NFL looks to have found an answer. Enter Motionworks by Zebra Technologies’ Sports Solutions Division. Created by the company’s Location Solutions group, Motionworks is a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking system which aims to bring better accuracy and insight into player performances than ever before. RFID systems have traditionally been used to track and trace items throughout the supply chain to enhance overall operational efficiencies but now the NFL and Zebra are tapping into this technology to create a better Football experience.

 

Image Source: Zebra Technologies

Zebra’s Motionworks system is an Active RFID Real Time Locate System (RTLS) which uses tags and receivers to track the players’ performances. Players have two tags embedded under their shoulder pads, which emit a unique electromagnetic wave frequency in order to differentiate each player on the field. The frequencies are collected by multiple receivers to triangulate each player position and then stored in datahubs. The data is instantly analyzed using an advanced algorithm and presented to users who are able to see player location and on-field performance in real time. NFL and Zebra present the data as Next Gen Stats, which includes performance analytics like player speed profiles, fitness graphs, play by play running routes, and more. Motionworks RFID player tracking system uses multiple unique RFID tags that are processed simultaneously and quickly by the receivers with very little energy and do not require tags to be in the line of sight allowing uninterrupted data collection. The system is used by all 32 NFL teams and is implemented across 31 stadiums, including London’s Wembley stadium, where six teams are set to play during the 2015 season.

Image Source: Zebra Technologies

We would not be surprised to see Zebra extend its reach with the Motionworks solution to other major sports and leagues, with stat-intensive sports such as Soccer and Basketball likely targets. Current alternatives to this solution in the market include Opta and Matrics. Used by Barclays Premier League in England, the World Rugby Cup, the Copa America, and the T20 Cricket league, Opta relies on global collection centers where local experts analyze video footage and information to provide up-to date stats of players and games. Opta’s data is used by some of the biggest media, channels, betting sites, teams and brands. The other big analytics provider is Matrics which is officially used by FIFA. Matrics utilizes three HD cameras to recognize all the players, referees and soccer ball on the field. The system tracks the coordinates of the objects between the three cameras and the data is relayed to the work center where analysts analyze the data and footage. Both Opta and Matrics mainly provide halftime analysis and post-game analysis due to camera based solutions requiring analysts to view video footage first and then recording statistics. In contrast, for Motionworks there is no lag between the data collected from the tags and the stats being broadcast. Looking ahead, Zebra plans to release tags in 2015 that will contain both RFID and Bluetooth communication technology enabling the integration of physiological sensing technologies such as heart monitors with real-time data transmission.

Motionworks differs from these camera-based systems in that it does not require cameras for analysis and its software can be overlayed on video to show real-time stats. This RFID technology brings a new dimension to the game with instant data communication and accuracy. Currently Zebra Technologies offers potential Motionworks clients a number of additional services including implementation and optimization of all hardware, gameday operations and maintenance to ensure 100% system performance, and analytics using its Time-Difference of Arrival algorithm (TDOA) application. This algorithm records the time of arrival of a distinct RFID signal from a player’s tag at separate receivers around the stadium. It then uses the time references of the signals to calculate the location, speed and direction of travel of the player throughout plays in real-time.

VDC believes Zebra Technologies can work with solution partners and sports governing bodies to offer its data collection and analysis platform to a broad range of application environments including:

• Educational Institutions –Provide the Motionworks tracking solutions to schools, colleges and universities to be used by their respective sports teams and to organizations like the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Schools can use Motionworks like the NFL to track player performances in practice and in games and use the data for team and player improvement.   
• Media and Broadcasters –media outlets, print media and sporting magazines can approach Zebra for its analytics platform to gain access to data feed services and widgets.
• Gaming– with betting and the fantasy sports market growing, gaming organizations can use Zebra’s Motionworks analytics platforms to access accurate player stats and live data feed which they can use and integrate into their sites.

