SuperCom - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to SuperCom's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Corporate Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Participants of this call are advised that the audio of this conference call is being broadcast live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. Joining me from SuperCom's leadership team is Ordan Trabelsi, SuperCom's President and Chief Executive Officer.

I'd like to remind you that during this call, SuperCom management may be making forward-looking statements, including statements that address SuperCom's expectations for future performance or operational results. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause SuperCom's actual results to differ materially from those statements. For more information about these risks, uncertainties, and factors, please refer to the risk factors described in SuperCom's most recently filed periodic reports on Form 20F and Form 6K, and SuperCom's press release that accompanies this call, particularly the cautionary statements in it. Today's conference call includes EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure that SuperCom believes can be useful in evaluating its performance. You should not consider this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP.

For a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to net loss, a comparable GAAP financial measure, please see the reconciliation table located in SuperCom's earnings press release that accompanies this call. Reconciliations for other non-GAAP financial measures and comparable GAAP financial measures are available there as well. The content of this call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, November 13th, 2025. Except as required by law, SuperCom disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any information to reflect events or circumstances that occur after this call. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to SuperCom's President and CEO, Ordan Trabelsi.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Earlier this morning, we released our financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2025. You can find a copy of the press release in the investor relations section of our website at Supercom.com. We continue to deliver strong operational performance and strategic momentum across key markets, building on our record-breaking first half of the year. Since mid-2024, we have secured over 30 new electronic monitoring contracts in the US alone, including entry into 12 new states and 14 partnerships with regional service providers. These wins reflect growing demand for advanced, scalable EM solutions and validate our ability to rapidly expand our U.S. footprint.

Importantly, many of these new partnerships involve replacing incumbent vendors, a recurring theme that speaks to the strength of our PureSecurity platform and the trust it continues to earn from agencies seeking modernization. We've seen this in states like Virginia, Utah, and Alabama, where multiple agencies have transitioned from legacy systems to SuperCom's technology within a short time span. In Alabama, for example, we recently launched our third and fourth deployments in less than a year. In Utah, a second share of agencies selected our platform to overhaul its GPS tracking program after evaluating competing technologies. In Virginia, another service provider fully transitioned its GPS operations to SuperCom, marking our second reseller partnership in that state this year. These examples illustrate a growing trend. As agencies seek more reliable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions, they increasingly turn to SuperCom for both technology and long-term partnership.

Our ability to serve both direct government agency contracts and third-party service providers gives us the versatility to operate effectively in varied regions and support distinct program structures. In addition to these wins, our U.S. presence is reinforced by the continued success of Leaders in Community Alternatives, LCA, our wholly-owned subsidiary in California, which recently secured a five-year reentry services contract valued at up to $2.5 million. LCA remains an important part of our integrated offering, supporting rehabilitation and compliance outcomes alongside our core EM technology. Since our acquisition of LCA, we've secured over $35 million in new contracts in California alone. While our progress in the U.S. has been substantial, we've also continued to expand our presence internationally. We strengthened our presence in Europe with an award of a $7 million national electronic monitoring project in Germany, Europe's largest economy.

This milestone marks a strategic foothold in a highly advanced public safety market, achieved by displacing a vendor that had served the German government for more than 20 years. We see this award as a clear validation of our competitive edge and execution capabilities on a global stage. Our leadership in domestic violence electronic monitoring continues to grow. We now support nine nations with domestic violence programs across the U.S., Europe, and other regions. Governments increasingly rely on our PureTrack and PureShield technologies to support victim protection and offender accountability. Beyond new market entry, we're also seeing our proven track record lead to deeper engagements in existing territories. A key growth pattern for SuperCom has been our ability to enter new countries as a single project and expand into multiple programs as trust and performance are established.

In Europe, we've seen this in countries such as Sweden and Latvia, where an initial deployment has evolved into broader national coverage. We're now seeing a similar pattern play out in the U.S., where we have entered states like Utah, Kentucky, and Virginia, and more, with pilot or regional projects, and have since expanded into additional counties and service areas. This repeatable expansion model remains a key driver of our long-term growth strategy. Our ability to replicate our expansion model efficiently also ties into how we operate at scale, especially in the U.S. A core operational advantage for us in the U.S. is our cloud-based centralized platform, as well as integrated inventory management and 24/7 support. This centralization enables us to support nationwide deployments efficiently from a unified infrastructure in one language.

