0001406666false2020Q312/31P5YP1YP5Yus-gaap:AccruedLiabilitiesCurrentus-gaap:AccruedLiabilitiesCurrentP1YP1YP3YP1YP6MP6MP6M100014066662020-01-012020-09-26xbrli:shares00014066662020-10-15iso4217:USD00014066662020-09-2600014066662019-12-31iso4217:USDxbrli:shares0001406666calx:SystemsProductMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:SystemsProductMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666calx:SystemsProductMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:SystemsProductMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:TechnologyServiceMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:TechnologyServiceMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:TechnologyServiceMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:TechnologyServiceMember2019-01-012019-09-2800014066662020-06-282020-09-2600014066662019-06-302019-09-2800014066662019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2020-06-270001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2020-06-270001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2020-06-270001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2020-06-270001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2020-06-2700014066662020-06-270001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2019-06-290001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2019-06-290001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2019-06-290001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2019-06-290001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2019-06-2900014066662019-06-290001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2019-09-280001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2019-09-280001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2019-09-280001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2019-09-280001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2019-09-2800014066662019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2018-12-310001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2018-12-310001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2018-12-310001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2018-12-310001406666us-gaap:TreasuryStockMember2018-12-3100014066662018-12-310001406666us-gaap:AdditionalPaidInCapitalMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:AccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CashMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CashMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:USGovernmentAgenciesDebtSecuritiesMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:USGovernmentAgenciesDebtSecuritiesMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:MoneyMarketFundsMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:MoneyMarketFundsMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:USGovernmentAgenciesDebtSecuritiesMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:USGovernmentAgenciesDebtSecuritiesMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel1Memberus-gaap:MoneyMarketFundsMemberus-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel1Memberus-gaap:USGovernmentAgenciesDebtSecuritiesMemberus-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel1Memberus-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:FairValueInputsLevel1Memberus-gaap:MoneyMarketFundsMemberus-gaap:FairValueMeasurementsRecurringMember2019-09-280001406666us-gaap:EquipmentMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:EquipmentMember2019-12-310001406666calx:SoftwareMember2020-09-260001406666calx:SoftwareMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:ComputerEquipmentMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:ComputerEquipmentMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:FurnitureAndFixturesMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:FurnitureAndFixturesMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:LeaseholdImprovementsMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:LeaseholdImprovementsMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:ComputerSoftwareIntangibleAssetMember2018-06-300001406666us-gaap:ComputerSoftwareIntangibleAssetMember2018-03-012018-03-310001406666us-gaap:ComputerSoftwareIntangibleAssetMember2019-12-310001406666us-gaap:ComputerSoftwareIntangibleAssetMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:ComputerSoftwareIntangibleAssetMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:CloudImplementationCostsMember2020-01-310001406666calx:CloudImplementationCostsMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:CloudImplementationCostsMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666srt:MinimumMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666srt:MaximumMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:AllPlatformFutureAndWorkFromAnywhereCultureAlignmentMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:RichardsonTexasAndSanJoseCaliforniaMemberus-gaap:FacilityClosingMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:RichardsonTexasAndSanJoseCaliforniaMemberus-gaap:FacilityClosingMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:AllPlatformFutureAndWorkFromAnywhereCultureAlignmentMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:FacilityClosingMember2020-03-280001406666us-gaap:EmployeeSeveranceMember2020-03-2800014066662020-03-280001406666us-gaap:FacilityClosingMember2020-03-292020-09-260001406666us-gaap:EmployeeSeveranceMember2020-03-292020-09-2600014066662020-03-292020-09-260001406666us-gaap:FacilityClosingMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:EmployeeSeveranceMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-01-310001406666us-gaap:LetterOfCreditMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-01-31xbrli:pure0001406666us-gaap:LondonInterbankOfferedRateLIBORMembersrt:MinimumMemberus-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-07-012020-07-010001406666us-gaap:LondonInterbankOfferedRateLIBORMembersrt:MaximumMemberus-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-07-012020-07-010001406666us-gaap:PrimeRateMembersrt:MinimumMemberus-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-07-012020-07-010001406666us-gaap:PrimeRateMembersrt:MaximumMemberus-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-07-012020-07-010001406666us-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-07-010001406666us-gaap:RevolvingCreditFacilityMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:LetterOfCreditMembercalx:BankOfAmericaMember2020-09-260001406666calx:ResearchAndDevelopmentEquipmentMember2018-12-310001406666calx:ResearchAndDevelopmentEquipmentMember2019-01-012019-03-300001406666calx:ResearchAndDevelopmentEquipmentMember2020-09-260001406666calx:ConsultingServicesMember2020-09-260001406666calx:ConsultingServicesMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:SanJoseCaliforniaMember2020-09-260001406666calx:PublicStockOfferingMember2020-08-032020-08-030001406666calx:PublicStockOfferingMember2020-08-030001406666us-gaap:OverAllotmentOptionMember2020-08-032020-08-030001406666us-gaap:CommonStockMember2020-08-132020-08-1300014066662020-08-132020-08-130001406666us-gaap:RetainedEarningsMember2020-08-132020-08-130001406666calx:A2019EquityIncentiveAwardPlanMember2019-05-310001406666calx:A2019EquityIncentiveAwardPlanMember2020-09-260001406666srt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2020PerformanceTargetsMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:ShareBasedCompensationAwardTrancheOneMembersrt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2020PerformanceTargetsMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666srt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2020PerformanceTargetsMemberus-gaap:ShareBasedCompensationAwardTrancheTwoMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666srt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2020PerformanceTargetsMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666srt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2019PerformanceTargetsMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666calx:A2019PerformanceTargetsMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:ShareBasedCompensationAwardTrancheOneMembersrt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2019PerformanceTargetsMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666srt:ExecutiveOfficerMembercalx:PerformanceBasedStockOptionsMembercalx:A2019PerformanceTargetsMemberus-gaap:ShareBasedCompensationAwardTrancheTwoMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:RestrictedStockUnitsRSUMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:RestrictedStockUnitsRSUMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:RestrictedStockUnitsRSUMember2020-09-26calx:Plan0001406666us-gaap:EmployeeStockMember2020-09-260001406666us-gaap:EmployeeStockMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:EmployeeStockMember2019-05-012019-05-310001406666us-gaap:EmployeeStockMember2019-04-300001406666us-gaap:EmployeeStockMember2019-05-310001406666us-gaap:EmployeeStockMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:A2017NonqualifiedEmployeeStockPurchasePlanMember2020-09-260001406666calx:A2017NonqualifiedEmployeeStockPurchasePlanMember2020-01-012020-09-26calx:period0001406666calx:A2017NonqualifiedEmployeeStockPurchasePlanMember2020-05-012020-05-310001406666calx:A2017NonqualifiedEmployeeStockPurchasePlanMember2020-05-310001406666calx:A2017NonqualifiedEmployeeStockPurchasePlanMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:CostOfRevenueProductsMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:CostOfRevenueProductsMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666calx:CostOfRevenueProductsMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:CostOfRevenueProductsMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666calx:CostOfRevenueServicesMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:CostOfRevenueServicesMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666calx:CostOfRevenueServicesMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:CostOfRevenueServicesMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:ResearchAndDevelopmentExpenseMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:ResearchAndDevelopmentExpenseMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:ResearchAndDevelopmentExpenseMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:ResearchAndDevelopmentExpenseMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:SellingAndMarketingExpenseMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:SellingAndMarketingExpenseMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:SellingAndMarketingExpenseMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:SellingAndMarketingExpenseMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:GeneralAndAdministrativeExpenseMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:GeneralAndAdministrativeExpenseMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:GeneralAndAdministrativeExpenseMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:GeneralAndAdministrativeExpenseMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666country:US2020-06-282020-09-260001406666country:US2019-06-302019-09-280001406666country:US2020-01-012020-09-260001406666country:US2019-01-012019-09-280001406666srt:EuropeMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666srt:EuropeMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666srt:EuropeMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666srt:EuropeMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666country:CA2020-06-282020-09-260001406666country:CA2019-06-302019-09-280001406666country:CA2020-01-012020-09-260001406666country:CA2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:MiddleEastMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:MiddleEastMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:MiddleEastMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:MiddleEastMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666calx:CaribbeanMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:CaribbeanMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666calx:CaribbeanMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:CaribbeanMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666calx:OtherCountriesMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666calx:OtherCountriesMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666calx:OtherCountriesMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666calx:OtherCountriesMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666calx:ProductAndServicesMember2020-09-260001406666calx:ProductAndServicesMember2019-12-310001406666calx:ExtendedWarrantyMember2020-09-260001406666calx:ExtendedWarrantyMember2019-12-3100014066662020-10-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMembercalx:LumenTechnologiesIncMemberus-gaap:RevenueFromContractWithCustomerMember2020-06-282020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMembercalx:LumenTechnologiesIncMemberus-gaap:RevenueFromContractWithCustomerMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMembercalx:LumenTechnologiesIncMemberus-gaap:RevenueFromContractWithCustomerMember2019-06-302019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMembercalx:LumenTechnologiesIncMemberus-gaap:RevenueFromContractWithCustomerMember2019-01-012019-09-280001406666us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMembercalx:LumenTechnologiesIncMemberus-gaap:AccountsReceivableMember2020-01-012020-09-260001406666us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMembercalx:LumenTechnologiesIncMemberus-gaap:AccountsReceivableMember2020-01-012020-03-28
PART II. OTHER INFORMATION
ITEM 1. Legal Proceedings
For a description of our material pending legal proceedings, please refer to Note 6 “Commitments and Contingencies – Litigation” of the Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, which is incorporated by reference.
ITEM 1A. Risk Factors
We have identified the following additional risks and uncertainties that may affect our business, financial condition and/or results of operations. The risks described below include any material changes to and supersede the description of the risk factors disclosed in Part I, Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 21, 2020. Investors should carefully consider the risks described below, together with the other information set forth in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, before making any investment decision. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks not currently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also significantly impair our business operations. Our business could be harmed by any of these risks. The trading price of our common stock could decline due to any of these risks, and investors may lose all or part of their investment.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Our business and results of operations may be negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that has severely impacted the global economy.
