iPower - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Fiscal Q2 2025 delivered a return to GAAP profitability: revenue rose 14% year over year to $19.1M, gross margin expanded to 44.0%, and EPS was $0.01; operating expenses declined 22%, driving positive operating income of $0.68M.
• Momentum in SuperSuite and improved pricing negotiations underpinned gross margin expansion; management officially shuttered the legacy commercial hydroponics business to focus on a data-driven, multi-category retail and services model.
• Balance sheet actions remained a focus: total debt was 31% lower vs June 30, 2024 ($4.4M vs $6.3M); cash was $2.9M at quarter-end, reflecting debt paydown and working capital needs.
• No formal quantitative guidance was issued; S&P Global consensus estimates were unavailable at the time of analysis, limiting “vs estimates” comparisons. Investors should watch for continuing SuperSuite mix shift (~20% of sales run-rate) and channel partner dynamics with Amazon 1P as key stock-reaction catalysts.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Gross margin expansion and operating leverage: gross margin rose 40 bps YoY to 44.0%; operating expenses fell 22% YoY to $7.7M, enabling a swing to GAAP profitability.
• SuperSuite momentum and platform enhancements: management cited accelerating demand and integrations across logistics, merchandising, data analytics; supplier portal progress and AI research aimed at predictive analytics and automation.
  • “Our SuperSuite platform is gaining further momentum… We are making steady progress with our recently launched SaaS platform…” — CEO Lawrence Tan.
• Strategic shift away from legacy commercial hydroponics, aligning with higher-growth multi-category retail and services; cost optimization initiatives continue to deliver.

What Went Wrong

• Sequential revenue was flat and cash declined: Q2 revenue ~$19.07M vs Q1 ~$19.01M; cash fell to $2.88M from $2.58M in Q1 and $7.38M at June 30, reflecting operations and debt activity.
• Debt dynamics sequentially mixed: while down vs June 30, 2024, total debt increased sequentially from $3.5M (Q1) to $4.4M (Q2), indicating higher revolver utilization before declining again to $3.6M in Q3.
• Estimates unavailable, limiting external benchmark comparisons; investors lack a consensus anchor for EPS/revenue and may default to qualitative drivers and YoY comparisons (S&P Global consensus unavailable at time of analysis).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss iPower's financial results for its fiscal second quarter, 2025, ended December 31, 2024. Joining us today are iPower's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Lawrence Tan, and the company's CFO, Mr. Kevin Vassily. Mr. Vassily, please go ahead.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

Thank you, Josh. Good afternoon, everyone. By now, everyone should have access to our fiscal second quarter 2025 earnings press release, which was issued earlier today at approximately 4:05 P.M. Eastern Time. The release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at meetipower.com. This call will also be available for webcast replay on our website. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Before I introduce Lawrence, I'd like to remind listeners that certain comments made on this conference call and webcast are considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans, strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the state of the economy, and other future conditions.

Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks, changes, and circumstances that are difficult to predict, and many of which are outside of our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are also subject to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the company's filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC on September 20, 2024. We do not place undue reliance on any of the forward-looking statements, which are being made only as of the date of this call. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to any forward-looking statements.

Our presentation today also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, EPS, as supplemental measures of performance of our business. All non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in accordance with SEC rules. You'll find reconciliation tables and other important information in the earnings press release and Form 8-K we furnished to the SEC this afternoon. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to iPower's Chairman and CEO, Lawrence Tan. Lawrence?

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Kevin. Good afternoon, everyone. We delivered strong results across all key financial metrics in our fiscal second quarter while further enhancing our SuperSuite platform. Throughout the quarter, we continued to optimize operations and strengthen our presence across both our established and emerging sales channels. We also remain focused on supply chain diversification by exploring new supplier relationships beyond our existing network, reinforcing our commitment to build a more resilient and adaptable infrastructure. Our SuperSuite platform is gaining further momentum as we drive sales growth for partners with innovative product catalogs. Additionally, the platform offers strategic insights that enhance our operational efficiency and competitive positioning in the market. SuperSuite's continued revenue acceleration underscores the value we bring through our expertise in supply chain management, fulfillment, and merchandising.

As we advance our pipeline of prospective partners, we are focused on scaling SuperSuite's capabilities, and we anticipate it will grow as a larger share of our overall revenue mix. This quarter, we took meaningful steps to strengthen SuperSuite by integrating critical functions from value-added partners across logistics, merchandising, and data analytics to optimize our service offerings. These enhancements reinforce our commitment to fostering a fully connected ecosystem where all partners collaborate towards a common goal that is driving sales in both U.S. and international markets. By creating seamless integration across the supply chain, we empower our partners with the tools to expand efficiently, navigate shifting market dynamics, and optimize their operations for long-term success. This collaborative approach positions SuperSuite as a leading comprehensive solution for today's evolving e-commerce and supply chain landscape.

