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Technology Stocks : KVH Industries, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: nissan who wrote (6939)11/1/2017 1:36:17 AM
From: awecr2  Respond to of 7249
 
I can’t emphasize enough how cautious we need to be. I fully expect KVH to guide lower for Q4. And this new product is way more incremental than I was hoping for. Don’t get me wrong, this is an important product for stemming the bleeding. But what are we looking at? A product that has only added a new modem. That’s it. Why couldn’t they merge the ICM with the server? It’s been 5 years. This product doesn’t increase market opportunity, in terms of vessel size.

We need to look at this in terms of competition. GX provides broader coverage, with the same size dish and comparably similar data rates. KVH is catching up with this product. They used to be a leader. It’s clear they are abandoning their relationship with ViaSat and moving closer to Intelsat...a company that is financially distressed.

This product introduction concerns me more than excites me. Sorry for the wet blanket but I’m tired of the incrementalism. It’s incredibly arrogant of MKVH. JMHO.

I don’t know, maybe seeing this new product in terms of CaaS will change my opinion. I’m just not sold. Probably because I expected today’s announcement 2 years ago.

AW



To: nissan who wrote (6939)11/1/2017 9:21:00 AM
From: awecr2  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 7249
 
Looking at the details, MSRP of upgrading an existing V7 is $10k(see below). It’s difficult to determine what the upgrade rate will be. Airtime rates are virtually the same when looking at it from max speed open rate plans. The plans are different in which an unlimited channel is added for free but there is upgrade opportunities on that 2nd channel. This is a positive for the potential of driving up ARPUs in terms of units under the sales model vs the CaaS model. Considering an existing V7 user can get much faster speeds, a 2nd unlimited channel and broader coverage, it seems plausible the upgrade rate could be significant. If we assumed 100 per month on an upgrade basis, this would add $1 to $2 million a quarter in incremental revenue. V7HTS should reinvigorate the sales channel that has seen deep discounting in order to maintain certain sales numbers. Assuming cannibalization of some of the legacy vsat hardware, I’m assuming $1-2 million in improved sales related to the new V7HTS. With the Introduction of CaaS, we can assume approximately $2 million in lost hardware sales per quarter. What this all means is that the new hardware will likely make up for the lost hardware sales but not much more. It’s better than the alternative in which we will see hardware sales drop for q3 & q4. Q1 is where hardware is stable and CaaS Numbers should be very encouraging. I thought we would see a broader HTS lineup so my expectations of service growth are now lower. I think we can still see 20% revenue growth in services next year. This is very good relative to what we have been seeing but I thought it possible to see 40-60% growth in q4 service numbers next year. That’s unlikely now.

kvh.com
progressive.kvh.com Click on one of the 4 pictures to see the MSRP.

CaaS with V7HTS is more important than ever, in terms of sustainable long term growth. They haven’t disclosed what the rates will be but with an MSRP of $10k for upgrades, I’m guessing this translates into an increase of $200-300 per month over the existing V7 CaaS plan.

As I’ve had more time to digest this single product introduction strategy, I’m warming up to it from a long term growth perspective. I was just hoping to see a smaller product that would stimulate a land based market opportunity. It’s not a huge opportunity but I believe there is an untapped market segment in O&G, high end RV, emergency and military. V3 Speeds are too slow for the price and V7HTS Doesn’t make the pie bigger. It’s likely to lead to a bigger share for KVH, however.

Aw



To: nissan who wrote (6939)11/2/2017 12:11:12 PM
From: awecr2  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 7249
 
After several years of disappointment, stormy clouds are clearing. We aren’t officially in safe territory but with Q4 guidance behind us, 2018 is likely to be very good, in terms of service growth. There are still some issues regarding hardware and even content services, as some of this is absorbed into CaaS, but I think we will begin to see a dramatic acceleration in overall service revenues beginning in 2018. I’ve been clear in my position that I was not happy with how Martin has handled the TacNav issue. It’s officially behind us now. I hope he’s learned his lesson and taken the advice of the last Analyst on the cc to leave TacNav out of guidance unless it’s firm. It’s highly destructive to shareholder confidence and value. I believe it was intentional but there’s nothing we can do about it now. It’s good to hear positive news about the mass market FOG. As CaaS accelerates in 2018, we will be hearing increasing positive news about a mass market product rollout in g&s. TacNav will be a distant memory.

The skies are finally clearing guys.

Aw