In late 2019 a novel strain of coronavirus, identified as COVID-19, was reported in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 has since been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization and has severely impacted the global economy, disrupting financial markets, supply chains, customer spending and purchasing patterns and general business operations, and leading to higher than expected unemployment rates. In response, governments have implemented measures to attempt to contain and mitigate the transmission of COVID-19, including shelter in place orders, travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines and shutdown of certain non-essential business activities, all of which have resulted in global business disruptions as well as significant impacts on societal interactions. A number of these restrictions remain in place in whole or in part and have extended longer than previously anticipated by many governments and businesses. Although some countries have re-opened business activities, no vaccine or definitive treatment has been announced and, in some cases, re-openings have led to outbreaks and reinstitution of restrictions. We cannot predict the continued impact of the pandemic and the degree to which our business and results of operations may be affected, particularly given the extended duration of the COVID-19 impacts on the U.S. and other locations in which we operate. There are no assurances that the global economy will recover quickly or at all, or that impacted areas will be able to fully contain COVID-19 to avoid new waves of infections. The COVID-19 pandemic has also presented financial challenges to numerous businesses, which may result in liquidity issues leading to heightened difficulties with collections.
In consideration of the health and safety of our employees, we instituted office closures, travel restrictions and a mandatory work from home policy for substantially all of our employees. Furthermore, as a precaution for the well-being of our employees and customers, we replaced in-person meetings and conferences with virtual meetings and events and we are leveraging technology to host ConneXions, our annual user conference, virtually this fall. Furthermore, we have transitioned our workforce to a work-from-anywhere model, and are reorganizing our physical office requirements and embracing a virtual culture. While these measures help to contain and mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 and the impact on productivity, such measures are disruptive, require transition to new business processes and detract our employees from normal business activities.
The spread of COVID-19 continues to impact our supply chain operations through restrictions and shutdown of business activities, suppliers whom we rely on for sourcing components and materials and third-party partners whom we rely on for manufacturing, warehousing and logistics services. Specifically, the manufacture of our products requires optical-electronic components, chipsets and materials with critical dependencies on manufacturing located primarily in China. Business disruptions due to factory shutdowns and other containment measures in China and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, parts of Southeast Asia and other locations have decreased productivity from these suppliers, resulting in competing demand and longer lead times for components and materials needed for the manufacture of our products. In addition, shortages of fiber optics and other materials may delay planned fiber network buildouts by CSPs, which in turn could delay or lower demand for our products. If these containment measures continue for a prolonged period, we may experience a sustained shortage of components and materials, which may have a material negative impact our ability to supply products to meet customer requirements and could materially adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Similarly, our customers’ purchasing decisions may be impacted by the pandemic, which could in turn impact our sales and results of operations. For example, CSPs may choose not to invest at this time in our new platforms, or delay infrastructure improvements due to the uncertainty in the global economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted global markets in unprecedented ways, leading to significant unemployment rates, limited visibility into supply chain performance and increasing uncertainty over fears of a global recession.
Adverse global economic conditions, geopolitical issues and other conditions that impact our increasingly global operations, including uncertainty around global trade policies and outbreaks of pandemic diseases, could have a negative effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition and liquidity.
As a global company, our performance is affected by global economic conditions as well as geopolitical issues and other conditions with global reach. In recent years concerns about the global economic outlook have adversely affected market and business conditions in general. Macroeconomic weakness and uncertainty also make it more difficult for us to accurately forecast revenue, gross margin and expenses, which has been the case with the COVID-19 pandemic. Geopolitical issues, such as ongoing and escalating conflicts between the United States and China related to tariffs, trade policy changes, other international trade policy changes and the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, as well as political positioning by each country, have resulted in increasing global tensions and create uncertainty for global commerce. In particular, we incurred substantial costs and diversion of resources in realigning our supply chain operations to move substantially all of our product manufacturing to locations outside of China as a result of these tariff and trade policy changes. The uncertainty over the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in government-imposed travel restrictions across a number of countries and closures of numerous business operations globally, continues to disrupt and delay our and our global supply chain operations. Sustained uncertainty about, or worsening of, global economic conditions, geopolitical issues and other conditions with global impact may increase our cost of doing business or disrupt our supply chain operations and may cause our customers to reduce or delay spending and could intensify pricing pressures. Any or all of these factors could negatively affect demand for our products and our business, financial condition and result of operations.
We have a history of losses, and we may not be able to generate positive operating income and positive cash flows in the future.
We have experienced net losses in each year of our existence. We incurred net losses of $17.7 million in 2019, $19.3 million in 2018 and $83.0 million in 2017. For the first nine months of 2020, we had a net income of $9.4 million. As of September 26, 2020, we had an accumulated deficit of $693.2 million.
We expect to continue to incur significant expenses and cash outlays for research and development associated with our platforms and systems, including our cloud and services operations, investments in innovative technologies, expansion of our product portfolio, sales and marketing, customer success, technical support and general and administrative functions as we expand our business and operations and target new customer opportunities, including a broader range of CSPs and cable MSOs as well as additional types of regional and local providers. Given our anticipated growth and the intense competitive pressures we face, we may be unable to adequately control our operating costs or maintain positive operating income.
We cannot guarantee that we will achieve sustained profitability. We will have to generate and sustain significant and consistent increased revenue, while continuing to control our expenses, to maintain profitability. We may also incur significant losses in the future for a number of reasons, including the risks discussed in this “Risk Factors” section and other factors that we cannot anticipate. If we are unable to generate positive operating income and positive cash flows from operations, our liquidity, results of operations and financial condition will be adversely affected. If we are unable to generate cash flows to support our operational needs, we may need to seek other sources of liquidity, including additional borrowings, to support our working capital needs. In addition, we may choose to seek other sources of liquidity even if we believe we have generated sufficient cash flows to support our operational needs. There is no assurance that any other sources of liquidity may be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we are unable to generate sufficient cash flows or obtain other sources of liquidity, we will be forced to limit our development activities, reduce our investment in growth initiatives and institute cost-cutting measures, all of which would adversely impact our business and growth.
Our quarterly and annual operating results may fluctuate significantly, which may make it difficult to predict our future performance and could cause the market price of our stock to decline.
A number of factors, many of which are outside of our control, may cause or contribute to significant fluctuations in our quarterly and annual operating results. These fluctuations may make financial planning and forecasting difficult. Comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful, and you should not rely on our past results as an indication of our future performance. If our revenue or operating results fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts, or below any guidance we may provide to the market, the market price of our stock would likely decline.
In addition to the other risk factors listed in this “Risk Factors” section, factors that have in the past and may continue to contribute to the variability of our operating results include:
•our ability to predict our revenue and reduce and control our costs;
•our ability to predict product functions and features desired by our customers;
•the impact of global economic conditions, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic;
•our ability to effectively manage our global supply chain operations to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. tariffs and other trade policies;
•our ability to manage our relationships with our third-party vendors, including CMs, ODMs, logistics providers, component suppliers and development partners;
•our ability to forecast our manufacturing and product supply requirements and manage our inventory;
•our dependence on sole-, single- and limited-source suppliers and supply chain partners, including suppliers with significant dependencies on suppliers located in China where there are a number of factors that could negatively impact our supply chain;
•the capital spending patterns of CSPs and any decrease or delay in capital spending by CSPs due to macro-economic conditions, regulatory uncertainties or other reasons;
•the impact of government-sponsored programs on our customers and the impact to our customers of U.S. federal government disruptions, such as government shutdowns, on such programs;
•intense competition, including market entrants whose products may be substitutes to ours;
•our ability to develop new products or enhancements that support technological advances and meet changing CSP requirements;
•our ability to ramp sales and achieve market acceptance of our new products and platforms and CSPs’ willingness to adopt and deploy our new products and platforms;
•the concentration of our customer base as well as our dependence on a limited number of key customers;
•the length and unpredictability of our sales cycles and timing of orders;
•our lack of long-term, committed-volume purchase contracts with our customers;
•our ability to increase our sales and market acceptance of our products and platforms globally and to increase our customer base;
•our exposure to the credit risks of our customers;
•fluctuations in our gross margin;
•the interoperability of our products with CSP networks;
•our products’ compliance with industry standards and regulatory requirements that apply to our products and services;
•our ability to expand our international operations;
•our ability to protect our intellectual property and the cost of doing so;
•the quality of our products, including any undetected hardware defects or bugs in our software;
•our ability to manage data security risks as we grow our cloud and software portfolio;
•our ability to estimate future warranty and service obligations;
•our ability to obtain necessary third-party technology licenses at reasonable costs;
•the regulatory and physical impacts of climate change and other natural events;
•the attraction and retention of qualified employees and key management personnel; and
•our ability to maintain proper and effective internal controls.
Our gross margin may fluctuate over time, and our current level of gross margin may not be sustainable.
Our current level of gross margin may not be sustainable and may be adversely affected by numerous factors, including:
•changes in customer, geographic or product mix, including the mix of configurations within each product group;
•the pursuit or addition of new large customers;
•increased price competition, including the impact of customer discounts and rebates;
•our ability to effectively manage our global supply chain operations to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs, continued disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, trade disagreements and tension between the U.S. and China;
•our ability to reduce and control product costs;
•our ability to ramp and grow revenue from software licenses and cloud services;
•changes in component pricing;
•changes in pricing and commercial terms with our third-party manufacturing partners;
•charges incurred due to inventory holding periods if parts ordering does not correctly anticipate product demand;
•introduction of new products and new technologies, which may involve higher component costs;
•our ability to scale our services business in order to gain desired efficiencies;
•changes in shipment volume;
•changes in or increased reliance on distribution channels;
•potential liabilities associated with increased reliance on third-party vendors;
•increased expansion efforts into new or emerging markets;
•increased warranty and maintenance and support costs;
•excess and obsolete inventory and inventory holding charges;
•expediting costs incurred to meet customer delivery requirements; and
•potential costs associated with contractual obligations.
Our customer base is concentrated, and there are a limited number of potential customers for our products. The loss of any of our key customers, a decrease in purchases by our key customers, pricing pressures or our inability to grow our customer base would adversely impact our revenue and results of operations and any delays in payment by a key customer could negatively impact our cash flows and working capital.
