PowerFleet - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Please note this conference is being recorded. Today's remarks will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are described in today's earnings press release. Any forward-looking statements made on this call are made only as of today, and Powerfleet assumes no obligation, nor does the company intend to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. During this call, both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures will be presented. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's press release. The press release is available on the investor section of the company's website at ir.powerfleet.com. I will now turn the call over to Steve Towe. You may begin.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. With the SEC comments successfully resolved, I'm delighted to be able to provide additional detail and context on our first quarter operating and financial performance. Our results clearly demonstrate executional excellence in implementing our operating plan since the business combination. We have much to share on today's call, so let's start with the recap of the strategic rationale behind the MiX transaction. Securing scale is critical to distinguishing our combined business from competitors and to go head-to-head with the current market leaders. As the core telematics industry rapidly transforms, the winners in the industry are poised to capture the majority of shareholder value through shifting towards AI-led software solutions and data monetization.

The most innovative and agile organizations will thrive through rapidly evolving market consolidation by leveraging advanced AI platforms and next-generation data capabilities to become mission-critical partners to the customers they serve. Moving forward, success in this evolved industry hinges firmly on platforms that go well beyond traditional telematics, delivering high-quality, actionable insights for business improvement in a flexible and profitable manner. Our ability to capture significant market share centers on SaaS monetization of Powerfleet's Unity ecosystem. The market and customer response to our Unity product strategy is overwhelmingly positive, signaling its high value and differentiation. Unity's unique data highway creates compelling pathways for revenue synergies, underpinned with best-in-class solution sets from both sides of the business, and an opportunity to reach a much extended enterprise customer base through our improved scale and higher velocity, direct and indirect routes to market.

We now have a rich subscriber base of close to 2 million, many of whom offer us an increased wallet share opportunity through our combined solution portfolio. This underpins our expectation of accelerated double-digit growth in future years. Simultaneously, we are well positioned to achieve significant EBITDA expansion by extracting a targeted $27 million in cost synergies through a proven and battle-tested integration playbook. The playbook's first chapter focused on building and executing a rapid transformation plan post-close. Our top priority is to drive radical change without losing traction and disrupting operations. The successful execution is evident in our strong financial performance this quarter, with combined revenue increasing by a highly encouraging 10% and EBITDA by an exceptional 50% compared to the prior year on a pro forma combined basis.

These transformation efforts are also critical in establishing a performance-based organizational culture focused on delivering exceptional outcomes for our customers and shareholders. We've effectively aligned our operations, integrating teams across regions and ensuring that our strategies are cohesive and targeted. Key areas such as go-to-market, technology, hardware, operations, and customer experience have seen smooth transitions, with important frameworks and processes established to drive efficiency and innovation. An essential part of this progress is our work in ingesting mixed device data and core software capabilities into the Unity ecosystem. This capability is crucial as it unlocks the full potential of Unity for the legacy customer base of Mix. We are making significant strides in this area and remain on track to complete full integration within the first six months post-close. Achieving this milestone opens up opportunities for Unity-centric revenue synergies in the second half of fiscal 2025.

Moving on to our commercial wins. We've had an impressive and confidence-building quarter, particularly with the continued momentum of our safety and compliance-centric solution set. Unity continues to be a game changer, delivering impressive results across various industries. I'd like to highlight our recent press release regarding our partnership with IMC, a leading intermodal company in the U.S. Initially, IMC operated with dual sources of technology, with Powerfleet holding a smaller footprint compared to another market leader. However, Unity's advanced data ingestion engine and unified operations integration capability gradually distinguished our offering, prompting IMC to consolidate their datasets from the other provider and their OEMs into Unity. As a result, Powerfleet has now become their full mission-critical partner for the future. Increasingly, companies are recognizing Unity as their core data consolidator and a key provider of insights that drive transformative business change....

Another notable win came from a major U.S. Caterpillar dealer, now leveraging Unity to provide more automated and value-added solutions. This strengthens our partnership and reinforces Unity's versatility in addressing diverse industry needs. We're also gaining momentum in new markets for our in-warehouse solutions, most notably in Mexico, highlighting our ability to scale and adapt our solutions globally. Our AI-led pedestrian proximity detection solutions continue to gain traction, with established customers in industries like pulp and paper and pet nutrition, expanding their use of this technology in Q1. Overall, our Unity safety solutions demonstrated an impressive 25% year-on-year growth in the U.S. this quarter. Ahead of sharing my forward-looking thoughts and perspectives, I'll hand the call over to David to provide additional detail and insight into our financial results. David?