In addition, with its expertise in autoID and data capture solutions Zebra has the potential to engage the growing consumer market for fitness wearables and smart watches in the future by developing tracking sensors for athletic apparels and consumer devices such as the Fitbit and Jawbone Up. Consumer devices such as the Fitbit are popularly used for tracking health-related information such as sleep cycles, heart rate and steps travelled. Some models utilize NFC technology to communicate data quickly over to other NFC-enabled devices. NFC technology is a subset of RFID and operates via the same frequency as High Frequency RFID tags and readers. According to a recent interview by Zebra CEO Anders Gustaffson, the company has held discussions with athletic clothing manufacturers about potential partnerships to bring sensing and tracking technologies to their apparel lines. There is an opportunity for the company to partner with manufacturers such as Nike, Adidas, and Under Armor to produce smart clothing and wearables through the development of tracking technology which can measure movements and communicate between smart apparels and devices anywhere without the need for dedicated receivers. In its current iteration, Zebra's Motionworks technology is restricted to usage in a defined space (it requires both receivers and tags to measure movement), which it makes it unsuitable for consumer wearables that can measure movement anywhere and transmit data via Bluetooth and/or NFC. However, VDC believes this market represents a tremendous opportunity for Zebra going forward.

Ultimately, Motionworks looks to be the next big step in sports analytics and Zebra Technologies’ entrance into the sports industry displays the company’s versatility as a data capture solutions provider. The company has already expanded to sports beyond the NFL including Nascar and Soccer and has plans to add more to the mix.

(With Richa Gupta, Senior Analyst)

Socializing the AIDC World

(VDC breaks down AIDC solution providers’ use of social media and outlines best practices for success - download Executive Brief)

AIDC solution providers mentioned in this report - Barcoding Inc., Barcodes Inc., Cognex, Datalogic, Honeywell Scanning & Mobility (now part of Honeywell Sensing & Productivity Solutions), Lowry Solutions, SICK AG, System ID, Wasp Barcode, and Zebra Technologies

Social media continues to be a relatively under-explored and under-utilized avenue for digital marketing within the AIDC community. In our bid to transform how AIDC solution providers use social media platforms, VDC just published a report on current usage trends and statistics along with detailed insight into best practices that can help them achieve their objectives for social media engagement. The report focuses on four platforms – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube – and 10 AIDC solution providers’ presence, outreach, content generation consistence, and engagement on each. VDC believes each chosen organization is influential in the AIDC space due to their technology and market development and their established presence on one or more social media platforms.

(The chart below highlights Engagement Rate statistics for 10 data capture solution providers, part of VDC's latest social media-focused report.)

Leading vendors are starting to take steps by hiring talent exclusively dedicated to managing content creation for these platforms and having targeted, specific, and measurable goals outlined for social media engagement. While short-term returns associated with social media activities may be limited, consistently posting the right type of content for the target audience (on each individual platform) will help generate an attractive ROI – in terms of (potential) lead generation and higher levels of engagement (with customers, partners, and employees).

We explore these themes in the Social Media report and also talk about the opportunity in front of AIDC solution providers to extend their reach and enhance their levels of engagement on these popular social media platforms. While this report is available to existing clients for free, non-clients can download this Executive Brief and contact us to learn how they can access the full report.

Barcode Scanner Vendors Entering Consumers’ Homes? Looks Like We’re Almost There!

What is the next step in the evolution of the barcode scanner market? Are vendors going to be restricted to B2B transactions or is there a potential consumer device opportunity for them here? In this blog post, VDC will focus its attention on two at-home scanning devices – Hiku Labs’ Hiku and Amazon’s Amazon Dash (both the wand and the button).

Hiku, an in-home barcode scanning solution designed by Silicon Valley startup Hiku Labs, is a 1D barcode scanner with a built-in microphone to help consumers build grocery and shopping lists. The product can be used at home to generate these lists by either scanning barcodes on everyday items or speaking into the device. It was first introduced to the market in October 2013 and is compatible with both Android and iOS.

