Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer”, a “smaller reporting company”, and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements that are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. The forward-looking statements are contained principally in, but not limited to, the sections entitled “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and can be identified by terms such as “anticipates”, “believes”, “could”, “seeks”, “estimates”, “expects”, “intends”, “may”, “plans”, “potential”, “predicts”, “projects”, “should”, “will”, “would” or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be significantly different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We discuss these risks in greater detail in the section entitled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Also, forward-looking statements represent our management’s beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. You should read this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q completely and with the understanding that our actual future results may be significantly different from what we expect.
Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ significantly from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
Item 1. Financial Statements
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
The following table provides information about disaggregated revenue by primary geographical markets:
The typical subscription term ranges from one month to five years. Contracted revenue as of June 30, 20192020 that has not yet been recognized was $0.8approximately $1.1 billion. This excludes contracts with an original expected length of less than one year. TheOf these remaining performance obligations, the Company expects to recognize approximately 57%revenue of 55% of this balance over the next 12 months and 43%45% thereafter.
Other revenues are primarily comprised of product revenue from the sale of pre-configured phones, professional services, and phone rentals, and professional services.rentals. Product revenues were $9.1$9.3 million and $8.8$9.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively, and $18.6$20.1 million and $16.8$18.6 million for the six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively. Cost of product revenues were $8.5$9.0 million and $7.5$8.3 million for the three months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively, and $17.5$19.6 million and $15.3$17.1 million for the six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively.
Prepaid expenses and other current assets consisted of the following (in thousands):
Amortization of developed technology is included in cost of revenues and amortization of customer relationships is included in sales and marketing expenses in the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations. AtAs of June 30, 2019,2020, the weighted averageweighted-average amortization period for developed technology is approximately 3.4 years and for customer relationships and developed technology both wereis approximately 3.02.4 years.
The amortizable intangible assets have a weighted average useful life of three years. The purchase price exceeded the estimated fair value of the tangible and identifiable intangible assets and liabilities acquired and, as a result of the allocation, the Company recorded goodwill of $24.5 million, which is not0t deductible for tax purposes. The goodwill recognized is attributable primarily to contributions of the entity's technology to the overall corporate strategy, enhancements to the Company's contact center product offerings, and assembled workforce of the acquired business.
In March 2018, the Company issued $460.0 million aggregate principal amount of 0% convertible senior notes due 2023 in a private placement, including the exercise in full of the over-allotment options of the initial purchasers.purchasers (the "2023 Notes"). The 2023 Notes are senior unsecured obligations of the Company, do not bear regular interest, and the principal amount of the 2023 Notes does not accrete. The 2023 Notes may bear special interest under specified circumstances as outlined in the indenture relating togoverning the issuance of2023 Notes (the “Indenture”“2023 Indenture”) or if the 2023 Notes are not freely tradeable as required by the 2023 Indenture. The 2023 Notes will mature on March 15, 2023, unless earlier repurchased or redeemed by the Company or converted pursuant to their terms. The total net proceeds from the debt offering, after deducting initial purchase discounts and debt issuance costs, were approximately $449.5 million.
Upon conversion, the Company will pay or deliver, as the case may be, cash, shares of Class A Common Stock, or a combination of cash and shares of Class A Common Stock, at the Company’s election. It is the Company’s current intent to settle the principal amount of the 2023 Notes with cash.
The Company primarily leases facilities for office and datacenter space under non-cancelable operating leases for its U.S. and international locations. As of June 30, 2019, non-cancelable2020, non-cancellable leases expire on various dates between 20192020 and 2024.2029.
|
| | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, 2019 | | Six Months Ended June 30, 2019 |
Lease Cost | | | |
Operating lease cost (a) | $ | 4,389 |
| | $ | 8,438 |
|
(a) Includes short-term leases and variable lease costs, which are immaterial.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
E. Chapman, Jr. Living Trust under Trust Agreement dated July 17, 2006, and Colleen C. Badell, Trustee of the Colleen C. Badell Living Trust under Trust Agreement dated July 17, 2006, as tenants in common (individually and collectively, “Landlord”) for its corporate headquarters (the “Lease Amendment”).
|
| | | | | | | |
| Operating Leases |
| June 30, 2019 | | December 31, 2018 |
Maturity of Lease Liabilities | | | |
2019 (remaining) | $ | 7,529 |
| | $ | 13,470 |
|
2020 | 13,986 |
| | 12,057 |
|
2021 | 10,346 |
| | 8,399 |
|
2022 | 5,304 |
| | 4,009 |
|
2023 | 3,954 |
| | 3,224 |
|
2024 onwards | 167 |
| | 28 |
|
Total future minimum lease payments | 41,286 |
| | 41,187 |
|
Less: Imputed interest | (3,283 | ) | | — |
|
Present value of lease liabilities | $ | 38,003 |
| | $ | 41,187 |
|
Other supplemental information asThe premises leased occupy approximately 84,148 rentable square feet of June 30, 2019 is as follows (in thousand):
|
| | |
| June 30, 2019 |
Lease Term and Discount Rate | |
Weighted-average remaining operating lease term (years) | 2.7 |
|
Weighted-average operating lease discount rate | 5 | % |
|
| | | |
| Six Months Ended June 30, 2019 |
Supplemental Cash Flow Information | |
Cash paid for amounts included in the measurement of lease liabilities: | |
Operating cash flows resulting from operating leases | $ | 7,746 |
|
| |
New ROU assets obtained in exchange of lease liabilities: | |
Operating leases | $ | 6,968 |
|
Asoffice building space, consisting of June 30, 2019,three office floors, located at 20 Davis Drive in Belmont, California. The Lease Amendment extends the Company’s right to occupy the premises commencing on August 1, 2021 and terminates on July 31, 2026, unless earlier terminated pursuant to the terms of the Lease Amendment. The Company has the right to extend the term for 1 additional operating leasesfive-year period under certain circumstances. The monthly base rent for the first year of the extended lease term is approximately $8.5$0.3 million that have not yet commenced and as such, have not yet been recognized onincreases annually thereafter by 3 percent for the Company’s Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet. These operating leases are expected to commence in 2019 with lease terms up to ten years.balance of the extended term.
Note 9.8. Commitments and Contingencies
Legal Matters
The Company is subject to certain legal proceedings described below, and from time to time may be involved in a variety of claims, lawsuits, investigations, and proceedings relating to contractual disputes, intellectual property rights, employment matters, regulatory compliance matters, and other litigation matters relating to various claims that arise in the normal course of business.
The Company determines whether an estimated loss from a contingency should be accrued by assessing whether a loss is deemed probable and can be reasonably estimated. The Company assesses its potential liability by analyzing specific litigation and regulatory matters using reasonably available information. The Company develops its views on estimated losses in consultation with inside and outside counsel, which involves a subjective analysis of potential results and outcomes, assuming various combinations of appropriate litigation and settlement strategies. Actual claims could settle or be adjudicated against the Company in the future for materially different amounts than the Company has accrued due to the inherently unpredictable nature of litigation. Legal fees are expensed in the period in which they are incurred.
TCPA Matter
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
TCPA Matters
On April 21, 2016, Supply Pro Sorbents, LLC (“SPS”) filed a putative class action against the Company in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging common law conversion and violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) arising from fax cover sheets used by the Company’s customers when sending facsimile transmissions over the Company’s system (“SPS Lawsuit”). SPS seeks statutory damages, costs, attorneys’ fees and an injunction in connection with its TCPA claim, and unspecified damages and punitive damages in connection with its conversion claim. On July 6, 2016, the Company filed a Petition for Expedited Declaratory Ruling before the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), requesting that the FCC issue a ruling clarifying certain portions of its regulations promulgated under TCPA at issue in the SPS Lawsuit (“Petition”). The Petition remains pending. On July 8, 2016, the Company filed a motion to dismiss the SPS Lawsuit in its entirety, along with a collateral motion to dismiss or stay the SPS Lawsuit pending a ruling by the FCC on the Company’s Petition. On October 7, 2016, the district court granted the Company’s motion to dismiss. The district court concurrently dismissed the Company’s motion to dismiss or stay as moot. Plaintiff filed its amended complaint on October 27, 2016, alleging essentially the same theories and claims. On November 21, 2016, the Company filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, along with a renewed motion to dismiss or stay the case pending resolution of the FCC Petition. On July 17, 2017, the district court granted the Company’s motion to dismiss with prejudice and concurrently dismissed the Company’s motion to dismiss or stay as moot. SPS filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on July 28, 2017. SPS’s opening brief on appeal was filed on December 20, 2017; asking that the dismissal be reversed and the case be returned to the district court for the Lawsuit to proceed. The Company’s answering brief was filed on February 20, 2018; asking that the dismissal be affirmed. SPS filed its reply brief on April 12, 2018. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision on November 20, 2018, affirming the order of the district court and finding in RingCentral’s favor. On December 4, 2018, SPS filed a petition for panel rehearing, which RingCentral responded to on January 9, 2019. On January 28, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied SPS’ petition for rehearing. On April 29, 2019, SPS filed a petition in the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. On June 17, 2019, the Supreme Court denied SPS’s certiorari. The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari means that the judgment in favor of the Company, dismissing the SPS lawsuit, is now final.
On November 17, 2017, Joann Hurley (“Hurley”), filed a second amended complaint in an ongoing putative class action lawsuit pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, adding the Company as a named defendant and alleging that the Company and other defendants violated the TCPATelephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) and regulations promulgated thereunder by allegedly using an automated telephone dialing system to deliver prerecorded political messages to Hurley, an incumbent running for reelection, and others. Hurley alternatively alleged that the Company was vicariously liable for the actions of the other co-defendants. Hurley seeks statutory, compensatory, consequential, incidental and punitive damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees in connection with her claims. The Company was served with the second amended complaint on January 4, 2018. On March 23, 2018, the Company filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of standing and failure to sufficiently state a claim on which relief may be granted. Hurley filed her opposition brief on April 6, 2018, and the Company filed its reply brief on April 13, 2018. On October 4, 2018, the district court issued its memorandum and opinion order granting in part and denying in part the Company’s motion to dismiss. The district court dismissed Hurley’s vicarious liability claim but allowed Hurley’s TCPA claim to proceed. The Company filed its answer and affirmativesaffirmative defenses to the second amended complaint on October 18, 2018. PlaintiffHurley filed a petitionmotion to certify a class on July 9, 2019. The Company’s oppositionCompany and another defendant filed oppositions to the petitionmotion, which have been fully briefed and is due August 9,pending decision by the court. Discovery closed on October 25, 2019. DiscoveryThe Company filed a motion for summary judgment on November 14, 2019. Hurley opposed the motion, which has been fully briefed and is ongoing. It is too earlypending decision by the court. The parties mediated the case before a private mediator on January 23, 2020, at which time a tentative settlement was achieved. The settlement will need to predictbe approved by the outcome of this lawsuit. Based oncourt. Meanwhile, the information known tocourt has issued an order holding the Company ascase in abeyance pending approval of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of the Company’ssettlement. The condensed consolidated financial statements it is not possible to provideinclude an immaterial accrual for the estimated amount of any such loss or range of loss that mayis expected to occur.
Patent Infringement Matter
On April 25, 2017, Uniloc USA, Inc. and Uniloc Luxembourg, S.A. (together, “Uniloc”) filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas two2 actions against the Company alleging infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,804,948;
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
7,853,000; and 8,571,194 by RingCentral’s Glip unified communications application. The plaintiffs seek a declaration that the Company has infringed the patents, damages according to proof, injunctive relief, as well as their costs, attorney’s fees, expenses and interest. On October 9, 2017, the Company filed a motion to dismiss or transfer requesting that the case be transferred to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In response to the motion, plaintiffs filed a first amended complaint on October 24, 2017. The Company filed a renewed motion to dismiss or transfer on November 15, 2017. Although briefing on that motion has been completed, the motion has not yet been decided. On February 5, 2018, Uniloc moved to stay the litigation pending the resolution of certain third-party inter partes review proceedings (“IPRs”) before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. On February 9, 2018, the court stayed the litigation pending resolution of the IPRs without prejudice to or waiver of the Company’s motion to dismiss or transfer. This litigation is still in its earliest stages. Based on the information known by the Company as of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of the Company’s condensed consolidated financial
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
statements, it is not possible to provide an estimated amount of any such loss or range of loss that may occur. The Company intends to vigorously defend against this lawsuit.
CIPA Matter
On June 16, 2020, Plaintiff Meena Reuben (“Reuben”) filed a complaint against the Company for a putative class action lawsuit in California Superior Court for San Mateo County. The complaint alleges claims on behalf of a class of individuals for whom, while they were in California, the Company allegedly intercepted and recorded communications between individuals and the Company’s customers without the individual’s consent, in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) Sections 631 and 632.7. Reuben seeks statutory damages of $5,000 for each alleged violation of Sections 631 and 632.7, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees and costs, and other unspecified amount of damages. On July 7, 2020, the Court granted the parties’ stipulation to extend time for the Company to respond to the Reuben’s complaint. The Company has not responded to the complaint. The Court has set an August 17, 2020 Case Management Conference. This litigation is still in its earliest stages. Based on the information known by the Company as of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements, it is not possible to provide an estimated amount of any such loss or range of loss that may occur. The Company intends to vigorously defend against this lawsuit.
Other Matter
On June 14, 2019, the Company filed suit in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda against Bright Pattern, Inc. and 2 of its officers, alleging that the defendants negotiated a potential acquisition of Bright Pattern by RingCentral fraudulently and in bad faith. The Company seeks its costs incurred in negotiating under the Letter of Intent ("LOI") that the parties entered into and damages for lost opportunity as a result of forgoing another acquisition opportunity, and attorneys’ fees and costs. On August 26, 2019, Bright Pattern filed a cross-complaint against the Company and 2 of its executive officers alleging breach of the LOI as well as tort claims arising from the Company's allegedly inducing Bright Pattern to enter into the LOI and subsequent extensions while allegedly misstating the timeframe for the proposed transaction. As damages, Bright Pattern seeks audit fees it allegedly incurred, a $5 million break-up fee, its alleged “cash burn” during the negotiations, and unspecified lost opportunity damages. The Company filed a demurrer to Bright Pattern’s amended cross-complaint, as well as a related motion to strike. On May 7, 2020, the court denied both the motion to strike and demurrer. This litigation is still in early stages. Based on the information known by the Company as of the date of this filing and the rules and regulations applicable to the preparation of the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements, it is not possible to provide an estimated amount of any loss or range of loss that may occur. The Company intends to vigorously prosecute and defend this lawsuit.
Note 9. Stockholders’ Equity
In connection with the Company’s initial public offering (“IPO”), the Company reincorporated in Delaware on September 26, 2013. The Delaware certificate of incorporation provides for two classes of common stock: Class A and Class B common stock, both with a par value of $0.0001 per share. In addition, the certificate of incorporation authorizes shares of undesignated preferred stock with a par value of $0.0001 per share. The terms of preferred stock are described below.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
Preferred Stock
The board of directors may, without further action by the stockholders, fix the rights, preferences, privileges and restrictions of up to an aggregate of 100,000,000 shares of preferred stock in one or more series and authorizes their issuance. These rights, preferences, and privileges could include dividend rights, conversion rights, voting rights, terms of redemption, liquidation preferences, sinking fund terms and the number of shares constituting any series or the designation of such series, any or all of which may be greater than the rights of the Class A and Class B common stock. As of June 30, 2020 and December 31, 2019, there were 100,000,000 shares of preferred stock authorized and 0 shares issued or outstanding.
Class A and Class B Common Stock
The Company has authorized 1,000,000,000 and 250,000,000 shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock for issuance. Holders of Class A common stock and Class B common stock have identical rights for matters submitted to a vote of the Company’s stockholders. Holders of Class A common stock are entitled to 1 vote per share of Class A common stock and holders of Class B common stock are entitled to 10 votes per share of Class B common stock. Holders of shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock vote together as a single class on all matters (including the election of directors) except for specific circumstances that would adversely affect the powers, preferences, or rights of a particular class of common stock. Subject to preferences that may apply to any shares of preferred stock outstanding at the time, holders of Class A and Class B common stock share equally, identically and ratably, on a per share basis, with respect to any dividend or distribution of cash, property or shares of the Company’s capital stock. Holders of Class A and Class B common stock also share equally, identically, and ratably in all assets remaining after the payment of any liabilities and liquidation preferences and any accrued or declared but unpaid dividends, if any, with respect to any outstanding preferred stock at the time. Each share of Class B common stock is convertible at any time at the option of the holder into 1 share of Class A common stock. In addition, each share of Class B common stock will convert automatically to Class A common stock upon: (i) the date specified by an affirmative vote or written consent of holders of at least 67% of the outstanding shares of Class B common stock, or (ii) the date on which the number of outstanding shares of Class B common stock represents less than 10% of the aggregate combined number of outstanding shares of Class A common stock and Class B common stock, or (iii) any time seven years after the Company's initial public offering (October 2, 2020), when a stockholder owns less than 50% of the shares of Class B common stock that such holder owned immediately prior to completion of the initial public offering.
Note 10. Share-Based Compensation
A summary of share-based compensation expense recognized in the Company’s Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations is as follows (in thousands):
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, |
| 2019 | | 2018 | | 2019 | | 2018 |
Cost of revenues | $ | 2,120 |
| | $ | 1,301 |
| | $ | 3,761 |
| | $ | 2,311 |
|
Research and development | 5,508 |
| | 3,906 |
| | 9,770 |
| | 7,000 |
|
Sales and marketing | 9,799 |
| | 7,189 |
| | 17,407 |
| | 12,230 |
|
General and administrative | 7,489 |
| | 5,201 |
| | 13,376 |
| | 9,323 |
|
Total share-based compensation expense | $ | 24,916 |
| | $ | 17,597 |
| | $ | 44,314 |
| | $ | 30,864 |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2020 | | 2019 |
Cost of revenues | $ | 3,846 | | | $ | 2,120 | | | $ | 6,572 | | | $ | 3,761 | |
Research and development | 9,772 | | | 5,508 | | | 17,239 | | | 9,770 | |
Sales and marketing | 16,322 | | | 9,799 | | | 27,613 | | | 17,407 | |
General and administrative | 19,315 | | | 7,489 | | | 34,420 | | | 13,376 | |
Total share-based compensation expense | $ | 49,255 | | | $ | 24,916 | | | $ | 85,844 | | | $ | 44,314 | |
A summary of share-based compensation expense by award type is as follows (in thousands):
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2020 | | 2019 |
Options | $ | 9 | | | $ | 204 | | | $ | 33 | | | $ | 739 | |
Employee stock purchase plan rights | 1,844 | | | 1,043 | | | 3,235 | | | 1,942 | |
Restricted stock units | 47,402 | | | 23,669 | | | 82,576 | | | 41,633 | |
Total share-based compensation expense | $ | 49,255 | | | $ | 24,916 | | | $ | 85,844 | | | $ | 44,314 | |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, |
| 2019 | | 2018 | | 2019 | | 2018 |
Options | $ | 204 |
| | $ | 836 |
| | $ | 739 |
| | $ | 1,964 |
|
Employee stock purchase plan rights | 1,043 |
| | 747 |
| | 1,942 |
| | 1,482 |
|
Restricted stock units | 23,669 |
| | 16,014 |
| | 41,633 |
| | 27,418 |
|
Total share-based compensation expense | $ | 24,916 |
| | $ | 17,597 |
| | $ | 44,314 |
| | $ | 30,864 |
|
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
Equity Incentive Plans
As of June 30, 2019,2020, a total of 15,958,46017,639,853 shares remained available for grant under the RingCentral, Inc. Amended and Restated 2013 Equity Incentive Plan (“2013 Plan”).
A summary of option activity under all of the Company’s equity incentive plans at June 30, 20192020 and changes during the period then ended is presented in the following table:
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Number of Options Outstanding (in thousands) | | Weighted- Average Exercise Price Per Share | | Weighted- Average Contractual Term (in Years) | | Aggregate Intrinsic Value (in thousands) |
Outstanding at December 31, 2018 | 4,131 |
| | $ | 10.86 |
| | 3.3 | | $ | 295,921 |
|
Granted | — |
| | — |
| | | | |
Exercised | (788 | ) | | 7.78 |
| | | | |
Canceled/Forfeited | (125 | ) | | 1.67 |
| | | | |
Outstanding at June 30, 2019 | 3,218 |
| | $ | 11.97 |
| | 2.9 | | $ | 331,569 |
|
Vested and expected to vest as of June 30, 2019 | 3,216 |
| | $ | 11.96 |
| | 2.9 | | $ | 331,165 |
|
Exercisable as of June 30, 2019 | 3,160 |
| | $ | 11.86 |
| | 2.9 | | $ | 325,619 |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Number of Options Outstanding (in thousands) | | Weighted- Average Exercise Price Per Share | | Weighted- Average Contractual Term (in Years) | | Aggregate Intrinsic Value (in thousands) |
Outstanding at December 31, 2019 | 2,257 | | | $ | 13.13 | | | 2.5 | | $ | 351,428 | |
Granted | — | | | — | | | | | |
Exercised | (790) | | | 13.02 | | | | | |
Canceled/Forfeited | — | | | — | | | | | |
Outstanding at June 30, 2020 | 1,467 | | | $ | 13.19 | | | 2.0 | | $ | 399,425 | |
Vested and expected to vest as of June 30, 2020 | 1,469 | | | $ | 13.19 | | | 2.0 | | $ | 399,409 | |
Exercisable as of June 30, 2020 | 1,468 | | | $ | 13.18 | | | 2.0 | | $ | 399,032 | |
There were no0 options granted during the three and six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018.2019. The total intrinsic value of options exercised during the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 and 2018 were $48.2$87.2 million and $19.3$48.2 million, respectively, and $80.3$175.8 million and $39.2$80.3 million, during the six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively.
As of June 30, 2019,2020, there was approximately $0.3 millionan immaterial amount of unrecognized share-based compensation expense, net of estimated forfeitures, related to non-vested stock option grants, which will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the remaining weighted-average vesting period of approximately 0.70.4 years.
Employee Stock Purchase Plan
The Company's Employee Stock Purchase Plan (“ESPP”) allows eligible employees to purchase shares of the Company’s Class A common stockCommon Stock at a discounted price through payroll deductions.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
As of June 30, 2019,2020, there was a total of $1.5$2.7 million of unrecognized share-based compensation expense, net of estimated forfeitures, related to the ESPP, which will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the remaining weighted-average vesting period of approximately 0.4 years. AtAs of June 30, 2019,2020, a total of 3,991,6884,713,290 shares were available for issuance under the ESPP.
Restricted Stock Units
The 2013 Plan provides for the issuance of restricted stock units (“RSUs”) to employees, directors, and consultants. RSUs issued under the 2013 Plan generally vest over four years. A summary of activity of RSUs under the 2013 Plan at June 30, 2019,2020, and changes during the period then ended is presented in the following table:
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Number of RSUs Outstanding (in thousands) | | Weighted- Average Grant Date Fair Value Per Share | | Aggregate Intrinsic Value (in thousands) |
Outstanding at December 31, 2019 | 3,249 | | | $ | 85.39 | | | $ | 548,145 | |
Granted | 1,171 | | | 213.19 | | | |
Released | (954) | | | 89.34 | | | |
Canceled/Forfeited | (150) | | | 103.12 | | | |
Outstanding at June 30, 2020 | 3,316 | | | $ | 128.57 | | | $ | 945,066 | |
|
| | | | | | | | | | |
| Number of RSUs Outstanding (in thousands) | | Weighted- Average Grant Date Fair Value Per Share | | Aggregate Intrinsic Value (in thousands) |
Outstanding at December 31, 2018 | 3,561 |
| | $ | 42.09 |
| | $ | 293,523 |
|
Granted | 1,334 |
| | 110.04 |
| | |
Released | (975 | ) | | 45.13 |
| | |
Canceled/Forfeited | (175 | ) | | 56.38 |
| | |
Outstanding at June 30, 2019 | 3,745 |
| | $ | 64.96 |
| | $ | 430,473 |
|
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
As of June 30, 2019,2020, there was a total of $176.3$301.5 million of unrecognized share-based compensation expense, net of estimated forfeitures, related to RSUs, which will be recognized on a straight-line basis over the remaining weighted-average vesting period of approximately 2.5 years.
Bonus Plan
In December 2017,2018, the Company's board of directors (the "Board") adopted the Selective 2018 Key Employee Equity Bonus Plan (the "2018 KEEB Plan”), which became effective on January 1, 2018, and in December 2018, the Board adopted the Selective 2019 Key Employee Equity Bonus Plan (the "2019 KEEB Plan”), which became effective on January 1, 2019, and in December 2019, the Board adopted the Selective 2020 Key Employee Equity Bonus Plan (the "2020 KEEB Plan" and together with the 20182019 KEEB Plan the "KEEB Plans"), which became effective on January 1, 2019.2020. Both the 2018 KEEB Plan and the 2019 KEEB PlanPlans allow the recipients to earn fully vested shares of the Company’s common stockClass A Common Stock upon the achievement of quarterly service and performance conditions. During the quarter ended June 30, 2019, 33,3292020, 25,905 RSUs were issued under the 20192020 KEEB Plan. The total requisite service period of each quarterly award is approximately 0.4 years.
The unrecognized share-based compensation expense was approximately $1.2$1.9 million, which will be recognized over the remaining service period of 0.1 years. The shares issued under this planthe KEEB Plans will be issued from the Company’s 2013 Planreserve of shares available for issuance.issuance under the 2013 Plan.
Note 11. Segment Reporting
The Company has determined that the chief executive officer is the chief operating decision maker. The Company’s chief executive officer reviews financial information presented on a consolidated basis for purposes of assessing performance and making decisions on how to allocate resources. Accordingly, the Company has determined that it operates in a single reportable segment.
Concentrations
At June 30, 20192020 and December 31, 2018,2019, none of the Company’s customers accounted for more than 10% of the Company’s total accounts receivable.
Long-lived assets by geographic location is based on the location of the legal entity that owns the asset. At June 30, 20192020 and December 31, 2018, more than 76%2019, approximately 89% and 67%89% of the Company’s consolidated long-lived assets, respectively, were located in the U.S. France represented 17%7% and 26%8% of the Company's consolidated long-lived assets including fair value adjustments relating to the acquisition of Dimelo SA, as of June 30, 20192020 and December 31, 2018,2019, respectively. No other single country outside of the U.S. represented more than 10% of the Company’s consolidated long-lived assets.
Note 12. Income Taxes
The provision for (benefit from) income taxes for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019, and 2018, was $0.1$0.2 million and $0.1 million, respectively, and was $(3.0)$0.4 million and $0.2$(3.0) million for the six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively. The provision for (benefit from) income taxes for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and 2019 consisted primarily of state minimum taxes and foreign income taxes. The provision for (benefit from) income taxes for the six months ended June 30, 2020 consisted primarily of state minimum taxes and foreign income taxes. The provision for (benefit from) income taxes for the six months ended June 30, 2019 consisted primarily of state minimum taxes, foreign income taxes, and a one-time benefit from the release of valuation allowance as a result of the ConnectFirst acquisition. For the three
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
and six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, the provision for income taxes differed from the U.SU.S. federal statutory rate primarily due to state and foreign taxes currently payable. Due to the Connect First acquisition in January 2019, a deferred tax liability was established for the book-tax basis difference related to identifiable acquired intangibles. The net deferred tax liability from acquisitions is considered an additional source of income to support the realizability of the Company's pre-existing deferred tax asset, and as a result the Company released a portion of the valuation allowance that was established in the previous year and recorded a one-time tax benefit of $3.2 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019. The Company realized no benefit for the current year losses due to a full valuation allowance against the U.S. and the foreign net deferred tax assets.
The realization of tax benefits of net deferred tax assets is dependent upon future levels of taxable income, of an appropriate character, in the periods the items are expected to be deductible or taxable. Based on the available objective evidence, the Company does not believe it is more likely than not that the net deferred tax assets will be realizable.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
Accordingly, the Company has provided a full valuation allowance against the entire domestic and the majority of the foreign net deferred tax assets as of June 30, 20192020 and December 31, 2018.2019. The Company intends to maintain the full valuation allowance on the U.S. net deferred tax assets until sufficient positive evidence exists to support a reversal of, or decrease in, the valuation allowance.
During the three and six months ended June 30, 2019,2020, there were no material changes to the total amount of unrecognized tax benefits.
On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act ("CARES Act") was passed into law and amended portions of relevant tax laws. The CARES Act did not have any significant impact on the provision for income taxes for the three and six months ended June 30, 2020. The Company will continue to monitor future guidance issued regarding the CARES Act. Note 13. Basic and Diluted Net LossIncome (Loss) Per Share
Basic net lossincome (loss) per share is computed by dividing the net lossincome (loss) by the weighted-average number of shares of common stock outstanding during the period, less the weighted-average unvested common stock subject to repurchase or forfeiture as they are not deemed to be issued for accounting purposes.period. Diluted net lossincome (loss) per share is computed by giving effect to all potential shares of common stock, stock options, restricted stock units, ESPP, and convertible senior notes, to the extent dilutive. For the six months ended June 30, 2020 and the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, and 2018, all such common stock equivalents have been excluded from diluted net loss per share as the effect to net loss per share would be anti-dilutive.
The following table sets forth the computation of the Company’s basic and diluted net lossincome (loss) per share of common stock (in thousands, except per share data):
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2020 | | 2019 |
Numerator | | | | | | | |
Net income (loss) | $ | 509 | | | $ | (9,243) | | | $ | (60,212) | | | $ | (15,601) | |
Denominator: | | | | | | | |
Weighted-average common shares outstanding for basic net income (loss) per share | 88,254 | | | 82,339 | | | 87,797 | | | 81,872 | |
Effect of dilutive securities: | | | | | | | |
Shares of common stock issuable under equity incentive awards outstanding | 3,514 | | | — | | | — | | | — | |
Shares of common stock related to convertible senior notes | 2,377 | | | — | | | — | | | — | |
Weighted-average common shares outstanding for diluted net income (loss) per share | 94,145 | | | 82,339 | | | 87,797 | | | 81,872 | |
Basic net income (loss) per share | $ | 0.01 | | | $ | (0.11) | | | $ | (0.69) | | | $ | (0.19) | |
Diluted net income (loss) per share | $ | 0.01 | | | $ | (0.11) | | | $ | (0.69) | | | $ | (0.19) | |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, |
| 2019 | | 2018 | | 2019 | | 2018 |
Numerator | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
Net loss | $ | (9,243 | ) | | $ | (8,291 | ) | | $ | (15,601 | ) | | $ | (11,007 | ) |
Denominator: | | | | | | | |
Weighted-average common shares outstanding for basic and diluted net loss per share | 82,339 |
| | 79,089 |
| | 81,872 |
| | 78,717 |
|
Basic and diluted net loss per share | $ | (0.11 | ) | | $ | (0.10 | ) | | $ | (0.19 | ) | | $ | (0.14 | ) |
The following table summarizes the potentially dilutive common shares that were excluded from diluted weighted-average common shares outstanding because including them would have had an anti-dilutive effect (in thousands):
|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, |
| 2019 | | 2018 | | 2019 | | 2018 |
Shares of common stock issuable under equity incentive awards outstanding | 7,292 |
| | 9,478 |
| | 7,381 |
| | 9,403 |
|
Convertible senior notes | 1,657 |
| | — |
| | 1,311 |
| | — |
|
Potential common shares excluded from diluted net loss per share | 8,949 |
| | 9,478 |
| | 8,692 |
| | 9,403 |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2020 | | 2019 |
Shares of common stock issuable under equity incentive awards outstanding | 1,661 | | | 7,292 | | | 5,205 | | | 7,381 | |
Shares of common stock related to convertible senior notes | — | | | 1,657 | | | 2,256 | | | 1,311 | |
Potential common shares excluded from diluted net loss per share | 1,661 | | | 8,949 | | | 7,461 | | | 8,692 | |
Since the Company expects to settle the principal amount of both its outstanding convertible senior notes2023 and 2025 Notes in cash and any excess in cash or shares of the Company’s common stock,Class A Common Stock, the Company uses the treasury stock method for calculating any potential dilutive effect of the conversion spread on diluted net income per share, if applicable. The conversion spread will
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
have a dilutive impact on diluted net income per share of common stock when the average market price of the Company’s common stockClass A Common Stock for a given period exceeds the conversion price of $81.45 and $360.43 per share for the 2023 and 2025 Notes, respectively.
