Coda Octopus Group - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning and welcome to Coda Octopus Group's Second Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Melissa, and I will be your operator today. Before this call, Coda Octopus issued its financial results for the second quarter ended April 30, 2025, including a press release, a copy of which will be furnished, and a report filed with the SEC, and will be available on the investor relations section of the company's website. Joining us on the call today from Coda Octopus are its Chair and CEO, Annmarie Gayle, its Interim CFO, Gayle Jardine, and its President of Technology, Blair Cunningham. Following their remarks, we will open the call for questions. Before we begin, Jeff Turner from our investor relations team will make a brief introductory statement. Jeff, please go ahead.

Moderator (participant)

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Coda Octopus Second Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Before management begins their formal remarks, we would like to remind everyone that some statements we're making today may be considered forward-looking statements under securities law and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. As a result, we caution you that there are a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and public filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statements are made, except as may be required by law.

We refer you to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for detailed disclosures and descriptions of our business, as well as uncertainties and other variable circumstances, including but not limited to risks and uncertainties identified in our Form 10-K for the year ended October 31, 2024, and Forms 10-Q for the first and second quarters of our 2025 fiscal year. You may get Coda Octopus Securities and Exchange Commission filings free by visiting the SEC website at www.sec.gov. I would also like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded and will be made available for replay via a link in the investor relations section of the Coda Octopus website. Finally, as a reminder, this is our second quarter fiscal 2025 reporting, and all comparisons are with our second quarter fiscal 2024. Now, I will turn the call over to the company's Chair and CEO, Annmarie Gayle.

Annmarie?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Call. Despite the challenging global policy environment, our revenue in the second quarter 2025 increased by 31.8%. Operating income decreased due to lower gross profit margins from our core business, the marine technology business, due to more units of hardware sales from Asia, which incurred a higher-than-usual commission cost in conjunction with increased operating costs resulting from the weakening of the U.S. dollar against the British pound and Danish kroner. In the second quarter, I am very pleased to see revenue increasing by 31.8%. I would like now to provide some of the key highlights relating to our results of operations in the second quarter.

For those who are new to the Coda Octopus story, our business is made up of three discrete business operations: the marine technology business, the marine engineering businesses, and our recently added acoustics, sensors, and materials business unit. Within our group, our core business is the marine technology business. This business generates most of our revenue, and in the second quarter, it generated 55.3% of our total consolidated revenue. It is around this business that we're building our growth strategy. The marine technology business operates in the subsea market and is home to key disruptive underwater technologies. These technologies are bringing the smartphone revolution underwater by providing a comprehensive real-time information platform, which allows our customers to make real-time decisions and also significantly reducing the cost of these operations while increasing safety. The specific addressable markets that we operate in are the imaging sonar market and diving market.

It is these market segments that our growth strategy is built around. Saying a little bit more about our imaging sonar, the Echoscope. The Echoscope is a real-time three-dimensional volumetric imaging sonar that can generate a real-time three-dimensional image underwater in zero visibility water conditions. This is widely used in the commercial offshore marine market for a range of underwater applications. A significant part of our annual revenue is derived from the commercial offshore marine market. To achieve the growth that our shareholders want to see from our company, we have to increase our market share for underwater imaging sensors in the defense space. There are many ongoing defense programs globally where new classes of underwater vehicles are being adopted. Significant budgets are appropriated for this. The Echoscope's uniqueness of being a single sensor for multiple undersea activities presents a significant advantage over other technologies.

It allows the consolidation of the sensor on the vehicle platform by lowering the power consumption and overall vehicle weight without compromising the various missions to be executed. We're launching our next generation of three-dimensional sonars imminently, the NANO Gen series. The 3D sonars within our NANO Gen series are a shade bigger than an iPhone. Once launched, we will be positioned to address the range of opportunities in the imaging sonar space, removing form factor and pricing barriers. The NANO Gen series are designed to address the much smaller underwater vehicles, which are now being rapidly adopted for undersea missions in the defense space. Moreover, the NANO Gen series, being so small, can now be easily worn or carried down by the diver or attached to a robot underwater. The development of the NANO Gen series is another significant leap forward in the underwater imaging space and a commendable achievement by our R&D team.