We continue to make steady progress with our recently launched SuperSuite Supplier Portal as well, refining its capabilities to enhance supplier collaboration and streamline operations. This platform is designed to optimize supplier interactions by providing data insights, facilitating access to multiple sales channels, improving shipment efficiency, and enabling seamless collaboration on merchandising strategies. As part of our ongoing innovation efforts, we are actively researching artificial intelligence applications to further enhance the platform's predictive analytics, automate routine processes, and provide smarter decision-making tools. Integrating these advanced features will enable us to foster stronger engagement between our suppliers, internal teams, and partners while driving greater efficiency across the supply chain. We have always prioritized diversifying our revenue streams as evidenced by the launch of SuperSuite and our continued expansion into new sales channels like AliExpress.

Our approach to channel expansion is strategic, focusing on strengthening our presence on our established channels like Amazon, where we have a proven sales track record and well-defined operational processes. At the same time, we continue to build momentum on other channels like TikTok, which offers access to younger demographics and the growing social commerce space, and Temu, which unlocks new revenue avenues for brand exposure and sales growth in rapidly expanding marketplaces. Our commitment to expanding across these diverse channels underscores our commitment to providing a comprehensive multi-channel solution that enables our partners to reach and engage customers both in the U.S. and globally with greater efficiency and scale. At the operating level, our ongoing efforts to optimize our cost structure have delivered meaningful results as we continue to drive gross margin expansion and operating leverage in our business.

We also have officially shuttered our legacy commercial hydroponics business as we are now focused on our core competency as a data-driven, technology-driven consumer products and services company. As we have mentioned before, we are continuing to benefit from a healthier supply chain, which enables us to operate with a lower level of inventory as lead times have normalized compared to recent years. As of December 31, 2024, we reduced our inventory level by approximately 12% compared to June 30, 2024. As we often say, we remain committed to enhancing operational efficiency and building a more resilient, adaptable supply chain. A key part of the strategy is our ongoing effort to diversify our supplier network, reducing dependency on any single region and strengthening our ability to navigate global supply chain fluctuations.

Last quarter, we took a significant step forward by expanding our manufacturing base to Vietnam, reinforcing the stability of our outsourcing strategy for both customers and partners. As we further diversify and begin generating sales with these new suppliers, we expect to see meaningful benefits, including lower production and logistics costs. Our optimized supply chain will also be able to react more quickly to evolving micro-changes, reducing our exposure to elevated lead times, costs, and potentially import restrictions. These enhanced efficiencies will enable us to offer more competitive pricing, strengthen our margins, and position iPower for long-term sustainable growth. We plan to continue identifying new supplier partnerships to further optimize our cost structure and ensure a robust, flexible supply chain that supports our growing business. Looking ahead, we are well-positioned to build on our momentum and execute our strategical initiatives.

We will continue expanding our sales channels while further investing in SuperSuite to enhance its capabilities and drive greater value for our partners. We are committed to strengthening every aspect of our supply chain, ensuring a resilient, efficient infrastructure that supports the evolving demand of e-commerce, supply chain management, and logistics. By leveraging our deep expertise in supply chain optimization, warehousing, and merchandising, we are well-positioned to drive long-term growth for both iPower and our partners. As we move forward, we will stay agile, adapting to market dynamics and capitalize on potential M&A opportunities as we reinforce our position as a leader in end-to-end supply chain solutions. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Kevin Vassily, to take you through our financial results in more detail.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

Thanks, Lawrence. Unless referenced otherwise, all variance commentary is in comparison to the year-ago quarter.

I'll dive right into the fiscal Q2 results. Total revenue in the fiscal second quarter of 2025 increased 14% to $19.1 million compared to $16.8 million. The increase was driven primarily by growth in our SuperSuite supply chain business, as well as greater product sales to our largest channel partner. Gross profit in the fiscal second quarter of 2025 increased 15% to $8.4 million compared to $7.3 million in the same quarter of fiscal 2024. As a percentage of revenue, gross margin increased 40 basis points to 44% compared to 43.6% in the year-ago period. The increase in gross margin was primarily driven by improved pricing through key supplier negotiations. Total operating expenses for fiscal Q2 improved 22% to $7.7 million compared to $9.9 million for the same period in fiscal 2024.

The decrease in operating expenses was driven primarily by lower selling and fulfillment expenses related to our largest channel partner. Net income attributable to iPower in the second fiscal quarter improved to $0.2 million, or $0.01 per share, compared to a net loss attributable to iPower of $1.9 million, or a loss of $0.06 per share for the same period in fiscal 2024. Moving to the balance sheet, cash and cash equivalents were $2.9 million as of December 31, 2024, compared to $7.4 million as of June 30, 2024. As a result of our debt paydown, total debt was reduced by 31% to $4.4 million compared to $6.3 million as of June 30, 2024. As Lawrence mentioned earlier, we continue to benefit from the optimization initiatives we implemented last fiscal year, reflected by another period of gross margin expansion and improved operating leverage.