The denominator for diluted net income per share does not include any effect from the capped call transactions the Company entered into concurrently with the issuance of the 2023 and 2025 Notes as this effect would be anti-dilutive. In the event of conversion of the 2023 Note or the 2025 Note, if shares are delivered to the Company under the capped call, they will offset the dilutive effect of the shares that the Company would issue under the Notes.
RINGCENTRAL, INC.
Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)
Note 14. Related Party Transactions
In the ordinary course of business, the Company made purchases from Google Inc., at which one of the Company’s directors serves as President, Americas. Total payables to Google Inc. at June 30, 20192020 and December 31, 20182019 were $2.9$2.0 million and $1.2$1.5 million, respectively. Total expenses incurred from Google Inc. were $4.8$6.2 million and 4.4$4.8 million in the three months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively, and $9.4$12.5 million and $9.5$9.4 million in the six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, respectively.
Note 15. Subsequent Events
Strategic Partnership Agreement
In July 2020, the Company entered into a strategic partnership with a provider of communications, networking, and cloud solutions in Europe. Under the agreement, the Company paid $100.0 million in cash to gain exclusive access to the provider's customer base and for prepaid future commissions. The parties intend to introduce a new co-branded solution, which will be the exclusive Unified Communications as a Service ("UCaaS") solution marketed and sold by the strategic partner.
Item 2. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our condensed consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 27, 201926, 2020 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). As discussed in the section entitled “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements,” the following discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed below and elsewhere in this report, particularly in the section entitled “Risk Factors” included under Part II, Item 1A below.
Overview
We are a leading provider of software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) solutions that enable businesses to communicate, collaborate, and connect. We believe that our innovative, cloud-based approach disrupts the large market for business communications and collaboration by providing flexible and cost-effective solutions that support distributed workforces, mobile employees, and the proliferation of smart phones and tablets. We enable convenient and effective communications for organizations across all their locations and employees, enabling them to be more productive and more responsive to their customers.
Our cloud-based business communications and collaboration solutions are designed to be easy to use, providing a single user identity across multiple locations and devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and desk phones. Our solutions can be deployed rapidly and configured and managed easily. Through our platform, we enable third-party developers and customers to integrate our solution with leading business applications to customize their own business workflows. In April 2020, we announced RingCentral Video ("RCV"), which is another component offered as part of RingCentral Office.
RingCentral hasWe have a portfolio of cloud-based offerings that are subscription based, made available at different rates varying by the specific functionalities, services, and number of users. We primarily generate revenues from the sale of software subscriptions to our offerings.
Our subscription plans have monthly, annual, or multi-year contractual terms. We believe that this flexibility in contract duration is important to meet the different needs of our customers. For each of the three and six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018, software2019, subscriptions revenues accounted for 90% or more than 90% of our total revenues. The remainder of our revenues has historically been primarily comprised of product revenues from the sale and rental of pre-configured phones and professional services. We do not develop, manufacture, or otherwise touch the delivery of physical phones and offer it as a convenience for a total solution to our customers in connection with subscriptions to our services. We rely on third-party providers to develop and manufacture these devices and fulfillment partners to successfully serve our customers.
We continue to invest in our direct inside sales force while also developing indirect sales channels to market our brand and our subscription offerings. Our indirect sales channel consists of a network of resellers who sell our solutions. We also sell our solutions through carriers including AT&T, Inc. (“AT&T”), TELUS Communications Company (“TELUS”), and BT Group plc (“BT”). In October 2019, we entered into a strategic partnership with Avaya Holdings Corp. ("Avaya"), which includes the introduction of a new solution Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral ("ACO"), which is marketed and sold by Avaya and its subsidiaries. In December 2019, we entered into a strategic partnership with Atos SE ("Atos") and its subsidiary, Unify Software and Solutions GmbH & CO. KG ("Unify"), which includes the introduction of a new Unified Communications as a Service ("UCaaS") solution called Unify Office by RingCentral ("UO"), which will be marketed and sold as the exclusive UCaaS offering for the Atos Unify product family installed base. We intend to continue to foster this network and expand our network with resellers and other resellers.channel partners. We also participate in more traditional forms of media advertising, such as radio and billboard advertising.
Since its launch, our revenue growth has primarily been driven by our flagship RingCentral Office product offering, which has resulted in an increased number of customers, increased average software subscription revenue per customer, and increased retention of our existing customer and user base. We define a “customer” as one individual billing relationship for the subscription to our services, which generally correlates to one company account per customer. As of June 30, 2019,2020, we had customers from a range of industries, including financial services, education, healthcare, legal services, real estate, retail, technology, insurance, construction, hospitality, and state and local government, among others. For each of the three and six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, the vast majority of our total revenues were generated in the U.S. and Canada, although
we expect the percentage of our total revenues derived outside of the U.S. and Canada to grow as we continue to expand internationally.
The growth of our business and our future success depend on many factors, including our ability to expand our customer base to medium-sized and larger customers, continue to innovate, grow revenues from our existing customer base, expand our distribution channels, and scale internationally.
In December 2019, a novel strain of Coronavirus disease (“COVID-19”) was reported and in January 2020, the World Health Organization (the "WHO") declared the outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.” In February 2020, the WHO raised the COVID-19 threat level from high to very high at a global level and in March 2020, the WHO characterized the COVID-19 as a pandemic. The worldwide spread of COVID-19 has resulted in authorities implementing numerous measures to contain the virus, including travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter-in-place orders, and business limitations and shutdowns.
During the three months ended June 30, 2020, we noted contributions from new bookings as more businesses transition to RingCentral in the current work-from-anywhere environment. In the early part of the quarter, we experienced higher churn rate mainly with small business customers in certain verticals, and we saw an improvement in churn rates through the remainder of the quarter. Further, due to the shelter-in-place, we continue to see more customers opting for the RingCentral apps on laptops and mobile devices over traditional desktop phones which impacted demand for physical phone devices. We also observed customer requests for extension in payment terms. To address customer hardships, we continue to engage with these customers providing them greater flexibility to manage challenges they are facing.
While our revenues and earnings are relatively predictable as a result of our subscription-based business model, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, may not be fully reflected in our results of operations and overall financial performance until future periods. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global slowdown of economic activity which has and will likely continue to decrease demand for a broad variety of goods and services, while also disrupting sales channels and marketing activities for an unknown period of time until the disease is contained.
We may continue to experience curtailed customer demand due to reduced customer spend, shortened contract duration, higher churn, lengthened payment terms, credit card declines, potential delays in professional services implementations, and reduction in demand for desktop phones, which could adversely impact our business, results of operations and overall financial performance in future periods. We may in the future continue to experience elevated churn in certain customer verticals and customer requests for extension of payment terms.
The extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operational and financial performance will also depend on certain developments, including the duration and spread of the outbreak, actions taken to contain the virus or its impact, impact on our partners, resellers and employees, impact on our customer, employee or industry events, and effect on our vendors, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. For example, to support the health and well-being of our employees, customers, partners and communities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a vast majority of our employees are currently working remotely and we have shifted some of our customer events to virtual-only experiences, and we may deem it advisable to similarly alter, postpone or cancel entirely additional customer, employee or industry events in the future. At this point, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may impact our financial condition or results of operations is uncertain, but changes we have implemented have not affected and are not expected to affect our ability to maintain operations, including financial reporting systems, internal control over financial reporting, and disclosure controls and procedures.
Further discussion of the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business can be found in the section titled "Risk Factors" included in Part II, Item 1A below.
Key Business Metrics
In addition to United States generally accepted accounting principles (“U.S. GAAP”) and financial measures such as total revenues, gross margin, and cash flows from operations, we regularly review a number of key business metrics to evaluate growth trends, measure our performance, and make strategic decisions. We discuss revenues and gross margin under “Results of Operations”, and cash flow from operations and free cash flows under “Liquidity and Capital Resources” below.Resources.” Other key business metrics are discussed below.
Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions
We believe that our Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions (“ARR”) is a leading indicator of our anticipated subscriptions revenues. We believe that trends in revenue are important to understanding the overall health of our business, and we use these trends in order to formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. Our ARR equals our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions multiplied by 12. Our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions equals the monthly value of all customer recurring charges at the end of a given month. For example, our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at June 30, 20192020 was $69.2$92.2 million. As such, our ARR at June 30, 20192020 was $830.8 million.$1.1 billion.
RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions
We calculate our RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions (“Office ARR”) in the same manner as we calculate our ARR, except that only customer subscriptions from RingCentral Office and RingCentral Contact Centercustomer engagement solutions customers are included when determining Monthly Recurring Subscriptions for the purposes of calculating this key business metric. We believe that trends in revenue with respect to these products are important to the understanding of the overall health of our business, and we use these trends in order to formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. Our Office ARR at June 30, 20192020 was $749.2 million.$1.0 billion.
Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate
We believe that our Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate provides insight into our ability to retain and grow software subscriptions revenue, as well as our customers’ potential long-term value to us. We believe that our ability to retain our customers and expand their use of our solutions over time is a leading indicator of the stability of our revenue base and we use these trends in order to formulate financial projections and make strategic business decisions. We define our Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate as (i) one plus (ii) the quotient of Dollar Net Change divided by Average Dollar Monthly Recurring Subscriptions.
We define Dollar Net Change as the quotient of (i) the difference of our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the end of a period minus our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the beginning of a period minus our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the end of the period from new customers we added during the period, (ii) all divided by (ii) the number of months in the period. We define our Average Monthly Recurring Subscriptions as the average of the Monthly Recurring Subscriptions at the beginning and end of the measurement period.
For example, if our Monthly Recurring Subscriptions were $118 at the end of a quarterly period and $100 at the beginning of the period, and $20 at the end of the period from new customers we added during the period, then the Dollar Net Change would be equal to ($0.67), or the amount equal to the difference of $118 minus $100 minus $20, all divided by three months. Our Average Monthly Recurring Subscriptions would equal $109, or the sum of $100 plus $118, divided by two. Our Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate would then equal 99.4%, or approximately 99%, or one plus the quotient of the Dollar Net Change divided by the Average Monthly Recurring Subscriptions.
Our key business metrics for the five quarterly periods ended June 30, 20192020 were as follows (dollars in millions):
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| June 30, 2020 | | March 31, 2020 | | December 31, 2019 | | September 30, 2019 | | June 30, 2019 | | |
Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate | >99% | | >99% | | >99% | | >99% | | >99% | | |
Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions | $ | 1,106.5 | | | $ | 1,029.7 | | | $ | 960.1 | | | $ | 881.4 | | | $ | 830.8 | | | |
RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions | $ | 1,018.3 | | | $ | 943.3 | | | $ | 876.8 | | | $ | 800.3 | | | $ | 749.2 | | | |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| June 30, 2019 | | March 31, 2019 | | December 31, 2018 | | September 30, 2018 | | June 30, 2018 |
Net Monthly Subscription Dollar Retention Rate | >99% |
| | >99% |
| | >99% |
| | >99% |
| | >99% |
|
Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions | $ | 830.8 |
| | $ | 776.7 |
| | $ | 725.8 |
| | $ | 673.6 |
| | $ | 629.6 |
|
RingCentral Office Annualized Exit Monthly Recurring Subscriptions | $ | 749.2 |
| | $ | 694.0 |
| | $ | 644.1 |
| | $ | 591.7 |
| | $ | 548.0 |
|
Results of Operations
The following tables set forth selected condensed consolidated statements of operations data and such data as a percentage of total revenues. The historical results presented below are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for any future period (in thousands):
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | |
| 2020 | | 2019 | | 2020 | | 2019 |
Revenues | | | | | | | |
Subscriptions | $ | 257,038 | | | $ | 194,792 | | | $ | 500,142 | | | $ | 377,500 | |
Other | 20,947 | | | 20,360 | | | 45,355 | | | 39,141 | |
Total revenues | 277,985 | | | 215,152 | | | 545,497 | | | 416,641 | |
Cost of revenues | | | | | | | |
Subscriptions | 56,721 | | | 38,079 | | | 109,154 | | | 73,413 | |
Other | 19,916 | | | 15,551 | | | 40,927 | | | 31,052 | |
Total cost of revenues | 76,637 | | | 53,630 | | | 150,081 | | | 104,465 | |
Gross profit | 201,348 | | | 161,522 | | | 395,416 | | | 312,176 | |
Operating expenses | | | | | | | |
Research and development | 43,519 | | | 32,632 | | | 84,429 | | | 62,419 | |
Sales and marketing | 137,633 | | | 103,590 | | | 268,945 | | | 203,141 | |
General and administrative | 49,532 | | | 32,480 | | | 96,868 | | | 61,259 | |
Total operating expenses | 230,684 | | | 168,702 | | | 450,242 | | | 326,819 | |
Loss from operations | (29,336) | | | (7,180) | | | (54,826) | | | (14,643) | |
Other income (expense), net | | | | | | | |
Interest expense | (12,598) | | | (5,088) | | | (20,100) | | | (10,120) | |
Other income, net | 42,603 | | | 3,141 | | | 15,086 | | | 6,192 | |
Other income (expense), net | 30,005 | | | (1,947) | | | (5,014) | | | (3,928) | |
Income (loss) before income taxes | 669 | | | (9,127) | | | (59,840) | | | (18,571) | |
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes | 160 | | | 116 | | | 372 | | | (2,970) | |
Net income (loss) | $ | 509 | | | $ | (9,243) | | | $ | (60,212) | | | $ | (15,601) | |
|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, |
| 2019 | | 2018 | | 2019 | | 2018 |
Revenues | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
Software subscriptions | $ | 194,792 |
| | $ | 145,959 |
| | $ | 377,500 |
| | $ | 282,919 |
|
Other | 20,360 |
| | 14,873 |
| | 39,141 |
| | 28,256 |
|
Total revenues | 215,152 |
| | 160,832 |
| | 416,641 |
| | 311,175 |
|
Cost of revenues | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
Software subscriptions | 38,079 |
| | 26,716 |
| | 73,413 |
| | 51,242 |
|
Other | 15,551 |
| | 11,350 |
| | 31,052 |
| | 22,498 |
|
Total cost of revenues | 53,630 |
| | 38,066 |
| | 104,465 |
| | 73,740 |
|
Gross profit | 161,522 |
| | 122,766 |
| | 312,176 |
| | 237,435 |
|
Operating expenses | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
Research and development | 32,632 |
| | 24,814 |
| | 62,419 |
| | 47,465 |
|
Sales and marketing | 103,590 |
| | 79,023 |
| | 203,141 |
| | 150,943 |
|
General and administrative | 32,480 |
| | 23,583 |
| | 61,259 |
| | 45,032 |
|
Total operating expenses | 168,702 |
| | 127,420 |
| | 326,819 |
| | 243,440 |
|
Loss from operations | (7,180 | ) | | (4,654 | ) | | (14,643 | ) | | (6,005 | ) |
Other income (expense), net | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|
Interest expense | (5,088 | ) | | (4,836 | ) | | (10,120 | ) | | (6,247 | ) |
Other income, net | 3,141 |
| | 1,338 |
| | 6,192 |
| | 1,411 |
|
Other income (expense), net | (1,947 | ) | | (3,498 | ) | | (3,928 | ) | | (4,836 | ) |
Loss before income taxes | (9,127 | ) | | (8,152 | ) | | (18,571 | ) | | (10,841 | ) |
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes | 116 |
| | 139 |
| | (2,970 | ) | | 166 |
|
Net loss | $ | (9,243 | ) | | $ | (8,291 | ) | | $ | (15,601 | ) | | $ | (11,007 | ) |
Percentage of Total Revenues *
| | | Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | Three Months Ended June 30, | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | |
| 2019 | | 2018 | | 2019 | | 2018 | | 2020 | | 2019 | | 2020 | | 2019 |
Revenues | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| Revenues | | | | | | | |
Software subscriptions | 91 | % | | 91 | % | | 91 | % | | 91 | % | |
Subscriptions | | Subscriptions | 92 | % | | 91 | % | | 92 | % | | 91 | % |
Other | 9 |
| | 9 |
| | 9 |
| | 9 |
| Other | 8 | | | 9 | | | 8 | | | 9 | |
Total revenues | 100 |
| | 100 |
| | 100 |
| | 100 |
| Total revenues | 100 | | | 100 | | | 100 | | | 100 | |
Cost of revenues | |
| | | | | | | Cost of revenues | | | | | | | |
Software subscriptions | 18 |
| | 17 |
| | 18 |
| | 17 |
| |
Subscriptions | | Subscriptions | 20 | | | 18 | | | 20 | | | 18 | |
Other | 7 |
| | 7 |
| | 7 |
| | 7 |
| Other | 7 | | | 7 | | | 8 | | | 7 | |
Total cost of revenues | 25 |
| | 24 |
| | 25 |
| | 24 |
| Total cost of revenues | 28 | | | 25 | | | 28 | | | 25 | |
Gross profit | 75 |
| | 76 |
| | 75 |
| | 76 |
| Gross profit | 72 | | | 75 | | | 72 | | | 75 | |
Operating expenses | |
| | | | | | | Operating expenses | | |
Research and development | 15 |
| | 15 |
| | 15 |
| | 15 |
| Research and development | 16 | | | 15 | | | 15 | | | 15 | |
Sales and marketing | 48 |
| | 49 |
| | 49 |
| | 49 |
| Sales and marketing | 50 | | | 48 | | | 49 | | | 49 | |
General and administrative | 15 |
| | 15 |
| | 15 |
| | 14 |
| General and administrative | 18 | | | 15 | | | 18 | | | 15 | |
Total operating expenses | 78 |
| | 79 |
| | 78 |
| | 78 |
| Total operating expenses | 83 | | | 78 | | | 83 | | | 78 | |
Loss from operations | (3 | ) | | (3 | ) | | (4 | ) | | (2 | ) | Loss from operations | (11) | | | (3) | | | (10) | | | (4) | |
Other income (expense), net | |
| | | | | | | Other income (expense), net | | | | | | | |
Interest expense | (2 | ) | | (3 | ) | | (2 | ) | | (2 | ) | Interest expense | (5) | | | (2) | | | (4) | | | (2) | |
Other income, net | 1 |
| | 1 |
| | 1 |
| | — |
| Other income, net | 15 | | | 1 | | | 3 | | | 1 | |
Other income (expense), net | (1 | ) | | (2 | ) | | (1 | ) | | (2 | ) | Other income (expense), net | 11 | | | (1) | | | (1) | | | (1) | |
Loss before income taxes | (4 | ) | | (5 | ) | | (4 | ) | | (4 | ) | |
Income (loss) before income taxes | | Income (loss) before income taxes | — | | | (4) | | | (11) | | | (4) | |
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes | — |
| | — |
| | (1 | ) | | — |
| Provision for (benefit from) income taxes | — | | | — | | | — | | | (1) | |
Net loss | (4 | )% | | (5 | )% | | (4 | )% | | (4 | )% | |
Net income (loss) | | Net income (loss) | — | % | | (4) | % | | (11) | % | | (4) | % |
* Percentages may not add up due to rounding.
Comparison of the Three and Six Months Ended June 30, 20192020 and 20182019
Revenues
| | | | Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | Three Months Ended June 30, | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | |
(in thousands, except percentages) | | 2019 | | 2018 | | $ Change | | % Change | | 2019 | | 2018 | | $ Change | | % Change | (in thousands, except percentages) | | 2020 | | 2019 | | $ Change | | % Change | | 2020 | | 2019 | | $ Change | | % Change |
Revenues | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| Revenues | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Software subscriptions | | $ | 194,792 |
| | $ | 145,959 |
| | $ | 48,833 |
| | 33 | % | | $ | 377,500 |
| | $ | 282,919 |
| | $ | 94,581 |
| | 33 | % | |
Subscriptions | | Subscriptions | | $ | 257,038 | | | $ | 194,792 | | | $ | 62,246 | | | 32 | % | | $ | 500,142 | | | $ | 377,500 | | | $ | 122,642 | | | 32 | % |
Other | | 20,360 |
| | 14,873 |
| | 5,487 |
| | 37 | % | | 39,141 |
| | 28,256 |
| | 10,885 |
| | 39 | % | Other | | 20,947 | | | 20,360 | | | 587 | | | 3 | % | | 45,355 | | | 39,141 | | | 6,214 | | | 16 | % |
Total revenues | | $ | 215,152 |
| | $ | 160,832 |
| | $ | 54,320 |
| | 34 | % | | $ | 416,641 |
| | $ | 311,175 |
| | $ | 105,466 |
| | 34 | % | Total revenues | | $ | 277,985 | | | $ | 215,152 | | | $ | 62,833 | | | 29 | % | | $ | 545,497 | | | $ | 416,641 | | | $ | 128,856 | | | 31 | % |
Percentage of revenues | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| Percentage of revenues | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Software subscriptions | | 91 | % | | 91 | % | | |
| | |
| | 91 | % | | 91 | % | | |
| | |
| |
Subscriptions | | Subscriptions | | 92 | % | | 91 | % | | | | | | 92 | % | | 91 | % | | | | |
Other | | 9 |
| | 9 |
| | |
| | |
| | 9 | % | | 9 | % | | |
| | |
| Other | | 8 | | | 9 | | | | | | | 8 | % | | 9 | % | | | | |
Total | | 100 | % | | 100 | % | | |
| | |
| | 100 | % | | 100 | % | | |
| | |
| Total | | 100 | % | | 100 | % | | | | | | 100 | % | | 100 | % | | | | |
Software subscriptionsSubscriptions revenue. Software subscriptionsSubscriptions revenue increased by $48.8$62.2 million, or 33%32%, for the three months ended June 30, 2019,2020, and $94.6$122.6 million, or 33%32%, for the six months ended June 30, 2019,2020, as compared to the respective prior year periods. The increase was primarily a combination of the acquisition of new customers and upsells of seats and additional offerings and seats to our existing customer base. This growth was primarily driven by an increase in sales to our mid-market and enterprise customers as we continue to move up market and increase inincreased sales through our channel partners. In the beginning of the quarter we also noted a higher churn rate mainly in certain verticals, which improved through the remainder of the quarter. Although we expect to continue to add new customers and existing customers to increase their usage of our product, we will continue to
monitor the COVID-19 pandemic carefully and its impact on customer demand, contract duration, churn, payment terms, and credit card declines. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and volatility in the market, including those resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, could also cause variability in our revenue.
Other revenues. Other revenues are primarily comprised of product revenue from the sale of pre-configured phones, phone rentals, and professional services.
Other revenues increased by $5.5$0.6 million, or 37%3%, for the three months ended June 30, 2019,2020, and $10.9$6.2 million, or 39%,16% for the six months ended June 30, 2019,2020, as compared to the respective prior year period,periods, primarily due to the increase in product sales and professional services resulting from the overall growth in our business. Due to shelter in place, we continued to see a shift towards using RingCentral apps on laptops and mobile devices over traditional desktop phones and timing of professional services projects. We may continue to see a reduction in demand for desktop phones and slower implementation services. We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 pandemic carefully and its impact on phone and professional services revenue.
Cost of Revenues and Gross Margin
| | | | Three Months Ended June 30, | | Six Months Ended June 30, | | Three Months Ended June 30, | | | Six Months Ended June 30, | |
(in thousands, except percentages) | | 2019 | | 2018 | | $ Change | | % Change | | 2019 | | 2018 | | $ Change | | % Change | (in thousands, except percentages) | | 2020 | | 2019 | | $ Change | | % Change | | 2020 | | 2019 | | $ Change | | % Change |
Cost of revenues | | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| Cost of revenues | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Software subscriptions | | $ | 38,079 |
| | $ | 26,716 |
| | $ | 11,363 |
| | 43 | % | | $ | 73,413 |
| | $ | 51,242 |
| | $ | 22,171 |
| | 43 | % | |
Subscriptions | | Subscriptions | | $ | 56,721 | | | $ | 38,079 | | | $ | 18,642 | | | 49 | % | | $ | 109,154 | | | $ | 73,413 | | | $ | 35,741 | | | 49 | % |
Other | | 15,551 |
| | 11,350 |
| | 4,201 |
| | 37 | % | | 31,052 |
| | 22,498 |
| | 8,554 |
| | 38 | % | Other | | 19,916 | | | 15,551 | | | 4,365 | | | 28 | % | | 40,927 | | | 31,052 | | | 9,875 | | | 32 | % |
Total cost of revenues | | $ | 53,630 |
| | $ | 38,066 |
| | $ | 15,564 |
| | 41 | % | | $ | 104,465 |
| | $ | 73,740 |
| | $ | 30,725 |
| | 42 | % | Total cost of revenues | | $ | 76,637 | | | $ | 53,630 | | | $ | 23,007 | | | 43 | % | | $ | 150,081 | | | $ | 104,465 | | | $ | 45,616 | | | 44 | % |
Gross margins | | |
| | | | |
| | |
| | |
| | | | |
| | |
| Gross margins | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Software subscriptions | | 80.5 | % | | 81.7 | % | | |
| | |
| | 80.6 | % | | 81.9 | % | | |
| | |
| |
Subscriptions | | Subscriptions | | 78 | % | | 80 | % | | | | | | 78 | % | | 81 | % | | | | |
Other | | 23.6 | % | | 23.7 | % | | |
| | |
| | 20.7 | % | | 20.4 | % | | |
| | |
| Other | | 5 | % | | 24 | % | | | | | | 10 | % | | 21 | % | | | | |
Total gross margin % | | 75.1 | % | | 76.3 | % | | |
| | |
| | 74.9 | % | | 76.3 | % | | |
| | |
| Total gross margin % | | 72 | % | | 75 | % | | | | | | 72 | % | | 75 | % | | | | |
The increases in research and development headcount and other expense categories were driven by continued investment in current and future software development projects for our applications. WeGiven the continued emphasis and focus on product innovation, we expect research and development expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to invest in such development.dollars.
The increases in sales and marketing headcount and other expense categories were necessary to support our growth strategy to acquire new customers with a focus on larger customers, and to establish brand recognition to achieve greater penetration into the North AmericanAmerica and international markets. Additionally, we expect sales and marketing expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to expand our presence in North America Europe, and otherinternational markets.
We expect general and administrative expenses to continue to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to make additional investments in processes, systems, and personnel to support our anticipated revenue growth.
The table below, for the periods indicated, provides selected cash flow information (in thousands):
|
| | | | | | | |
| Six Months Ended June 30, |
| 2019 | | 2018 |
Net cash provided by operating activities | $ | 44,248 |
| | $ | 28,875 |
|
Net cash used in investing activities | (50,466 | ) | | (35,693 | ) |
Net cash provided by financing activities | 7,519 |
| | 392,549 |
|
Effect of exchange rate changes | 38 |
| | 357 |
|
Net (decrease) increase in cash and cash equivalents | $ | 1,339 |
| | $ | 386,088 |
|
Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities
Cash provided by operating activities is influenceddriven by our net income (loss), the timing of customer collections, as well as the amount and timing of disbursements to our vendors, the amount of cash we invest in personnel, marketing, and infrastructure costs to support the anticipated growth of our business, and the increase in the number of customers.business.
Net cash provided by operating activities was $44.2$40.1 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019.2020. This was driven by a net loss of $15.6$60.2 million adjusted for impacts of non-cash adjustments of $82.4$162.2 million, and partially offset by reduction of net cash used for working capital of $22.5$47.6 million mainlyand $14.2 million attributable to debt discount on a portion of the 2023 senior convertible notes that was repaid. The working capital changes were driven primarily by growth in our business, the timing of cash payments to vendors and cash receipts and prepayments from customers and carriers. Non-cash
The non-cash adjustments resulted primarily from $44.3$85.8 million of share-based compensation, $16.5$34.5 million of depreciation and amortization, $13.2 million of amortization of deferred sales commission costs, and $10.0$27.2 million of amortization of debt discount and issuance costs related to our Notes.convertible notes along with the loss on early extinguishment of debt, and $20.7 million of amortization of deferred sales commission costs, partially offset by $17.1 million gain on investments.
Net cash provided by operating activities for the six months ended June 30, 2019, increased2020, decreased by $15.4$4.1 million as compared to the respective prior year period, primarily dueperiod. This change reflects working capital impacts resulting from the timing of payments and collections, and payment of a portion of the 2023 Notes related to increased sales and cash collections, partially offset by higher operating expenses driven by increased headcount. interest.
Net Cash Used in Investing Activities
Our primary investing activities have consisted of our long-term investments, business acquisitions and purchase of intellectual properties, and capital expenditures and internal-use software. It also reflects net cash used to acquire Connect First. As our business grows, we expect our capital expenditures to continue to increase.
Net cash used in investing activities was $50.5$32.6 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019. This was driven by $27.9 million net cash paid for our acquisition of Connect First and $22.6 million of2020, primarily due to capital expenditures including personnel-related costs associated with development of internal-use software.
Net cash used in investing activities for the six months ended June 30, 2019, increased2020 decreased by $14.8$17.9 million as compared to the respective prior year period. The increasedecrease was primarily relateddue to cash paidused for business acquisitions in 2019 partially offset by higher capital expenditures, and capitalized internal-use software.expenditures.
Net Cash Provided by Financing Activities
Our primary financing activities have consisted of raising proceeds through the issuance of stock under our stock plans and issuance of theour 2025 Notes, offset by partial repurchase and conversion requests of our 2023 Notes.
Net cash provided by financing activities was $7.5$423.1 million for the six months ended June 30, 2019, and resulted from2020, primarily due to $986.5 million proceeds from the issuance of sharesour 2025 Notes, net of issuance costs, partially offset by cash paid for the partial repurchase and conversion requests for our 2023 Notes of $501.0 million, $60.9 million payments for capped calls transactions and costs, and payments for taxes paid in connection with our stock plans net of taxes paid. $18.6 million.
Net cash provided by financing activities decreasedfor the six months ended June 30, 2020 increased by $385.0$415.6 million as compared to the respective prior year period primarily due to ourthe 2025 Notes issued in 2018.the current year partially offset by the partial settlement of the 2023 Notes.