In contrast, European projects often require country-specific servers, local language customizations, and decentralized support models, which introduce additional complexity, local partner support, and increased costs. As a result, we can launch new programs in the U.S. more rapidly and cost-effectively, whether at the county level or statewide, enabling faster time-to-revenue and higher margin potential. This operational advantage supports not only organic growth, but also potential expansion through other means. In parallel, we continue to evaluate strategic acquisition opportunities in the U.S. market. Targeting established local service providers can help us accelerate our market penetration, enhance vertical integration, and unlock operational synergies. A proven example is our acquisition of LCA in 2016, which, as I said earlier, has contributed to over $35 million in project wins in California alone. As we scale, we see meaningful potential to replicate this success in additional regions in the U.S.

Alongside these expansion strategies, we remain focused on addressing the core challenges facing modern justice systems. Our solutions directly address some of the most pressing challenges facing criminal justice systems worldwide, including high recidivism rates, prison overcrowding, excessive costs, and unsafe communities at the end. By providing modern, scalable alternatives to incarceration, our technology helps governments improve supervision, enhance public safety, and reduce the long-term burden on public safety and correctional systems. Tackling these systematic challenges requires continuous innovation, and that's where our technology leadership plays a central role. Our sustained investment in innovation has been key to our success. Over the years, we've invested more than $45 million in R&D for electronic monitoring solutions alone, enabling us to develop one of the most advanced and versatile electronic monitoring platforms in the world.

This ongoing commitment to innovation is powered by our stellar research and development team, a group of highly skilled electrical engineers, software developers, product managers, QA personnel, and other domain experts who continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in public safety technology. Their contributions are a core reason why SuperCom continues to win competitive tenders globally, often displacing long-standing legacy providers. As our capabilities advance, so does our ability to capture, share, and grab rapidly growing market. The electronic monitoring market is projected to reach $2.3 billion by 2028, with approximately 95% of that opportunity concentrated in the U.S. and Europe. Notably, the U.S. market is estimated to be more than 6x the size of the European market, making it a particularly attractive driver for long-term growth.

As more jurisdictions adopt electronic monitoring as a core public safety strategy, SuperCom is well-positioned to capture this growing demand through our proven solutions and expanding footprint. I'll now turn to the financials, reviewing our performance for the third year, third quarter, and first nine months of 2025, compared to the same period last year in 2024. In the third quarter of 2025, we achieved continued profitability and margin expansion driven by operational efficiencies and improved cost structures. While revenue for the quarter came in at $6.2 million compared to $6.9 million in Q3 of last year, we delivered significantly improved profitability across all key metrics. Gross profit actually increased this quarter to $3.8 million, with gross margins expanding to 60.8%, up from 45.6% a year ago.

This marks one of the highest quarterly gross margins in our history, driven by disciplined cost management, operational automation, and reduced reliance on third-party service providers. It also reflects a favorable revenue mix, with a growing share of higher-margin international project phases and U.S. programs also contributing to the results. As we continue to bring more work in-house and streamline deployment and adaption processes, we're seeing operating leverage as well as margin expansion. Operating income surged to $640,000 this quarter, up from around $30,000 in Q3 of last year, with operating margins increasing to 10.3%. EBITDA doubled to $2.2 million from $1.1 million in Q3 of 2024, reflecting EBITDA margins of 34.6%. Net income reached $700,000, a turnaround from a net loss of $400,000 in the prior year. Non-GAAP net income surged to $1.9 million, up from $35,000, that was $350,000 last year.

Non-GAAP EPS came at $0.39 compared to $0.17 in the third quarter of 2024. Now let's have a look at the nine-month performance of 2025 compared to the same period of 2024. Revenue was $20.4 million compared to $21.3 million in the first nine months of 2024, reflecting a modest decrease due to revenue mix and timing of contract launches. However, despite the lower top line, we delivered strong improvements in margin and profitability. Gross profit actually increased to $12.5 million, up from $10.7 million, with gross margins expanding to 61% compared to 50.1% last year. Operating income nearly tripled to $3 million, with operating margin improving to 14.7%, up from 5.3% last year. EBITDA reached $7.2 million, a 56% increase from $4.6 million in the prior year, reflecting an EBITDA margin of 35.4%.