What VDC finds particularly interesting is that Hiku’s executive team considers this to be a reference design or proof-of-concept while placing more value in the “smarts” built into the device (as opposed to the hardware itself). This start-up is open to having OEMs build devices that leverage its cloud-based platform, which includes barcode lookup, voice transcription, and data synchronization. Its platform enables users to scan and recognize items by retailers that do not make their UPC codes available to the public – by crowd-sourcing barcode label information and uploading it to the cloud.

As it stands today, the company’s decision to launch an in-home scanner with a 1D linear imager is purely based on the fact that most barcodes in circulation today (as part of product identification labels) are 1D. The mic allows users to add items that, for instance, they may not have around to scan. The Hiku hardware also has a magnet by which a consumer can place it on their fridge or any such surface in the kitchen. Forgoing the traditional Bluetooth connection, Hiku supports a wireless b/g/n connection to connect to the internet and user’s phone. Items which are scanned or picked up through the microphone are sent up to the cloud platform, where the item is recognized and then added to the user’s shopping list. Hiku Labs wants the product to be device-agnostic, with the ability to upload across a variety of different types of hardware and OS platforms. Hiku’s creators want OEMs to leverage their APIs and platform for at-home scanners – essentially creating hardware that plugs right in with Hiku’s solution and its capabilities – all while keeping overall costs in mind. The goal is to have consumers always pay a flat price for these products – no recurring fees or subscription-based models.

The device, as it stands today, is being piloted by notable supermarket chains – Waitrose in England and Cole’s Supermarkets in Australia; the company also announced a full rollout by French supermarket chain Chronodrive in March 2015 – marking it the first commercial availability of Hiku in the world. The device and API support multiple languages as Chronodrive customers are mainly French speaking. While Hiku is successfully piloting its products internationally, the company is yet to announce any major tie ups in the US. With the vision of providing what Hiku calls “frictionless shopping,” the company wants to reduce the steps involved in replacing items that consumers run out of. Via its partnership with Chronodrive, Hiku has enabled seamless scanning and listing of items through the device to the retailer’s app, and a mobile/e-payment option, and then having consumers simply picking up the desired items from the store-of-choice.

What VDC views as one of the primary adoption deterrents is the fact that this solution, at least for now, is designed to support only one retailer at a time, making it quite an expensive proposition for consumers looking to ease the shopping list creation process. Hiku has dropped its price per device from $79 to $29 (special promotion), making it slightly more palatable, but costly nevertheless. Most, if not all, shoppers shop at more than one store at a time. Hiku’s “exclusivity” clause with retailers could be detrimental to its future growth, making it something the company needs to work on.

Along similar lines, Amazon introduced the Amazon Dash (wand) in 2014, aimed at Amazon Fresh customers in California and Seattle. Like the Hiku device, this wand scans barcodes and is also capable of transcribing voice commands – connecting to smart devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops) via Wi-Fi, and automatically adding items to the customer’s basket on Amazon Fresh. Customers have access to everything from groceries to electronics, household tools, and games via their Amazon Fresh subscription. From VDC’s perspective, Amazon is likely to be more successful with this product than any of its competitors in the marketplace because Amazon.com is a one-stop shop, capable of fulfilling all of a consumer’s shopping requirements – plus, available for free. For now, however, its limited availability (by invitation only) is potentially holding back consumer use.

Amazon also revealed its Dash button 5 months ago, again as an “invitation only” product, but made it available to all its Prime members on September 2nd. This product is designed to help consumers instantly order more of a single product at the press of a button, pushing a confirmation notification on the phone before it ships. The company now has more than 29 CPG brands (including Bounty, Clorox, Hefty, Tide, and Ziploc) and 500 products that can be ordered with the click of a Dash Button.

The at-home scanning market still has a long ways to go, of course, but it is interesting to talk about and follow all these developments. Leading AIDC market participants are eager to learn more about how they can potentially target the end consumer with their products, and this certainly sounds like the right kind of opportunity. Potentially. While there certainly is an OEM scan engine opportunity here, can traditional barcode scanner vendors do more from a (final) product design, development, marketing, and innovation standpoint? Or is the smartphone going to be the primary at-home scanning device for consumers? Would it be more judicious for retailers to integrate voice recognition and enterprise-grade barcode scanning types of capabilities into their consumer device application itself?

