BK Technologies - Q3 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the BK Technologies Corporation conference call for the third quarter 2022. This call is being recorded. All participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. Following management's remarks, the call will be open for questions. There is a slide presentation that accompanies today's remarks, which can be accessed via the webcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host for today, John Nesbett of IMS Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

John Nesbett (Founder and President)

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our conference call to discuss BK Technologies results for the third quarter of 2022. On the call today are John Suzuki, Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Malmanger, Chief Financial Officer. I'll take a moment to read the safe harbor statement. Statements made during this conference call and presented in the presentation that are not based on historical facts are forward-looking statements. Such statements include, but are not limited to, projections of statements of future goals and targets regarding the company's revenue and profit. These statements are subject to known and unknown factors and risks.

The company's actual results, performance, or achievements may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, and some of the factors and risks that could cause or contribute to such material differences have been described in this morning's press release and the BK filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements are based on information and understanding that are believed to be accurate as of today, and we do not undertake any duty to update such forward-looking statements. Okay, I will now turn the call over to John Suzuki, CEO of BK Technologies. Go ahead, John.

John Suzuki (CEO)

Thank you, everyone, for joining today. I'll start by reviewing some of the highlights of our operations and financial results during the quarter. Then I'll turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Scott Malmanger, for a deeper dive into our financials. We'll conclude by opening up the call for a brief Q&A. We saw a significant booking activity driven by our BKR5000, which resulted in record bookings of $28 million in the quarter. This represents our third consecutive quarter achieving record bookings. Year to date, for the first nine months of 2022, we recorded bookings of $62.8 million, which surpasses full year 2021 bookings. That said, our top-line performance was impacted by Hurricane Ian, which caused shipment and delivery delays during the last week in the quarter, which I'll detail a bit later.

We continue to make progress towards the launch of our next generation BKR9000 multiband device. During the quarter, we completed our second manufacturing build of the product and encountered some issues which are being addressed. Nonetheless, we have maintained our targeted launch date to occur during the fourth quarter of 2022. We believe this product has tremendous potential because its multiband capabilities will provide opportunities in several new market verticals. With this expanded exposure, our potential addressable market will be exponentially larger. Finally, our new software as a service or SaaS business unit, which launched last February, has developed and launched our first SaaS service, InteropONE, a new push-to-talk over cellular service, which enables game-changing universal interoperability to first responders in the public safety sector. Our BKR5000 radio continues to see strong traction in the marketplace.

As I just mentioned, we achieved record bookings of $28 million in the third quarter of 2022, and almost $63 million in bookings in the first nine months. As new and existing customers upgrade their radio fleets, they recognize the high performance, durability, and value of our BKR5000, driving strong demand for this product. As discussed in the last quarter, to meet this demand, we added a second production line in our Melbourne, Florida facility, significantly increasing our manufacturing capabilities. With the second line and an easing in supply chain constraints, radio production improved during the third quarter as compared to the second quarter. With our visibility today, we believe we're well-positioned to fulfill a large portion of our now $42 million in backlog orders before the close of 2022.

Looking at margin performance, during the third quarter, we saw improved gross margins as cost for materials and freight started to return to historical levels. While some pressure remains, we have begun to see more component availability and an easing in the supply chain. As a result of these positive developments, we expect margins to return to more historical levels by December 2022. As material availability improves and production rates increase, we believe we are well-positioned to work through our backlog while continuing to meet the growing demand that we're seeing for our products. As many of you know, in the last week of September, Hurricane Ian passed directly over our Melbourne facility, and we are grateful that our employees and our facility came through the storm largely unharmed.

However, operations were halted for two days, delaying production. Regional transportation was impacted throughout the week, temporarily suspending receipt of deliveries to our factory and shipments to our customers. As a result, some revenue that was expected to be recognized in the third quarter shifted into the first two weeks of October. As you can see on the next slide, despite heightened radio production, radio deliveries in the third quarter slipped slightly as compared to the second quarter. Radio deliveries are a key metric for us as they represent when we realize revenue, and as you can see, we are forecasting significant growth in our delivery numbers in the fourth quarter of 2022. As I just mentioned, our Q3 shipments on this graph don't give the full picture of what was accomplished.