David Wilson (CFO)

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Before diving into our first quarter financial performance, I want to share my insights on the business's operation in the first four months following the close of the MiX transaction. The strength of our financial results is no accident. They're founded on a disciplined, rigorous approach with a clear mission. Executing highly accretive M&A is a core competency at Powerfleet, not an afterthought. The past 20 months, this has been proven twice. Firstly, with the Movingdots acquisition, where we seamlessly integrated a team of 35 engineers and swiftly neutralized $4 million in annualized EBITDA burn within six months. Now, on a larger scale with the MiX, where our first quarter financial results reflect our ability to execute quickly and effectively. This speed of execution and the traction we've gained are sources of deep pride.

We are implementing a well-established playbook, leveraging the talents of key leaders across the organization to achieve high-impact outcomes in specifically targeted areas. Our success is measured by key financial achievements, a remarkable 10% year-over-year increase in revenue, an expansion of product gross margins from 25% to 32%, and the rapid execution of our cost synergy program, resulting in $8.7 million in annualized savings exiting Q1, approximately $5 million through the elimination of duplicate costs and $3 million through changes in the way that we work. Importantly, we achieved all of this without missing a beat operationally. Before I review our detailed financial results, there are a few important points to highlight. Pro forma comparisons. All comparisons versus prior period results discussed on this call and in our press release, are based on the pro forma financial results of the combined business.

This contrasts with our 10-Q filing, which will only include the legacy Powerfleet numbers. One-time expenses. The expenses incurred this quarter include one-time transaction, restructuring, and accelerated stock-based compensation costs totaling $20.4 million. These are backed out of adjusted EBITDA and EPS to reflect ongoing run rates. Amortization impact. This quarter's results also reflect the onset of amortization in tangible assets related to the mix acquisition, resulting in an incremental $3 million in non-cash expenses and reducing service gross margins by over 5%. Now, let's dive into the detailed numbers for the quarter, starting with revenue, which increased by 10.2% year-over-year to $75.4 million from $68.4 million.

This growth was primarily driven by the success of our differentiated safety-centric product solutions, with product revenue rising over 29% to $18.7 million. There are two important points to note regarding our product revenue. First, as we have transitioned out of our hardware-only business, strong product revenue serves as a lead indicator of growth in service revenue. Second, robust performance of our safety-centric solutions more than offset pressure in North America's more commoditized logistics segments, contributing to a 7% expansion in product gross margins, which rose to 32% from 24.7%. Service revenue also showed strength, increasing over 5% year-over-year to $56.7 million. This growth, driven by an expansion of our installed base to nearly 2 million devices, underscores the strength of our Unity product strategy and the risk diversification benefits of operating at scale globally.

This has allowed us to effectively mitigate the impact of previously announced churn in the legacy MiX customer base, challenges in the U.S. logistics market, and macroeconomic headwinds in Israel. Service gross margin was lower at 59.4% compared to 65.9% in the prior period, mainly due to the non-cash charges of $3 million from the amortization of intangible assets related to the MiX transaction. On an adjusted basis, service gross margin was 64.7%. The blended gross margin was lower at 52.6% compared to 57.2% in the prior year, also primarily due to the $3 million non-cash expense just mentioned. Excluding this expense, total gross margin was 56.5%, relatively comparable to the prior year period. Moving on to operating expenses, which totaled $57.9 million for the quarter.

This includes $20.4 million in one-time transaction, restructuring, and accelerated stock-based compensation costs. After adjusting for these costs, total OpEx was $37.5 million, in line with the prior year. On an adjusted basis, selling general and administrative expenses were $34.4 million, representing 45.6% of revenue, compared to 49.5% in the prior year. Within SG&A, general administrative expenses were 33.6% of revenue, providing a rich environment for additional cost optimization. Investment in research and development, including $2.9 million in capitalized software costs, totaled $6 million, or 7.9% of revenue, compared to 8.6% in the prior year, when we were still in the process of rationalizing spend following the Movingdots acquisition.

