Blink Charging - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 revenue was $30.2M, down 29% year over year but up 20% sequentially; service revenue rose 24% YoY to $9.8M and comprised 33% of total, reflecting a strategic shift to higher-margin, recurring owner-operator revenues.
• GAAP diluted EPS was $(0.73), impacted by non-cash goodwill impairment; adjusted EPS improved to $(0.15) versus $(0.28) in Q4 2023; Q4 gross margin printed 25% but would have exceeded 35% excluding a $2.9M asset adjustment tied to product upgrades.
• Management expects service revenue to continue increasing through 2025 and product revenue to be flat in 1H25 (vs 2H24) with improvement in 2H25; they refrained from re-affirming the prior adjusted EBITDA timing and will update visibility as 2025 progresses.
• Key catalysts: accelerated build-out of Blink-owned DC fast portfolio (e.g., 76 DC fast ports at Royal Farms), European growth supported by U.K. LEVI funding structures, and potential Envoy IPO in spring 2025; working capital efficiency and cost reductions remain priorities to drive towards profitability.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Service revenue growth and mix shift: Service revenue up 24% YoY to $9.8M; service comprised 33% of total revenue in Q4 (vs 19% last year), supported by higher utilization and more Blink-owned chargers.
• Sequential revenue and margin resilience: Total Q4 revenue up 20% sequentially; excluding a $2.9M asset adjustment, Q4 gross margin would have exceeded 35%, highlighting underlying margin strength as mix shifts to Blink-built L2 and owner-operator DC.
• Cost-out and cash discipline: Adjusted operating expenses fell 21% YoY in Q4 to $23.1M; cash burn reduced by ~51% in 2024; CFO emphasized additional working capital improvements ahead.

Quote: “Owning and operating charging assets is the future of Blink… our network fees were $8.7 million in 2024 and generated 72% gross margin. This is the type of revenue we will pursue going forward.” — Mike Battaglia, CEO.

What Went Wrong

• Product sales contraction: Product revenues fell 49% YoY to $17.2M in Q4 due to difficult comps from 2023 auto dealership DC fast sales; management expects muted product in 1H25 before improving in 2H25.
• Reported gross margin dilution: Q4 gross margin was 25% versus 36% in Q3 as reported; Q4 included a $2.9M asset adjustment related to product upgrades, temporarily depressing GAAP margin.
• Non-cash impairment: Q4 included ~$57.9M goodwill impairment and change in fair value considerations; GAAP net loss widened to $(73.5)M and diluted EPS to $(0.73), obscuring underlying operating progress.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings. Welcome to the Blink Charging Quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Vitalie Stelea, VP of Capital Markets and FP&A. You may begin.

Vitalie Stelea (VP of Capital Markets and FP&A)

Thank you, John, and welcome to Blink's Quarter 2024 earnings call. Apologies for the slight delay due to technical difficulty. With us today on the call, we have Mike Battaglia, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Rama, Chief Financial Officer. Today's discussions will include non-GAAP references, which are reconciled to the most comparable U.S. GAAP measures in the appendix of our earnings deck. You may find the deck, along with the rest of our earnings materials and other important content, on Blink's Investor Relations website. Today's presentation may also include forward-looking statements about our expectations. Actual results may differ from those stated, and the most significant factors for those differences are included on page two of the Quarter 2024 earnings deck. Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons are year-over-year.

Now, regarding the Investor Relations calendar, Blink will be participating in the Roth Capital Investor Conference in Dana Point, California, on the 17th of March. In addition, please follow our announcements and our website for other events in the future. At this point, I will turn the call over to Mike Battaglia, President and CEO of Blink Charging. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

All right. Great. Thanks, Vitalie. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As most of you know, I officially assumed the CEO role on February 1 after my tenure as COO. So far, a month and a half into it, I am even more excited about where our company is headed and the future for Blink. We are moving very fast as an organization to build a winning global EV infrastructure company. 2024 had its challenges, but we made solid progress on many fronts. For example, in 2024, Blink continued to significantly grow its service revenue, delivering record full-year results and increasing our footprint of Blink-owned chargers, which is the future of Blink. With respect to hardware and product sales, we intensified our efforts to successfully develop alternative sales channels.

