UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
__________________________________________________________________________
Form 10-K
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 | |
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020
or
TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 | |
For the transition period from to
Commission File Number 001-33383
__________________________________________________________________________
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) | |
(Address of principal executive offices, including zip code)
(408 ) 503-8000
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)
__________________________________________________________________________
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of each class | Trading Symbol | Name of each exchange on which registered |
Securities registered pursuant to section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐ No ☒
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
☒ | Accelerated filer | ☐ | ||
Non-accelerated filer | ☐ | Smaller reporting company | ||
Emerging growth company | ||||
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b of the Exchange Act) Yes ☐ No ☒
The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates, based upon the closing price of the common stock on December 31, 2019, as reported by the OTC Market, was $1,057,388,840 . Shares of common stock held by each executive officer and director and by each person who owns 5% or more of the outstanding common stock, based on filings with the Securities Exchange Commission, have been
excluded since such persons may be deemed affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.
As of July 31, 2020, there were 52,436,548 shares of the registrant’s common stock, $0.001 par value, outstanding, which is the only class of common stock of the registrant issued.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
None
SUPER MICRO COMPUTER, INC.
ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K
FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page | ||
PART I | ||
Item 1. | ||
Item 1A. | ||
Item 1B. | ||
Item 2. | ||
Item 3. | ||
Item 4. | ||
PART II | ||
Item 5. | ||
Item 6. | ||
Item 7. | ||
Item 7A. | ||
Item 8. | ||
Item 9. | ||
Item 9A. | ||
Item 9B. | ||
PART III | ||
Item 10. | ||
Item 11. | ||
Item 12. | ||
Item 13. | ||
Item 14. | ||
PART IV | ||
Item 15. | ||
Unless the context requires otherwise, the words “Super Micro,” “Supermicro,” “we,” “Company,” “us” and “our” in this document refer to Super Micro Computer, Inc. and where appropriate, our wholly owned subsidiaries. Supermicro, the Company logo and our other registered or common law trademarks, service marks, or trade names appearing in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of Super Micro Computer, Inc. or its affiliates. Other trademarks, service marks, or trade names appearing in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners.
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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology including “would,” “could,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” or “continue,” the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. In evaluating these statements, you should specifically consider various factors, including the risks described below, under Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors”, and in other parts of this Form 10-K as well as in our other filings with the SEC. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future events and trends discussed in this Annual Report may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements.
We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. We cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.
PART I
Item 1. Business
Our Company
We are a Silicon Valley-based provider of application-optimized high performance and high-efficiency server and storage systems for a variety of markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing. Our solutions include complete servers, storage systems, modular blade servers, blades, workstations, full racks, networking devices, server management software, and server sub-systems. We also provide global support and services to help our customers install, upgrade and maintain their computing infrastructure. We offer our customers a high degree of flexibility and customization by providing a broad array of server configurations from which they can choose the best solutions to fit their computing needs. Our server and storage systems, subsystems and accessories are architecturally designed to provide high levels of reliability, quality, configurability, and scalability.
Our in-house design competencies, control of design of many of the components used within our server and storage systems, and our Server Building Block Solutions® (an innovative, modular and open architecture) enable us to rapidly develop, build and test server and storage systems, subsystems and accessories with unique configurations. As a result, when new technologies are brought to market, we are generally able to quickly assemble a broad portfolio of solutions by leveraging common building blocks across product lines. We work closely with the leading microprocessor, graphics processing units (“GPU”), memory, disk/flash, and interconnect vendors and other hardware and software suppliers to coordinate the design of our new products with their product release schedules. This enhances our ability to rapidly introduce new products incorporating the latest technology. We seek to be first to market with products incorporating new technologies and to offer the broadest selection of products using those technologies to our customers.
In order to reduce the high cost of operating datacenters, IT managers increasingly turn to suppliers of high-performance products that are also cost-effective, energy-efficient, and green. Our resource saving architecture supports our efforts to lead in green IT innovation. This architecture disaggregates CPU and memory, which enables each resource to be refreshed independently, thereby allowing data centers to significantly reduce both refresh cycle costs and e-waste. In addition, we offer product lines that are designed to share common computing resources, thereby saving both valuable space and power as compared to general purpose rackmount servers. We believe our approach of leveraging an overall architecture that balances data center power requirements, cooling, shared resources and refresh cycles helps the environment and provides total cost of ownership (“TCO”) savings for our customers.
We conduct our operations principally from our Silicon Valley headquarters in California and in our Taiwan and the Netherlands facilities. Our sales and marketing activities are conducted through a combination of our direct sales force and
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indirect sales channel partners. In our indirect sales channels, we work with distributors, value-added resellers, system integrators, and original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs") to market and sell our optimized solutions to their end customers.
Strategy
Our objective is to be the world’s leading provider of application-optimized, high-performance server, storage and networking solutions. Achieving this objective requires continuous development and innovation of our solutions with better price-performance and architectural advantages compared with our prior generation of solutions and with solutions offered by our competitors. Through our strategy, we seek to maintain or improve our relative competitive position in many product areas and pursue markets that provide us with additional long-term growth opportunities. Key elements of our strategy include executing upon the following:
A Strong Internal Research and Development and Internal Manufacturing Capability
We are continually investing in our engineering organization. As of June 30, 2020, we employed over 1,700 persons in our research and development organization. These resources, along with our understanding of complex computing and storage requirements, enable us to deliver product innovation featuring advanced functionality and capabilities required by our customers. Also, substantially all of our servers are tested and assembled in our facilities, and more than half of our final server and storage production is completed in San Jose, California. Our engineering aptitude, coupled with our internal manufacturing capability, enables rapid prototyping and product roll-out, contributing to a high level of responsiveness to our customers.
Introducing More Innovative Products, Faster
We seek to sustain advantages in both time-to-market and breadth of products incorporating the latest technological innovations, such as new processors, advancements in storage and evolving I/O technologies. We seek these advantages by leveraging our in-house design capabilities and our Building Block Solutions ® architecture. This allows us to offer customers a broad choice of products to match their target application requirements. For example, in early February 2020, we introduced over 100 new systems in support of Intel’s introduction of its second-generation Xeon Scalable processor.
Capitalizing on New Applications and Technologies
In addition to serving traditional needs for server and storage systems, we have devoted, and will continue to devote, substantial resources to developing systems that support emerging and growing applications including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G/edge computing and others. We believe there are significant opportunities for us in each of these rapidly developing markets due to stringent design requirements for these applications that often require the use of the latest technologies, allowing us to leverage our capabilities in product innovation, superior time-to-market, and portfolio breadth.
Driving Software and Services Sales to our Global Enterprise Customers
We seek to grow our global enterprise revenue by bolstering and expanding our software management products and support services. These software products and services are important because the uptime requirements and need to extend the functionality of computing infrastructure are a high priority for enterprise customers. In addition to our internal software development efforts, we also integrate and partner with external software vendors to meet customer requirements.
Leveraging Our Global Operating Structure
We plan to continue to increase our worldwide manufacturing capacity and logistics abilities in the United States, the Netherlands and Taiwan to more efficiently serve our customers and lower our overall manufacturing costs. We have recently started to increase our manufacturing capacity in Taiwan to diversify our operating base and optimize relatively low labor costs as compared to the United States. In addition, Taiwan has been less affected by COVID-19, which makes it a well-suited manufacturing location for our Asia and export operations and will also lower our logistics costs.
Products and Services
We offer a broad range of application-optimized server solutions, rackmount and blade servers, storage, and subsystems and accessories, which can be used to build complete server and storage systems. These solutions and products are designed to serve a variety of markets, such as enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (“AI”), 5G/edge computing. The percentage of our net sales represented by sales of server and storage systems decreased to 78.5% in fiscal year 2020 from 81.7% in fiscal year 2019 and from 79.3% in fiscal year 2018, and the percentage of our net sales represented by
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sales of subsystems and accessories was 21.5% in fiscal year 2020, 18.3% in fiscal year 2019 and 20.7% in fiscal year 2018. We complement our server and storage system offerings with software management solutions as well as global services and support, the revenue for which is included in our server and storage systems revenue.
Server and Storage Systems
We sell server and storage systems in rackmount, blade, and multi-node form factors, which support single, dual, and multiprocessor architectures. Our key product lines include:
• | SuperBlade® and MicroBlade™ system families designed to share common computing resources, thereby saving space and power over standard rackmount servers; |
• | SuperStorage systems that provide high density storage while leveraging an efficient use of power to achieve performance-per-watt savings; |
• | Twin family of multi-node server systems designed for density, performance, and power efficiency; |
• | Ultra Server systems for demanding enterprise workloads; |
• | GPU or Accelerated systems; |
• | Data Center Optimized server systems that deliver increased performance-per-watt with an improved thermal architecture; and |
• | MicroCloud server systems that deliver high performance in environments with space and power constraints. |
In addition to our complete server and storage systems business, we offer a large array of modular server subsystems and accessories, such as server boards, chassis, power supplies and other accessories. These subsystems are the foundation of our server solutions and span product offerings from the entry-level single and dual-processor server segment to the high-end multiprocessor market. The majority of the subsystems and accessories we sell individually are designed to work together to improve performance, and are ultimately integrated into complete server and storage systems.
Server Software Management Solutions
Our open industry-standard remote system management solutions, such as our Server Management suite, including Supermicro Server Manager (“SSM”), Supermicro Power Management software (“SPM”), Supermicro Update Manager (“SUM”), and SuperDoctor 5, have been designed to help manage large-scale heterogeneous data center environments.
Supermicro Global Services
We provide global service and support offerings for our direct and OEM customers and our indirect sales channel partners directly or through approved distributors and third-party partners. Our services include server and storage system integration, configuration and software upgrades and updates. We also identify service requirements, create and execute project plans, conduct verification testing and training and provide technical documentation.
Global Services: Our strategic direct and OEM customers may purchase a variety of on-site support service plans. Our service plans vary depending on specific services, response times, coverage hours and duration, repair priority levels, spare parts requirements, logistics, data privacy and security needs. Our Global Services team provides help desk services and on-site product support for our server and storage systems.
Support Services: Our customer support services offer competitive market warranties, generally from one-to-three years, and warranty extension options for products sold by our direct sales team and approved indirect sales channel partners. Our customer support team provides ongoing maintenance and technical support for our products through our website and 24-hour continuous direct phone-based support.
Research and Development
We perform the majority of our research and development activities in-house in the United States at our facilities in San Jose, California, and in Taiwan, increasing the communication and collaboration between design teams to streamline the
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development process and reducing time-to-market. We believe that the combination of our focus on internal research and development activities, our close working relationships with customers and vendors and our modular design approach allows us to decrease time-to-market. We continue to invest in reducing our design and manufacturing costs and improving the performance, cost-effectiveness and power- and space-efficiency of our solutions.
Our research and development teams focus on the development of new and enhanced products that can support emerging technological and engineering innovations while achieving high overall system performance. Much of our research and development activity relates to the new product cycles of leading processor vendors. We work closely with Intel, Nvidia and AMD, among others, to develop products that are compatible with the latest generation of industry-standard technologies under development. Our collaborative approach with these vendors allows us to coordinate the design of our new products with their product release schedules, thereby enhancing our ability to rapidly introduce new products incorporating the latest technology. We work closely with their respective development teams to enhance system performance and reduce system-level issues. Similarly, we work very closely with our customers to identify their needs and develop our new product plans accordingly.
Customers
During fiscal year 2020, we sold to over 820 direct customers in over 100 countries. During each of fiscal year 2019 and 2018, we sold to over 850 direct customers. In addition, over the three years ended June 30, 2020 we have sold to thousands of end users through our indirect sales channel. These customers represent a diverse set of market verticals including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing markets. In fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, no customer represented greater than 10% of our total net sales.
Sales and Marketing
Our sales and marketing activities are conducted through a combination of our direct sales force and our indirect sales channel partners. Our direct sales force is primarily focused on selling complete systems and solutions, including management software and global services to large scale cloud, enterprise and OEM customers.
We work with distributors, value-added resellers, system integrators, and OEMs to market and sell our optimized solutions to their end customers. We provide sales and marketing assistance and training to our indirect sales channel partners and OEMs, who in turn provide service and support to end customers. We leverage our relationships in our indirect sales channel and with our OEMs to penetrate select industry segments where our products can provide better alternatives to existing solutions.
We maintain close contact with our indirect sales channel partners and end customers. We often collaborate during the sales process with our indirect sales channel partners and the end customer’s technical staff to help determine the optimal system configuration for the customer’s needs. Our interaction with our indirect sales channel partners and end customers allows us to monitor customer requirements and develop new products to meet their needs.
International Sales
Our global sales efforts are supported both by our international offices in the Netherlands, Taiwan, United Kingdom, China and Japan as well as by our United States based sales team. Product fulfillment and first level support for our international customers are provided by Supermicro Global Services and through our indirect sales channel and OEMs. Sales to customers located outside of the United States represented 41.4%, 41.9% and 43.4% of net sales in fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Marketing
Our marketing programs are designed to create a global awareness and branding for our company and products, as well as an understanding of the significant value we bring to customers. These programs also inform existing and potential customers, the trade press, market analysts, indirect sales channel partners and OEMs about the strong capabilities and benefits of using our products and solutions. Our marketing efforts support the sale and distribution of our products through both direct sales and indirect channels. We rely on a variety of marketing vehicles, including advertising, public relations, web, social media, participation in industry trade shows and conferences to help gain market acceptance. We provide funds for cooperative marketing to our indirect sales channel partners to extend the reach of our marketing efforts. We also actively utilize our suppliers’ cooperative marketing programs and jointly benefit from their marketing development funds to which we are entitled.
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Intellectual Property
We seek to protect our intellectual property rights with a combination of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secret laws, and disclosure restrictions. We rely primarily on trade secrets, technical know-how, and other unpatented proprietary information relating to our design and product development activities. We also enter into confidentiality and proprietary rights agreements with our employees, consultants, and other third parties and control access to our designs, documentation and other proprietary information.
Manufacturing and Quality Control
We manufacture the majority of our systems at our San Jose, California headquarters. We believe we are the only major server and storage vendor that designs, develops, and manufactures a significant portion of their systems in the United States. Global assembly, test and quality control of our servers are performed at our manufacturing facilities in San Jose, California, Taiwan and the Netherlands. Each of our facilities has been certified according to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and/or ISO 13485 standards. Our suppliers and contract manufacturers are required to support the same standards to maintain consistent product and service quality and continuous improvement of quality and environmental performance.
We use several third-party suppliers and contract manufacturers for materials and sub-assemblies, such as serverboards, chassis, disk drives, SSDs, power supplies, fans and computer processors. We believe that selectively using outsourced manufacturing services allows us to focus on our core competencies in product design and development and increases our operational flexibility. We believe our manufacturing strategy allows us to adjust manufacturing capacity in response to changes in customer demand and to rapidly introduce new products to the market. We use Ablecom Technology, Inc. (“Ablecom”) and its affiliate Compuware Technology, Inc. ("Compuware"), both of which are related parties, for contract design and manufacturing coordination support. We work with Ablecom to optimize modular designs for our chassis and several other components. Ablecom also coordinates the manufacturing of chassis for us. In addition to providing a large volume of contract manufacturing services to us, Ablecom warehouses multiple components and subassemblies manufactured by various suppliers before shipment to our facilities in the United States, Europe and Asia. We also have a series of agreements with Compuware, including multiple product development, production and service agreements, product manufacturing agreements and lease agreements for office space. See Part II, Item 8, Note 13, “Related Party Transactions,” to the consolidated financial statements and Part III, Item 13, “Certain Relationships and Related Transactions and Director Independence.”
We monitor our inventory continuously to be able to meet customer delivery requirements and to avoid inventory obsolescence. Due to our building-block designs, our inventory can generally be used with multiple different products, lowering working capital requirements and reducing the risk of inventory write-downs.
Competition
The market for our products is highly competitive, rapidly evolving and subject to new technological developments, changing customer needs and new product introductions. We compete primarily with large vendors of x86-based general purpose servers and components. In addition, we also compete with smaller vendors that specialize in the sale of server components and systems. In recent years, we have experienced increased competition from original design manufacturers ("ODMs”) that benefit from their scale and very low cost manufacturing and are increasingly offering their own branded products. We believe our principal competitors include:
• | Global technology vendors, such as Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Huawei, and Lenovo; and |
• | ODMs, such as Inspur, Quanta Computer, and Wiwynn Corporation. |
The principal competitive factors in our market include the following:
• | First to market with new emerging technologies; |
• | High product performance, efficiency and reliability; |
• | Early identification of emerging opportunities; |
• | Cost-effectiveness; |
• | Interoperability of products; |
• | Scalability; and |
• | Localized and responsive customer support on a worldwide basis. |
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We believe that we compete favorably with respect to most of these factors. However, most of our competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater resources, greater name recognition and deeper market penetration. They may be able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their products than we can, which could allow them to respond more quickly to new technologies and changes in customer needs. In addition, it is possible that new competitors could emerge and acquire significant market share. See Part I, Item 1A, "Risk Factors" risk titled “The market in which we participate is highly competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, we may not be able to increase our market penetration, grow our net sales or improve our gross margins.”
