British Council-Conference calls

Transcript of the podcast

Operator: Good morning. Welcome to the Softcell Incorporated first quarter 2008 quarterly results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode, but the floor will be open for your questions following the introductory remarks. I’d now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Marie Tascon, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, madam

Marie Tascon: Good morning. Thanks for joining us. Speaking today is Softcell’s CFO Peter Goody, joined by COO Jim W. Brook for the Q&A session with analysts. Please note that the information you’ll hear during our discussion today may consist of forward-looking statements regarding revenue and margins. Actual results could differ materially from our forecast. To view the supporting slides while listening, log on to softcell.com/investor. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Peter Goody

Peter Goody: Thank you, Marie. It’s good to be on this call to report our best quarter ever, with the highest revenue and earnings in Softcell’s history. Revenue grew 35% year over year to $9.6 billion, an increase of almost $2.5 billion over the previous December quarter’s record-breaking results

Peter Goody: In closing, we believe these outstanding results reflect the excellence of our innovative products. We are very enthusiastic about our announcements for 2008, including new SoftTalk software and an updated SoftPro

Marie Tascon: With that, I’d like to open the call to questions. Please limit yourselves to one question only

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator: Our first question will come from the line of Jane Bratworth with Morgan Stanley

Jane Bratworth: On the SoftTalk expectations for 2008, are you guys providing any type of update today

Jim W. Brook: We remain very sure about hitting the 10 million goal for 2008

Operator: The next question comes from Ahmed Jamal with Merrill Lynch

Ahmed Jamal – Merrill Lynch: Jim, in terms of the SoftTalk rollout internationally, there’s been a lot of talk about China — anything specific relative to the China market

Jim W. Brook: We open our first stores in China this year. We’ll also be rolling out additional European countries during 2008

Operator: Next question from Kurt Abramsky with Deutsche Bank

Kurt Abramsky – Deutsche Bank: Could you give us any, either quantitative or qualitative, commentary on how European Softtalk uptake is faring versus your U.S. experience

Jim W. Brook: Kurt, you know, we just launched in France in November and in the U.K. and Germany a bit earlier so we have very limited experience but we are very happy with all the launches so far

Operator: The next question comes from Jeanne Beauvoir with Credit Suisse

Jeanne Beauvoir – Credit Suisse: Peter, is it too early to offer a little more colour on the SoftTalk seasonality question. Your guidance obviously implies seasonality for the whole company

Peter Goody: We’ve not yet been through a March quarter with SoftTalk so we don’t have any history to go by as we do with other products. We can report in April

Marie Tascon: Time for just one final question

Operator: And that will come from Tim Lu with Goldman Sachs

Tim Lu – Goldman Sachs: I’d like to ask you, Peter, about your overall market guidance. It’s good to hear you are not seeing any weakness. I understand your products are unlikely to be in the most economically exposed segment, but is there likely to be some exposure if we see, for example, a recession in Europe as well as the U.S. In your 10% growth forecast have you assumed some kind of economic weakening within Europe specifically

Peter Goody: The 10% is based pretty much on a very concrete situation, how we see the trends. It’s something that we feel is quite solid

Marie Tascon: Thanks very much, Tim and thanks to everyone. A replay of today’s call will be available as a webcast on softcell.com/investor and via telephone. The number for the telephone replay is 989-313-2111 and the passcode is 5237883. Replays will be available at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time today

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s presentation. We thank everyone for your participation and have a wonderful day

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