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ADT Inc. (NYSE: ADT)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call
May. 7, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings and welcome to the ADT First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Jason Smith. Thank you. You may begin.
Jason Smith -- Investor Relations
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us for ADT's First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. This afternoon we issued a press release and a slide presentation on our quarterly results. Both are available on our website at investor.adt.com.
Our remarks today will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters we described in our press release issued this afternoon and our filings with the SEC.
Please note that all forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and we disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. During today's call we will make reference to non-GAAP financial measures. Our historical and forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures include special items, which are difficult to predict and mainly dependent upon future uncertainties. For a complete reconciliation of historical non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures, please refer to our press release issued this afternoon and our slide presentation, both of which are available on our website at investor.adt.com and on the SEC website.
Joining me on today's call are our President and CEO, Jim DeVries; our CFO, Jeff Likosar. Also joining us and available for Q&A is Don Young, our CIO and EVP of Field Operations.
I'll now turn the call over to Jim.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Jason. And welcome everyone to this evening's call. I'm pleased to bring you up to date on our progress across a number of fronts. Let's start with our first quarter results, which included total revenue growth of 11% or 4% excluding the Red Hawk acquisition. This top line growth was driven by increased residential interactive penetration and the higher associated average prices, improved trailing 12-month attrition and higher installation revenues in our existing commercial businesses, which further benefited from Red Hawk.
Our adjusted EBITDA at $621 million was modestly improved year-over-year despite approximately $17 million of favorable legal settlements in the prior year's quarter, which we were able to offset with higher revenue and continued strong execution on cost efficiencies. Our free cash flow before special items was also strong at $171 million, our best performance on this important measure since the first quarter of 2018. These results were driven by our focus on key operating metrics or KPIs which during the first quarter continued to show year-over-year improvement.
Our gross revenue attrition on a trailing 12-month basis was 13.3% which consistent with our guidance for the year and in conjunction with our acquisition of LifeShield excludes the effect of attrition from existing and new DIY customers. This compares to 13.6% in the first quarter of last year. Including DIY customers would have added 6 basis points to our attrition. While attrition improvement remains a key focus area for us, we did not make sequential progress during the first quarter nor as much year-over-year progress as we would like due partially to tough comparison resulting from a strong prior-year Q1 performance, which I mentioned on our last call. Attrition improvement will not always be linear, and we expect improvement ahead as we continue to emphasize high quality customer selection and superior customer service in all aspects of our business.
We also saw improvement in our customer revenue payback which at 2.4 years on a trailing 12-month basis was an improvement relative to 2.5 years in the year-earlier period. This marks our seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement.
During the quarter, we continued to drive efficient RMR additions of approximately $12 million excluding wholesale customers. Our total SAC in the quarter was up 3%, driven by higher capitalized SAC from dealer account purchases, some advertising investment and a higher volume of interactive customer upgrades and add-ons. Higher upgrade and add-on activity is in part a reflection of increasing consumer awareness both of home automation solutions and of the tremendous potential of ADT Pulse, and now ADT Command and Control at the center of home automation. Upgrades also allow us the opportunity to marginally reduce the number of 3G radios, we would otherwise have to replace.
And speaking of 3G, since receiving notice of the 3G sunset in February, we have made good progress advancing our conversion strategy, which includes piloting various upgrade approaches during the next few months. As we learn from these activities we will formulate a more definitive upgrade plan to minimize the near-term cost while maximizing the lifetime value of our customer base and we will share more detail with you on our next call. As we move further into 2019, we expect to drive higher installation revenues and cost efficiencies while looking to balance our profitability, cash flow goals and invest in our customer base.
I'd like to share two brief examples of how we expect to balance and achieve those objectives as we enhance our go-to-market approach for residential during 2019. First, this quarter, we successfully completed our national launch of our newest home automation system ADT Command and Control. As a reminder, ADT Command is our innovative wireless panel with extensive smart home capabilities while ADT Control is the interactive application that allows customers to protect and automate their homes from anywhere at any time. Utilizing the first month of results from the national rollout and the results of our pilot rollout in the Southeastern United States, we've been able to draw some initial, but highly encouraging conclusions.