VDC will explore this topic while discussing products like the Amazon Dash and Hiku in its Mobile Scanner report scheduled to publish in Q4 2015.

(With Shahroze Husain, Research Associate)

Zebra Technologies – Is the “Better Together” campaign really working?

Zebra Technologies reported its Q2 2015 earnings on August 11th missing analysts’ EPS estimates by $0.13 while beating on revenue. Net sales of $889.8 million for the quarter included $573 million contributed by the Enterprise business unit acquired from Motorola Solutions, a 2% increase from Q2 2014. Zebra’s legacy business (including barcode printers, card printers, consumables, location services) accounted for $320.8 million, down 3.2% from Q1 2015 but up from $288.4 million (11.2%) in Q2 2014. The company’s gross margin now stands at 44.2%, down from 49.3% for 2014; this is reflective of rebranding of legacy Motorola product, the change in product mix and the contribution of Enterprise solutions to the overall revenues, which tend to have a lower margin than legacy Zebra products.

All in all, the investor community is not pleased with the results, sending the stock down almost 24% in a day. From VDC’s perspective, this reflects the market’s reaction to the significantly lower gross margins, lower-than-expected Q3 guidance, and the $3 billion debt that Zebra Technologies has on its hands. Investors are still getting used to the new normal at the company especially given how robust its legacy business performance has been in the past few quarters, especially for what is generally viewed as a stable and relatively saturated market.

The VDC team was invited by Zebra Technologies for a day-long analyst event a few weeks ago to take a sneak peek at some (relatively) new and emerging solution offerings from the company since its acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ Enterprise business unit. VDC was privy to innovative proof-of-concepts and solution capabilities that we are not at liberty to discuss, but there certainly are products and services that we can share here on this blog.

1. MPact Marketing Platform – This is Zebra’s customer engagement offering that leverages the company’s locationing technology to generate highly personalized and (potentially) customer-specific marketing analytics and insight. This platform is designed to enable decision makers in customer-facing application environments to enhance engagement levels using information available on the MPact dashboard, giving them high levels of visibility into customer movement and providing actionable (and customizable) insights. From VDC’s perspective, the biggest potential drawback to this solution is that all of this information is only available IF customers opt-in to receive in-store or indoor notifications AND also turn on Bluetooth on their mobile devices. While this is an effort to close the gap between online and brick-and-mortar retail in terms of promotions and product recommendations, VDC does not see any material enhancements to the platform since its launch more than a year ago.
2. SimulScan Document Capture – This was, perhaps, one of the most interesting product demonstrations at the event. The API is designed to extract critical data from documents, automating data entry even with character recognition, helping organizations make the switch from paper-based tracking to one that is fully available electronically. With the ability to also capture information from multiple barcodes at the same time, VDC believes SimulScan has the potential to significantly enhance productivity, providing chain of custody of all material to improve supply chain efficiencies. Zebra now has SimulScan as part of its Mobility DNA suite which also includes Workforce Connect Push-to-Talk, RhoMobile, and Swipe Assist among others. VDC believes extending this SimulScan capability to purpose-built handheld barcode imagers will give the company a big leg-up over its competition in the highly fragmented scanning market.
3. Zebra One Care and Operational Visibility Service (OVS) – Zebra also officially released a new integrated service portfolio, Zebra OneCare – primarily offering break-fix, repair, and maintenance services for Zebra- and Symbol-branded devices. The portfolio is a combination of Zebra’s previous Zebracare and Motorola Solutions’ Service from the Start. OVS is designed to provide insight into device health, location, and utilization, and to deliver the data and analytics required to optimize device efficiency and is included for no additional charge in the Premier package of Zebra Onecare. This is a big step in Zebra’s efforts to integrate the new acquired division with its legacy business. The company is making a concerted effort to communicate the value proposition and benefits afforded by these new service portfolio extensions and enhancements enabling partners to resell and rebrand the OVS for deeper customer relationships. From VDC’s viewpoint, it will be interesting to see how the company differentiates this offering from Honeywell’s device management software for scanning and mobile devices, Remote MasterMind®.