Non-GAAP Free Cash Flow
To supplement our statements of cash flows presented on a GAAP basis, we use non-GAAP measures of cash flows to analyze cash flow generated from our operations. We define free cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, as GAAP net cash provided by (used in) operating activities plus cash paid for repayments of convertible senior notes attributable to debt discount, reduced by purchases of property and equipment and capitalized internal-use software. We believe information regarding free cash flow provides useful information to management and investors in understanding the strength of liquidity and available cash. A limitation of the use of free cash flow is that it does not represent the total increase or decrease in our cash balance for the period. Free cash flow should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative to cash flows from operations, and should
be considered alongside our other GAAP-based financial liquidity performance measures, such as net cash used in operating activities and our other GAAP financial results.
The following table presents a reconciliation of free cash flow to net cash provided by operating activities, the most directly comparable GAAP measure, for each of the periods presented (in thousands):
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| Six Months Ended June 30, | | |
| 2020 | | 2019 |
Net cash provided by operating activities | $ | 40,109 | | | $ | 44,248 | |
Repayment of convertible senior notes attributable to debt discount | 14,230 | | | — | |
Non-GAAP net cash provided by operating activities | 54,339 | | | 44,248 | |
Purchases of property and equipment | (15,581) | | | (14,994) | |
Capitalized internal-use software | (17,021) | | | (7,602) | |
Non-GAAP free cash flow | $ | 21,737 | | | $ | 21,652 | |
Backlog
We have generally signed new customers to contracts that vary in length, from month-to-month to multi-year terms for our subscriptions. The timing of invoicing to our customers is a negotiated term and thus varies among our subscription contracts. Payment terms are generally billed either monthly or on an annual basis. At any point in the contract term, there can be amounts allocated to services that we have not yet been contractually able to invoice,performed, which constitute backlog. Until such time, as these amounts are invoiced, we do not recognize them as revenues unearned revenues or elsewhere in our condensed consolidated financial statements.Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements. Given the variability in our contract length, we believe that backlog is not a reliable indicator of future revenues and we do not utilize backlog as a key management metric internally.
Deferred Revenue
Deferred revenue primarily consists of the unearned portion of invoiced fees for our software subscriptions, which we recognize as revenue in accordance with our revenue recognition policy. As we continue to move up market, the number of customers whoCustomers with annual or multi-year contracts may opt for multi-year contracts are increasing along with their related contract values.annual invoicing. For these customers, with multi-year contracts, however, we generally invoice only one annual subscription period in advance. Therefore, our deferred revenue balance does not capture the full contract value of such multi-year contracts. Accordingly, we believe that deferred revenue is not a reliable indicator of future revenues and we do not utilize deferred revenue as a key management metric internally.
Contractual Obligations and Commitments
Except as set forth below, and in Notes 3, 6, 7 and 8 and 9 ofin the Notesaccompanying notes to the Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, there were no significant changes in our commitments under contractual obligations, as disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018.2019.
Contingencies
We are and may be in the future subject to certain legal proceedings and from time to time may be involved in a variety of claims, lawsuits, investigations, and proceedings relating to contractual disputes, intellectual property rights, employment matters, regulatory compliance matters, and other matters relating to various claims that arise in the normal course of business. We record a provision for a liability when we believe that it is both probable that a liability has been incurred, and the amount can be reasonably estimated. Significant judgment is required to determine both probability and the estimated amount of loss. Such legal proceedings are inherently unpredictable and subject to significant uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control. Should any of these estimates and assumptions change or prove to be incorrect, it could have a significant impact on our results of operations, financial position, and cash flows.
Off-balance Sheet Arrangements
During the six months ended June 30, 20192020 and 2018,2019, we did not have any relationships with unconsolidated organizations or financial partnerships, such as structured finance or special purpose entities that would have been established for the purpose of facilitating off-balance sheet arrangements.arrangements or other contractually narrow or limited purposes.
Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
We are exposed to market risk in the ordinary course of our business. Market risk represents the risk of loss that may impact our financial position due to adverse changes in financial market prices and rates. Our market risk exposure is primarily a result of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates. We do not hold or issue financial instruments for trading purposes.
Foreign Currency Risk
The majority of our sales and contracts are denominated in U.S. dollars, and therefore our net revenue is not currently subject to significant foreign currency risk. As part of our international operations, we charge customers in British Pounds, European Union (“EU”) Euro, Canadian Dollars and Australian Dollars, among others. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and volatility in the market, including those resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, will cause variability in our revenue. However, this impact has not been significant during the three and six months ended June 30, 2019.2020. Our operating expenses are generally denominated in the currencies of the countries in which our operations are located, which are primarily in the U.S., and to a lesser extent in Canada, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The functional currency of our foreign subsidiaries is generally the local currency. Our consolidated results of operations and cash flows are, therefore, subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates and may be adversely affected in the future due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. To date, we have not entered into any hedging arrangements with respect to foreign currency risk or other derivative financial instruments.risk. During the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, the effect of2020, a hypothetical 10% change in foreign currency exchange rates applicable to our business would not have had a material impact on our condensed consolidated financial statements.Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements. As our international operations continue to grow, ourexpand, risks associated with fluctuation influctuating foreign currency rates could become greater, and wemay increase. We will continue to reassess our approach to managing these risks.
Interest Rate SensitivityRisk
As of June 30, 2019,2020, we had cash and cash equivalents of $567.7$773.8 million. We hold our cash and cash equivalents for working capital purposes. Declines in interest rates would reduce future interest income. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, the effect of2020, a hypothetical 10% increase or decrease in overall interest rates would not materiallyhave had a material impact on our interest income. The carrying amount of our cash equivalents reasonably approximates fair values. Due to the short-term nature
of our money-market funds, we believe that exposure to changes in interest rates will not have a material impact on the fair value of our cash equivalents. We expect interest income to further reduce in the future due to interest rate volatility in the current macroeconomic environment.
As of June 30, 2019,2020, we had $376.6$246.7 million and $806.2 million outstanding of 0% convertible senior notes due 2023. wefrom both the 2023 Notes and 2025 Notes (collectively the "Notes"), respectively. We carry the Notes at face value less unamortized discount on our balance sheet, and we present the fair value for required disclosure purposes only. The Notes have a zero percent fixed annual interest rate and, therefore, we have no economic exposure to changes in interest rates. The fair value of the Notes areis exposed to interest rate risk. Generally, the fair value of our fixed interest rate Notes will increase as interest rates decline and decrease as interest rates increase. In addition, the fair values of the Notes are affected by our stock price. The fair value of the Notes will generally increase as our common stock price increases and will generally decrease as our common stock price declinesdecrease in value.
As of June 30, 2020, we had long-term investments in convertible and redeemable preferred stock of $149.3 million. These equity investments are subject to market related risks that could decrease or increase the fair value of our holdings. These equity investments are adjusted to fair value based on market inputs at the balance sheet date, which are subject to market-related risks that could decrease or increase the fair value of our holdings, including the potential impacts from COVID-19. A fluctuation in the investee's stock price, volatility or combination of both could have an adverse impact on the fair value of our investment. A hypothetical adverse stock price or volatility change of 10% could have resulted in a potential decrease of up to $9.8 million in the fair-value of our investment as of June 30, 2020.
Item 4. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of June 30, 2019.2020. The term “disclosure controls and procedures,” as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act, means controls and other procedures of a company that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to the company’s management, including its principal executive and principal financial officers, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on the evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of June 30, 2019,2020, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of such date, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
Effective January 1, 2019, we adopted ASU No. 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842). Changes were made to the relevant business processes and the related control activities, including information systems, in order to monitor and maintain appropriate controls over financial reporting. There arewas no other changeschange in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rule 13a-15(d) and 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act that occurred during the three months ended June 30, 2019,period covered by this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q that have materiallyhas significantly affected, or areis reasonably likely to materiallysignificantly affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
We have not experienced any material impact to our internal controls over financial reporting although since March 2020 most of our employees and extended workforce are now working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are continually monitoring and assessing the COVID-19 situation on our internal controls to address impacts to their design, implementation and operating effectiveness.
Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls and Procedures
In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any disclosure controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. In addition, the design of disclosure controls and procedures must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints and that management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the benefits of possible controls and procedures relative to their costs.
PART II — OTHER INFORMATION
Item 1. Legal Proceedings
Information with respect to this item may be found in Note 9,8, Commitments and Contingencies, in the accompanying notes to the condensed consolidated financial statementsCondensed Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q under “Legal Matters”, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
This Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth below. The risks and uncertainties described in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also affect our business. See Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for a discussion of the forward-looking statements that are qualified by these risk factors. If any of these known or unknown risks or uncertainties actually occurs and have a material adverse effect on us, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be seriously harmed. In addition, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and any worsening of the economic environment may exacerbate the risks described below, any of which could have a material impact on us. This situation is changing rapidly and additional impacts may arise that we are not currently aware of.
Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry
We have incurred significant losses and negative cash flows in the past and anticipate continuing to incur losses for at least the foreseeable future, and we may therefore not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in the future.
We have incurred substantial net losses since our inception. Over the past few years, we have spent considerable amounts of time and money to develop new business communications solutions and enhanced versions of our existing business communications solutions to position us for future growth. Additionally, we have incurred substantial losses and expended significant resources upfront to market, promote and sell our solutions and expect to continue to do so in the future. We also expect to continue to invest for future growth, including for advertising, customer acquisition, technology infrastructure, storage capacity, services development and international expansion. In addition, as a public company, we incur significant accounting, legal, and other expenses.
We expect to continue to incur losses for at least the foreseeable future and will have to generate and sustain increased revenues to achieve future profitability. Achieving profitability will require us to increase revenues, manage our cost structure, and avoid significant liabilities. Revenue growth may slow, revenues may decline, or we may incur significant losses in the future for a number of possible reasons, including general macroeconomic conditions, increasing competition (including competitive pricing pressures), a decrease in the growth of the markets in which we compete, in particular the SaaS market, or if we fail for any reason to continue to capitalize on growth opportunities. Additionally, we may encounter unforeseen operating expenses, difficulties, complications, delays, service delivery, and quality problems and other unknown factors that may result in losses in future periods. If these losses exceed our expectations or our revenue growth expectations are not met in future periods, our financial performance will be harmed and our stock price could be volatile or decline.
Our rapid growth and the quickly changing markets in which we operate make it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects, which may increase the risk of investing in our stock.
We have grown rapidly since 2009, when we introduced RingCentral Office, our current flagship product. We have encountered and expect to continue to encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing markets. If our assumptions regarding these uncertainties are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our markets, or if we do not manage or address these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our expectations, and our business could suffer. Any success that we may experience in the future will depend, in large part, on our ability to, among other things:
retain and expand our customer base;
increase revenues from existing customers as they add users and, in the future, purchase additional functionalities and premium editions;
successfully expand our business to larger customers;
successfully expand our business internationally;
successfully acquire customers on a cost-effective basis;
improve the performance and capabilities of our services, products and applications through research and development and third-party service providers;
deliver our onsite support and professional services engagements effectively to ensure our customers’ systems are successfully deployed;
successfully compete in our markets;
continue to innovate and expand our offerings;
continue our relationship with carriers and our other resellers;
successfully protect our intellectual property and defend against intellectual property infringement claims;
generate leads and convert potential customers into paying customers;
maintain and enhance our third-party data center hosting facilities to minimize interruptions in the use of our subscriptions; and
hire, integrate, and retain professional and technical talent.
Our quarterly and annual results of operations have fluctuated in the past and may continue to do so in the future. As a result, we may fail to meet or to exceed the expectations of research analysts or investors, which could cause our stock price to fluctuate.
Our quarterly and annual results of operations have varied historically from period to period, and we expect that they will continue to fluctuate due to a variety of factors, many of which are outside of our control, including:
•our ability to retain existing customers, resellers, and carriers, and expand our existing customers’ user base, and attract new customers;
•our ability to introduce new solutions;
•the actions of our competitors, including pricing changes or the introduction of new solutions;
•our ability to effectively manage our growth;
•our ability to successfully penetrate the market for larger businesses;
•the mix of annual and multi-year subscriptions at any given time;
•the timing, cost, and effectiveness of our advertising and marketing efforts;
•the timing, operating cost, and capital expenditures related to the operation, maintenance and expansion of our business;
•our ability to successfully and timely execute on, integrate, and realize the benefits of any acquisition, investment, strategic partnership, or other strategic transaction or partnership we may make or undertake;
•service outages or actual or perceived information security breaches and any related impact on our reputation;
•our ability to accurately forecast revenues and appropriately plan our expenses;
•our ability to realize our deferred tax assets;
•costs associated with defending and resolving intellectual property infringement and other claims;
•changes in tax laws, regulations, or accounting rules;
•the timing and cost of developing or acquiring technologies, services or businesses, and our ability to successfully manage any such acquisitions;
•the impact of foreign currencies on our business as we continue to expand our business internationally; and
•the impact of worldwide economic, political, industry, and market conditions.conditions, including the continued effects of the global outbreak of COVID-19.
The extent to which the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our results will depend on future developments, which are uncertain and cannot be fully predicted, including the duration of the pandemic, travel restrictions and social distancing in the United States and other countries, business closures or business disruptions and the effectiveness of actions taken by governments and private businesses to attempt to contain and treat the disease. Any prolonged shutdown of a significant portion of global economic activity or downturn in the global economy, along with any adverse effects on industries in which our customers operate, could materially and adversely impact our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Any one of the factors above, or the cumulative effect of some or all of the factors referred to above, may result in significant fluctuations in our quarterly and annual results of operations. This variability and unpredictability could result in our failure to meet our publicly announced guidance or the expectations of securities analysts or investors for any period, which could cause our stock price to decline. In addition, a significant percentage of our operating expenses is fixed in nature and is based on forecasted revenues trends. Accordingly, in the event of revenue shortfalls, we may not be able to mitigate the negative impact on net income (loss) and margins in the short term. If we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of research analysts or investors, the market price of our shares could fall substantially, and we could face costly lawsuits, including securities class-action suits.
The global COVID-19 pandemic could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In December 2019, a novel coronavirus, COVID-19 was reported in China and, in March 2020, the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic. This contagious disease outbreak has continued to spread across the globe and is impacting worldwide economic activity and financial markets. In light of the uncertain and rapidly evolving situation relating to the spread of COVID-19, we have taken precautionary measures intended to minimize the risk of the virus to our employees, our customers, and the communities in which we operate, which could negatively impact our business. We are, with certain exceptions, requiring all employees around the globe to work remotely and have closed all of our offices. We have also suspended all non-essential travel worldwide for our employees. While we have a distributed workforce and our employees are accustomed to working remotely or working with other remote employees, our workforce is not fully remote. Our employees travel frequently to establish and maintain relationships with one another, our customers and prospective customers, resellers and other channel partners, and investors. Although we continue to monitor the situation and may adjust our current policies as more information and public health guidance becomes available, temporarily suspending travel and restricting the ability to do business in person could negatively affect our customer success efforts, sales and marketing efforts, challenge our ability to enter into customer and other commercial contracts in a timely manner and our ability to source, assess, negotiate, and successfully implement and execute on, and realize the benefits of, acquisitions, investments, strategic partnerships and other strategic transactions, slow down our recruiting efforts, or create operational or other challenges, any of which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, if a natural disaster, power outage, connectivity issue, or other event occurred that impacted our employees’ ability to work remotely, it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible, for us to continue our business for a substantial period of time. The increase in remote working may also result in privacy, security and fraud concerns as well as increase our exposure to potential wage and hour issues. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to disrupt the operations of our customers, resellers and other channel partners, strategic partners, suppliers and other third-party providers for an indefinite period of time, including as a result of travel restrictions and/or business shutdowns, all of which could continue to negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. For example, to address customer hardships, in vertical markets most impacted by COVID-19, such as retail and
hospitality, we are actively working with some customers to provide greater flexibility to manage challenges they are facing, but we cannot be assured that they will not reduce their number of users or terminate their subscriptions altogether. Furthermore, some governments have enacted indefinite orders prohibiting providers of telecommunications services from discontinuing service for non-payment. This could adversely affect us by increasing the risk of non-payment by our customers. We may also incur further costs by opting not to discontinue services to non-paying customers for reasons such as maintaining goodwill. More generally, the COVID-19 pandemic could continue to adversely affect economies and financial markets globally, continuing the economic downturn, which could decrease technology spending and continue to adversely affect demand for our solutions and harm our business. The full extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic may impact our financial condition or results of operations remains uncertain.
Our rapid growth and the quickly changing markets in which we operate make it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects, which may increase the risk of investing in our stock.
We have grown rapidly since 2009, when we introduced RingCentral Office, our current flagship product. We have encountered and expect to continue to encounter risks and uncertainties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing markets. If our assumptions regarding these uncertainties are incorrect or change in reaction to changes in our markets, or if we do not manage or address these risks successfully, our results of operations could differ materially from our expectations, and our business could suffer.
Growth may place significant demands on our management and our infrastructure.
We have recently experienced substantial growth in our business. This growth has placed and may continue to place significant demands on our management, organizational structure, and our operational and financial infrastructure. As our operations grow in size, scope, and complexity, we will need to increase our sales and marketing efforts and add additional sales and marketing personnel in various regions worldwide and improve and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to attract, service, and retain an increasing number of customers. For example, we expect the volume of simultaneous calls to increase significantly as our customer base grows. Our network hardware and software may not be able to accommodate this additional simultaneous call volume. The expansion of our systems and infrastructure will require us to commit substantial financial, operational, and technical resources in advance of an increase in the volume of business, with no assurance that the volume of business will increase. Any such additional capital investments will increase our cost base.
Continued growth could also strain our ability to maintain reliable service levels for our customers, resellers, and carriers develop and improve our operational, financial and management controls, enhance our billing and reporting systems and procedures and recruit, train and retain highly skilled personnel. In addition, our existing systems, processes, and controls may not prevent or detect all errors, omissions, or fraud. We may also experience difficulties in managing improvements to our systems, processes, and controls or in connection with third-party software licensed to help us with such improvements. Any future growth, particularly as we continue to expand internationally, would add complexity to our organization and require effective communication and coordination throughout our organization. Additionally, our productivity and the quality of our solutions and services may be adversely affected if we do not integrate and train our new employees quickly and effectively, particularly doing so remotely in the short term during the COVID-19 pandemic. If we fail to achieve the necessary level of efficiency in our organization as we grow, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.
Our future operating results will rely in part upon the successful execution of our strategic partnerships with Avaya, Atos/Unify and others, which may not be successful.
A strategic partnership between two independent businesses is a complex, costly, and time-consuming process that will require significant management attention and resources. Realizing the benefits of our strategic partnerships, particularly our relationships with Avaya Holdings Corp. (“Avaya”) and its subsidiaries and Atos SE (“Atos”) and its subsidiaries, including Unify Software and Solutions GmbH & CO. KG (“Unify”), will depend in part on our ability to work with our strategic partners to develop, market and sell co-branded solutions, such as Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral (“ACO”) and Unify Office by RingCentral (“UO”). Setting up and maintaining the operations and processes of these strategic partnerships may cause us to incur significant costs, disrupt our business and, if implemented ineffectively, would limit the expected benefits to us. In addition, the process of bringing ACO, UO and other co-branded solutions to market may take longer than anticipated or fail to materialize, which could negate or reduce our anticipated benefits and revenue opportunities. In addition, we must be successful in marketing and selling ACO to realize the benefits of our prepayment to Avaya of $345 million in our common
stock. The failure to successfully and timely implement and operate our strategic partnerships could harm our ability to realize the anticipated benefits of these partnerships and could adversely affect our results of operations.
We face intense competition in our markets and may lack sufficient financial or other resources to compete successfully.
The cloud-based business communications and collaboration solutions industry is competitive, and we expect competition to increase in the future. We face intense competition from other providers of business communications and collaboration systems and solutions.
Our competitors include traditional on-premise, hardware business communications providers such as Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Mitel Networks Corporation, NEC Corporation, Siemens Enterprise Networks, LLC, their resellers, and others;others, as well as companies such as Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft Teams (Skype for Business)) and BroadSoft, Inc. (acquired by Cisco Systems, Inc.), and their resellers that license their software. Mitel Networks became a privately held company in November 2018, enabling it to have additional flexibility to focus on transitioning their business to cloud solutions. They could accelerate their development and sales for such solutions and become more competitive. In addition, certain of our carriers are also our competitors.and strategic partners, such as AT&T, BT, TELUS, Avaya, and TELUS, for example, eachAtos sell or are expected to sell our solutions, but they are also competitors for business communications. These companies have significantly greater resources than us and currently, or may in the future, develop and/or host their own or other solutions through the cloud. Such competitors may not be successful in or cease resellingmarketing and selling our solutions to their customers and ultimately be able to transition some or all of those customers onto their competing solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our revenues and growth. For example, AT&T launched a competing hosted business communications solution in 2016, and new subscriptions for our solution sold by AT&T declined to an immaterial level in 2017 and into 2018. In August 2018, the Company and AT&T entered into a revised agreement, under which AT&T has resumed reselling our solutions, and we expect sales of our solutions by AT&T to increase as a result, but there can be no guarantee that AT&T will not cease reselling our solutions in the future. We also face competition from other cloud companies and established communications providers that resell on-premise hardware, software, and hosted solutions, such as 8x8, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc. (with its Connect and Chime products), Dialpad, Inc., Fuze, Inc., StarBlue, Inc., Intermedia.net, Inc., J2 Global, Inc., Jive Communications, Inc.,LogMeIn, Inc, Microsoft Corporation, (Microsoft Teams (Skype for Business)), Nextiva, Inc., Twilio Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp., West Corporation, and Zoom Video Communications, Inc., which recently announcedhas introduced a voice solution. Established communications providers, such as AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Corporation and Comcast Corporation in the United States, TELUS and others in Canada, and BT, Vodafone Group plc, and others in the U.K., that resell on-premise hardware, software, and hosted solutions, compete with us in business communications and currently, or may in the future, develop and/or host their own cloud solutions. We may also face competition from other large Internet companies, such as Alphabet Inc. (Google Voice), Facebook, Inc., Oracle Corporation, and salesforce.com, Inc.inc., any of which might launch its own cloud-based business communications services or acquire other cloud-based business communications companies in the future. We also compete against providers of communications platform as a service solutions and messaging software platforms with APIs such as Twilio Inc., Nexmo (acquired by Vonage Holdings Corp.), and Slack Technologies, Inc., on which customers can build diverse solutions by integrating cloud communications into business applications. These vendors leverage free, and usage and user based paid services that over time could result in disincentives for customers to switch to RingCentral. In order to compete, we must successfully enlist developers to write applications for our marketplace and ensure that these applications have high quality, customer appeal and value. Efforts to compete with these application marketplaces may increase our cost of revenue and lower our operating margins. In addition, in 2016 we began selling a contact center solution. We face competition with respect to this solution from contact center and customer relationship management providers such as Amazon.com, Inc., Aspect Software, Inc., Avaya Inc., Five9, Inc., NICE InContact, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., Serenova, LLC, Talkdesk, Inc., NewVoiceMedia (acquired by Vonage Holdings Corp.), Salesforce.com, Inc.salesforce.com, inc., and Twilio Inc. We also face competition from digital engagement vendors such as Brand Embassy Ltd, eGain Corporation, Lithium Technologies, LLC, LivePerson, Inc., SparkCentral Inc., among others named above that may offer similar features.
Many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater resources and name recognition, more diversified product offerings, and larger customer bases than we have. As a result, these competitors may have greater credibility with our existing and potential customers and may be better able to withstand an extended period of downward pricing pressure. In addition, certain of our competitors have partnered with, or been acquired by, and may in the future partner with or acquire, other competitors to offer services, leveraging their collective competitive positions, which makes it more difficult to compete with them and could significantly and adversely affect our results of operations. Demand for our platform is also sensitive to price. Many factors, including our marketing, user acquisition and technology costs, and our current and future competitors’ pricing and marketing strategies, can significantly affect our pricing strategies. Our competitors may be able to adopt more aggressive pricing policies and devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of their services than we can to ours. Some of these service providers have in the past and may choose in the future to sacrifice revenues in order to gain market share by offering their services at lower prices or for free, or offering alternative pricing models, such as “freemium” pricing, in which a basic offering is provided for free with advanced features provided for a fee, on the services they offer. Our competitors may also offer bundled service arrangements offering a more complete service offering, despite the technical merits or advantages of our subscriptions. In addition, some of the commercially available solutions in the markets in which we compete, such as video and web conferencing solutions of our competitors, including Zoom Video Communications, have seen dramatically increased adoption, usage and publicity in connection with the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Competition could force usresult in a decrease to decrease our prices, slow our growth, increase our customer turnover, reduce our sales, or decrease our market share. The adverse impact
We rely and may in the future rely significantly on our strategic partners, resellers, and carriers to sell our subscriptions; our failure to effectively develop, manage, and maintain our indirect sales channels could materially and adversely affect our revenues.
Our future success depends on our continued ability to establish and maintain a shortfallnetwork of channel relationships, and we expect that we will need to expand our network in order to support and expand our historical base of smaller enterprises as well as attract and support larger customers and expand into international markets. An increasing portion of our revenues are derived from our network of sales agents and resellers, which we refer to collectively as resellers, many of which sell or may in the future decide to sell their own services or services from other business communications providers. We generally do not have long-term contracts with these resellers, and the loss of or reduction in sales through these third parties could materially reduce our revenues. Our competitors may in some cases be effective in causing our current or potential resellers to favor their services or prevent or reduce sales of our subscriptions. Furthermore, while AT&T, BT, TELUS, Avaya and Atos (through its subsidiary Unify) also sell our solutions, they are also competitors for business communications. These companies have significantly greater resources than us and currently, or may in the future, develop and/or host their own or other solutions through the cloud. Such competitors may cease marketing or selling our solutions to their customers and ultimately be able to transition some or all of those customers onto their competing solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our revenues and growth. In this regard, AT&T launched a competing hosted business communications solution in 2016, and new subscriptions for our solution sold by AT&T declined to an immaterial level in 2017 and into 2018. In August 2018, we entered into a revised agreement with AT&T, under which AT&T resumed reselling our solutions, and sales of our solutions by AT&T have increased as a result, but there can be no guarantee that AT&T will not cease reselling our solutions in the future. We also recently entered into certain agreements for strategic partnerships with Avaya and Atos to sell certain of our solutions. Avaya introduced the ACO solution at the end of the first quarter of 2020 and Atos and Unify are expected to introduce the UO solution during the third quarter of 2020; however, there can be no guarantee that Avaya or any of its channel partners or Atos and Unify and their channel partners will be successful in marketing or selling our solutions or that they will not cease marketing or selling our solutions in the future. If AT&T, Avaya and its channel partners, or Atos and Unify and their channel partners, are not successful in marketing and selling our solutions or cease to market and sell our solutions, our revenues and growth could be significantly and adversely affected. If we fail to maintain relationships with our resellers and other channel partners, carriers and strategic partners or fail to develop new and expanded relationships in existing or new markets, or if our networks of indirect channel relationships are not successful in their sales efforts, sales of our subscriptions may decrease and our operating results would suffer. Further, the ability of our resellers, carriers and strategic partners to market and sell our solutions could be adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we may not be successful in managing, training, and providing appropriate incentives to our existing resellers and other channel partners, carriers and strategic partners, and they may not be able to commit adequate resources in order to successfully sell our solutions.
Recruiting and retaining qualified resellers and other channel partners and carriers in our revenuesnetwork and training them in our technology and subscription offerings requires significant time and resources. To develop and expand our indirect sales channels, we must continue to scale and improve our processes and procedures to support these channels, including investment in systems and training. Many resellers and other channel partners and carriers may not be magnified if we are unablewilling to adjust spending adequatelyinvest the time and resources required to compensate for such shortfall.
train their staff to effectively market our subscriptions.
To deliver our subscriptions, we rely on third parties for our network connectivity and co-location facilities, and for certain of the features in our subscriptions.
We currently use the infrastructure of third-party network service providers, including CenturyLink, Inc., and Bandwidth.com, Inc., Inteliquent, Inc. and Verizon Communications, Inc. in North America Iristel Inc. and Comwave Networks Inc. in Canada, Colt Technology Services and British Telecommunications plc in Europe, and several others throughout the world,internationally, to deliver our subscriptions over their networks. Our third-party network service providers provide access to their Internet protocol (“IP”) networks and public switched telephone networks, (“PSTN”), and provide call termination and origination services, including 911 emergency calling in the U.S. and equivalent services in Canada, the U.K., Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East,internationally, and local number portability for our customers. We expect that we will continue to rely heavily on third-party network service providers to provide these subscriptions for the foreseeable future. We
Through our wholly-owned local exchange carrier subsidiary, RCLEC, Inc. (“RCLEC”), we also obtain certain connectivity and network services directly from our wholly owned subsidiary, RCLEC, Inc.incumbent local exchange carriers (“RCLEC”ILECS”) and from other competitive local exchange carriers (“CLECs”) in certain geographic markets; however,markets at lower prices than we pay for such services through third-party network service providers. However, RCLEC also uses the infrastructure of third-party network service providers to deliver its services.services and the ILECs may favor themselves and their affiliates may not provide network services to us at lower prices than we could obtain through third-party CLECs, or at all. If we are unable to continue to reduce our pricing as a result of obtaining network services through our subsidiary, we may be forced to rely on other third-party network service providers and be unable to effectively lower our cost of service. Historically, our reliance on third-party networks has reduced our operating flexibility
and ability to make timely service changes and control quality of service, and we expect that this will continue for the foreseeable future. If any of these network service providers stop providing us with access to their infrastructure, fail to provide these services to us on a cost-effective basis or at reasonable levels of quality and security, cease operations, or otherwise terminate these services, the delay caused by qualifying and switching to another third-party network service provider, if one is available, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
In addition, we currently use and may in the future use third-party service providers to deliver certain features of our subscriptions. For example, although we recently introduced our own video and web conferencing solution, we continue to rely in part on Free Conference Call Global, LLC for some conference calling features, Zoom Video Communications for our HD video and web conferencing and screen sharing features, Bandwidth.com for our texting capabilities, and NICE inContact, Inc. for our contact center capabilities. We do not or may not in the future, have long-term contracts with certain of these third-party providers, including Zoom Video Communications and Bandwidth.com.providers. If any of these service providers elects to stop providing us with access to their services, fails to provide these services to us on a cost-effective basis or at reasonable levels of quality and security, ceases operations, or otherwise terminates these services, the delay caused by qualifying and switching to another third-party service provider, if one is available, or building a proprietary replacement solution could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
Finally, if problems occur with any of these third-party network or service providers, it may cause errors or poor call quality in our subscriptions, and we could encounter difficulty identifying the source of the problem. These third-party network or service providers have been and will continue to be adversely impacted or overloaded by the large increase in traffic caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which could increase our exposure to damage from service interruptions. The occurrence of errors or poor call quality in our subscriptions, whether caused by our systems or a third-party network or service provider, may result in the loss of our existing customers, delay or loss of market acceptance of our subscriptions, termination of our relationships and agreements with our resellers or carriers, or liability for failure to meet service level agreements, and may seriously harm our business and results of operations.
We rely on third-party software that may be difficult to replace or which could cause errors or failures of our subscriptions.
We rely on software licensed from certain third parties in order to offer our solutions. In some cases, we integrate third-party licensed software components into our platform. This software may not continue to be available at reasonable prices or on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this software could significantly increase our expenses and otherwise result in delays in the provisioning of our solutions until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained, and integrated. Any errors or defects in third-party software could result in errors or a failure of our solutions, which could harm our business.