Command and Control has resulted in a slightly higher RPU, larger total system sizes and higher associated installation revenue along with some positive signs for installation efficiency. We also see a stronger take rate trend for our interactive services including a very strong video adoption rate with Command. The percent of our total revenue base using interactive services has now surpassed 40%. I encourage you to view our quarterly slide presentation for more background on Command and Control as well as the more disclosure on our interactive customer base.
The second example. In April, we launched a pilot program in five cities with Citizens Financial Group as part of their merchant partnership platform. Under this consumer financing arrangement, consumers will be able to finance the upfront costs of becoming an ADT customer, which we believe has favorable long-term growth and capital efficiency implications for us. As we measure the pilot's success, we plan on expanding the program.
Now I'd like to turn to our commercial business, which is expanding nicely and has received an additional boost from our December acquisition of Red Hawk. As a reminder, Red Hawk brought to ADT an expanded product portfolio, an extended geographic reach and nationwide customer service capabilities. During the quarter, we experienced continued strong commercial revenue growth, both with and without Red Hawk. Additionally, we sold our first joint fire and security contract for a large national retailer with over 1,000 stores. As a result of this strong growth, our revenue from business customers now accounts for approximately 27% of total revenue. Again, you can refer to our latest quarterly slide presentation for more disclosure around ADT Commercial. Another of our strategic initiatives is our penetration of the do-it-yourself or DIY market as another way to leverage the ADT brand and reputation. In February, we announced the acquisition of LifeShield, a pioneer advanced wireless home security systems that will serve as a platform for us to address the approximately 80% of US households that do not have professionally installed and monitored home security. We're excited about the long-term potential of LifeShield and look forward to sharing more in the future as we develop this business.
Rounding out our update on strategic pursuits, last year we announced the expansion of our relationship with Amazon. As a reminder, this involves supporting the integration of Amazon's Alexa Guard feature with ADT's professionally installed security and automation systems, helping our customers enhance their home security via audio detection when they're away from home. As such, this partnership extends our footprint in the security and automation space and potentially opens up new sales and marketing opportunities for us. Through our continued close work with Amazon, we are looking forward to a second quarter launch date.
In summary, our year is off to a great start and we are reaffirming the full-year guidance ranges we shared during our March call. We're excited by our many strategic endeavors that leverage our strengths and serve to diversify our business while adding to our growth profile.
I'll now turn the call over to Jeff to walk us through our financial performance in greater detail.
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Jim, and thanks everyone for joining our call today. During the next few minutes I will share a little more perspective on our financial results and outlook, summarize our recent capital structure enhancements, highlight a couple of other items and then we will open the call for Q&A.
As Jim mentioned, our first quarter reflects the solid start to the year with revenue growth of 11% or 4% excluding the December acquisition of Red Hawk. We were able to grow EBITDA slightly despite approximately $17.5 million of favorable legal settlements in the prior-year quarter. And our free cash flow, before special items, continues to be robust at $171 million for the quarter.
Our top line performance included monitoring and services revenue growth of 5% driven by a combination of Red Hawk's contribution along with higher average prices and better attrition. Installation and other revenue grew more than 70% driven by our expanding commercial business. In addition to the contribution of Red Hawk and smaller tuck-in acquisitions, we also continued to see strong commercial growth on an organic basis. As Jim mentioned, our latest 12-month gross revenue attrition was 13.3% exclusive of DIY customers. This compares to 13.6% in the year-ago figure, driven by higher-quality customer base and our strong focus on customer service.
Our trailing 12 months revenue payback improved to 2.4 years due to higher installation revenue and our focus on efficient sales and installation spend as well as other productivity actions we've undertaken. Our net subscriber acquisition costs were up approximately $11 million or 3% driven mainly by capitalized SAC due to an increase in dealer and bulk generated account purchases along with higher upgrades and add-on volume and some increases in advertising expenditures. Our end-of-period RMR increased by $13 million to $349 million, reflecting a 4% increase over the prior-year period or 2% excluding Red Hawk.