Employees
As of June 30, 2020, we employed 3,987 full time employees, consisting of 1,708 employees in research and development, 462 employees in sales and marketing, 400 employees in general and administrative and 1,417 employees in manufacturing. Of these employees, 2,396 employees are based in our San Jose facilities. We consider our highly qualified and motivated employees to be a key factor in our business success. Our employees are not represented by any collective bargaining organization, and we have never experienced a work stoppage. We believe that our relations with our employees are good.
Corporate Information
We were founded in, and maintain our worldwide headquarters and the majority of our employees in San Jose, California. We are one of the largest employers in the City of San Jose and an active member of the San Jose and Silicon Valley community.
We were incorporated in California in September 1993. We reincorporated in Delaware in March 2007. Our common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “SMCI.” Our principal executive offices are located at 980 Rock Avenue, San Jose, California 95131, and our telephone number is (408) 503-8000. Our website address is www.supermicro.com.
Financial Information about Segments and Geographic Areas
Please see Part II, Item 8, Note 18, “Segment Reporting” to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report for information regarding segment reporting and Part II, Item 8, Note 3, “Revenue - Disaggregation of Revenue” to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report for information regarding our net sales by geographic region. See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” for further information on risks associated with our international operations.
Working Capital
We focus considerable attention on managing our inventories and other working capital related items. We manage inventories by communicating with our customers and partners and using our industry experience to forecast demand. We place manufacturing orders for our products that are based on forecasted demand. We generally maintain substantial inventories of our products because the computer server industry is characterized by short lead-time orders and quick delivery schedules. As a result, we do not have a significant backlog of unfilled customer orders.
Available Information
Our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and amendments to reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”) are available free of charge, on or through our website at www.supermicro.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such reports with, or furnish those reports to, the SEC. Information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference in, or made part of, this Annual Report or our other filings with, or reports furnished to, the SEC. The SEC also maintains a website that contains our SEC filings.
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Item 1A. Risk Factors
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has, and will continue to an increasing degree, adversely affect our business operations, financial condition and results of operations, the severity of which remains uncertain.
The novel strain of the coronavirus identified in Wuhan, China in late 2019 (COVID-19) has spread throughout the world and has resulted in authorities imposing, and businesses and individuals implementing, numerous unprecedented measures to try to contain the virus, including travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter-in-place/stay-at-home and social distancing orders, and shutdowns. These measures have impacted and may further impact our workforce and operations, the operations of our customers, and those of our respective vendors, suppliers, and partners.
We have taken steps to protect our employees, including temporarily closing our offices in the United States, the Netherlands and to a lesser extent in Taiwan. We continue our manufacturing operations and customers’ orders processing and services at each location, although our productivity at times slowed especially in the United States and in the Netherlands. Travel restrictions and logistics challenges have impacted our supply chain, shipments to our customers, and our ability to provide services and support to our customers. We have invested capital to procure key components so we can maintain reasonable lead times to fulfill orders for our customers. The extent to which the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to impact our business, operations, financial condition and results of operations is uncertain, rapidly changing and hard to predict, and will depend on numerous evolving factors that we may not be able to control or predict, including:
• | the duration and scope of the COVID-19 pandemic; |
• | the extent and effectiveness of responsive actions by authorities and the impact of these and other factors on our employees, customers and vendors; |
• | difficulty in adding new customers due to inability to gain direct access; |
• | the rate of spending on server and storage solutions, including delays in prospective customers’ purchasing decisions and delays in the provisioning of our products; |
• | the rate at which our suppliers develop and release new components such as microprocessors and memory; |
• | the rate at which our customers can perform acceptance testing or qualify our products, particularly if they contain new technologies; |
• | the length of heightened unemployment and economic recession pressures; |
• | the health impact of the pandemic on our employees, including key personnel; |
• | the impact on the liquidity of our sales partners and end customers, including lengthening of customers payment terms and potential bankruptcies; |
• | our continued ability to execute on business continuity plans for the maintenance of our critical business processes and managing our liquidity and access to credit facilities on terms acceptable to us; |
• | availability of and fluctuations in the cost of materials, logistics and labor; and |
• | erosion of economic activity by small and medium size business or sectors to which we are exposed through OEMs and indirect sales channels. |
The duration and extent of the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic depends on future developments that cannot be accurately predicted at this time, such as the severity and transmission rate of the virus, the extent and effectiveness of containment actions and the impact of these and other factors on our employees, customers, partners and suppliers. If we are not able to respond to and manage the impact of such events effectively, our business may be harmed.
Our quarterly operating results have fluctuated and will likely fluctuate in the future, which could cause rapid declines in our stock price.
We believe that our quarterly operating results will continue to be subject to fluctuation due to various factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors that may affect quarterly operating results include:
• | Fluctuations in demand for our products, in part due to changes in the global economic environment; |
• | Fluctuations based upon seasonality, with the quarters ending March 31 and September 30 typically being weaker; |
• | The occurrence of global pandemics, including COVID-19, and other events that impact the global economy or one or more sectors of the global economy; |
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• | The ability of our customers and suppliers to obtain financing or fund capital expenditures, especially during a period of global credit market disruption, and, in particular, the impact of the extended duration of the COVID-19 pandemic on our smaller customers' ability to access financing and the related disruption of the demand from these customers; |
• | Fluctuations in the timing and size of large customer orders, including with respect to changes in sales and implementation cycles of our products into our customers’ spending plans and associated revenue; |
• | Variability of our margins based on the mix of server and storage systems, subsystems and accessories we sell and the percentage of our sales to internet data center, cloud computing customers or certain geographical regions; |
• | Fluctuations in availability and costs associated with key components, particularly memory, storage solutions, and other materials needed to satisfy customer requirements; |
• | The timing of the introduction of new products by leading microprocessor vendors and other suppliers; |
• | The introduction and market acceptance of new technologies and products, and our success in new and evolving markets, and incorporating emerging technologies in our products, as well as the adoption of new standards; |
• | Changes in our product pricing policies, including those made in response to new product announcements; |
• | Mix of whether customer purchases are of partially or fully integrated systems or subsystems and accessories and whether made directly or through our indirect sales channel partners; |
• | The effect of mergers and acquisitions among our competitors, suppliers, customers, or partners; |
• | General economic conditions in our geographic markets; |
• | Geopolitical tensions, including trade wars, tariffs and/or sanctions in our geographic markets; |
• | Impact of regulatory changes on our cost of doing business; and |
• | Costs associated with remediation of our material weaknesses and preparation of our restated financial statements, as well as related legal proceedings. |
In addition, customers may hesitate to purchase, or not continue to purchase, our products based upon past unwarranted reports about security risks associated with the use of our products. Accordingly, our growth and results of operations may fluctuate on a quarterly basis. If we fail to meet expectations of investors or analysts, our stock price may fall rapidly and without notice. Furthermore, the fluctuation of quarterly operating results may render less meaningful period-to-period comparisons of our operating results, and you should not rely upon them as an indication of future performance.
Our revenue and margins for a particular period are difficult to predict, and a shortfall in revenue or decline in margins may harm our operating results.
As a result of a variety of factors discussed in this Annual Report, our revenue and margins for a particular quarter are difficult to predict, especially in light of a challenging and inconsistent global macroeconomic environment, the significant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, steps we are taking in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, increased competition, the effects of the ongoing trade disputes between the United States and China and related market uncertainty. Our revenue may grow at a slower rate than in past periods or decline. Our ability to meet financial expectations could also be adversely affected if the nonlinear sales pattern seen in some of our past quarters recurs in future periods.
The timing of large orders can also have a significant effect on our business and operating results from quarter to quarter. From time to time, we receive large orders that have a significant effect on our operating results in the period in which the order is recognized as revenue. For instance, our larger customers may seek to fulfill all or substantially all of their requirements in a single or a few orders, and not make another significant purchase for a substantial period of time. The timing of such orders is difficult to predict, and the timing of revenue recognition from such orders may affect period to period changes in revenue. As a result, our operating results could vary materially from quarter to quarter based on the receipt of such orders and their ultimate recognition as revenue.
We plan our operating expense levels based primarily on forecasted revenue levels. These expenses and the impact of long-term commitments are relatively fixed in the short term. A shortfall in revenue could lead to operating results being below expectations because we may not be able to quickly reduce these fixed expenses in response to short-term business changes.
Any of the above factors could have a material adverse impact on our operations and financial results.
As we increasingly target larger customers and larger sales opportunities, our customer base may become more concentrated, our cost of sales may increase, our margins may be lower and our sales may be less predictable.
We have become increasingly dependent upon larger sales to grow our business. In particular, in recent years, we have completed larger sales to leading internet data center and cloud customers, large enterprise customers and OEMs. No single customer accounted for 10% or more of net sales in fiscal years 2020, 2019 or 2018. If customers buy our products in greater volumes and their business becomes a larger percentage of our net sales, we may grow increasingly dependent on those
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customers to maintain our growth. If our largest customers do not purchase our products, or we are unable to supply such customers with products, at the levels, in the timeframes or within the geographies that we expect, including as a result of the impact of COVID-19 on their businesses, our ability to maintain or grow our net sales will be adversely affected.
Increased sales to larger customers may also cause fluctuations in results of operations. Large orders are generally subject to intense competition and pricing pressure which can have an adverse impact on our margins and results of operations. Accordingly, a significant increase in revenue during the period in which we recognize the revenue from a large customer may be followed by a period of time during which the customer either does not purchase any products or only a small number of our products.
Additionally, as we and our partners focus increasingly on selling to larger customers and attracting larger orders, we expect greater costs of sales. Our sales cycle may become longer and more expensive, as larger customers typically spend more time negotiating contracts than smaller customers. Larger customers also often seek greater levels of support in the implementation and use of our server solutions. Our ability to provide such support may be further affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including challenges in obtaining site access, increased reliance on remote communications to diagnose and address support issues, and the need to increase responsiveness to customer needs. An actual or perceived inability to meet customer support demands may adversely affect our relationship with such customers, which may affect the likelihood of future purchases of our products.
As a result of the above factors, our quarter-to-quarter results of operations may be subject to greater fluctuation and our stock price may be adversely affected.
If we fail to meet any publicly announced financial guidance or other expectations about our business, it could cause our stock to decline in value.
We provided forward looking financial guidance when we announced our financial results for the prior quarter. New developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic or other events that impact global economies may continue to contribute to decisions to not provide forward looking financial guidance, and if we do issue forward looking guidance, the uncertainties related to these items could cause us to revise such guidance. If issued, we undertake no obligation to update any forward looking guidance at any time. In the past, our financial results have failed to meet the guidance we provided. There are a number of reasons why we have failed to meet guidance in the past and might fail again in the future, including, but not limited to, the factors described in these Risk Factors.
Increases in average selling prices for our server solutions have historically significantly contributed to increases in net sales in some of the periods covered by this Annual Report. Such prices are subject to decline if customers do not continue to purchase our latest generation products or additional components or as a result of factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could harm our results of operations.
Increases in average selling prices for our server solutions have significantly contributed to increases in net sales in some of the periods covered by this Annual Report, although recently such prices have declined due in part to the market prices for key components. Recently, the market for key components has become more volatile during the COVID-19 pandemic. As with most electronics based products, average selling prices of server and storage products are typically highest at the time of introduction of new products, which utilize the latest technology, and tend to decrease over time as such products become commoditized and are ultimately replaced by even newer generation products. We cannot predict the timing or amount of any decline in the average selling prices of our server solutions that we may experience in the future, which may be exacerbated by continued customer uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In some instances, our agreements with our indirect sales channel partners limit our ability to reduce prices unless we make such price reductions available to them, or price protect their inventory. If we are unable to decrease the average per unit manufacturing costs faster than the rate at which average selling prices continue to decline, our business, financial condition and results of operations will be harmed.
Our cost structure and ability to deliver server solutions to customers in a timely manner may be adversely affected by volatility of the market for core components and certain materials for our products.
Prices of certain materials and core components utilized in the manufacture of our server and storage solutions, such as serverboards, chassis, CPUs, memory, hard drives and SSDs, represent a significant portion of our cost of sales. While we have increased our purchases of certain critical materials and core components in response to the demand uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we generally do not enter into long-term supply contracts for these materials and core components, but instead purchase these materials and components on a purchase order basis. Prices of these core components and materials are volatile, and, as a result, it is difficult to predict expense levels and operating results. In addition, if our
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business growth renders it necessary or appropriate to transition to longer term contracts with materials and core component suppliers, our costs may increase and our gross margins could correspondingly decrease.
Because we often acquire materials and key components on an as needed basis, we may be limited in our ability to effectively and efficiently respond to customer orders because of the then-current availability or the terms and pricing of these materials and key components. Our industry has experienced materials shortages and delivery delays in the past, including as a result of the negative impact of COVID-19 on global supply chains, and we may experience shortages or delays of critical materials or increased logistics costs to obtain necessary materials in a timely manner in the future. From time to time, we have been forced to delay the introduction of certain of our products or the fulfillment of customer orders as a result of shortages of materials and key components, which can adversely impact our revenue. If shortages, supply or demand imbalances or delays arise, the prices of these materials and key components may increase or the materials and key components may not be available at all. In the event of shortages, some of our larger competitors may have greater abilities to obtain materials and key components due to their larger purchasing power. We may not be able to secure enough key components or materials at reasonable prices or of acceptable quality to build new products to meet customer demand, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, from time to time, we have accepted customer orders with various types of component pricing protection. Such arrangements have increased our exposure to component pricing fluctuations and have adversely affected our financial results in certain quarters.
If we were to lose any of our current supply or contract manufacturing relationships, the process of identifying and qualifying a new supplier or contract manufacturer who meets our quality and delivery requirements, and who will appropriately safeguard our intellectual property, may require a significant investment of time and resources, adversely affecting our ability to satisfy customer purchase orders and delaying our ability to rapidly introduce new products to market. Similarly, if any of our suppliers were to cancel, materially change contracts or commitments to us or fail to meet the quality or delivery requirements needed to satisfy customer demand for our products, whether due to shortages or other reasons, our reputation and relationships with customers could be damaged. We could lose orders, be unable to develop or sell some products cost-effectively or on a timely basis, if at all, and have significantly decreased revenues, margins and earnings, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Adverse economic conditions may harm our business.
Our business depends on the overall demand for our products and on the economic health of our current and prospective customers. We market and sell our products both domestically and in international markets. COVID-19 has had a material adverse impact on the global economy, and it remains uncertain as to the extent or duration of such impacts in the future. In addition, the United States has recently added further prohibitions on conducting business with certain entities in China and continued to impose additional tariffs. If economic conditions or trade disputes, including trade restrictions and tariffs such as those between the United States and China, in the areas in which we market and sell our products and other key potential markets for our products continue to remain uncertain or deteriorate, our customers may delay or reduce their spending on our products. If our customers or potential customers experience economic hardship, this could reduce the demand for our products, delay and lengthen sales cycles, lower prices for our products, and lead to slower growth or even a decline in our revenues, operating results and cash flows.
We may lose sales or incur unexpected expenses relating to insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory.
To offer greater choices and optimization of our products to benefit our customers, we maintain a high level of inventory. If we fail to maintain sufficient inventory, we may not be able to meet demand for our products on a timely basis, and our sales may suffer. If we overestimate customer demand for our products, we could experience excess inventory of our products and be unable to sell those products at a reasonable price, or at all. As a result, we may need to record higher inventory reserves. In addition, from time to time we assume greater inventory risk in connection with the purchase or manufacture of more specialized components in connection with higher volume sales opportunities. There are uncertainties and risks related to COVID-19, for which we have taken certain actions including our increased purchase of certain critical materials and components as a part of our pandemic response planning. Specifically, we sought to actively manage our supply chain for potential risks of shortage by first building inventories of critical components required for our motherboards and other system printed circuit boards in response to the early outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Since that time we have continued to add to our inventories of key components such as CPUs, memory, SSDs and to a lesser extent GPUs such that customer orders can be fulfilled as they are received. Nevertheless, no assurances can be given that such efforts will be successful to manage inventory, and we could be exposed to risks of insufficient, excess, or obsolete inventory. We have from time to time experienced inventory write downs associated with higher volume sales that were not completed as anticipated. We expect that we will experience such write downs from time to time in the future related to existing and future commitments, and potentially related to our proactive purchase of certain critical materials and components as part of our planning in light of COVID-19. Excess or
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obsolete inventory levels for these or other reasons could result in unexpected expenses or increases in our reserves against potential future charges which would adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Difficulties we encounter relating to automating internal controls utilizing our ERP systems or integrating processes that occur in other IT applications could adversely impact our controls environment.