Taking the technology and reducing it by two-thirds, we never believed we could achieve this. Our second key technology is the DAVD, the Diver Augmented Vision Display System. The DAVD provides a real-time information platform for diving operations, increasing safety and efficiency. The addressable market for the DAVD includes both the defense and commercial diving sectors. The untethered variant addresses the special forces type of divers, and we believe constitutes the largest addressable market for the technology. Now turning to second quarter highlights relating to our core business, the marine technology business. This business sells its products and solutions worldwide and increased revenue in the second quarter by 10%. Key highlights include 65.5% of revenue generated by this business relates to Echoscope and 34.2% relates to DAVD. Hardware sales increased by 65% and were $3.3 million compared to $2 million in second quarter 2024.

Hardware sales to Asia rose by approximately 105% and were $2.2 million compared to $1.1 million in second quarter 2024. This increase resulted in higher commission costs. Rental assets were significantly underutilized in the second quarter, resulting in lower units of rentals and associated services. This also impacted on the gross profit margins of this business. This reflects the change in U.S. policy on funding for offshore renewables, which caused many projects to be shelved, as reported by Shell, Ørsted, and BP. Looking ahead, however, we're seeing an uptick in the utilization of our rental fleets currently, and we have a number of ongoing rentals which are uniquely for longer rental periods for up to one year. I am very excited about this currently.

I want to emphasize that although the gross profit margins of our core business decreased in the second quarter, this is due to an exceptional set of circumstances where a higher commission cost was incurred on sales from Asia. Now turning to highlights relating to the marine engineering business. In the second quarter, our marine engineering business revenue increased by 2.3%, along with gross profit margin from 50.7% in the second quarter to 55.5% in the second quarter 2025. This business has long-standing relationships with prime defense contractors and has served the defense market for over 48 years. It is reliant on receiving funding on the defense programs. During the second quarter, it saw an increase in the level of inquiries on the defense programs and also much more momentum around these inquiries.

We also saw an increase in opportunities for direct contracts with the Department of Defense, DoD, which positions this segment to be able to compete for more work packages directly with the DoD as opposed to exclusively through prime defense contractors. The success of the marine engineering business is dependent on increasing the number of defense programs that they sell proprietary parts into. The momentum that we're seeing, therefore, is exciting. With defense budgets increasing globally and real pace being injected into this area, we are excited about this and feel that the group is well positioned. Now turning to highlights relating to the newly acquired business unit, Precision Acoustics Ltd. In the second quarter, this newly added business unit contributed 18.5% to our consolidated revenue and 13.4% to our operating income. This business unit has added some diversification and resilience to our revenue structure.

We continue to be very pleased with this acquisition, which we made in October 2024, and reiterate that it positions the group to collectively respond to larger defense requirements, particularly in the underwater acoustics space. We continue to make it our priority to focus on executing against our growth strategy, and in the second quarter, we saw an increase in sales of both the Echoscope and DAVD. Blair Cunningham, our President of Technology, who is the market maker for our technologies, will be updating you on progress and various milestones around our core technologies. Blair will also be available to answer any questions you may have about our technologies, so please use the opportunity to raise such questions during the Q&A session if you have any. I will now turn the call over to Blair Cunningham.