Turning to the balance sheet. We are pleased with some enhancements we have made to our capital structure during the first few months of this year. Specifically, we redeemed $300 million of second-lien notes in February. Then in April, we issued $1.5 billion of new first-lien notes, which we used to repay $1 billion of second-lien notes and $0.5 billion of our term loan. This will generate more than $35 million of annualized interest savings. Additionally we swapped $725 million of variable rate debt to fixed debt. We will continue to explore financing opportunities incremental to these to reduce our interest expense, defer maturities and/or reduce debt, all of which will depend on market conditions and other capital structure considerations.
From a capital allocation standpoint, we completed the acquisitions of LifeShield and Advanced Cabling Systems during the quarter for total aggregate consideration of approximately $54 million in cash. We also initiated the share repurchase program we described during our last call, under which we bought back approximately 3.3 million shares for $22 million during the month of March. Our remaining authorization for future share repurchases was approximately $128 million at quarter-end. We expect to continue our repurchase activities during the second quarter. While the timing and amount of our share repurchases will depend on a variety of factors, we continue to believe that share repurchases at recent trading levels represent a compelling capital investment opportunity for the Company given our strong free cash flow and multi-pronged growth strategy that builds on our leadership position in the industry. As such, our rate of repurchases may increase.
Subsequent to the quarter in April, we paid a dividend of $0.035 per share of which we paid roughly $4 million in cash and issued approximately $23 million in shares under the DRIP program we announced during our last earnings call.
Earlier today we declared a second quarter dividend payable on July 2nd to shareholders of record on June the 11th. Similar to the first quarter, Apollo has informed us of their intent to receive their dividend in shares under the DRIP program. We ended the quarter with a net leverage ratio defined as total net debt over-trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA of 4.0 times and a 93% to 7% fixed to variable debt ratio. Pro forma for our capital structure activities subsequent to the quarter to these same metrics stood at 4.1 times and 98% fixed to 2% variable. We now have only $1.3 billion of debt maturing before the year 2022 and we continue to view our capital structure as a source of strength.
As for our overall 2019 outlook, it remains our intention to drive balanced revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow growth while also making strategic investments to enhance our future growth prospects as we described a couple of months ago. As Jim mentioned, our 2019 guidance is unchanged from what we shared in March and I'd invite you to view our quarterly presentation for details on the various elements of our outlook. I'd also like to remind everyone of the investment priorities we described on our last call. These include positioning our DIY platform for growth following the acquisition of LifeShield, selective brand investments to further enhance ADT's position as a leader in home automation and security, the integration of Red Hawk and some investments in our own organic sales engine to establish a leading commercial platform. Our investment in these areas was light during the first quarter, but we expect it to pick up beginning in the second quarter through the rest of the year. These investments are contemplated in our 2019 full-year guidance.
Before we open the call to Q&A, I'd like to briefly mention a few other items you will be able to read more about in our 10-Q, as well as some other housekeeping items. The first is that on a GAAP basis, our first quarter 2019 loss per share was $0.09, which included a loss on extinguishment of debt of $22 million related to the $300 million second lien redemption.
Second, beginning this year, I want to point out that we will no longer provide the non-GAAP metric of adjusted net income. Published media articles have often made incorrect comparisons containing this measure and after proactively considering various solutions we have decided that we will no longer be providing this metric. For per share results comparisons we have previously and we will continue to report GAAP EPS and GAAP EPS before special items.
Third, as a reminder, our full year guidance excludes 3G replacement costs and other special items. As Jim mentioned, we expect to share more on our 3G to LTE conversion plans as we assess the results of the various pilot approaches we are testing during the second quarter.
Finally, I want to call out that after our successful refinancing transactions in April, we expect our cash interest expense for the full year to be roughly $570 million. The quarterly timing of cash interest will remain similar to the prior year through the first half with second quarter cash interest, much higher than the first quarter's. During the second half cash interest will be more evenly distributed between the third and fourth quarters.