While there's still work to be done, we have established a solid foundation to build from. As we relentlessly pursue profitability, we initiated a variety of cost reduction actions that resulted in significant savings in operating expenses and lower cash consumption. Please turn to slides four and five. Our Quarter 2024 consolidated revenue was $30 million, a sequential increase of 20% when compared to the Quarter of 2024. Service revenues grew 24% in the quarter to $9.8 million compared to the Quarter of 2023, and network fees increased 9% to $2.4 million year-over-year. During the quarter, we dispersed 42.5 gigawatt-hours of energy across all Blink networks, a year-over-year increase of over 100% and a new Blink record. For the full year, our total revenues were $126 million.

We had mentioned last quarter, and I want to note again that 2024 product sales were faced with a challenging comp as we had significant DC fast charger sales to auto dealerships in 2023. However, throughout 2024, we focused on other sales verticals such as large electrical distributors, multifamily properties, commercial fleets, local and state governments, offices, hospitals, and schools, just to name a few, which provide Blink with profitable and sustainable revenue. Service revenue for the year was $35 million, also a Blink record, driven by increased utilization, a greater number of Blink-owned chargers in the field, and an increasing mix of DC fast chargers, which is another key focus area for us. Gross margin for the full year was 32%, and we continue to have confidence in our margin profile going forward.

Before I move to the next slide to discuss growth of our service revenues, I want to spend a minute on current market conditions surrounding electric vehicles and charging. Electric vehicles are seeing strong demand from consumers as Cox Automotive reported that new electric vehicle sales in the month of January 2025 were up nearly 30% compared to January 2024. In fact, January 2025 marked the 10th consecutive month of more than 100,000 EVs sold in the United States. This was following the month of December, where US EV sales reached the highest level ever. As the market matures, we are confident that the proliferation of lower-cost EVs and used secondhand EVs that are entering the market will continue to drive the wider transition to electric vehicles in both the mid and long term.

In addition to the increase in new electric vehicles on the road, another major factor that is driving demand for charging services are used EVs. Cox Automotive reported that used EV sales grew by nearly 31% year-over-year in January 2025. These sales results for both new and used electric vehicles are encouraging as they form the foundation of EV charging demand. Another point that is important to address is the recent tariff announcements and their effect on Blink. In short, we do not expect tariffs to be a significant burden on our gross margin as we primarily source components and third-party finished goods within the United States and from India, where our two production facilities are located. This is obviously a moving target, so we need to continue to monitor political developments and market conditions and will adjust accordingly.

With that, let's move to slide six, which ties into what we just described earlier. Blink ended 2024 with 6,867 company-owned chargers, which is a 33% increase compared to 2023 year-end. These chargers were the primary reason driving Blink's 2024 service revenue to nearly a 32% increase year-over-year to almost $35 million. We saw record charging revenue, which grew 37% to $21.4 million. This impressive growth is due to the increased number of Blink-owned units, better site selection, and inclusion of more DC fast chargers into our portfolio. Again, this is the future of Blink and its bright spot. As we've highlighted, we are increasingly focused on growing our DC fast charger Blink-owned portfolio. In fact, revenue from our DC Blink-owned chargers went up nearly 500% in 2024 when compared with 2023.

This focus is evident in our recent announcements, such as our agreement with Royal Farms, a Mid-Atlantic regional fueling and convenience store chain, where Blink owns and operates 76 DC fast charging ports. This exemplifies the type of partnerships and revenue growth that will drive our focus into the future. Looking at slide eight, Blink has the third largest EV charging network in the United States, according to the US Department of Energy. Our scale is important, especially now as we see industry consolidation in both the US and European charging industries. This consolidation represents an attractive growth opportunity for Blink, either through organic benefits or through acquiring assets. Across the pond in Europe, we are one of the leading providers of charging services with significant operations in the United Kingdom and Belgium.

