iRobot Warns on Full Year Guidance

iRobot issued new financial guidance after the market close yesterday that reflected the financial problems of retailer Linens 'N Things, which apparently owes iRobot $1.8 million and is reported to be near a bankruptcy filing (I warned of this a few weeks back), as well as a weaker retailing environment. iRobot still expects to make money for the full year, but dropped its expectations to $5-7 million from $8-$10 million. That means another year without anything close to a meaningful P/E ratio, but the positive would seem to be that the company is still forecasting significant growth despite a near-recessionary environment.
The company has forecast new revenue guidance of $295 million to $305 million, down from $300 million to $310 million.

Here is the press release:

iRobot Reports First Quarter 2008 Results
Wednesday April 30, 4:30 pm ET
Revenue Up 45 Percent; Cautious About Retail Sector Second Half of 2008

BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ:IRBT - News) today announced its financial results for the fiscal quarter ended March 29, 2008.

“In Q1, we delivered our 15th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth,” said Colin Angle, chief executive officer of iRobot. “We continue to see strong demand for our products in both divisions. Home Robot revenue was up 55 percent with significant increases in international home robot revenue from Q1 2007. Government & Industrial revenue grew 35 percent in the first quarter from the first quarter a year ago. That said, we faced some macro economic challenges during the quarter that impacted our bottom line and changed our outlook for the rest of 2008,” he added.

“Over the past two months, the overall retail environment has deteriorated. Due to the financial condition of one of our key customers, Linens ‘n Things, we did not recognize revenue for $1.8 million of shipments made to them in Q1. As compared to first quarter 2007, this accounted for a 2.3 percentage point decline in gross margin and a $0.05 decrease in earnings per share.

“The financial expectations we shared on February 20th assumed a unit growth rate that we thought was reasonable in a recession, and we have seen sell through performance that meets or exceeds that model. In the current U.S. economic climate, however, we anticipate that it will be difficult for our retail partners to buy as aggressively as they have in the past to fill their shelves with product in the back half of the year. Therefore, we are reiterating our expectations for first half 2008 financial performance and modifying our expectations for full year 2008 financial performance.”

Current expectations for first half and full year 2008 financial performance are as follows:

Current Guidance

First Half

Full Year
Revenue $ 109M - $112M $ 295M - $305M
Pre-Tax Net Income (Loss) ($17M - $19M) $ 5M - $7M
Earnings Per Share (Loss Per Share)
($0.42 - $0.45) $ 0.12 - $0.17


February 20, 2008 Guidance

Revenue $ 109M - $112M $ 300M - $310M
Pre-Tax Net Income (Loss) ($17M - $19M) $ 8M - $10M
Earnings Per Share (Loss Per Share)
($0.42 - $0.45) $ 0.18 - $0.23

Financial Highlights:

* Revenues for the first quarter of 2008 grew to $57.3 million, compared with $39.5 million in the first quarter of 2007.
* Gross profit for the first quarter of 2008 increased to $15.4 million (26.8 percent of sales), compared with $11.1 million (28.2 percent of sales) in the first quarter of 2007.
* Net loss in the first quarter of 2008 was $4.0 million compared with a net loss in the first quarter of 2007 of $5.5 million.

Business Highlights:

* iRobot announced the company reached a funding agreement with the U.S. Army’s Lead Systems Integrator (LSI) of Boeing and Science Applications International Corporation team on the previously determined direction of SUGV acceleration on January 17, 2008 under the Future Combat Systems (FCS) Program. This contract has grown from $23 million in 2003 to its current level of approximately $63 million.
* iRobot announced an expansion of the iRobot Verro™ Pool Cleaning Robot line. Three robots are available for the 2008 pool season, including two new models, the Verro 100 Pool Cleaning Robot at $399 and the Verro 500 Pool Cleaning Robot at $999.
* iRobot announced it received an award under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) LANdroids program to develop a new portable communications relay robot that is small, inexpensive, intelligent and robust. The goal of the DARPA LANdroids program is to develop technologies to enable the warfighter operating in dense urban environments to rapidly deploy and maintain a vital communications infrastructure.

Tags: iRobot, robot