It was interesting to see all these solutions and innovative product ideas coming from the erstwhile Motorola Solutions Enterprise unit. However, despite the branding efforts and the combined partner program launched at the Global Partner Summit in May, VDC finds the messaging to be a little disjointed. Product innovation and development continue to be largely restricted to the way things were conducted prior to the acquisition. That said, it has been less than a year since the two businesses came together. While Zebra executives may certainly be professing the “better together” mantra, we believe the market will only be convinced once it sees integrated product development and marketing initiatives from the company.

There is, obviously, a lot more to come from Zebra Technologies. The company’s messaging to its partners and customers needs to match up to expectations from a distribution and execution standpoint – a tough ask, especially given the sizable acquisition (and debt) that it has undertaken. Zebra’s (re)branding efforts in the past few months have certainly been very commendable; it is now up to the company’s leadership to take it to the next level with extensive collaboration across its two “divisions” so they really are viewed as better together by key stakeholders.

Cognex Stock Plunges 20% Day After Q2 Earnings Call; Weak Q3 2015 Outlook to Blame for Sharp Decline

On August 3rd, Cognex (CGNX) published its second quarter results ending July 5, 2015 and recorded a historic winning second quarter for the corporation, ranking the second highest for any quarter in its history. The revenue from continued operations amounted to $143.8 million in the past three months, a 56% growth from the year ago quarter and a 42% sequential increase from Q1 2015. Income from continuing operations from last year and the previous quarter rose 92% and 123% respectively. This quarter’s revenue and income calculations excluded sales from the discontinued Surface Inspection System Division (SISD) operations, which generated $11.2 million in revenue in Q2 of 2015. With the strategic sale of its surface inspection business in early July, Cognex plans to sharpen its focus on automating discrete manufacturing applications with the high-margin yielding machine vision and ID product lines. You can read more about our thoughts on the acquisition here. RD&E and SG&A expenses grew 8% from the previous quarter due to new product development costs and legal fees related to Cognex’s recently-resolved patent dispute with Microscan.

Despite global currency exchange rate fluctuations, Cognex’s operational margins rose to 36%, a 14% increase from the prior quarter. Factory automation revenue contributed $137 million or 95% of total quarter two revenue; majority was accounted by the large volume orders from the consumer electronics industry. Cognex has experienced much success in the European market in the past few quarters; this continued in Q2 with Europe’s consumer electronics sector making significant investments in the company’s factory automation solutions (both machine vision as well as ID products). Asia, excluding Japan, witnessed another solid quarter. The company continues to see success in China, despite the economic woes that the country is presently facing. Cognex is doing particularly well in consumer electronics and electronic components manufacturing industries and is fully committed to generating growth in the long-term. However, from VDC’s perspective, it is the company’s performance in and outlook for the Americas that is most disturbing for the broader investor community. The company is now seeing much lower-than-expected growth from the region with customers pulling back on their factory automation-related investments. Reasons for this “stagnation” as outlined by the company include a strong US dollar, macroeconomic uncertainty, and company-specific considerations especially with “large postal and parcel providers getting pushed out for financially-driven reasons”.

In other not-so-good news, contrary to the company’s growth trajectory in the past few quarters, Cognex has set conservative guidance below market expectations for Q3 2015. Revenues are estimated to be between $106 million and $109 million, a range notably trailing both Q3 2014 (and Q2 2015) figures as well as Wall Street analyst expectations for $144 million. The company also expects a slight decline in gross margin percentage to the mid-70s due to a higher percentage of services-related revenues, consistent with its guidance for Q2 2015 as compared to Q1. Operating expenses will decrease 5% sequentially, helped by the Microscan resolution and lower internal employee-related overheads.