This level of spend is highly efficient and reflects the affordability of high-quality engineering talent in South Africa. Moving on to adjusted EBITDA, which increased by an impressive 52.2% to $13.7 million from $9 million. This growth was primarily driven by strong top-line performance, generating an additional $3.5 million in gross margin after accounting for $3 million in amortized inventory. Net loss attributable to common stockholders was $22.3 million, a loss of 21 cents per basic and diluted share, compared to 4 cents in the prior year. After adjusting for one-time expenses and the amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, adjusted EPS was breakeven, or 0 cents for the current quarter.

Closing with cash on the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with net debt of $108.2 million, which includes cash of $31.4 million, and total debt of $139.6 million. After adjusting for $6 million in unsettled transaction costs, pro forma net debt stands at $114 million, compared to $110 million at the close of the MiX transaction. The $4 million increase in pro forma net debt is primarily due to a net working capital burn of $7 million in the quarter, driven by an increase in receivables attributable to strong top-line performance. As discussed in our April fireside chat, we anticipate a net cash burn in the first half of fiscal 2025, with a recovery expected in the second half.

Finally, given our strong start to the fiscal year, we are reiterating the increased guidance that we shared on our August 6 fireside chat, with full year 2025 revenue to exceed $300 million, up from an initial guidance of approximately $300 million. And our adjusted EBITDA guidance to exceed $60 million, which includes an incremental $5 million in secured exit run rate cost synergies, compared to our initial guidance of approximately $60 million. That concludes my remarks. Steve?

Steve Towe (CEO)

Thanks, David. Long-term shareholders and tenured analysts on today's call can appreciate just how far we've come in a short time. The transformation of the business since we implemented a new vision and strategy for the company in early 2022 has been outstanding. While I'm proud of what our team has accomplished, this is just the beginning. Our goal is to achieve and surpass the Rule of Forty SaaS performance over the next 2 years, which would significantly enhance shareholder value by potentially increasing our valuation multiple from today's 2x level to the 5x-8x revenue typically seen in public SaaS companies meeting this benchmark. The Unity ecosystem is a central pillar in driving this transformation in value, and our confidence in realizing its full potential has never been higher.

Starting first with the market, where the customer response to our device-agnostic capabilities, rapidly growing library of third-party integrations, and breadth of solutions from in-warehouse to over the road is compelling. We are gaining more and more traction with large enterprises who are looking for data consolidation, harmonization, simplification, and integration. The value and visibility these capabilities provide to complex organizations running low on skilled resources is immense. The requirement for automation and digital optimization is becoming mandatory as organizations face the need for increased efficiency. The excitement and engagement with the mixed customer base reaffirms our understanding and conviction that Unity provides solutions to address acute pain points across market verticals and geographies. We're off to a strong start in achieving our cost synergy commitments, securing $8.7 million in annual savings within the first 90 days.

We have a clear plan to reach our target of $27 million in annualized savings within two years of the MiX transaction, which will continue to support EBITDA expansion. We're going deeper into our savings plan to pivot more and more resources into our go-to-market and customer success teams. Additional savings we are realizing over and above the $27 million EBITDA expansion programs is giving us the ability to hire a 30% uplift on our quota-carrying sales force. We plan to continue scaling our customer-facing operations significantly as we leverage our increased efficiency and extended capabilities over the next two years. In summary, we have all the key components in place to accelerate revenue growth and expand EBITDA through scale, enhanced gross margins, and strategically targeted cost rationalization.

We look forward to maintaining this momentum and sharing the results of our efforts as we continue the march toward Rule of Forty performance in our regular quarterly updates. Before concluding, I'm pleased to share that we'll be holding a further Investor Day in New York City on November 21st this year, going deeper into the progress we've made within the combined business and focusing on our path to accelerated growth in the coming years. We'll be communicating more about this to you in the coming weeks. I'll now turn it back to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please, while we poll for questions. Your first question for today is from Scott Searle with Roth Capital.

Scott Searle (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Congratulations on the quarter. It's nice to see service growth returning, and, congrats on getting the filings done.

David Wilson (CFO)

... Thanks, Scott. In terms of the filings, they're still to come. They'll be coming this week, but we're very well positioned there.