Many companies have experienced challenges with their ERP systems that have had a negative effect on their business. We have incurred and expect to continue to incur additional expenses related to our ERP systems, particularly as we continue to further enhance and develop them including by automating certain internal controls. See Part II, Item 9A, "Controls and Procedures" of this Annual Report for a more fulsome description of our material weakness and remediation efforts surrounding our ERP systems. Any future disruptions, delays or deficiencies relating to automating internal controls utilizing our ERP systems or integrating processes that occur in other IT applications could adversely affect our ability to file reports with the SEC in a timely manner, deliver accurate financial statements and otherwise impact our controls environment. Any of these consequences could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
System security violations, data protection breaches, cyber-attacks and other related cyber-security issues could disrupt our internal operations or compromise the security of our products, and any such disruption could reduce our expected revenues, increase our expenses, damage our reputation and adversely affect our stock price.
Experienced computer programmers and hackers may be able to penetrate our network and misappropriate or compromise our confidential information or that of third parties, create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. Computer programmers and hackers also may be able to develop and deploy viruses, worms and other malicious software programs that attack our products or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities of our products. While we employ a number of protective measures, including firewalls, anti-virus and endpoint detection and response technologies, these measures may fail to prevent or detect attacks on our systems. We experienced unauthorized intrusions into our network between 2011 and 2018. None of these intrusions, individually or in the aggregate, had a material adverse effect on our business, operations, or products. We have taken steps to enhance the security of our network and computer systems but, despite these efforts, we may experience future intrusions, which could adversely affect our business, operations, or products. In addition, our hardware and software or third party components and software that we utilize in our products may contain defects in design or manufacture, including “bugs” and other problems that could unexpectedly interfere with the operation or security of the products. The costs to us to eliminate or mitigate cyber or other security problems, bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs and security vulnerabilities could be significant and, if our efforts to address these problems are not successful, could result in interruptions, delays, cessation of service and loss of existing or potential customers that may impede our sales, manufacturing, distribution or other critical functions. Any claim that our products or systems are subject to a cyber-security risk, whether valid or not, could damage our reputation and adversely impact our revenues and results of operations.
We manage and store various proprietary information and sensitive or confidential data relating to our business as well as information from our suppliers and customers. Breaches of our or any of our third party suppliers’ security measures or the accidental loss, inadvertent disclosure or unapproved dissemination of proprietary information or sensitive or confidential data about us or our customers or suppliers, including the potential loss or disclosure of such information or data as a result of fraud, trickery or other forms of deception, could expose us or our customers or suppliers to a risk of loss or misuse of this information, result in litigation and potential liability for us, damage our brand and reputation or otherwise harm our business.
To the extent we experience cyber-security incidents in the future, our relationships with our customers and suppliers may be materially impacted, our brand and reputation may be harmed and we could incur substantial costs in responding to and remediating the incidents and in resolving any investigations or disputes that may arise with respect to them, any of which would cause our business, operations, or products to be adversely affected. In addition, the cost and operational consequences of implementing and adding further data protection measures could be significant.
Because our products and services may store, process and use data, some of which contains personal information, we are subject to complex and evolving federal, state and foreign laws and regulations regarding privacy, data protection and other matters, which are subject to change.
We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States and other countries that involve matters central to our business, including with respect to user privacy, rights of publicity, data protection, content, protection of minors and consumer protection. These laws can be particularly restrictive in countries outside the United States. Both in the United States and abroad, these laws and regulations constantly evolve and remain subject to significant change. In addition, the application and interpretation of these laws and regulations are often uncertain, particularly in the new and rapidly evolving industry in which we operate. Because our products and services store, process and use data, some of which contains personal information,
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we are subject to complex and evolving federal, state and foreign laws and regulations regarding privacy, data protection and other matters. Many of these laws and regulations are subject to change and uncertain interpretation and even our inadvertent failure to comply with such laws and regulations could result in investigations, claims, damages to our reputation, changes to our business practices, increased cost of operations and declines in user growth, retention or engagement, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Costs to comply with and implement these privacy-related and data protection measures could be significant.
Global privacy legislation, enforcement, and policy activity for privacy and data protection are rapidly expanding and creating a complex regulatory compliance environment. Costs to comply with and implement these privacy-related and data protection measures could be significant. For example, the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”), which came into effect on May 25, 2018, imposes stringent EU data protection requirements on companies established in the European Union or companies that offer goods or services to, or monitor the behavior of, individuals in the European Union. The GDPR establishes a robust framework of data subjects’ rights and imposes onerous accountability obligations on companies, with penalties for noncompliance of up to the greater of 20 million euros or four percent of annual global revenue. In addition, numerous states in the U.S. are also expanding data protection through legislation. For example, in June 2018, California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act, which took effect on January 1, 2020, and gives California residents expanded privacy rights and protections and provide for civil penalties for violations and a private right of action for data breaches. At the same time, certain developing countries in which we do business have already or are also currently considering adopting privacy and data protection laws and regulations. While we have implemented policies and procedures to address GDPR and other data privacy requirements, failure to comply or concerns about our practices or compliance with GDPR or other privacy-related laws and regulations could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
If we do not successfully manage the expansion of our international manufacturing capacity and business operations, our business could be harmed.
Since inception, we have conducted a majority of our manufacturing operations in San Jose, California. We continue to increase our manufacturing capacity in Taiwan and in the Netherlands, and as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have sought to accelerate manufacturing in Taiwan in order to better diversify our geographical manufacturing concentration. In order to continue to successfully increase our operations in Taiwan, we must efficiently manage our Taiwan operations from our headquarters in San Jose, California and continue to develop a strong local management team. If we are unable to successfully ramp up our international manufacturing capacity, including the associated increased logistics and warehousing, we may incur unanticipated costs, difficulties in making timely delivery of products or suffer other business disruptions which could adversely impact our results of operations.
We may not be able to successfully manage our business for growth and expansion.
Over time we expect to continue to make investments to pursue new customers and expand our product offerings to grow our business. We also expect that our annual operating expenses will continue to increase as we invest in sales and marketing, research and development, manufacturing and production infrastructure, and strengthen customer service and support resources for our customers. Our failure to expand operational and financial or internal control systems timely or efficiently could result in additional operating inefficiencies, which could increase our costs and expenses more than we had planned and prevent us from successfully executing our business plan. We may not be able to offset the costs of operation expansion by leveraging the economies of scale from our growth in negotiations with our suppliers and contract manufacturers. Additionally, if we increase our operating expenses in anticipation of the growth of our business and this growth does not meet our expectations, our financial results will be negatively impacted.
If our business grows, we will have to manage additional product design projects, materials procurement processes and sales efforts and marketing for an increasing number of SKUs, as well as expand the number and scope of our relationships with suppliers, distributors and end customers. If we fail to manage these additional responsibilities and relationships successfully, we may incur significant costs, which may negatively impact our operating results. Additionally, in our efforts to be first to market with new products with innovative functionality and features, we may devote significant research and development resources to products and product features for which a market does not develop quickly, or at all. If we are not able to predict market trends accurately, we may not benefit from such research and development activities, and our results of operations may suffer.
Managing our business for long-term growth also requires us to successfully manage our employee headcount. We must continue to hire, train and manage new employees as needed. If our new hires perform poorly, or if we are unsuccessful in hiring, training, managing and integrating these new employees, or if we are not successful in retaining our employees, our
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business may be harmed. While in the past we have had significant growth in headcount, particularly during periods of rapid growth, our headcount has remained relatively flat in recent periods. A growth in headcount would continue to increase our cost base, which would make it more difficult for us to offset any future revenue shortfalls by offsetting expense reductions in the short term. If we fail to successfully manage our growth, we will be unable to execute our business plan.
We depend upon the development of new products and enhancements to our existing products, and if we fail to predict or respond to emerging technological trends and our customers’ changing needs, our operating results and market share may suffer.
The markets for our products are characterized by rapidly changing technology, evolving industry standards, new product introductions, and evolving methods of operations. Our operating results depend on our ability to develop and introduce new products into existing and emerging markets and to reduce the production costs of existing products. If our customers do not purchase our products, our business will be harmed. The COVID-19 pandemic may also result in long-term changes in customer needs for our products in various sectors, along with capital spending reductions or shifts in spending focus, that could materially adversely affect us if we are unable to adjust our product offerings to match customer needs.
The process of developing products incorporating new technologies is complex and uncertain, and if we fail to accurately predict customers’ changing needs and emerging technological trends our business could be harmed. We must commit significant resources, including the investments we have been making in our strategic priorities to developing new products before knowing whether our investments will result in products and services the market will accept. If the industry does not evolve as we believe it will, or if our strategy for addressing this evolution is not successful, many of our strategic initiatives and investments may be of no or limited value. Also, suppliers of our key components may introduce new technologies that are critical to the functionality of our products at a slower rate than their competition, which could adversely impact our ability to timely develop and provide competitive offerings to our customers. Similarly, our business could be harmed if we fail to develop, or fail to develop in a timely fashion, offerings to address other transitions, or if the offerings addressing these other transitions that ultimately succeed are based on technology, or an approach to technology, different from ours. In addition, our business could be adversely affected in periods surrounding our new product introductions if customers delay purchasing decisions to qualify or otherwise evaluate the new product offerings.
Furthermore, we may not execute successfully on our vision or strategy because of challenges with regard to product planning and timing, technical hurdles that we fail to overcome in a timely fashion, or a lack of appropriate resources. This could result in competitors, some of which may also be our suppliers, providing those solutions before we do and loss of market share, revenue, and earnings. The success of new products depends on several factors, including proper new product and service definition, component costs, timely completion and introduction of these products, differentiation of new products from those of our competitors, and market acceptance of these products. There can be no assurance that we will successfully identify new product opportunities, develop and bring new products to market in a timely manner, or achieve market acceptance of our products or that products and technologies developed by others will not render our products or technologies obsolete or noncompetitive. The products and technologies in our other product categories and key priority and growth areas may not prove to have the market success we anticipate, and we may not successfully identify and invest in other emerging or new products.
Our future effective income tax rates could be affected by changes in the relative mix of our operations and income among different geographic regions and by changes in domestic and foreign income tax laws, which could affect our future operating results, financial condition and cash flows.
On December 22, 2017, the U.S. federal government enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“2017 Tax Reform Act”). As a result of the 2017 Tax Reform Act, we recorded a one-time write down of our U.S. deferred tax assets and liabilities resulting from the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate decrease from 35% to 21%, and a one-time transition tax, in our income tax provision for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018. Subsequent to the implementation of the 2017 Tax Reform Act, in December 2019, we realigned our international business operations and group structure to take advantage of certain international tax planning opportunities and incentives. Our future effective income tax rates could be adversely affected if tax authorities challenge our international tax structure or if the relative mix of our United States and international income changes for any reason, or due to changes in U.S. or international tax laws. In particular, a substantial portion of our revenue is generated from customers located outside the United States.
The effectiveness of our tax planning activities is based upon certain assumptions that we make regarding our future operating performance and tax laws. We continue to optimize our tax structure to align with our business operations and growth strategy. We cannot assure you that we will be able to lower our effective tax rate as a result of our current or future tax planning activities nor that such rate will not increase in the future.
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If negative publicity arises with respect to us, our employees, our third-party service providers or our partners, our business and operating results could be adversely affected, regardless of whether the negative publicity is true.
Negative publicity about our company or our products, even if inaccurate or untrue, could adversely affect our reputation and the confidence in our products, which could harm our business and operating results. For example, in October 2018, a news article was published alleging that malicious hardware chips were implanted on our motherboards during the manufacturing process at the facilities of a contract manufacturer in China. We undertook a thorough investigation of this claim with the assistance of a leading, independent third-party investigations firm wherein we tested a representative sample of our motherboards, including the specific type of motherboard depicted in the news article and motherboards purchased by companies referenced in the article, as well as more recently manufactured motherboards. After completing these examinations as well as a range of functional tests, the investigations firm reported that it had found no evidence of malicious hardware on our motherboards. In addition, neither the publisher of the news article nor any of our customers have ever provided a single example of any such altered motherboard. However, despite repeated denials of any tampering by our customers and us, and the announcement of the results of this independent investigation, this false allegation had a substantial negative impact on the trading price of our common stock and our reputation and it may continue to have a negative impact in the future.
Harm to our reputation can also arise from many other sources, including employee misconduct, which we have experienced in the past, and misconduct by our partners and outsourced service providers. Additionally, negative publicity with respect to our partners or service providers could also affect our business and operating results to the extent that we rely on these partners or if our customers or prospective customers associate our company with these partners.
The market in which we participate is highly competitive, and if we do not compete effectively, we may not be able to increase our market penetration, grow our net sales or improve our gross margins.
The market for server and storage solutions is intensely competitive and rapidly changing. The market continues to evolve with the growth of public cloud shifting server and storage purchasing from traditional data centers to lower margin public cloud vendors. Barriers to entry in our market are relatively low and we expect increased challenges from existing as well as new competitors. Some of our principal competitors offer server solutions at a lower price, which has resulted in pricing pressures on sales of our server solutions. We expect further downward pricing pressure from our competitors and expect that we will have to price some of our server and storage solutions aggressively to increase our market share with respect to those products or geographies, particularly for internet data center and cloud customers and other large sale opportunities. If we are unable to maintain the margins on our server and storage solutions, our operating results could be negatively impacted. In addition, if we do not develop new innovative solutions, or enhance the reliability, performance, efficiency and other features of our existing server and storage solutions, our customers may turn to our competitors for alternatives. In addition, pricing pressures and increased competition generally may also result in reduced sales, less efficient utilization of our manufacturing operations, lower margins or the failure of our products to achieve or maintain widespread market acceptance, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our principal competitors include global technology companies such as Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Huawei, and Lenovo. In addition, we also compete with a number of other vendors who also sell application optimized servers, contract manufacturers and original design manufacturers (“ODMs”), such as Inspur, Quanta Computer, and Wiwynn Corporation. ODMs sell server solutions marketed or sold under a third-party brand.
Many of our competitors enjoy substantial competitive advantages, such as:
• | Greater name recognition and deeper market penetration; |
• | Longer operating histories; |
• | Larger sales and marketing organizations and research and development teams and budgets; |
• | More established relationships with customers, contract manufacturers and suppliers and better channels to reach larger customer bases and larger sales volume allowing for better costs; |
• | Larger customer service and support organizations with greater geographic scope; |
• | A broader and more diversified array of products and services; and |
• | Substantially greater financial, technical and other resources. |
Some of our current or potential ODM competitors are also currently or have in the past been suppliers to us. As a result, they may possess sensitive knowledge or experience which may be used against us competitively and/or which may require us to alter our supply arrangements or sources in a way which could adversely impact our cost of sales or results of operations.
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Our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. Competitors may seek to copy our innovations and use cost advantages from greater size to compete aggressively with us on price. Certain customers are also current or prospective competitors and as a result, assistance that we provide to them as customers may ultimately result in increased competitive pressure against us. Furthermore, because of these advantages, even if our application optimized server and storage solutions are more effective than the products that our competitors offer, potential customers might accept competitive products in lieu of purchasing our products. The challenges we face from larger competitors will become even greater if consolidation or collaboration between or among our competitors occurs in our industry. Also, initiatives like the Open Compute Project, a project to establish more industry standard data center configurations, could have the impact of supporting an approach which is less favorable to the flexibility and customization that we offer. These changes could have a significant impact on the market and impact our results of operations. For all of these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against our current or future competitors, and if we do not compete effectively, our ability to increase our net sales may be impaired.
Industry consolidation may lead to increased competition and may harm our operating results.
There has been a trend toward consolidation in our industry. We expect this trend to continue as companies attempt to strengthen or hold their market positions in an evolving industry and as companies are acquired or are unable to continue operations. Companies that are suppliers in some areas of our business may acquire or form alliances with our competitors, thereby reducing their business with us. We believe that industry consolidation may result in stronger competitors that are more likely to compete as sole-source vendors for customers. Additionally, at times in the past, our competitors have acquired certain customers of ours and terminated our business relationships with such customers. As such, acquisitions by our competitors could also lead to more variability in our operating results and could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition.