Interruptions or delays in service from our third-party data center hosting facilities and co-location facilities could impair the delivery of our subscriptions, require us to issue credits or pay penalties and harm our business.
We currently serve our North American customers from threegeographically disparate data center hosting facilities located in northern California, northern Virginia, and Chicago, Illinois,North America, where we lease space from Equinix, Inc. We, and other providers, and we serve our European customers in the U.K. and other European countries from two third-party data center hosting facilities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Zurich, Switzerland and we serve the customers of Dimelo SA (“Dimelo”)’s digital customer engagement platform from a third-party data center hosting facility in Paris, France.Europe. We also use third-party co-location facilities located in Canada, the U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Singapore, Brazil, and Japanvarious international regions to serve our customers in these regions. Our collaboration solution, RingCentral Glip, isCertain of our solutions are hosted by third party data center facilities including Amazon Web Services, Inc. (“AWS”), our contact center solution is hosted by NICE inContact’s third party data center facilitiesinContact, Inc., and AWS, and certain features of our services such as analytics are hosted by Google Cloud Platform. In addition, RCLEC uses third-party co-location facilities to provide us with network services at several locations. Damage to, or failure of, these facilities, the communications network providers with whom we or they contract, or with the systems by which our communications providers allocate capacity among their customers, including us, or software errors, have in the past and could in the future result in interruptions in our services. Additionally, in connection with the addition of new data centers or expansion or consolidation of our existing data center facilities, we may move or transfer our data and our customers’ data to other data centers. Despite precautions that we take during this process, any unsuccessful data transfers may impair or cause disruptions in the delivery of our subscriptions. Interruptions in our subscriptions may reduce our revenues, may require us to issue credits or pay penalties, subject us to claims and litigation, cause customers to terminate their subscriptions and adversely affect our renewal rates and our ability to attract new customers. Our ability to attract and retain customers depends on our ability to provide customers with a highly reliable subscription and even minor interruptions in our subscriptions could harm our brand and reputation and have a material adverse effect on our business.
As part of our current disaster recovery arrangements, our North American and European infrastructure and all of our North American and European customers’ data is currently replicated in near real-time at two of our data center facilities in the U.S., and our European production environment and all of our U.K. and other European customers’ data is also currently replicated in near real-time at our two European data center facilities.Europe, respectively. We do not control the operation of these facilities or of our other data center facilities or RCLEC’s co-location facilities, and they are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunications
failures, and similar events. They may also be subject to human error or to break-ins, sabotage, acts of vandalism, and similar misconduct.
Despite precautions taken at these facilities, the occurrence of a natural disaster, public health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, human error, or an act of terrorism or other unanticipated problems at these facilities could result in lengthy interruptions in our subscriptions. Even with the disaster recovery arrangements in place, our subscriptions could be interrupted.
We may also be required to transfer our servers to new data center facilities in the event that we are unable to renew our leases on acceptable terms, if at all, or the owners of the facilities decide to close their facilities, and we may incur significant costs and possible subscription interruption in connection with doing so. In addition, any financial difficulties, such as bankruptcy or foreclosure, faced by our third-party data center operators, or any of the service providers with which we or they contract may have negative effects on our business, the nature and extent of which are difficult to predict. Additionally, if our data centers are unable to keep up with our increasing needs for capacity, our ability to grow our business could be materially and adversely impacted.
Failures in Internet infrastructure or interference with broadband access could cause current or potential users to believe that our systems are unreliable, possibly leading our customers to switch to our competitors or to avoid using our subscriptions.
Unlike traditional communications services, our subscriptions depend on our customers’ high-speed broadband access to the Internet, usually provided through a cable or digital subscriber line (“DSL”) connection.Internet. Increasing numbers of users and increasing bandwidth requirements may degrade the performance of our subscriptionsservices and applications due to capacity constraints and other Internet infrastructure limitations. As our customer base grows and their usage of communications capacityour services increases, we will be required to make additional investments in network capacity to maintain adequate data transmission speeds, the availability of which may be limited, or the cost of which may be on terms unacceptable to us. If adequate capacity is not available to us as our customers’ usage increases, our network may be unable to achieve or maintain sufficiently high data transmission capacity, reliability or performance. In addition, if Internet access service providers and other third parties providing Internet services have outages or deteriorations in their quality of service, our customers will not have access to our subscriptions or may experience a decrease in the quality of our subscriptions. Furthermore, as the rate of adoption of new technologies increases, the networks on which our subscriptions and applications rely may not be able to sufficiently adapt to the increased demand for these services, including ours.services. Frequent or persistent interruptions could cause current or potential users to believe that our systems or subscriptionsservices are unreliable, leading them to switch to our competitors or to avoid our subscriptions, and could permanently harm our reputation and brands.
In addition, users who access our subscriptions and applications through mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, must have a high-speed connection, such as Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, 5G, or LTE, to use our subscriptionsservices and applications. Currently, this access is provided by companies that have significant and increasing market power in the broadband and Internet access marketplace, including incumbent phone companies, cable companies, and wireless companies. Some of these providers offer productssolutions and subscriptions that directly compete with our own offerings, which can potentially give them a competitive advantage. Also, these providers could take measures that degrade, disrupt or increase the cost of user access to third-party services, including our subscriptions, by restricting or prohibiting the use of their infrastructure to support or facilitate third-party services or by charging increased fees to third parties or the users of third-party services, any of which would make our subscriptions less attractive to users, and reduce our revenues.
OnFurther, in January 4, 2018, the FCCFederal Communications Commission (the “FCC”) released an order reclassifying broadband Internet access as an information service, subject to certain provisions of Title I of the Communications Act. TheAmong other things, the order eliminates rules adopted in 2015 that prohibited broadband providers from blocking, impairing, or degrading access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, or engaging in the practice of paid prioritization, e.g., the favoring of some lawful Internet traffic over other traffic in exchange for higher payments. The order does require broadband providerswas contested in federal court, was largely affirmed by a three-judge panel; the request for rehearing was denied and the parties declined to disclose publicly accurate information regarding network management practices, performance characteristics, and commercial terms of their broadband Internet access services sufficient to enable consumers to make informed choices regardingappeal the purchase and use of such services and entrepreneurs and other small businesses to develop, market, and maintain Internet offerings. The rules require that such disclosure be made via a publicly available, easily accessible website or through transmittaldecision to the FCC. The order also shifts regulatory oversight of broadband providers to the Federal Trade Commission, under its authority to prevent unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The new rules went into effect on June 11, 2018. The FCC decision was appealed and oral argument was held on February 1, 2019 before the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit. In addition, Congress may take action to curtail or modify the FCC’s new broadband rules. On September 30, 2018, California enacted the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act of 2018, making California the fourth state to enact a state-level net neutrality law since the FCC repealed its nationwide regulations, mandating that all broadband services in California must be provided in accordance with state net neutrality requirements. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block the law going into effect, and California has agreed to delay enforcement until the resolution of the FCC’s repeal of the federal rules.Supreme Court. A number of other states have enacted or are considering legislation or executive actions that would regulate the conduct of broadband providers. We cannot predict whether the FCC order or state initiatives will be modified, overturned, or vacated by legal action of the court, federal or state legislation, or the FCC. Under the new FCC rules, broadband internetInternet access providers may be able to charge web-based services such as ours for priority access to customers, which could result in increased costs and a loss of existing users, impair our ability to attract new users, and materially and adversely affect our business and opportunities for growth.
Interruptions in our services caused by undetected errors, failures, or bugs in our subscriptions could harm our reputation, result in significant costs to us, and impair our ability to sell our subscriptions.
Our subscriptions may have errors or defects that customers identify after they begin using them that could result in unanticipated interruptions of service. Internet-based services frequently contain undetected errors and bugs when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. While the substantial majority of our customers are small and medium-sized businesses, the use of our subscriptions in complicated, large-scale network environments may terminateincrease our exposure to undetected errors, failures, or bugs in our subscriptions. Although we test our subscriptions to detect and correct errors and defects before their general release, we have, from time to time, experienced significant interruptions in our subscriptions as a result of such errors or defects and may experience future interruptions of service if we fail to detect and correct these errors and defects. The costs incurred in correcting such defects or errors may be substantial and could harm our results of operations. In addition, we rely on hardware purchased or leased and software licensed from third parties to offer our subscriptions.
Any defects in, or unavailability of, our or third-party software or hardware that cause interruptions of our subscriptions could, among other things:
•cause a reduction in revenues or delay in market acceptance of our subscriptions;
•require us to pay penalties or issue credits or refunds to our customers, resellers, or carriers, or expose us to claims for damages;
•cause us to lose existing customers and make it more difficult to attract new customers;
•divert our development resources or require us to make extensive changes to our software, which would increase our expenses and slow innovation;
•increase our technical support costs; and
•harm our reputation and brand.
We rely on third parties, including third parties outside the U.S., for some of our software development, quality assurance, operations, and customer support.
We currently depend on various third parties for some of our software development efforts, quality assurance, operations, and customer support services. Specifically, we outsource some of our software development and design, quality assurance, and operations activities to third-party contractors that have employees and consultants located in St. Petersburg, Russia, Odessa, Ukraine, and Manila, the Philippines. In addition, we outsource a portion of our customer support, inside sales and network operation control functions to third-party contractors located in Manila, the Philippines. Our dependence on third-party contractors creates a number of risks, in particular, the risk that we may not maintain service quality, control, or effective management with respect to these business operations. These third parties have been and will continue to be adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of widespread illness and disruptions or restrictions on employees’ ability to work, which may continue to affect their ability to perform satisfactorily or at all.
In addition, recent political and military events in Ukraine, poor relations between the U.S. and Russia, and sanctions by the U.S. and the EU against Russia could have an adverse impact on our third-party software development and quality assurance operations in Ukraine and Russia. Additionally, we rely on purchased or leased hardware and software licensed from third parties in order to offer our subscriptions, and in some cases, we integrate third-party licensed software components into our platform. Any errors or defects in third-party hardware or software could result in errors or a failure of our subscriptions which could harm our business.
We anticipate that we will continue to depend on these and other third-party relationships in order to grow our business for the foreseeable future. If we are unsuccessful in maintaining existing and, if needed, establishing new relationships with third parties, our ability to efficiently operate existing services or develop new services and provide adequate customer support could be impaired, and, as a result, our competitive position or our results of operations could suffer.
A cyber-attack, information security breach or denial of service event could delay or interrupt service to our customers, harm our reputation, or subject us to significant liability.
Our operations depend on our ability to protect our production and corporate information technology services from interruption or damage from unauthorized entry, computer malware or other events beyond our control. We have, from time to time, been subject to communications fraud and cyber-attacks by malicious actors, and denial of service events, and we may be subject to similar attacks in the future. We cannot assure you that our backup systems, regular data backups, security controls and other procedures currently in place, or that may be in place in the future, will be adequate to prevent significant damage,
system failure, service outages, data breach, data loss, or increased charges from our technology vendors. Also, our subscriptions are web-based. The amount of data we store for our serviceusers increases as our business grows. We host services, which includes hosting customer data, both in co-located data centers and in multiple public cloud services. Our solutions allow users to store files, tasks, calendar events, messages and other data indefinitely on our services or as may be directed by our customers. We also maintain sensitive data related to our technology and business, and that of our employees, strategic partners, and customers, including intellectual property, proprietary business information and personally identifiable information (also called personal data) on our own systems and in multiple vendors’ cloud services. As a result of maintaining larger volumes of data and user files and/or as a result of our continued movement up market, or movement into new customer segments and acquisition of larger and more recognized customers, we may become more of a target for hackers, nation states and other malicious actors. In addition, we use third-party vendors which, in some cases, have access to our data and our customers’ data. We employ layered security measures and have a means of working with third parties who report vulnerabilities to us. Despite the implementation of security measures by us or our vendors, our computing devices, infrastructure, or networks, or our vendors’ computing devices, infrastructure, or networks, may be vulnerable to hackers, computer viruses, worms, other malicious software programs, or similar disruptive problems that are caused by or through a security weakness or vulnerability in our or our vendors’ infrastructure, network, or business practices or our or our vendors’ customers, employees, business partners, consultants, or other Internet users who attempt to invade our or our vendors’ corporate and personal computers, tablets, mobile devices, software, data networks, or voice networks. If there is a security weakness or vulnerability in our, our vendors’, or our customers’ infrastructure, networks, or business practices that is successfully targeted, we could face increased costs, liability claims, including contractual liability claims relating to security obligations in agreements with our partners and our customers, fines, claims, investigations and other proceedings, reduced revenue, or harm to our reputation or competitive position. In addition, even if not targeted, in strengthening our security controls or in remediating security vulnerabilities, we could incur increased costs and capital expenditures. The COVID-19 pandemic is generally increasing the attack surface available to criminals, as more companies and individuals work online, and as such, the risk of a cybersecurity incident potentially occurring, and our investment in risk mitigations against such an incident, is increasing. We cannot provide assurances that our preventative efforts will be successful.
Further, in some cases we do not have in place disaster recovery facilities for certain ancillary services, such as email delivery of messages. We rely on encryption and authentication technology to ensure secure transmission of and access to confidential information, including customer credit card numbers, debit card numbers, direct debit information, customer communications, and files uploaded by our customers. Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography, discovery of software bugs or vulnerabilities, discovery of hardware bugs or vulnerabilities, social engineering activities, or other developments may result in a compromise or breach of the technology we use to protect our data and our customer data, or of the data itself.
Additionally, third parties have attempted in the past, and may attempt in the future, to induce domestic and international employees, consultants, or customers into disclosing sensitive information, such as user names, provisioning data, customer proprietary network information (“CPNI”) or other information in order to gain access to our customers’ user accounts or data, or to our data. CPNI includes information such as the phone numbers called by a customer, the frequency, duration, and timing of such calls, and any services purchased by the consumer, such as call waiting, call forwarding, and caller ID, in addition to other information that may appear on a customer’s bill. Third parties may also attempt to induce employees, consultants, or customers into disclosing sensitive information regarding our intellectual property and other confidential business information, our customers, the customer information we hold, or our information technology systems. In addition, the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, to perform hacking, phishing and social engineering, or to sabotage systems change and evolve frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, may be new and previously unknown or little-known, or may not be detected or understood until well after such actions are conducted. We may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures, and any security breach or other incident may take longer than expected to remediate or otherwise address. Any system failure or security breach that causes interruptions or data loss in our operations or in the computer systems of our customers or leads to the misappropriation of our or our customers’ confidential or personal information could result in significant liability to us, loss of our intellectual property, cause our subscriptions to be perceived as not being secure, cause considerable harm to us and our reputation (including requiring notification to customers, regulators, or the media), and deter current and potential customers from using our subscriptions. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
It is critical to our business that our information and our employees’, strategic partners’, and customers’ sensitive information remains secure and that our customers perceive that this information is secure. An information security incident could result in unauthorized access to, loss of, or unauthorized disclosure of such information. A cybersecurity breach could expose us to litigation, indemnity obligations, government investigations, contractual liability, and other possible liabilities. Additionally, a cyber-attack or other information security incident, whether actual or perceived, could result in negative publicity, which could harm our reputation and reduce our customers’ confidence in the effectiveness of our solutions, which
could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results. A breach of our security systems could also expose us to increased costs, including remediation costs, disruption of operations, or increased cybersecurity protection costs, that may have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, a cybersecurity breach of our customers’ systems can also result in exposure of their authentication credentials, unauthorized access to their accounts, exposure of their account information and data (including CPNI), and fraudulent calls on their accounts, which can subsequently have similar actual or perceived impacts to us as described above. A cybersecurity breach of our partners’ or vendors’ systems can result in similar actual or perceived impacts.
While we maintain cybersecurity insurance, our insurance may be insufficient to cover all liabilities incurred by privacy or security incidents. We also cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data handling or data security liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that an insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results, and reputation.
Laws, regulations, and enforcement actions relating to security and privacy of information continue to evolve. We have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant expenses to prevent security incidents. It is possible that, in order to support changes to applicable laws and to support our expansion of sales into new geographic areas or into new industry segments, we will need to increase or change our cybersecurity systems and expenditures. Further, it is possible that changes to laws and regulations relating to security and privacy may make it more expensive to operate in certain jurisdictions and may increase the risk of our non-compliance with such changing laws and regulations.
Potential problems with our information systems could interfere with our business and operations.
We rely on our information systems and those of third parties for processing customer orders, distribution of our subscriptions, billing our customers, processing credit card transactions, customer relationship management, supporting financial planning and analysis, accounting functions and financial statement preparation, and otherwise running our business. Information systems may experience interruptions, including interruptions of related services from third-party providers, which may be beyond our control. Such business interruptions could cause us to fail to meet customer requirements. All information systems, both internal and external, are potentially vulnerable to damage or interruption from a variety of sources, including without limitation, computer viruses, security breaches, energy blackouts, natural disasters, terrorism, war, telecommunication failures, employee or other theft, and third-party provider failures. In addition, since telecommunications billing is inherently complex and requires highly sophisticated information systems to administer, our internally developed billing system, which is currently being implemented, may experience errors or we may improperly operate the system, which could result in the system incorrectly calculating the fees owed by our customers for our subscriptions or related taxes and administrative fees. Any such errors in our customer billing could harm our reputation and cause us to violate truth in billing laws and regulations. Our current internally developed billing system requires us to process an increasing number of invoices manually, which could result in billing errors. Any errors or disruption in our information systems and those of the third parties upon which we rely could have a significant impact on our business. In addition, we may implement further and enhanced information systems in the future to meet the demands resulting from our growth and to provide additional capabilities and functionality. The implementation of new systems and enhancements is frequently disruptive to the underlying business of an enterprise, and can be time-consuming and expensive, increase management responsibilities, and divert management attention.
We depend largely on the continued services of our senior management and other highly-skilled employees, and if we are unable to hire, retain, manage and motivate our employees, we may not be able to grow effectively and our business, results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Our future performance depends on the continued services and contributions of our senior management and other key employees to execute on our business plan, and to identify and pursue opportunities and services innovations. The loss of services of senior management or other key employees could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our development and strategic objectives. In particular, we depend to a considerable degree on the vision, skills, experience, and effort of our co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vladimir Shmunis. None of our executive officers or other senior management personnel is bound by a written employment agreement and any of them may therefore terminate employment with us at any time without penalty,with no advance notice. The replacement of any of these senior management personnel would likely involve significant time and increasedcosts, and such loss could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our business objectives. The loss of the services of our senior management or other key employees for any reason could adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.
Our future success also depends on our ability to continue to attract and retain highly skilled personnel. We believe that there is, and will continue to be, intense competition for highly skilled technical and other personnel with experience in our industry in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our headquarters is located, in Denver, Colorado, where our U.S. sales and customer support office and our network operations center is located, and in other locations where we maintain offices. In addition, changes to U.S. immigration policies, particularly to H-1B and other visa programs, and restrictions on travel (including but not limited to current travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic) could restrain the flow of technical and professional talent into the U.S. and may inhibit our ability to hire qualified personnel. We must provide competitive compensation packages and a high-quality work environment to hire, retain, and motivate employees. If we are unable to retain and motivate our existing employees and attract qualified personnel to fill key positions, we may be unable to manage our business effectively, including the development, marketing, and sale of existing and new subscriptions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. To the extent we hire personnel from competitors, we may be subject to allegations that they have been improperly solicited or divulged proprietary or other confidential information. Volatility in, or lack of performance of, our stock price may also affect our ability to attract and retain key personnel.
Increased customer turnover, or costs we incur to retain and upsell our customers, and encourage them to add users and, in the future, to purchase additional functionalities and premium subscription editions, could materially and adversely affect our financial performance.
Although we have recently begun to enterentered into long-term contracts with larger customers, ourthose customers generallywho do not have long-term contracts with us and these customers may terminate their subscriptions at any time without penalty or early termination charges. We cannot accurately predict the rate of customer terminations or average monthly subscription cancellations or failures to renew, which we refer to as turnover. Our customers with subscription agreements have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our service after the expiration of their initial subscription period, which is typically between one and three years. In the event that these customers do renew their subscriptions, they may choose to renew for fewer users, shorter contract lengths, or for a less expensive subscription plan or edition. We cannot predict the renewal rates for customers that have entered into subscription contracts with us.
Customer turnover, as well as reductions in the number of users for which a customer subscribes, each could have a significant impact on our results of operations, as does the cost we incur in our efforts to retain our customers and encourage them to upgrade their subscriptions and increase their number of users. Our turnover rate could increase in the future if customers are not satisfied with our subscriptions, the value proposition of our subscriptions or our ability to otherwise meet their needs and expectations. Turnover and reductions in the number of users for whom a customer subscribes may also increase due to factors beyond our control, including the failure or unwillingness of customers to pay their monthly subscription fees due to financial constraints and the impact of a slowing economy. In addition, any economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic could cause financial hardship for our customers, decrease technology spending and materially and negatively impact our customers’ willingness to enter into or renew subscriptions with us, or cause our customers to seek a decrease in the number of users or solutions for which they subscribe. For example, to address customer hardships, in vertical markets most impacted by COVID-19, such as retail and hospitality, we are actively working with some customers to provide greater flexibility to manage challenges they are facing, but we cannot be assured that they will not reduce their number of users or terminate their subscriptions altogether. Due to turnover and reductions in the number of users for whom a customer subscribes, we have tomust acquire new customers, or acquire new users within our existing customer base, on an ongoing basis simply to maintain our existing level of customers and revenues. If a significant number of customers terminate, reduce, or fail to renew their subscriptions, we may be required to incur significantly higher marketing expenditures than we currently anticipate in order to increase the number of new customers or to upsell existing customers, and such additional marketing expenditures could harm our business and results of operations.
Our future success also depends in part on our ability to sell additional subscriptions and additional functionalities to our current customers. This may require increasingly sophisticated and more costly sales efforts and a longer sales cycle. Any increase in the costs necessary to upgrade, expand and retain existing customers could materially and adversely affect our financial performance. If our efforts to convince customers to add users and, in the future, to purchase additional functionalities are not successful, our business may suffer. In addition, such increased costs could cause us to increase our subscription rates, which could increase our turnover rate.
If we are unable to attract new customers to our subscriptions or upsell to those customers on a cost-effective basis, our business will be materially and adversely affected.
In order to grow our business, we must continue to attract new customers and expand the number of users in, and services provided to, our existing customer base on a cost-effective basis. We use and periodically adjust the mix of advertising
and marketing programs to promote our subscriptions. Significant increases in the pricing of one or more of our advertising channels would increase our advertising costs or may cause us to choose less expensive and perhaps less effective channels to promote our subscriptions. As we add to or change the mix of our advertising and marketing strategies, we may need to expand into channels with significantly higher costs than our current programs, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and global slowdown of economic activity has and will continue to disrupt our sales channels and our ability to attract new customers, which may require us to adjust our advertising and marketing programs or make further investments in these programs. We will incur advertising and marketing expenses in advance of when we anticipate recognizing any revenues generated by such expenses, and we may fail to otherwise experience an increase in revenues or brand awareness as a result of such expenditures. We have made in the past, and may make in the future, significant expenditures and investments in new advertising campaigns, and we cannot assure you that any such investments will lead to the cost-effective acquisition of additional customers. If we are
unable to maintain effective advertising programs, our ability to attract new customers could be materially and adversely affected, our advertising and marketing expenses could increase substantially, and our results of operations may suffer.
Some of our potential customers learn about us through leading search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. While we employ search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategies, our ability to maintain and increase the number of visitors directed to our website is not entirely within our control. If search engine companies modify their search algorithms in a manner that reduces the prominence of our listing, or if our competitors’ search engine optimization efforts are more successful than ours, or if search engine companies restrict or prohibit us from using their services, fewer potential customers may click through to our website. In addition, the cost of purchased listings has increased in the past and may increase in the future. A decrease in website traffic or an increase in search costs could materially and adversely affect our customer acquisition efforts and our results of operations.
MostAs a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in the rate of adoption of video and web conferencing solutions; however, we cannot predict whether or for how long these patterns will continue.
A significant portion of our revenues today come from small and medium-sized businesses, which may have fewer financial resources to weather an economic downturn.
MostA significant portion of our revenues today come from small and medium-sized businesses. These customers may be materially and adversely affected by economic downturns to a greater extent than larger, more established businesses. These businesses typically have more limited financial resources, including capital-borrowing capacity, than larger entities. The COVID-19 pandemic has had adverse effects on economies and financial markets globally, which have particularly impacted many small and medium sized businesses. Any economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and preventative measures taken by governments and private business worldwide could decrease technology spending and adversely affect demand for our offerings and harm our business and results of operations. Although the U.S. government and others throughout the world have taken steps to provide monetary and fiscal assistance to individuals and businesses affected by the pandemic, it is unclear whether government actions will successfully avert or mitigate any economic downturn. As the majority of our customers pay for our subscriptions through credit and debit cards, weakness in certain segments of the credit markets and in the U.S. and global economies has resulted in and may in the future result in increased numbers of rejected credit and debit card payments, which could materially affect our business by increasing customer cancellations and impacting our ability to engage new small and medium-sized customers. If small and medium-sized businesses experience financial hardship as a result of a weak economy, industry consolidation or for any other reason, the overall demand for our subscriptions could be materially and adversely affected.
We face significant risks in our strategy to target medium-sized and larger businesses for sales of our subscriptions and, if we do not manage these efforts effectively, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.
Sales to medium-sized and larger businesses continue to grow in both absolute dollars and as a percentage of our total sales. As we continue to target more of our sales efforts to medium-sized and larger businesses, we expect to incur higher costs and longer sales cycles and we may be less effective at predicting when we will complete these sales. In these market segments, the decision to purchase our subscriptions generally requires the approval of more technical personnel and management levels within a potential customer’s organization, and therefore, these types of sales require us to invest more time educating these potential customers about the benefits of our subscriptions. In addition, larger customers may demand more features, integration services, and customization, and may require highly skilled sales and support personnel. Our investment in marketing our subscriptions to these potential customers may not be successful, which could significantly and adversely affect our results of operations and our overall ability to grow our customer base. We also have only limited experience in developing and managing sales channels and distribution arrangements for larger businesses. Furthermore, many medium-sized and larger businesses that we target for sales may already purchase business communications and solutions from our larger competitors. As a result of these
factors, these sales opportunities may require us to devote greater research and development resources and sales support to individual customers, and invest in hiring and retaining highly skilled personnel, resulting in increased costs and could likely lengthen our typical sales cycle, which could strain our limited sales and support resources. Moreover, these larger transactions may require us to delay recognizing the associated revenues we derive from these customers until any technical or implementation requirements have been met. Furthermore, as we have limited experience selling to larger businesses, our investment in marketing our subscriptions to these potential customers may not be successful, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and our overall ability to grow our customer base.
We rely significantly on our indirect sales channel to sell our subscriptions; our failure to effectively develop, manage, and maintain our indirect sales channels could materially and adversely affect our revenues.
Our future success depends on our continued ability to establish and maintain a network of channel relationships, and we expect that we will need to expand our network in order to support and expand our historical base of smaller enterprises as well as attract and support larger customers and expand into international markets. An increasing portion of our revenues are derived from our network of sales agents and resellers, which we refer to collectively as resellers, many of which sell or may in the future decide to sell their own services or services from other business communications providers. We generally do not have long-term contracts with these resellers, and the loss of or reduction in sales through these third parties could materially reduce our revenues. Our competitors may in some cases be effective in causing our current or potential resellers to favor their services or prevent or reduce sales of our subscriptions. Furthermore, while AT&T, BT, and TELUS also sell our solutions, they are also competitors for business communications. These companies have significantly greater resources than us and currently, or may in the future, develop and/or host their own or other solutions through the cloud. Such competitors may cease reselling our solutions to their
customers and ultimately be able to transition some or all of those customers onto their competing solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our revenues and growth. In this regard, AT&T launched a competing hosted business communications solution in 2016, and new subscriptions for our solution sold by AT&T declined to an immaterial level in 2017 and into 2018. In August 2018, the Company and AT&T entered into a revised agreement, under which AT&T has resumed reselling our solutions, and we expect sales of our solutions by AT&T to increase as a result, but there can be no guarantee that AT&T will not cease reselling our solutions in the future. If AT&T will cease reselling our solutions, our revenues and growth could be significantly and adversely affected. If we fail to maintain relationships with our resellers and carriers, fail to develop relationships with new resellers and carriers in new markets or expand the number of resellers and carriers in our network in existing markets, or fail to manage, train, or provide appropriate incentives to our existing resellers and carriers, or if our resellers and carriers are not successful in their sales efforts, sales of our subscriptions may decrease and our operating results would suffer. If we are unable to maintain our relationships with BT or TELUS, or if these carriers reduce resources committed to reselling the service, our results of operations may suffer.
Recruiting and retaining qualified resellers and carriers in our network and training them in our technology and subscription offerings requires significant time and resources. To develop and expand our indirect sales channels, we must continue to scale and improve our processes and procedures to support these channels, including investment in systems and training. Many resellers and carriers may not be willing to invest the time and resources required to train their staff to effectively market our subscriptions.
Growth may place significant demands on our management and our infrastructure.
We have recently experienced substantial growth in our business. This growth has placed and may continue to place significant demands on our management and our operational and financial infrastructure. As our operations grow in size, scope, and complexity, we will need to increase our sales and marketing efforts and add additional sales and marketing personnel in various regions worldwide, and improve and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to attract, service, and retain an increasing number of customers. For example, we expect the volume of simultaneous calls to increase significantly as our customer base grows. Our network hardware and software may not be able to accommodate this additional simultaneous call volume. The expansion of our systems and infrastructure will require us to commit substantial financial, operational, and technical resources in advance of an increase in the volume of business, with no assurance that the volume of business will increase. Any such additional capital investments will increase our cost base.
Continued growth could also strain our ability to maintain reliable service levels for our customers, resellers, and carriers develop and improve our operational, financial and management controls, enhance our billing and reporting systems and procedures and recruit, train and retain highly skilled personnel. In addition, our existing systems, processes, and controls may not prevent or detect all errors, omissions, or fraud. We may also experience difficulties in managing improvements to our systems, processes, and controls or in connection with third-party software licensed to help us with such improvements. Any future growth, particularly as we continue to expand internationally, would add complexity to our organization and require effective communication and coordination throughout our organization. Additionally, our productivity and the quality of our products and services may be adversely affected if we do not integrate and train our new employees quickly and effectively. If we fail to achieve the necessary level of efficiency in our organization as we grow, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.
Support for smartphones and tablets are an integral part of our solutions. If we are unable to develop robust mobile applications that operate on mobile platforms that our customers use, our business and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.
Our solutions allow our customers to use and manage our cloud-based business communications solution on smart devices. As new smart devices and operating systems are released, we may encounter difficulties supporting these devices and services, and we may need to devote significant resources to the creation, support, and maintenance of our mobile applications. In addition, if we experience difficulties in the future integrating our mobile applications into smart devices or if problems arise with our relationships with providers of mobile operating systems, such as those of Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google Inc.), our future growth and our results of operations could suffer.
If we are unable to develop, license, or acquire new services or applications on a timely and cost-effective basis, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.