Scott Searle (Analyst)

Okay. Steve, maybe to start, hearing you talk more and more about AI, device agnostic data and the customer requirements, I'm wondering if you could give us a little bit more color in terms of the magnitude of the pipeline that's building around those kind of capabilities, because they're unique, I think, in terms of the competitive landscape out there. You know, what that's translating to in terms of ongoing customer dialogues, how that's impacting the pipeline, and I don't know if you'd want to take a stab at giving us an idea of the magnitude of that pipeline and kind of what the near-term TCV looks like.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah. So Scott, we're, we're gonna save some of that until we get to our Investor Day in terms of magnitude and quantification, but it is... What I would say is it's, it's highly significant. So we are seeing a number of large enterprises across the globe, whether that's insurance companies, large logistics companies, complex organizations who have a lot of a subcontractor base, who are seeing an acute pain point with not being able to get true visibility across their fleets. And then secondly, they're also not able to make sense of all the different data streams that are being presented to them, and they don't have the resources to actually collate, understand, refine, and do something with the data.

So the play that we now make in terms of really kind of being that one-stop shop for that capability, positioning ourselves in the center of their organizations to ultimately harmonize, ingest the data, harmonize the data, and then present it to them in a fashion which is easy for them to consume, which also means other monetization opportunities for us, is making a real, real difference. So, you know, I would say it is a significant increase in our pipeline as we get to, you know, realize some of the benefits of that. And, you know, we expect to have some customers who come and talk to you all about that in the future. You'll see kind of that magnitude come through.

What I would say at this point is, it is significant, it is global, and it's across multi-verticals and multi-industries.

Scott Searle (Analyst)

Great. Very helpful. And if I could, Steve, just to follow up, I think at the August sixth update, you talked about new logos versus in-house. I'm wondering now, you know, given the expanding product set and offering, and the global availability of Unity, you know, what that number looks like now in terms of the opportunity set of upsell with the existing customer base versus new logos. And real quickly on gross margins, service gross margins, pro forma adjusted around 65%. I think the target level is higher than that. I wonder if you could just give us some idea about how that progresses over the next couple of quarters. Thanks so much.

Steve Towe (CEO)

So I'll let David answer the second question, but in terms of the first question, I think that, you know, what we're seeing is customers really having the need to have this differentiated solution, which ultimately is driving both new business, because the new business is coming from they're insisting on their third-party contractors taking our solution, but then obviously evolving within themselves. So you know, we're at a 70/30 split from existing customers to new in Q1. But we see where this is kind of having a compounding effect is, we're getting more growth with our install base because of just the general services. But this insistence on them taking our solution as a subcontractor or an alliance partner of the end customer, is also then bringing the new logos to us as well.

David, do you want to take the service gross margin, please?

David Wilson (CFO)

Yeah. So Scott, if you look at services gross margin this year versus last year, you're absolutely right. If you adjust for the amortization of intangibles, we were sort of rounding up to 65% this year versus rounding to 60% last year. In terms of what's driving that, it's primarily higher levels of depreciation of in-vehicle devices, particularly in South Africa, and also from known churn in the legacy subscriber base that we discussed previously. So that's the primary drivers. In terms of looking forward, target actions have been undertaken in terms of improving that, and we do expect services gross margins to expand steadily in future quarters between now and the end of the year. So you know, we expect it to sort of increase over time, above and beyond the levels we're at last year.

Scott Searle (Analyst)

I apologize. I'm gonna toss one out, and then I'll get back in the queue. But, Steve, it seems like the confidence level in double-digit growth continues to grow. It sounds like, you know, you're more enthusiastic. Could you give us an idea about when you think we might start to be punching through that sustained double-digit growth, particularly on the services front? Thanks so much.

Steve Towe (CEO)

... Yes, so I don't think we've ever not been enthusiastic. I think we're being very measured in terms of, you know, the transformation that is taking place. You know, if you think about the seismic shifts that we're making in the organization, then, you know, year one has always been about getting on the very front foot of that EBITDA expansion, which I think we've demonstrated wholeheartedly in this quarter and will continue to do so. So I think we're not changing our guidance in when we expect to get to the sustained double digit growth, but what we are seeing is validation of that thesis and momentum growing from a pipeline perspective, from a customer reaction perspective.