Historically, a large portion of our sales has been to a limited number of customers. For example, Lumen accounted for 15% of total revenue in 2019, 18% of total revenue in 2018 and 31% of total revenue in 2017. However, we cannot anticipate the same level of purchases in the future by these or other customers who have historically comprised a larger percentage of our revenue. Although these customers now comprise a smaller percentage of our revenue, we expect that changes in the CSP market, such as financial difficulties, spending cuts or corporate consolidations that impact purchasing decisions by these customers may continue to adversely impact our revenue, and as a result, revenue from such customers may remain flat or continue to decline. For example, Lumen completed a large acquisition at the end of 2017, which disrupted its historical levels of purchases with us and we have continued to experience significantly reduced levels of purchases by Lumen compared to historical levels and in recent months reorganized and rebranded its business as Lumen. There is no assurance that purchasing levels by Lumen will increase from current levels or return to historical levels, and we expect continued uncertainty as it continues to complete its transition activities and corporate strategies. We have experienced and expect to continue to experience delays or declines in purchases by certain CSPs due to deterioration and weakness in their financial condition. For example, Windstream, another one of our larger customers, recently completed a financial restructuring and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy after filing a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in February 2019 after it was found in default of certain debt instruments. In April 2020, another customer, Frontier, filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in order to facilitate a financial restructuring plan, which was recently confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Frontier expects to complete its restructuring and emerge from Chapter 11 following the completion of the regulatory process. Any decrease or delay in purchases and/or capital expenditure plans of any of our key customers, particularly if prolonged or sustained, or our inability to grow our sales with existing customers, may have a material negative impact on our revenue and results of operations.
We anticipate that a large portion of our revenue will continue to depend on sales to a limited number of customers. In addition, some larger customers may demand discounts and rebates or desire to purchase their access systems and software from multiple providers. As a result of these factors, our future revenue opportunities may be limited, and we may face pricing pressures, which in turn could adversely impact our margins and our profitability. The loss of, reduction in or pricing discounts associated
with, orders from any key customer would significantly reduce our revenue and harm our business. Furthermore, delays in payment and/or extended payment terms from any of our key or larger customers could have a material negative impact on our cash flows and working capital to support our business operations.
Furthermore, over the years the CSP market has undergone substantial consolidation. Industry consolidation generally has negative implications for equipment suppliers, including a reduction in the number of potential customers, a decrease in aggregate capital spending and greater pricing leverage on the part of CSPs over equipment suppliers. Continued consolidation of the CSP industry and among independent local exchange carriers and IOC customers, who represent a large part of our business, could make it more difficult for us to grow our customer base, increase sales of our products and maintain adequate gross margin.
Our new products and platform offerings are early in their life cycles and subject to uncertain market demand. If our customers are unwilling to adopt our platforms, install our new products or deploy our new services, or we are unable to achieve market acceptance of our new products and platforms, our business and financial results will be harmed.
Our new products and platform offerings are early in their life cycles and subject to uncertain market demand. They also may face obstacles in development, manufacturing, deployment and competitive response. Adoption of our new products, such as our smart home and business systems, is dependent on the success of our customers in investing, deploying and selling broader services—including ancillary services—to their subscribers, and our ability to differentiate our products from competing or substitutive product and service offerings. Our products support a variety of advanced broadband services, such as high-speed Internet, managed Wi-Fi, connected home, IPTV, mobile broadband, high-definition video and online gaming. If we are unable to ramp sales of our new products, or if subscriber demand for our services does not grow as expected or declines, or our customers are unable or unwilling to invest in our platforms to deploy and market these services, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for our products may decrease or fail to grow at rates we anticipate.
If we fail to manage our supply chain effectively, or if the federal government increases the imposition of tariffs to goods imported from countries where we do business, our ability to conduct our business will be materially impaired, which would adversely impact our gross margins and results of operations.
Up until 2018, substantially all of our products were manufactured in China. In the first half of 2019, we completed activities to realign our supply chain operations to move substantially all of our product manufacturing to locations outside of China. The transition of global supply chain operations is complex, requires significant resources and unanticipated costs, involves significant third-party dependencies and carries numerous risks of disruptions to the manufacture and supply of our products, including exacerbation of the risks associated with our reliance upon third-party manufacturing and supply partners. In particular, in the first quarter of 2019, we experienced product shortages due to production delays associated with the transition of our global supply chain operations that impaired our ability to fulfill customer orders and resulted in revenue below our plan. The manufacture of our products requires components and materials sourced from suppliers in China, including optical-electronic components and materials manufactured in China. We continue to face increasing competition for components and resources from third-party manufacturing and supply partners as more companies seek to transition manufacturing operations out of China due to the ongoing uncertainty of the escalating tariff wars. We may experience further disruptions, product unavailability, delays or unanticipated costs associated with the supply of our products, particularly in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, which would adversely affect the demand for our products and have a material adverse effect on our business, gross margins and results of operations if we are unable to manage our supply chain effectively, secure our desired rates for the manufacture and supply of our products with new supply chain partners or if the federal government increases the imposition of tariffs or other restrictions to goods imported from additional countries where we produce some of our products.
We depend on sole-source, single-source and limited-source suppliers for some key components. If we and our business partners are unable to source these components on a timely or cost-effective basis, we will not be able to deliver our products to our customers.
We depend on sole-source, single-source and limited-source suppliers for some key components of our products. For example, certain of our application-specific integrated circuit processors and resistor networks are purchased from sole-source suppliers, including certain components sourced solely through suppliers located in China.
Any of the sole-source, single-source and limited-source suppliers upon whom we or our business partners rely could stop producing our components, be subject to tariffs, epidemics or other conditions that disrupt their operations, cease operations or enter into exclusive arrangements with our competitors. For example, we are encountering disruptions in our supply of certain components that are sourced from suppliers in China, Southeast Asia, Mexico and countries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which have resulted in production delays for our products due to production disruptions and longer lead times for such components, and from continued uncertainty around trade and tariff policies between the U.S. and China. Disruptions of manufacturing activities in China and elsewhere, particularly if prolonged, may adversely affect our ability to obtain components and materials needed to manufacture our products at acceptable prices or at all, which would in turn harm our
business and results of operations. We may also experience shortages or delay of critical components as a result of growing demand in the industry or other sectors. For example, growth in electronic and IoT devices, wireless products, automotive electronics and artificial intelligence all drive increased demand for certain components, such as chipsets and memory products, which may result in lower availability and increased prices for such components. The cost of components may also be impacted by regulatory requirements.
In addition, purchase volumes of such components may be too low for Calix to be considered a priority customer by these suppliers, and we may not be able to negotiate commercially reasonable terms for our business needs. As a result, these suppliers could stop selling to us and our business partners at commercially reasonable prices, or at all. Any such interruption or delay may force us and our business partners to seek similar components from alternative sources, which may not be available, or result in higher than anticipated prices for such components. Switching suppliers could also require that we redesign our products to accommodate new components and could require us to re-qualify our products with our customers, which would be costly and time consuming. Any interruption in the supply of sole-source, single-source or limited-source components for our products would adversely affect our ability to meet scheduled product deliveries to our customers, could result in lost revenue or higher expenses and would harm our business.
We do not have manufacturing capabilities, and therefore we depend solely upon a small number of third-party manufacturing partners to manufacture and supply our products. Consequently, our operations are highly dependent upon our third-party manufacturing partners and our business could be disrupted if we encounter problems with any of these partners.
We do not have internal manufacturing capabilities and rely upon a small number of third-party design and manufacturing partners such as CMs and ODMs to supply our hardware products to meet customer needs. Our reliance on a small number of manufacturing partners makes us vulnerable to possible supply and capacity constraints and reduced direct control over component availability, delivery schedules, quality, manufacturing yields and costs. Our business operations and ability to supply our products are highly dependent upon our manufacturing partners, and if these manufacturing disruptions and constraints are prolonged, or if these manufacturing partners do not have adequate capabilities or business continuity plans to fulfill their obligations to us and our customers, our business could be disrupted.
In some cases, we do not have supply contracts with our manufacturing partners and these manufacturers are not contractually obligated to supply products to us for any specific period, in any specific quantity or at any certain price. In addition, we are dependent upon our manufacturing partners’ quality systems and controls and the adherence of such systems and controls to applicable standards. If our manufacturing partners fail to maintain levels of quality manufacture suitable for us or our customers, we may incur higher costs and our relationships with our customers may be harmed.
The revenue that our manufacturing partners generate from our orders represent a relatively small percentage of their overall revenue. As a result, fulfilling our orders may not be considered a priority if such manufacturers are constrained in their ability to fulfill all of their customer obligations in a timely manner. In addition, a substantial part of our manufacturing is done in our manufacturers’ facilities that are located outside of the United States. We believe that the location of these facilities outside of the United States increases supply risk, including the risk of supply interruptions or reductions in manufacturing quality or controls. Moreover, regulatory changes or government actions relating to export or import regulations, economic sanctions or related legislation, or the possibility of such changes or actions, may create uncertainty or result in changes to or disruption in our operations with our manufacturers.
If any of our manufacturing partners were unable or unwilling to continue manufacturing our products in required volumes and at high quality levels, we would have to identify, qualify and select acceptable alternative manufacturers which could disrupt our ability to maintain continuous supply of product to meet customer requirements. An alternative manufacturer may not be available to us when needed or may not be in a position to satisfy our production requirements at commercially reasonable prices and quality. Any significant interruption in manufacturing, including labor shortages or competition for components, would require us to reduce our supply of products to our customers, which in turn would reduce our revenue and harm our relationships with our customers.
We utilize domestic and international third-party vendors to assist in the design, development and manufacture of certain of our products, and to provide logistics services in the distribution of our products. If these vendors fail to provide these services, we could incur additional costs and delays or lose revenue.
From time to time we enter into agreements for the design, development and/or manufacture of certain of our products in order to enable us to offer products on an accelerated basis. We also rely upon limited third-party vendors for logistics services to distribute our products. If any of these third-party vendors stop providing their services, for any reason, we would have to obtain similar services from alternative sources, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. We also have limited control over disruptions that may occur at the facilities of these third-party partners, such as supply interruptions, labor shortages, strikes, design and manufacturing failures, quality control issues, systems failures or even facility
closures arising from the COVID-19 pandemic that may interrupt transportation and logistics services. In addition, switching development firms or manufacturers could require us to extend our development timeline and/or re-qualify our products with our customers, which would also be costly and time-consuming.
Any interruption in the development, supply or distribution of our products would adversely affect our ability to meet scheduled product deliveries to our customers, or exacerbate delays in customer order fulfillment that have already resulted from recent product unavailability related to the supply chain transition efforts described above, and could result in lost revenue or higher costs, which would negatively impact our margins and operating results and harm our business.
If we fail to forecast our manufacturing requirements accurately or fail to properly manage our inventory with our third-party manufacturers, we could incur additional costs, experience manufacturing delays and lose revenue.
We bear inventory risk under our third-party manufacturing arrangements. Lead times for the materials and components that we order through our manufacturers vary significantly and depend on numerous factors, including the specific supplier and market demand for a component at a given time. Lead times for certain key materials and components incorporated into our products are currently lengthy and further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring our manufacturers to order materials and components several months in advance of manufacture, which impacts the lead time for our products.