This is a corporate strength as our operations there provide revenue and profitability diversification, especially with the consistent transition to electrified transportation across the continent. In the U.K., for example, almost one out of five vehicles sold in 2024 were electric, and the used electric vehicle market saw a 57% increase in sales. Similarly, in Belgium, 2024 was a record-breaking year for EV sales, where electric vehicles made up nearly 30% of new car sales, resulting in a 36% increase in registrations. The growing adoption of EVs was primarily driven by corporate fleets, which accounted for nearly 87% of new fully electric registrations in 2024. We continue to make progress, enhancing the capabilities of our global network. We are nearly complete with the consolidation of our European software networks into our global Blink 2.0 network, which will provide operational and cost efficiencies.

We are also taking actions to improve network throughput. For example, we replaced a number of legacy DC and L2 chargers this past quarter with more advanced equipment. This action will not only improve the customer experience, but will also lead to increased charging revenues. Now, before I turn it over to Michael Rama, I wanted to emphasize the progress that Blink made in 2024 in reducing our cash burn and operating expenses. Through cost avoidance and optimization actions, total operating expenses, as adjusted for non-cash items, were reduced by 24% in 2024. Sequentially, our Q4 operating expenses were down 17% when compared with Q3 of 2024. This was primarily driven by a $4.3 million, or 28% reduction in compensation expense. Compensation expense for full year 2024 was reduced by 37% compared to prior year. Most importantly, our cash burn was reduced by 51% in 2024.

On a quarterly basis, we reduced operating cash burn from $18 million per quarter at the close of 2023 to $9 million per quarter at the end of 2024. We reduced our cash burn by half and were definitely not done yet. I will come back at the end of the presentation with more details about some of the current actions we're taking to position Blink for profitability and long-term success. For now, I will turn the presentation over to our CFO, Michael Rama. Michael.

Michael Rama (CFO)

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. Now, turning to slide 11, our Q4 2024 revenues were $30.2 million. Total revenues for 2024 were $126.2 million compared to $140.6 million for the full year 2023. Product revenues for the quarter were $17.2 million and $81.7 million for the full year. Quarter four service revenues, which consists of charging service revenues, network fees, and car sharing revenues, were $9.8 million, an increase of 24% compared to the quarter of 2023. Full year 2024 service revenues were $34.8 million, representing a year-over-year growth of 31.8%. Gross profit was $7.5 million, or 25% of revenues, compared to gross profit of $10.6 million, or 25% of revenues in the quarter of 2023. Q4 gross profit was impacted by an asset adjustment of $2.9 million, which was primarily related to product upgrades, as Mike mentioned earlier.

Without the impact of this charge, gross margins would have been over 35% in the quarter of 2024. Full year 2024 gross profit was $40.8 million, or 32% of revenues, compared to gross profit of $40.2 million, or 29% in the full year 2023. Excluding the impact of asset adjustments related to product upgrades, full year 2024 gross margins would have been 35%. Operating expenses, excluding non-cash impairment and change in fair value charges, decreased 21% to $23.1 million, compared to $29.5 million in the quarter of 2023. Sequentially, operating expenses decreased by $4.7 million, or 17%, compared to Q3 of 2024, primarily driven by decreased compensation expense. Full year 2024 operating expense, also adjusted for non-cash impairment and changes in fair value charges, decreased $35 million, or 24%, to $111 million compared to $145 million in the prior year.

Loss per share for the quarter was $0.73 per share compared to $0.28 in the prior year period. For full year 2024, loss per share was $1.96 compared to $3.21 in the prior year. Adjusted loss per share for the quarter improved to $0.15 compared to $0.28 in the quarter of 2023. Adjusted loss per share for the full year 2024 improved to $0.61 compared to $1.42 in the full year of 2023. Now, adjusted EBITDA for the quarter of 2024 was a loss of $10.6 million compared to a loss of $14 million in the prior year, an improvement of 25% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year of 2024 was a loss of $49.5 million compared to an EBITDA loss of $57 million in 2023. This is an improvement of 13% year-over-year.