You know, I think we in the prepared remarks, we quoted the fact that we've never had higher confidence that we have a winning play here, and we very much stick to that, and that will flow through. Also, as well, I think you heard that we are currently hiring, you know, a large increase in our sales force, which will take time to become productive. I think those two things, a little bit of time, more build out of the pipeline and realizing that pipeline and then, you know, just the scale and momentum in the business. We feel very confident around the Rule of Forty performance that we've projected, and obviously, double digit growth is a key part of that.

As this really kind of scales, and we're able to take, you know, the extended engineering force that we now have to scale Unity at a faster rate, then, you know, the accelerated double digit growth in outer years is something that we feel very, very good about.

Gregory Gibas (Analyst)

Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is from Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

Good morning, Steve and David. A couple of questions. You're realizing you said you had some churn, but you also mentioned that your subscriber base was up year-over-year. Did I get that right? And can you give us some idea of what the percentage change up was, and maybe an absolute number of subscribers? Are you willing to give that number?

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah, I can cover that, Gary. So subscribers at the end of the quarter was 1.95 million.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

Okay.

Steve Towe (CEO)

It's up about 9 percentage points versus the prior year.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

Okay, and even with the churn?

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

I'm sorry, even with the churn.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Correct, correct, Gary, yeah. So David was referencing, MiX, probably came out and said that they had some churn in their base in the final quarter before the combination. So that subscriber base is including that churn, and this is where we're particularly proud of all the headwinds that have been in front of us in terms of mitigating that churn, in terms of the macroeconomic challenges that some of our regions have faced, and also some of the industry challenges where Powerfleet in the U.S. has been successful in the past in the more commoditized logistics space. So not just the subscriber growth and the retention, but also the overall top-line growth has been has mitigated all those elements. So that's why we're particularly proud of this quarter.

When we are just putting a business together, you know, this is a merger of equals, so you could get extremely distracted, your customer base could get disjointed, your sales teams could be confused. You know, we've managed all of that supremely well, and that's why we're, we're very, very proud of the, the results that we've been able to post across the board.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

No, that's great. Did I hear you right that you said all of the MiX customer base will be transitioned to the Unity platform by the back half of this fiscal year?

Steve Towe (CEO)

What we said is, by the end of quarter two, so the end of September, the MiX customers will be able to consume the Unity capabilities.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

Oh, okay.

Steve Towe (CEO)

So they will have the ability to consume those. Unity is an ecosystem, so one of the parts of the strategy here is not to force migration across to another platform, because that comes with a lot of risk, both technologically and also from opening up the customers to go back to market. So what we look to do here is that they can still consume everything that they've enjoyed and signed up for, but then they have the ability to take on those, improved services, that variation in terms of the, solution sets that they can get. And that's, you know, having the ability, not only with Unity in kind of the data highway perspective, but also the in-warehouse solutions as well. So customers will be able to consume those fully from, the end of September from the Mix customer base.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

So as they elect to move on to Unity, that is gonna be a key lever to get service revenue growth accelerating. Is that kind of a correct assumption?

Steve Towe (CEO)

100%. So this is ARPU expansion, it's increased wallet share. You know, it, it becomes more sticky from a retention perspective. So, you know, and, and this is, this is one of the, the biggest differentiators of, of Unity. So, you know, you have the ability to harvest far more in the customer base. And if you think about the device agnostic piece as well, so you can bring other sensors, other data streams in, that creates, you know, a very, sticky arm lock with the customer. The more integrations you do into their third-party operating systems is also the same. And that then allows you to, you know, have really strong conversations across, your customer's estate, to say, what other applications, what other modules would be attractive to the customer?

Build a kind of, you know, a long-term strategic roadmap in the true sense of what a SaaS company would do. That's what excites us, and to your very salient point, that gives us the ability to accelerate service revenue.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

... And then just two more questions, I'll jump off. With that 1.95 million subscribers, can you give us an approximate split? What were legacy Powerfleet, legacy Mix? Just so we can get an idea of the magnitude of these subscribers that can elect to join Unity and drive service revenue growth.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah. So it, it's roughly $1.1-$1.2 million from Mix, and the remainder was Powerfleet. So substantial opportunity. And there's still substantial opportunity in the Powerfleet base as well, so of subscribers. So, you know, we've, we've built globally, but, you know, we, we do see, and, and obviously one of the major strategic rationale for the combination was to bring those services to the rich customer base and, and subscriber base that Mix has.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

Then just very briefly, I don't know if there's an easy, a brief answer to this question. You talked about some competitive takeaways here with IMC and then a cab dealer. Was the Unity platform one of the key selling points there?