If we overestimate our production requirements, our manufacturers may purchase excess components and build excess inventory, and we could be required to pay for these excess parts or products and their storage costs. We have in the past had to reimburse our primary CM for certain inventory purchases that have been rendered excess or obsolete. Examples of when inventory may be rendered excess or obsolete include manufacturing and engineering change orders resulting from design changes or in cases where inventory levels greatly exceed projected demand. If we incur payments to our manufacturers associated with excess or obsolete inventory, this may have an adverse effect on our gross margins, financial condition and results of operations.
We have experienced unanticipated increases in demand from customers, including from higher consumer demand for internet services due to COVID-19, which in turn has resulted in delayed shipments and variable shipping patterns. If we underestimate our product requirements, our manufacturers may have inadequate component inventory, which could interrupt manufacturing of our products, increase our cost of product revenue associated with expedite fees and air freight and/or result in delays or cancellation of sales. If we are unable to deliver products in a timely fashion to our customers, we may lose customer goodwill or our customers may choose to purchase from other vendors, all of which may have a material negative impact on our revenue and operating results.
Furthermore, while we have largely transitioned our global supply chain operations to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs imposed on goods imported from China, we have experienced and may continue to experience production interruptions from our manufacturers, particularly in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Our business is dependent on the capital spending patterns of CSPs, and any decrease or delay in capital spending by CSPs in response to economic conditions, seasonality, uncertainties associated with the implementation of regulatory reform or otherwise would reduce our revenue and harm our business.
Demand for our products depends on the magnitude and timing of capital spending by CSPs as they construct, expand, upgrade and maintain their access networks, as well as CSPs’ adoption of our platforms and cloud-based services. Current disruptions to the global economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic and any future economic downturns or economic uncertainty may cause a slowdown in telecommunications industry spending or adoption of new technologies or services, including in the specific geographies and markets in which we operate. In response to reduced consumer spending, challenging capital markets or declining liquidity trends, capital spending for network infrastructure projects of CSPs could be delayed or canceled. In addition, capital spending is cyclical in our industry, sporadic among individual CSPs and can change on short notice. As a result, we may not have visibility into changes in spending behavior until nearly the end of a given quarter.
CSP spending on network construction, maintenance, expansion and upgrades is also affected by reductions in their budgets, delays in their purchasing cycles, access to external capital (such as government grants and loan programs or the capital markets), limited windows of availability to government funding (such as limitations in funding under the CARES Act) and seasonality and delays in capital allocation decisions. For example, our CSP customers tend to spend less in the first quarter as they are still finalizing their annual budgets and in certain regions customers are also challenged by winter weather conditions that inhibit outside fiber deployment, resulting in weaker demand for our products in the first quarter of our fiscal year. Also, softness in demand across any of our customer markets, including due to macro-economic conditions beyond our control or uncertainties associated with the implementation of regulatory reform, has in the past and could in the future lead to unexpected slowdown in capital expenditures by service providers.
Many factors affecting our results of operations are beyond our control, particularly in the case of large CSP orders and network infrastructure deployments involving multiple vendors and technologies where the achievement of certain thresholds for
acceptance is subject to the readiness and performance of the CSP or other providers and changes in CSP requirements or installation plans. Further, CSPs may not pursue investment for our new platforms or infrastructure upgrades that require our access systems and software. Infrastructure improvements may be delayed or prevented by a variety of factors including cost, regulatory obstacles (including uncertainties associated with the implementation of regulatory reforms), mergers, lack of consumer demand for advanced communications services and alternative approaches to service delivery. Reductions in capital expenditures by CSPs, particularly CSPs that are significant customers, may have a material negative impact on our revenue and results of operations and slow our rate of revenue growth. As a consequence, our results for a particular period may be difficult to predict, and our prior results are not necessarily indicative of results in future periods.
Our markets are rapidly changing, which makes it difficult to predict our future revenue and plan our expenses appropriately.
We compete in markets characterized by rapid technological change, changing needs of CSPs, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and services. We invest significant amounts to pursue innovative technologies that we believe will be adopted by CSPs. For example, we have invested and continue to invest resources and funds in our cloud and software platforms. In addition, on an ongoing basis we expect to reposition our product and service offerings and introduce new products and services as we encounter rapidly changing CSP requirements and increasing competitive pressures. If we cannot increase sales of our new products and services, keep pace with rapid technological developments to meet our customers’ needs and compete with evolving industry standards or if the technologies we choose to invest in fail to meet customer needs or are not adopted by customers in the timeframes that we expect, it would be difficult to forecast our future revenue and plan our operating expenses.
Government-sponsored programs and U.S. federal government shutdowns could impact the timing and buying patterns of CSPs, which may cause fluctuations in our operating results.
We sell to CSPs, which include U.S.-based IOCs, which have revenue that is particularly dependent upon interstate and intrastate access charges and federal and state subsidies. The FCC and some states may consider changes to such payments and subsidies, and these changes could reduce IOC revenue. Furthermore, many IOCs use or expect to use government-supported loan programs or grants, such as Rural Utility Service loans and grants, to finance capital spending. These government-supported loan programs and grants generally include conditions such as deployment criteria, domestic preference provisions and other requirements that apply to the project and selected equipment as conditions for funding. Changes to the terms or administration of these programs, including uncertainty from government and administrative change, potential funding limitations that impact our ability to meet program requirements or funding delays due to U.S. federal government shutdowns could reduce the ability of IOCs to access capital or secure funding under government-funded programs to purchase our products and services and thus reduce our revenue opportunities.
Many of our customers were awarded grants or loans under government stimulus programs or funds distributed, such as funds under the FCC’s CAF program or CARES Act, and have purchased and will continue to purchase products from us or other suppliers while such programs and funding are available. However, customers may substantially curtail purchases as funding winds down or as planned purchases are completed.
In addition to the impact of U.S. federal government shutdowns, any changes in government regulations and subsidies could also cause our customers to change their purchasing decisions, which could have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition. For example, the federal government has announced the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF, as an extension to the CAF program with a funding process that differs from some earlier CAF programs.
We face intense competition that could reduce our revenue and adversely affect our financial results.
The market for our products is highly competitive, and we expect competition from both established and new companies to increase. Our competitors include companies such as ADTRAN, Inc.; Amazon.com, Inc.; Casa Systems; Ciena Corporation; Cisco Systems Inc.; CommScope Inc.; DASAN Zhone Solutions, Inc.; Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.; Juniper Networks, Inc.; Nokia Corporation; Plume Design, Inc. and ZTE Corporation, among others.
Our ability to compete successfully depends on a number of factors, including:
•the successful development of new products;
•our ability to anticipate CSP and market requirements and changes in technology and industry standards;
•our ability to differentiate our products from our competitors’ offerings based on performance, cost-effectiveness or other factors;
•our ability to meet increased customer demand for services and support for their network requirements;
•our ability to gain customer acceptance of our products; and
•our ability to market and sell our products.
The broadband access equipment market has undergone and continues to undergo consolidation, as participants have merged, made acquisitions or entered into partnerships or other strategic relationships with one another to offer more comprehensive solutions than they individually had offered. Examples include Arris Group’s acquisition of Pace plc in January 2016; Nokia’s acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in January 2016; the merger of DASAN Zhone Solutions with DASAN Network Solutions in September 2016; and CommScope’s acquisition of Arris in April 2019. We expect this trend to continue as companies attempt to strengthen or maintain their market positions in an evolving industry.
Many of our current or potential competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition, larger customer bases and significantly greater financial, technical, sales, marketing and other resources than we do and are better positioned to acquire and offer complementary products and services. Many of our competitors have broader product lines and can offer bundled solutions, which may appeal to certain customers. Our competitors may also invest additional resources in developing more compelling product offerings. Potential customers may also prefer to purchase from their existing suppliers rather than a new supplier, regardless of product performance or features, because the products that we and our competitors offer require a substantial investment of time and funds to qualify and install. Moreover, the recent demand on network capacity as a result of shelter-in-place restrictions and shift towards remote workforces may attract new market entrants with competitive or substitutive products, which may lead to increased sales cycles, cause pricing pressure and impact CSP adoption of our platforms due to the availability of broader product offerings in the home networking market.
Some of our competitors may offer substantial discounts or rebates to win new customers or to retain existing customers. If we are forced to reduce prices in order to secure customers, we may be unable to sustain gross margin at desired levels or achieve profitability. Competitive pressures could result in increased pricing pressure, reduced profit margin, increased sales and marketing expenses and failure to increase, or the loss of, market share, any of which could reduce our revenue and adversely affect our financial results.
Product development is costly, and if we fail to develop new products or enhancements that meet changing CSP requirements, we could experience lower sales.
Our industry is characterized by rapid technological advances, frequent new product introductions, evolving industry standards and unanticipated changes in subscriber requirements. Our future success will depend significantly on our ability to anticipate and adapt to such changes, and to offer, on a timely and cost-effective basis, products and features that meet changing CSP demands and industry standards. We intend to continue to invest in developing new products and enhancing the functionality of our platforms, including to reach a broader set of customers. Developing our products is expensive and complex and involves uncertainties, including pricing risks from sourcing sufficient quantities of custom components from limited suppliers on terms which may not be commercially acceptable for us. We may not have sufficient resources to successfully manage lengthy product development cycles. Our research and development expenses were $62.0 million, or 17% of our revenue, for the first nine months of 2020, $81.2 million, or 19% of total revenue, in 2019, $90.0 million, or 20% of total revenue, in 2018 and $127.5 million, or 25% of total revenue, in 2017. We believe that we must continue to dedicate a significant amount of resources to our research and development efforts, including increased reliance on third-party partners to maintain our competitive position. As we continue to invest in third-party partners to develop additional features to our product and service platforms, we may experience increased challenges in design, integration and support of such third-party features in our product and service offerings. These investments may take several years to generate positive returns, if ever. Furthermore, certain of our engineering services arrangements impose future payment obligations, in the form of minimum revenue-share payments on the sale of the developed products, that are set based on our expectations of future customer demand associated with the developed products, and require us to make minimum payments whether or not we achieve the desired customer demand. If our forecasts for the developed products fall short of expectations, we may have an asset impairment related to said products, which could adversely affect our financial results. In addition, we may experience design, manufacturing, software development quality, support, marketing and other difficulties that could delay or prevent the development, introduction or marketing of new products and enhancements. If we fail to meet our development targets, demand for our products will decline.