Blair Cunningham (President of Technology)

Thank you, Annmarie, and good morning, everyone. Today, I want to focus on the addressable markets for our technology and to expand on what we're doing to grow the business as shareholders want us to do. I hope this will be helpful to our shareholders. The Echoscope. The biggest market opportunities for scalable growth for our company around the Echoscope lie in the defense space, which is undergoing a major transformation through the deployment of new classes of underwater vehicles, including manned, unmanned surface, and fully autonomous platforms. These platforms vary dramatically in size, from large vehicles exceeding 85 ft in length and weighing over 85 tons to compact one-person deployable systems. Despite this diversity, a common requirement across all platforms is the need for reliable underwater vision. This capability is essential for safe and accurate navigation, situational awareness, environmental understanding, data collection, and mission execution.

The Echoscope directly addresses these needs by providing high-resolution, real-time 3D imaging in complex underwater environments. The defense sector deploys these underwater vehicles for a range of mission-critical applications, most notably mine countermeasures or MCM, anti-submarine warfare or ASW, surveillance and reconnaissance, and infrastructure protection. Currently, the Echoscope is being evaluated for integration into active future defense programs supporting three of these core mission areas, positioning it as a vital enabler in next-generation underwater operations. All next-generation defense vehicle programs share a common objective. Integrating advanced technologies and enhanced capabilities central to this evolution is the development of smarter vehicles equipped with tools like the Echoscope, technology that delivers real-time, three-dimensional data for informed decision-making. Its versatility across a wide range of defense mission applications supports the consolidation of sensor suite requirements on these platforms. A key advantage lies in addressing SWaP, which is size, weight, and power constraints.

By reducing the number of sensors required, the Echoscope helps lower power consumption and overall vehicle weight, directly contributing to extended mission durations. This capability represents a unique and valuable benefit the Echoscope brings to the defense technology space. To address the full spectrum of underwater vehicles, we have been actively investing in the development of our next-generation 3D sonar technology. We're now on the cusp of launching our NANO Gen series, a compact, high-performance product line that represents a significant milestone in our growth strategy. Designed with minimal form factor, some models in this series are only slightly larger than an iPhone. This compact size enables seamless integration with the smaller next-generation underwater vehicle programs currently in development. The NANO Gen series also extends our capabilities into new mission domains.

It aligns well with the DAVD, the Diver Augmented Vision Display Program, offering a sonar solution that can be easily hand-carried by a diver. Additionally, it opens up new opportunities in the robotics market, as the miniaturized Echoscope can now be mounted on a variety of robotic platforms, regardless of size, without compromising performance. Currently, the Echoscope accounts for approximately 80% of our revenue in the marine technology business. The NANO Gen series strengthens this core product line while strategically positioning us to capture emerging segments across defense, commercial, and robotic underwater applications. The Unmanned Underwater Vehicles or UUV market was valued at $4.8 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $11.1 billion by 2030. This growth is being driven by the rising complexity of maritime threats and the increasing demands for cost-effective, low-risk technologies.

As a result, remotely operated vehicles or ROVs and other UUVs are becoming integral to defense strategies around the world. The Echoscope is currently under evaluation in several major defense programs, including those involving next-generation underwater vehicles. Its ability to deliver real-time, high-resolution 3D imaging positions it as a critical enabler for enhanced navigation, threat detection, and mission execution across a broad range of maritime operations. I also mentioned on previous calls we have developed a ship hull scanning solution under a multi-year funded defense program, with the Echoscope embedded at the core of the system. Ship hull scanning addresses a significant and persistent challenge: the threat posed by unauthorized attachments, such as mines or tracking devices, on the hulls of high-value naval assets. This is a global concern with critical implications for security, readiness, and asset protection.

We believe our solution, which is now undergoing formal evaluation, represents the most advanced capability available for this application. The recent introduction of our NANO Gen series further enhances this offering, making it more adaptable to small form factor platforms such as remotely operated vehicles and diver sleds that are often constrained by payload size and weight. We anticipate receiving initial small volume orders late this year to support broader trials. These early developments will serve as key steps towards accelerating adoption and demonstrating the value of our solution in real-world defense environments. DAVD. The other significant pillar of growth is the DAVD. DAVD technology is an advanced Augmented Reality display technology designed to enhance diverse safety, performance, and situational awareness, especially in low visibility and technically challenging environments.