Steve Towe (CEO)

It was the selling point.

Gary Prestopino (Analyst)

It was the selling point. Okay, thank you very much, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question for today is from Anthony Stoss with Craig-Hallum.

Anthony Stoss (Analyst)

Good morning, Steve and David. Steve, I wanted to follow up on the strong safety-centric revenue, and you highlighted a 25% year-over-year growth rate. Can you share with us your view on perhaps the percent of the market that's been penetrated or the overall market potential? And then, I had a follow-up for David.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah. Penetration still remains low. I mean, if you quantify it from, you know, basic driver behavior, then, you know, a lot of telematics solutions for many years have offered driver training and performance management around driver scoring. But ultimately now there is a, you know, a much improved and increased capabilities for the likes of driver distraction, the camera-based solutions that are offered. And, you know, if you look at what we do in the warehouse stuff, you know, we've got ADAS-based systems that will stop the forklift trucks banging into people, et cetera, et cetera, and causing, you know, injury and harm.

So, you know, we see a big opportunity in front of us, and we see a uniqueness to that opportunity when you talk about, you know, how broad is it? Because organizations are not just trying to manage the safety of their individuals and their mobile resources on the road, but also as well, you know, their other employees within the warehouse. So this is where we have that unique capability to give a safety director, a compliance director, visibility of control and understanding of performance around safety across pretty much their whole estate. So that is a big driver of where we're seeing the traction and having that unique proposition across the two. And eight times out of ten, the person who is responsibility for safety on the road is also the person who is responsible for safety in the warehouse.

So we see it as a very, very significant growth area, not just from the safety element itself, but the regulatory requirements that are coming in on a global fashion in terms of organizations having to be super, super competent in making sure that they keep their their employees safe, that they're managing working hours and fatigue and distraction, and ultimately manage risk. And if you then, you know, extrapolate that out to the likes of insurance companies who are more and more looking to create risk-based profile premiums in their estates, and then, you know, be able to adjust premiums off the base of, you know, how what the risk profile is for that fleet from a safety and security perspective. So we're very excited about that.

You know, it's seen very much as, you know, cameras lead that, and we see a very strong element for that. But the use of that data to feed other systems, other operators, other value propositions that surround the safety space is significant.

Anthony Stoss (Analyst)

Very good, Steve. Thank you for that. David, just on overall gross margins, I'm curious if you have any change or, or what you see the trajectory to hitting your overall gross margin targets down the road.

David Wilson (CFO)

Yeah. So Tony, obviously, if you look at the midpoint of our current guidance, it's 57.5 percentage points for the year. We feel very comfortable with that out there in the public realm. So, we're well positioned. And as I noted earlier, expect services gross margins to improve steadily between now and the end of the year.

Anthony Stoss (Analyst)

Perfect. Very good, guys. Thank you.

David Wilson (CFO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is from Dylan Becker with William Blair.

Speaker 8

Hey, guys, it's Faith on for Dylan. Just kind of wanted to talk about this Unity platform, and as you continue to migrate the Mix capabilities over, how is this resonating with maybe additional stakeholders or use cases that you haven't been able to directly sell to in the past? And then maybe adding on those investments you called out in sales capacity, how are you thinking about unlocking this cross-sell opportunity as productivity ramps?

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah. So in terms of the use cases and opportunities, traditionally, the market, you know, we've been selling to the operators who manage the asset itself. What this is doing is evolving into very much a broader set of stakeholders across our organizations who want to use this technology. And, you know, that's from a Unity perspective, and, you know, we've just used safety as a great example. But we're seeing, you know, the ability for us to have great conversations and do business with CIOs, with CTOs, with CFOs, the compliance directors, the safety directors, as we said. And even, you know, the need for CEOs to have a visibility across their organization from a compliance perspective is something which is becoming more and more important. So this is moving to a true SaaS sell across the organization.

