Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Charley Jones – Barrington Research.
Charley Jones – Barrington Research
Normally I wouldn't as this detailed of a question, but could you discuss how January and February are trending for sales relative to December, November, and Julie if you could comment a little bit on international and how you think that's going to be impacted this year with the dollar and what you're seeing for trends at least over the next quarter?
David Drachman
Overall, we saw a deep decline in procedure trends in October. During the fourth quarter, we saw that trend begin to flatten and during the first half of the first quarter, we believe that the trends are beginning to rise to historical levels, slowly rise to historical levels.
Julie Piton
With respect to international, about half of that business is subject to currency fluctuation, so I would not expect it to have a dramatic impact on our 2009 growth rates, although certainly a couple of percentage points in terms of the overall international growth that we would have originally anticipated.
Charley Jones – Barrington Research
Where do you feel your customers' inventory levels are at now? Do you feel your fourth quarter revenue was at least representative of actual usage or could we see have some inventory built there from new customers maybe?
David Drachman
We believe our inventory is a modest levels, and we believe that overall on a full year basis, that our fourth quarter results from a revenue perspective are not indicative of our full year 2009 potential.
Charley Jones – Barrington Research
I'm a little bit confused on the $7 million reduction, how it gets down to $5 million, so if you could talk about that? Are you saying that we just actually that the 2008 operating expenses and just cut them by $5 million? I'm sure that's not the case but if you could help us out a little.
Julie Piton
Actually that is the case. It really is a result of we were having an expanding cost structure during the beginning part of the year and for a variety of reasons, you don't get to the full benefit in 2009 of the full $7 million. So it is in fact exactly what you said Charley. You take the $5 million in 2009.
Charley Jones – Barrington Research
How minimally invasive customers did you end the quarter with? Is it still around 990?
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