Mitcham Industries Inc Q4 2012 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Veny Aleksandrov - Pritchard Capital - Analyst : Good morning, Bill and Rob. Needless to say, congratulations. My first question is on the US. You had a very strong quarter in Q4. You're guiding to strength internationally next year and you're saying that you're confident with the US, but what do you see in Q1? Do you see any slowdown in activity?

Question: Veny Aleksandrov - Pritchard Capital - Analyst : As far as the US. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies.

Question: Veny Aleksandrov - Pritchard Capital - Analyst : Thank you, and talking about Q1, I understand that you had some repositioning and some softness in some regions but at the same time, you have two months contribution from Canada and from Russia from their winters. So costs will probably be a little bit up and some softness but you have strength in these two regions, so can we think about at least flat results with Q4 and probably a slight improvement?

Question: Veny Aleksandrov - Pritchard Capital - Analyst : Perfect, just wanted to clarify that. My last question is on the Seamap. You're talking about a very strong order book and it's a combination probably of new equipment and some maintenance parts. Is this correct?

Question: Veny Aleksandrov - Pritchard Capital - Analyst : Okay, thank you. So it's probably going to be stronger than -- thank you. Thank you so much. These are my questions.

Question: Novid Rassouli - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : Bill, Rob, fantastic quarter. Congrats, guys. So a couple questions. It seems like ever since you guys entered South America, demand has just been very robust. You've been continually adding channels there; I think you're up to about 35,000 now. I'm just curious if you guys see a point of saturation or if it could still take another 10,000, 15,000 channels? Just wanting to get some color in that region.

Question: Novid Rassouli - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : And how is Europe different than South America? Could we see Europe mimicking South America? I know it's much earlier there in the cycle for them and they're just getting rolling. I was wondering if you could give us kind of a timeline of what we might see unfold in Europe?

Question: Novid Rassouli - Sidoti & Company - Analyst : Great. Thanks for taking the questions, guys. I appreciate it.

Question: Georg Venturatos - Johnson Rice & Company - Analyst : Just wanted to touch a little bit on the Canadian and Russian winter season, if we could get a little more detail on maybe how many channels were deployed there and just maybe some timing on when we really got that winter season kicked off and how long it might last?

Question: Georg Venturatos - Johnson Rice & Company - Analyst : Okay, great, and just on channel preference and what you've seen from customers, has there been more of a desire for multi-component type channels with higher resolution in the shale plays? Or any particular increase over the last couple quarters to cable-less channels that you have through UNITE?

Question: Georg Venturatos - Johnson Rice & Company - Analyst : Okay, great, and then lastly just on Seamap. And you touched on this, just the slight downtick sequentially in margin. It sounds like that's mostly of a lower proportion of revenue coming from that high margin aftermarket business. How should we kind of expect that to look out to next year? I'd imagine we should see some fluctuations on a quarterly basis but should we continue to expect maybe higher margins than what we saw in Q4?

Question: Georg Venturatos - Johnson Rice & Company - Analyst : Great. That's what I thought. Appreciate the answers, guys.

Question: Tyson Bauer - Kansas City Capital - Analyst : Great job, gentlemen. Quick question. You talked about a strong Q1 for the Seamap sales. Have you made deliveries of systems or have planned deliveries of systems that you could elaborate on relative to what you delivered in Q4? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies.

Question: Tyson Bauer - Kansas City Capital - Analyst : Okay, are you looking as you enter into fiscal '13 a better backlog of systems on order than you started fiscal 2012?

Question: Tyson Bauer - Kansas City Capital - Analyst : And you talked about the Gulf of Mexico reinitiating activity. Any other particular areas or anything that you're seeing that's really driving that and is this a multi-year growth cycle that you're seeing on the marine side?

Question: Tyson Bauer - Kansas City Capital - Analyst : Okay, but no particular regions that you highlight?

Question: Tyson Bauer - Kansas City Capital - Analyst : Thanks a lot and looking for a better Q1 than Q4 and more records ahead.