Based on this higher second quarter cash interest, seasonally higher SAC spend in the summer months and the timing of other cash expenditures, we would expect the quarterly phasing of our free cash flow before special items to be the lowest in the second quarter of this year relative to the other quarters in 2019.
So in conclusion, we are encouraged by our strong start to the year in our core financial metrics, and by the enhancements we've made to our capital structure during the first few months of 2019. We are excited by the opportunities in front of us for the rest of this year and beyond.
With that, I want to again thank you for joining us today. And now, Jim, Don, and I would be happy to take your questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Great. Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
George Tong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Good afternoon. Attrition improvement you've indicated will not always be linear. Can you talk about the puts and takes that could affect the trajectory of attrition improvement this year specifically?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, George. Thanks for the question. Last year on our earnings call, I think we talked about Q1 2018 and it included our best month ever on attrition. And so on the one hand it's important to acknowledge that our year-over-year comparison is difficult, but no excuses. We would have liked to have seen more progress in the first quarter. And to your question, progress won't always be linear. But we continue to be confident in our ability to drive improvement. Four or five factors that will influence that improvement. Some of which we've mentioned on the calls in the past; data analytics, voice analytics, we still think there's some opportunity in our traditional playbook everything from variance performance management, to improve save rates, to higher capture rates. We're optimistic about the progress in Canada and we think lastly that there is more opportunity to improve our overall service levels.
We think that the service levels are markedly improved from the past. But they are not to the world-class levels that we think we can drive and as a result of that improved service level we think that can round out additional improvements on the attrition front.
George Tong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Got it. Very helpful. And as a follow-up, you'd indicated you're planning to launch with Amazon in the second quarter. Could you elaborate on what this launch will entail and how you expect the partnership to have an economic impact on the financial model?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
You bet. I will share what I can about Amazon. We have a agreement with Amazon which sets parameters on precisely what we can share, but I'll try to speak to your question and provide some more color. I'll start with just a moment reminding everyone that through an Echo device today we've had deep integration with Alexa Voice for our customers that are in the home. Voice commands for the Pulse system have been in place since 2017. And now we're rolling out with our Command and Control system additional use of Echo via the Alexa Guard when the customer is out of the home. In terms of an update, our teams continue to work closely with Amazon engineers. We have extraordinarily high safety standards and security standards. We and Amazon share those high standards. We've been working to ensure that from a product perspective, this is locked down tight and we're at a stage where we have been trialing product with great customer feedback, and we're at a stage, George, where we're looking forward to a Q2 launch. We feel good about the launch. We haven't shared specific economics precisely what we think it can deliver, but we feel good about the partnership. We remain upbeat about the co-marketing and promotional opportunity working together with Amazon.
George Tong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Got it. Thank you.
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
And George, it's Jeff. To your specific question about how you see it in the financial model, ultimately it's another sales and marketing channel for us. So it's that and then it gives us that much more of a comprehensive offering to take to our customer base in concert with Amazon's customer base.
George Tong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Perfect. Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Manav Patnaik from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Manav Patnaik -- Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst
Thank you. Good evening guys. I just wanted to ask Jim maybe if you could walk us through the -- how the pilot with the Citizens Financial is going? Like how that -- how you see that benefiting you guys, just the mechanics there because it obviously has helped one of your competitors. So I was just curious when that could be beyond pilot and how that would impact you guys.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, you bet Manav. Thanks. And I will -- I'll just offer a headline on the Citizens pilot. We're excited about it. I think we're in five markets we've just launched. And the executive that is leading that work is Jeff Likosar and he's probably best positioned to answer your question. So I'll ask to -- I'll ask Jeff to chime in.