In addition, the introduction of new or enhanced products also requires that we manage the transition from older products to these new or enhanced products in order to minimize disruption in customer ordering patterns, fulfill ongoing customer commitments and ensure that adequate supplies of new products are available for delivery to meet anticipated customer demand. If we fail to maintain compatibility with other software or equipment found in our customers’ existing and planned networks, or if our products cannot be effectively deployed in our customer networks to provide desired services, we may face substantially reduced demand for our products, which would reduce our revenue opportunities and market share. Moreover, as customers complete infrastructure deployments, they may require greater levels of service and support than we have provided in the past. We may not be able to provide products, services and support to compete effectively for these market opportunities. If we are unable to anticipate and develop new products or enhancements to our existing products on a timely and cost-effective
basis, our products may become technologically obsolete more rapidly than anticipated over time, resulting in lower sales which would harm our business.
Our sales cycles can be long and unpredictable, and our sales efforts require considerable time and expense. As a result, our sales are difficult to predict and may vary substantially from quarter to quarter, which may cause our operating results to fluctuate significantly.
The timing of our revenue is difficult to predict. Our sales efforts often involve educating CSPs about the use and benefits of our products, platforms and services. CSPs typically undertake a significant evaluation process, which frequently involves not only our products, platforms and services, but also those of our competitors and results in a lengthy sales cycle. Sales cycles for larger customers are relatively longer and require considerably more time and expense. We spend substantial time, effort and money in our sales efforts without any assurance that our efforts will produce sales. In addition, product purchases are frequently subject to budget constraints, multiple approvals and unplanned administrative, processing and other delays. The timing of revenue related to sales of products and services that have installation requirements may be difficult to predict due to interdependencies that may be beyond our control, such as CSP testing and turn-up protocols or other vendors’ products, services or installations of equipment upon which our products and services rely. Such delays may result in fluctuations in our quarterly revenue. If sales expected from a specific customer for a particular quarter are not realized in that quarter or at all, we may not achieve our revenue forecasts and our financial results would be adversely affected.
Our focus on CSPs with relatively small networks limits our revenue from sales to any one customer and makes our future operating results difficult to predict.
A large portion of our sales efforts continue to be focused on CSPs with relatively small networks, cable MSOs and selected international CSPs. A portion of our current and potential customers generally operate small networks with limited capital expenditure budgets. Accordingly, we believe the potential revenue from the sale of our products to any one of these customers is limited. As a result, we must identify and sell products to new customers each quarter to continue to increase our sales. In addition, the spending patterns of many of these customers are generally less formal and often characterized by small and sporadic purchases, which may make our future operating results difficult to predict.
We do not have long-term, committed-volume purchase contracts with our customers, and therefore have no guarantee of future revenue from any customer.
We typically have not entered into long-term, committed-volume purchase contracts with our customers, including our key customers which account for a material portion of our revenue. As a result, any of our customers may cease to purchase our products at any time. In addition, our customers may attempt to renegotiate terms of sale, including price and quantity. If any of our key customers stop purchasing our access platforms, systems and software for any reason, our business and results of operations would be harmed.
Our efforts to increase our sales to CSPs globally, including cable MSOs, may be unsuccessful.
Our sales and marketing efforts have been focused on CSPs in North America. Part of our long-term strategy is to increase sales to CSPs globally, including cable MSOs. We have devoted and continue to devote substantial technical, marketing and sales resources to these larger CSPs, who have lengthy equipment qualification and sales cycles, without any assurance of generating sales. In particular, sales to these larger CSPs may require us to upgrade our products to meet more stringent performance criteria and interoperability requirements, develop new customer-specific features or adapt our products to meet international standards. Implementing these requirements and features is costly and could negatively impact our operating results, financial condition and cash flows. Moreover, if we are unable to obtain materials at favorable costs, our margins and profitability could be adversely impacted. For example, we work with large CSPs in testing and laboratory trials for our NG-PON2 technology and cable MSO applications. We have invested and expect to continue to invest considerable time, effort and expenditures, including investment in product research and development, related to these opportunities without any assurance that our efforts will produce orders or revenue. If we are unable to successfully increase our sales to larger CSPs, our operating results, financial condition, cash flows and long-term growth may be negatively impacted.
Increasing data privacy regulations could impact our business and expose us to increased liability.
Government and regulatory authorities in the United States and around the world have implemented and are continuing to implement broader and more stringent laws and regulations concerning data protection. The interpretation and application of these data protection laws and regulations are often uncertain and in flux, and it is possible that they may be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our data practices. For example, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, adopted by the European Parliament became effective in May 2018 to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe. Among other requirements, the GDPR imposes specific duties and requirements upon companies that collect, process or control personal data of European Union residents. Although we currently do not have material operations or business in the European Union, the GDPR regulations could cause us to incur substantial costs in order to expand our business or deliver certain services in the European Union. Furthermore, the GDPR imposes penalties for noncompliance of up to the greater of €20 million or 4% of a company’s worldwide revenue; accordingly, any non-compliance with the GDPR could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union creates uncertainty with respect to whether the United Kingdom will enact data protection laws or regulations designed to be consistent with the GDPR. In January 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act became effective in California and provides new data privacy rights for consumers and new operational requirements for companies. More recently, in July 2020 the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield as a valid mechanism for the transfer of personal data from the European Union to the United States, which the European Commission had previously adopted in July 2016. Complying with emerging and changing laws could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner adverse to our business.
Concerns about or regulatory actions involving our practices with regard to the collection, storage, processing, use or disclosure of customer information or other privacy related matters, even if unfounded, could damage our reputation and adversely affect operating results. While we strive to provide transparency about our collection, use, disclosure and security over any personal data and to comply with all applicable data protection laws and regulations, the failure or perceived failure to comply may result in inquiries and other proceedings or actions against us by government entities or others, or could cause us to lose customers, which could potentially have an adverse effect on our business.
Security breaches and data loss may expose us to liability, harm our reputation and adversely affect our business.
As part of our business operations, we collect, store, process, use and/or disclose sensitive data relating to our business, including in connection with the provision of our cloud services and in our information systems and data centers (including third-party data centers). In some cases, we use third-party service providers for services that may include the collection, handling, processing and/or storage of personal data on our behalf. In addition, we host our customers’ subscriber data in third-party data centers in the course of providing services and solutions to our customers through our cloud and smart home and business subscriptions. While we and our service providers apply multiple layers of security to control access to data and use encryption and authentication technologies to secure data from unauthorized access, use, alteration and disclosure, these security measures may be compromised. Malicious hackers may attempt to gain access to our network or data centers; steal proprietary information related to our business, products, employees, and customers; or interrupt our systems and services or those of our customers or others. In particular, there has been a spike in cybersecurity attacks as shelter in place orders and work from home requirements have led businesses to increase reliance on virtual environments and communications systems, which have been subjected to increasing third-party vulnerabilities and security risks. Although we monitor our networks and continue to enhance our security protections, particularly as we transition to a work-from-anywhere workforce, hackers are increasingly more sophisticated and aggressive, and our efforts may be inadequate to prevent all incidents of data breach or theft. The theft, loss, or misuse of personal data collected, stored or processed by us or our service providers to run our business could result in significantly increased security and remediation costs or costs related to defending legal claims. If we or our service providers do not allocate and effectively implement and manage the resources necessary to maintain adequate security measures, we could be subjected to data loss, unauthorized data disclosure or a compromise or breach of our systems or those of our third-party data centers. As we transition to a work-from-anywhere workforce and continue to grow our cloud and software portfolio, risks arising from or related to security breaches or data loss are likely to increase. Any loss of data or compromise of our systems or data centers could result in a loss of confidence in the security of our offerings, damage our reputation, cause the loss of current or potential customers or partners, lead to legal and regulatory liability and adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows.
If we experience protracted disruption in functionality or processing capabilities of our newly migrated enterprise resource planning system, or ERP system, we may not be able to effectively transact our business or produce our financial statements on a timely basis and without incurrence of additional costs, which would adversely affect our business, results of operations and cash flows.
In January 2020, we migrated our Oracle ERP system to Oracle’s cloud platform. This migration involved significant complexity, requiring us to move and reconfigure all of our current system processes, transactions, data and controls to a new
Oracle platform. We may experience difficulties and delays in transacting our business due to system challenges, limitations in functionality, inadequate change management or process deficiencies in the production use of the ERP system. With the migration to Oracle’s cloud platform, we are highly dependent upon Oracle to host, manage and maintain our ERP system and any disruptions to their business or processes, or delays in their ability to provide services to us, may in turn disrupt our business operations or increase costs. Furthermore, we will receive quarterly system updates and enhancements on the cloud platform according to Oracle’s release timeline and change management processes, which if not managed properly may disrupt our business operations and delay our ability to process transactions and produce reports necessary to conduct our business. We are highly dependent upon our ERP system for critical business functions, including order processing and management, supply chain and procurement operations, financial planning, accounting and reporting; accordingly, protracted disruption in functionality or processing capabilities of the ERP system could materially impair our ability to conduct our business, process transactions timely or to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis. If our ability to conduct our business, process transactions or to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis remains impaired, our business, results of operations and cash flows would be adversely affected.
We are exposed to the credit risks of our customers; if we have inadequately assessed their creditworthiness, we may have more exposure to accounts receivable risk than we anticipate. Failure to collect our accounts receivable in amounts that we anticipate could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
In the course of our sales to customers, we may encounter difficulty collecting accounts receivable and could be exposed to risks associated with uncollectible accounts receivable. We maintain an allowance for doubtful accounts for estimated losses resulting from the inability or unwillingness of our customers to make required payments. However, these allowances are based on our judgment and a variety of factors and assumptions.
We perform credit evaluations of our customers’ financial condition. However, our evaluation of the creditworthiness of customers may not be accurate if they do not provide us with timely and accurate financial information, or if their situations change after we evaluate their credit. Furthermore, some of our international customers operate in countries with developing economies, which from time to time, experience financial crises and become unable to make payments in U.S. dollars. The COVID-19 pandemic has also presented financial challenges to numerous businesses, which may result in liquidity issues leading to heightened difficulties with collections. While we attempt to monitor these situations carefully, adjust our allowances for doubtful accounts as appropriate and take measures to collect accounts receivable balances, we have written down accounts receivable and written off doubtful accounts in prior periods and may be unable to avoid additional write-downs or write-offs of doubtful accounts in the future. Such write-downs or write-offs could negatively affect our operating results for the period in which they occur and could harm our cash flow or our financial condition.