We've also reduced our debt obligations by nearly $2 million compared to June 30, 2024, reflecting our commitment to strengthening our balance sheet. These initiatives, coupled with our accelerating growth in our SuperSuite business, should enable us to execute on our goals ahead. This concludes my prepared remarks. We'll now open it up for questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Thierry Wuilloud with Water Tower Research. You may proceed.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Yes. Good afternoon, Kevin and Lawrence. A few questions on the product sales. In the fourth quarter, if we look at seasonality, I mean, the main driver there would be the fan business, right? Kind of a slow quarter for fans.

With your other product categories, are there any other seasonality factors?

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

We have products that perform, especially peak season for fourth quarter. Historically, the hydroponics line of business, online retail side performed well, a little bit better than the quarters on the fourth quarter. I'm sorry, the final quarter and maybe first quarter, but that's a smaller, much smaller share of our business. It doesn't impact quite a bit.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Okay. Maybe one more question on the product sales. You said you shuttered the commercial hydroponics business. I know you've been de-emphasizing it, and it's become a smaller and smaller percentage of your revenues. But why actually closing down that line of business rather than kind of letting it just letting it go?

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

We are transitioning ourselves from a hydroponic seller on a retailer to a multi-category retailer across multiple categories, with other categories growing much, much more meaningfully compared to hydroponics. We are also transitioning ourselves from just an online retailer to a services provider with a SuperSuite platform. That is our goal, to become a platform that connects supplier chains, logistics, merchandising, and potentially financial services for the sales to facilitate sales for online and offline channels here and globally. As a step to accomplish that goal, we have shuttered down the commercial hydroponics business. It now no longer contributes to our business revenue as it was not contributing any meaningful numbers anyway before, not long ago.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

Yes. Thierry, it is Kevin. Just to be clear, this is the commercial side. This would be the business where we were selling product directly to commercial operators.

We still do have hydro as part of the product portfolio, and we're selling that through our online channels to consumers. It is the commercial piece that we've officially shuttered.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Okay. Okay. Great. Moving on to SuperSuite, can you give us an update of how many partners you currently have? You talk about a strong pipeline. I'm kind of curious, is there a limit in terms of how many new partners you can onboard on a quarterly basis? What's going to drive that business going forward?

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I don't think the numbers of the partners indicate much. What I can share with you is that we have now, last quarter, December quarter, the SuperSuite side of the business contributes about 20% of the sales. It's growing much, much—it's growing fast.

Maybe another piece of data you can use, Thierry.

It's roughly $16 million a year run rate. That's up pretty meaningfully from kind of the prior year.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Yeah. Last year, at this time, you were more on a, if I recall, 2 or 3 million annual run rate, right?

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

I think we were a little higher than that this time last year. It was definitely well below where we are right now. We're absolutely gaining progress and momentum with this approach.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Okay. Is there any way to describe the pipeline of new partners or kind of just stay tuned and see how things go?

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

At this time, we have a very healthy number of partners that we are actively engaging at different stages. We sign them on board continuously. What I can just tell you is that we are not short of anything to work with.

I'm not sure of potential partners to work with them. We're very interested in working with iPower SuperSuite's platform.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Okay. Kevin, I had a hard time understanding Lawrence. Maybe you can kind of summarize what he said.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

Yeah. That connection's breaking up.

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

Is it better now? Is it better? Or still bad?

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

No, it's bad. Thierry, how about we take the we can take that call in the follow-up call.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Okay. I had just one last question. I've kind of heard anecdotally that Amazon was kind of continuing to reduce their 1P relationships and kind of pushing some of the smaller players towards out of that type of relationship. Can you comment on that? Does it impact you in any way? I mean, does it make the fact that you have a healthy relationship maybe even more attractive? Any thoughts around that whole dynamic there?

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

Just to reclarify, are you talking about Amazon moving smaller vendors' 1P relationship outside the equation?

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Yeah.

Lawrence Tan (Chairman and CEO)

Okay. Yeah. We don't get impact. Actually, that's probably good, meaning that they are concentrating resources to focusing on better servicing larger ones. That's actually, I think, is a good thing for us.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

Yeah. Thierry, that dynamic is something that we've observed happening probably starting six months to a year into the pandemic, where I think Amazon was pretty aggressive in inviting suppliers prior to that onto the first-party platform. The pandemic, I think, revealed some of the weaknesses that some of the vendors, maybe with a little less operating history, etc., had in terms of execution and expectations that Amazon had set. I think this has been going on for some time.

Reiterating Lawrence's view, our view is that during that period, we actually executed fairly well on the metrics that Amazon measures. If anything, it has strengthened our kind of relationship there. In some ways, that can be a natural kind of market share opportunity for us because I think you're better off in your ability to kind of get consumer attention when you're selling to Amazon's 1P platform as opposed to trying to differentiate amongst a very, very large set of competitors on a third-party platform. We're encouraged by what we see right now.

Thierry Wuilloud (Managing Director)

Great. That does it for me. Thank you, guys.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

Okay. Thanks, Thierry.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Kevin Vassily for any closing remarks.

Kevin Vassily (CFO)

We want to thank everyone for dialing in today.

We look forward to speaking with you again for our March quarter earnings release and call, and potentially at some conferences in the near future. Thanks again, and take care.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.