The cloud-based business communications industry is an emerging market that is characterized by rapid development of and changes in customer requirements, frequent introductions of new and enhanced services, and continuing and rapid technological advancement. We cannot predict the effect of technological changes on our business. Tobusiness, and the market for cloud-based business communications may develop more slowly than we anticipate, or develop in a manner different than we expect, and our solutions could fail to achieve market acceptance. Our continued growth depends on continued use of voice and video communications by businesses, as compared to email and other data-based methods, and future demand for and adoption of Internet voice and video communications systems and services. In addition, to compete successfully in this emerging market, we must anticipate and adapt to technological changes and evolving industry standards, and continue to design, develop, manufacture, and
sell new and enhanced services that provide increasingly higher levels of performance and reliability at lower cost. Currently, we derive a majority of our revenues from subscriptions to RingCentral Office, and we expect this will continue for the foreseeable future. However, our future success will also depend on our ability to introduce and sell new services, features, and functionality that enhance or are beyond the voice, video, team messaging, collaboration, conferencing, contact center, and fax subscriptions we currently offer, as well as to improve usability and support and increase customer satisfaction. Our failure to develop solutions that satisfy customer preferences in a timely and cost-effective manner may harm our ability to renew our subscriptions with existing customers and create or increase demand for our subscriptions and may materially and adversely impact our results of operations.
The introduction of new services by competitors or the development of entirely new technologies to replace existing offerings could make our solutions obsolete or adversely affect our business and results of operations. Announcements of future releases and new services and technologies by our competitors or us could cause customers to defer purchases of our existing subscriptions, which also could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. We may experience difficulties with software development, operations, design, or marketing that could delay or prevent our development, introduction, or implementation of new or enhanced services and applications. We have in the past experienced delays in the planned release dates of new features and upgrades and have discovered defects in new services and applications after their introduction. We cannot assure you that new features or upgrades will be released according to schedule, or that, when released, they will not contain defects. Either of these situations could result in adverse publicity, loss of revenues, delay in market acceptance, or claims by customers brought against us, all of which could harm our reputation, business, results of operations, and financial condition. Moreover, the development of new or enhanced services or applications may require substantial investment, and we must continue to invest a significant amount of resources in our research and development efforts to develop these services and applications to remain competitive. We do not know whether these investments will be successful. If customers do not widely adopt any new or enhanced services and applications, we may not be able to realize a return on our investment. If we are unable to develop, license, or acquire new or enhanced services and applications on a timely and cost-effective basis, or if such new or enhanced services and applications do not achieve market acceptance, our business, financial condition, and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.
A cyber-attack, information security breach or denial
Our operations depend on our ability to protect our production and corporate information technology services from interruption or damage from unauthorized entry, computer malware or other events beyond our control. We have from time to time been subject to communications fraud and cyber-attacks by malicious actors, and denial of service (“DoS/DDoS”) events, and we may be subject to similar attacks in the future. We cannot assure you that our backup systems, regular data backups, security controls and other procedures currently in place, or that may be in place in the future, will be adequate to prevent significant damage, system failure, service outages, data breach or data loss. Also, our subscriptions are web-based. The amount of data we store for our users on our servers has been increasing as our business has grown. We now host services, which includes hosting customer data, both in co-located data centers and in multiple public cloud services, and some of our products allow users to store files, tasks, calendar events, and messages indefinitely on our service. We also maintain sensitive data related to our technology and business, and that of our employees, strategic partners, and customers, including intellectual property, proprietary business information and personally identifiable information (also called personal data) on our own systems and also in multiple vendors’ cloud services. As a result of maintaining larger volumes of data and user files and/or as a result of our continued movement up market, or movement into new customer segments and acquisition of larger and more recognized customers, we may become more of a target for hackers, nation states and other malicious actors. In addition, we use third-party vendors which in some cases have access to our data and our customers’ data. We employ layered security measures and have a means of working with third parties who report vulnerabilities to us. Despite the implementation of security measures by us or our vendors, our computing devices, infrastructure or networks, or our vendors’ computing devices, infrastructure or networks may be vulnerable to hackers, computer viruses, worms, other malicious software programs or similar disruptive problems that are caused by or through a security weakness or vulnerability in our or our vendors’ infrastructure, network or business practices, or our or our vendors’ customers, employees, business partners, consultants or other Internet users who attempt to invade our or our vendors’ corporate and personal computers, tablets, mobile devices, software, data networks, or voice networks. If there is a security weakness or vulnerability in our or our vendors’ infrastructure, networks or business practices that is successfully targeted, we could face increased costs, liability claims, including contractual liability claims relating to security obligations in agreements with our customers, fines, reduced revenue, or harm to our reputation or competitive position. In addition, even if not targeted, in strengthening our security controls or in remediating security vulnerabilities we could incur increased costs and capital expenditures.
Further, in some cases we do not have in place disaster recovery facilities for certain ancillary services, such as email delivery of messages. We rely on encryption and authentication technology to ensure secure transmission of and access to confidential information, including customer credit card numbers, debit card numbers, direct debit information, customer communications,
and files uploaded by our customers. Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography, discovery of software bugs or vulnerabilities, discovery of hardware bugs or vulnerabilities, social engineering activities, or other developments may result in a compromise or breach of the technology we use to protect our data and our customer data, or of the data itself.
Additionally, third parties have attempted in the past, and may attempt in the future, to fraudulently induce domestic and international employees, consultants, or customers into disclosing sensitive information, such as user names, provisioning data, customer proprietary network information (“CPNI”) or other information in order to gain access to our customers’ user accounts or data, or to our data. CPNI includes information such as the phone numbers called by a customer, the frequency, duration, and timing of such calls, and any services purchased by the consumer, such as call waiting, call forwarding, and caller ID, in addition to other information that may appear on a customer’s bill. Third parties may also attempt to induce employees, consultants, or customers into disclosing sensitive information regarding our intellectual property and other confidential business information, our customers, the customer information we hold, or our information technology systems. In addition, the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, to perform hacking, phishing and social engineering, or to sabotage systems, change and evolve frequently and may not be recognized until launched against a target, may be new and previously unknown or little-known, or may not be detected or understood until well after such actions are conducted. We may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures, and any security breach or other incident may take longer than expected to remediate and otherwise address. Any system failure or security breach that causes interruptions or data loss in our operations or in the computer systems of our customers or leads to the misappropriation of our or our customers’ confidential or personal information could result in significant liability to us, loss of our intellectual property, cause our subscriptions to be perceived as not being secure, cause considerable harm to us and our reputation (including requiring notification to customers, regulators or the media), and deter current and potential customers from using our subscriptions. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
It is critical to our business that our information and our employees’, strategic partners’, and customers’ sensitive information remains secure and that our customers perceive that this information is secure. An information security incident could result in unauthorized access to, loss of, or unauthorized disclosure of such information. A cybersecurity breach could expose us to litigation, indemnity obligations, government investigations, contractual liability relating to contractual security obligations and other possible liabilities. Additionally, a cyber-attack or other information security incident, whether actual or perceived, could result in negative publicity which could harm our reputation and reduce our customers’ confidence in the effectiveness of our solutions, which could materially and adversely affect our business and operating results. A breach of our security systems could also expose us to increased costs including remediation costs, disruption of operations, or increased cybersecurity protection costs that may have a material adverse effect on our business. In addition, a cybersecurity breach of our customers’ systems can also result in exposure of their authentication credentials, unauthorized access to their accounts, exposure of their account information and data (including CPNI), and fraudulent calls on their accounts, which can subsequently have similar actual or perceived impacts to us as described above. A cybersecurity breach of our partners’ or vendors’ systems can result in similar actual or perceived impacts.
While we maintain cybersecurity insurance, our insurance may be insufficient to cover all liabilities incurred by privacy or security incidents. We also cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data handling or data security liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that an insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results, and reputation.
Laws, regulations, and enforcement actions relating to security and privacy information continue to evolve. We have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant expenses to prevent security incidents. It is possible that, in order to support changes to applicable laws and to support our expansion of sales into new geographic areas or into new industry segments, we will need to increase or change our cybersecurity systems and expenditures. Further, it is possible that changes to laws and regulations relating to security and privacy may make it more expensive to operate in certain jurisdictions and may increase the risk of our not being in compliance with such changing laws and regulations.
We rely on third parties, including third parties outside the U.S., for some of our software development, quality assurance, operations, and customer support.
We currently depend on various third parties for some of our software development efforts, quality assurance, operations, and customer support services. Specifically, we outsource some of our software development and design, quality assurance, and operations activities to third-party contractors that have employees and consultants located in St. Petersburg, Russia, Odessa, Ukraine, and Manila, the Philippines. In addition, we outsource a portion of our customer support, inside sales and network
operation control functions to third-party contractors located in Manila, the Philippines. Our dependence on third-party contractors creates a number of risks, in particular, the risk that we may not maintain service quality, control or effective management with respect to these business operations. In addition, the political and military events in the Ukraine over the last few years, including political demonstrations, the annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine by Russia, the hostile relations between Russia and the Ukraine, and disruptions caused by pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine, could have an adverse impact on our third-party software development and quality assurance operations in Odessa, Ukraine. Further, the poor relations between the U.S. and Russia and sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union (“EU”) against Russia could adversely impact our third-party software development and quality assurance operations in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Our agreements with these third-party contractors are either not terminable by them (other than at the end of the term or upon an uncured breach by us) or require at least 60 days’ prior written notice of termination. If we experience problems with our third-party contractors, the costs charged by our third-party contractors increase or our agreements with our third-party contractors are terminated, we may not be able to develop new solutions, enhance or operate existing solutions, or provide customer support in an alternate manner that is equally or more efficient and cost-effective.
We anticipate that we will continue to depend on these and other third-party relationships in order to grow our business for the foreseeable future. If we are unsuccessful in maintaining existing and, if needed, establishing new relationships with third parties, our ability to efficiently operate existing services or develop new services and provide adequate customer support could be impaired, and, as a result, our competitive position or our results of operations could suffer.
Accusations of infringement of third-party intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our business.
There has been substantial litigation in the areas in which we operate regarding intellectual property rights. For instance, we have recently and in the past been sued by third parties claiming infringement of their intellectual property rights and we may be sued for infringement from time to time in the future. Also, in some instances, we have agreed to indemnify our customers, resellers, and carriers for expenses and liability resulting from claimed intellectual property infringement by our products. From time to time, we have received requests for indemnification in connection with allegations of intellectual property infringement and we may choose, or be required to, assume the defense and/or reimburse our customers and/or resellers and carriers for their expenses, settlement and/or liability. In the past, we have settled infringement litigation brought against us; however, we cannot assure you that we will be able to settle any future claims or, if we are able to settle any such claims, that the settlement will be on terms favorable to us. Our broad range of technology may increase the likelihood that third parties will claim that we, or our customers and/or resellers, and carriers, infringe their intellectual property rights.
We have in the past received, and may in the future receive, notices of claims of infringement, misappropriation or misuse of other parties’ proprietary rights. Furthermore, regardless of their merits, accusations and lawsuits like these, whether against us or our customers, resellers, and carriers, may require significant time and expense to defend, may negatively affect customer relationships, may divert management’s attention away from other aspects of our operations and, upon resolution, may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows.
Certain technology necessary for us to provide our subscriptions may, in fact, be patented by other parties either now or in the future. If such technology were validly patented by another person, we would have to negotiate a license for the use of that technology. We may not be able to negotiate such a license at a price that is acceptable to us or at all. The existence of such a patent, or our inability to negotiate a license for any such technology on acceptable terms, could force us to cease using the technology and cease offering subscriptions incorporating the technology, which could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
If we, or any of our products, were found to be infringing on the intellectual property rights of any third-party, we could be subject to liability for such infringement, which could be material. We could also be prohibited from using or selling certain subscriptions, prohibited from using certain processes, or required to redesign certain subscriptions, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
These and other outcomes may:
result in the loss of a substantial number of existing customers or prohibit the acquisition of new customers;
cause us to pay license fees for intellectual property we are deemed to have infringed;
cause us to incur costs and devote valuable technical resources to redesigning our subscriptions;
cause our cost of revenues to increase;
cause us to accelerate expenditures to preserve existing revenues;
cause existing or new vendors to require pre-payments or letters of credit;
materially and adversely affect our brand in the marketplace and cause a substantial loss of goodwill;
cause us to change our business methods or subscriptions;
require us to cease certain business operations or offering certain subscriptions or features; and
lead to our bankruptcy or liquidation.
Our limited ability to protect our intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our business.
We rely, in part, on patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law to protect our intellectual property in the U.S. and abroad. We seek to protect our technology, software, documentation and other information under trade secret and copyright law, which afford only limited protection. For example, we typically enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, third-party contractors, customers, and vendors in an effort to control access to use and distribution of our technology, software, documentation, and other information. These agreements may not effectively prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of confidential information and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of such unauthorized use or disclosure, and it may be possible for a third-party to legally reverse engineer, copy or otherwise obtain and use our technology without authorization. In addition, improper disclosure of trade secret information by our current or former employees, consultants, third-party contractors, customers, or vendors to the public or others who could make use of the trade secret information would likely preclude that information from being protected as a trade secret.
We also rely, in part, on patent law to protect our intellectual property in the U.S. and internationally. Our intellectual property portfolio includes 167 issued U.S. utility patents, which expire between 2025 and 2038. We also have 40 patent applications pending examination in the U.S. and 16 patent applications pending examination in foreign jurisdictions, all of which are related to U.S. applications. We cannot predict whether such pending patent applications will result in issued patents or whether any issued patents will effectively protect our intellectual property. Even if a pending patent application results in an issued patent, the patent may be circumvented or its validity may be challenged in various proceedings in United States District Court or before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, such as Post Grant Review or Inter Partes Review, which may require legal representation and involve substantial costs and diversion of management time and resources. In addition, we cannot assure you that every significant feature of our solutions is protected by our patents, or that we will mark our products with any or all patents they embody. As a result, we may be prevented from seeking injunctive relief or damages, in whole or in part for infringement of our patents.
The unlicensed use of our brand, including domain names, by third parties could harm our reputation, cause confusion among our customers and impair our ability to market our products and subscriptions. To that end, we have registered numerous trademarks and service marks and have applied for registration of additional trademarks and service marks and have acquired a large number of domain names in and outside the U.S. to establish and protect our brand names as part of our intellectual property strategy. If our applications receive objections or are successfully opposed by third parties, it will be difficult for us to prevent third parties from using our brand without our permission. Moreover, successful opposition to our applications might encourage third parties to make additional oppositions or commence trademark infringement proceedings against us, which could be costly and time consuming to defend against. If we are not successful in protecting our trademarks, our trademark rights may be diluted and subject to challenge or invalidation, which could materially and adversely affect our brand.
Despite our efforts to implement our intellectual property strategy, we may not be able to protect or enforce our proprietary rights in the U.S. or internationally (where effective intellectual property protection may be unavailable or limited). For example, we have entered into agreements containing confidentiality and invention assignment provisions in connection with the outsourcing of certain software development and quality assurance activities to third-party contractors located in St. Petersburg, Russia and Odessa, Ukraine. We have also entered into an agreement containing a confidentiality provision with a third-party contractor located in Manila, the Philippines, where we have outsourced a significant portion of our customer support function. We cannot assure you that agreements with these third-party contractors or their agreements with their employees and contractors will adequately protect our proprietary rights in the applicable jurisdictions and foreign countries, as their respective laws may not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the U.S. In addition, our competitors may independently develop technologies that are similar or superior to our technology, duplicate our technology in a manner that does not infringe our intellectual property rights or design around any of our patents. Furthermore, detecting and policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and resource-intensive. Moreover, litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others, or to defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Such litigation, whether successful or not, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management time and resources and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our success depends on the public acceptance of our products and applications.
Our future success depends on our ability to significantly increase revenues generated from our cloud-based business communications solutions. The market for cloud-based business communications is evolving rapidly and is characterized by rapid development of and changes in the technology and solutions offered. As is typical of a new and rapidly evolving industry, the
demand for, and market acceptance of, these solutions is uncertain. If the market for cloud-based business communications fails to develop, develops more slowly than we anticipate, or develops in a manner different than we expect, our products could fail to achieve market acceptance, which in turn could materially and adversely affect our business.
Our growth depends on the continued use of voice communications by businesses, as compared to email and other data-based methods. A decline in the overall rate of voice communications by businesses would harm our business. Furthermore, our continued growth depends on future demand for and adoption of Internet voice communications systems and services. Although the number of broadband subscribers worldwide has grown significantly in recent years, a small percentage of businesses have adopted Internet voice communications services to date. For demand and adoption of Internet voice communications services by businesses to increase, Internet voice communications networks must improve the quality of their service for real-time communications by managing the effects of and reducing packet loss, packet delay and packet jitter, as well as unreliable bandwidth, so that toll-quality service can be consistently provided. Additionally, the cost and feature benefits of Internet voice communications must be sufficient to cause customers to switch from traditional phone service providers. We must devote substantial resources to educate customers and their end users about the benefits of Internet voice communications solutions, in general, and our subscriptions in particular. If any or all of these factors fail to occur, our business may be materially and adversely affected.
Interruptions in our services caused by undetected errors, failures or bugs in our subscriptions could harm our reputation, result in significant costs to us, and impair our ability to sell our subscriptions.
Due to the fact our subscriptions are complex and we have incorporated a variety of new computer hardware, as well as software that is developed in-house or licensed or acquired from third-party vendors, our subscriptions may have errors or defects that customers identify after they begin using them that could result in unanticipated interruptions of service. Internet-based services frequently contain undetected errors and bugs when first introduced or when new versions or enhancements are released. While the substantial majority of our customers are small and medium-sized businesses, the use of our subscriptions in complicated, large-scale network environments may increase our exposure to undetected errors, failures, or bugs in our subscriptions. Although we test our subscriptions to detect and correct errors and defects before their general release, we have from time to time experienced significant interruptions in our subscriptions as a result of such errors or defects and may experience future interruptions of service if we fail to detect and correct these errors and defects. The costs incurred in correcting such defects or errors may be substantial and could harm our results of operations. In addition, we rely on hardware purchased or leased and software licensed from third parties to offer our subscriptions.
Any defects in, or unavailability of, our or third-party software or hardware that cause interruptions of our subscriptions could, among other things:
cause a reduction in revenues or delay in market acceptance of our subscriptions;
require us to pay penalties or issue credits or refunds to our customers, resellers, or carriers, or expose us to claims for damages;
cause us to lose existing customers and make it more difficult to attract new customers;
divert our development resources or require us to make extensive changes to our software, which would increase our expenses and slow innovation;
increase our technical support costs; and
harm our reputation and brand.
If we fail to continue to develop our brand or our reputation is harmed, our business may suffer.
We believe that continuing to strengthen our current brand will be critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our subscriptions and will require continued focus on active marketing efforts. The demand for and cost of online and traditional advertising have been increasing and may continue to increase. Accordingly, we may need to increase our investment in, and devote greater resources to, advertising, marketing, and other efforts to create and maintain brand loyalty among users. Brand promotion activities may not yield increased revenues, and even if they do, any increased revenues may not offset the expenses incurred in building our brand. If we fail to promote and maintain our brand, orIn addition, if we incur substantial expense in an unsuccessful attempt to promote and maintain our brands, our business could be materially and adversely affected.
Our services, as well as those of our competitors, are regularly reviewed and commented upon by online and social media sources, as well as computer and other business publications. Negative reviews, or reviews in which our competitors’ products and services are rated more highly than our software solutions, could negatively affect our brand and reputation. From time to time, our customers have expressed dissatisfaction with our services, including dissatisfaction with our customer support, our billing policies and the way our subscriptions operate. If we do not handle customer complaints effectively, our brand and reputation may suffer, we may lose our customers’ confidence, and they may choose to terminate, reduce or not to renew their subscriptions. In addition, manyMany of our customers also participate in social media and online blogs about Internet-based software solutions, including
our subscriptions, and our success depends in part on our ability to minimize negative and generate positive customer feedback through such online channels where existing and potential customers seek and share information. If actions we take or changes we makefail to our subscriptions upset these customers, their blogging could negatively affectsufficiently invest in, promote and maintain our brand, and reputation. Complaints or negative publicity about our subscriptions or customer servicebusiness could be materially and adversely impact our ability to attract and retain customers and our business, financial condition and results of operations.affected.
If we experience excessive fraudulent activity or cannot meet evolving credit card association merchant standards, we could incur substantial costs and lose the right to accept credit cards for payment, which could cause our customer base to decline significantly.
Most of our customers authorize us to bill their credit card accounts directly for service fees that we charge. If customers pay for our subscriptions with stolen credit cards, we could incur substantial third-party vendor costs for which we may not be reimbursed. Further, our customers provide us with credit card billing information online or over the phone, and we do not review the physical credit cards used in these transactions, which increases our risk of exposure to fraudulent activity. We also incur charges, which are referred to in the industry as chargebacks, from the credit card companies from claims that thea customer did not authorize the specific credit card transaction to purchase our subscription. If the number of chargebacks becomes excessive, we could be assessed substantial fines or be charged higher transaction fees, and we could lose the right to accept credit cards for payment. In addition, credit card issuers may change merchant and / and/or service provider standards, including data protection standards, required to utilize their services from time to time. We are complianthave established and implemented measures intended to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI DSS”) in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. If we fail to maintain compliance with current merchantsuch standards such as PCI DSS, or fail to meet new standards, the credit card associations could fine us or terminate their agreements with us, and we would be unable to accept credit cards as payment for our subscriptions. If we fail to maintain compliance with current service provider standards, such as PCI DSS, or fail to meet new standards, customers may choose not to use our services for certain types of communication they have with their customers. If such a failure to comply with relevant standards occurs, we may also face legal liability if we are found to not comply with applicable laws that incorporate, by reference or by adoption of substantially similar provisions, merchant or service provider standards, including PCI DSS. Our subscriptions may also be subject to fraudulent usage, including but not limited to revenue share fraud, domestic traffic pumping, subscription fraud, premium text message scams, and other fraudulent schemes. Although our customers are required to set passwords and personal identification numbers (“PINs”) to protect their accounts and may configure to which destinations international calling is enabled from their extensions, third parties have in the past and may in the future be able to access and use their accounts through fraudulent means. This usage can result in, among other things, substantial bills from our vendors, for which we would be responsible, for terminating fraudulent call traffic. In addition, third parties may have attempted in the past, and may attempt in the future, to induce employees, sub-contractors, or consultants into disclosing customer credentials and other account information. Communications fraudinformation, which can result in unauthorized access to customer accounts and customer data, unauthorized use of customers’ services, charges to customers for fraudulent usage and costs that we must pay to carriers. We may be required to pay for these costs with no reimbursement from the customer, and our reputation may be harmed if our subscriptions are subject to fraudulent usage. Although we implement multiple fraud prevention and detection controls, we cannot assure you that these controls will be adequate to protect against fraud. Substantial losses due to fraud or our inability to accept credit card payments which could cause our paid customer base to significantly decrease, couldwhich would have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition, and ability to grow our business.
Potential problems with our information systems could interfere with our business and operations.
We rely on our information systems and those of third parties for processing customer orders, distribution of our subscriptions, billing our customers, processing credit card transactions, customer relationship management, supporting financial planning and analysis, accounting functions and financial statement preparation and otherwise running our business. Information systems may experience interruptions, including interruptions of related services from third-party providers, which may be beyond our control. Such business interruptions could cause us to fail to meet customer requirements. All information systems, both internal and external, are potentially vulnerable to damage or interruption from a variety of sources, including without limitation, computer viruses, security breaches, energy blackouts, natural disasters, terrorism, war and telecommunication failures, employee or other theft, and third-party provider failures. In addition, since telecommunications billing is inherently complex and requires highly sophisticated information systems to administer, our billing system may experience errors or we may improperly operate the system, which could result in the system incorrectly calculating the fees owed by our customers for our subscriptions or related taxes and administrative fees. Any such errors in our customer billing could harm our reputation and cause us to violate truth in billing laws and regulations. Any errors or disruption in our information systems and those of the third parties upon which we rely could have a significant impact on our business.
We are currently implementing an enhanced internally developed billing system to replace and upgrade our current billing system, which among other improvements, enables automation of certain manual billing processes. Our current internally
developed billing system requires us to process an increasing number of invoices manually, which could result in billing errors. We may also implement further and enhanced information systems in the future to meet the demands resulting from our growth and to provide additional capabilities and functionality. The implementation of new systems and enhancements is frequently disruptive to the underlying business of an enterprise, and can be time-consuming and expensive, increase management responsibilities, and divert management attention. Any disruptions relating to our systems enhancements or any problems with the implementation, particularly any disruptions impacting our operations or our ability to accurately report our financial performance on a timely basis during the implementation period, could materially and adversely affect our business. Even if we do not encounter these material and adverse effects, the implementation of these enhancements may be much more costly than we anticipated. If we are unable to successfully implement the information systems enhancements as planned, our financial position, results of operations and cash flows could be negatively impacted.
Our use of open source technology could impose limitations on our ability to commercialize our subscriptions.
We use open source software in our platform on which our subscriptions operate. There is a risk that the owners of the copyrights in such software may claim that such licenses impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to market or provide our subscriptions. If such owners prevail in such claim, we could be required to make the source code for our proprietary software (which contains our valuable trade secrets) generally available to third parties, including competitors, at no cost, to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our subscriptions, to re-engineer our technology, or to discontinue offering our subscriptions in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis or at all, any of which could cause us to discontinue our subscriptions, harm our reputation, result in customer losses or claims, increase our costs or otherwise materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
We are in the process of expanding our international operations, which exposes us to significant risks.
To date, we have not generated significant revenues from outside of the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. However, we alreadyWe have significant operations outside these countries, including software development and information technology operations in Russia and China, software development and quality assurance operations in Ukraine, and sales and marketing operations in the Philippines. In addition, Dimelo, our recently acquired digital customer engagement platform provider, is based inUnited States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Ukraine, the Philippines and France. We have also recently begun sellingsell our solutions to customers in other countries in the EU and in Australia, and we expect to grow our international presence in the future, including through the expansion of our Global Office solution and sales of our solutions to customers internationally.future. The future success of our business will depend, in part, on our ability to expand our operations and customer base worldwide. Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and will subject us to regulatory, economic, and political risks that are different from those in the U.S. Due to our limited experience with international operations and developing and managing sales and distribution channels in international markets, our international expansion efforts may not be successful. In addition, we will face risks in doing business internationally that could materially and adversely affect our business, including:
•our ability to comply with differing and evolving technical and environmental standards, data protection and telecommunications regulations, and certification requirements outside the U.S.;
•difficulties and costs associated with staffing and managing foreign operations;
•our ability to effectively price our subscriptions in competitive international markets;
•potentially greater difficulty collecting accounts receivable and longer payment cycles;
•the need to adapt and localize our subscriptions for specific countries;
•the need to offer customer care in various native languages;
•reliance on third parties over which we have limited control, including TELUS, BT,those that market and other international resellers, for marketing and resellingresell our subscriptions;
•availability of reliable broadband connectivity and wide area networks in targeted areas for expansion;
•lower levels of adoption of credit or debit card usage for Internet related purchases by foreign customers and compliance with various foreign regulations related to credit or debit card processing and data protection requirements;
•difficulties in understanding and complying with local laws, regulations, and customs in foreign jurisdictions;
•restrictions on travel to or from countries in which we operate or inability to access certain areas;
•export controls and economic sanctions administered by the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control;sanctions;
•changes in diplomatic and trade relationships, including tariffs and other non-tariff barriers, such as quotas and local content rules;
tariffs imposed by the U.S. on goods from other countries and tariffs imposed by other countries on U.S. goods, including the tariffs recently implemented and additional tariffs that have been proposed by the U.S. government on various imports from China, Canada, Mexico and the EU, and by the governments of these jurisdictions on certain U.S. goods, and any other possible tariffs that may be imposed on services such as ours or the phones that we sell, the scope and duration of which, if implemented, remain uncertain;
•U.S. government trade restrictions, including those which may impose restrictions, including prohibitions, on the exportation, reexportation,re-exportation, sale, shipment or other transfer of programming, technology, components, and/or services to foreign persons;
•our ability to comply with different and evolving laws, rules, and regulations, including the European General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) and other data privacy and data protection laws, rules and regulations;
•compliance with various anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and U.K. Bribery Act of 2010;
•more limited protection for intellectual property rights in some countries;
•adverse tax consequences;
•fluctuations in currency exchange rates, particularly in light of the referendum in favor of the U.K. leaving the EU (commonly referred to as “Brexit”) vote and other recent political developments, which could increase the price of our subscriptions outside of the U.S. when denominated in USD, increase the expenses of our international operations, including expenses related to foreign contractors, and expose us to foreign currency exchange rate risk;rates;
fluctuations in currency exchange rates, particularly in light of the Brexit vote and other recent political developments, which could reduce the amount of revenues we generate outside of the U.S. related to customer contracts that are denominated in local currencies of the countries we operate in, currently predominantly Canada and the U.K., or which could reduce the expenses incurred in our operations or through our contractors outside the U.S. that are denominated in local currencies, currently the U.K., Russia, China, the Philippines, and Ukraine;
•exchange control regulations, which might restrict or prohibit our conversion of other currencies into U.S. Dollars;
•restrictions on the transfer of funds;
our ability to effectively price our subscriptions in competitive international markets;
•new and different sources of competition;
•natural disasters or global health crises, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic;
•political and economic instability created by the U.K.'s departure from the EU (“Brexit”); and
•deterioration of political relations between the U.S. and other countries in which we operate, particularly Russia, Ukraine, China, and the Philippines; and including the possibility of a breakdown in diplomatic relations between the U.S., the U.K., or the EU and Russia or sanctions implemented by the U.S., the U.K., or the EU against Russia or vice versa, which could have a material adverse effect on our third-party software development operations in Russia and our development operations in China;
•political or social unrest, economic instability, conflict or war in a specific countrysuch countries, or region, such as the events over the last few years in the Ukraine, including political demonstrations, the annexation of the Crimea region of Ukrainesanctions implemented by Russia, the hostile relations between Russia and the Ukraine, and disruptions caused by pro-Russian separatists in the Ukraine, which could have an adverse impact on our third-party software development and quality assurance operations there, and
deterioration of political relations between the U.S. and Canada, the U.K. and the EU,against these countries, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our sales and operations in these countries.operations.
Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully could harm our future international operations and our overall business.
Exposure to U.K. political developments, including the outcome of the U.K. referendum on membership in the EU, could have a material adverse effect on us.
On June 23, 2016, a referendum was held on the U.K.’s membership in the EU the outcome of which was a vote in favor of leaving the EU, commonly referred to as Brexit. The Brexit vote created an uncertain political, economic, and regulatory environment in the U.K. and potentially across other EU member states, which may last for a number of months or years.
The date of the U.K.’s exit from the EU has been extended to October 31, 2019, and the nature and terms of the exit remain uncertain as the U.K. parliament has been unable to reach a consensus on the type of Brexit deal it is prepared to approve. It is uncertain whether the date of the exit will be extended again and although there is little appetite in parliament to do so, there remains a risk that the U.K. could exit from the EU without a deal. Nevertheless, whether the U.K. leaves with or without a deal, such exit (compounded with the prolonged period of uncertainty) could adversely affect our operating results, financial condition and prospects. In light of the current parliamentary deadlock and protracted negotiations with the EU, the possibility of the UK either leaving the EU with no trade deal or not leaving the EU at all, is looking more likely than had been previously predicted. We will continue to monitor the Brexit status closely.
