Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Paul Coster with J.P.Morgan. Please proceed with your question.
Paul Coster - J.P.Morgan Securities, Inc.
Yes. First of all, the OpEx is going up sequentially, notwithstanding the tough top-line at the moment. Can you just talk about where you're increasing your OpEx and why?
Anders Gustafsson
OpEx for the fourth quarter was 85...
Michael Smiley
guidance...
Anders Gustafsson
Oh, the guidance. Why is the guidance going up? I'm sorry. Guidance is going up for a couple of reasons. I think, first of all, in the first quarter we had -- a lot of our discretionary spend was slightly below. We put a lot of pressure on that. We are expecting that that level may have to ramp up just a little bit from the first quarter. It's a primary driver for that.
We're seeing that -- we're comfortable with the guidance that we're getting, but we're not seeing a big increase. Again, the first quarter was we thought -- we put a lot of pressure in trying to keep that number down.
Paul Coster - J.P.Morgan Securities, Inc.
Yeah, I can see it is not very much. I am just curious though whether I can fly back to your comment about global leadership Mike. You said that you feel like you're gaining somehow. Is that because you're spending more than others in SG&A? Can you just sort of talk about the competitive landscape and what you're doing to capitalize from this weakness amongst your competitors?
Anders Gustafsson
Yeah we... this is Anders. We are trying to very carefully balance our short-term profit requirements with the long-term opportunities to position Zebra for growth and creating shareholder value.
We have taken opportunities to strengthen our team by hiring some very strong people in our sales organization, sales management and engineering. So, we want to make sure we take advantage of the market as it is.
We are also continuing to develop a lot of new products, and we see some of the expenses that come from molding and other tooling for new products. And we continue to do lot of marketing in order to stimulate end user demand to make sure that our brand name is out there and continues to extend its leadership.
Paul Coster - J.P.Morgan Securities, Inc.
If you were able to pinpoint the weaknesses amongst your competitors, which geographies and which product there is that they're starting to fall behind you?
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