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, thanks, Manav. So with Citizens the concept is to use a third-party financing source. We've talked a little bit in the past about the fact that we've been evaluating changes to our offer or pricing structure for some time in response to consumer needs changing a bit, technology evolving with really two objectives. So one objective is to drive lower net subscriber acquisition costs by collecting more revenue at the time of install. And then the second objective is to be able to sell a richer mix of stuff, more devices to the average customer that go beyond core security to automation and other ancillary kinds of devices, without having to subsidize. So what that really means is seeking to collect more revenue at the time of install. We've been piloting a variety of ways to do this during most of last year, including some financing options that we've financed ourselves using our own balance sheet. So what we recently did is in five pilot market plug Citizens into those markets so that we're able to offer customers that meet the credit requirements a third-party financing source and it's too early to draw conclusions because we are only a couple weeks into it, but we're very encouraged by the opportunity and what we've seen so far. But the net of this is lower subscriber acquisition cost over time by shifting some more of the install cost to the consumer instead of subsidized by us.
Manav Patnaik -- Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst
Okay, got it. And then just maybe broadly. I mean, I understand the attrition improvement is not going to be linear, but is there kind of some sort of a target or longer-term range to think about where you could get to?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Tough one to answer with specificity, Manav. There have been times in the past where best-in-class organizations were in that 11% or 12% range. It's, I would say, highly dependent on mix. National accounts, as I think you know, tends to have a very low attrition rate. Commercial tends to be a bit lower than residential, but at some stage of the game we'd be targeting those longer-term sort of best-in-class rates in that 11% to 12% range.
Manav Patnaik -- Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst
All right. Thank you, guys.
Operator
Our next question is from Toni Kaplan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Toni Kaplan -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Thanks very much. Jim, you mentioned that you are analyzing different approaches for the 3G conversion and Jeff, I know you mentioned at the (ph) and that you will share the results when you have them. But I just wanted to understand -- make sure I understood correctly, does that mean that you couldn't be adding some incremental expense for that this year that's not included in the guidance, is that fair or is that reading too much into it?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Toni I'll give you a little bit of context on 3G and Jeff if I miss anything, please jump in here. So in terms of the kinds of things that we're testing, we're really looking at 3G as part of a broader upgrade strategy and we are testing, I think in eight different markets a handful of pricing alternatives, product alternatives, different packages to see what is most effective with resulting conversions. Everything that we're doing so far, Toni, has been while you were there on work. So in other words, we will service this year something in the neighborhood of a little north of 2 million customers. And while we are doing service calls for existing customers, we think that's the opportune time to do a radio upgrade. So the work to date has been, as I said, has been part of a broader upgrade strategy and embedded in the service call process testing different price points and product offerings to see what's most effective for us. Jeff, do you have anything to add?
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I would just add, our objective is to minimize the cost to us by getting certain of our customers to help offset a portion of that cost and in some cases just by replacing the radio, in other cases by upgrading the customer to a new system and because we're just out with this brand new Command and Control system, it's early days testing receptivity to that as an upgrade offer and then it's early days testing the while we're there anyway price that we might be able to charge a customer as part of upgrading just the radio. And as I said in my prepared remarks, we did not build any costs associated with that into our 2019 guidance. It's possible that there will be some in 2019. We have three years to work our way through this and as we digest the results from these pilots, we will be able to share more on our next call.
Toni Kaplan -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. And then my second question, just given that China tariffs are in the news again, can you remind us what kind of risk you see there, like basically what percent of your cost come from suppliers that might ultimately source their products from China? Just what's the sort of exposure to that? Thank you.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure, Toni. The exposure -- we've worked in a more or less continuous basis with our procurement group. The exposure as a result of the tariffs are de minimis for us.