Our products must interoperate with many software applications and hardware products found in our customers’ networks. If we are unable to ensure that our products interoperate properly, our business will be harmed.
Our products must interoperate with our customers’ existing and planned networks, which often have varied and complex specifications, utilize multiple protocol standards, include software applications and customizations and products from multiple vendors and contain multiple generations of products that have been added over time. As a result, we must continually ensure that our products interoperate properly with these existing and planned networks. To meet these requirements, we must undertake development efforts, including test protocols, that require substantial capital investment and employee resources. We may not accomplish these development goals quickly or cost-effectively, if at all. If we fail to maintain compatibility with other software or equipment found in our customers’ existing and planned networks, we may face substantially reduced demand for our products, which would reduce our revenue opportunities and market share.
We have entered into interoperability arrangements with a number of equipment and software vendors for the use or integration of their technology with our products. These arrangements give us access to and enable interoperability with various products that we do not otherwise offer. If these relationships fail, we may have to devote substantially more resources to the development of alternative products and processes and our efforts may not be as effective as the combined solutions under our current arrangements. In some cases, these other vendors are either companies that we compete with directly or companies that have extensive relationships with our existing and potential customers and may have influence over the purchasing decisions of those customers. Some of our competitors have stronger relationships with some of our existing and other potential interoperability partners, and as a result, our ability to have successful interoperability arrangements with these companies may be harmed. Our failure to establish or maintain key relationships with third-party equipment and software vendors may harm our ability to successfully sell and market our products.
The quality of our support and services offerings is important to our customers, and if we fail to continue to offer high quality support and services, we could lose customers, which would harm our business.
Once our products are deployed within our customers’ networks, they depend on our support organization to resolve any issues relating to those products. A high level of support is critical for the successful marketing and sale of our products. Furthermore,
our services to customers have increasingly broadened to include network optimization, integration and development services and remote monitoring to help our customers deploy our products within their networks. If we do not effectively assist our customers in deploying our products, succeed in helping them quickly resolve post-deployment issues or provide effective ongoing support, it could adversely affect our ability to sell our products to existing customers and harm our reputation with potential new customers. As a result, our failure to maintain high quality support and services could result in the loss of customers, which would harm our business.
An increase in revenue mix towards services may adversely affect our gross margin.
In response to greater customer demand for certain services for our products, we continue to invest and grow our services business while de-prioritizing lower gross margin deployment services. Our services include product warranty and support services, customer success services, customer enablement services, managed services to help our customers manage and optimize their networks, education and certification services and, to a lesser extent, deployment services. Services typically have a lower gross margin than our products, particularly as we invest in growing our service organization. Certain services, such as deployment services, may tend to involve higher costs and increased risk of cost overruns, which can negatively impact our gross margin. Moreover, if we are unable to achieve desired efficiencies and scale as we ramp and develop our services business, we may incur higher than expected costs, which can further adversely impact our gross margin.
Our products are highly technical and may contain undetected hardware defects or software bugs, which could harm our reputation and adversely affect our business.
Our products, including our smart home and business systems and our cloud and software platforms, are highly technical and, when deployed, are critical to the operation of many networks. Our products have contained and may contain undetected defects, bugs or security vulnerabilities, which risks may be exacerbated as we continue to expand our cloud and software portfolio. Some defects in our products may only be discovered after a product has been installed and used by customers and may in some cases only be detected under certain circumstances or after extended use. Any errors, bugs, defects or security vulnerabilities discovered in our products after commercial release could result in loss of revenue or delay in revenue recognition, loss of customers and increased service and warranty and retrofit costs, any of which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. In addition, we could face claims for security and data breach, product liability, tort or breach of warranty. Our contracts with customers contain provisions relating to warranty disclaimers and liability limitations, which may not be upheld. Defending a lawsuit, regardless of its merit, is costly and may divert management’s attention and adversely affect the market’s perception of us and our products. In addition, if our business liability insurance coverage proves inadequate or future coverage is unavailable on acceptable terms or at all, our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely impacted.
Our estimates regarding future warranty or product obligations may change due to product failure rates, shipment volumes, field service obligations and rework costs incurred in correcting product failures. If our estimates change, the liability for warranty or product obligations may be increased, impacting future cost of revenue.
Our products are highly complex, and our product development, manufacturing and integration testing may not be adequate to detect all defects, errors, failures and quality issues. Quality or performance problems for products covered under warranty could adversely impact our reputation and negatively affect our operating results and financial position. The development and production of new products with high complexity often involves problems with software, components and manufacturing methods. If significant warranty or other product obligations arise due to reliability or quality issues arising from defects in software, faulty components or improper manufacturing methods, our operating results and financial position could be negatively impacted by:
•cost associated with fixing software or hardware defects;
•high service and warranty expenses;
•high inventory obsolescence expense;
•delays in collecting accounts receivable;
•payment of liquidated damages for performance failures; and
•declining sales to existing customers.
As the market for our products evolves, changing customer requirements may adversely affect the valuation of our inventory.
Customer demand for our products can change rapidly in response to market and technology developments. Demand can be affected not only by customer- or market-specific issues, but also by broader economic and/or geopolitical factors. We may, from time to time, adjust inventory valuations downward or end of life certain of our products in response to our assessment of
our business strategy as well as consideration of demand from our customers for specific products or product lines. The related excess inventory charges may have an adverse effect on our gross margin, financial condition and results of operations.
If we fail to comply with evolving industry standards, sales of our existing and future products would be adversely affected.
The markets for our products are characterized by a significant number of standards, both domestic and international, which are evolving as new technologies are developed and deployed. As we expand into adjacent markets and increase our international footprint, we are likely to encounter additional standards. Our products must comply with these standards in order to be widely marketable. In some cases, we are compelled to obtain certifications or authorizations before our products can be introduced, marketed or sold in new markets or to customers that we have not historically served. For example, our ability to maintain Operations System Modification for Intelligent Network Elements certification for our products will affect our ongoing ability to continue to sell our products to large CSPs.
In addition, our ability to expand our international operations and create international market demand for our products may be limited by regulations or standards adopted by other countries that may require us to redesign our existing products or develop new products suitable for sale in those countries. Although we believe our products are currently in compliance with domestic and international standards and regulations in countries in which we currently sell, we may not be able to design our products to comply with evolving standards and regulations in the future. This ongoing evolution of standards and differing foreign regulations may directly affect our ability to market or sell our products, particularly with regards to our cloud and software platforms in international markets. Further, the cost of complying with the evolving standards and regulations or the failure to obtain timely domestic or foreign regulatory approvals or certification could prevent us from selling our products where these standards or regulations apply, which would result in lower revenue and lost market share.
We may be unable to successfully expand our international operations. In addition, we may be subject to a variety of international risks that could harm our business.
We currently generate most of our sales from customers in North America and have more limited experience marketing, selling and supporting our products and services outside North America or managing the administrative aspects of a worldwide operation. Our ability to expand our international operations is dependent on our ability to create or maintain international market demand for our products. In addition, as we expand our operations internationally, our support organization will face additional challenges including those associated with delivering support, training and documentation in languages other than English. If we invest substantial time and resources to expand our international operations and are unable to do so successfully and in a timely manner, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
In the course of expanding our international operations and operating overseas, we will be subject to a variety of risks, including:
•differing regulatory requirements, including tax laws, trade laws, data privacy laws, labor regulations, tariffs, export quotas, custom duties or other trade restrictions;
•liability or damage to our reputation resulting from corruption or unethical business practices in some countries;
•exposure to effects of fluctuations in currency exchange rates if, over time, international customer contracts are increasingly denominated in local currencies;
•longer collection periods and difficulties in collecting accounts receivable;
•greater difficulty supporting and localizing our products;
•added costs of supporting cloud infrastructure outside of the United States;
•different or unique competitive pressures as a result of, among other things, the presence of local equipment suppliers;
•challenges inherent in efficiently managing an increased number of employees over large geographic distances, including the need to implement appropriate systems, policies and compensation, benefits and compliance programs;
•limited or unfavorable intellectual property protection;
•risk of change in international political or economic conditions, terrorist attacks or acts of war; and
•restrictions on the repatriation of earnings.
We engage resellers to promote, sell, install and support our products to some customers in North America and internationally. Their failure to do so or our inability to recruit or retain appropriate resellers may reduce our sales and thus harm our business.
We engage some value-added resellers, or VARs, who provide sales and support services for our products. We compete with other telecommunications systems providers for our VARs’ business and many of our VARs are free to market competing products. Our use of VARs and other third-party support partners and the associated risks of doing so are likely to increase as we expand sales outside of North America. If a VAR promotes a competitor’s products to the detriment of our products or otherwise fails to market our products and services effectively, we could lose market share. In addition, the loss of a key VAR or the failure of VARs to provide adequate customer service could have a negative effect on customer satisfaction and could cause harm to our business. If we do not properly recruit and train VARs to sell, install and service our products, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
We may have difficulty evolving and scaling our business and operations to meet customer and market demand, which could result in lower profitability or cause us to fail to execute on our business strategies.
In order to grow our business, we will need to continually evolve and scale our business and operations to meet customer and market demand. Evolving and scaling our business and operations places increased demands on our management as well as our financial and operational resources to effectively:
•manage organizational change;
•manage a larger organization;
•accelerate and/or refocus research and development activities;
•expand our manufacturing, supply chain and distribution capacity;
•increase our sales and marketing efforts;
•broaden our customer-support and services capabilities;
•maintain or increase operational efficiencies;
•scale support operations in a cost-effective manner;
•implement appropriate operational and financial systems; and
•maintain effective financial disclosure controls and procedures.
If we cannot evolve and scale our business and operations effectively, we may not be able to execute our business strategies in a cost-effective manner and our business, financial condition, profitability and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We may not be able to protect our intellectual property, which could impair our ability to compete effectively.
We depend on certain proprietary technology for our success and ability to compete. We rely on intellectual property laws as well as nondisclosure agreements, licensing arrangements and confidentiality provisions to establish and protect our proprietary rights. U.S. patent, copyright and trade secret laws afford us only limited protection, and the laws of some foreign countries do not protect proprietary rights to the same extent. Our pending patent applications may not result in issued patents, and our issued patents may not be enforceable. Any infringement of our proprietary rights could result in significant litigation costs. Further, any failure by us to adequately protect our proprietary rights could result in our competitors offering similar products, resulting in the loss of our competitive advantage and decreased sales.