As Hurricane Ian shut down region-wide transportation, limiting our ability to ship radios and our customers' ability to receive and record delivery. For delivery point customers, we don't recognize a radio as shipped until it has been confirmed as received, which resulted in the shortfall illustrated here. With production ramped up during the month of October, radio shipments reached 3,900 units. We expect this production rate will continue through the balance of Q4, and we're targeting a minimum delivery of 10,650 radios in Q4. Year-to-date through September thirtieth, we delivered almost 14,000 radios, and we reiterate our projection to deliver at least 24,600 radios for the full year.

With our additional production capabilities, record bookings, and elevated backlog, we believe we're on track for significantly heightened shipment activity for Q4 2022, and we anticipate that we will continue this momentum through at least the first half of 2023. Based on this, we expect to ship a minimum of 32,000 radios in 2023. Shifting now to our product development pipeline, we continue to make great progress advancing our new BKR-9000 multi-band product. In August, we started to take pre-production orders from our dealer channel and key customers. In September, we came across some issues as we completed our second manufacturing run. We're addressing those and remain confident in targeting an end of year 2022 launch. Currently, we're building radios to submit for FCC testing and certification. Typically, it takes eight to 10 weeks to test, file, and receive FCC certification.

Once received, we are authorized to commence shipment. I want to take a moment to address the market opportunity for our new SaaS business. Since the cellular company started rolling out LTE broadband service back in 2010, public safety agencies have been embracing LTE cellular service as a method to connect their vehicles. The amount of public safety spend has been growing rapidly each year and is projected globally to be $15.4 billion in 2025. BK's SaaS business unit is focused on the next growth area, which we believe is connecting first responders through their smartphones, thereby expanding the communications platform to keep them connected in virtually any environment. By leveraging smartphone technology advancements and the LTE, 5G network as first responders exit their vehicle, new innovative public safety smartphone applications will make them safer and more effective.

We believe that our patent-pending technology, which maximizes safety and promotes efficiency and execution, has the potential to revolutionize public safety communications in an industry where situational awareness and response times are everything. Our SaaS unit is developing several new solutions to address a variety of challenges, and our offerings now include BK's smartphone app, BKRplay, and our first SaaS service, InteropONE. BKRplay is our smartphone application through which we can deliver a wide range of new public safety services. InteropONE, which was launched in October, is the only push-to-talk over cellular service that enables on-demand, universal, interoperable group communications. The offering was developed as a public safety service that can efficiently, reliably, and immediately connect first responders who arrive at an emergency situation from different agencies using different cell phone carriers.

In 2023, we plan to launch new features that will tether the BKR Series radio with the first responder's smartphone to enhance the user experience of BKRplay services. We anticipate that by offering an enhanced experience, BKRplay will drive incremental sales of our BKR Series radios. Our smartphone application, BKRplay, is now available in the App Store and will be available soon in the Google Play Store. When LTE service was first introduced, the public safety community believed that LTE technology could deliver the holy grail of universal group push-to-talk communications to all first responders. LTE was expected to be the platform which delivered interoperable communications in its highest form.

However, while LTE enables any smartphone user to talk and text to any other smartphone user, regardless of cellular carrier provider, when it comes to group push-to-talk service, the industry has gone in the opposite direction, segmenting first responders into isolated silos. This practice has made interoperability between agencies which may use competing service providers very difficult. Imagine if you were an AT&T customer and you can only talk with other AT&T customers. No one would expect that level of service as an individual consumer. As a public safety agency, you have no choice when it comes to push-to-talk group communications. No choice until now. InteropONE breaks this paradigm. With InteropONE, a prime subscriber can invite any smartphone user to push-to-talk group communications and establish communications in five minutes or less.