As of December 31, 2024, the company had cash liquidity of $55 million, which includes liquid marketable securities and no cash debt. As for our outlook, based on current visibility, Blink believes service revenues will continue to increase throughout 2025. We expect product revenue in the first half of 2025 to be similar to product revenue levels in the back half of 2024 and anticipate product revenues to improve during the second half of 2025. We had provided an adjusted EBITDA target on previous calls. However, given the current macro dynamics, we expect to have better visibility around our timeline to reach adjusted EBITDA profitability as the year progresses, and we'll update you accordingly. As a company, we remain focused on continuing to grow revenues while reducing operating expenses and cash burn in order to drive towards profitability.

I will now turn the call back over to Mike for his final commentary. Go ahead, Mike.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Great. Thank you, Michael. As we move through 2025, our industry is experiencing a challenging landscape, and we are focused on embracing operational strategies that will position Blink to effectively navigate the near term with a focus on driving long-term growth. With that in mind, we are introducing Blink Forward, our strategic focus for sustained success. First and foremost, our plan is focused on promoting our relentless pursuit of profitability with a sharp focus on reducing operating expenses. We reduced cash burn by 51% in 2024, compensation expenses by 37%, and total adjusted operating expenses by 24%. However, there is more to be done, and we are looking at every business department and cost center to ensure a path to profitability. The first pillar in Blink Forward is to continue our commitment to offer flexible, customer-centric business models.

We'll focus on being a constructive partner, understanding customer pain points, and providing solutions, whether it's through our reliable equipment and network or software that controls energy management. Next, we have been shifting to and will continue to expedite the growth of our portfolio of Blink-owned DC fast chargers in attractive locations. As mentioned earlier, owning and operating charging assets is the future of Blink, especially as we get the benefit of significant charging demand growth in Europe and the US. Third, we are prioritizing services and recurring revenue streams as we invest in future growth. For example, our network fees were $8.7 million in 2024 and generated 72% gross margin. This is the type of revenue we will pursue going forward. Fourth, we are attuned to opportunities to capitalize on the market consolidation that is happening across the industry.

This consolidation could benefit Blink through market share gains or consolidating assets into the Blink network. Finally, we are looking to preserve cash, optimize operations, and where needed to secure low-cost, preferably non-dilutive capital to support our growth strategy. We have internally introduced these strategic priorities and have already begun executing on them. We look at the current industry landscape as an opportunity to demonstrate our resilience and to position Blink to be the best well-run charging company in the industry. As I mentioned at the start of this call, 2024 was a challenging year. However, it has also been a rewarding year in terms of progress. It has made us a better company, and we are implementing steps for Blink to achieve profitability and free cash flow.

I would like to thank the Blink team for their efforts, and we look forward to keeping you updated as we move forward. With this, let's move on to 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 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you'd 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. Once again, please press Star 1 if you have a question or a comment. Our first question comes from Sameer Joshi with H.C. Wainwright. Please proceed.

Sameer Joshi (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, Michael. Mike, congratulations on your first full call as CEO.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Sameer Joshi (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Just a few questions from me, a couple actually. In terms of 2025 outlook that was provided, how do you see the product sales visibility beyond the next six months? Also, should we expect sort of year-over-year growth in product sales or other revenue sales to be offset by some shortfall in product sales and a flat year overall?

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I certainly expected that. First of all, as we indicated in the comments, the bright spot in the future of Blink is as a CPO and our operator. Our business is expanding there. We're very encouraged. One of the things to point out is, while my comments were I mentioned DC fast charging quite a bit, that's not to the detriment or exclusion of L2. Blink has always been an L2 company, and we're an L2 company at our core, but we're going to balance out the mix. Secondly, when it comes to product sales, this is actually a great opportunity for me to brag about Chris Karr, who is our new Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development. We were very lucky to land Chris. He was brought in to do some very specific things.

His job is certainly to grow the owner-operator side of the business, but it's also to take advantage of the product sales opportunities in the market. He has already put plans in place. He has shifted resources around to optimize the skill set of our salespeople. Some salespeople are better at selling products. Some salespeople are better at the owner-operator side of the business. We have already put that in place. From a product sales perspective, we are actually quite optimistic about the second half of the year. It's just that Chris has just gotten on board, and the first half is, I would say, a little bit cloudy, but we're hoping to have better visibility and guidance on that topic as we go forward.