It may become more difficult to adequately protect our intellectual property as we expand our reliance on third parties for the design, development and/or manufacture of our products and as we transition to a work-from-anywhere workforce. While our contracts with such third parties contain provisions relating to intellectual property rights, indemnification and liability, they may not be adequately enforced. Our third-party providers may also be subject to unauthorized third-party copying or use of our proprietary rights. In addition, as we transition to a work-from-anywhere workforce and implement different technologies for a distributed workforce, we may become subject to increased risks arising from or related to security breaches or data loss.
Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, attempts may be made to copy or reverse engineer aspects of our products or to obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. Accordingly, we may be unable to protect our proprietary rights against unauthorized third-party copying or use. Furthermore, policing the unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly. Litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. Litigation could result in substantial costs, diversion of resources and harm to our business.
We could become subject to litigation regarding intellectual property rights and other disputes that could harm our business.
We may be subject to intellectual property infringement claims that are costly to defend and could limit our ability to use some technologies in the future. The risk of such claims could increase as we expand our product portfolio and increasingly rely on more technologies. Third parties may assert patent, copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights to technologies or rights that are important to our business. Increasingly, patent infringement claims are asserted by patent holding companies (commonly referred to as “patent trolls”) whose sole business is to purchase patents and other intellectual property assets in order to make claims of infringement for monetary gain. Since these patent holding companies have no relevant product revenue and do not use the technology, our own issued and pending patents may provide little or no deterrence to suit from these entities.
We have received in the past and expect that in the future we may receive communications from competitors, patent holding companies and other third parties alleging that we may be infringing their patents, trade secrets or other intellectual property rights; offering licenses to such intellectual property; threatening litigation or requiring us to act as a third-party witness in litigation. In addition, we have agreed, and may in the future agree, to indemnify our customers for expenses or liabilities resulting from certain claimed infringements of patents, trademarks or copyrights of third parties. Such indemnification may require us to be financially responsible for claims made against our customers, including costs of litigation and damages awarded, which could negatively impact our results of operations. Any claims asserting that our products infringe the proprietary rights of third parties, with or without merit, could be time-consuming, result in costly litigation and divert the efforts of our engineering teams and management. These claims could also result in product shipment delays or require us to modify our products or enter into royalty or licensing agreements. Such royalty or licensing agreements, if required, may not be available to us on acceptable terms, if at all.
Our use of open source software could impose limitations on our ability to commercialize our products.
We incorporate open source software into our products. Although we closely monitor our use of open source software, the terms of many open source software licenses have not been interpreted by the courts, and there is a risk that such licenses could be construed in a manner that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to sell our products. In such event, we could be required to make our proprietary software generally available to third parties, including competitors, at no cost, to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our products, to re-engineer our products or to discontinue the sale of our products in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis or at all, any of which could adversely affect our revenue and operating expenses.
If we are unable to obtain necessary third-party technology licenses, our ability to develop new products or product enhancements may be impaired.
We may from time to time be required to license technology from third parties to develop new products or product enhancements either directly or through a partner. These third-party licenses may be unavailable to us or our partners on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. The inability to obtain necessary third-party licenses may force us to accept substitute technology of lower quality or performance standards or at greater cost or may increase the time-to-market of our products or product enhancements, any of which could harm the competitiveness of our products and result in lost revenue.
Our ability to incur debt and the use of our funds could be limited by borrowing base restrictions and restrictive covenants in our loan and security agreement for our revolving credit facility.
In January 2020, we entered into the BofA Loan Agreement, which provides for a revolving credit facility up to a principal amount of $35.0 million, with the availability of borrowings subject to certain conditions and requirements, including the maintenance of Availability (as defined in the BofA Loan Agreement) of at least $5.0 million. We are dependent on our existing cash, cash equivalents and borrowings available under the BofA Loan Agreement to provide adequate funds for ongoing operations, planned capital expenditures and working capital requirements for at least the next twelve months. If our financial position deteriorates, our borrowing capacity under the credit facility may be reduced, which would adversely impact our business and growth. In addition, the BofA Loan Agreement includes covenants that place certain restrictions on our ability to, among other things, borrow secured debt or unsecured debt beyond a certain amount, create or suffer to exist any liens, sell or transfer any assets, make distributions, liquidate, dissolve, merge, amalgamate, combine or consolidate, or become a party to certain agreements restricting our ability to incur or repay debt, grant liens, make distributions or modify loan agreements, in each case subject to certain exceptions. Failure to maintain these covenants can limit the amount of borrowings that are available to us, increase the cost of borrowings under the facility, and/or require us to make immediate payments to reduce borrowings.
Given our current financial position and history of operating losses, it is possible that we may fail to meet the minimum levels required by the financial covenants, which would constitute an event of default under the BofA Loan Agreement. Events beyond our control could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations, financial condition or liquidity, in which case we may not be able to meet our financial covenants. For example, prior to the BofA Loan Agreement, we were party to a
loan agreement with Silicon Valley Bank, or the SVB Loan Agreement, that provided us a revolving credit facility based on a customary accounts receivable borrowing base, subject to certain exceptions and conclusions. During the term of the SVB Loan Agreement, we were not able to meet the financial covenants in several of the quarters due to variability in our results of operations and financial position and had to request waivers and amendments to the SVB Loan Agreement to avoid an event of default. The BofA Loan Agreement covenants may also affect our ability to obtain future financing and to pursue attractive business opportunities and our flexibility in planning for, and reacting to, changes in business conditions. These covenants could place us at a disadvantage compared to some of our competitors, who may have fewer restrictive covenants and may not be required to operate under these restrictions.
Our failure or the failure of our manufacturers to comply with environmental and other legal regulations could adversely impact our results of operations.
The manufacture, assembly and testing of our products may require the use of hazardous materials that are subject to environmental, health and safety regulations, or materials subject to laws restricting the use of conflict minerals. Our failure or the failure of our third-party manufacturers to comply with any of these requirements could result in regulatory penalties, legal claims or disruption of production. In addition, our failure or the failure of our manufacturers to properly manage the use, transportation, emission, discharge, storage, recycling or disposal of hazardous materials could subject us to increased costs or liabilities. Existing and future environmental regulations and other legal requirements may restrict our use of certain materials to manufacture, assemble and test products. Any of these consequences could adversely impact our results of operations by increasing our expenses and/or requiring us to alter our manufacturing processes.
Regulatory and physical impacts of climate change and other natural events may affect our customers and our manufacturers, resulting in adverse effects on our operating results.
As emissions of greenhouse gases continue to alter the composition of the atmosphere, affecting large-scale weather patterns and the global climate, any new regulation of greenhouse gas emissions may result in additional costs to our customers and our manufacturers. In addition, the physical impacts of climate change and other natural events, including changes in weather patterns, drought, rising ocean and temperature levels, earthquakes and tsunamis may impact our customers, suppliers and manufacturers, and our operations. These potential physical effects may adversely affect our revenue, costs, production and delivery schedules, and cause harm to our results of operations and financial condition.
We have in the past pursued, and may in the future continue to pursue, acquisitions which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. If we are unable to address and resolve these risks and uncertainties successfully, such acquisitions could disrupt our business and result in higher costs than we anticipate.
We may in the future acquire businesses, products or technologies to expand our product offerings and capabilities, customer base and business. We have evaluated and expect to continue to evaluate a wide array of potential strategic transactions. We have limited experience making such acquisitions or integrating these businesses after such acquisitions. Any anticipated and unanticipated costs to us related to future transactions could exceed amounts that are covered by insurance and could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, the anticipated benefit of any acquisitions may never materialize or the process of integrating acquired businesses, products or technologies may create unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures.
Some of the areas where we have experienced and may in the future experience acquisition-related risks include:
•expenses and distractions, including diversion of management time related to litigation;
•expenses and distractions related to potential claims resulting from any possible future acquisitions, whether or not they are completed;
•retaining and integrating employees from acquired businesses;
•issuance of dilutive equity securities or incurrence of debt;
•integrating various accounting, management, information, human resource and other systems to permit effective management;
•incurring possible write-offs, impairment charges, contingent liabilities, amortization expense of intangible assets or impairment of goodwill and intangible assets with finite useful lives;
•difficulties integrating and supporting acquired products or technologies;
•unexpected capital expenditure requirements;
•insufficient revenue to offset increased expenses associated with acquisitions; and
•opportunity costs associated with committing capital to such acquisitions.
If our goodwill becomes impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to our results of operations. We review our goodwill for impairment annually or when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value may not be recoverable, such as a sustained or significant decline in stock price and market capitalization. If the carrying value of goodwill was deemed to be impaired, an impairment loss equal to the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the estimated fair value would be recognized. Any such impairment could materially and adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Foreign acquisitions would involve risks in addition to those mentioned above, including those related to integration of operations across different cultures and languages, currency risks and the particular economic, political and regulatory risks associated with specific countries. We may not be able to address these risks and uncertainties successfully, or at all, without incurring significant costs, delays or other operating problems.
Our inability to address or anticipate any of these risks and uncertainties could disrupt our business and could have a material impact on our financial condition and results of operations.
Our use of and reliance upon development resources in China may expose us to unanticipated costs or liabilities.
We operate a wholly foreign owned enterprise in Nanjing, China, where a dedicated team of engineers performs product development, quality assurance, cost reduction and other engineering work. Our reliance upon development resources in China may not enable us to achieve meaningful product cost reductions or greater resource efficiency. Further, our development efforts and other operations in China involve significant risks, including:
•difficulty hiring and retaining appropriate engineering resources due to intense competition for such resources and resulting wage inflation;
•the knowledge transfer related to our technology and exposure to misappropriation of intellectual property or confidential information, including information that is proprietary to us, our customers and third parties;
•heightened exposure to changes in the economic, security, political and pandemic conditions that may arise in China;
•fluctuation in currency exchange rates and tax risks associated with international operations;
•development efforts that do not meet our requirements because of differences associated with international operations, resulting in errors or delays; and
•uncertainty with respect to tariffs imposed by the federal government on products imported from China and future actions the federal government may take with respect to international trade agreements and U.S. tax provisions related to international commerce that could adversely affect our international operations.
Difficulties resulting from the factors above and other risks related to our operations in China could expose us to increased expense, impair our development efforts, harm our competitive position and damage our reputation. For example, the COVID-19 outbreak first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019 impacted our research and development operations in Nanjing, and may continue to impact our operations, including our ability to meet our desired development timelines. Government-imposed travel restrictions and closures of certain business operations in China in response to COVID-19 have disrupted and delayed the supply of component parts sourced from China and our supply chain and our suppliers’ operations in and outside of China, which may reoccur in the foreseeable future if the pandemic is not contained.