Unimpressive revenue growth in the Americas, timing fluctuations of large projects, and the related uncertainty has some investors questioning the long-term growth potential of the company, leading to a sharp decline in its stock price on August 4th, the day after its earnings call. Cognex’s growth in the logistics vertical in Europe, a relatively undeveloped market territory, has also been deferred to 2016 due to timing and financial drivers. Demands for factory automation in non-automotive industries are forecasted to decline in the Americas.

While factory automation investments are typically soft in Q3, it is important for Cognex to not be overly reliant on a few large customers to meet its growth and profitability targets. From VDC’s perspective, it is important for this leading machine vision solutions vendor to diversify its offerings and further expand its presence in non-electronics markets that have a lower tendency to exhibit massive cyclical fluctuations. What Cognex certainly has going for it is its strong competitive positioning and its market leadership in this space from a product development innovation standpoint. The company is actively looking to acquire – with a focus on enhancing its technology expertise and product feature set, which help keep its gross margins high in an industry that is inundated with vision-based options for automation. Interesting times up ahead for Cognex as it grapples with a certain loss in investor confidence but seeks to build it back with its innovation, new market focus (including life sciences), and potential acquisition(s).

(With Jenny Hai, Research Assistant)

Cognex sells its Surface Inspection division for $160 Million; VDC Speculates What’s Next for the Company

Cognex Corporation (CGNX), a leading vendor in the machine vision and industrial scanning markets, announced the acquisition of its Surface Inspection Systems Division (SISD) on June 8, 2015, as part of a $160 million, all-cash deal with AMETEK Inc., a multi-billion dollar manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices. While the transaction continues to be subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals, AMETEK expressed its enthusiasm to have the new SISD department as the latest addition to its Electronic Instrument Group (EIG) product portfolio, a leader in the design and manufacturing of advanced instruments for the process, aerospace, power and industrial markets, which amassed a total of $2.4 billion in sales in 2014. With the strategic sale of its surface inspection business, a division that generated $60 million in sales in 2014, Cognex plans to sharpen its focus on automating discrete manufacturing applications via its Modular Vision Systems Division (includes machine vision and ID products), which accounts for 84% of organizational revenues as of Q1 2015.

Cognex first introduced the SmartView® surface inspection platform in 2000 after the acquisition of Isys Controls, Inc in 1996, a small company that had developed high-performance machine vision systems to automatically detect and classify surface flaws and defects on high value-added materials. Under Cognex, this division now diversifies across verticals with image processing technology that detects, classifies, filters, and maps specific defects on area surface of metals, paper, plastics, nonwovens and glass manufacturing. In addition to the advanced line scan cameras that enable immediate defect detection in high-speed applications, the SmartView® platform also supports global customers with superior detection algorithms, a range of classification and data management software, and technical assistance spread throughout countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, including Japan and China. Asia-Pacific, including Japan, accounted for 40% of SISD revenues in 2014, Americas for 40%, and Europe for 20%. Cognex has installed over 1,000 of its surface inspection systems globally with its customer portfolio including names like AK Steel, USS, Bao Steel, China Steel, TATA, and ArcelorMittal.

Cognex has chosen to sell its surface inspection business despite the 29% sales growth from 2013 to 2014 and record sales levels that this division experienced in Q4 2014, particularly for applications like specialty metal inspection (for Aluminum going into car bodies). VDC believes this can be attributed to the company choosing to exclusively focus on discrete manufacturing and logistics opportunities, coupled with the surface vision division’s relatively lower contribution to overall profitability. SISD gross margin stood at 55% in 2014, which was significantly lower than that of the factory automation division (MVSD) with a 78% gross margin. The complex nature of inspection technology required Cognex to opt for in-house manufacturing at its Hayward, California facility, whereas a majority of MVSD products are outsourced to Asian OEMs (like in Indonesia). This difference in gross margins can also be explained by the high service to product sales ratio in SISD, and the lower yield in margins for service revenues in contrast to product revenues. In 2014, Cognex reported that 30% of SISD revenue was derived from service sales, which included the sale of maintenance & support, training, consulting, and installation. Only 4% of MVSD revenues were from service sales and the remaining 96% were from the higher margin yielding product sales – which include technology systems, hardware, and software.