Any failure to adequately expand or retain our sales force will impede our growth.
We expect that our direct sales force will continue to grow as larger customers increasingly require a direct sales approach. Competition for direct sales personnel with the advanced sales skills and technical knowledge we need is intense, and we face significant competition for direct sales personnel from our competitors. Our ability to grow our revenue in the future will depend, in large part, on our success in recruiting, training, retaining and successfully managing sufficient qualified direct sales personnel. New hires require significant training and may take six months or longer before they reach full productivity. Our recent hires and planned hires may not become as productive as we would like, and we may be unable to hire sufficient numbers of qualified individuals in the future in the markets where we do business. If we are unable to hire, develop and retain sufficient numbers of productive sales personnel, our customer relationships and resulting sales of our server solutions will suffer.
We must work closely with our suppliers to make timely new product introductions.
We rely on our close working relationships with our suppliers, including Intel, AMD and Nvidia, to anticipate and deliver new products on a timely basis when new generation materials and key components are made available. If we are not able to maintain our relationships with our suppliers or continue to leverage their research and development capabilities to develop new technologies desired by our customers, our ability to quickly offer advanced technology and product innovations to our customers would be impaired. We have no long term agreements that obligate our suppliers to continue to work with us or to supply us with products.
Our suppliers’ failure to improve the functionality and performance of materials and key components for our products may impair or delay our ability to deliver innovative products to our customers.
We need our material and key component suppliers, such as Intel, AMD and Nvidia, to provide us with components that are innovative, reliable and attractive to our customers. Due to the pace of innovation in our industry, many of our customers may delay or reduce purchase decisions until they believe that they are receiving best of breed products that will not be rendered obsolete by an impending technological development. Accordingly, demand for new server and storage systems that incorporate new products and features is significantly impacted by our suppliers’ new product introduction schedules and the functionality, performance and reliability of those new products. If our materials and key component suppliers fail to deliver new and improved materials and components for our products, we may not be able to satisfy customer demand for our products in a timely manner, or at all. If our suppliers’ components do not function properly, we may incur additional costs and our relationships with our customers may be adversely affected.
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We rely on a limited number of suppliers for certain raw materials used to manufacture our products.
Certain raw materials used in the manufacture of our products are available from a limited number of suppliers. Shortages could occur in these essential materials due to an interruption of supply, including interruptions on the global supply chain in connection with COVID-19, or increased demand in the industry. One of our suppliers accounted for 26.8%, 21.8% and 26.0% of total purchases of raw materials for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Ablecom and Compuware, related parties, accounted for 10.1%, 9.2% and 9.0% of our total cost of sales for the fiscal years ended June 30, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. If any of our largest suppliers discontinue their operations or if our relationships with them are adversely impacted, we could experience a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We rely on indirect sales channels for a significant percentage of our revenue and any disruption in these channels could adversely affect our sales.
Sales of our products through our indirect sales channel accounted for 53.1%, 39.3% and 41.5% of our net sales in fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. We depend on our indirect sales channel partners to assist us in promoting market acceptance of our products and anticipate that a significant portion of our revenues will continue to result from sales through indirect channels. To maintain and potentially increase our revenue and profitability, we will have to successfully preserve and expand our existing distribution relationships as well as develop new channel relationships. Our indirect sales channel partners also sell products offered by our competitors and may elect to focus their efforts on these sales. If our competitors offer our indirect sales channel more favorable terms or have more products available to meet the needs of their customers, or utilize the leverage of broader product lines sold through the indirect sales channel, those channel partners may de-emphasize or decline to carry our products. In addition, the order decision-making process in our indirect sales channel is complex and involves several factors, including end customer demand, warehouse allocation and marketing resources, which can make it difficult to accurately predict total sales for the quarter until late in the quarter. We also do not control the pricing or discounts offered by our indirect sales channel partners to the end customers. To maintain our participation in the marketing programs of our indirect sales channel partners, we have provided and expect to continue to offer cooperative marketing arrangements and offer short-term pricing concessions.
The discontinuation of cooperative marketing arrangements or pricing concessions could have a negative effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Our indirect sales channel partners could also modify their business practices, such as payment terms, inventory levels or order patterns. If we are unable to maintain successful relationships in our indirect sales channel or expand our channel or we experience unexpected changes in payment terms, inventory levels or other practices in our indirect sales channel, our business will suffer.
Our direct sales efforts may create confusion for our end customers and harm our relationships in our indirect sales channel and with our OEMs.
We expect our direct sales force to continue to grow as our business grows. As our direct sales force becomes larger, our direct sales efforts may lead to conflicts in our indirect sales channel and with our OEMs, who may view our direct sales efforts as undermining their efforts to sell our products. If an indirect sales channel partner or OEM deems our direct sales efforts to be inappropriate, they may not effectively market our products, may emphasize alternative products from competitors, or may seek to terminate our business relationship. Disruptions in our indirect channels could cause our revenues to decrease or fail to grow as expected. Our failure to implement an effective direct sales strategy that maintains and expands our relationships in our indirect sales channel and with our OEMs could lead to a decline in sales, harm relationships and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our research and development expenditures, as a percentage of our net sales, are considerably higher than many of our competitors and our earnings will depend upon maintaining revenues and margins that offset these expenditures.
Our strategy is to focus on being consistently first-to-market with flexible and application optimized server and storage systems that take advantage of our own internal development and the latest technologies offered by microprocessor manufacturers and other component vendors. Consistent with this strategy, we spend higher amounts, as a percentage of revenues, on research and development costs than many of our competitors. If we cannot sell our products in sufficient volume and with adequate gross margins to compensate for such investment in research and development, our earnings may be materially and adversely affected.
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Our failure to deliver high quality server and storage solutions could damage our reputation and diminish demand for our products.
Our server and storage solutions are critical to our customers’ business operations. Our customers require our server and storage solutions to perform at a high level, contain valuable features and be extremely reliable. The design of our server and storage solutions is sophisticated and complex, and the process for manufacturing, assembling and testing our server solutions is challenging. Occasionally, our design or manufacturing processes may fail to deliver products of the quality that our customers require. For example, in the past certain vendors have provided us with defective components that failed under certain applications. As a result, our products needed to be repaired and we incurred costs in connection with the recall and diverted resources from other projects.
New flaws or limitations in our server and storage solutions may be detected in the future. Part of our strategy is to bring new products to market quickly, and first-generation products may have a higher likelihood of containing undetected flaws. If our customers discover defects or other performance problems with our products, our customers’ businesses, and our reputation, may be damaged. Customers may elect to delay or withhold payment for defective or underperforming server and storage solutions, request remedial action, terminate contracts for untimely delivery, or elect not to order additional products, which could result in a decrease in revenue, an increase in our provision for doubtful accounts or in collection cycles for accounts receivable or subject us to the expense and risk of litigation. We may incur expense in recalling, refurbishing or repairing defective server and storage solutions sold to our customers or remaining in our inventory. If we do not properly address customer concerns about our products, our reputation and relationships with our customers may be harmed. For all of these reasons, customer dissatisfaction with the quality of our products could substantially impair our ability to grow our business.
Conflicts of interest may arise between us and Ablecom and Compuware, and those conflicts may adversely affect our operations.
We use Ablecom, a related party, for contract design and manufacturing coordination support and warehousing, and Compuware, also a related party and an affiliate of Ablecom, for distribution, contract manufacturing and warehousing. We work with Ablecom to optimize modular designs for our chassis and certain of other components. We outsource to Compuware a portion of our design activities and a significant part of our manufacturing of subassemblies, particularly power supplies. Our purchases of products from Ablecom and Compuware represented 10.1%, 9.2%, and 9.0% of our cost of sales for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Ablecom and Compuware’s sales to us constitute a substantial majority of Ablecom and Compuware’s net sales. Ablecom and Compuware are both privately-held Taiwan-based companies. In addition, we have entered into a distribution agreement with Compuware, under which we have appointed Compuware as a nonexclusive distributor of our products in Taiwan, China and Australia.
Steve Liang, Ablecom’s Chief Executive Officer and largest shareholder, is the brother of Charles Liang, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of our board of directors (“the Board”). Steve Liang owned no shares of our common stock as of June 30, 2020, 2019 or 2018. Charles Liang and his spouse, Sara Liu, our Co-Founder, Senior Vice President and director, jointly owned approximately 10.5% of Ablecom’s capital stock, while Mr. Steve Liang and other family members owned approximately 28.8% of Ablecom’s outstanding common stock as of June 30, 2020. Bill Liang, a brother of both Charles Liang and Steve Liang, is a member of the Board of Directors of Ablecom as well.
In October 2018, our Chief Executive Officer, Charles Liang, personally borrowed approximately $12.9 million from Chien-Tsun Chang, the spouse of Steve Liang. The loan is unsecured, has no maturity date and bore interest at 0.8% per month for the first six months, increased to 0.85% per month through February 28, 2020, and reduced to 0.25% effective March 1, 2020. The loan was originally made at Mr. Liang's request to provide funds to repay margin loans to two financial institutions, which loans had been secured by shares of the company's common stock that he held. The lenders called the loans in October 2018, following the suspension of the company's common stock from trading on NASDAQ in August 2018 and the decline in the market price of the company's common stock in October 2018. As of June 30, 2020, the amount due on the unsecured loan (including principal and accrued interest) was approximately $14.9 million.
Bill Liang is also the Chief Executive Officer of Compuware, a member of Compuware’s Board of Directors and a holder of a significant equity interest in Compuware. Steve Liang is also a member of Compuware’s Board of Directors and is an equity holder of Compuware.
Mr. Charles Liang is our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board and is a significant stockholder of our company, and has considerable influence over the management of our business relationships. Accordingly, we may be disadvantaged by the economic interests of Mr. Charles Liang and Ms. Sara Liu as stockholders of Ablecom and Mr. Charles
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Liang's personal relationship with Ablecom’s Chief Executive Officer. We may not negotiate or enforce contractual terms as aggressively with Ablecom or Compuware as we might with an unrelated party, and the commercial terms of our agreements may be less favorable than we might obtain in negotiations with third parties. If our business dealings with Ablecom or Compuware are not as favorable to us as arms-length transactions, our results of operations may be harmed.
If Ablecom or Compuware are acquired or sold, new ownership could reassess the business and strategy of Ablecom or Compuware, and as a result, our supply chain could be disrupted or the terms and conditions of our agreements with Ablecom or Compuware may change. As a result, our operations could be negatively impacted or costs could increase, either of which could adversely affect our margins and results of operations.
Our reliance on Ablecom could be subject to risks associated with our reliance on a limited source of contract manufacturing services and inventory warehousing.
We plan to continue to maintain our manufacturing relationship with Ablecom in Asia. In order to provide a larger volume of contract manufacturing services for us, we anticipate that Ablecom will continue to warehouse for us an increasing number of components and subassemblies manufactured by multiple suppliers prior to shipment to our facilities in the United States and Europe. We also anticipate that we will continue to lease office space from Ablecom in Taiwan to support our research and development efforts. We operate a joint management company with Ablecom to manage the common areas shared by us and Ablecom for our separately constructed manufacturing facilities in Taiwan.
If our commercial relationship with Ablecom deteriorates, we may experience delays in our ability to fulfill customer orders. Similarly, if Ablecom’s facility in Asia is subject to damage, destruction or other disruptions, our inventory may be damaged or destroyed, and we may be unable to find adequate alternative providers of contract manufacturing services in the time that we or our customers require. We could lose orders and be unable to develop or sell some products cost-effectively or on a timely basis, if at all.
Currently, we purchase contract manufacturing services primarily for our chassis products from Ablecom. If our commercial relationship with Ablecom were to deteriorate or terminate, establishing direct relationships with those entities supplying Ablecom with key materials for our products or identifying and negotiating agreements with alternative providers of warehouse and contract manufacturing services might take a considerable amount of time and require a significant investment of resources. Pursuant to our agreements with Ablecom and subject to certain exceptions, Ablecom has the exclusive right to be our supplier of the specific products developed under such agreements. As a result, if we are unable to obtain such products from Ablecom on terms acceptable to us, we may need to discontinue a product or develop substitute products, identify a new supplier, change our design and acquire new tooling, all of which could result in delays in our product availability and increased costs. If we need to use other suppliers, we may not be able to establish business arrangements that are, individually or in the aggregate, as favorable as the terms and conditions we have established with Ablecom. If any of these things should occur, our net sales, margins and earnings could significantly decrease, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our growth into markets outside the United States exposes us to risks inherent in international business operations.
We market and sell our systems and subsystems and accessories both inside and outside the United States. We intend to expand our international sales efforts, especially into Asia, and we are expanding our business operations in Europe and Asia, particularly in Taiwan, the Netherlands and Japan. In particular, we have made, and continue to make, substantial investments for the purchase of land and the development of new facilities in Taiwan to accommodate our expected growth and the migration of a substantial portion of our contract manufacturing operations from China to Taiwan. While effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been less severe in Taiwan than other geographic regions to date, no assurances can be given that significant adverse effects will not emerge that could substantially affect our efforts in Taiwan. See also “—The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has, and will continue to an increasing degree, adversely affect our business operations, financial condition and results of operations, the severity of which remains uncertain.”
Beyond risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, our international expansion efforts may not be successful. Our international operations expose us to risks and challenges that we would otherwise not face if we conducted our business only in the United States, such as:
• | Heightened price sensitivity from customers in emerging markets; |
• | Our ability to establish local manufacturing, support and service functions, and to form channel relationships with value added resellers in non-United States markets; |
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• | Localization of our systems and components, including translation into foreign languages and the associated expenses; |
• | Compliance with multiple, conflicting and changing governmental laws and regulations; |
• | Foreign currency fluctuations; |
• | Limited visibility into sales of our products by our channel partners; |
• | Greater concentration of competitors in some foreign markets than in the United States; |
• | Laws favoring local competitors; |
• | Weaker legal protections of intellectual property rights and mechanisms for enforcing those rights; |
• | Market disruptions created by other public health crises in regions outside the United States, such as avian flu, SARS and other diseases; |
• | Import and export tariffs; |
• | Difficulties in staffing and the costs of managing foreign operations, including challenges presented by relationships with workers’ councils and labor unions; and |
• | Changing regional economic and political conditions. |
These factors could limit our future international sales or otherwise adversely impact our operations or our results of operations.
Our results of operations may be subject to fluctuations based upon our investment in corporate ventures.
We have a 30% minority interest in a China corporate venture that was established to market and sell corporate venture branded systems in China based upon products and technology we supply. We record earnings and losses from the corporate venture using the equity method of accounting. Our loss exposure is limited to the remainder of our equity investment in the corporate venture which as of June 30, 2020 and 2019 was $2.7 million and $1.7 million, respectively. In June 2020, the third-party parent company that controls our corporate venture was placed on a U.S. government export control list, along with several related entities. We currently do not intend to make any additional investment in this corporate venture. See Part II, Item 8, Note 8, “Investment in a Corporate Venture” to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report. We may make investments in other corporate ventures. We do not control this corporate venture and any fluctuation in the results of operations of the corporate venture or any other similar transaction that we may enter into in the future could adversely impact, or result in fluctuations in, our results of operations.
Despite following previously issued SEC Staff guidance, the filing of our Annual Report Form 10-K for our fiscal year ended June 30, 2019 (the “2019 10-K”) may not make us “current” in our Exchange Act filing obligations, which means we may not be eligible to use certain forms or rely on certain rules of the SEC.
On December 19, 2019, we filed the 2019 10-K, which constituted a “comprehensive” Annual Report on Form 10-K, or “Super 10-K,” and which contained our audited consolidated balance sheets as of June 30, 2019 and 2018 and the related audited consolidated statements of operations loss, stockholders’ equity and cash flows for the years ended June 30, 2019, 2018 and 2017, along with selected unaudited condensed consolidated financial data for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016 Concurrently with filing our 2019 10-K, we filed unaudited quarterly and year to date condensed consolidated financial statements and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly periods ended September 30, 2018, December 31, 2018, and March 31, 2019. On December 20, 2019, we filed our Quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended September 30, 2019 (the “Q1 2020 10-Q”). We followed previously issued guidance from the staff of the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance (the “Staff”) with respect to filing a comprehensive annual report on Form 10-K where issuers have been delinquent in meeting their periodic reporting requirements with the SEC. In accordance with such guidance, our filing of the 2019 10-K does not necessarily mean that the Staff will conclude that we have complied with all applicable financial statement requirements or complied with all reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), nor does it foreclose any enforcement action by the SEC with respect to our disclosure, filings or failures to file reports under the Exchange Act. We do not intend to file a separate Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2018 or Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly periods ended September 30, 2017, December 31, 2017 and March 31, 2018. Without the missing reports, investors may not be able to review certain financial and other disclosures that would have been contained in those reports.
