Plantronics, Inc. (NYSE:PLT) Q2 2021 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Poly Q2 2021 Earnings Conference Call.

Welcome to Poly's financial results conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2021. My name is Mike Iburg, Head of Investor Relations. And joining me today are Dave Shull, Poly President and CEO and Chuck Boynton, Executive Vice President and CFO.

The information presented and discussed today includes forward-looking statements which are made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The risks and uncertainties related to such statements are detailed in our most recent 10-Q, 10-K and today's press release and earnings presentation. Throughout today's remarks, we will refer to specific slides from our Q2 FY21 earnings presentation. You should also refer to the materials we provided today for an explanation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call, along with a reconciliation of those measures to the nearest applicable GAAP measures. These non-GAAP measures are indicators that management uses to provide additional meaningful comparisons between current results and previously reported results and as a basis for planning and forecasting future periods. All of our earnings materials are posted on our Investor Relations website at investor.poly.com.

With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dave.

Thanks, Mike. First I want to thank the Poly team for the warm welcome when I joined last month. And particularly, I want to thank Bob Hagerty for his leadership as Interim CEO prior to my joining. Bob and the Board were transparent on both the opportunities and challenges at Poly. I appreciate this clear-eye view to the Company. We are focused on executing a rapid turnaround and I am very optimistic about the future of Poly.

The world has changed for all of us. The shift to work from home continues to drive demand for our headsets while our next-gen video solutions are selling well ahead of expectations. Of course, as a counterbalance demand for office phones remained soft. We have increased our supply chain capacity to ship a record number of headsets and video units during the quarter. This strong demand, coupled with cost management, allowed us to deliver revenue and profitability above the top end of the guidance ranges. Based on the strength of the business, we have begun to put our accumulated cash to work, retiring $37 million of debt in the quarter. This is just the beginning of what I believe will be an exciting turnaround for Poly.

Before accepting the CEO role, I spent time looking at the Company, learning about the products and markets and getting an overview of the competitive landscape. Poly's history of innovation in professional-grade audio and video products stretches back decades. After all we put the first headset on Neil Armstrong as he stepped down to the moon. I also remember while the first time I had an office with a Polycom speakerphone, I felt that I had arrived.

This is now day 50 for me.