It is this unique capability that sets InteropONE above all other services because it delivers on the promise of universal, interoperable push-to-talk group communications. There are about 1.9 million public service push-to-talk over cellular subscribers in the U.S. today. Currently, these subscribers are distributed between the main cellular carriers and other over-the-top service providers. Each service provider competes to win each public service agency to build their subscriber base. InteropONE takes a different approach. Our goal is to get just one prime subscriber per public service agency. With over 30,000 agencies in the U.S., we view our market opportunity to be at least 30,000 subscribers or 1.6% of the current subscriber base. We believe that this unique pay-as-you-go and calling party pays billing model, the average revenue per subscriber could be between $1,000-$5,000 dollars annually.

This creates a new $30 million-$150 million market which BK is positioned to capture. Since launching InteropONE, the public safety market feedback can be summarized in three comments. First, InteropONE is novel. No other competing service today can bring together a large smartphone users on demand for group push-to-talk communications. Second, the pay-as-you-go billing model maps well to emergency response. If InteropONE improves first responder response times, lives can be saved, so the expense is justified. Lastly, with the calling party pays billing model, the potential for payment disputes between responding agencies is removed. It's a very simple model. The agency that calls for assistance pays the bill for interoperable on-scene communications. At this point, I'd like to turn over to Scott Malmanger, our Chief Financial Officer, who will review the financial and operating highlights. Scott?

Scott Malmanger (CFO)

Thanks, John. The following is a summary of our financial and operating results for the period ending September 30, 2022. Sales for the third quarter totaled approximately $11.9 million, compared with $12.6 million for the same quarter last year. As John mentioned, Hurricane Ian impacted shipments and deliveries in the quarter, resulting in approximately $1.5 million in revenue shifting from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Importantly, third quarter bookings reached a record of $28 million, and we have received bookings of $63 million in the first nine months of 2022. Gross profit margins as a percentage of sales in the third quarter were 19% compared to 33% for the third quarter last year.

This was primarily due to cost increases in material and freight related to supply chain constraints as compared to the third quarter of 2021. We have begun to see an easing in the supply chain constraints, and we're optimistic we will continue to see sequential margin improvement approaching historical levels by the end of the year. Selling, general, and administrative expenses, or SG&A, for the third quarter totaled approximately $4.6 million, compared with $4.5 million for the same quarter last year. Operating loss totaled $2.4 million, compared with an operating loss of about $370,000 for the third quarter of last year.

In the quarter, we recognized a realized and unrealized non-cash gain of approximately $76 thousand on the investment in our FG Financial Group, compared to an unrealized loss of about $2.2 million in the third quarter of 2021. As of September 30, 2022, working capital totaled approximately $14.6 million, of which approximately $9.4 million is comprised of cash equivalents, and trade receivables. This quarter marks the 26th consecutive payment of quarterly dividends to shareholders under our capital return program. That concludes my remarks.

John Suzuki (CEO)

Thanks, Scott. With the tremendous market appeal of the BKR5000, the launch of InteropONE, and the impending launch of our BKR9000 multiband radio, as we move through to close 2022 and look forward, BK has a lot to be excited about. We continue to target the achievement of our annual revenues exceeding $100 million by 2025, and we anticipate that our new products and our enhanced manufacturing capabilities in Melbourne will help drive higher margins in the business. With that, we will now move to the question and answer portion of the conference. Operator, we are now ready to open the floor for questions.

Operator (participant)

Certainly. The floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if listening on a speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold just one moment while we pull for questions. Your first question is coming from Zach Lewis with Bertis Partners. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Zach Lewis (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First off, can you help us understand how backlog translates to revenue in the fourth quarter?

Scott Malmanger (CFO)

Thanks for the question, Zach. I think the best way to answer that question is this way. If you look at our nine months revenue and divide it by the number of radios shipped, you get about $2,000 per radio. Obviously, there's revenue mix and other factors that can move the number around a bit, but that is a fair number to use. You can then take that number and multiply it by the 10,650 radios that we expect to ship in the fourth quarter and get the low end of the revenue that we can reasonably realize in the fourth quarter. As you can see, it can be potentially a very good quarter.

Zach Lewis (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Just one more. You disclosed a strong backlog of $42 million. Can you help us understand how we should think about when you'll realize that backlog?