It seamlessly integrates real-time data, on-demand information, and Echoscope 3D sonar imagery, projecting these onto the diver's field of vision through the DAVD Augmented Reality head-up display. DAVD's tethered variant is in adoption with the U.S. Navy, and in the second quarter, we had orders for DAVD systems of over $1.5 million. These new systems will be distributed to new commands and thereby increasing the user base for the technology to around 12 navy commands. This is an important step in the adoption of the technology. As with the increased use in live missions, this will propel the broader adoption. The DAVD untethered system, which presents the largest opportunity for the technology, is still being evaluated.

Following the completion of the DAVD untethered system development hardening program by us, under which we delivered key items such as the new generation of HUD in a much smaller form factor and higher resolution, in the first quarter of 2025, we received our first order for 16 untethered systems, which is pivotal for the broader adoption of the technology in the defense community. We will be delivering these systems in our third quarter. For context, in the U.S. alone, there are 14,000 divers within the potential community of users for the untethered system: U.S. Special Forces, EOD, U.S. Army, Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, first responders, and law enforcement. If we were to achieve 15% of these users, this would, without modeling for inflation, add approximately $105 million to our revenue over time. This is the U.S. market alone.

Recent feedback from several major defense trials on the DAVD confirms the significance and uniqueness of DAVD technology. The feedback also emphasized the benefits and criticality of combining the DAVD with Echoscope in low visibility environments, again giving us good insight that the full-scale adoption by user groups is likely to include Echoscope. In keeping with this, in this year alone, we have five DAVD-related development projects where various other sensors are being integrated in the DAVD to ensure that all U.S. defense sensors used by the various missions are available in the DAVD. We believe we have created the DAVD solution ecosystem, which is well-positioned to serve the global defense and commercial diving market. One of our key milestones for this year is the adoption of the DAVD Diver Augmented Vision Display technology for foreign navies, expanding its use beyond the U.S. Navy.

We are making strong progress towards this goal. In the second quarter, we showcased the DAVD system at the Special Operations Command, SOCOM annual conference and exhibition, where it was demonstrated to multiple foreign naval delegations. Importantly, the event also brought us into direct engagement with leading defense diving equipment manufacturers, who play a critical role in the successful integration of DAVD into broader diving systems. These demonstrations and discussions mark a significant step in advancing international awareness, validation, and future adoption of the DAVD technology. Additionally, in the quarter, I personally led our team in a live demonstration of the DAVD system to a foreign navy, conducted in collaboration with a local law enforcement dive unit, an existing customer of both the Echoscope and our UIS underwater imaging system.

This demonstration not only highlighted the operational value of DAVD, but also reinforced the benefit of its seamless integration with the Echoscope. The second demonstration with this navy is already scheduled, where DAVD and the Echoscope will be deployed during a live operational mission to showcase their combined capabilities in a real-world environment. This particular navy holds significant influence within the European defense caucus and manages a centralized procurement budget covering the Navy, Army, Special Forces, and Coast Guard equivalents, making it a strategically important partner in our international expansion. I will turn the call over to Annmarie, and I will be available to take your questions during the Q&A session.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thank you, Blair. Let me now turn the call over to our Interim CFO, Gayle Jardine, to take you through our financials for the second quarter 2025 before I provide my closing remarks. Gayle?

Gayle Jardine (Interim CFO)

Thank you, Annmarie, and good morning, everyone. Let me take you through our second quarter fiscal 2025 financial results. For reference, all income statement comparisons are with second quarter fiscal 2024, and all figures are in U.S. dollars. Starting with revenue. In the second quarter of 2025, we recorded total revenue of $7.0 million compared to $5.3 million in the second quarter of 2024, an increase of 31.8%. Our core business, the marine technology business, generated revenue of $3.9 million compared to $3.5 million, a 10% increase with the second quarter 2024. Our acoustic sensors and materials business, which was added to our group in October 2024, recorded revenue of $1.3 million. Our marine engineering business, services business, generated revenue of $1.84 million compared to $1.80 million, representing a 2.3% increase over the second quarter of 2024. Our total consolidated net revenue increased by 31.8%.

