UEI Stock Jumps as Company Highlights Higher-Margin Remotes, Nevo Butler Platform

Universal Electronics, Inc. shares bounced 15.2% Friday to close at $51.80 after the company’s Thursday Q4 earnings report showing 68 percent growth in earnings per share. For full-year 2019, net sales grew to $751.7 million, the highest in company history, up 11% over 2018, said Chief Financial Officer Bryan Hackworth on an earnings call. A rebalancing of the remote control maker’s product line away from low-margin devices to advanced, differentiated high-margin solutions contributed to the company’s strongest year ever, said CEO Paul Arling. Q4 revenue of $174.7 million compared with $170.3 million in the 2018 quarter. Slower top-line growth reflects a “shift away from low margin business, a tradeoff we would gladly take and sets the company up for additional margin expansion,” Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Friday, issuing a “buy” rating on the stock. UEI’s three China factories have resumed operations after the extended Lunar New Year holiday, but with a reduced labor force, said Hackworth. There are no known cases of the virus among UEI workers, and the company expects to be fully online “within weeks.” UEI’s component suppliers are also coming back online, but with similar labor and logistics issues. Arling reviewed the company’s CES 2020 introductions including the fifth generation of its QuickSet Cloud platform that enables CE devices to discover and control devices and services in the home. He said Nevo Butler, UEI’s digital assistant, can be built into customers’ devices; they don’t have to buy the Nevo Butler hub from the company. UEI's hit from Section 301 tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on electronics imported from China narrowed in 2019 to $530,000 vs. $1.5 million in 2018. The company moved some production from China to its Monterrey, Mexico, facility last year to curb exposure to tariffs for goods sold in the U.S.