Our customers are subject to government regulation, and changes in current or future laws or regulations that negatively impact our customers could harm our business.
The FCC has jurisdiction over all of our U.S. customers. FCC regulatory policies that create disincentives for investment in access network infrastructure or impact the competitive environment in which our customers operate may harm our business. For example, future FCC regulation affecting providers of broadband Internet access services could impede the penetration of our customers into certain markets or affect the prices they may charge in such markets. Similarly, changes to regulatory tariff requirements or other regulations relating to pricing or terms of carriage on communication networks could slow the development or expansion of network infrastructures. Consequently, such changes could adversely affect the sale of our products and services. Furthermore, many of our customers are subject to FCC rate regulation of interstate telecommunications services and are recipients of CAF capital incentive payments, which are intended to subsidize broadband and telecommunications services in areas that are expensive to serve. Changes to these programs, rules and regulations that could affect the ability of IOCs to access capital, and which could in turn reduce our revenue opportunities, remain possible.
In addition, many of our customers are subject to state regulation of intrastate telecommunications services, including rates for such services, and may also receive funding from state universal service funds. Changes in rate regulations or universal service funding rules, either at the U.S. federal or state level, could adversely affect our customers’ revenue and capital spending plans.
Moreover, various international regulatory bodies have jurisdiction over certain of our non-U.S. customers. Changes in these domestic and international standards, laws and regulations, or judgments in favor of plaintiffs in lawsuits against CSPs based on changed standards, laws and regulations could adversely affect the development of broadband networks and services. This, in turn, could directly or indirectly adversely impact the communications industry in which our customers operate.
Many jurisdictions, including international governments and regulators, are also evaluating, implementing and enforcing regulations relating to cyber security, privacy and data protection, which can affect the market and requirements for networking and communications equipment. To the extent our customers are adversely affected by laws or regulations regarding their business, products or service offerings, our business, financial condition and results of operations would suffer.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in additional international markets.
Our products are subject to U.S. export and trade controls and restrictions. International shipments of certain of our products may require export licenses or are subject to additional requirements for export. In addition, the import laws of other countries may limit our ability to distribute our products, or our customers’ ability to buy and use our products, in those countries. Changes in our products or changes in export and import regulations or duties may create delays in the introduction of our products in international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our products or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our products to certain countries altogether. Any change in export or import regulations, duties or related legislation, shift in approach to the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could negatively impact our ability to sell, profitably or at all, our products to existing or potential international customers.
If we lose any of our key personnel, or are unable to attract, train and retain qualified personnel, our ability to manage our business and continue our growth would be negatively impacted.
Our success depends, in large part, on the continued contributions of our key personnel, many of whom are highly skilled and would be difficult to replace. None of our key personnel are bound by a written employment contract to remain with us for a specified period. In addition, we do not currently maintain key person life insurance covering our key personnel. If we lose the services of any key personnel, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
Competition for skilled personnel is intense. We cannot be certain that we will be successful in attracting and retaining qualified personnel, or that newly hired personnel will function effectively, both individually and as a group. If we are unable to effectively recruit, hire and utilize new employees to align with our company objectives, execution of our business strategy and our ability to react to changing market conditions may be impeded, and our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.
Volatility or lack of performance in our stock price may also affect our ability to attract and retain our key personnel. Our executive officers and employees hold a substantial number of shares of our common stock and vested stock options. Employees may be more likely to leave us if the shares they own or the shares underlying their equity awards decline in value, or if the exercise prices of stock options that they hold are significantly above the market price of our common stock. If we are unable to retain our employees, our business, operating results and financial condition will be harmed.
If we fail to maintain proper and effective internal controls, our ability to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis could be impaired, which would adversely affect our operating results, our ability to operate our business and our stock price.
Ensuring that we have adequate internal financial and accounting controls and procedures in place to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis is a costly and time-consuming effort that needs to be re-evaluated frequently. Our recent migration of our ERP system to Oracle’s cloud platform required us to expend substantial time to re-evaluate and update our internal controls. We have in the past discovered, and may in the future discover, areas of our internal financial and accounting controls and procedures that need improvement, particularly as we adjust to our new ERP platform.
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of our financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. Our management does not expect that our internal control over financial reporting will prevent or detect all error and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system’s objectives will be met. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within our company will have been detected.
We are required to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, or SOX, which requires us to expend significant resources in developing the required documentation and testing procedures. We cannot be certain that the actions we have taken and are taking to improve our internal controls over financial reporting will be sufficient to maintain effective internal controls
over financial reporting in subsequent reporting periods or that we will be able to implement our planned processes and procedures in a timely manner. In addition, new and revised accounting standards and financial reporting requirements may occur in the future and implementing changes required by new standards, requirements or laws may require a significant expenditure of our management’s time, attention and resources which may adversely affect our reported financial results. If we are unable to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis, investors could lose confidence in the reliability of our financial statements, which could cause the market price of our common stock to decline and make it more difficult for us to finance our operations and growth.
We incur significant costs as a result of operating as a public company, which may adversely affect our operating results and financial condition.
As a public company, we incur significant accounting, legal and other expenses, including costs associated with our public company reporting and compliance requirements. We also anticipate that we will continue to incur costs associated with corporate governance requirements, including requirements and rules under SOX and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, or Dodd-Frank, among other rules and regulations implemented by the SEC, as well as listing requirements of the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE. Furthermore, these laws and regulations could make it difficult or costly for us to obtain certain types of insurance, including director and officer liability insurance, and we may be forced to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. The impact of these requirements could also make it difficult for us to attract and retain qualified persons to serve on our Board of Directors, our board committees or as executive officers.
New laws and regulations as well as changes to existing laws and regulations affecting public companies, including the provisions of SOX and the Dodd-Frank Act and rules adopted by the SEC and the NYSE, would likely result in increased costs to us as we respond to their requirements. We continue to invest resources to comply with evolving laws and regulations, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expense.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
Our stock price may continue to be volatile, and the value of an investment in our common stock may decline.
The trading price of our common stock has been, and is likely to continue to be, volatile, which means that it could decline substantially within a short period of time and could fluctuate widely in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include those discussed above under “Risks Related to Our Business and Industry” and others such as:
•quarterly variations in our results of operations or those of our competitors;
•failure to meet any guidance that we have previously provided regarding our anticipated results;
•changes in earnings estimates or recommendations by securities analysts;
•failure to meet securities analysts’ estimates;
•announcements by us or our competitors of new products, significant contracts, commercial relationships, acquisitions or capital commitments;
•developments with respect to intellectual property rights;
•our ability to develop and market new and enhanced products on a timely basis;
•our commencement of, or involvement in, litigation and developments relating to such litigation;
•changes in governmental regulations; and
•a slowdown in the communications industry or the general economy.
In recent years, the stock market in general, and the market for technology companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Broad market and industry factors may seriously affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted U.S. markets, causing dramatic swings in the U.S. stock exchanges that resulted in increased volatility in the trading price of our common stock. In addition, in the past, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often been instituted against these companies. This litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a diversion of our management’s attention and resources.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business or if they issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding our stock, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. If any of the analysts who cover us issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding our stock, our stock price would likely decline. If several of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
Provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could discourage a takeover that stockholders may consider favorable and may lead to entrenchment of our management and Board of Directors.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could have the effect of delaying or preventing changes in control or changes in our management or our Board of Directors. These provisions include:
•a classified Board of Directors with three-year staggered terms, which may delay the ability of stockholders to change the membership of a majority of our Board of Directors;
•no cumulative voting in the election of directors, which limits the ability of minority stockholders to elect director candidates;
•the exclusive right of our Board of Directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of the Board of Directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our Board of Directors;
•the ability of our Board of Directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
•a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
•the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by the chairman of the Board of Directors, the chief executive officer or the Board of Directors, which may delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors; and
•advance notice procedures that stockholders must comply with in order to nominate candidates to our Board of Directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
We are also subject to certain anti-takeover provisions under Delaware law. Under Delaware law, a corporation may not, in general, engage in a business combination with any holder of 15% or more of its capital stock unless the holder has held the stock for three years or, among other things, the Board of Directors has approved the transaction.
We may need additional capital in the future to finance our business.
We may need to raise additional capital to fund operations in the future. Our working capital needs and cash use have continued to increase to support our growth initiatives, and we may need additional capital if our current plans and assumptions change. While we have transitioned our supply chain operations to mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs on goods imported from China, failure to effectively manage the transition or unanticipated further expenditures associated with mitigation efforts could negatively impact our cash flows and result of operations. Failure to maintain certain restrictive covenants and requirements under the BofA Loan Agreement could result in limiting the amount of borrowings that are available to us, increase the cost of borrowings under the credit facility, and/or cause us to make immediate payments to reduce borrowings or result in an event of default. If future financings involve the issuance of equity securities, our then-existing stockholders would suffer dilution. If we raise additional debt financing, we may be subject to restrictive covenants that limit our ability to conduct our business. If we are unable to generate positive operating income and positive cash flows from operations, our liquidity, results of operations and financial condition will be adversely affected. Furthermore, if we are unable to generate sufficient cash flows to support our operational needs, we may need to seek additional sources of liquidity, including borrowings, to support our working capital needs. In addition, we may choose to seek other sources of liquidity even if we believe we have generated sufficient cash flows to support our operational needs. There is no assurance that any other sources of liquidity may be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we are unable to generate sufficient cash flows or obtain other sources of liquidity, we will be forced to limit our development activities, reduce our investment in growth initiatives and institute cost-cutting measures, all of which would adversely impact our business and growth.
We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock and, consequently, our stockholders’ ability to achieve a return on their investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.
We do not currently intend to pay any cash dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future. We currently intend to invest our future earnings, if any, to fund our growth. Additionally, the terms of our credit facility restrict our ability to pay dividends under certain circumstances. Therefore, our stockholders are not likely to receive any dividends on our common stock for the foreseeable future.
ITEM 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds
None.
ITEM 3. Defaults Upon Senior Securities
None.
ITEM 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
ITEM 5. Other Information
None.
ITEM 6. Exhibits
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Exhibit
Number
|
|
Description
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10.1*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
31.1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
31.2
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
32.1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.INS
|
|
XBRL Instance Document
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.SCH
|
|
XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.CAL
|
|
XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.DEF
|
|
XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.LAB
|
|
XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document
|
|
|
|
|
|
101.PRE
|
|
XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document
|
* Indicates management contract or compensatory plan or arrangement.