The newly added business, Precision Acoustics, added 18.5% to our consolidated revenue in the second quarter. Moving on to gross profit and margin. In the second quarter of 2025, we generated gross profit of $4.5 million compared to $3.7 million in the second quarter of 2024. Our consolidated gross margin was 64.1% versus 70.2% in the second quarter of last year. In our marine technology business, gross margin decreased to 67.7% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to 80.2% in 2024, reflecting higher commission costs attributed to increased sales in Asia for hardware in conjunction with a lower utilization of our rental assets, therefore reducing rental income and associated services. The acoustic sensors and materials business realized gross margin of 65.4%, and we expect on an annualized basis this to be between 59% and 63%, depending on the mix of sales.

Our marine engineering business gross margin increased to 55.5% in the second quarter of 2025 versus 50.7% in the second quarter of 2024, again reflecting the mix of engineering projects during the second quarter of this year. Now moving on to our operating expenses. Total operating expenses for the second quarter of 2025 increased to $3.4 million compared to $2.4 million in the second quarter of 2024. The main factors for the increase in total operating expenses were the addition of Precision Acoustics into the group, which added 29.5% to these costs, and the weakening of the U.S. dollar against British pound and Danish kroner, which impacted on these costs when translated into U.S. dollars from the base currencies for reporting purposes.

Our selling, general, and administrative costs in the second quarter of 2025 totaled $2.7 million, an increase of 47.4% from $1.8 million in the second quarter of 2024, reflecting the addition of the new business unit into the group and the exchange rate adjustment charges. As a percentage of revenue, our selling, general, and administrative costs for the second quarter of 2025 were 38.8% compared to 34.7% in the prior year quarter. Operating income in the second quarter of 2025 was $1.1 million compared to $1.4 million in the second quarter of 2024, a decrease of 19.5%. Operating margin was 15.5% compared to 25.4% in the second quarter of 2024, which we attribute to the increase in cost of revenue and total operating expenses for the reasons explained earlier. Pre-tax income in the second quarter of 2025 was $1.3 million compared to $1.6 million in the second quarter of 2024.

Net income after tax in the second quarter of 2025 was $0.9 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, compared to $1.4 million, or $0.13 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2024. Looking now at our balance sheet, as of April 30, 2025, we had $24.5 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand and no debt. This represents an increase of $2 million from October 31, 2024, with a comparable figure of $22.5 million. Finally, to summarize the financial impact in the current quarter of the introduction of our new acoustic sensors and materials business into the group, we contributed 18.5% of total revenue in the quarter, and the gross profit margin was $0.8 million, or 65.4%. That completes my financial summary, so let me turn the call back over to Annmarie for her closing remarks. Thank you.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thank you, Gayle. I am very pleased with the increase in revenue in the second quarter 2025. Although the gross profit margins of our core business decreased, I consider this exceptional for the reasons explained earlier. The weakening of the U.S. dollar also resulted in higher operating costs being translated into U.S. dollars by our foreign subsidiaries. These two factors resulted in lower income and earnings per share. We continue to work to create stable long-term shareholder value and execute against our strategy to grow the business, which is our single biggest priority as a group. We are also very pleased with the broader progress that we're making on the DAVD program. The DAVD is the subject of various ongoing trials and limited use on live missions. As part of this, recent trials were conducted by a major body responsible for assessing the readiness of the technology for deployment.