We have identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, which could, if not remediated, adversely affect our ability to report our financial condition and results of operations in a timely and accurate manner.
Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, our management is required to report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting in our annual reports, and annually our independent auditors must attest to and report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. It is necessary for us to maintain effective internal
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control over financial reporting to prevent fraud and errors and to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures so that we can provide timely and reliable financial and other information. A failure to maintain adequate internal controls may adversely affect our ability to provide financial statements that accurately reflect our financial condition and report information on a timely basis.
We have concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of June 30, 2020 due to the existence of a material weakness in such controls, and we have also concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of June 30, 2020 due to a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, all as described in Part II, Item 9A, “Controls and Procedures” of this Annual Report. While we have initiated remediation measures to address the identified material weakness, we cannot provide assurance that our remediation efforts will be adequate to allow us to conclude that such controls will be effective in the future. We also cannot assure you that additional material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting will not arise or be identified in the future. We intend to continue our control remediation activities and to continue to improve our overall control environment and our operational, information technology, financial systems, and infrastructure procedures and controls, as well as to continue to train, retain and manage our personnel who are essential to effective internal controls. In doing so, we will continue to incur expenses and expend management time on compliance-related issues. If we are unable to successfully complete our remediation efforts in a timely manner and are, therefore, not able to favorably assess the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting, this could further cause investors to lose confidence, and our operating results, financial position, ability to accurately report our financial results and timely file our SEC reports, and stock price could be adversely affected.
Moreover, because of the inherent limitations of any control system, material misstatements due to error or fraud may not be prevented or detected on a timely basis, or at all. If we are unable to provide reliable and timely financial reports in the future, our business and reputation may be further harmed. Restated financial statements and failures in internal controls may also cause us to fail to meet reporting obligations, negatively affect investor and customer confidence in our management or result in adverse publicity and concerns from investors and customers, any of which could have a negative effect on the price of our common stock, subject us to further regulatory investigations, potential penalties or stockholder litigation, and have a material adverse impact on our business and financial condition.
The outcome of litigation arising out of the matters that led to the delay in the filing of our 2017 10-K and our other SEC reports are unpredictable, and any orders, actions or rulings not in our favor could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our company and certain of our current and former executive officers are defendants in certain legal proceedings and putative class actions. Please see Part I, Item 3, “Legal Proceedings.” These proceedings have resulted in significant expenses and the diversion of management attention from our business. In addition, the circumstances that led to the delay in the filing of our 2017 10-K have created, and any additional future delay in making our SEC filing may create, the risk of additional litigation and claims by investors and examinations, investigations, proceedings and orders by regulatory authorities. These include a broad range of potential actions that may be taken against us by the SEC or other regulatory agencies, including a cease and desist order, suspension of trading of our securities, deregistration of our securities, sanctioning of our officers and directors and/or the assessment of possible civil monetary penalties. Any such further actions could be expensive and damaging to our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We incurred significant expenses related to the matters that led to the delay in the filing of our 2017 10-K and may incur expenses related to the remediation of remaining deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, and any resulting litigation.
We devoted substantial internal and external resources towards investigating, discovering, understanding and remediating the matters that led to the delay in the filing of our 2017 10-K (all as described in the 2017 10-K). As a result of these efforts, we incurred substantial incremental fees and expenses for additional accounting, financial and other consulting and professional services, as well as the implementation and maintenance of systems and processes that will need to be updated, supplemented or replaced. Specifically, in connection with these efforts, we incurred professional fees of approximately $14 million in fiscal year 2020, $67 million in fiscal year 2019 and $42 million in fiscal year 2018, and we continue to incur additional fees related to remediation in the current fiscal year. In addition, as of and for the year ended June 30, 2020, we recorded a liability of $17.5 million for our SEC settlement of the investigation into our Company's financial accounting for fiscal years 2014 to 2017. We have taken a number of steps in order to strengthen our corporate culture, sales processes, and accounting function so as to allow us to be able to provide timely and accurate financial reporting. To the extent these steps are not successful, we could be required to devote significant additional time and incur significant additional expenses. Even if these steps are successful, we may incur significant legal fees in future periods as we address litigation and regulatory action arising from the matters that led to the delay in the filing our 2017 10-K. The expenses we are incurring in this regard, as well
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as the substantial time devoted by our management to identify and address the internal control deficiencies, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The matters leading to the delay in the filing of our 2017 10-K and our lack of effective internal control over financial reporting, including adverse publicity and potential concerns from our customers, have had and could continue to have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition.
We have been and could continue to be the subject of negative publicity focused on the matters that led to the delay in the filing of our 2017 10-K. We may be adversely impacted by negative reactions to this publicity from our customers or others with whom we do business. Concerns include the time and effort required to address our accounting and control environment and our ability to be a long-term provider to our customers. The continued occurrence of any of the foregoing could harm our business and have an adverse effect on our financial condition.
Failure to comply with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, other applicable anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws, and applicable trade control laws could subject us to penalties and other adverse consequences.
We manufacture and sell our products in several countries outside of the United States, both to direct and OEM customers as well as through our indirect sales channel. Our operations are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”) as well as the anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws in the countries where we do business. The FCPA prohibits covered parties from offering, promising, authorizing or giving anything of value, directly or indirectly, to a “foreign government official” with the intent of improperly influencing the official’s act or decision, inducing the official to act or refrain from acting in violation of lawful duty or obtaining or retaining an improper business advantage. The FCPA also requires publicly traded companies to maintain records that accurately and fairly represent their transactions, and to have an adequate system of internal accounting controls. In addition, other applicable anti-corruption laws prohibit bribery of domestic government officials, and some laws that may apply to our operations prohibit commercial bribery, including giving or receiving improper payments to or from non-government parties, as well as so-called “facilitation” payments.
In addition, we are subject to U.S. and other applicable trade control regulations that restrict with whom we may transact business, including the trade sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control. If we fail to comply with laws and regulations restricting dealings with sanctioned countries or companies and/or persons on restricted lists, we may be subject to civil or criminal penalties. Any future violations could have an adverse impact on our ability to sell our products to United States federal, state and local government and related entities. We have business relationships with companies in China who have been, or may in the future be, added to the restricted party list. We take steps to minimize business disruption when these situations arise; however, we may be required to terminate or modify such relationships if our activities are prohibited by U.S. laws. Further, our association with these parties could subject us to greater scrutiny or reputational harm among current or prospective customers, partners, suppliers, investors, other parties doing business with us or using our products, or the general public. The United States and other countries continually update their lists of export-controlled items and technologies, and may impose new or more-restrictive export requirements on our products in the future. As a result of regulatory changes, we may be required to obtain licenses or other authorizations to continue supporting existing customers or to supply existing products to new customers in China and elsewhere. Further escalations in trade restrictions, particularly between the United States and China, could impede our ability to sell or support our products.
In addition, while we have implemented policies, internal controls and other measures reasonably designed to promote compliance with applicable anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws and regulations, and certain safeguards designed to ensure compliance with U.S. trade control laws, our employees or agents have in the past engaged and may in the future engage in improper conduct for which we could be held responsible. If we, or our employees or agents acting on our behalf, are found to have engaged in practices that violate these laws and regulations, we could suffer severe fines and penalties, profit disgorgement, injunctions on future conduct, securities litigation, bans on transacting government business and other consequences that may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, our brand and reputation, our sales activities or our stock price could be adversely affected if we become the subject of any negative publicity related to actual or potential violations of anti-corruption, anti-bribery or trade control laws and regulations.
Any failure to protect our intellectual property rights, trade secrets and technical know-how could impair our brand and our competitiveness.
Our ability to prevent competitors from gaining access to our technology is essential to our success. If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, we may lose an important advantage in the markets in which we compete. Trademark, patent, copyright and trade secret laws in the United States and other jurisdictions as well as our internal confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions are the core of our efforts to protect our proprietary technology and our
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brand. Our patents and other intellectual property rights may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation, and we may initiate claims or litigation against third parties for infringement of our proprietary rights. Such administrative proceedings and litigation are inherently uncertain and divert resources that could be put towards other business priorities. We may not be able to obtain a favorable outcome and may spend considerable resources in our efforts to defend and protect our intellectual property.
Furthermore, legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights are uncertain. Effective patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may not be available to us in every country in which our products are available. The laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be inadequate.
Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from infringing upon or misappropriating our intellectual property and using our technology for their competitive advantage. Any such infringement or misappropriation could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Resolution of claims that we have violated or may violate the intellectual property rights of others could require us to indemnify our customers, indirect sales channel partners or vendors, redesign our products, or pay significant royalties to third parties, and materially harm our business.
Our industry is marked by a large number of patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks and by frequent litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violation of intellectual property rights. Our primary competitors have substantially greater numbers of issued patents than we have which may position us less favorably in the event of any claims or litigation with them. Other third parties have in the past sent us correspondence regarding their intellectual property or filed claims that our products infringe or violate third parties’ intellectual property rights. In addition, increasingly non-operating companies are purchasing patents and bringing claims against technology companies. We have been subject to several such claims and may be subject to such claims in the future.
Successful intellectual property claims against us from others could result in significant financial liability or prevent us from operating our business or portions of our business as we currently conduct it or as we may later conduct it. In addition, resolution of claims may require us to redesign our technology to obtain licenses to use intellectual property belonging to third parties, which we may not be able to obtain on reasonable terms, to cease using the technology covered by those rights, and to indemnify our customers, indirect sales channel partners or vendors. Any claim, regardless of its merits, could be expensive and time consuming to defend against, and divert the attention of our technical and management resources.
If we lose Charles Liang, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, or any other current key employee or are unable to attract additional key employees, we may not be able to implement our business strategy in a timely manner.
Our future success depends in large part upon the continued service of our current executive management team and other current key employees. In particular, Charles Liang, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, is critical to the overall management of our company as well as to our strategic direction. Mr. Liang co-founded our company and has been our Chief Executive Officer since our inception. His experience in running our business and his personal involvement in key relationships with suppliers, customers and strategic partners are extremely valuable to our company. We currently do not have a succession plan for the replacement of Mr. Liang if it were to become necessary. Additionally, we are particularly dependent on the continued service of our existing research and development personnel because of the complexity of our products and technologies. Our employment arrangements with our executives and employees do not require them to provide services to us for any specific length of time, and they can terminate their employment with us at any time, with or without notice, without penalty. The loss of services of any of these executives or of one or more other key members of our team could seriously harm our business.
If we are unable to attract and integrate additional key employees in a manner that enables us to scale our business and operations effectively, or if we do not maintain competitive compensation policies to retain our employees, our ability to operate effectively and efficiently could be limited.
To execute our growth plan, we must attract additional highly qualified personnel, including additional engineers and executive staff. Competition for qualified personnel is intense, especially in Silicon Valley, where we are headquartered. We have experienced and may continue to experience difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. If we are unable to attract and integrate additional key employees in a manner that enables us to scale our
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business and operations effectively, or if we do not maintain competitive compensation policies to retain our employees, our ability to operate effectively and efficiently could be limited.
Backlog does not provide a substantial portion of our net sales in any quarter.
Our net sales are difficult to forecast because we do not have sufficient backlog of unfilled orders or sufficient recurring revenue to meet our quarterly net sales targets at the beginning of a quarter. Rather, a majority of our net sales in any quarter depend upon customer orders that we receive and fulfill in that quarter. Because our expense levels are based in part on our expectations as to future net sales and to a large extent are fixed in the short term, we might be unable to adjust spending in time to compensate for any shortfall in net sales. Accordingly, any significant shortfall of revenues in relation to our expectations would harm our operating results.
Our business and operations are especially subject to the risks of earthquakes and other natural catastrophic events.
Our corporate headquarters, including our most significant research and development and manufacturing operations, are located in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, a region known for seismic activity. We have also established significant manufacturing and research and development operations in Taiwan which is also subject to seismic activity risks. While we have adopted a business continuity plan, no assurances can be given that our business continuity plan will be effective or we would be able to successfully recover from a significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, which could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results, and financial condition. In addition, climate change and natural disasters present operational and business risks to all companies on a global scale.
Our operations could involve the use of regulated materials, and we must comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, which can be expensive, and may affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We are subject to federal, state and local regulations relating to the use, handling, storage, disposal and human exposure to materials, including hazardous and toxic materials. If we were to violate or become liable under environmental laws in the future as a result of our inability to obtain permits, human error, accident, equipment failure or other causes, we could be subject to fines, costs or civil or criminal sanctions, face third-party property damage or personal injury claims or be required to incur substantial investigation or remediation costs, which could be material, or experience disruptions in our operations, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. In addition, environmental laws could become more stringent over time imposing greater compliance costs and increasing risks and penalties associated with violations, which could harm our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We also face increasing complexity in our product design as we adjust to new and future requirements relating to the materials composition, energy efficiency and recyclability of our products, including EU eco-design requirements for servers and data storage products (Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/424). We are also subject to laws and regulations such as California’s “Proposition 65” which requires that clear and reasonable warnings be given to consumers who are exposed to certain chemicals deemed by the State of California to be dangerous, such as lead. We expect that our operations will be affected by other new environmental laws and regulations on an ongoing basis. Although we cannot predict the ultimate impact of any such new laws and regulations, they will likely result in additional costs, and could require that we change the design and/or manufacturing of our products, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
We are also subject to the Section 1502 of the Dodd Frank Act concerning the supply of certain minerals coming from the conflict zones in and around the Democratic Republic of Congo. This United States legislation includes disclosure requirements regarding the use of conflict minerals mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries and procedures regarding a manufacturer’s efforts to prevent the sourcing of such conflict minerals. These requirements could affect the cost and ease of sourcing minerals used in the manufacture of semiconductor or other devices. There may only be a limited pool of suppliers who provide conflict-free metals, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain products in sufficient quantities or at competitive prices.
Risks Related to Owning Our Stock
The trading price of our common stock is likely to be volatile, and you might not be able to sell your shares at or above the price at which you purchased the shares.
The trading prices of technology company securities historically have been highly volatile. In addition, the global markets have experienced increased volatility as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The trading price of our common stock
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has been and is likely to continue to be subject to wide fluctuations. Factors, in addition to those outlined elsewhere in this filing, that may affect the trading price of our common stock include:
• | The impact of COVID-19 on our business, the global economy and trading markets; |
• | The outcome of litigation and claims as well as regulatory examinations, investigations, proceedings and orders to which we are subject; |
• | Actual or anticipated variations in our operating results, including failure to achieve previously provided guidance; |
• | Announcements of technological innovations, new products or product enhancements, strategic alliances or significant agreements by us or by our competitors; |
• | Changes in recommendations by any securities analysts that elect to follow our common stock; |
• | The financial projections we may provide to the public, any changes in these projections or our failure to meet these projections; |
• | False or misleading press releases or articles regarding our company or our products; |
• | The loss of a key customer; |
• | The loss of key personnel; |
• | Technological advancements rendering our products less valuable; |
• | Lawsuits filed against us, including those described in Part I, Item 3, “Legal Proceedings”; |
• | Changes in operating performance and stock market valuations of other companies that sell similar products; |
• | Price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market; |
• | Market conditions in our industry, the industries of our customers and the economy as a whole; and |
• | Other events or factors, including those resulting from war, incidents of terrorism, political instability or responses to these events. |
Future sales of shares by existing stockholders could cause our stock price to decline.
Attempts by existing stockholders to sell substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline significantly. All of our shares are eligible for sale in the public market, including shares held by directors, executive officers and other affiliates, sales of which are subject to volume limitations and other requirements under Rule 144 under the Securities Act. In addition, shares subject to outstanding options and reserved for future issuance under our stock option plans are eligible for sale in the public market to the extent permitted by the provisions of various vesting agreements. If these additional shares are sold, or if it is perceived that they will be sold in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could decline.
The concentration of our capital stock ownership with insiders will likely limit your ability to influence corporate matters.
As of July 31, 2020, our executive officers, directors, current five percent or greater stockholders and affiliated entities together beneficially owned 34.8% of our common stock, net of treasury stock. As a result, these stockholders, acting together, have significant influence over all matters that require approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions. Corporate action might be taken even if other stockholders oppose them. This concentration of ownership might also have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control of our company that other stockholders may view as beneficial.
Provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and Delaware law might discourage, delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management and, as a result, depress the trading price of our common stock.
Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that could discourage, delay or prevent a change in control of our company or changes in our management that the stockholders of our company may deem advantageous. These provisions:
• | Establish a classified Board of Directors so that not all members of our Board are generally elected at one time |
• | Require super-majority voting to amend some provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws; |
• | Authorize the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock that our Board could issue to increase the number of outstanding shares and to discourage a takeover attempt; |
• | Limit the ability of our stockholders to call special meetings of stockholders; |
• | Prohibit stockholder action by written consent, which requires all stockholder actions to be taken at a meeting of our stockholders; |
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• | Provide that our Board is expressly authorized to adopt, alter or repeal our bylaws; and |
• | Establish advance notice requirements for nominations for election to our Board or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by stockholders at stockholder meetings. |
In addition, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which, subject to some exceptions, prohibits “business combinations” between a Delaware corporation and an “interested stockholder,” which is generally defined as a stockholder who becomes a beneficial owner of 15% or more of a Delaware corporation’s voting stock for a three-year period following the date that the stockholder became an interested stockholder. Section 203 could have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control that our stockholders might consider to be in their best interests.
These anti-takeover defenses could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of our company. These provisions could also discourage proxy contests and make it more difficult for stockholders to elect directors of their choosing and cause us to take corporate actions other than those stockholders desire.
We do not expect to pay any cash dividends for the foreseeable future.
We do not anticipate that we will pay any cash dividends to holders of our common stock in the foreseeable future. In addition, under the terms of the credit agreement with Bank of America, dated April 19, 2018, we cannot pay any dividends, with limited exceptions. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment. Investors seeking cash dividends in the foreseeable future should not purchase our common stock.
Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments
None.
Item 2. Properties
As of June 30, 2020, we owned approximately 1,320,000 square feet and leased approximately 810,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space. Our long-lived assets located outside of the United States represented 23.5%, 21.5% and 22.9% of total value of long-lived assets in fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. See Part II, Item 8, Note 18, “Segment Reporting” to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report for a summary of long-lived assets by geographic region.
Our principal executive offices, research and development center and production operations are located in San Jose, California where we own approximately 1,097,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space. We lease approximately 5,000 square feet of office space in Jersey City, New Jersey under a lease that expires in January 2022, lease approximately 47,000 square feet of office space in San Jose, California under a lease that expires in January 2022, and lease approximately 246,000 square feet of warehouse space in Fremont, California under a lease that expires in July 2025. Our European headquarters for manufacturing and service operations is located in Den Bosch, the Netherlands where we own approximately 12,000 square feet of office and we lease approximately 203,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space under five leases, which expire in July 2025 and June 2026. In Asia, our manufacturing facilities are located in Taoyuan County, Taiwan where we own approximately 211,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space on 7.0 acres of land. These manufacturing facilities are pledged as security under the existing term loans with $29.4 million remaining outstanding as of June 30, 2020. Our research and development center, service operations, and warehouse space in Asia are located in an approximately 100,000 square feet facility in Taipei, Taiwan under ten leases that expire at various dates ranging from November 2020 through February 2023 and an approximately 202,000 square feet facility in Taoyuan, Taiwan under eight leases that expire from December 2021 through December 2023. We lease approximately 4,000 square feet of office space in Shanghai and Beijing, China for sales and service operations under two leases that expire in August 2021 and November 2022, respectively. We lease approximately 3,000 square feet of office space in Japan under two leases, which both expire in August 2021. In addition, starting July 2020, we lease an additional 4,900 square feet of office space in Japan that expires in June 2023, in replacement to our two existing leases.
Additionally, we own 36 acres of land in San Jose, California that would allow us to expand our Green Computing Park. We remodeled one warehouse with approximately 310,000 square feet of storage space and completed the construction of a new manufacturing and warehouse building with approximately 182,000 square feet of manufacturing space in August 2015. In fiscal years 2019 and 2020, we continued to engage several contractors for the development and construction of improvements on the property. We completed the construction of a second new manufacturing and warehouse building in the first quarter of fiscal year 2018. We financed this development through our operating cash flows and borrowings from banks.
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See Part II, Item 8, Note 10, “Short-term and Long-term Debt” to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report for a discussion of our company's debt.
We believe that our existing properties, including both owned and leased, are in good condition and are suitable for the conduct of our business.
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
From time to time, we have been involved in various legal proceedings arising from the course of business activities. In management’s opinion, the resolution of any matters will not have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations or liquidity.
On February 8, 2018, two putative class action complaints were filed against us, our CEO, and our former CFO in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Hessefort v. Super Micro Computer, Inc., et al., No. 18-cv-00838 and United Union of Roofers v. Super Micro Computer, Inc., et al., No. 18-cv-00850). The complaints contain similar allegations, claiming that the defendants violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act due to alleged misrepresentations and/or omissions in public statements regarding recognition of revenue. The court subsequently appointed New York Hotel Trades Council & Hotel Association of New York City, Inc. Pension Fund as lead plaintiff. The lead plaintiff then filed an amended complaint naming our Senior Vice President of Investor Relations as an additional defendant. On June 21, 2019, the lead plaintiff filed a further amended complaint naming our former Senior Vice President of International Sales, Corporate Secretary, and Director as an additional defendant. On July 26, 2019, we filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. On March 23, 2020, the Court granted our motion to dismiss the complaint, with leave for lead plaintiff to file an amended complaint within 30 days. On April 22, 2020, lead plaintiff filed a further amended complaint. On June 15, 2020, we filed a motion to dismiss the further amended complaint, the hearing for which is calendared for September 23, 2020. We believe the claims are without merit and intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.
As previously disclosed, we cooperated with the SEC in its investigation of marketing expenses that contained certain irregularities discovered by our management, which irregularities were disclosed on August 31, 2015, and we cooperated with the SEC in its further investigation of the matters underlying our inability to timely file our Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017 and concerning the publication of a false and widely discredited news article in October 2018 concerning our products. On August 25, 2020, to fully resolve all matters under investigation, we consented to entry of an Order Instituting Cease-and-Desist Proceedings Pursuant to Section 8A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21C of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, Making Findings, and Imposing a Cease-and-Desist Order (“Order”), as announced by the SEC. We admitted the SEC’s jurisdiction over the Company and the subject matter of the proceedings, but otherwise neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings, as described in the Order. We agreed to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act and Sections 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A), and 13(b)(2)(B), of the Exchange Act and Rules 12b-20, 13a-1, 13a-11, and 13a-13 thereunder. We also agreed to pay a civil money penalty of $17.5 million. In addition, our Chief Executive Officer concluded a settlement with the SEC on August 25, 2020, as announced by the SEC. Our Chief Executive Officer will pay us the sum of $2,122,000 as reimbursement of profits from certain stock sales during the relevant period, pursuant to Section 304 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. As of and for the year ended June 30, 2020, we recorded a liability of $17.5 million for our SEC settlement which is included in accrued liabilities and general and administrative expenses in the consolidated financial statements. Our Chief Executive Officer’s payment of $2,122,000 to us is a contingent gain and will be recorded when it is realized.
Due to the inherent uncertainties of legal proceedings, we cannot predict the outcome of these proceedings at this time, and we can give no assurance that they will not have a material adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
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PART II
Item 5. | Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities |
Market Information
We became a public company in March 2007, prior to which there was no public market for our common stock. From March 29, 2007 through August 22, 2018, our common stock traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Effective at the open of business on August 23, 2018, our common stock was suspended from trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Effective March 22, 2019, our common stock was delisted from the Nasdaq Global Select Market, whereupon our common stock was quoted on the OTC Market and traded under the symbol “SMCI.” On January 14, 2020, our common stock was relisted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “SMCI".
Holders
As of July 31, 2020, there were 30 registered stockholders of record of our common stock. Because most of our shares are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of beneficial stockholders represented by these holders of record.
Dividend Policy
We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We intend to retain any future earnings and do not expect to pay any dividends in the foreseeable future. Under the terms of the credit agreement with Bank of America, as amended, we may not pay any dividends.
Equity Compensation Plan
Please see Part III, Item 12, “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters” of this Annual Report for disclosure relating to our equity compensation plans.
Stock Performance Graph
This performance graph shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be "filed" with the SEC for purposes of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, or otherwise subject to the liabilities under that Section, and shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any filing of Super Micro Computer, Inc. under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Exchange Act.
The performance graph used in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2019 (the "FY2019 Annual Report") included the cumulative total shareholder return of our peer issuers’ common stock for comparing against the cumulative total shareholder return on our common stock as our common stock had been delisted from the Nasdaq Global Select Market. On January 14, 2020, our common stock was relisted on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. For the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021 (the "FY2021 Annual Report") and onward, we will no longer use the performance of our peer issuers’ common stock to compare against the performance of our common stock, and we will use the NASDAQ Composite Index and NASDAQ Computer Index for comparing against the performance of our common stock beginning with the performance graph contained within this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
The following graph compares our cumulative five-year total stockholder return on our common stock with the cumulative return of the Nasdaq Computer Index, the Nasdaq Composite Index and an industry peer group, which we refer to as the FY2020 Peer Group, consisting of: Cray Inc., Extreme Networks, Inc., Infinera Corporation, NetApp, Inc., and NetGear, Inc. Such FY2020 Peer Group is the same as the peer group used in the FY2019 Annual Report to allow easier comparability to the prior year given we do not intend to use such peer group for the FY2021 Annual Report as described above. Cray Inc. was acquired in September 2019. In selecting the companies for inclusion, we considered and selected companies with similar industry comparability, net revenues, and operating income as our company.
The graph reflects an investment of $100 (with reinvestment of all dividends, if any) in our common stock, the Nasdaq Computer Index, the Nasdaq Composite Index and the FY2020 Peer Group, on June 30, 2015 and our relative performance tracked through June 30, 2020. The stockholder return shown on the graph below is not necessarily indicative of future performance, and we do not make or endorse any predictions as to future stockholder returns.
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6/30/2015 | 6/30/2016 | 6/30/2017 | 6/30/2018 | 6/30/2019 | 6/30/2020 | |||||||||||||
Super Micro Computer, Inc. | 100.00 | 84.01 | 83.33 | 79.95 | 65.42 | 95.98 | ||||||||||||
FY2020 Peer Group | 100.00 | 96.08 | 103.58 | 159.66 | 132.35 | 83.55 | ||||||||||||
Nasdaq Composite Index | 100.00 | 97.11 | 123.13 | 150.60 | 160.55 | 201.71 | ||||||||||||
Nasdaq Computer Index | 100.00 | 101.41 | 138.22 | 178.95 | 193.66 | 277.44 | ||||||||||||
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
None.
Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
None.
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Item 6. Selected Financial Data
The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with Part I, Item 7, "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and the consolidated financial statements and the notes thereto included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report to fully understand factors that may affect the comparability of the information presented below. We derived the selected consolidated balance sheet data as of June 30, 2020 and 2019, the consolidated statement of operations data and the stock-based compensation data for the years ended June 30, 2020, 2019 and 2018 from our audited consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included in this Annual Report. The consolidated balance sheet data as of June 30, 2018, 2017 and 2016, the consolidated statement of operations data and stock-based compensation data for the years ended June 30, 2017 and 2016 are derived from our audited consolidated financial statements which are not included in this Annual Report. Operating results for any year are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected for any future periods.
Years Ended June 30, | |||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |||||||||||||||
(in thousands, except per share data) | |||||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Statements of Operations Data: | |||||||||||||||||||
Net sales | $ | 3,339,281 | $ | 3,500,360 | $ | 3,360,492 | $ | 2,484,929 | $ | 2,225,022 | |||||||||
Cost of sales | 2,813,071 | 3,004,838 | 2,930,498 | 2,134,971 | 1,894,521 | ||||||||||||||
Gross profit | 526,210 | 495,522 | 429,994 | 349,958 | 330,501 | ||||||||||||||
Operating expenses: | |||||||||||||||||||
Research and development | 221,478 | 179,907 | 165,104 | 143,992 | 124,223 | ||||||||||||||
Sales and marketing | 85,137 | 77,154 | 71,579 | 66,445 | 58,338 | ||||||||||||||
General and administrative | 133,941 | 141,228 | 98,597 | 44,646 | 40,449 | ||||||||||||||
Total operating expenses | 440,556 | 398,289 | 335,280 | 255,083 | 223,010 | ||||||||||||||
Income from operations | 85,654 | 97,233 | 94,714 | 94,875 | 107,491 | ||||||||||||||
Other income (expense), net | 1,410 | (1,020 | ) | (773 | ) | (984 | ) | 1,507 | |||||||||||
Interest expense | (2,236 | ) | (6,690 | ) | (5,726 | ) | (2,300 | ) | (1,594 | ) | |||||||||
Income before income tax provision | 84,828 | 89,523 | 88,215 | 91,591 | 107,404 | ||||||||||||||
Income tax provision | (2,922 | ) | (14,884 | ) | (38,443 | ) | (24,434 | ) | (35,323 | ) | |||||||||
Share of income (loss) from equity investee, net of taxes | 2,402 | (2,721 | ) | (3,607 | ) | (303 | ) | — | |||||||||||
Net income | $ | 84,308 | $ | 71,918 | $ | 46,165 | $ | 66,854 | $ | 72,081 | |||||||||
Net income per common share: | |||||||||||||||||||
Basic | $ | 1.65 | $ | 1.44 | $ | 0.94 | $ | 1.38 | $ | 1.50 | |||||||||
Diluted | $ | 1.60 | $ | 1.39 | $ | 0.89 | $ | 1.29 | $ | 1.39 | |||||||||
Shares used in per share calculation: | |||||||||||||||||||
Basic | 50,987 | 49,917 | 49,345 | 48,383 | 47,917 | ||||||||||||||
Diluted | 52,838 | 51,716 | 52,151 | 51,679 | 51,836 | ||||||||||||||
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As of June 30, | |||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |||||||||||||||
(in thousands) | |||||||||||||||||||
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data: | |||||||||||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents | $ | 210,533 | $ | 248,164 | $ | 115,377 | $ | 110,606 | $ | 178,820 | |||||||||
Working capital | 885,126 | 815,802 | 719,321 | 588,636 | 544,698 | ||||||||||||||
Total assets | 1,918,646 | 1,682,594 | 1,769,505 | 1,515,130 | 1,191,483 | ||||||||||||||
Long-term obligations | 145,304 | 135,449 | 114,296 | 68,754 | 85,200 | ||||||||||||||
Total stockholders’ equity | 1,065,707 | 941,176 | 843,652 | 773,846 | 696,653 | ||||||||||||||
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Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes which appear elsewhere in this Annual Report. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report, particularly under the heading "Risk Factors."
Nasdaq Relisting of our Common Stock
As a result of the delay in filing our periodic reports with the SEC and failure to hold an annual meeting, we were unable to comply with the Nasdaq listing standards and our common stock was suspended from trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market effective August 23, 2018 and formally delisted effective March 22, 2019. Following the suspension of trading, our common stock was quoted on the OTC Market and traded under the symbol “SMCI.” On January 14, 2020, our common stock was relisted on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “SMCI". For further information regarding trading in our common stock, refer to Part II, Item 5, “Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities” in this Annual Report.
Overview
We are a global leader and innovator of application-optimized high performance and high-efficiency server and storage systems for a variety of markets, including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing. Our solutions include complete servers, storage systems, modular blade servers, blades, workstations, full racks, networking devices, server management software, and server sub-systems. We also provide global support and services to help our customers install, upgrade and maintain their computing infrastructure.