The political and economic instability created by the Brexit vote has caused and may continue to cause significant volatility in global financial markets and the value of the Pound Sterling currency or other currencies, including the Euro. Depending on the terms reached regarding the U.K.’s exit from the EU, if any, it is possible that there may be adverse practical and/or operational implications on our business.
Brexit has also created uncertainty with regard to the regulation of data protection in the U.K. In the immediate term, the U.K. will remain bound by the GDPR following its exit from the EU since the U.K. government has implemented the Data Protection Act of 2018 that implements the GDPR in U.K. domestic legislation. While the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office has announced that there are no plans to dilute U.K. data protection laws, it is less certain how data protection laws or regulations will develop in the medium to longer term, and how data transfers to and from the U.K. will be regulated. The EU Commission has announced that the U.K. will become a “third country” once it has exited the EU, notwithstanding the U.K.’s stated intention to transpose all existing EU law into its domestic law.
Consequently, no assurance can be given as to the overall impact of the Brexit vote and, in particular, no assurance can be given that our operating results, financial condition and prospects would not be adversely impacted by the result.
Our business could be negatively impacted by changes in the United States political environment.
The 2016 presidential election in the United States has resulted in significant uncertainty with respect to, and has and could further result in changes in, legislation, regulation, and government policy at the federal level, as well as the state and local levels, and the results of the 2018 congressional elections may result in further significant uncertainty and changes. Any such changes could significantly impact our business as well as the markets in which we compete. Specific legislative and regulatory proposals discussed during election campaigns and more recently that might materially impact us include, but are not limited to, changes to existing telecommunications laws and regulations, trade agreements, immigration policy, import and export regulations, tariffs and customs duties, income tax regulations and the federal tax code, public company reporting requirements, and antitrust enforcement. Further, an extended federal government shutdown resulting from failing to pass budget appropriations, adopt continuing funding resolutions or raise the debt ceiling, and other budgetary decisions limiting or delaying deferral government spending, may negatively impact U.S. or global economic conditions, including corporate and consumer spending, and liquidity of capital markets. To the extent changes in the political environment have a negative impact on us or on our markets, our business, results of operation and financial condition could be materially and adversely impacted in the future.
Our subscriptions are subject to regulation, and future legislative or regulatory actions could adversely affect our business and expose us to liability in the U.S. and internationally.
Federal Regulation
Our business is regulated by the FCC. As a communications services provider, we are subject to existing or potential FCC regulations relating to privacy, disability access, porting of numbers, Federal Universal Service Fund (“USF”) contributions, Enhanced 911 (“E-911”), outage reporting, and other requirements. FCC classification of our Internet voice communications services as telecommunications services could result in additional federal and state regulatory obligations. If we do not comply with FCC rules and regulations, we could be subject to FCC enforcement actions, fines, loss of licenses, and possibly restrictions on our ability to operate or offer certain of our subscriptions. Any enforcement action by the FCC, which may be a public process, would hurt our reputation in the industry, possibly impair our ability to sell our subscriptions to customers and could have a materially adverse impact on our revenues.
Through RCLEC, we also provide competitive local exchange carrier services (“CLEC services”) which are regulated by the FCC as traditional telecommunications services. Our CLEC services depend on certain provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that require incumbent local exchange carriers (“ILECs”) to provide us facilities and services that are necessary to provide our services. Over the past several years, the FCC has reduced or eliminated a number of regulations governing ILECs’ wholesale offerings. If ILECs were no longer required by law to provide such services to us, or ceased to provide these services at reasonable rates, terms and conditions, our business could be adversely affected and our cost of providing CLEC services could increase. This could have a materially adverse impact on our results of operations and cash flows.
In addition, the TCPA and FCC rules implementing the TCPA, as amended by the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, prohibit sending unsolicited facsimile advertisements, subject to certain exceptions. The FCC may take enforcement action against persons or entities that send “junk faxes,” and individuals also may have a private cause of action. Although the FCC’s rules prohibiting unsolicited fax advertisements apply to those who “send” the advertisements, fax transmitters or other service providers that have a high degree of involvement in, or actual notice of, unlawful sending of junk faxes and have failed to take steps to prevent such transmissions also face liability under the FCC’s rules. We take significant steps designed to prevent our systems from being used to send unsolicited faxes on a large scale, and we do not believe that we have a high degree of involvement in, or notice of, the use of our systems to broadcast junk faxes. However, because fax transmitters and related service providers do not enjoy an absolute exemption from liability under the TCPA and related FCC rules, we could face FCC inquiry and enforcement or civil litigation, or private causes of action, if someone uses our system for such purposes. If any of these were to occur, we could be required to incur significant costs and management’s attention could be diverted. Further, if we were to be held liable for the use of our service
to send unsolicited faxes or to settle any action or proceeding, any judgment, settlement or penalties could cause a material adverse effect on our operations. We were named as defendants to a class action litigation involving alleged violations of the TCPA brought by SPS, which has subsequently been dismissed in our favor. For more information about this lawsuit, see Note 9, Commitments and Contingencies, in the accompanying notes to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in Part I, Item 1 of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q under "Legal Matters.”
Our subscriptions are also subject to a number of other FCC regulations. Among others, we must comply (in whole or in part) with:
the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (“CALEA”), which requires covered entities to assist law enforcement in undertaking electronic surveillance;
requirements to provide E-911 to our customers;
contributions to the USF which requires that we pay a percentage of our interstate and international revenues to support certain federal programs;
payment of annual FCC regulatory fees based on our interstate and international revenues;
rules pertaining to access to our subscriptions by people with disabilities and contributions to the Telecommunications Relay Services fund;
rules regarding certain customer proprietary information, which require that we not use such information without customer approval, subject to certain exceptions;
rules requiring the reporting of certain services outages; and
rules regarding call completion to rural areas of the United States.
If we do not comply with any current or future rules or regulations that apply to our business, we could be subject to substantial fines and penalties, we may have to restructure our service offerings, exit certain markets or raise the price of our subscriptions, any of which could ultimately harm our business and results of operations.
State Regulation
States currently do not regulate our Internet voice communications subscriptions, which are considered to be nomadic because they can be used from any broadband connection. However, a small number of state regulatory commissions have ruled that non-nomadic Internet voice communications services may or do fall within the definition of “telecommunications services” and therefore those states assert that they have jurisdiction to regulate the service. No states currently require certification for nomadic Internet voice communications service providers. Even if a state does not require Internet voice communications service providers to be certified, a number of states require us to register as a Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) provider, contribute to state USF, contribute to E-911, and pay other surcharges and annual fees that fund various utility commission programs, while others are actively considering extending their public policy programs to include the subscriptions we provide. We pass USF, E-911 fees, and other surcharges through to our customers, which may result in our subscriptions becoming more expensive or require that we absorb these costs. We expect that some state public utility commissions will continue their attempts to apply state telecommunications regulations to Internet voice communications subscriptions like ours.
Our CLEC subsidiary’s services are subject to regulation by the public utility regulatory agency in those states where we provide local telecommunications services. This regulation includes the requirement to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity or other similar licenses prior to offering our CLEC services. We may also be required to file tariffs that describe our CLEC’s services and provide rates for those services. We are also required to comply with state regulations that vary from state to state concerning service quality, disconnection and billing requirements. State commissions also have authority to review and approve interconnection agreements between incumbent phone carriers and CLECs such as our subsidiary, and to conduct arbitration of disputes arising in the negotiation of such agreements.
Both we and our CLEC subsidiary are also subject to state consumer protection laws, as well as U.S. state or municipal sales, use, excise, gross receipts, utility user and ad valorem taxes, fees, or surcharges.
International Regulation
As we expand internationally, we may be subject to telecommunications, consumer protection, data protection, emergency call services, and other laws, regulations, taxes, and fees in the foreign countries where we offer our subscriptions. Any foreign regulations could impose substantial compliance costs on us, restrict our ability to compete, and impact our ability to expand our service offerings in certain markets. Moreover, the regulatory environment is constantly evolving and changes to the applicable regulations could impose additional compliance costs and require modifications to our technology and operations. Internationally, we currently offer our subscriptions in Canada, the U.K., Australia, and several European countries. We also offer our Global Office solution, enabling our multinational customers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and other locations where we sell our solutions,
to establish local phone solutions in various countries internationally. We may be subject to telecommunications, consumer protection, data protection, emergency call services, and other laws and regulations in additional countries as we continue to expand our Global Office solution internationally.
We are a provider of Internet voice telecommunications subscriptions in Canada. As a provider of Internet voice communications subscriptions, we, directly and through our Canadian subsidiary, are subject to regulation in Canada by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (“CRTC”). We are registered with the CRTC as a reseller of telecommunications services and have been issued a basic international telecommunications services (“BITS”) license by the CRTC. As an Internet voice communications provider, we are subject to obligations imposed by the CRTC, including: providing access to emergency calling services, operator assistance, directory information services, number portability, minimum customer information; implementing procedures for the authentication and verification of called ID for all calls received in Canada; offering call traceability to customers for all calls; charging customers certain regulatory charges and paying contribution charges. The CRTC has mandated that providers of voice telecommunications service in Canada, like our service, provide universal network call blocking, where the call identification does not conform to established numbering plans, by December 2019 unless prior to this date alternate call filtering services are offered in the alternative. As a holder of a BITS license, we also must comply with various annual reporting requirements. We are also subject to Canadian federal privacy and anti-spam laws and provincial consumer protection legislation.
As a provider of electronic communications services in the U.K., we, through our subsidiary, are subject to regulation in the U.K. by the Office of Communications (“Ofcom”). Some of these regulatory obligations include providing access to emergency call services (“E999/112”) without charge; providing access to operator assistance, directories and directory enquiry services; responding to warrants and orders for interception and other forms of surveillance; providing access to standard caller line identification facilities without charge; offering contracts with minimum terms; providing and publishing certain information transparently; providing itemized billing; protecting customer information (including personal data); porting phone numbers upon a valid customer request; and implementing a code of practice. We are required to comply with laws and matters relating to, among other things, competition law, distance selling, telecommunications, e-commerce, and consumer protection. We must also comply with various reporting and recordkeeping requirements. The requirement to comply with such laws and any future legal or regulatory changes could adversely affect our business and expose us to liability.
In addition, our international operations are potentially subject to country-specific governmental regulation and related actions that may increase our costs or impact our product and service offerings or prevent us from offering or providing our products and subscriptions in certain countries. Certain of our subscriptions may be used by customers located in countries where VoIP and other forms of IP communications may be illegal or require special licensing or in countries on a U.S. embargo list. Even where our products are reportedly illegal or become illegal or where users are located in an embargoed country, users in those countries may be able to continue to use our products and subscriptions in those countries notwithstanding the illegality or embargo. We may be subject to penalties or governmental action if customers continue to use our products and subscriptions in countries where it is illegal to do so, and any such penalties or governmental action may be costly and may harm our business and damage our brand and reputation. We may be required to incur additional expenses to meet applicable international regulatory requirements or be required to discontinue those subscriptions if required by law or if we cannot or will not meet those requirements.
We process, store, and use personal information and other data, which subjects us and our customers to a variety of evolving international statutes, governmental regulation, industry standards and self-regulatory schemes, contractual obligations, and other legal obligations related to privacy and data protection, which may increase our costs, decrease adoption and use of our products and subscriptions, and expose us to liability.
In the course of providing its service, RingCentral collects, stores, and processes many types of data, including personal data. Moreover, our customers can use our subscriptions to store contact and other personal or identifying information, and to process, transmit, receive, store, and retrieve a variety of communications and messages, including information about their own customers and other contacts. Customers are able, and may be authorized under certain circumstances, to use our subscriptions to transmit, receive, and/or store personal information.
There are a number of federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations (including the GDPR in the EU), as well as contractual obligations and industry standards, that provide for certain obligations and restrictions with respect to data privacy and security, and the collection, storage, retention, protection, use, processing, transmission, sharing, disclosure, and protection of personal information and other customer data. We expect that with the implementation of our Global Office solution, we may become subject to additional data privacy regulations in other countries throughout the world. The scope of these obligations and restrictions is changing, subject to differing interpretations, and may be inconsistent among countries or conflict with other rules, and their status remains uncertain. Failure to comply with obligations and restrictions related to data privacy and security in any
jurisdiction in which we operate could subject us to lawsuits, fines, criminal penalties, statutory damages, consent decrees, injunctions, adverse publicity, and other losses that could harm our business.
The GDPR, which came into force in May 2018, strengthened the existing data protection regulations in the EU and its provisions include increasing the maximum level of fines that EU regulators may impose for the most serious of breaches to the greater of €20 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover. Such fines would be in addition to (i) the rights of individuals to sue for damages in respect of any data privacy breach which causes them to suffer harm and (ii) the right of individual member states to impose additional sanctions over and above the administrative fines specified in the GDPR.
At present, we use the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield framework and EU Standard Contractual Clauses (“Model Clauses”) to protect data exports between the EEA and U.S. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the Model Clauses are subject to ongoing legal challenges. Any or all of these court proceedings may result in a ruling that the industry-standard measures we, and other companies, have taken are no longer sufficient. Additionally, it is possible that the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield or the Model Clauses may need to be updated by the European Commission, the Swiss Administration, and Department of Commerce to take into account the GDPR. Should any of these prove to be the case, we will need to take any necessary and additional measures to ensure compliance with EU law with respect to our transfers of personal data from the EEA to the U.S. and other non-EEA countries. If we are unable to take such measures, then we may be at risk of experiencing reluctance or refusal of European or multi-national customers to use our solutions and incurring regulatory penalties, which may have an adverse effect on our business.
Additionally, although the U.K. has passed a Data Protection Act that substantially implements the GDPR, the future of cross-border data flows following the U.K.’s anticipated exit from the EU in Brexit is uncertain. As such, it may become necessary for us to implement additional data export solutions, like the Model Clauses, to enable the continued flow of personal data between our U.K. operations and our EU customers and affiliates. These solutions may take time and be challenging to put in place and, if not implemented promptly before or immediately following Brexit, our business may be disrupted and we may be exposed to potential regulatory fines and civil claims.
The European Commission has also proposed new legislation to enhance privacy protections for users of communications services and to enhance protection for individuals against online tracking technologies. The proposed legislation, the Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications (the “e-Privacy Regulation”), is currently undergoing legislative scrutiny. When introduced, the e-Privacy Regulation is expected to impose greater potential liabilities upon communications service providers, including potential fines for the most serious of breaches of the greater of €20 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover. New rules introduced by the e-Privacy Regulation are likely to include enhanced consent requirements for communications service providers in order to use communications content and communications metadata to deliver value added services, as well as restrict the use of data related to corporations and other non-natural persons. These restrictions, if adopted, may affect our future business growth in the EU.
Other foreign jurisdictions also have currently in-effect privacy and data protection laws and regulations that may impact our growth and costs. For example, Canadian anti-spam legislation (“CASL”) prescribes certain rules regarding the use of electronic messages for commercial purposes and imposes certain restrictions on a service provider’s ability to electronically automatically update or change software used in a customer’s service without the customer’s consent. Penalties for non-compliance with CASL are considerable, including administrative monetary penalties of up to CAD 10 million. In June 2017, the Government of Canada announced the suspension of the private right of action under CASL that was originally scheduled to come into force on July 1, 2017. During 2017, a Parliamentary Committee conducted a public process to review the scope, substance and enforcement of the CASL. Following the review, several recommendations were made to provide for further clarification of certain terms under CASL and for the government of Canada to reconsider implementing the private right of action that was suspended earlier in 2017. No decision has yet been made by the government of Canada regarding any changes to CASL or the implementation of the private right of action. Compliance with, and other burdens imposed by, current obligations and restrictions as well as those occasioned by future changes could increase the cost of our operations.
Similarly, in Australia, the sending of commercial electronic messages without prior consent is prohibited under Australia’s Spam Act 2003, as amended, as are various activities around the development, sale and use of software-harvested contact lists. Violations of this legislation are subject to penalties of up to AUD 2.1 million for repeat infringers, and the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), is active in monitoring market behavior and prosecuting infringements. Obligations and restrictions imposed by current and future applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and industry standards may affect our ability to provide all the current features of our products and subscriptions and our customers’ ability to use our products and subscriptions, and could require us to modify the features and functionality of our products and subscriptions.
Since November 1, 2018, Canada’s federal privacy legislation requires mandatory data breach notification requirements and fines of up to CAD 100,000 per occurrence for organizations that fail to keep a log of breaches or notify the Office of the Privacy
Commissioner or affected individuals. Such obligations and restrictions, may limit our ability to collect, store, process, use, transmit, and share data with our customers, and to allow our customer to collect, store, retain, protect, use, process, transmit, share, and disclose data with others through our products and subscriptions.
Similarly, Australia’s Privacy Act 1988 ("Cth") was amended in February 2018 to introduce mandatory data breach notification requirements providing that where personal information is lost or is subject to unauthorized access or disclosure, and that would be likely to lead to serious harm, then affected individuals and the Information Commissioner must be notified within 30 days. A failure to notify can result in an enforceable undertaking and penalties of up to AUD 2.1 million.
More generally, data privacy is an area of increasing public awareness and concern in Australia. In 2014, the Privacy Act was amended to introduce the 13 Australian Privacy Principles that govern the collection, storage, use and disclosure of personal information, and set out restrictions about the use of personal information for direct marketing and disclosure of personal information of Australians overseas. Under these principles, the acts of an overseas recipient of personal information are taken to be the acts of the party in Australia who disclosed the information. Non-compliance with these principles is subject to penalties of up to AUD 2.1 million.
In the United States, there are numerous federal and state laws governing the privacy and security of personal information. In particular, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) establishes privacy and security standards that limit the use and disclosure of individually identifiable health information and requires the implementation of administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information by certain institutions. We act as a “Business Associate” through our relationships with certain customers and are thus directly subject to certain provisions of HIPAA. In addition, if we are unable to protect the privacy and security of protected health information, we could be found to have breached our contracts with customers with whom we have a Business Associate relationship. Additionally, we are subject to FCC regulations imposing obligations related to our use and disclosure of certain data related our interconnected VoIP service. If we experience a data security incident, we may be required by state law or FCC regulations to notify our customers and/or law enforcement. We may also be subject to Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) enforcement actions if the FTC has reason to believe we have engaged in unfair or deceptive privacy or data security practices.
Noncompliance with laws and regulations relating to privacy and security of personal information, including HIPAA, or with contractual obligations under any Business Associate agreement may lead to significant fines, civil and criminal penalties, or liabilities. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) audits the compliance of Business Associates and enforces HIPAA privacy and security standards. HHS enforcement activity has become more significant over the last few years and HHS has signaled its intent to continue this trend. Violation of the FCC’s privacy rules can result in large monetary forfeitures and injunctive relief. The FTC has broad authority to seek monetary redress for affected consumers and injunctive relief. In addition to federal regulators, state attorneys general (and, in some states, individual residents) are authorized to bring civil actions seeking either injunctions or damages to the extent violations implicate the privacy of state residents. Class action lawsuits are common in the event of a data breach affecting financial or other forms of sensitive information.
Additionally, California recently enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which is sweeping legislation with some similarities to the GDPR. It is scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 2020. The CCPA was amended on September 23, 2018, but without substantial modification of its fundamental obligations. If CCPA is not further amended before the implementation date, to modify or remove the relevant requirements, we will be required, among other things, to make certain enhanced disclosures related to California residents regarding our use or disclosure of their personal information, allow California residents to opt-out of certain uses and disclosures of their personal information without penalty, provide Californians with other choices related to personal data in our possession, and obtain opt-in consent before engaging in certain uses of personal information relating to Californians under the age of 16. The California Attorney General would be able to seek substantial monetary penalties and injunctive relief in the event of our non-compliance with the CCPA after its effective date. The CCPA also allows for private lawsuits from Californians in the event of certain data breaches.
As Internet commerce and communication technologies continue to evolve, thereby increasing online service providers’ and network users’ capacity to collect, store, retain, protect, use, process, and transmit large volumes of personal information, increasingly restrictive regulation by federal, state, or foreign agencies becomes more likely. For example, a variety of laws and regulations that would increase restrictions on online service providers in the area of data privacy are currently being proposed, both in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions, and we believe that the adoption of increasingly restrictive regulation in the field of data privacy and security is likely, possibly as restrictive as the EU or California models. The U.S. Congress, and numerous state legislatures, presently have bills pending that would impose new data privacy obligations.
In addition to government activity, privacy advocacy groups and industry groups have adopted and are considering the adoption of various self-regulatory standards and codes of conduct that, if applied to our or our customers’ businesses may place additional burdens on us and our customers, which may further reduce demand for our subscriptions and harm our business.
While we try to comply with all applicable data protection laws, regulations, standards, and codes of conduct, as well as our own posted privacy policies and contractual commitments to the extent possible, any failure by us to protect our users’ privacy and data, including as a result of our systems being compromised by hacking or other malicious or surreptitious activity, could result in a loss of user confidence in our subscriptions and ultimately in a loss of users, which could materially and adversely affect our business.
We have implemented policies and procedures to assist us in complying with applicable privacy-related laws and regulations and our contractual obligations and will develop new policies and procedures as new legal obligations arise. However, we cannot provide assurance regarding how these regulations will be interpreted as they apply to our operations. Regulation of personal information is evolving, and new laws could further impact how we handle personal information or could require us to incur additional compliance costs, either of which could have an adverse impact on our operations.
Further, our actual compliance, our customers’ perception of our compliance, costs of compliance with such regulations, and obligations and customer concerns regarding their own compliance obligations (whether factual or in error) may limit the use and adoption of our subscriptions and reduce overall demand. Privacy-related concerns, including the inability or impracticality of providing advance notice to customers of privacy issues related to the use of our subscriptions, may cause our customers’ customers to resist providing the personal data necessary to allow our customers to use our subscriptions effectively. Even the perception of privacy-related concerns, whether or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our subscriptions in certain industries.
Additionally, due to the nature of our service, we are unable to maintain complete control over data security or the implementation of measures that reduce the risk of a data security incident. For example, our customers may accidentally disclose their passwords or store them on a mobile device that is lost or stolen, creating the perception that our systems are not secure against third-party access. Additionally, our third-party contractors in the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Poland may have access to customer data. If these or other third-party vendors violate applicable laws or our policies, such violations may also put our customers’ information at risk and could in turn have a material and adverse effect on our business.
Use or delivery of our subscriptions may become subject to new or increased regulatory requirements, taxes, or fees.
The increasing growth and popularity of Internet voice communications heighten the risk that governments will regulate or impose new or increased fees or taxes on Internet voice communications services. To the extent that the use of our subscriptions continues to grow and our user base continues to expand, regulators may be more likely to seek to regulate or impose new or additional taxes, surcharges or fees on our subscriptions. Similarly, advances in technology, such as improvements in locating the geographic origin of Internet voice communications, could cause our subscriptions to become subject to additional regulations, fees or taxes, or could require us to invest in or develop new technologies, which may be costly. Increased regulatory requirements, taxes, surcharges or fees on Internet voice communications services, which could be assessed by governments retroactively or prospectively, would substantially increase our costs, and, as a result, our business would suffer. In addition, the tax status of our subscriptions could subject us to conflicting taxation requirements and complexity with regard to the collection and remittance of applicable taxes. Any such additional taxes could harm our results of operations.
Our emergency and E-911 calling services may expose us to significant liability.
The FCC requires Internet voice communications providers, such as our company, to provide E-911 service in all geographic areas covered by the traditional wire-line E-911 network. Under the FCC’s rules, Internet voice communications providers must transmit the caller’s phone number and registered location information to the appropriate public safety answering point (“PSAP”) for the caller’s registered location. Our CLEC services are also required by the FCC and state regulators to provide E-911 service to the extent that they provide services to end users.
In Canada, the CRTC has imposed similar requirements related to the provision of E-911 services in all areas of Canada where the wireline incumbent carrier offers such 911 services. The CRTC also mandates certain customer notification requirements pursuant to which new customers are required to be notified of 911 service limitations and to consent to the same before their service with us commences and we are required to provide annual update notifications to our customers of the 911 limitations of our service.
Additionally, as a provider of electronic communications services in the U.K., we are subject to regulation in the U.K. by Ofcom. Similar to the requirements in the U.S., Ofcom requires electronic communications providers, such as our company, to
provide all users access to both 112 (EU-mandated) and 999 (U.K.-mandated) emergency service numbers at no charge. Ofcom also requires us to clearly and transparently inform our users of any emergency service limitations on their device including by way of labels and network announcements.
We provide E-911/999/112 service in compliance with the Ofcom, the CRTC and the FCC’s rules, as applicable, to substantially all of our customers’ interconnected VoIP lines. In some circumstances, 911/999/112 calls may be routed to a national emergency call center that routes the call to the appropriate PSAP. In addition, certain of our Internet voice communications services that work with mobile devices and are accessed through Wi-Fi networks may not be able to complete 911/999/112 calls. The FCC is considering requiring providers of Internet voice communications services accessed from applications on mobile devices and softphones to provide E-911 service, if such service may be used to make calls to the public telephone network. In Canada, the CRTC requires providers of Internet voice communications services on mobile devices and softphones to provide E-911 service, if such service may be used to make calls to the public telephone network. The adoption of such a requirement in the U.S. could increase our costs and make our service more expensive, which could adversely affect our results of operations. In 2017, the CRTC mandated that all telecommunications service providers, including Internet voice communications providers, are to be in a position to support Next Generation 911 (“NG9-1-1”) services by June 30, 2020 following changes to be made to the networks of incumbent telephone companies necessary to deliver the NG9-1-1 services. The implementation of the changes necessary to offer NG9-1-1 services may be costly and may make our service less competitive.
In connection with the regulatory requirements that we provide E-911/999/112 to all of our interconnected VoIP customers, we must obtain from each customer, prior to the initiation of or changes to service, the physical locations at which the service will first be used for each VoIP line. For subscriptions that can be utilized from more than one physical location, we must provide customers one or more methods of updating their physical location. Because we are not able to confirm that the service is used at the physical addresses provided by our customers, and because customers may provide an incorrect location or use the subscriptions in locations that differ from the registered location without providing us with the updated information, it is possible that E-911/999/112 calls may get routed to the wrong PSAP. If E-911/999/112 calls are not routed to the correct PSAP, and if the delay results in serious injury or death, we could be sued and the damages substantial. We are evaluating measures to attempt to verify and update the addresses for locations where our subscriptions are used. It is possible that in the future the FCC may require interconnected VoIP providers to automatically update subscriber location information, for purposes of routing 911 calls.
We could be subject to enforcement action by the FCC, the CRTC or Ofcom for our customer lines that cannot provide E-911/999/112 service in accordance with regulatory requirements. This enforcement action could result in significant monetary penalties and restrictions on our ability to offer non-compliant subscriptions.
Customers may in the future attempt to hold us responsible for any loss, damage, personal injury, or death suffered as a result of delayed, misrouted, or uncompleted emergency service calls or text messages. The New and Emerging Technologies 911 Improvement Act of 2008 provides that Internet voice communications providers and interconnected text messaging providers have the same protections from liability for the operation of 911 services as traditional wire-line and wireless providers. Limitations on liability for the provision of 911 service are normally governed by state law, but these limitations typically are not absolute. In the U.K., by law we cannot limit our liability for any death or injury arising out of our negligence, including as a result of emergency service calls that are delayed, misrouted or uncompleted due to our negligence. In Canada, the CRTC does not permit any limitation of liability related to the provision of E-911 services that is due to our gross negligence or where negligence on the part of a service provider results in physical injury, death, or damage to the customer's property or premises. In addition, Canadian provincial consumer protection laws may constrain our ability to limit liability to our non-business customers for any liability caused due to the 911 shortfalls inherent in Internet voice communications services.
We rely on third parties to provide the majority of our customer service and support representatives and to fulfill various aspects of our E-911 service. If these third parties do not provide our customers with reliable, high-quality service, our reputation will be harmed, and we may lose customers.
We offer customer support through both our online account management website and our toll-free customer support number. Our customer support is currently provided via a third-party provider located in the Philippines, as well as our employees in the U.S. We currently offer support in English, French, German, and Spanish. Our third-party providers generally provide customer service and support to our customers without identifying themselves as independent parties. The ability to support our customers may be disrupted by natural disasters, inclement weather conditions, civil unrest, strikes, and other adverse events in the Philippines. Furthermore, as we expand our operations internationally, we may need to make significant expenditures and investments in our customer service and support to adequately address the complex needs of international customers, such as support in multiple foreign languages. We also use third parties to deliver onsite professional services to our customers in deploying our solutions. If these vendors do not deliver timely and high quality services to our customers, our reputation could be damaged and we could
lose customers. In addition, third party professional services vendors may not be available when needed, which would adversely impact our ability to deliver on our customer commitments.
We also contract with third parties to provide emergency services calls in the United States, Canada, the U.K., and other jurisdictions in which we provide access to emergency services dialing, including assistance in routing emergency calls and terminating emergency services calls. Our domestic providers operate a national call center that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to receive certain emergency calls and maintain PSAP databases for the purpose of deploying and operating E-911 services. We rely on providers for similar functions in other jurisdictions in which we provide access to emergency services dialing. On mobile devices, we rely on the underlying cellular or wireless carrier to provide emergency services dialing. Interruptions in service from our vendors could cause failures in our customers’ access to E-911/999/112 services and expose us to liability and damage our reputation.
If any of these third parties do not provide reliable, high-quality service, our reputation and our business will be harmed. In addition, industry consolidation among providers of services to us may impact our ability to obtain these services or increase our costs for these services.
We depend largely on the continued services of our senior management and other key employees, the loss of any of whom could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
Our future performance depends on the continued services and contributions of our senior management and other key employees to execute on our business plan, and to identify and pursue opportunities and services innovations. The loss of services of senior management or other key employees could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our development and strategic objectives. In particular, we depend to a considerable degree on the vision, skills, experience, and effort of our co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vladimir Shmunis. None of our executive officers or other senior management personnel is bound by a written employment agreement and any of them may therefore terminate employment with us at any time with no advance notice. The replacement of any of these senior management personnel would likely involve significant time and costs, and such loss could significantly delay or prevent the achievement of our business objectives. The loss of the services of our senior management or other key employees for any reason could adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.
If we are unable to hire, retain, and motivate qualified personnel, our business will suffer.
Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain highly skilled personnel. We believe that there is, and will continue to be, intense competition for highly skilled technical and other personnel with experience in our industry in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our headquarters is located, in Denver, Colorado, where our U.S. sales and customer support office and our network operations center is located, and in other locations, such as Charlotte, North Carolina; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; London, England, Paris, France, Xiamen, China, and Sydney, Australia, where we maintain offices. In addition, changes to U.S. immigration policies, particularly to H-1B and other visa programs, and restrictions on travel could restrain the flow of technical and professional talent into the U.S. and may inhibit our ability to hire qualified personnel. We must provide competitive compensation packages and a high-quality work environment to hire, retain, and motivate employees. If we are unable to retain and motivate our existing employees and attract qualified personnel to fill key positions, we may be unable to manage our business effectively, including the development, marketing, and sale of existing and new subscriptions, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. To the extent we hire personnel from competitors, we may be subject to allegations that they have been improperly solicited or divulged proprietary or other confidential information.