This trial concluded that the DAVD technology is significant and unique. It also concluded that combining DAVD with our three-dimensional sonar Echoscope makes it unique for diving operations. As part of this recognition, we see the galvanization of different development programs. We are under contract for five developments currently, where other sensors that this community use is now being integrated in the DAVD ecosystem. These are strong indicators that this is the technology of choice for future diving operations in the defense space. A key milestone which we are focused on achieving this fiscal year is adoption of the DAVD by foreign navies, and this is progressing well. We will also continue to prosecute our M&A strategy in fiscal year 2025, although we have put on hold the acquisition which we were working on until the global policy environment has stabilized.

I want to emphasize that we have not abandoned our M&A strategy. We're simply focusing on navigating the policy environment and ensuring that our decisions are sound for our shareholders. Through our strategy, we aim to pivot the revenue model of the marine technology business to a multi-year, multi-sales model, as we have started to see with the DAVD product line. To conclude, we would like to thank our shareholders for their continued support. We're now happy to answer any questions. Operators?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you'd 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'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.

Our first question comes from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Brian Kinstlinger (Managing Director, Director of Research, and Senior Technology Analyst)

Hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. During the last earnings call, Annmarie, you said, given the uncertainty in global trade, there was a standstill by customers as it relates to your marine products business, and so you thought revenue would be back end loaded this fiscal year. First, what changed that led to the stronger-than-expected second quarter demand for marine products? Did orders pull forward quicker than expected, or is it something more broadly, sorry, that's changed from a demand perspective?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Hi, Brian. Good morning. Thank you very much for your question. Look, what we're seeing in our core business, the marine technology business, is really, really strong inquiries around our Echoscope technology, particularly on the outright purchase side. I think we saw a really strong level of inquiries from Asia in particular, and that continues on the hardware side. Also, we also saw a strong pickup around the DAVD program, and we had in the quarter $1.2 million worth of DAVD sales. The one thing that we saw, which was the real sort of downturn in inquiries from European developers in the second quarter, but we're now seeing that moving forward and more rentals going ahead in the third quarter. Overall, I think what we're seeing is a strong level of inquiries right across the piece that's the marine technology business and our engineering businesses.

Brian Kinstlinger (Managing Director, Director of Research, and Senior Technology Analyst)

Great. And then did you share the expected timing, the new nano Echoscope release? I think you talked about back-end trials. Can you discuss how this new release addressed customer feedback and could lead to increased adoption in use cases?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

First of all, we're really on the cusp of releasing NANO. Blair Cunningham, our President of Technology, has significant trials with NANO, I think, at the end of this month for a critical defense program. After those trials are concluded, we would expect to really make an announcement to our customer base. We'd like to see how those trials go. Blair will talk more about this, but what NANO addresses is really the smaller classes of underwater vehicles. The introduction of this new generation into the mix allows our business to address the full expanse of the requirements that we see in the market, from very large underwater vehicles to very, very small.

I think this positions the company nicely for addressing the full market. In addition to that, we have, for example, the diver taking down currently the Echoscope, which is a bit sizable. This now removes that, and nano allows, because it's a shade bigger than the iPhone, he can easily wear the Echoscope today. Also, robotics, really, where you've got these small robotics platforms, again, a new application for our technology given the form factor. We're pretty excited about this. As I said, the launch date will be after trials in June, the end of June, where Blair will be leading our team with the trials with our U.S. Navy customer base.

Brian Kinstlinger (Managing Director, Director of Research, and Senior Technology Analyst)

Great. As it relates to your five development programs, can you help range or provide a range of sizes for the different opportunities of what these might address and help us with timeline for these development programs that might be evaluated and turn into a next phase?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Blair, can you just talk a little bit, please, about the development programs that we're working on just in terms of the broad sense of requirements?

Blair Cunningham (President of Technology)

Yeah. Yeah, sure. Thank you, Brian, again for the question. Yes, the five programs are really taking the DAVD system either to support existing equipment, so integrating that existing equipment in, or in one particular case, it's for a completely new application, which is a kind of deep saturation dive suit. The biggest market opportunity still remains the untethered space.