From VDC’s vantage point, this is a great move by Cognex, which can now focus its attention on existing and emerging opportunities for its machine vision systems and ID products portfolios. The company has experienced much success in the consumer electronics and logistics industries in the past few quarters, a momentum that it can capitalize on going forward by intensifying its product development and sales efforts in these high-growth markets. In its latest earnings call, Cognex outlined the enormous potential it sees with large accounts in these verticals, which the company is very eager to profit from. At the same time, the company will lose out on business in metals in China, which is a particularly appealing market right now because of growth in the automotive sector. That said, revenues from this division have been characteristically lumpy because of timing of deliveries and the impact of revenue deferrals.

Its sale of the surface inspection division will not only make it a more profitable company (higher overall gross margins), but also significantly boosts its cash reserves. Cognex has no long-term debt and, per its most recent annual report, does not anticipate needing debt financing in the near future. This opens up the very distinct possibility of Cognex potentially acquiring another company to achieve one (or more) of the following objectives – boost its engineering talent, grow its logistics customer base, or even build partnerships with leading global material handling systems integrators and solution providers.

(With Jenny Hai, Research Assistant)

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Zebra Technologies’ Stock Pops; Company Soars to New Highs

Zebra Technologies (ZBRA) reported its Q1 2015 earnings on May 13th, beating the market consensus on EPS by 27 cents and that on revenues by $11.37 million. Net sales of $892.3 million for the quarter included the $561 million contributed by the Enterprise business unit acquired from Motorola Solutions, a 6% increase on a constant currency basis. Zebra’s legacy business accounted for $331.6 million, up 15% from Q1 2014, a remarkable increase for what is generally viewed as a stable and relatively saturated market. The company’s gross margin now stands at 45.8%, down from 51.3% for 2014; this is reflective of the change in product mix and the contribution of Enterprise solutions to the overall revenues, which tend to have a lower margin than legacy Zebra products.

Zebra also spent a substantial amount on integration-related activities. The speed with which the company has integrated the two businesses is rather impressive, especially given the size and scale of each of the individual business units. In the past few weeks, Zebra has also launched a new website and hosted its annual partner conference, all with a goal to communicate its new market messaging and value propositions.

Now, here are some key highlights of the company’s first quarter performance:

• The data capture business unit experienced its second strongest quarter ever (following Q4 2013) – with a healthy run rate business and a number of large deals. Its camera-based bioptic scanner product line is doing particularly well, with the value propositions resonating immensely with large retailers in the US.
• North America and EMEA continue to be the strongest regions for Zebra. With sales of $443 million and $291 million in the two regions respectively, the company is re-affirming its market leadership position, especially with its legacy printer products.
• Retail sales were particularly strong in the US as the company saw large deals for printers, mobile computers, and data capture solutions. Healthcare has consistently been a strong performer for Zebra in the past few quarters. The trend continues with growing traction for the company’s solutions to help care providers with medication management, patient identification, and specimen tracking.
• Perhaps the most noteworthy development in Q1 was the company’s price increase announcement in Europe in late March, effective late April (after four weeks). This is a move to counter the impact of the strengthening dollar and weakening Euro on the company’s profitability and bottom line given that the region represents about 25% of overall revenues. Zebra expects high stickiness for its run rate products like printers and data capture solutions.
• Enterprise business unit sales in Asia are in the process of getting back on track after having faltered for much of 2013 due to issues with the sales force and other operational challenges. The company’s efforts to reengage with channel partners in the region and rebuild relationships seem to be paying off with sales in China up sharply for Q1. Overall revenues in the region were at $106 million with sales to customers in logistics and healthcare verticals offset weakness in demand in manufacturing.