Volatility in, or lack of performance of, our stock price may also affect our ability to attract and retain key personnel. Many of our key personnel are, or will soon be, vested in a substantial amount of shares of common stock, stock options, or restricted stock units. Employees may be more likely to terminate their employment with us if the shares they own or the shares underlying their vested options have significantly appreciated in value relative to the original purchase prices of the shares or the exercise prices of the options, or if the exercise prices of the options that they hold are significantly above the market price of our Class A common stock. If we are unable to retain our employees, our business, results of operations, and financial condition will be harmed.
We may expand through acquisitions of, or investments in, or strategic partnerships or other strategic transactions with other companies, each of which may divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders, increase expenses, disrupt our operations, and harm our results of operations.
Our business strategy may, from time to time, include acquiring or investing in complementary services, technologies or businesses, strategic investments and partnerships, or other strategic transactions, such as our recent acquisitions of Dimelo SA and Connect First, and our acquisition of Glip, Inc. (“Glip”)investment in 2015.and strategic partnerships with Avaya and Atos. We cannot assure you that we will successfully identify suitable acquisition candidates or transaction counterparties, securely or effectively integrate or manage disparate technologies, lines of business, personnel and corporate cultures, realize our business strategy or the expected return on our investment, or
manage a geographically dispersed company. Any such acquisition, investment, strategic partnership, or investmentother strategic transaction could materially and adversely affect our results of operations. The acquisitionprocess of negotiating, effecting, and integration processrealizing the benefits from acquisitions, investments, strategic partnerships, and strategic transactions is complex, expensive and time-consuming, and may cause an interruption of, or loss of momentum in, product development and sales activities and operations of both companies, and we may incur substantial cost and expense, as well as divert the attention of management. We may issue equity securities which could dilute current stockholders’ ownership, incur debt, assume contingent or other liabilities and expend cash in acquisitions, investments, strategic partnerships, and other strategic transactions which could negatively impact our financial position, stockholder equity, and stock price.
Acquisitions, investments, strategic partnerships, and other strategic investmentstransactions involve significant risks and uncertainties, including:
•the potential failure to achieve the expected benefits of the combinationacquisition, investment, strategic partnership, or acquisition;other strategic transaction;
•unanticipated costs and liabilities;
•difficulties in integrating new productssolutions and subscriptions, software, businesses, operations, and technology infrastructure in an efficient and effective manner;
•difficulties in maintaining customer relations;
•the potential loss of key employees of theany acquired businesses;
•the diversion of the attention of our senior management from the operation of our daily business;
•the potential adverse effect on our cash position to the extent that we use cash for the purchase price;transaction consideration;
•the potential significant increase of our interest expense, leverage, and debt service requirements if we incur additional debt to pay for an acquisition;acquisition, investment, strategic partnership, or other strategic transaction;
•the potential issuance of securities that would dilute our stockholders’ percentage ownership;
•the potential to incur large and immediate write-offs and restructuring and other related expenses;
•the potential liability or expenses associated with new types of data stored, existing security obligations or liabilities, unknown product weaknesses in our solutions, insufficient security measures in place, and compromise of our networks via access to our systems from assets not previously under our control; and
•the inability to maintain uniform standards, controls, policies, and procedures.
Any acquisition, investment, strategic partnership, or investmentother strategic transaction could expose us to unknown liabilities. Moreover, we cannot assure you that we will realize the anticipated benefits of any acquisition, investment, strategic partnership, or investment.other strategic transaction. In addition, our inability to successfully operate and integrate newly acquired businesses or newly formed strategic partnerships appropriately, effectively, and in a timely manner could impair our ability to take advantage of future growth opportunities and other advances in technology, as well as on our revenues, gross margins, and expenses.
For example, in connection with our strategic partnership with Avaya, we purchased $125.0 million of Avaya Series A Preferred Stock and made an advance of $375.0 million, predominantly for future fees, as well as for certain licensing rights (paid primarily in our Class A Common Stock). These are significant investments on which we may not realize the anticipated benefits for various reasons, including a lack of success in the marketing and sale of ACO, potential or actual financial distress, insolvency, or bankruptcy of Avaya or any of its subsidiaries, or other facts or circumstances that may limit our ability to recover, or realize benefits from, these investments.
We may be subject to liabilities on past sales for taxes, surcharges, and fees.fees and our operating results may be harmed if we are required to collect such amounts in jurisdictions where we have not historically done so.
We believe we collect state and local sales tax and use, excise, utility user, and ad valorem taxes, fees, or surcharges in all relevant jurisdictions in which we generate sales, based on our understanding of the applicable laws in those jurisdictions. Such tax, fees and surcharge laws and rates vary greatly by jurisdiction.jurisdiction, and the application of such taxes to e-commerce businesses, such as ours, is a complex and evolving area. There is uncertainty as to what constitutes sufficient “in state presence” for a state to levy taxes, fees, and surcharges for sales made over the Internet.Internet, and after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair, U.S. states may require an online retailer with no in-state property or personnel to collect and remit sales tax on sales to the state’s residents, which may permit wider enforcement of sales tax collection requirements. Therefore, taxing authorities may challengethe application of existing or future laws relating to indirect taxes to our position and may decide tobusiness, or the audit of our business and operations with respect to such taxes whichor challenges of our positions by taxing authorities, all could result in increased tax liabilities for us or our customers that could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and our relationships with our customers.
The application of other indirect taxes (such as sales and use tax, value added tax, goods and services tax, business tax, and gross receipt tax) to e-commerce businesses, such as ours, is a complex and evolving area. In February 2016, the U.S. federal government enacted legislation permanently extending the moratorium on states and other local authorities imposing access or discriminatory taxes on the Internet. The application of existing, new, or future laws relating to indirect taxes on e-commerce businesses, whether in the U.S. or internationally, could have adverse effects on our business, prospects, and results of operations.
There have been, and will continue to be, substantial ongoing costs associated with complying with the various indirect tax requirements in the numerous markets in which we conduct or will conduct business.
Changes in effective tax rates, or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income or other tax returns, could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.
Our future effective tax rates could be subject to volatility or adversely affected by a number of factors, including:
•changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities;
•expiration of, or lapses in, the research and development tax credit laws;
•expiration or non-utilization of net operating loss carryforwards;
•tax effects of share-based compensation;
•expansion into new jurisdictions;
•potential challenges to and costs related to implementation and ongoing operation of our intercompany arrangements;
•changes in tax laws and regulations and accounting principles, or interpretations or applications thereof; and
•certain non-deductible expenses as a result of acquisitions.
Any changes in our effective tax rate could adversely affect our results of operations.
Changes in U.S. and foreign tax laws could have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flow, results of operations or financial conditions.
We are subject to tax legislation in several countries; changes in tax laws or challenges to our tax positions could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. As such, we are subject to tax laws, regulations, and policies of the U.S. federal, state, and local governments and of comparable taxing authorities in foreign jurisdictions. Changes in tax laws, including the U.S. federal tax legislation enacted in 2017, commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Tax Act”), as well as other factors, could cause us to experience fluctuations in our tax obligations and effective tax rates in 2018 and thereafter and otherwise adversely affect our tax positions and/or our tax liabilities. For example, on July 25, 2019, France introduced a digital services tax at a rate of 3% on revenues derived from digital activities in France, and other jurisdictions are proposing or could introduce similar laws in the future. There can be no assurance that our effective tax rates, tax payments, tax credits, or incentives will not be adversely affected by these or other initiatives.
We may be unable to use some or all of our net operating loss carryforwards, which could materially and adversely affect our reported financial condition and results of operations.
As of December 31, 2018,2019, we had federal and state net operating loss carryforwards (“NOLs”) of $428.7$782.7 million and $344.8$675.6 million, respectively, available to offset future taxable income, due to prior period losses, some of which, if not utilized, will begin to expire in 2023 for federal purposes and will begin to expire in 2021 for state purposes. We also have federal research tax credit carryforwards that will begin to expire in 2028. Realization of these net operating loss and research tax credit carryforwards depends on future income, and there is a risk that our existing carryforwards could expire unused and be unavailable to offset future income tax liabilities, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations.
In addition, under SectionSections 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, (the “Code”), our ability to utilize net operating loss carryforwardsNOLs or other tax attributes, such as research tax credits, in any taxable year may be limited if we experience an “ownership change.” A Section 382An “ownership change” generally occurs if one or more stockholders or groups of stockholders, who each own at least 5% of our stock, increase their collective ownership by more than 50 percentage points over their lowest ownership percentage within a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws.
Except for an insignificant amount of deferred tax assets recognized in connection with NOLs in the Netherlands and China, noNo material deferred tax assets have been recognized on our Consolidated Balance Sheets related to these NOLs, as they are fully offset by a valuation allowance. If we have previously had, or have in the future, one or more Section 382 “ownership changes,” including in connection with our initial public offering or another offering, or if we do not generate sufficient taxable income, we may not be able to utilize a material portion of our NOLs, even if we achieve profitability. If we are limited in our ability to use our NOLs in future years in which we have taxable income, we will pay more taxes than if we were able to fully utilize our NOLs. This could materially and adversely affect our results of operations.
If our internal control over financial reporting is not effective, it may adversely affect investor confidence in our company.
Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, our independent registered public accounting firm, KPMG LLP, is required to and has issued an attestation report as of December 31, 2018. While management concluded internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2018, there can be no assurance that material weaknesses will not be identified in the future. A “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. As a result, we may need to undertake various actions, such as implementing new internal controls and procedures and hiring accounting or internal audit staff. Our remediation efforts may not enable us to avoid a material weakness in the future.
If our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could cause the price of our Class A common stock to decline, and we may be subject to investigation or sanctions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”).
We may not be successful in continuing to obtain local access services through our CLEC subsidiary.
Through our competitive local exchange carrier subsidiary, RCLEC, we have been able to purchase network services directly from ILECs and from other CLECs in certain geographic markets, at lower prices than we pay for such services through third-party network service providers, such as CenturyLink, Inc. and Bandwidth.com, Inc. Using the services of our CLEC subsidiary has also helped us improve our quality of service. However, the ILECs may favor themselves and their affiliates and may not provide network services to us at lower prices than we could obtain through CenturyLink, Inc., Bandwidth.com, Inc., other third-party CLECs, or at all. If we are unable to continue to reduce our pricing as a result of obtaining network services through our subsidiary, we may be forced to rely on other third-party network service providers and be unable to effectively lower our cost of service. In addition, if ILECs or other CLECs do not provide us with any access, we will not be able to use our RCLEC subsidiary as intended to improve the quality of our subscriptions or lower the cost of our subscriptions.
If we are unable to effectively process local number and toll-free number portability provisioning in a timely manner, our growth may be negatively affected.
We support local number and toll-free number portability, which allows our customers to transfer to us and thereby retain their existing phone numbers when subscribing to our services. Transferring numbers is a manual process that can take up to 15 business days or longer to complete. A new customer of our subscriptions must maintain both our subscription and the customer’s existing phone service during the number transferring process. Any delay that we experience in transferring these numbers typically results from the fact that we depend on third-party carriers to transfer these numbers, a process that we do not control, and these third-party carriers may refuse or substantially delay the transfer of these numbers to us. Local number portability is considered an important feature by many potential customers, and if we fail to reduce any related delays, we may experience increased difficulty in acquiring new customers. Moreover, the FCC requires Internet voice communications providers which are companies like us that provide subscriptions similar to traditional phone companies, including the ability to make calls to and receive calls from the public phone network, to comply with specified number porting timeframes when customers leave our subscription for the services of another provider. In Canada, the CRTC hasSeveral international jurisdictions have imposed a similar number portability requirementrequirements on subscription providers like us. Similarly in the U.K., Ofcom requires providers of electronic communications services, like us, to provide number portability as soon as practicable and on reasonable terms. If we or our third-party carriers are unable to process number portability requests within the requisite timeframes, we could be subject to fines and penalties, including, in the U.K., compensation payable to our customers.penalties. Additionally, in the U.S., both customers and carriers may seek relief
from the relevant state public utility commission, the FCC, or in state or federal court for violation of local number portability requirements.
Our business could suffer if we cannot obtain or retain direct inward dialing numbers or are prohibited from obtaining local or toll-free numbers, or if we are limited to distributing local or toll-free numbers to only certain customers.
Our future success depends on our ability to procure large quantities of local and toll-free direct inward dialing numbers (“DIDs”) in the U.S. and foreign countries in desirable locations at a reasonable cost and without restrictions. Our ability to procure and distribute DIDs depends on factors outside of our control, such as applicable regulations, the practices of the communications carriers that provide DIDs, the cost of these DIDs, and the level of demand for new DIDs. Due to their limited availability, there are certain popular area code prefixes that we generally cannot obtain. Our inability to acquire DIDs for our operations would make our subscriptions less attractive to potential customers in the affected local geographic areas. In addition, future growth in our customer base, together with growth in the customer bases of other providers of cloud-based business communications, has increased, which increases our dependence on needing sufficiently large quantities of DIDs.
We rely on third-party hardware and software that may be difficult to replace or which could cause errors or failures of our subscriptions.
We rely on purchased or leased hardware and software licensed from third parties in order to offer our subscriptions. In some cases, we integrate third-party licensed software components into our platform. This hardware and software may not continue to be available at reasonable prices or on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this hardware or software could significantly increase our expenses and otherwise result in delays in the provisioning of our subscriptions until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained, and integrated. Any errors or defects in third-party hardware or software could result in errors or a failure of our subscriptions which could harm our business.
We may not be able to manage our inventory levels effectively, which may lead to inventory obsolescence that would force us to incur inventory write-downs.
Our vendor-supplied phones have lead times of up to 10 to 13 weeks for delivery to our fulfillment agents and are built to forecasts that are necessarily imprecise. It is likely that, from time to time, we will have either excess or insufficient product inventory.
In addition, because we rely on third-party vendors for the supply of our vendor-supplied phones, our inventory levels are subject to the conditions regarding the timing of purchase orders and delivery dates that are not within our control. Excess inventory levels would subject us to the risk of inventory obsolescence, while insufficient levels of inventory may negatively affect relations with customers. For instance, our customers rely upon our ability to meet committed delivery dates, and any disruption in the supply of our subscriptions could result in loss of customers or harm to our ability to attract new customers. Any reduction or interruption in the ability of our vendors to supply our customers with vendor-supplied phones, including as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, could cause us to lose revenue, damage our customer relationships and harm our reputation in the marketplace. Any of these factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.
We currently depend on three phone device suppliers and two fulfillment agents to configure and deliver the phones that we sell and any delay or interruption in manufacturing, configuring and delivering by these third parties would result in delayed or reduced shipments to our customers and may harm our business.
We rely on Cisco Systems, Inc., Polycom, Inc., and Yealink Network Technology Co., Ltd.three suppliers to provide phones that we offer for sale to our customers that use our subscriptions, and we rely on Westcon and ABP Techtwo fulfillment agents to configure and deliver the phones that we sell to our customers. Accordingly, we could be adversely affected if our suppliers or Westcon and ABP Techsuch third parties fail to maintain competitive phones or configuration services or fail to continue to make them available on attractive terms, or at all. These suppliers have been and will continue to be adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which could affect their ability to perform satisfactorily or at all.
If Westcon and ABP Techour fulfillment agents are unable to deliver phones of acceptable quality, or if there is a reduction or interruption in Westcon’s and ABP Tech’stheir ability to supply the phones in a timely manner, our ability to bring services to market, the reliability of our subscriptions and our relationships with customers or our overall reputation in the marketplace could suffer, which could cause us to lose revenue. We expect that it could take several months to effectively transition to new third-party manufacturers or fulfillment agents.
If our vendor-supplied phones are not able to interoperate effectively with our own back-end servers and systems, our customers may not be able to use our subscriptions, which could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Phones must interoperate with our back-end servers and systems, which contain complex specifications and utilize multiple protocol standards and software applications. Currently, the phones used by our customers are manufactured by only three third-party providers: Cisco Systems, Inc., Polycom, Inc., and Yealink Network Technology Co, Ltd.providers. If any of these providers changes the operation of their phones, we will be required to undertake development and testing efforts to ensure that the new phones interoperate with our system. In addition, we must be successful in integrating our solutions with strategic partners' devices in order to market and sell these solutions. These efforts may require significant capital and employee resources, and we may not accomplish these development efforts quickly or cost-effectively, if at all. If our vendor-supplied phones do not interoperate effectively with our system, our customers’ ability to use our
subscriptions could be delayed or orders for our subscriptions could be cancelled,canceled, which would harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
We may require additional capital to pursue our business objectives and to respond to business opportunities, challenges or unforeseen circumstances. If capital is not available to us, our business, results of operations, and financial condition may be adversely affected.
We intend to continue to make expenditures and investments to support the growth of our business and may require additional capital to pursue our business objectives and respond to business opportunities, challenges, or unforeseen circumstances, including the need to develop new solutions or enhance our existing solutions, enhance our operating infrastructure, and acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. However, additional funds may not be available when we need them on terms that are acceptable to us, or at all. Any debt financing that we secure in the future could involve restrictive covenants, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities. In addition, the restrictive covenants in credit facilities we may secure in the future may restrict us from being able to conduct our operations in a manner required for our business and may restrict our growth, which could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations.
We cannot assure you that we will be able to comply with any such restrictive covenants. In the event that we are unable to comply with these covenants in the future, we would seek an amendment or waiver of the covenants. We cannot assure you that any such waiver or amendment would be granted. In such event, we may be required to repay any or all of our existing borrowings, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to borrow under our existing credit agreements, or obtain alternative funding arrangements on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.
In addition, volatility in the credit markets, including any due to the COVID-19 pandemic, may have an adverse effect on our ability to obtain debt financing. If we raise additional funds through furtherThe conversion of our 0% convertible senior notes due 2023 (the “2023 Notes”) and our 0% convertible senior notes due 2025 (the “2025 Notes” and, together with the 2023 Notes, the “Notes”) and any future issuances of other equity or any future issuances of equity or convertible debt securities could result in significant dilution to our existing stockholders, could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity or convertible debt securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges superior to those of holders of our
Class A common stock.Common Stock. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to pursue our business objectives and to respond to business opportunities, challenges, or unforeseen circumstances could be significantly limited, and our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.
The marketIf our internal control over financial reporting is not effective, it may adversely affect investor confidence in our company.
Pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, our independent registered public accounting firm, KPMG LLP, is required to and has issued an attestation report as of December 31, 2019. While management concluded internal control over financial reporting was at a reasonable assurance level as of December 31, 2019, there can be no assurance that material weaknesses will not be identified in the future. A “material weakness” is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. As a result, we may need to undertake various actions, such as implementing new internal controls and procedures and hiring accounting or internal audit staff. Our remediation efforts may not enable us to avoid a material weakness in the future.
If our independent registered public accounting firm is unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could cause the price of our Class A common stock is likelyCommon Stock to decline, and we may be volatilesubject to investigation or sanctions by the Securities and could decline.Exchange Commission (the “SEC”).
The stock market in general,nature of our business requires the application of complex revenue and expense recognition rules and the market for SaaScurrent legislative and other technology-related stocksregulatory environment affecting generally accepted accounting principles is uncertain. Significant changes in particular, has been highly volatile. As a result, the market pricecurrent principles could affect our financial statements going forward and trading volume for our Class A common stock has beenchanges in financial accounting standards or practices may cause adverse, unexpected financial reporting fluctuations and may continue to be highly volatile, and investors in our Class A common stock may experience a decrease in the value of their shares, including decreases unrelated toharm our operating performance or prospects. Factorsresults.
The accounting rules and regulations that we must comply with are complex and subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”), the SEC and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. Recent actions and public comments from the FASB and the SEC have focused on the integrity of financial reporting and internal controls. In addition, many companies’ accounting policies are being subject to heightened scrutiny by regulators and the public. Further, the accounting rules and regulations are continually changing in ways that could causematerially impact our financial statements.
We cannot predict the market priceimpact of our Class A common stockfuture changes to fluctuate significantly include:
our operating and financial performance and prospects and the performance of other similar companies;
our quarterly or annual earnings or those of other companies in our industry;
conditions that impact demand for our subscriptions;
the public’s reaction to our press releases, financial guidance, and other public announcements, and filings with the SEC;
changes in earnings estimates or recommendations by securities or research analysts who track our Class A common stock;
market and industry perception of our success, or lack thereof, in pursuing our growth strategy;
strategic actions by usaccounting principles or our competitors, such as acquisitions or restructurings;
changes in government and other regulations;
changes in accounting standards, policies guidance, interpretations, or principles;
arrival and departure of key personnel;
sales of common stock by us,on our investors, or members of our management team; and
changes in general market, economic, and political conditions in the U.S. and global economies or financial markets, including those resulting from natural disasters, telecommunications failure, cyber-attack, changes in diplomatic or trade relationships, civil unrest in various parts of the world, acts of war, terrorist attacks, or other catastrophic events.
Any of these factors may result in large and sudden changes in the trading volume and market price of our Class A common stock and may prevent investors from being able to sell their shares at or above the price they paid for their shares of our Class A common stock. Following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, stockholders often file securities class-action lawsuits against such company. Our involvement in a class-action lawsuit could divert our senior management’s attention and, if adversely determined,statements going forward, which could have a material and adversesignificant effect on our business,reported financial condition,results and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of the change. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is ongoing uncertainty and significant disruption in the global economy and financial markets, and while we are not aware of any specific event or circumstance that would require a material update to our estimates, judgments or assumptions, this may change in the future. In addition, if we were to change our critical accounting estimates, including those related to the recognition of subscription revenue and other revenue sources, our operating results of operations.could be significantly affected.
Our corporate headquarters, one of our data centers and co-location facilities, our third-party customer service and support facilities, and a research and development facility are located near known earthquake fault zones, and the occurrence of an earthquake, tsunami, or other catastrophic disaster could damage our facilities or the facilities of our contractors, which could cause us to curtail our operations.
Our corporate headquarters oneand many of our data centers, co-location and one of our subsidiary’s co-locationresearch and development facilities, are located in California, a number of co-location facilities are located in Asia and Australia, our third-party customer service call centers operated by our contractors are located in California, Florida, and several countries in Asia, including the Philippines and one of our research and development facilities is located on the coast of China.Australia. All of these locations are on the Pacific Rim near known earthquake fault zones, and, therefore,which are vulnerable to damage from earthquakes and tsunamis. Additionally, our China facility, our third-party customer service and support facilities in the Philippines, and our CLEC subsidiary’s co-location facility in Floridatsunamis, or are located in areas subject to hurricanes. We and our contractors are also vulnerable to other types of disasters, such as power loss, fire, floods, pandemics such as the global outbreak of COVID-19, cyber-attack, war, political unrest, and terrorist attacks and similar events that are beyond our control. Global warming trends are contributing to an increase in erratic weather patterns globally and intensifying the impact of certain types of catastrophes. If any disasters were to occur, our ability to operate our business could be seriously impaired, and we may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, loss of intellectual property, delays in our subscriptions development, lengthy interruptions in our services, breaches of data security, and loss of critical data, all of which could harm our future results of operations. In addition, we do not carry earthquake insurance and we may not have adequate insurance to cover our losses resulting from other disasters or other similar significant business interruptions. Any significant losses that are not recoverable under our insurance policies could seriously impair our business and financial condition.
Risks Related to Regulatory Matters
Our subscriptions are subject to regulation, and future legislative or regulatory actions could adversely affect our business and expose us to liability in the U.S. and internationally.
Federal Regulation
Our business is regulated by the FCC. As a communications services provider, we are subject to existing or potential FCC regulations relating to privacy, disability access, porting of numbers, maintaining records for disconnected numbers, cooperation with law enforcement, Federal Universal Service Fund (“USF”) contributions, Enhanced 911 (“E-911”), outage reporting, call authentication, call blocking and other requirements and regulations. FCC classification of our Internet voice communications services as telecommunications services could result in additional federal and state regulatory obligations. If we do not comply with FCC rules and regulations, we could be subject to FCC enforcement actions, fines, loss of licenses, and possibly restrictions on our ability to operate or offer certain of our subscriptions. Any enforcement action by the FCC, which may be a public process, would hurt our reputation in the industry, possibly impair our ability to sell our subscriptions to customers and could have a materially adverse impact on our revenues.
Through RCLEC, we also provide competitive local exchange carrier (“CLEC”) services which are regulated by the FCC as traditional telecommunications services. Our CLEC services depend on certain provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that require incumbent local exchange carriers (“ILECs”) to provide us facilities and services that are necessary to provide our services. Over the past several years, the FCC has reduced or eliminated a number of regulations governing ILECs’ wholesale offerings. If ILECs were no longer required by law to provide such services to us, or ceased to provide these services at reasonable rates, terms and conditions, our business could be adversely affected and our cost of providing CLEC services could increase. This could have a materially adverse impact on our results of operations and cash flows.
In addition, the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) and FCC rules implementing the TCPA, as amended by the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, prohibit sending unsolicited facsimile advertisements, subject to certain exceptions. The FCC may take enforcement action against persons or entities that send “junk faxes,” and individuals also may have a private cause of action. Although the FCC’s rules prohibiting unsolicited fax advertisements apply to those who “send” the advertisements, fax transmitters or other service providers that have a high degree of involvement in, or actual notice of, unlawful sending of junk faxes and have failed to take steps to prevent such transmissions also face liability under the FCC’s rules. We take significant steps designed to prevent our systems from being used to send unsolicited faxes on a large scale, and we do not believe that we have a high degree of involvement in, or notice of, the use of our systems to broadcast junk faxes. However, because fax transmitters and related service providers do not enjoy an absolute exemption from liability under the TCPA and related FCC rules, we could face FCC inquiry and enforcement or civil litigation, or private causes of action, if someone uses our system for such purposes. If any of these were to occur, we could be required to incur significant costs and management’s attention could be diverted. Further, if we were to be held liable for the use of our service to send unsolicited faxes or to settle any action or proceeding, any judgment, settlement, or penalties could cause a material adverse effect on our operations.
State Regulation
States currently do not regulate our Internet voice communications subscriptions, which are considered to be nomadic because they can be used from any broadband connection. However, a number of states require us to register as a Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) provider, contribute to state USF, contribute to E-911, and pay other surcharges and annual fees that fund various utility commission programs, while others are actively considering extending their public policy programs to include the subscriptions we provide. We pass USF, E-911 fees, and other surcharges through to our customers, which may result in our subscriptions becoming more expensive or require that we absorb these costs. State public utility commissions may attempt to apply state telecommunications regulations to Internet voice communications subscriptions like ours.
RCLEC services are subject to regulation by the public utility regulatory agency in those states where we provide local telecommunications services. This regulation includes the requirement to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity or other similar licenses prior to offering our CLEC services. We may also be required to file tariffs that describe our CLEC services and provide rates for those services. We are also required to comply with regulations that vary by state concerning service quality, disconnection and billing requirements. State commissions also have authority to review and approve interconnection agreements between incumbent phone carriers and CLECs such as our subsidiary.
Both we and RCLEC are also subject to state consumer protection laws, as well as U.S. state or municipal sales, use, excise, gross receipts, utility user and ad valorem taxes, fees, or surcharges.
International Regulation
As we expand internationally, we may be subject to telecommunications, consumer protection, data protection, emergency call services, and other laws, regulations, taxes, and fees in the foreign countries where we offer our subscriptions. Any foreign regulations could impose substantial compliance costs on us, restrict our ability to compete, and impact our ability to expand our service offerings in certain markets. Moreover, the regulatory environment is constantly evolving and changes to the applicable regulations could impose additional compliance costs and require modifications to our technology and operations. Internationally, we currently offer our subscriptions in Canada, the U.K., Australia, and several European countries. We also offer our Global Office solution, enabling our multinational customers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and other locations where we sell our solutions, to establish local phone solutions in various countries internationally. We may be subject to telecommunications, consumer protection, data protection, emergency call services, call authentication, and other laws and regulations in additional countries as we continue to expand our Global Office solution internationally.
In addition, our international operations are potentially subject to country-specific governmental regulation and related actions that may increase our costs or impact our solution and service offerings or prevent us from offering or providing our solutions and subscriptions in certain countries. Certain of our subscriptions may be used by customers located in countries where VoIP and other forms of IP communications may be illegal or require special licensing or in countries on a U.S. embargo list. Even where our solutions are reportedly illegal or become illegal or where users are located in an embargoed country, users in those countries may be able to continue to use our solutions and subscriptions in those countries notwithstanding the illegality or embargo. We may be subject to penalties or governmental action if customers continue to use our solutions and subscriptions in countries where it is illegal to do so, and any such penalties or governmental action may be costly and may harm our business and damage our brand and reputation. We may be required to incur additional expenses to meet applicable international regulatory requirements or be required to discontinue those subscriptions if required by law or if we cannot or will not meet those requirements.
The increasing growth and popularity of Internet voice communications, video conferencing and messaging heighten the risk that governments will regulate or impose new or increased fees or taxes on these services. To the extent that the use of our subscriptions continues to grow, and our user base continues to expand, regulators may be more likely to seek to regulate or impose new or additional taxes, surcharges or fees on our subscriptions.
We process, store, and use personal information and other data, which subjects us and our customers to a variety of evolving international statutes, governmental regulation, industry standards and self-regulatory schemes, contractual obligations, and other legal obligations related to privacy and data protection, which may increase our costs, decrease adoption and use of our solutions and subscriptions, and expose us to liability.
In the course of providing our services, we collect, store, and process many types of data, including personal data. Moreover, our customers can use our subscriptions to store contact and other personal or identifying information, and to process, transmit, receive, store, and retrieve a variety of communications and messages, including information about their own customers and other contacts. Customers are able, and may be authorized under certain circumstances, to use our subscriptions to transmit, receive, and/or store personal information.
There are a number of federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations, as well as contractual obligations and industry standards, that provide for certain obligations and restrictions with respect to data privacy and security, and the collection, storage, retention, protection, use, processing, transmission, sharing, disclosure, and protection of personal information and other customer data. We expect that with the implementation of our Global Office solution, we may become subject to additional data privacy regulations in other countries throughout the world. The scope of these obligations and restrictions is changing, subject to differing interpretations, and may be inconsistent among countries or conflict with other rules, and their status remains uncertain. Failure to comply with obligations and restrictions related to data privacy and security in any jurisdiction in which we operate could subject us to lawsuits, fines, criminal penalties, statutory damages, consent decrees, injunctions, adverse publicity, and other losses that could harm our business.
For example, the GDPR, which came into force in May 2018, strengthened the existing data protection regulations in the EU and its provisions include increasing the maximum level of fines that EU regulators may impose for the most serious of breaches to the greater of €20 million or 4% of worldwide annual turnover. Such fines would be in addition to (i) the rights of individuals to sue for damages in respect of any data privacy breach which causes them to suffer harm and (ii) the right of individual member states to impose additional sanctions over and above the administrative fines specified in the GDPR. Other examples include, but are not limited to, Canadian anti-spam legislation and Australia’s Spam Act 2003, as amended.