I would say probably three or four of those programs all relate to integration with untethered additional dive equipment. It is all for the benefit of the U.S. Navy in particular, along with all the foreign navies. They all use different, what we call UBAs, or underwater breathing apparatus equipment. One of the key parts of DAVD is providing hands-free information on critical lifeline information that they would have from this breathing apparatus. How do we integrate that, bring that into DAVD, provide the alerts and the real-time information in a hands-free environment? A lot of the programs around, they have seen the interest in DAVD. They now want that to work with the existing equipment they have. Largely, I would say that is three or four of the programs that we are actively working on at the moment.

Think about it as a product adoption necessity, as it were, to get the equipment in the hands of those divers. That's correct.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

The one thing to just add on, Brian, there is to remember that all of the sensors that they're using for diving currently is relevant, but what they have to do if they're going to adopt DAVD is to bring that within the DAVD world. I think that for us, this is very, very positive because what it's really saying is that DAVD is our choice. We now need to bring all our sensors within that ecosystem. We're really seeing a galvanization around that to ensure that all of the sensors that are being used by all the different community of users are now being brought into the DAVD world. We are extremely excited about this.

Brian Kinstlinger (Managing Director, Director of Research, and Senior Technology Analyst)

Okay. You talked about the next generation underwater vehicles and the progress Coda is making in securing. Sorry, can you talk about the progress Coda is making in securing design wins? Maybe lay out any milestones or timing we should watch out for. I think we've talked about this opportunity for a little bit. Maybe size the range of opportunities in all the different vehicles, what it might look like if you did win a production order.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

It is very difficult for us to really give numbers. What we are seeing really to the market is that we've got various programs of different states of, if you like, maturity for these underwater vehicles. The important thing, Brian, is it's making sure that we continue this journey of getting new programs.

The ones that are ongoing and are being evaluated directly by the U.S. Navy or with prime defense contractors, the technology is already part of that broader program. That program is dependent on final evaluation, where does this program go? What we see is a proliferation of programs where the Echoscope is a contender because they are looking to integrate the Echoscope onto those platforms. Whilst I can't say categorically, I'm saying there's a big market out there. I think that the Echoscope is just that this final report, which was assessing the readiness of DAVD, talks about the uniqueness of the Echoscope technology for spatial awareness underwater and object detection, that this is the most advanced technology for that purpose. These programs can be slow, but what we're seeing within, for example, the DAVD program, we're seeing pull-through Echoscope sales there.

For the other programs that we've been following for some years, we're seeing additional units being bought and the programs slowly moving forward. Until budgets are appropriated and some of these evaluations are concluded, we're still waiting. We know that some programs look very, very promising for the business, but we still have to wait for, first of all, award and still have to wait for the evaluation process to be completed, whether it be directly with the prime defense contractor program or the navy directly. We have to make sure, the key point, that we're not missing opportunities. The job of the team is to make sure that the Echoscope is part of the program that's being considered for adoption. That's the work that we're doing.

Brian Kinstlinger (Managing Director, Director of Research, and Senior Technology Analyst)

Okay. Last question I have, a numbers question. Your business is lumpy for sure at times, but you'd previously expected to have a back-end loaded year, especially as it relates to marine products. Do you still expect the third and fourth quarter to be your two strongest quarters of the year, or did some of that change given the upside in the second quarter?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

I think that overall, we expect the marine technology business to continue to improve in the way that we're seeing this. Look, I'm very excited about the rental opportunities that we're seeing. We're seeing a good level of utilization of our rental pool, which is always very exciting for business. We also see lots of opportunities from Asia for hardware sales. I see very much that the third quarter and our fourth quarter will be within the bounds of what our Q2 numbers look like for the marine technology business.