Sameer Joshi (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Shifting gears a little bit and talking about your efforts to capitalize on market consolidation, Blink has historically been an acquisitive company. Do you have targets, especially in Europe and maybe South America or other parts of the world, that you're considering and are in the pipeline as acquisition candidates?

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is we have companies under consideration that we're looking at. There's nothing solidified, but there are some very interesting opportunities that are presenting themselves in the market. We have the luxury of being able to be very selective. We've been approached by a number of companies, but we're certainly very, very focused on making sure that if we go down this road, that they are absolutely the right companies, the right assets, the right fit for Blink, and quite frankly, that we don't overpay because there's no reason to overpay in this market for assets that perhaps are struggling a bit.

Sameer Joshi (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Just maybe one last one I can squeeze in. Do you have a timeline on the Envoy IPO, and how is that process going?

Michael Rama (CFO)

Yeah. Obviously, we publicly announced our intention to IPO Envoy. We continue to work towards an IPO in the spring. All I can tell you is, from an administrative standpoint, etc., we're on track, but more to come on that.

Sameer Joshi (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thanks for taking my questions, and good luck.

Michael Rama (CFO)

Yep. Thanks, Sameer.

Operator (participant)

Up next is Chris Pierce with Needham. Please proceed.

Chris Pierce (Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. I just was curious, as you shift more towards owner-operator, I guess if we see some sort of change in regulatory or administration and product sales sort of becomes more of a we see growth there, would you shift back to product sales? Because I know you guys have sort of had a multi-strategy approach. I just kind of want to get a sense of if this is fully pulling the Band-Aid off or if this is just reacting to what's going on in the market right now.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

No, I mean, I don't know that we are reacting in any way, shape, or form to what I'll call short-term dynamics, right? That's maybe the best way to put it. We have always said that what Blink wants to be in the long term is an owner-operator of charging assets. That's never changed. Perhaps you're hearing the message a little bit more sharply, maybe a little bit more well-defined, but our intention is to accelerate growth of the owner-operator business, certainly not give up on the product side by any stretch. I mean, the product side is still a strength for us. As I've said in previous calls, we want to serve the whole market. There are a set of customers that all they want to do is buy product, and we want to be there to sell them that product.

There is another set of customers that they are interested in having somebody else manage those charging assets at their location. We want to be there for that. I would simply delineate it as we're expressing the strategy perhaps more clearly and also introducing a bit more emphasis on DC fast charging.

Chris Pierce (Research Analyst)

Okay. Just for the other, Michael, how should we think about margins through the year as you lean more into the owner-operator model and you lean more into DC fast charging and the owner-operator model?

Michael Rama (CFO)

Oh, I think we'll still obviously, we didn't give any guidance on margins, right? I haven't given any guidance, but I still think that, as you've seen over the past, even this year, even for 2024, as our product sales were down, our margins overall were still up, right? What that shows is the strength in the owner-operator side with margins as well as being more efficient with our product. The expectation is we don't see much impact on the overall product mix.

Chris Pierce (Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you and good luck.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Craig Irwin with Roth Capital Partners. Please proceed.

Craig Irwin (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. Thirty-three percent growth in Blink-owned chargers, but 112% growth in gigawatt hours of throughput. You are obviously seeing nice improvements in overall utilization across the network. Are we already seeing tailwinds from you guys putting out some of the Tesla and NACS connectors out there, given that is two-thirds of the fleet? Or is that something that can maybe help you with utilization on the Blink network over the next number of quarters as you start deploying those?

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah, it's the latter, Craig. We haven't deployed that many NACS connectors yet, but certainly that's the focus going forward. I would say that to the degree to which we'll see an uplift on native NACS connectors on the chargers, we really haven't even seen that yet.