Toni Kaplan -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
The next question is from Jeffrey Kessler from Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst
Can you go through a little bit more on the Citizens -- I am sorry -- on the Citizens action because right now I've got my assistant probably asking the exact same question to your competitor who is having their conference call at the same time here. It appears that they've been able to -- they've been able to already do the things that you're trying to do. Is there something that is different about -- what types of tweaks and what types of differences do you think you would have than not necessarily your competitor but then, let's call it, other companies in doing what you're doing with Citizens? And also, are you talking to Citizens about what the potential exposure that they have to in terms of attrition and things like that as you get -- as you get more and more into the -- as you get more and more into the weeds over time with regard to how many customers are trading who have been financed by Citizens?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, thanks, Jeff. I'll share a couple of more comments. So I mentioned earlier that our main motivation here is reducing the cost of taking on new subscribers, reducing the cash out of pocket. We also see an opportunity to upgrade more customers either at the time of initial sale selling them more -- more widgets as I described a moment ago, but also over the life of that customer. So at the end of a customer's contract, for example, you're having access to a credit line. We're encouraged that over customer lifetime will lead to more upgrade opportunities. We're also encouraged by the attrition characteristic of customers who use third-party financing for a couple of reasons. One is they have a relationship with a bank that we think is likely to reduce non-payment behavior in some cases and secondly because we expect we can sell those customers more components to their system that will interact with the system and use the system more which is also associated with improved attrition. As for the differences between us and our competitors, I'm not going to comment. And of course Citizens is limited in the information that they share with us. But I would say that some structural differences between us and other participants. A is we have a larger existing customer base than anyone else. Consequently, B, we have certain customers who are reinstating equipment or using equipment already in the home. So that leads to some slightly different characteristics. And then relative to other participants in the industry, we have more customers who are in -- who we're taking on as part of relocation process. Those are all opportunities with Citizens as well, but just responding to your question, there were (ph) some things that are better different. I'd say those are somewhat different compared to other players in the industry.
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst
Okay. I've got about 10 questions for Don. But since I'm not going to ask them now, just let me get to one other thing. That is you mentioned above with regard to, I guess attrition and just general financial results. Three words, progress in Canada. I have not heard the word -- I have not heard the phrase progress in Canada since this company was sold to Tyco in 1997. What is going on in Canada right now that gives you the confidence that good things are actually finally happening in Canada?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Jeff, it's Jim. I'll give it a shot at answering your question. Progress in Canada, so a little bit of a recap for those on the call. Canada represents about 5% of our revenues. Over the course of the last two, three years, we've had relatively less focus on Canada compared to the United States. We're confident that the playbook that we've deployed in the US will be successful in Canada. We've installed a new leader in Canada with turnaround experience and the team is off to a good start. We know that Canada will be a drag on our EBITDA for 2019 on a year-over-year basis. But from the early signs on attrition, early signs on mitigating the EBITDA headwind, focus on positioning the business for a turnaround, there is some good progress that has been made in Canada and I would say we're bullish, Jeff, that that progress will continue.
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Kevin McVeigh from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Kevin McVeigh -- Credit Suisse AG -- Analyst
Great, thank you. Hey. Any thoughts as to what drove the Q1 upside in EBITDA? It was obviously a nice result there. Was it less loss than kind of the DIY or just better fundamentals, just any thoughts around that?
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I'd tell you. Kevin, the key drivers of EBITDA are the drop-through of revenue of course and we did a nice job in the quarter relative to our internal plans just executing on spend across the Company, really across most functions of the Company. No one specific thing I would call out, but across the board we executed well from a cost perspective. So it's the revenue drop through and cost execution.
Kevin McVeigh -- Credit Suisse AG -- Analyst
Got it. And then just within the context (inaudible) you don't have any Amazon benefit in the '19 guidance. So anything you saw would be incremental. Is that fair?
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
It's fair. I think we have a very small lead flow that's built in, Kevin, but it's a modest number and any meaningful pickup for Amazon would be all upside. So I think it's fair to answer your question, we view it as a call option, it's upside for us.
Kevin McVeigh -- Credit Suisse AG -- Analyst
Cool. And then just real quick, on the attrition improvement, Jim, the 30 bps, is there any way to think about the split, how much was credit versus operational or was it all kind of just operational improvement that reduced it or just any thoughts around that?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Year-over-year the 30 bps improvement, I would say, at this stage of the game, Kevin, is principally the tailwind that we have on attrition at this point is principally through service improvements, much of the credit checking has sort of worked its way to through the system. The exception to that, I would say, would be Canada where it's maybe a little bit more of a -- of an even mix between the two from an attribution perspective. But I'd say at this stage of the game, we're starting to see more of an impact on the service side than the credit checking and the smart growth that we implemented a couple of years ago.
