STAAR (STAA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

We intend to use our website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Such disclosures will be included on our website in the investor relations section. Accordingly, investors should monitor our investor website in addition to following our press releases, SEC filings, and public conference calls and webcasts. And with that, I would like to turn the presentation over to our President and CEO, Warren Foust. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. I encourage you to read the disclosures in today's release, as well as on our filings with the SEC. Except as required by law, STAAR assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or actual outcomes. In addition, during today's discussion, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted EBITDA and constant currency sales. Please refer to today's release for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP metrics. For brevity, unless otherwise specified, all comparisons on today's call will be on a year-over-year basis versus the relevant period. Finally, a quick reminder. Connie Johnson: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. On the call today are Warren Foust, President and Chief Executive Officer of STAAR Surgical, and Deborah Andrews, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of STAAR Surgical. Earlier today, we reported our second quarter 2026 results via a press release in Form 8-K. We posted our results, release, and shareholder letter to our investor website at investors.staar.com. Today's call is scheduled for 1 hour and will include Q&A for publishing analysts. Webcast participants can also send questions for today's Q&A session to ir@staar.com. Before we get started, I want to remind you that during today's discussion, we will be making forward-looking statements. Operator: Welcome to the STAAR Surgical second quarter 2026 results conference call and webcast. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Connie Johnson, Director of Investor Relations. Story Continues Warren Foust: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Six months ago, Deborah and I stepped into our roles as interim co-CEOs. Looking back now, I am struck by how much we accomplished together. We navigated uncertainty and challenges and leaned into significant opportunities. And today, we are proud to report the strongest first half revenue performance in STAAR's history. That includes the launch of EVO Plus in China, which fueled market share gains and drove both year-over-year and sequential growth in the region, back-to-back record quarters in the U.S., and a return to profitability and free cash flow generation across the business. These results reflect the focus, resilience, and execution of teams across the company, and that is a milestone worth celebrating. Through it all, it's been a tremendous experience, one that I'm grateful for. As we move forward, I'm proud to do so as President and Chief Executive Officer. I thank the Board for their confidence and each of you for your continued support. I want to take a moment to recognize and thank Deborah Andrews. Over the past 6 months, Deborah has been an extraordinary partner, steady, wise, and tireless in her commitment to STAAR. Her clarity and focus on financial discipline, culture, and strategy have profoundly benefited this company. I'm thrilled that she continues as Chief Financial Officer and is doing so now as an Executive Vice President. I could not ask for a better partner as we lead our company forward. Now, let's talk about the quarter, which was a strong one. Our shareholder letter published today covers our second quarter results, regional performance, ERP implementation, and long-term priorities in detail. Rather than repeat all of that here, I want to focus on the 3 priorities that we laid out nearly 6 months ago. Revenue growth, profit expansion, and innovation acceleration. In the second quarter, we advanced all 3, and I'd like to walk you through where we stand. Starting with revenue growth, the second quarter was a strong revenue quarter. Net sales were $93.5 million, up 111% year over year. We delivered sequential growth in China, double-digit growth in the Americas, and double-digit growth in EMEA, excluding the Middle East. Deborah will take you through the details a little later, but the headline is clear. This business is performing. One important item I want to flag for your modeling. Our third quarter of 2025 results included the recognition of $25.9 million related to the 2024 order. On a consolidated basis, third quarter 2025 net sales were $94.7 million. Excluding that item, though, the comparable total base is $68.8 million. That revenue from the 2024 order will not repeat, and we encourage you to use the adjusted base when evaluating third quarter 2026 year-over-year results. Fourth quarter comparisons are unaffected. Fourth quarter 2025 net sales were $57.8 million. Now on China, I'm proud of our market share gains and of our expanding EVO Plus launch. China remains critical to our success in an area where we have a compelling opportunity ahead. In the quarter, China grew sequentially supported by increased adoption of EVO Plus, and importantly, we saw no evidence of inventory build at distributors or hospitals reinforcing that our growth is being driven by demand. The broader refractive market remains uneven. Recent industry commentary reinforces the view that procedures remain pressured in parts of China and APAC. Against that backdrop, STAAR's performance supports our belief that EVO is gaining market share. We're definitely getting a lift from the EVO Plus rollout, but more than that, we're seeing patients and surgeons really leaning into the benefits of lens-based surgery. People like that EVO is reversible and doesn't require removing corneal tissue, and that's a big differentiator as laser-based procedures continue to struggle in many markets around the world. We also want to provide more clarity on China's seasonality. As discussed in our shareholder letter, the quarterly pattern in China has evolved. The first and second quarters are emerging as our strongest revenue quarters, supported by Chinese New Year, a shift forward of military recruitment-related procedures, and summer demand. While the third quarter revenue is expected to be moderately lower than the second quarter due to shifts in seasonality, excluding the 1-time order of $25.9 million booked in the third quarter of 2025, we expect year-over-year growth. As is typical, the fourth quarter will remain seasonally softer than the first 3 quarters, but we are still planning for year-over-year growth. Outside China, we continue to see strong revenue contributions in key markets such as Japan and Korea, as well as double-digit growth in the U.S., the Americas broadly, and excluding the Middle East and EMEA as well. We also see compelling long-term opportunities in many other markets around the globe. In the Americas, growth was led by another greater than $6 million quarter in the U.S., our second consecutive quarter at that level. The U.S. market remains underpenetrated, and we continue to see opportunity to grow EVO sales and continue to take market share as practices look for differentiated, lens-based refractive alternatives to laser vision correction as demand for laser procedures continues to decline. In APAC outside of China, Japan remains an important market where EVO has strong category awareness, is a strong market leader, and has sustainable long-term potential. We continue to see solid underlying demand in Japan, bolstered by direct-to-consumer awareness initiatives launched in November of 2025. Unit volume rose 14%, though currency headwinds damaged the market and reported sales growth, which came in at 2%. Across the broader region, market dynamics vary, and we are being disciplined about where we invest. In EMEA, excluding the Middle East, the region grew double digits, reflecting solid underlying demand across much of the region. Across all regions, our approach is consistent. Invest where we see the clearest returns and support surgeons and patients through service, training, and education. While we continue driving the global shift from laser-based to lens-based refractive surgery, we are also working to increase our product availability in order to satisfy the accelerating global demand that has outpaced our supply chain projections. The second area is profit expansion. In the second quarter, we demonstrated meaningful progress in expanding profitability. We grew gross profit and net income compared with both the prior year quarter and the first quarter. These improvements resulted in significant cash flow generation, increasing cash from $163.9 million at the end of the first quarter to $181.5 million at the end of the second quarter. This progress reflects the strength of our business model and the financial discipline that Deborah and the team had brought to the organization. The result is a company with strong gross margins, a strong balance sheet, no debt, an increasing cash balance, and the flexibility to invest in the business where it matters, commercial execution, customer support, product availability, innovation, and the systems that help us scale. Our ERP implementation demanded significant energy and focus across the organization in the quarter. And our teams delivered. We continued to sell EVO lenses. We provided support for our customers and achieved strong results. The ERP system is now live and we are actively optimizing the system in the third quarter. This is not just an operationa