John Suzuki (CEO)

This is John. Zach, good morning to you, sir. I think as Scott mentioned, right, we're planning to ship over 10,000 radios in the fourth quarter. We plan to keep that production rate through the first half of 2023. The goal is to burn down our current backlog and get back to normal lead times, which was 30 days. In fact, I'd like to get to a point where I actually have radios on the shelf to respond to customer demand. We anticipate that we'll maintain this elevated rate certainly through Q4 and Q1, and as we move into Q2 for the first half of 2023.

Zach Lewis (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, guys. That's all for me.

John Suzuki (CEO)

Thank you, Zach.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is coming from Brett Reiss with Janney Montgomery Scott. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Brett Reiss (SVP and Investments Financial Advisor)

Thank you. Hi, John. Hi, Scott.

John Suzuki (CEO)

Good morning, Brett.

Scott Malmanger (CFO)

Good morning.

Brett Reiss (SVP and Investments Financial Advisor)

You know, I know you don't give, you know, guidance on earnings and margins, but John, you did say you thought margins by December 2022 would approach, you know, historic margins. You know, this quarter, the margins were 19%. Last quarter, you know, comparing it to the quarter last year, it was 33%. Is that where margins are heading, or is in the fourth quarter, or is that, you know, more aspirational?

John Suzuki (CEO)

No, I think it's what we're seeing, right? We had been talking about the supply chain pressure for most of the year. We've also been talking about the things that we've been doing to mitigate that. Those mitigation actions are now in place and started with production in September and going through October. I believe our statement was that we were gonna be at historic levels by December of this year. We hold by that. If you look at what we did on average, I think for gross margins in 2021, it was in the mid-30s% range. That's kind of where we expect to be at the December timeframe. Now, when you blend that over a quarter and then over the year, obviously that's different. On a go-forward basis, that's where we believe we'll end the year.

Brett Reiss (SVP and Investments Financial Advisor)

Okay. Now looking into 2023, when your revenue mix is going to include the higher margin nine thousand radio, the gravitational pull of margins upward once that becomes more meaningful in your revenue mix, what are we looking at? Could it raise margins 300 basis points, 500 basis points? Can you give us any sense of that if possible?

John Suzuki (CEO)

Your statements are all correct, right? What I will say is we still have more runway on our current portfolio to improve margins. Because of the volumes that we have, that certainly is a focus of ours because we think that will drive the fastest profitability. There's still runway to improve upon what we would expect to see in December. I'll make that first statement. The second statement, with the nine thousand, it does command much higher margins. But the volume mix between our current portfolio and the nine thousand as it relates to 2023, the percentage of the nine thousand revenue is gonna be substantially small compared to the balance of the portfolio.

Even though I'm coming in at a very high margin or a lot higher margin than the 5000, just the amount of tonnage that we're doing in our current portfolio is gonna be pretty significant in 2023. I think you'll start seeing more of a margin impact in 2024 as the mix of 9000s to, say, 5000s, becomes closer.

Brett Reiss (SVP and Investments Financial Advisor)

Great. You know, since this story is getting, you know, a lot more interesting and exciting, any chance for expanded research, you know, coverage by other shops?

John Suzuki (CEO)

Yeah. I mean, you know, clearly that's what we desire. We've had a lot of interest in the company. We're certainly doing a lot of outreach. You know, I tell the story that we believe we're in an inflection point, and I think you're seeing with our backlog at $42 million, the fact that our production is now ramped up, the fact that we got 3,900 radios out in October, I mean, tells a story that this thing is ramped up. I think with that story and some actual execution that they can visibly see, I think we'll get more and more interest and more and more coverage.

Brett Reiss (SVP and Investments Financial Advisor)

Great. Thank you for taking my questions.

John Suzuki (CEO)

Thank you, Brett. Have a good morning.

Operator (participant)

There appear to be no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing remarks.

John Suzuki (CEO)

Thank you all for participating in today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again when we report our Q4 and year-end 2022 results in March of 2023. All the best to all of you, and have a great day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.