We're selling the same, data point into multiple applications, for different use cases, and so it's extrapolating our opportunity, you know, multidimensionally moving forward. And then in terms of, can you just remind me of your second question?

Speaker 8

Just as you guys continue to invest in your sales and go to market, yeah.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah. So, you know, the efforts that we're putting in there, the growth that we're putting in there is twofold. One is more enterprise SaaS salespeople who can sell that multidimensional solution, whether it's around the device agnostic piece, further applications or integration. And then secondly, it's more in quota-carrying customer success individuals. Because when we talk about that stickiness, and we talk about being able to harvest into the account, you know, new modular applications, new AI, and data science-led insights, then you can do that more from an install-based perspective than a customer success perspective. So those two things, mixed with the added capabilities, primes us very much for that accelerated growth.

Unity is built in a way, as we've said, where it's very, very easy for a customer to maintain their current services and solutions, and then add on incremental layers with us over time.

Speaker 8

All right, great! Thanks for the color, then. One more, if I can add on. Maybe just from an innovation standpoint, now that you have this increased capacity with your engineers, in the next six months, once you're done kind of mixing the MiX, legacy MiX, and Powerfleet capabilities together, is there anything else on the horizon that you guys are gonna focus in on, whether it's platform expansion, or is there any adjacencies that you're looking to enter into?

Steve Towe (CEO)

No, we've got more, more than, than enough capabilities, for the time being. That said, we are building new applications, which we will bring to market over time. But the very, laser focus that we have now is around scaling the platform. To the earlier questions and, and dialogue in terms of pipeline build and, you know, the willingness and want and need from our customers, both new logo and existing base, to take these added capabilities, then we're very much committing the resource to be able to cope with that scale. And that's something that we will see will differentiate us and, and allow us to increase our speed to revenue and, and, and speed to adoption. So that's very much the, immediate focus right now.

That said, as people that know us well, we are always innovating, and we will be bringing some new solutions and added value solutions to market, but the first priority has to be to manage that scale, because we're getting more and more anchor accounts now who want to take these added capabilities that exist today.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone at this time. Your next question for today is from Alex Sklar with Raymond James.

Jonathan McCary (Analyst)

Hey, thanks for the question. This is Jonathan McCary on for Alex. So I wanted to touch on the subscriber additions in the quarter, and I know you mentioned building out sales heads around the enterprise. Can you give any color on the breakdown of additions between the enterprise versus the smaller customer cohorts? And how do you think about that mix longer term, and then is there any difference in the demand environment between those two cohorts that you call out?

Steve Towe (CEO)

Go on, David. You go first.

David Wilson (CFO)

Yeah. So we obviously have a global business. If you think about the business as a whole, the future is really centered on enterprise. It's centered on Unity. The key markets there are gonna be North America, primarily, and also increasingly Europe, where there's a lot of regulatory demands. So that is the focus, that is the future of the business. That said, we do also have what we describe as franchise businesses, both in South Africa and in Israel, which are the dominant or one of two key players in the market, and they are businesses that are performing very, very well. So we are seeing good growth there. They're fast generators of cash, so it's always a blend. When you look at the subscribers, it's a blend, but we're definitely seeing sort of strong demand in terms of our franchise businesses.

What I would just add is, Unity is super flexible, so for small and medium fleets, there are elements of the Unity ecosystem that are very, very relevant for the small and mid-market, as well as, you know, the whole thing and balancing full end-to-end solution in the enterprise space. So we've built this very much in a way that our regions, depending on their market conditions, can target medium-sized, smaller fleets, or they can go for the big enterprises. And Unity gives them the ability to really have that flexibility, because even if it's a piece part of an integration to a third-party system or just a couple of device integrations, or if it's actually, you know, utilizing a more advanced set of capabilities because smaller organizations have less skilled resources to actually manage that, it is very flexible.

So, you know, I think what we've, what we've shown from how, as our regions have managed to mitigate a lot of the storms and headwinds out in the industry, is they're very able quickly to pivot to new pipeline, to different types, focusing on different types and elements of their customer base. So it's a full flexible tool, but as David said, it, for Unity, it's really an enterprise play from an end-to-end perspective.