The company expects the growth trajectory to continue into the second quarter especially with a strong pipeline for large deals. For Q2, Zebra expects total revenues in the range of $865 to $895 million. The price increase on Euro-dominated sales will start to have a positive effect this quarter and is expected to have a more pronounced impact in the second half of the year.

Following its earnings release, ZBRA’s stock went up more than 12%. This speaks of investor confidence in the company and the efficiency with which Zebra seems to be communicating its “One Zebra” message to its customers and partners. Zebra Technologies’ executive leadership is confident in its market standing and optimistic about market opportunities for the remainder of 2015. At VDC, we will continue to follow its progress and keep our readers updated.

Cognex - Consistently Breaking Records, Exceeding Performance Expectations

Cognex announced its Q1 2015 earnings after market close on Monday, May 4th. The company reported quarterly revenues of $113 million, 84% (approximately $95 million) of which was attributed to its factory automation segment. Cognex reported that this year-over-year revenue increase occurred despite the global currency exchange rate fluctuations, which constituted a negative impact of approximately $7 million. RD&E and SG&A expenses reportedly grew faster than revenues this past quarter due primarily to growth investments including new product development and sales initiatives. Legal fees related to Cognex’s recently-resolved patent dispute with Microscan also contributed to this rise in expenses.

Cognex performed well on a year-over-year basis. Revenues increased by 25% since Q1 2014, which was attributed primarily to a 26% year-over-year increase in factory automation sales. This division also saw a 2% increase from Q4 2014. Sequential increases such as these are not typical of Q1, which is usually Cognex’s weakest quarter. Overall revenue and net income decreased sequentially by 3% and 23%, respectively. Operating expenses increased by 9% since Q4 2014 due to growth investments in both engineering and sales.

CEO Rob Willett reported that Cognex well exceeded its long-term target for factory automation revenue growth in Europe, which was 20%. 38% of revenues this quarter came from Europe, more than any other geographic region including the Americas. Asia, excluding Japan, was Cognex’s best-performing region this quarter in terms of percentage growth; factory automation revenue grew more than 50% year-over-year, which came primarily from increased demand for machine vision from factories in Greater China. Severe pricing pressures, escalating labor costs, and slowing economic growth are all prompting Chinese manufacturers to ramp up their investments in automation solutions to enable them to sustain their competitive edge. The struggling factory automation market in Japan is also dwindling due to the weaker yen; revenue in this region declined in the low teens as compared to Q1 2014.

Cognex reported a 75% gross margin and 21% operating margin, down from the 77% and 25% respectively, in Q1 2014. The decline in gross margin was attributed to volume pricing discounts on large orders and a shift in revenue mix to relatively lower margin maintenance and support services. Operating margins are expected to improve as the year progresses.

On Thursday, April 30th, a New York federal jury decided that Cognex owes Microscan $4.4 million for infringing a barcode patent, a year after a different jury awarded Cognex $2.6 million for Microscan’s alleged infringement of another barcode patent (see here). With this latest dispute, Microscan alleged that Cognex’s DataMan imagers (7500, 8500, and other variants) infringed upon one of Microscan’s existing patents, titled, “Optical symbol scanner with low angle illumination.” The jury found that Cognex infringed on all three asserted patent claims despite Cognex’s assertion that these claims were invalid. Microscan collected royalty damages for past infringement. Cognex spent a total of approximately $1 million this quarter in relation to this lawsuit.

Cognex’s outlook for the remainder of 2015 is positive. The business has generated substantial momentum, generating large orders from consumer electronics manufacturers (like Apple), large retailers, and logistics service providers. From where the company stands today with respect to its sales pipeline, Cognex does expect Q2 and Q3 2015 to be the largest revenue quarters. The company expects a 30% sequential revenue increase in Q2 amounting to $152-157 million. Gross margin is expected to stay in the mid-70% range, only slightly lower than Q1. Operating expenses are expected to increase by approximately 5% sequentially to support further investments in growth areas. However, revenues are projected to grow at a much faster rate than expenses for the full year, which could lead to potential improvement in operating margins for 2015.