Craig Irwin (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Wow. Okay. That's good to hear. That's good to hear. I guess EBITDA is the easiest metric for us as we track your cost-out progress. It was a really nice sequential improvement. Your frictional costs, right, your salaries, SGNA, etc., are obviously coming down fairly significantly. Can you help us maybe get a little bit more quantitative or give us some color about how this is likely to take shape in 2025? Do we see a dramatic 50% reduction in salaries and comp again? How much more is there room to squeeze these different line items? Any other information you can share with us to help us understand the path to positive EBITDA?

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah. Certainly expected this question, Craig, and thanks for asking it. Let me start by saying, in this industry, there has been a lot of talk about getting to EBITDA positive and getting to free cash flow positivity. There has been a lot of talk, and there has not been a lot of delivery. As I get into this role, one of the things that I want to do is if we are going to come out and put a number out or a date out as to when we are going to get there, I want to be damn sure we get there. We need two things to happen. We need the top line to grow more aggressively than it is growing today. Secondly, we need to take additional cost out of the business.

What is your question, I think, is what is the magnitude of that cost? I'm not going to put a number on it, but what I would say is that it's not just people. We're evaluating every aspect of our cost structure. Our team globally is engaged in that exercise. When you start to get momentum with people throughout the organization digging for and raising cost reduction actions, it becomes a bit infectious. We're starting to see that happen. Will compensation expense come down a bit? Yeah, it probably will, hopefully mostly through attrition. There are going to be some other costs outside of comp that come down as well.

Craig Irwin (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

That definitely makes sense. Gross margins, 2024, your product revenue contracted, but you had pretty nice margin expansion there. I know there have been a lot of moves to sort of go to a more efficient footprint, the more efficient manufacturing in your expanded facility in Bowie. If we take a cautious view on just moderate growth in product sales in 2025, is there room for these actions that you have taken to continue to contribute to positive margin, potential margin expansion even in 2025? Have the sort of, I guess, this last quarter, is that more of a starting point for us to see progress from as we move through the year?

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think where you would see margin potential, let me use that word, potential margin expansion, is on the owner-operator side where we have more control over fees. Think about credit card transaction fees and session fees and price per kilowatt hour and things like that. We're starting to analyze that data in a much more sophisticated way than we ever have. Think about perhaps dynamic pricing based on demand throughout the day. On the product side, we're focused on, quite frankly, doing a better job managing our inventory. Our ambition is to turn our inventory at a greater rate. It is to manage the working capital associated with inventory more efficiently. We need to strike, I mean, Craig, you know I came up with a sales organization, and you always need to strike that balance between moving volume and margin.

I would say that we're still playing with that a little bit, but I expect that product margin to be pretty consistent with where it has been.

Craig Irwin (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Excellent. I guess this might be a multi-part question, but business mix has kind of been in your favor the last couple of years, right? Level two never faced the big structural headwinds of the confusion around the NEVI money and some of the things going on in the States. You guys always did really well with corporate customers, I guess, like Starbucks. I guess I can say that because I've seen it outside. Your chargers outside so many different Starbucks as I stop for coffee. You've focused on things like New York State, the direct buy there where you go you don't have the uncertainty of federal money. It seems like maybe business mix can be a little bit favorable or continue to be a little bit more favorable to you, particularly on level two versus level three.

Are you optimistic for some of these tailwinds that have worked for you for a longer-term perspective, specifically the state support to keep helping you in 2025? Do you think that this can help deliver product growth in 2025, which I guess is the big question investors have in their heads?

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah. So we're fortunate to have several state contracts where we're a named supplier on those contracts. One great example is Maryland. Another is New York. Yes, I mean, we expect to do more on those state contracts. We also expect to do more in Europe. I think that that is also perhaps a little bit of an underdog or a stealth area for us in 2025. We have some really interesting things happening in Europe. One example is the U.K.'s version of NEVI, and I'm not making this up, is the program called LEVI, L-E-V-I. There's GBP 340 million-odd committed to that program from the U.K. government. We feel well-positioned. In fact, we just recently had a press release on one opportunity, which you can take a look at. There's that. We're also seeing some very large owner-operator opportunities in Belgium.

I want investors to think about the fact that Blink is diversified and that this company is not just dependent on the United States or even one segment of the United States. We can pivot to different markets.