Brian Kinstlinger (Managing Director, Director of Research, and Senior Technology Analyst)

Great. Thanks for answering all my questions.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thank you very much for the opportunity, Brian.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to join the question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of John Deysher with Pinnacle Value Fund. Please proceed with your question.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I was just curious on the gross margin percentage. It's still very attractive for the company as a whole, 64%-65%. Should we model that percentage for the back half of the year, or how should we think about the overall gross margin for the balance of the year? Is it staying the same, going up, going down, and for what reasons?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thank you very much. The gross profit margins for a marine technology business is very low. It's very, very unusual. If I'm not mistaken, I think, Gayle, I mean, gross profit margins for that business, same time last year, was about 76% compared to 65%. Gayle, is that right?

Gayle Jardine (Interim CFO)

It was just over 70%, Anna. Yes.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Yes. That 70% is typically what we would expect the margins to be. We would expect for the rest of the year, margins to go up. I think this quarter was an exceptional quarter for the reason I explained, which was we had a concentration of sales from Asia. What that means generally is that you're selling via your agents' network and then incurring commission costs. That was one factor. That was further compounded by the fact that we had a single sale that triggered a much higher percentage commission because of the multiples on that order. We expect that to be an outlier. We expect margins to be much stronger.

John Deysher (Analyst)

In the marine technology, and how about the other?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

In the marine technology business, yes. Precision Acoustics, the range is between 57%-65%. It depends really there on the mix of sales. In the marine engineering business, I think that there, again, we do not expect margins to really change dramatically because then it really depends on their mix of sales generally.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Okay. Those two are going to be steady. That is good to know. On the SG&A side, is there any reason to think that for the business as a whole, that percentage might come down? I think it is up a little bit from a year ago, the SG&A percentage.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Gayle, did you want to talk to that?

Gayle Jardine (Interim CFO)

Yes, I can do. Yes, our SG&A percentage this quarter was impacted by a couple of different factors, one of it being the exchange rate variances that we're seeing in the business. We are about 65% of our revenue and costs, or 55% of our revenue, 65% of our costs comes from the entities that are not in the U.S. We have some impact of exchange rate variance in there. We also have added in the Precision Acoustics business. We also have some non-cash equivalent impact this quarter as well. If you look at the non-cash element, that was quite a lot of the sorry, I lost my train of thought there. Apologies. The [non-cash charge] increased significantly. It was the amortization in PAL and the non-cash charges for depreciation for stock-based compensation and exchange rate variances.

In the current quarter, the non-cash items as a component of SG&A was 24.7% or about $670,000 compared to 0.3% or only a $6,000 gain in the previous quarter. That swing had an impact in this quarter here. As we do not know what the exchange rate is going to do going forward, we have to be expecting that the U.S. dollar is going to continue to weaken against the pound and the krone.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Okay. It sounds like we should model SG&A as a percentage of sales about the same as the first half or the back half. Is that fair?

Gayle Jardine (Interim CFO)

Or just slightly lower, yes.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Slightly lower. Okay. Fine. That is good. I guess my final question is the announcement of in third quarter, we expect to deliver 16 DAVD untethered systems, which is good. What kind of revenue contribution might that generate?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Can we talk about that when we get there? I mean, the order, just so we know, last was $800,000. We're hoping that we are going to be delivering all 16 units in the third quarter. If we do, it will be around $800,000.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Okay. You have a contract for delivery of 16? It's just a question of timing, or?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Yes. We are on the contract, but our production facility is getting the items ready for delivery in the third quarter. We already have a firm contract for that. It's just a question of delivering those.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Anything that's not delivered in Q3 would be delivered in Q4?

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Yes, certainly. Certainly. We are hoping to deliver all 16 units in the third quarter.

John Deysher (Analyst)

Yep. I understand. Good. Thank you very much. Good luck.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thank you for your question. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Ms. Gayle for any final comments.

Annmarie Gayle (Chair and CEO)

Thank you for joining our call today and for your interest in our company. Have a great day. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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