Kevin McVeigh -- Credit Suisse AG -- Analyst
Super. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Gary Bisbee from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.
Gary Bisbee -- BofA Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Hey, guys. Good evening. So I guess first question on the commercial business, you've got a slide here showing a bit more detail and how should we think about the growth prospects over time there? Is that 8% organic revenue growth in the quarter in commercial -- is that a reasonable run rate assumption of what you think you can deliver over time?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
We want our commercial growth strategy to continue to include bolt-on type acquisitions along with organic growth. We expect commercial to grow more quickly than our residential business. We haven't guided to a particular growth number. But, when you look at what we've said for the full-year guidance, we would expect commercial to be on the higher end of that range or even above the total Company's full-year guidance range and the residential to be on the lower end. So we're really excited by the 8% organic growth in addition to the inorganic growth you see.
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. And just to layer on a little bit, Gary, we're super optimistic about commercial. The revenue number, the organic revenue number that we put on the board in the first quarter, we feel good about but not unimportantly the backlog is very strong as well. And -- so the pipeline continues to grow. The opportunity to take share is based on service and that's right in our wheelhouse. And so I'd say is we are here in early May, we're incredibly optimistic about the commercial business.
Gary Bisbee -- BofA Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Okay, thanks. And then for the Command and Control offering, how does that from both pricing and for you a cost perspective compared to the Pulse system and even more broadly, your sort of legacy offerings? Are you getting more revenue and is there any discernible difference in cost structure? Thanks.
Don Young -- Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, Field Operations
Gary, this is Don. Yeah, thanks for that question. So we're seeing a little bit of a revenue uplift. It's so new, it's tough to go in and forecast a measure going forward. But on average on par, it's a little bit more than what we've seen with Pulse. From a cost standpoint, it's early. So we're obviously having to adopt. But on the sales side, we're at 90% adoption, which is really an incredible number to hit this early in the game. And on the install side, we're actually at the high 80% of our range for installing the same system that was actually sold. So another number that compares very favorably to what we attempted to do in 2014 when we rolled out the predecessor to the command panel called TS. As far as the installation timing, that's also so far showing itself to be fairly impressive. It was about four months for us to kind of hit our stride with the TS costs for installing. We are already at that stride and month one with the Command and Control. So, a lot more to learn and a lot more to share with what our costs will level out to, but right now we are really excited about what it looks like out of the gate.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And one thing I'd add that we're encouraged by as well that ties into what I was describing on pricing is that it's just a better product and because it's a better product customers are more excited to buy it and we're encouraged by early signs of the potential to sell the customers more components that goes with it, which we think long term has the opportunity to drive better customer retention over time too, because again the more the customers use the system the more likely they are to stick with it. So a lot of -- it's very early, but we're very excited and encouraged by the initial response.
Gary Bisbee -- BofA Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Peter Christiansen from Citi. Please go ahead.
Andrew -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst
Hey guys. This is Andrew (ph) on for Pete. How are you?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good, Andrew.
Andrew -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst
Hey, so just wanted to ask you about the growth in revenues. I mean even ex Red Hawk, it saw a nice acceleration in that growth. Could you guys just give some more color as to what's really driving that?
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, well, for us our revenue is a combination as you know of monitoring and service revenue and install revenue. And obviously install revenue is what's driving the growth rate off of a smaller base and the key driver there is the acquisition that you already described, especially Red Hawk within the strong organic growth we were talking about just a couple of moments ago. On the monitoring and service side, the key to growing monitoring service is the quantity of customers we have and the price of those customers. On average, as you know, we focus mainly on the RMR. So it's really the recurring monthly revenue base and the driver there is the improved attrition that we have talked about, along with increases in higher average pricing. And the increases in higher average pricing largely are attributable to shifting the mix towards service levels that include more components, more service with the service level, more video, more automation, which again is tied into the transition towards the larger percentage of our customer base having automated type services. So we feel good about where we are on the top line overall.