Until recently, we used the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework as well as the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield framework and EU Standard Contractual Clauses (“Model Clauses”) to protect data exports between the European Economic Area (the “EEA”) and U.S. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and the Model Clauses are subject to ongoing legal challenges. On July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union, invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield as a mechanism to transfer EU personal data to the U.S. We are analyzing this ruling and putting in place alternative data transfer mechanisms such as additional Model Clauses where we previously relied on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. Data protection authorities may require measures be put in place in addition to Model Clauses for these data transfers. We may, in addition to other impacts, experience additional costs associated with increased compliance burdens following this decision, and we and our customers face the potential for regulators in the EEA to apply different standards to the transfer of personal data from the EEA to the U.S., and to block, or require ad hoc verification of measures taken with respect to, certain data flows from the EEA to the U.S. We also may be required to engage in new contract negotiations with third parties that aid in processing data on our behalf.
The future of cross-border data flows following the U.K.’s exit from the EU on January 31, 2020 is uncertain. After the transition period, currently set to last until December 31, 2020, it may become necessary for us to implement additional data export solutions like the Model Clauses to enable the continued flow of personal data to our U.K. operations from our EU customers and affiliates. These solutions may take time and be challenging to put in place and, if not implemented promptly before or immediately following the Brexit transition period, our business may be disrupted, and we may be exposed to potential regulatory fines and civil claims.
The continuing legal challenge to the Model Clauses, or any future challenges, may result in a ruling that the industry-standard measures we, and other companies, have taken are insufficient. Additionally, it is possible that the EU-Swiss Privacy Shield or the Model Clauses may need to be updated by the European Commission, the Swiss Administration, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Should any of these prove to be the case, we will need to take any necessary and additional measures to ensure compliance with EU law with respect to our transfers of personal data from the EEA and the UK to the U.S. and other non-EEA countries. If we are unable to take such measures, then we may be at risk of experiencing reluctance or refusal of
European or multi-national customers to use our solutions and incurring regulatory penalties, which may have an adverse effect on our business.
In the United States, there are numerous federal and state laws governing the privacy and security of personal information. In particular, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) establishes privacy and security standards that limit the use and disclosure of individually identifiable health information and requires the implementation of administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information by certain institutions. We act as a “Business Associate” through our relationships with certain customers and are thus directly subject to certain provisions of HIPAA. In addition, if we are unable to protect the privacy and security of protected health information, we could be found to have breached our contracts with customers with whom we have a Business Associate relationship and may also face regulatory liability. Additionally, we are subject to FCC regulations imposing obligations related to our use and disclosure of certain data related our interconnected VoIP service. If we experience a data security incident, we may be required by state law or FCC or other regulations to notify our customers and/or law enforcement. We may also be subject to Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) enforcement actions if the FTC has reason to believe we have engaged in unfair or deceptive privacy or data security practices.
Noncompliance with laws and regulations relating to privacy and security of personal information, including HIPAA, or with contractual obligations under any Business Associate agreement may lead to significant fines, civil and criminal penalties, or liabilities. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) audits the compliance of Business Associates and enforces HIPAA privacy and security standards. HHS enforcement activity has become more significant over the last few years and HHS has signaled its intent to continue this trend. Violation of the FCC’s privacy rules can result in large monetary forfeitures and injunctive relief. The FTC has broad authority to seek monetary redress for affected consumers and injunctive relief. In addition to federal regulators, state attorneys general (and, in some states, individual residents) are authorized to bring civil actions seeking either injunctions or damages to the extent violations implicate the privacy of state residents. Class action lawsuits are common in the event of a data breach affecting financial or other forms of sensitive information.
Additionally, California has enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which came into effect on January 1, 2020. Pursuant to the CCPA, we are required, among other things, to make certain enhanced disclosures related to California residents regarding our use or disclosure of their personal information, allow California residents to opt-out of certain uses and disclosures of their personal information without penalty, provide Californians with other choices related to personal data in our possession, and obtain opt-in consent before engaging in certain uses of personal information relating to Californians under the age of 16. The California Attorney General may seek substantial monetary penalties and injunctive relief in the event of our non-compliance with the CCPA. The CCPA also allows for private lawsuits from Californians in the event of certain data breaches. Aspects of the CCPA remain uncertain, and we may be required to make modifications to our policies or practices in order to comply. Moreover, a new proposed privacy law, the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA") recently was certified by the California Secretary of State to appear on the ballot for the November 3, 2020 election. If this initiative is approved by California voters, the CPRA would significantly modify the CCPA, potentially resulting in further uncertainty and requiring us to incur additional costs and expenses in an effort to comply.
As Internet commerce and communication technologies continue to evolve, thereby increasing online service providers’ and network users’ capacity to collect, store, retain, protect, use, process, and transmit large volumes of personal information, increasingly restrictive regulation by federal, state, or foreign agencies becomes more likely.
While we try to comply with applicable data protection laws, regulations, standards, and codes of conduct, as well as our own posted privacy policies and contractual commitments to the extent possible, any actual or alleged failure by us to comply with any of the foregoing or to protect our users’ privacy and data, including as a result of our systems being compromised by hacking or other malicious or surreptitious activity, could result in a loss of user confidence in our subscriptions and ultimately in a loss of users, which could materially and adversely affect our business.
Regulation of personal information is evolving, and new laws could further impact how we handle personal information or could require us to incur additional compliance costs, either of which could have an adverse impact on our operations. Further, our actual compliance, our customers’ perception of our compliance, costs of compliance with such regulations, and obligations and customer concerns regarding their own compliance obligations (whether factual or in error) may limit the use and adoption of our subscriptions and reduce overall demand. Privacy-related concerns, including the inability or impracticality of providing advance notice to customers of privacy issues related to the use of our subscriptions, may cause our customers’ customers to resist providing the personal data necessary to allow our customers to use our
subscriptions effectively. Even the perception of privacy-related concerns, whether or not valid, may inhibit market adoption of our subscriptions in certain industries.
Additionally, due to the nature of our service, we are unable to maintain complete control over data security or the implementation of measures that reduce the risk of a data security incident. For example, our customers may accidentally disclose their passwords or store them on a mobile device that is lost or stolen, creating the perception that our systems are not secure against third-party access. Additionally, our third-party contractors in the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Poland may have access to customer data. If these or other third-party vendors violate applicable laws or our policies, such violations may also put our customers’ information at risk and could in turn have a material and adverse effect on our business.
Our emergency and E-911 calling services may expose us to significant liability.
The FCC requires Internet voice communications providers, such as our company, to provide E-911 service in all geographic areas covered by the traditional wire-line E-911 network. Under the FCC’s rules, Internet voice communications providers must transmit the caller’s phone number and registered location information to the appropriate public safety answering point (“PSAP”) for the caller’s registered location. Our CLEC services are also required by the FCC and state regulators to provide E-911 service to the extent that they provide services to end users. We are also subject to similar requirements internationally.
In connection with the regulatory requirements that we provide access to emergency services dialing to our interconnected VoIP customers, we must obtain from each customer, prior to the initiation of or changes to service, the physical locations at which the service will first be used for each VoIP line. For subscriptions that can be utilized from more than one physical location, we must provide customers one or more methods of updating their physical location. Because we are not able to confirm that the service is used at the physical addresses provided by our customers, and because customers may provide an incorrect location or fail to provide updated location information, it is possible that emergency services calls may get routed to the wrong PSAP. If emergency services calls are not routed to the correct PSAP, and if the delay results in serious injury or death, we could be sued and the damages substantial. We are evaluating measures to attempt to verify and update the addresses for locations where our subscriptions are used.
In August 2019, the FCC adopted an order that will require providers of non-fixed interconnected VoIP service (service that is capable of being used from more than one location) to automatically provide with each 911 call, when technically feasible, specific address information that can be used to adequately identify the location of the caller. The requirement is scheduled to take effect on January 6, 2022. The implementation of this requirement may increase our costs and make our service more expensive, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
We could be subject to enforcement action by the FCC or international regulators for our customer lines that cannot provide access to emergency services in accordance with regulatory requirements. This enforcement action could result in significant monetary penalties and restrictions on our ability to offer non-compliant subscriptions.
In addition, customers may attempt to hold us responsible for any loss, damage, personal injury, or death suffered as a result of delayed, misrouted, or uncompleted emergency service calls or text messages, subject to any limitations on a provider’s liability provided by applicable laws, regulations and our customer agreements.
We rely on third parties to provide the majority of our customer service and support representatives and to fulfill various aspects of our E-911 service. If these third parties do not provide our customers with reliable, high-quality service, our reputation will be harmed, and we may lose customers.
We offer customer support through both our online account management website and our toll-free customer support number in multiple languages. Our customer support is currently provided via a third-party provider located in the Philippines, as well as our employees in the U.S. Our third-party providers generally provide customer service and support to our customers without identifying themselves as independent parties. The ability to support our customers may be disrupted by natural disasters, inclement weather conditions, civil unrest, strikes, and other adverse events in the Philippines. Furthermore, as we expand our operations internationally, we may need to make significant expenditures and investments in our customer service and support to adequately address the complex needs of international customers, such as support in additional foreign languages. We also use third parties to deliver onsite professional services to our customers in deploying our solutions. If these vendors do not deliver timely and high-quality services to our customers, our reputation could be damaged, and we could lose customers. In addition, third party professional services vendors may not be available when needed, which would adversely impact our ability to deliver on our customer commitments.
We also contract with third parties to provide emergency services calls in the United States, Canada, the U.K., and other jurisdictions in which we provide access to emergency services dialing, including assistance in routing emergency calls and terminating emergency services calls. Our domestic providers operate a national call center that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to receive certain emergency calls and maintain PSAP databases for the purpose of deploying and operating E-911 services. We rely on providers for similar functions in other jurisdictions in which we provide access to emergency services dialing. On mobile devices, we rely on the underlying cellular or wireless carrier to provide emergency services dialing. Interruptions in service from our vendors could cause failures in our customers’ access to E-911/999/112 services and expose us to liability and damage our reputation.
If any of these third parties do not provide reliable, high-quality service, our reputation and our business requireswill be harmed. In addition, industry consolidation among providers of services to us may impact our ability to obtain these services or increase our costs for these services.
Risks Related to Intellectual Property
Accusations of infringement of third-party intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our business.
There has been substantial litigation in the applicationareas in which we operate regarding intellectual property rights. For instance, we have recently and in the past been sued by third parties claiming infringement of complex revenuetheir intellectual property rights and we may be sued for infringement from time to time in the future. Also, in some instances, we have agreed to indemnify our customers, resellers, and carriers for expenses and liability resulting from claimed intellectual property infringement by our solutions. From time to time, we have received requests for indemnification in connection with allegations of intellectual property infringement and we may choose, or be required, to assume the defense and/or reimburse our customers and/or resellers and carriers for their expenses, settlement and/or liability. In the past, we have settled infringement litigation brought against us; however, we cannot assure you that we will be able to settle any future claims or, if we are able to settle any such claims, that the settlement will be on terms favorable to us. Our broad range of technology may increase the likelihood that third parties will claim that we, or our customers and/or resellers, and carriers, infringe their intellectual property rights.
We have in the past received, and may in the future receive, notices of claims of infringement, misappropriation or misuse of other parties’ proprietary rights. Furthermore, regardless of their merits, accusations and lawsuits like these, whether against us or our customers, resellers, and carriers, may require significant time and expense recognition rulesto defend, may negatively affect customer relationships, may divert management’s attention away from other aspects of our operations and, upon resolution, may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and cash flows.
Certain technology necessary for us to provide our subscriptions may, in fact, be patented by other parties either now or in the current legislativefuture. If such technology were validly patented by another person, we would have to negotiate a license for the use of that technology. We may not be able to negotiate such a license at a price that is acceptable to us or at all. The existence of such a patent, or our inability to negotiate a license for any such technology on acceptable terms, could force us to cease using the technology and regulatory environment affecting generally accepted accounting principles is uncertain. Significant changes in current principlescease offering subscriptions incorporating the technology, which could materially and adversely affect our financial statements going forwardbusiness and changes in financial accounting standardsresults of operations.
If we, or practices may cause adverse, unexpected financial reporting fluctuations and harmany of our operating results.
The accounting rules and regulations thatsolutions, were found to be infringing on the intellectual property rights of any third party, we must comply with are complex andcould be subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”), the SEC and various bodies formedliability for such infringement, which could be material. We could also be prohibited from using or selling certain subscriptions, prohibited from using certain processes, or required to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. Recent actions and public comments from the FASB and the SEC have focused on the integrityredesign certain subscriptions, each of financial reporting and internal controls. In addition, many companies’ accounting policies are being subject to heightened scrutiny by regulators and the public. Further, the accounting rules and regulations are continually changing in ways that could materially impact our financial statements. For example, in May 2014, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606), as amended, which superseded nearly all prior revenue recognition guidance effective as of January 1, 2018. The new standard permits adoption either by using (i) a full retrospective approach for all periods presented in the period of adoption or (ii) a modified retrospective approach with the cumulative effect of initially applying the new standard recognized at the date of initial application and providing certain additional disclosures. We adopted the new revenue guidance as of January 1, 2018, utilizing the full retrospective transition method. Under the new standard, we capitalize certain sales commission costs and in some cases recognize revenue earlier for subscription plans with free periods and products sold at discounts. The impact of adopting the new standard on our total revenues has not been material. However, the most significant impact of adopting the new standard primarily related to the deferral of sales commissions, which previously were expensed as incurred and to the incremental disclosure requirements. Adoption of the new standard resulted in changes to our accounting policies for revenue recognition, trade and other receivables, and deferred commissions.
We cannot predict the impact of future changes to accounting principles or our accounting policies on our financial statements going forward, which could have a significantmaterial adverse effect on our reported financialbusiness and results of operations.
These and couldother outcomes may:
•result in the loss of a substantial number of existing customers or prohibit the acquisition of new customers;
•cause us to pay license fees for intellectual property we are deemed to have infringed;
•cause us to incur costs and devote valuable technical resources to redesigning our subscriptions;
•cause our cost of revenues to increase;
•cause us to accelerate expenditures to preserve existing revenues;
•cause existing or new vendors to require pre-payments or letters of credit;
•materially and adversely affect our brand in the reportingmarketplace and cause a substantial loss of transactions completed before the announcement of the change. In addition, if we weregoodwill;
•cause us to change our criticalbusiness methods or subscriptions;
•require us to cease certain business operations or offering certain subscriptions or features; and
•lead to our bankruptcy or liquidation.
Our limited ability to protect our intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our business.
We rely, in part, on patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law to protect our intellectual property in the U.S. and abroad. We seek to protect our technology, software, documentation and other information under trade secret and copyright law, which afford only limited protection. For example, we typically enter into confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, third-party contractors, customers, and vendors in an effort to control access to, use of, and distribution of our technology, software, documentation, and other information. These agreements may not effectively prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of confidential information and may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of such unauthorized use or disclosure, and it may be possible for a third party to legally reverse engineer, copy, or otherwise obtain and use our technology without authorization. In addition, improper disclosure of trade secret information by our current or former employees, consultants, third-party contractors, customers, or vendors to the public or others who could make use of the trade secret information would likely preclude that information from being protected as a trade secret.
We also rely, in part, on patent law to protect our intellectual property in the U.S. and internationally. Our intellectual property portfolio includes over 232 issued patents, which expire between 2022 and 2038. We also have 59 patent applications pending examination in the U.S. and 7 patent applications pending examination in foreign jurisdictions, all of which are related to U.S. applications. We cannot predict whether such pending patent applications will result in issued patents or whether any issued patents will effectively protect our intellectual property. Even if a pending patent application results in an issued patent, the patent may be circumvented or its validity may be challenged in various proceedings in United States District Court or before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, such as Post Grant Review or Inter Partes Review, which may require legal representation and involve substantial costs and diversion of management time and resources. We have also acquired patents in connection with a strategic partnership that are currently pending assignment in their respective patent offices. In addition, we cannot assure you that every significant feature of our solutions is protected by our patents, or that we will mark our solutions with any or all patents they embody. As a result, we may be prevented from seeking injunctive relief or damages, in whole or in part for infringement of our patents.
The unlicensed use of our brand, including domain names, by third parties could harm our reputation, cause confusion among our customers and impair our ability to market our solutions and subscriptions. To that end, we have registered numerous trademarks and service marks and have applied for registration of additional trademarks and service marks and have acquired a large number of domain names in and outside the U.S. to establish and protect our brand names as part of our intellectual property strategy. If our applications receive objections or are successfully opposed by third parties, it will be difficult for us to prevent third parties from using our brand without our permission. Moreover, successful opposition to our applications might encourage third parties to make additional oppositions or commence trademark infringement proceedings against us, which could be costly and time consuming to defend against. If we are not successful in protecting our trademarks, our trademark rights may be diluted and subject to challenge or invalidation, which could materially and adversely affect our brand.
Despite our efforts to implement our intellectual property strategy, we may not be able to protect or enforce our proprietary rights in the U.S. or internationally (where effective intellectual property protection may be unavailable or limited). For example, we have entered into agreements containing confidentiality and invention assignment provisions in connection with the outsourcing of certain software development and quality assurance activities to third-party contractors located in Russia and Ukraine. We have also entered into an agreement containing a confidentiality provision with a third-party contractor located in the Philippines, where we have outsourced a significant portion of our customer support function. We cannot assure you that agreements with these third-party contractors or their agreements with their employees and contractors will adequately protect our proprietary rights in the applicable jurisdictions and foreign countries, as their respective laws may not protect proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the U.S. In addition, our competitors may independently develop technologies that are similar or superior to our technology, duplicate our technology in a manner that does not infringe our intellectual property rights or design around any of our patents. Furthermore, detecting and policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and resource-intensive. Moreover, litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others, or to defend against claims of infringement or invalidity. Such litigation, whether successful or not, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management time and resources and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our use of open source technology could impose limitations on our ability to commercialize our subscriptions.
We use open source software in our platform on which our subscriptions operate. There is a risk that the owners of the copyrights in such software may claim that such licenses impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to
market or provide our subscriptions. If such owners prevail in such claim, we could be required to make the source code for our proprietary software (which contains our valuable trade secrets) generally available to third parties, including competitors, at no cost, to seek licenses from third parties in order to continue offering our subscriptions, to re-engineer our technology, or to discontinue offering our subscriptions in the event re-engineering cannot be accomplished on a timely basis or at all, any of which could cause us to discontinue our subscriptions, harm our reputation, result in customer losses or claims, increase our costs or otherwise materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.
Risks Related to Our Class A Common Stock, Our Notes and Our Charter Provisions
The market price of our Class A common stock is likely to be volatile and could decline.
The stock market in general, and the market for SaaS and other technology-related stocks in particular, has been highly volatile. As a result, the market price and trading volume for our Class A Common Stock has been and may continue to be highly volatile, and investors in our Class A Common Stock may experience a decrease in the value of their shares, including decreases unrelated to our operating performance or prospects. Factors that could cause the market price of our Class A Common Stock to fluctuate significantly include:
•our operating and financial performance and prospects and the performance of other similar companies;
•our quarterly or annual earnings or those of other companies in our industry;
•conditions that impact demand for our subscriptions;
•the public’s reaction to our press releases, financial guidance, and other public announcements, and filings with the SEC;
•changes in earnings estimates or recommendations by securities or research analysts who track our Class A Common Stock;
•actual or perceived security breaches, or other privacy or cybersecurity incidents;
•market and industry perception of our success, or lack thereof, in pursuing our growth strategy;
•strategic actions by us or our competitors, such as acquisitions or restructurings;
•changes in government and other regulations;
•changes in accounting estimates,standards, policies, guidance, interpretations, or principles;
•arrival and departure of key personnel;
•sales of common stock by us, our investors, or members of our management team; and
•changes in general market, economic, and political conditions in the U.S. and global economies or financial markets, including those relatedresulting from natural disasters, telecommunications failure, cyber-attack, changes in diplomatic or trade relationships, civil unrest in various parts of the world, acts of war, terrorist attacks, or other catastrophic events, such as the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Any of these factors may result in large and sudden changes in the trading volume and market price of our Class A Common Stock and may prevent investors from being able to sell their shares at or above the recognitionprice they paid for their shares of subscription revenueour Class A Common Stock. Following periods of volatility in the market price of a company’s securities, stockholders often file securities class-action lawsuits against such company. Our involvement in a class-action lawsuit could divert our senior management’s attention and, other revenue sources,if adversely determined, could have a material and adverse effect on our operatingbusiness, financial condition, and results could be significantly affected.of operations.
Risks Related to Our Class A Common Stock, Our Convertible Senior Notes Due 2023 and Our Charter Provisions
The dual class structure of our common stock as contained in our charter documents has the effect of concentrating voting control with a limited number of stockholders that held our stock prior to our initial public offering, including our founders and our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, and venture capital investors, and limiting other stockholders’ ability to influence corporate matters.
Our Class B common stock, par value $0.0001 per share (“Class B Common Stock”), has 10 votes per share, and our Class A common stockCommon Stock has one vote per share. Stockholders who hold shares of Class B common stock,Common Stock, including our founders, previous investors and our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, together hold approximately 61%58% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, and our founders, including our CEO and Chairman, together hold a majority of such voting power. As a result, for the foreseeable future , our stockholders who acquired their shares prior to the completion of our initial public offering will continue to have significant influence over the management and affairs of our company and over the outcome of allmany matters submitted to our stockholders for approval, including the election of directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger, consolidation or sale of substantially all of our assets.
In addition, because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A Common Stock, the holders of Class B common stockCommon Stock collectively will continue to control allmany matters submitted to our stockholders for approval even if their stock holdings represent less than 50% of the outstanding shares of our common stock. Because of the ten-to-one voting ratio between our Class B and Class A common stock, the holders of our Class B common stock collectively will continue to control a majority of the combined voting power of our common stock so long as the shares of Class B common stock represent at least 10% of all outstanding shares of our Class A and Class B common stock. This concentrated control will limit your ability to influence corporate matters for the foreseeable future, and, as a result, the market price of our Class A common stockCommon Stock could be adversely affected.
Future transfers by holders of Class B common stockCommon Stock will generally result in those shares converting to Class A common stock,Common Stock, which willmay have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B common stockCommon Stock who retain their shares in the long term. If, for example, Mr. Shmunis retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stockCommon Stock for an extended period of time, he could, in the future, control a majority of the combined voting power of our Class A and Class B common stock.Common Stock. As a board member, Mr. Shmunis owes a fiduciary dutyduties to our stockholders and must act in good faith in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our stockholders. As a stockholder, even a controlling
stockholder, Mr. Shmunis is generally entitled to vote his shares in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally.
We have never paid cash dividends and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock.
We currently do not plan to declare dividends on shares of our common stock in the foreseeable future and plan to, instead, retain any earnings to finance our operations and growth. Because we have never paid cash dividends and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future, the only opportunity to achieve a return on an investor’s investment in our company will be if the market price of our Class A common stockCommon Stock appreciates and the investor sells its shares at a profit. There is no guarantee that the price of our Class A common stockCommon Stock that will prevail in the market will ever exceed the price that an investor pays.
If research analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they issue unfavorable commentary or downgrade our Class A common stock,Common Stock, our stock price and trading volume may decline.
The trading market for our Class A common stockCommon Stock will depend in part on the research and reports that research analysts publish about us and our business. If we do not maintain adequate research coverage or if one or more analysts who covers us downgrades our stock or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our Class A common stockCommon Stock may decline. If one or more of the research analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to publish reports on us regularly, demand for our Class A common stockCommon Stock may decrease, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.
We may not have the ability to raise the funds necessary to settle conversions of the convertible senior notes due 2023Notes in cash or to repurchase the notesNotes upon a fundamental change or pay the principal amount of the Notes at maturity, and our future debt may contain limitations on our ability to pay cash upon conversion or repurchase of the notes. Notes.
Holders of our 0% convertible senior notes due 2023 (the “Notes”)the either series of Notes will have the right to require us to repurchase all or a portion of theirsuch Notes upon the occurrence of a fundamental change before the applicable maturity date at a repurchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount of thesuch Notes to be repurchased, plus any accrued and unpaid special interest thereon, if any, as set forth in the applicable indenture governing the Notes. In addition, upon conversion of the Notes of the applicable series, unless we elect to deliver solely shares of our Class A common stockCommon Stock to settle such conversion (other than paying cash in lieu of delivering any fractional share), we will be required to make cash payments in respect of thesuch Notes being converted, as set forth in the applicable indenture governing the Notes. Moreover, we will be required to repay the Notes of the applicable series in cash at their respective maturity unless earlier converted, redeemed or repurchased. However, we may not have enough available cash on hand or be able to obtain financing at the time we are required to make repurchases of thesuch Notes surrendered therefor or pay cash with respect to thesuch series of Notes being converted or at their respective maturity.
In addition, our ability to repurchase the Notes of the applicable series or to pay cash upon conversions of the Notes or at their respective maturity may be limited by law, regulatory authority, or agreements governing our future indebtedness. Our failure to repurchase thesuch Notes at a time when the repurchase is required by the applicable indenture governing the Notes or to pay cash upon conversions of such Notes or at their respective maturity as required by the applicable indenture governing the Notes would constitute a default under such indenture. A default under such indenture, or the fundamental change itself, could also lead to a default under agreements governing our future indebtedness. Moreover, the occurrence of a fundamental change under the applicable indenture governing the Notes could constitute an event of default under any such agreement. If the paymentrepayment of the related indebtedness were to be accelerated after any applicable notice or grace periods, we may not have sufficient funds to repay the indebtedness.indebtedness and repurchase such series of Notes or make cash payments upon conversions thereof.
The conditional conversion feature of each series of Notes, if triggered, may adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.
In the event the conditional conversion feature of each series of Notes is triggered, holders of the Notes of the applicable series will be entitled under the applicable indenture governing the Notes to convert such Notes at any time during specified periods at their option. If one or more holders of a series elect to convert their Notes, unless we elect to satisfy our conversion obligation by delivering solely shares of our Class A common stock (other than paying cash in lieu of delivering any fractional share), we would be required to settle a portion or all of our conversion obligation in cash, which could adversely affect our liquidity. In addition, in certain circumstances, such as conversion by holders or redemption, we could be required under applicable accounting rules to reclassify all or a portion of the outstanding principal of such series of Notes as a current rather than long-term liability, which would result in a material reduction of our net working capital.
The capped call transactions in connection with the pricing of the Notes may affect the value of the Notes and our Class A common stock.Common Stock and we are subject to counterparty risk.
In connection with the pricingissuances of the Notes, we entered into capped call transactions with the counterparties.counterparties with respect to each series of Notes. The capped call transactions cover, subject to customary adjustments, the number of shares of our Class A common stockCommon Stock initially underlying theeach series of Notes. The capped call transactions are expected to offset the potential dilution as a result of conversion of the notes.
In connection with establishing their initial hedge of the capped call transactions, the counterparties or their respective affiliates entered into various derivative transactions with respect to our Class A common stock concurrently with or shortly after the pricing of the Notes, including with certain investors in the Notes.
In addition, theThe counterparties or their respective affiliates may modify their hedge positions by entering into or unwinding various derivatives with respect to our Class A common stockCommon Stock and/or purchasing or selling our Class A common stockCommon Stock or other securities of ours in secondary market transactions at any time prior to the respective maturity of the Notes (and are likely to do so on each
exercise date of the capped call transactions). This activity could also cause or prevent an increase or a decrease in the market price of our Class A common stock.Common Stock.
We do not make any representation or prediction as to the direction or magnitude of any potential effect that the transactions described above may have on the price of theeach series of Notes or the shares of our Class A common stock.Common Stock. In addition, we do not make any representation that these transactions will not be discontinued without notice.
In addition, the counterparties to the capped call transactions are financial institutions and we will be subject to the risk that one or more of the counterparties may default or otherwise fail to perform, or may exercise certain rights to terminate, their obligations under the capped call transactions. If a counterparty to one or more capped call transaction becomes subject to insolvency proceedings, we will become an unsecured creditor in those proceedings with a claim equal to our exposure at the time under such transaction. Our exposure will depend on many factors but, generally, it will increase if the market price or the volatility of our Class A Common Stock increases. Upon a default or other failure to perform, or a termination of obligations, by a counterparty, we may suffer adverse tax consequences and more dilution than we currently anticipate with respect to our Class A Common Stock. We can provide no assurances as to the financial stability or viability of the counterparties.
Anti-takeover provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws and under Delaware corporate law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our Class A common stock.Common Stock.
Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws include provisions that:
•authorize our board of directors to issue, without further action by the stockholders, up to 100,000,000 shares of undesignated preferred stock;
•require that, once our outstanding shares of Class B common stockCommon Stock represent less than a majority of the combined voting power of our common stock, any action to be taken by our stockholders be effected at a duly called annual or special meeting and not by written consent; specify that special meetings of our stockholders can be called only by our board of directors, the Chairman of our board of directors, or our Chief Executive Officer;
•establish an advance notice procedure for stockholder proposals to be brought before an annual meeting, including proposed nominations of persons for election to our board of directors;
•prohibit cumulative voting in the election of directors;
•provide that our directors may be removed only for cause, subject to such amendment as provided in our current proxy statement;
•provide that vacancies on our board of directors may be filled only by a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum;
•require the approval of our board of directors or the holders of a supermajority of our outstanding shares of capital stock to amend our bylaws and certain provisions of our certificate of incorporation; and
•reflect two classes of common stock, as discussed above.
These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder.
Item 2. Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds.
None.
Item 3. Default Upon Senior Securities
None.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
None.
Item 5. Other Information
None.
Item 6. Exhibits.
The exhibits listed in the accompanying Exhibit Index are filed or incorporated by reference as part of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
EXHIBIT
INDEX
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Exhibit Number | | Description | | Incorporated by Reference From Form | | Incorporated by Reference From Exhibit Number | | Date Filed |
| | | | | | | | |
Exhibit
Number 31.1 | | Description | | Incorporated by
Reference From
Form
| | Incorporated
by Reference
From Exhibit
Number
| | Date Filed |
| | | | | | | | |
31.1 | | | | Filed herewith | | | | |
31.2 | | | | Filed herewith | | | | |
32.1* | | | | Furnished herewith | | | | |
32.2* | | | | Furnished herewith | | | | |
101.INS | | XBRL Instance Document - the instance document does not appear in the Interactive Data File because its XBRL tags are embedded within the Inline XBRL document. | | Filed herewith | | | | |
101.SCH | | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document | | Filed herewith | | | | |
101.CAL | | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document | | Filed herewith | | | | |
101.DEF | | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document | | Filed herewith | | | | |
101.LAB | | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document | | Filed herewith | | | | |
101.PRE | | XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document | | Filed herewith | | | | |
104 | | Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101). | | Filed herewith | | | | |
___________________________
| |
* | The certifications furnished in Exhibits 32.1 and 32.2 hereto are deemed to accompany this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and will not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such certifications will not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any filings under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, except to the extent that the registrant specifically incorporates it by reference. |
*The certifications furnished in Exhibits 32.1 and 32.2 hereto are deemed to accompany this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and will not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such certifications will not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any filings under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, except to the extent that the registrant specifically incorporates it by reference.
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.
| | | | | | | | |
| RingCentral, Inc. | |
| | |
| RingCentral, Inc. |
| | |
Date: August 8, 201910, 2020 | By: | /s/ Mitesh Dhruv |
| | Mitesh Dhruv |
| | Chief Financial Officer (Principal Financial Officer) |
| | |
| | |
Date: August 8, 201910, 2020 | By: | /s/ Vaibhav Agarwal |
| | Vaibhav Agarwal |
| | Chief Accounting Officer (Principal Accounting Officer)
|
| | |