Jonathan McCary (Analyst)

... Okay, great, great, thanks. And then, just one quick one for you, David. So it's obviously been good progress ahead of schedule on the cost synergy realization. And then I, you know, good, good color on some of the go-to-market investments you, you, you spoke to. So I just, how should we think about the linearity of cost savings implied in the EBITDA outlook just through the rest of the year?

David Wilson (CFO)

Yeah. So we, we spoke about realizing 8.7 million dollars of run rate savings. If you think about the guidance that we last shared in April, the target was $16 million of exit run rates at the end of March. So that will be obviously an add-on to the 8.7 realized. I, I would view that as being more sort of second half of the year in terms of that incremental pickup, in terms of seeing the benefit there. But in terms of the $8.7 million that we realized, we didn't get the full benefit of that this quarter, so do expect to see an improvement in terms of our SG&A EBITDA from next quarter onwards.

Jonathan McCary (Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is from Greg Gibbas with Northland Securities.

Gregory Gibas (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, Steve and David. Thanks for taking the questions. Congrats on the quarter once again. You know, wanted to kind of get some color on, could you remind us what the drivers were of the expected churn from the MiX customer base were? And, did that, I guess, that level of churn play out, as you anticipated? Was it potentially less impactful than originally anticipated?

David Wilson (CFO)

Yes. I'll take it, David. So no, I mean, you know, we worked very seamlessly with the MiX leadership team and had full transparency. It played out as expected. And that was really, I think, the you know, the particular industries that a couple of customers were playing in had evolved and, you know, MiX hadn't really had the investment capability to move at the speed that maybe some of the competitors had in the very niche markets in which these customers play. So, you know, we feel very good about moving forward now, and as David said, we've been able to mitigate that churn, but it was as expected, nothing different.

Gregory Gibas (Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. You know, if I could just kind of overall growth expectations this year for on the product side versus the service, service side. Is there anything you can address in terms of your expectations there? Maybe when we would get a sense that those segments may be more normalized, given the strength you had in Q1 with product revenue?

David Wilson (CFO)

Yeah. So it's the right question to ask, Greg. So in terms of the product revenue, obviously, it was exceptionally strong this quarter. We're, we're not forecasting that level of performance between now and the end of the year. So again, it's tough for us to sort of talk about the individual pieces of revenue, given we have guidance for the blended, but do expect the level of product growth to remain robust, remain strong, but certainly not at the levels we enjoyed in Q1. And then from a services side of things, clearly that is the future. Everything that Steve discussed in terms of being able to get all of the Mix devices ingested into Unity, that gives us some additional benefit in the second half of the year, which will be helpful.

And we also have work to do in terms of really sort of leveraging the indirect channel that MiX has. That will initially be a pickup in terms of product revenue, but as always, the more product revenue you have, the more momentum you have from a service standpoint as well. So again, we feel good about our overall guidance for the year in terms of being north of $300 million, but at this point, we're not gonna sort of break it down into the individual line items that make up that revenue number.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Yeah. And what I would just add from just a kind of contextual perspective is, you know, people are buying our product because we have uniqueness within the safety and compliance space. All of that revenue in the product that we sell comes with services attached. So, you know, that will... You'll see that layering over time. But the reason that we have the strength is the uniqueness that we have in the overall solution, and people are looking to choose our hardware as part of that.

Which, if you think about the double source that we now have, both in terms of, you know, the strength and capabilities of our own product, and then the ability for us to ingest other devices, you know, it makes us very, very well placed to be that overall partner of choice in large organizations, where not only will they want us to ingest their data sources, but any future hardware purchases they will look to do, through Powerfleet. So, you know, there's a, there's a combination there which is super, super good for future revenue growth.

Gregory Gibas (Analyst)

Mm-hmm. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the call.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Steve Towe for closing remarks.

Steve Towe (CEO)

Thanks everyone for the support. Obviously this earnings call is later than it would have liked to be. We're delighted that we've got through the SEC review, and we very much look forward to speaking to you again, most notably at Investor Day on November the twenty-first. Once again, thank you for your support, and we're highly, highly encouraged with the start that we've made as a combined organization, and we look forward to future updates in the future. Have a great day. Thank you.