Andrew -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst
Okay. Now that's helpful. And with regards to LifeShield, now that you've had a full quarter with that acquisition, is there anything that kind of stands out more now than it did prior and are you still planning for that around $20 million in investment through the -- throughout the year?
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Andrew, I am not sure what stands out materially different than what we knew a couple of months ago. I'd say that the team is outstanding. We continue to be incredibly excited about this opportunity. As you likely know this is -- we are going after the 80% of the market who don't have a pro installed customer. As we redirect leads either for customers that are out of our footprint or who don't meet our credit standards, the recycling of those leads is proving to be an opportunity with LifeShield. We've launched e-commerce. We're testing into brand and marketing decisions. And especially through the lens of a customer lifetime value, we continue to be bullish about the DIY market. In terms of specific things we know today that we didn't know before, I've probably been in the realm of marketing insights or brand insights that we're testing, but probably wouldn't have detail that we share on the call on that front.
Andrew -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst
Appreciate the color. Thanks guys.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question from Seth Weber from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey, good afternoon guys.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Seth.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hi. I was intrigued to hear about the cross selling between the fire and the security business. I mean is there any more color you can give us there, how aggressively you're pushing that, do you have special sales guys kind of going after those types of accounts or how big do you think that opportunity could be for you? Thanks.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Seth, I will offer a couple of comments and then ask Don to weigh in as well. At a high level, the answer is yeah, we were going after this market hard. The win we had on the 1,400 store customer was a takeover. It was a revenue synergy that would not have occurred had we not had Red Hawk and fire products in our -- as another arrow in our quiver. They're not necessarily specialized sales folks, but they are commercial sales reps who are intimately familiar with fire that are going after this market.
The biggest opportunity for us tends to be in our national account business, where we will go after this cross-sell opportunity. I don't know if Don -- if you had anything to add?
Don Young -- Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, Field Operations
Yeah, everything that Jim said, Seth, but also the engineering province that we gain with the Red Hawk acquisition was really important plug a necessary hole for us to get a seat at the table with the decision makers at some of these customer headquarter location, the national accounts players right down the fairway with that opportunity for us.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Super. That's helpful, thanks. And then just as follow-up, I think I heard you talk about the $40 million of incremental cost that you guys called out last quarter. I think you said first quarter was a little bit light and it's going to ramp here through the rest of the year. Is that -- is that a fair-- did I hear that correctly? Is there any way we should think about the cadence of that $40 million relative to Q2 through 4Q there versus the first quarter? Thanks.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think, it is fair to conclude that Seth the investment is principally in the DIY space and that represents give or take about $25 million of the $40 million. And the more significant spend will come in the back half of the year when we're focused on a brand launch and more assertive marketing. Right now, much of the volume that is coming into LifeShield is through the recycled leads that I mentioned earlier, and when we start the marketing spend later in the year in addition to the new brand that we have for LifeShield that's where we'll see some more of that spend. So it's definitely weighted toward the second half of the year.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Perfect, thank you very much guys.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back to Mr. DeVries for any closing comments.
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, operator. And I also want to thank everyone for being with us on today's call. As always, I'm deeply appreciative of the dedication and ongoing efforts of our many ADT colleagues and our dealer partners who continue to drive our ongoing growth and our platform, and ultimately our success with millions of ADT customers. We're making great progress in 2019. We're excited about the many growth drivers we see for our business. Thanks again for being on the call. We look forward to updating you in the near future and we wish everyone a good evening. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.
Duration: 51 minutes
Call participants:
Jason Smith -- Investor Relations
James D. DeVries -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Jeff Likosar -- Chief Financial Officer
Don Young -- Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President, Field Operations
George Tong -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Manav Patnaik -- Barclays Bank PLC -- Analyst
Toni Kaplan -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Jeffrey Kessler -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst
Kevin McVeigh -- Credit Suisse AG -- Analyst
Gary Bisbee -- BofA Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Andrew -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