Craig Irwin (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Excellent. Last question, if I may. I guess it's a balance sheet question. It appears to me that you got basically $15 million in cash by squeezing receivables and inventory this last year. How much room is there to go? I mean, can you guys continue to squeeze working capital and make improvement on payment terms with your customers and vendors? Is this really an opportunity for tailwinds on that 50% reduction in cash use last year?

Michael Rama (CFO)

Yeah, I'll jump in on that. Yeah, I'll take that, Craig. Yes. To quote Mike, the short answer is, yeah, no, we're still implementing measures to squeeze more cash out of our AR and our balance sheet. As we mentioned earlier as well, it's quicker turns on our inventory. It's improving the working capital management, if you will, of our balance sheet and definitely use our balance sheet to our benefit.

Craig Irwin (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Excellent. Congrats on the progress, guys. We'll follow closely. Thank you.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Thank you, Craig.

Michael Rama (CFO)

Thanks, Craig.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you have a question or a comment, please press star one. The next question comes from Mickey Legg with Benchmark. Please proceed.

Mickey Legg (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. You mentioned alternative customer channels. Just curious if you could unpack that a little bit. How are these discussions going? What are you hearing from customers? I know you mentioned you're not going to have more visibility into product sales until later in the year, but I'm just curious if there's any bright spot among these channels, whether it be multifamily or commercial fleet or anything of that nature. Longer term, just curious how big you think that business could grow or what, again, is the biggest opportunity there.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. Hey, Mickey. Thanks for joining. I would say from talking to the sales team, we've made tremendous progress with electrical distributors. The one thing that we really like about building that electrical distribution channel is that it's more efficient. It's not just the Blink sales team. It's the Blink sales team interfacing with the electrical distributor who then has far broader reach. We are spending, and our reps are spending a lot of time and effort developing that electrical distribution channel. The second bright spot that I would say, and this is an area we've actually always been pretty good at, but I think we're getting even better, is in local municipalities. There are a lot of local municipalities that are building out charging infrastructure.

Again, they may do it for fleet, in which case they're purchasing the chargers, or we're partnering with them on setting up infrastructure in their town, city, on an owner-operator basis or our hybrid model, which is that shared investment model. I would say I'd probably give those two examples are decent ones.

Mickey Legg (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it. All right. Just to follow up, there's been a lot of discussion about the focus on growing the owner-operator business and the shift to CPO. I don't think that's too much of a surprise. I think it definitely gives some good upside to the margins. I'm just curious if you see any hurdles there as you grow that business and if there's any change in focus based on geography. Are you more focused on growing that business in the EU as it's more mature and then taking some of what you learned over here? Just curious.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. Good question. It's really interesting what's going on in the market right now because there's so many headlines, especially in the U.S., that it's hard to decipher fact from fiction. We tend to follow the data, which I think is the right approach. The data says that there's a whole hell of a lot of activity in the electric vehicle market in the United States in addition to Europe. This is not a choosing; this is not Blink having to choose between the U.S. and Europe. This is Blink addressing both markets. We're going to continue to invest in the U.S. because we know that electric vehicle growth is going to continue. To answer the first part of your question, the challenge, as you asked, about the owner-operator model is capital, right? It requires capital to deploy in order to move in that direction.

We are actively pursuing capital sources. Our focus is on non-dilutive capital and different types of capital. Not just one particular type, but whether it's using our balance sheet, whether it's project-based, whatever that might be. Obviously, if there was more investment in terms of equity into Blink and the share price was stronger, that would give us more flexibility. For the moment, based on market conditions where our stock price is, etc., it's on the non-dilutive side.

Mickey Legg (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. One more, if I could just squeeze it in here. You touched on this a bit already, but could you just dig into a little bit more how you're protected from any regulatory changes and maybe tariffs related to the supply chain and everything we're hearing out there about that? Thanks.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. I would say I don't know that anybody's protected. I wouldn't go that far. What I would say is that we have a production facility here in Maryland, and that allows us to shield ourselves a bit, let's say, from some of those tariffs and regulatory issues that come up because we can source, we have suppliers here in the US that we can source from, and we can build chargers here. Even in terms of our India production footprint, it becomes a manufacturing units numbers game. In other words, yes, will we get hit with some tariffs on, let's say, steel and aluminum in our India-finished goods? Yes. Our cost base on those chargers is lower, so we can absorb it. Perhaps that landed cost is really on par with, let's say, our US-based chargers.