We commenced operations in 1993 and have been profitable every year since inception. For fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, our net income was $84.3 million, $71.9 million and $46.2 million, respectively. In order to increase our sales and profits, we believe that we must continue to develop flexible and application optimized server and storage solutions and be among the first to market with new features and products. We must also continue to expand our software and customer service and support offerings, particularly as we increasingly focus on larger enterprise customers. Additionally, we must focus on development of our sales partners and distribution channels to further expand our market share. We measure our financial success based on various indicators, including growth in net sales, gross profit margin and operating margin. Among the key non-financial indicators of our success is our ability to rapidly introduce new products and deliver the latest application-optimized server and storage solutions. In this regard, we work closely with microprocessor and other key component vendors to take advantage of new technologies as they are introduced. Historically, our ability to introduce new products rapidly has allowed us to benefit from technology transitions such as the introduction of new microprocessors and storage technologies, and as a result, we monitor the introduction cycles of Intel Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Nvidia Corporation, Samsung Electronics Company Limited, Micron Technology, Inc. and others closely and carefully. This also impacts our research and development expenditures as we continue to invest more in our current and future product development efforts.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Impact
The global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the various attempts to contain it have created significant volatility, uncertainty and economic disruption for many businesses worldwide. In an effort to contain COVID-19 or slow its spread, governments around the world have enacted various measures, including orders to close all businesses not deemed “essential,” shelter in place, and practice social distancing when engaging in essential activities. We are an essential critical infrastructure (information technology) business under the relevant Federal, State and County regulations. In late March, we responded to the directives from Santa Clara County and the State of California regarding shelter in place instructions to combat the spread of COVID-19. Our first priority is the safety of our workforce and we immediately began to implement numerous health precautions and work practices to operate in a safe manner.
We quickly transitioned most of our indirect labor forces to work from home and continued to operate our local assembly in Taiwan and, after an initial period of disruption, in the United States and Europe. We operate in the critical industry of IT infrastructure and we assessed our customer base to identify priority customers who operate in critical industries. We continue to see ongoing demand as we enter the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 and do not have significant direct exposure to industries such as retail and oil and gas, which have been impacted the greatest. As time passes, we may discover greater indirect exposure to distressed industries through our channel partners and OEM customers.
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We have actively managed our supply chain for potential shortage risk by first building inventories of critical components required for our motherboards and other system printed circuit boards in response to the early outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Since that time, we have continued to add to our inventories of key components such as CPUs, memory, SSDs and to a lesser extent GPUs such that customer orders can be fulfilled as they are received.
Logistics has emerged as a new challenge as globally the transportation industry restricted the frequency of departures and increased logistics costs. We experienced increased costs in freight as well as direct labor costs as we incentivized our employees to continue to work and assist us in serving our customers, many of whom are in critical industries. We expect this trend to continue for the duration of the uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We monitor the credit profile and payment history of our customers to evaluate risk in specific industries or geographic areas where cash flow may be disrupted. While we believe that we are adequately capitalized, we actively manage our liquidity needs. In May 2020, we negotiated an extension of our credit facility with Bank of America to extend the maturity date to June 2021. In June 2020, we entered into a ten-year, non-revolving term loan facility with China Trust and Bank Corp ("CTBC Bank") to obtain financing for use in the expansion and renovation of the our Bade Manufacturing Facility located in Taiwan.
Our management team is focused on guiding our company through the unfolding and emerging challenges presented by COVID-19. Currently, we are unable to predict the ultimate extent to which the global COVID-19 pandemic may further impact our business operations, financial performance and results of operations within the next 12 months.
Financial Highlights
The following is a summary of financial highlights of fiscal years 2020 and 2019:
• | Net sales declined by 4.6% in fiscal year 2020 as compared to fiscal year 2019. |
• | Gross margin increased to 15.8% in fiscal year 2020 from 14.2% in fiscal year 2019, primarily due to lower prices for key components and increased services and software revenues that have higher margins. |
• | Operating expenses increased by 10.6% in fiscal year 2020 as compared to fiscal year 2019, primarily due to the special performance bonuses to our employees and the accrual for our settlement with the SEC. |
• | Net income increased to $84.3 million in fiscal year 2020 as compared to $71.9 million in fiscal year 2019, which was primarily due to a reduction in our effective tax rate to 3.4% in fiscal year 2020 as compared to 16.6% in fiscal year 2019. |
• | Our cash and cash equivalents were $210.5 million and $248.2 million at the end of fiscal years 2020 and 2019, respectively. In fiscal year 2020, we used net cash of $49.8 million, of which $30.3 million was used in operating activities related primarily to additional working capital requirements such as building increased inventories of critical components. We also invested $44.3 million in purchases of property and equipment, including construction of a new facility in San Jose, California, and generated $23.8 million in financing activities primarily from the proceeds from exercises of stock options. |
Subsequent Events
For details, see Part II, Item 8, Note 20, “Subsequent Events” in our notes to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report.
Critical Accounting Policies
General
Our discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based upon our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amount of assets, liabilities, net sales and expenses. We evaluate our estimates on an on-going basis, and base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making the judgments we make about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are
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not readily apparent from other sources. Because these estimates can vary depending on the situation, actual results may differ from the estimates. Making estimates and judgments about future events is inherently unpredictable and is subject to significant uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control. Should any of these estimates and assumptions change or prove to have been incorrect, it could have a material impact on our results of operations, financial position and statement of cash flows.
A summary of significant accounting policies is included in Part II, Item 8, Note 1, “Organization and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” in our notes to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report. Management believes the following are the most critical accounting policies and reflect the significant estimates and assumptions used in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements.
Revenue Recognition
We generate revenues from the sale of server and storage systems, subsystems, accessories, services, server software management solutions, and support services.
Product sales. We recognize revenue from sales of products as control is transferred to customers, which generally happens at the point of shipment or upon delivery, unless customer acceptance is uncertain. Products sold are delivered via shipment from our facilities or drop shipment directly to our customer from our vendor. We may use distributors to sell products to end customers. Revenue from distributors is recognized when the distributor obtains control of the product, which generally happens at the point of shipment or upon delivery.
As part of determining the transaction price in contracts with customers, we estimate reserves for future sales returns based on a review of our history of actual returns for each major product line. Based upon historical experience a refund liability is recorded at the time of sale for estimated product returns and an asset is recognized for the amount expected to be recorded in inventory upon product return, less the expected recovery costs. We also reduce revenue for the estimated costs of customer and distributor programs and incentive offerings such as price protection and rebates as well as the estimated costs of cooperative marketing arrangements where the fair value of the benefit derived from the costs cannot be reasonably estimated. Any provision for customer and distributor programs and other discounts is recorded as a reduction of revenue at the time of sale based on an evaluation of the contract terms and historical experience.
Services sales. Our sale of services mainly consists of extended warranty and on-site services. Revenue related to extended warranty commences upon the expiration of the standard warranty period and is recognized ratably over the contractual period as we stand ready to perform any required warranty service. Revenue related to on-site services commences upon recognition of the product sale and is recognized ratably over the contractual period as the on-site services are made available to the customer. These service contracts are typically one to five years in length. Service revenue has been less than 10% of net sales for all periods presented and is not separately disclosed.
Contracts with multiple promised goods and services. Certain of our contracts contain multiple promised goods and services. Performance obligations in a contract are identified based on the promised goods or services that will be transferred to the customer that are both capable of being distinct, whereby the customer can benefit from the service either on its own or together with other resources that are readily available from third parties or from us, and are distinct in the context of the contract, whereby the transfer of the services is separately identifiable from other promises in the contract. If these criteria are not met, the promised goods and services are accounted for as a combined performance obligation. Revenue allocated to each performance obligation is recognized at the time the related performance obligation is satisfied by transferring control of the promised good or service to a customer.
If the contract contains a single performance obligation, the entire transaction price is allocated to the single performance obligation. Contracts that contain multiple performance obligations require an allocation of the transaction price to each performance obligation based on a relative standalone selling price basis. We determine standalone selling prices based on the price at which the performance obligation is sold separately. If the standalone selling price is not observable through past transactions, we estimate the standalone selling price taking into account available information, such as internally approved pricing guidelines with respect to geographies, customer type, internal costs, and gross margin objectives, for the related performance obligations.
When we receive consideration from a customer prior to transferring goods or services to the customer, we record a contract liability (deferred revenue). We also recognize deferred revenue when we have an unconditional right to consideration (i.e., a receivable) before transfer of control of goods or services to a customer.
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We consider shipping & handling activities as costs to fulfill the sales of products. Shipping revenue is included in net sales when control of the product is transferred to the customer, and the related shipping and handling costs are included in cost of sales. Taxes imposed by governmental authorities on our revenue producing activities with customers, such as sales taxes and value added taxes, are excluded from net sales and included in operating expenses.
Product Warranties
We offer product warranties typically ranging from 15 to 39 months against any defective products. These standard warranties are assurance type warranties and we do not offer any services beyond the assurance that the product will continue working as specified. Therefore, these warranties are not considered separate performance obligations in the arrangement. Based on historical experience, we accrue for estimated returns of defective products at the time revenue is recognized. We monitor warranty obligations and may make revisions to our warranty reserve if actual costs of product repair and replacement are significantly higher or lower than estimated. Accruals for anticipated future warranty costs are recorded to cost of sales and included in accrued liabilities and other long-term liabilities. Warranty accruals are based on estimates that are updated on an ongoing basis taking into consideration inputs such as new product introductions, changes in the volume of claims compared with our historical experience, and the changes in the cost of servicing warranty claims. We account for the effect of such changes in estimates prospectively.
Inventories
Inventories are stated at lower of cost, using weighted average cost method, or net realizable value. Net realizable value is the estimated selling price of our products in the ordinary course of business, less reasonably predictable costs of completion, disposal, and transportation. Inventories consist of purchased parts and raw materials (principally electronic components), work in process (principally products being assembled) and finished goods. We evaluate inventory on a quarterly basis for lower of cost or net realizable value and excess and obsolescence and, as necessary, write down the valuation of inventories based upon our inventory aging, forecasted usage and sales, anticipated selling price, product obsolescence and other factors. Once inventory is written down, its new value is maintained until it is sold or scrapped.
We receive various rebate incentives from certain suppliers based on our contractual arrangements, including volume-based rebates. The rebates earned are recognized as a reduction of cost of inventories and reduce the cost of sales in the period when the related inventory is sold.
Income Taxes
We account for income taxes under an asset and liability approach. Deferred income taxes reflect the impact of temporary differences between assets and liabilities recognized for financial reporting purposes and such amounts recognized for income tax reporting purposes, net of operating loss carry-forwards and other tax credits measured by applying enacted tax laws related to the financial statement periods. Valuation allowances are provided when necessary to reduce deferred tax assets to an amount that is more likely than not to be realized.
We recognize tax liabilities for uncertain income tax positions on the income tax return based on the two-step process. The first step is to determine whether it is more likely than not that each income tax position would be sustained upon audit. The second step is to estimate and measure the tax benefit as the amount that has a greater than 50% likelihood of being realized upon ultimate settlement with the tax authority. Estimating these amounts requires us to determine the probability of various possible outcomes. We evaluate these uncertain tax positions on a quarterly basis. This evaluation is based on the consideration of several factors, including changes in facts or circumstances, changes in applicable tax law, settlement of issues under audit and new exposures. If we later determine that our exposure is lower or that the liability is not sufficient to cover our revised expectations, we adjust the liability and effect a related charge in our tax provision during the period in which we make such a determination.
Stock-Based Compensation
We measure and recognize compensation expense for all share-based awards made to employees and non-employees, including stock options, restricted stock units ("RSUs") and performance-based restricted stock units (“PRSUs”). We recognize the grant date fair value of all share-based awards over the requisite service period and account for forfeitures as they occur. Stock option and RSU awards are recognized to expense on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period. PRSU awards are recognized to expense using an accelerated method only when it is probable that a performance condition is met during the vesting period. If it is not probable, no expense is recognized and the previously recognized expense is reversed. We base initial accrual of compensation expense on the estimated number of PRSUs that are expected to vest over the requisite service period.
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That estimate is revised if subsequent information indicates that the actual number of PRSUs is likely to differ from previous estimates. The cumulative effect on current and prior periods of a change in the estimated number of PRSUs expected to vest is recognized in stock-based compensation expense in the period of the change. Previously recognized compensation expense is not reversed if vested stock options, RSUs or PRSUs for which the requisite service has been rendered and the performance condition has been met expire unexercised or are not settled.
The fair value of RSUs and PRSUs is based on the closing market price of our common stock on the date of grant. We estimate the fair value of stock options granted using a Black-Scholes option pricing model. This model requires us to make estimates and assumptions with respect to the expected term of the option and the expected volatility of the price of our common stock. The expected term represents the period that our stock-based awards are expected to be outstanding and was determined based on our historical experience. The expected volatility is based on the historical volatility of our common stock. The fair value is then amortized on a straight-line basis over the requisite service periods of the awards, which is generally the vesting period.
Variable Interest Entities
We determine at the inception of each arrangement whether an entity in which we hold an investment or in which we have other variable interests is considered a variable interest entity ("VIE"). We consolidate VIEs when we are the primary beneficiary. The primary beneficiary of a VIE is the party that meets both of the following criteria: (1) has the power to make decisions that most significantly affect the economic performance of the VIE and (2) has the obligation to absorb losses or the right to receive benefits that in either case could potentially be significant to the VIE. Periodically, we assess whether any changes in the interest or relationship with the entity affect the determination of whether the entity is still a VIE and, if so, whether we are the primary beneficiary. If we are not the primary beneficiary in a VIE, we account for the investment or other variable interest in accordance with applicable GAAP.
We have concluded that Ablecom Technology, Inc. ("Ablecom") and its affiliate, Compuware Technology, Inc. ("Compuware"), are VIEs; however, we are not the primary beneficiary as we do not have the power to direct the activities that are most significant to the entities and therefore, we do not consolidate these entities. In performing this analysis, we considered our explicit arrangements with Ablecom and Compuware, including all contractual arrangements with these entities. Also, as a result of the substantial related party relationships between us and these two companies, we considered whether any implicit arrangements exist that would cause us to protect these related parties’ interests from suffering losses. We determined that no material implicit arrangements exist with Ablecom, Compuware, or their shareholders.
We and Ablecom jointly established Super Micro Asia Science and Technology Park, Inc. (the “Management Company”) in Taiwan to manage the common areas shared by us and Ablecom for our separately constructed manufacturing facilities. In fiscal year 2012, each party contributed $0.2 million for a 50% ownership interest of the Management Company. We have concluded that the Management Company is a VIE and we are the primary beneficiary as we have the power to direct the activities that are most significant to the Management Company. For the fiscal years ended 2020, 2019 and 2018, the accounts of the Management Company were consolidated with our accounts, and a noncontrolling interest was recorded for Ablecom’s interest in the net assets and operations of the Management Company. Net income (loss) attributable to Ablecom’s interest was not material for the periods presented and was included in general and administrative expenses in our consolidated statements of operations.
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Results of Operations
The following table presents certain items of our consolidated statements of operations expressed as a percentage of revenue.
Years Ended June 30, | ||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||
Net sales | 100.0 | % | 100.0 | % | 100.0 | % | ||
Cost of sales | 84.2 | % | 85.8 | % | 87.2 | % | ||
Gross profit | 15.8 | % | 14.2 | % | 12.8 | % | ||
Operating expenses: | ||||||||
Research and development | 6.6 | % | 5.1 | % | 4.9 | % | ||
Sales and marketing | 2.5 | % | 2.2 | % | 2.1 | % | ||
General and administrative | 4.1 | % | 4.0 | % | 2.9 | % | ||
Total operating expenses | 13.2 | % | 11.3 | % | 9.9 | % | ||
Income from operations | 2.6 | % | 2.9 | % | 2.9 | % | ||
Other (expense) income, net | — | % | — | % | — | % | ||
Interest expense | (0.1 | )% | (0.2 | )% | (0.2 | )% | ||
Income before income tax provision | 2.5 | % | 2.7 | % | 2.7 | % | ||
Income tax provision | (0.1 | )% | (0.4 | )% | (1.1 | )% | ||
Share of income (loss) from equity investee, net of taxes | 0.1 | % | (0.1 | )% | (0.1 | )% | ||
Net income | 2.5 | % | 2.2 | % | 1.5 | % | ||
Net Sales
Net sales consist of sales of our server and storage solutions, including systems and related services and subsystems and accessories. The main factors that impact our net sales of our server and storage systems are the number of compute nodes sold and the average selling prices per node. The main factors that impact our net sales of our subsystems and accessories are units shipped and the average selling price per unit. The prices for our server and storage systems range widely depending upon the configuration, including the number of compute nodes in a server system as well as the level of integration of key components such as SSDs and memory. The prices for our subsystems and accessories can also vary widely based on whether a customer is purchasing power supplies, server boards, chassis or other accessories.
A compute node is an independent hardware configuration within a server system capable of having its own CPU, memory and storage and that is capable of running its own instance of a non-virtualized operating system. The number of compute nodes sold, which can vary by product, is an important metric we use to track our business. Measuring volume using compute nodes enables more consistent measurement across different server form factors and across different vendors. As with most electronics-based product life cycles, average selling prices typically are highest at the time of introduction of new products that utilize the latest technology and tend to decrease over time as such products mature in the market and are replaced by next generation products. Additionally, in order to remain competitive throughout all industry cycles, we actively change our selling price per unit in response to changes in costs for key components such as memory and SSDs.
