Plantronics Earnings Preview

Bear Stearns analysts Andy Neff, Bill Hand and Ted Chung sent a note to clients Tuesday morning previewing Plantronics's F3Q08 earnings after the bell (find the conference call transcript here, later on Tuesday night). Key excerpts:

Tuesday 1/22 @ 5:00pm ET: PLT 3Q08 EPS after market close – expect in-line results but cautious outlook due to macro concerns.

While we expect PLT to report 3Q08 (Dec) results in line with expectations, driven by favorable pricing, new products (Voyager 855, Discovery 665, etc.) and favorable consumer seasonality, we expect the company to provide cautious outlook given its large exposure to enterprise (63% of sales) and weaker consumer seasonality.

Despite macro-economic driven concerns, key issues for PLT remain whether the company is on-track with its turnaround plan (e.g., on-schedule product rollouts, China plant ramp, closure of Altec Lansing manufacturing facility, and improved profitability of Altec Lansing) and competitive dynamics in the headset market.

• Pre-option 3Q08 non-GAAP EPS of $0.42 vs. $0.38 a year ago (First Call at $0.40)
• 3Q08 revenues of $235mm, up 9% YoY (First Call at $233mm)
• For 4Q08: pre-option EPS of $0.42 on revenues of $214mm (Street at $0.33 on revenues of $211mm)
• On 1/14, we lowered our estimates across our entire coverage within the IT Hardware sector to reflect our assessment of macro concerns -- all of our estimates cuts were going forward, i.e. not for the December quarter