We just have more finished goods coming in.

Mickey Legg (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay. Got it. That's very helpful. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Okay. The last question comes from Noel Parks with Tuohy Brothers. Please proceed.

Noel Parks (Managing Director)

Hi. I just had a couple. I apologize if you touched on this and I missed it, but you had an impairment charge in the quarter. If you could just sort of dig down a little bit as to what was involved in that, timing and so forth.

Michael Rama (CFO)

Yeah, I'll jump in on that. The fourth quarter in November is our annual, you have an annual impairment exercise you have to go through, or if there's indicators on the off quarters, if you will, during the third quarter, second quarter, or first quarter, if there are indicators. We bought SemaConnect back two and a half years ago when the valuations were high. Our market cap had come down. This is just a byproduct of acquisitions from when the valuations were much higher. We had to write down that goodwill effectively.

Noel Parks (Managing Director)

Got it. Okay. Thanks for the question.

Mike Battaglia (President and CEO)

Non-cash. Remember, non-cash. That is why I love my cash base. Right.

Noel Parks (Managing Director)

Right. Absolutely. You were talking a little bit on an earlier question about just different verticals and how the business is going. You also talked about different channels, like you talked about the electrical distributors. I guess one market I was curious about is in what's been kind of a fast and furious real estate market with the interest rate environment the last couple of years. In some parts of the country where there's been a lot of population growth, there's also a lot of new construction that's been going on and coming online. Some of the single-family subdivisions, I guess some of it probably multifamily. I was just wondering, as you see new projects, in this case, residential being planned out, where do they come down in terms of wanting to satisfy their potential homeowners' EV charging needs? What's that been like?

Michael Rama (CFO)

Yeah. I'm going to parse it just slightly. I want to emphasize again, and we talk about this, is that Blink really doesn't have exposure to the pure residential EV charging market, meaning I have a single-family garage and I'm buying a charger on Amazon. That's not us. What we do, a big market for us, is commercial multifamily. Yes, there's a lot of activity there. What you see is that more and more building codes are requiring stub-ups, right, make-ready for a certain percentage of parking spots within that parking lot. What that does is they may do the minimum, but that is actually an opportunity. It's actually a great opportunity for Blink with our hybrid business model, our hybrid Blink-owned business model. They've already built out the infrastructure.

We come into properties like that, and we put the charger in at no cost. Our return on investment is the utilization of that charger and the tenants, the residents of that apartment building paying for their charging sessions. They get the benefit of basically having, affectionately, a gas station at home.

Noel Parks (Managing Director)

Oh, terrific. That's interesting. Have you been far enough along with any of those that you've seen needs for upgrades or just rolling out increased density or chargers in developments like that?

Michael Rama (CFO)

Yeah. I mean, one indicator of that is we have at Blink, we have what's called an additional equipment request. That is when a sales rep has an account and they have our Blink-owned chargers. This is very anecdotal. I'm just going to qualify that this is anecdotal, but hopefully it clarifies or answers what we're talking about. The number of requests that I've received in the last few months for additional equipment at already existing sites has definitely spiked. We are starting to see properties add to the number of chargers that they have on-site. I don't have a quantity; I haven't quantified that yet. Again, anecdotally, I'm just signing more of those.

Noel Parks (Managing Director)

Great. Good to hear. Thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

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

Vitalie Stelea (VP of Capital Markets and FP&A)

Thank you all for joining us on the call today. As we announced record service revenues and strong GAAP gross margin of 32% for the full year, we also unveiled Blink Forward, a number of strategic actions that will enable Blink to achieve profitability and position the company as a leader in the charging industry, both in the U.S. and Europe. At this time, we're going to conclude the call, and we'll look forward to keeping you updated in the future. Thanks again.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.