The following table presents net sales by product type for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018 (dollars in millions):
Years Ended June 30, | 2020 over 2019 Change | 2019 over 2018 Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | $ | % | $ | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Server and storage systems | $ | 2,620.8 | $ | 2,858.7 | $ | 2,663.6 | $ | (237.9 | ) | (8.3 | )% | $ | 195.1 | 7.3 | % | ||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 78.5 | % | 81.7 | % | 79.3 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Subsystems and accessories | 718.5 | 641.7 | 696.9 | 76.8 | 12.0 | % | (55.2 | ) | (7.9 | )% | |||||||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 21.5 | % | 18.3 | % | 20.7 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Total net sales | $ | 3,339.3 | $ | 3,500.4 | $ | 3,360.5 | $ | (161.1 | ) | (4.6 | )% | $ | 139.9 | 4.2 | % | ||||||||||
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Fiscal Year 2020 Compared with Fiscal Year 2019
During fiscal year 2020 we continued to experience a steady demand for server and storage systems, particularly from our large enterprise and datacenter customers. The year-over-year decrease in net sales of server and storage systems was primarily due to a decrease of average selling prices per compute node by approximately 11%, offset by a slight increase in the number of units of compute nodes sold. We typically adjust our prices as component costs rise and fall. The decline in average selling prices was primarily due to substantially lower costs for key components, specifically for memory and storage, as compared to the previous fiscal year. Our services and software revenue, included in server and storage systems revenue, increased by $39.8 million year-over-year. The year-over-year increase in net sales of subsystems and accessories was primarily due to an increase of approximately 19% in the volume of subsystems and accessories sold, mainly due to increased demand from our indirect sales channel offset by an approximately 6% decrease in average selling prices due primarily to the decrease in costs of the components.
Fiscal Year 2019 Compared with Fiscal Year 2018
The year-over-year increase in server and storage systems sales was primarily due to an increase of average selling price per compute node by approximately 15%, offset by a decrease of approximately 8% in the number of units of compute nodes sold. The decrease in the number of units of compute notes was primarily attributable to an overall market slowdown in the second half of fiscal year 2019. The increase in the average selling prices of our server and storage systems was primarily due to higher sales of our complete systems configured with higher density computing and more memory and storage capacity. During the first half of fiscal year 2019, we increased our average selling prices primarily to remain consistent with the increases in the cost of memory and SSDs on a year-over year basis. During October 2018, a 10% tariff was applied to certain key components made in China and was partially incorporated into our average selling prices to the extent that component sourcing alternatives were not available. As costs for memory and SSDs began to decline in the second half of fiscal year 2019, our average selling prices to customers declined accordingly. Our services revenue, included in server and storage systems revenue, increased by $41.6 million year-over-year. The year-over-year decrease in net sales of our subsystems and accessories in fiscal year 2019 was primarily due to a decrease of average selling prices of approximately 8%.
The following table presents the percentages of net sales from products sold through our indirect sales channel and to our direct customers and OEMs for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018 (dollars in millions):
Years Ended June 30, | 2020 over 2019 Change | 2019 over 2018 Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | $ | % | $ | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Indirect sales channel | $ | 1,771.6 | $ | 1,376.7 | $ | 1,395.8 | $ | 394.9 | 28.7 | % | $ | (19.1 | ) | (1.4 | )% | ||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 53.1 | % | 39.3 | % | 41.5 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Direct customers and OEMs | 1,567.7 | 2,123.7 | 1,964.7 | (556.0 | ) | (26.2 | )% | 159.0 | 8.1 | % | |||||||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 46.9 | % | 60.7 | % | 58.5 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Total net sales | $ | 3,339.3 | $ | 3,500.4 | $ | 3,360.5 | $ | (161.1 | ) | (4.6 | )% | $ | 139.9 | 4.2 | % | ||||||||||
Fiscal Year 2020 Compared with Fiscal Year 2019
The period-over-period increase in net sales through our indirect sales channel was primarily due to increased demand from the channel supporting large end users and partially offset by the lower average selling prices for our server and storage systems, caused by lower component pricing. Some direct customers also elected to move a part or all of their purchases to be through an indirect sales channel. The period-over-period decrease in net sales to our direct customers and OEMs was primarily due to a decline in demand from our internet datacenter and cloud customers and our enterprise datacenter customers.
Fiscal Year 2019 Compared with Fiscal Year 2018
The year-over-year decrease in net sales through our indirect sales channel was primarily due to the higher sales to our direct customers and OEMs. The year-over-year increase in net sales to direct customers and OEMs was primarily due to higher sales of our server and storage systems to internet data center and cloud, enterprise and OEM customers.
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The following table presents percentages of net sales by geographic region for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018 (dollars in millions):
Years Ended June 30, | 2020 over 2019 Change | 2019 over 2018 Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | $ | % | $ | % | |||||||||||||||||||
United States | $ | 1,957.3 | $ | 2,032.9 | $ | 1,902.1 | $ | (75.6 | ) | (3.7 | )% | $ | 130.8 | 6.9 | % | ||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 58.6 | % | 58.1 | % | 56.6 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Asia | 650.7 | 712.2 | 762.7 | (61.5 | ) | (8.6 | )% | (50.5 | ) | (6.6 | )% | ||||||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 19.5 | % | 20.3 | % | 22.7 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Europe | 598.6 | 611.0 | 547.5 | (12.4 | ) | (2.0 | )% | 63.5 | 11.6 | % | |||||||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 17.9 | % | 17.5 | % | 16.3 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Others | 132.7 | 144.3 | 148.2 | (11.6 | ) | (8.0 | )% | (3.9 | ) | (2.6 | )% | ||||||||||||||
Percentage of total net sales | 4.0 | % | 4.1 | % | 4.4 | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Total net sales | $ | 3,339.3 | $ | 3,500.4 | $ | 3,360.5 | |||||||||||||||||||
Fiscal Year 2020 Compared with Fiscal Year 2019
The year-over-year decrease in net sales in the United States was primarily due to a decrease in net sales of our server and storage systems to our direct customers and OEMs. The year-over-year decrease in net sales in Asia was primarily due to a decrease in net sales of our server and storage systems to OEMs in China, India and Japan, partially offset by a slight increase in the net sales of subsystems and accessories in China and of server and storage systems in the rest of Asia region. The year-over-year decrease in net sales in Europe was primarily due to a decrease in net sales of our server and storage systems to our direct customers and OEMs in the Netherlands, partially offset by an increase in net sales of our subsystems and accessories to our indirect sales channel in Germany and an increase in sales to our indirect sales channel in France.
Fiscal Year 2019 Compared with Fiscal Year 2018
The year-over-year increase in net sales in the United States was primarily due to the higher sales of our server and storage systems to our direct customers and OEMs. The year-over-year decrease in net sales in Asia was due primarily to decreased sales through our indirect sales channel in China, partially offset by increased sales in Taiwan to enterprise datacenter customers. The increased percentage of net sales in Europe was primarily due to higher sales in the Netherlands to enterprise and cloud computing customers.
Cost of Sales and Gross Margin
Cost of sales primarily consists of the costs to manufacture our products, including the costs of materials, contract manufacturing, shipping, personnel expenses, including salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation and incentive bonuses, equipment and facility expenses, warranty costs and inventory excess and obsolescence provisions. The primary factors that impact our cost of sales are the mix of products sold and cost of materials, which include purchased parts and material costs, shipping costs, salary and benefits and overhead costs related to production. Cost of sales as a percentage of net sales may increase over time if decreases in average selling prices are not offset by corresponding decreases in our costs. Our cost of sales as a percentage of net sales is also impacted by the extent to which we are able to efficiently utilize our expanding manufacturing capacity. Because we generally do not have long-term fixed supply agreements, our cost of sales is subject to change based on the cost of materials and market conditions. As a result, our cost of sales as a percentage of net sales in any period can increase due to significant component price increases resulting from component shortages.
We use several suppliers and contract manufacturers to design and manufacture subsystems in accordance with our specifications, with most final assembly and testing performed at our manufacturing facility in San Jose, California. During the fiscal years 2020, we continued to expand manufacturing and service operations in Taiwan primarily to support our Asian and European customers and have continued to work on improving our utilization of our overseas manufacturing capacity. We work with Ablecom, one of our key contract manufacturers and also a related party to optimize modular designs for our chassis and certain of other components. We also outsource to Compuware, also a related party, a portion of our design activities and a significant part of our manufacturing of components, particularly power supplies. Our purchases of products from Ablecom and Compuware combined represented 10.1%, 9.2% and 9.0% of our cost of sales for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. For further details on our dealings with related parties, see Part II, Item 8, Note 13, “Related Party Transactions.”
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Cost of sales and gross margin for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018, are as follows (dollars in millions):
Years Ended June 30, | 2020 over 2019 Change | 2019 over 2018 Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | $ | % | $ | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Cost of sales | $ | 2,813.1 | $ | 3,004.8 | $ | 2,930.5 | $ | (191.7 | ) | (6.4 | )% | $ | 74.3 | 2.5 | % | ||||||||||
Gross profit | 526.2 | 495.5 | 430.0 | 30.7 | 6.2 | % | 65.5 | 15.2 | % | ||||||||||||||||
Gross margin | 15.8 | % | 14.2 | % | 12.8 | % | 1.6 | % | 1.4 | % | |||||||||||||||
Fiscal Year 2020 Compared with Fiscal Year 2019
The year-over-year decrease in cost of sales was primarily attributable to a decrease of $214.3 million in inventory costs related primarily to the decrease in the prices of components and a decrease of $14.6 million in the provision of excess inventory and obsolescence due to fewer excess and obsolescence items identified in the fiscal year 2020. This was offset by an increase of $19.6 million in overhead costs attributable primarily to increased tariffs and an increase of $11.3 million in personnel expenses, which included a special performance bonus of $4.1 million. Warranty and repairs costs also increased by $5.7 million in the fiscal year 2020 as compared to the fiscal year 2019.
The period-over-period increase in the gross margin percentage was primarily due to sales prices declining at a slower rate than the decline in the costs of components and due to the increase in services and software revenue which have higher margins than product sales. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced an increase in both logistics costs as well as direct labor costs as we incentivize our employees to continue to work and assist us in serving our customers. This increase in costs negatively impacts our gross margins, and we expect these higher costs to continue for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fiscal Year 2019 Compared with Fiscal Year 2018
The year-over-year decrease in cost of sales was primarily attributable to an increase of $25.8 million in inventory costs related to the increase in net sales volume, increased expense of $23.3 million in the provision for excess inventory and obsolescence, an increase in overhead costs of $10.7 million attributable to increased tariffs for import of components from China, an increase of $8.6 million in compensation and benefits including stock-based compensation as a result of an increase in annual salaries and benefits and an increase in the number of operations personnel, and an increase of warranty provision of $5.4 million related to the increase in net sales.
The year-over-year increase in the gross margin percentage was primarily due to lower costs of memory and SSDs components in the second half of fiscal year 2019 and the timing of adjusting our average selling prices, as well as the increase in services and software revenue which have higher margins than product sales. In addition, in fiscal year 2020 as compared with fiscal year 2019, we had lower net sales in Asia where pricing is typically lower and the market there is more competitive which resulted in a shift in geographic mix that had a positive impact on our gross margin percentage.
Operating Expenses
Research and development expenses consist of personnel expenses, including salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation and incentive bonuses, and related expenses for our research and development personnel, as well as product development costs such as materials and supplies, consulting services, third-party testing services and equipment and facility expenses related to our research and development activities. All research and development costs are expensed as incurred. We occasionally receive non-recurring engineering funding from certain suppliers and customers for joint development. Under these arrangements, we are reimbursed for certain research and development costs that we incur as part of the joint development efforts with our suppliers and customers. These amounts offset a portion of the related research and development expenses and have the effect of reducing our reported research and development expenses.
Sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of personnel expenses, including salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation and incentive bonuses, and related expenses for our sales and marketing personnel, costs for tradeshows, independent sales representative fees and marketing programs. From time to time, we receive cooperative marketing funding from certain suppliers. Under these arrangements, we are reimbursed for certain marketing costs that we incur as part of the joint promotion of our products and those of our suppliers. These amounts offset a portion of the related expenses and have the effect of reducing our reported sales and marketing expenses. The timing, magnitude and estimated usage of these programs
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can result in significant variations in reported sales and marketing expenses from period to period. Spending on cooperative marketing, reimbursed by our suppliers, typically increases in connection with new product releases by our suppliers.
General and administrative expenses consist primarily of general corporate costs, including personnel expenses such as salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation and incentive bonuses, and related expenses for our general and administrative personnel, financial reporting, information technology, corporate governance and compliance, outside legal, audit, tax fees, insurance and bad debt reserves on accounts receivable.
Operating expenses for fiscal years 2020, 2019 and 2018 are as follows (dollars in millions):
Years Ended June 30, | 2020 over 2019 Change | 2019 over 2018 Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | $ | % | $ | % | |||||||||||||||||||
Research and development | $ | 221.5 | $ | 179.9 | $ | 165.1 | $ | 41.6 | 23.1 | % | $ | 14.8 | 9.0 | % | |||||||||||
Sales and marketing | 85.1 | 77.2 | 71.6 | 7.9 | 10.2 | % | 5.6 | 7.8 | % | ||||||||||||||||
General and administrative | 133.9 | 141.2 | 98.6 | (7.3 | ) | (5.2 | )% | 42.6 | 43.2 | % | |||||||||||||||
Total operating expenses | $ | 440.5 | $ | 398.3 | $ | 335.3 | 42.2 | 10.6 | % | 63.0 | 18.8 | % | |||||||||||||
Fiscal Year 2020 Compared with Fiscal Year 2019
The year-over-year increase in research and development expenses was primarily due to an increase of $41.3 million in personnel expenses as a result of an increase in the number of research and development employees and a special performance bonus of $17.3 million, a decrease of $0.7 million in reimbursements received for certain research and development costs that we incurred as part of joint product development; an increase of $6.7 million in costs mainly related to materials, supplies and equipment used in product development; and an increase of $1.8 million in facilities expenses. During fiscal year 2020, we also recorded a $9.5 million net settlement fee as a reduction in the research and development expenses related to the reimbursement of previously incurred expenses for one canceled joint product development agreement.
The year-over-year increase in sales and marketing expenses was primarily due to an increase of $8.1 million in personnel expenses as a result of an increase in the number of sales and marketing personnel and a special performance bonus of $1.8 million
The year-over-year decrease in general and administrative expenses was due to a decrease of $33.9 million in professional fees that were primarily incurred to investigate, assess and begin remediating the causes that led to the delay in filing our periodic reports with the SEC and the associated restatement of certain of our previously issued financial statements; a decrease of $10.2 million in bad debt provision expenses due to recovery of previously provisioned receivables from certain international customers, offset by an increase of $17.5 million related to an expense accrual for the settlement with the SEC; an increase of $14.1 million in personnel expenses as a result of an increase in the number of personnel and a special performance bonus of $4.5 million; an increase of $3.2 million in insurance expense; and an increase of $1.7 million related primarily to facilities expenses.
Fiscal Year 2019 Compared with Fiscal Year 2018
The year-over-year increase in research and development expenses was due to an increase of $16.0 million in personnel expenses, an decrease of $3.3 million in reimbursements received for certain research and development costs that we incur as part of the joint development of our and our suppliers’ and customers’ products, offset by a decrease of $6.1 million in product development costs. Our personnel expenses increased primarily as a result of an increase in annual salaries and benefits, and an increase in the number of research and development personnel to support our expanded product development initiatives and to support the growth of our business in many market verticals.
The year-over-year increase in sales and marketing expenses was due to an increase of $6.1 million in personnel expenses, as a result of an increase in annual salaries and benefits and an increase in the number of sales and marketing personnel, offset by a $1.5 million decrease in expenses related to advertising and promotion activities.
The year-over-year increase in general and administrative expenses was attributable to an increase of $31.7 million in professional fees that were primarily incurred to investigate, assess and begin remediating the causes that led to the delay in filing our periodic reports with the SEC and the associated restatement of certain of our previously issued financial statements, an increase of $7.2 million in bad debt provision expenses primarily as a result of our inability to collect receivables from
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certain international customers and an increase of $2.7 million primarily attributable to increase in sales tax accrual and insurance costs.
Interest and Other Income (Expense), Net
Other income (expense), net consists primarily of interest earned on our investment and cash balances and foreign exchange gains and losses.
Interest expense represents int