Net income more than doubled to $6 million, from $2.5 million in the first nine months of 2024, supported by our improved cost structure, disciplined execution, and the positive impact of certain non-operational financial gains recorded during the period. Non-GAAP net income increased to $9.3 million, with net margin more than doubling to 45.7%. Non-GAAP EPS for the period was $2.17. We also made progress in strengthening our balance sheet. In the past two years alone, we reduced our net debt by nearly $25 million. This was achieved also through a combination of strategic debt-to-equity exchanges, executed at premiums of up to 100% or more above market price, and amendments to our senior debt agreement, which extended maturity to December 2028 and lowered the interest rate significantly.

In parallel, we raised over $16 million in gross proceeds, including $6 million for a registered direct offering completed at the beginning of 2025, and an additional $10.2 million through warrant exercises. These steps in unison contributed to a stronger cash position and enhanced our financial flexibility to support future growth opportunities, including new project deployments, continued investment in technology, and potential M&A activity. As of September 30th, 2025, working capital stood at $41.8 million, up from $26.1 million just a year ago. Book value tripled. Book value of equity tripled to $40.8 million, up from $13.3 million a year ago, and cash and cash equivalents surged by 111% to $13.1 million, up from $6.2 million a year ago. While current margins reflect a favorable mix of projects and contracts, they're not yet at a steady-state level.

That said, we believe our progress in streamlining operations, automating processes, and improving launch execution is sustainable and positions us for long-term margin resilience and expansion as we scale. Before closing, I'd like to highlight the broader transformation that continues to define SuperCom's trajectory. Since implementing our new strategic roadmap in 2021, we've consistently strengthened the business across revenue growth, profitability, and balance sheet health. We find the results even more compelling when viewed over a multi-year horizon. Revenue more than doubled from a five-year consistent decline, reaching $11.8 million in 2020, to four years of continued growth, reaching $27.6 million in 2024. As of the first nine months of 2025, we reached $20.4 million in revenue, reflecting continued scale relative to previous years.

Gross profit grew by 140% from $5.6 million in 2020 to $13.4 million in 2024, and gross profit for the first nine months of 2025 reached $12.5 million, closely aligned with the 2024 full-year figure. GAAP net income turned from a loss of $7.9 million in 2020 to $660,000 profit in 2024, and has since surged to $6 million in the first nine months of 2025. Non-GAAP net income improved by over $10 million, turning from a loss of $1.7 million to a $6.3 million profit and stands at $9.3 million year-to-date in 2025. EBITDA has improved from $2.8 million in 2020 to $6.3 million in all of 2024 and has already reached $7.2 million in the first nine months of 2025.

These improvements were achieved while navigating macroeconomic headwinds, a global pandemic, supply chain disruptions, rising interest rates, a regional war, and they underscore the strength of our operating model, technology differentiation, and long-term execution strategy. Furthermore, they underscore the essential role of our solutions, which is resilient through market cycles. As we continue to scale, we believe this foundation positions us well for long-term value creation. In closing, we are proud of our execution this quarter and trust our customers to continue to place in us. I'd also like to thank our global team for the dedication and performance. Their expertise, commitment, and hard work continue to drive our success. As we look ahead, we remain focused on leveraging our momentum to expand strategically, deepen customer relationships, and continue delivering innovative solutions that improve public safety outcomes around the world.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Operator to open for questions. Operator.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question on today's call, you will need to press star, then the number one on your telephone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before entering your request and speaking on the call. If your question has been answered and you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing star two. One moment for the first question. Your first question for today is from Matt Galinko with Maxim Group.

Matt Galinko (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I'd like to start with the market opportunity in Germany. Sounds like a nice, I think, first step into that market. Is there opportunity to expand there and what would the process look like to expand within that market?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Great question. We announced the win in Germany just a couple of months ago. It is a great win in a very lucrative market. The project already that we won has four different types of projects in it, including alcohol monitoring, GPS monitoring, domestic violence, and house arrest. Like we have seen in many other nations in Europe, once we enter with an initial project and we do good work, and that is what we typically do, we have an impeccable record for our deployments, we end up winning more projects and expanding the existing ones. While it is our first one in Germany and it is valued at a budget of $7 million, just like we have seen in the past, we expect this to potentially grow in numbers and to grow in scale as it adds additional capabilities for more ongoing growing product offering.

Matt Galinko (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Second question is, I think you mentioned a service provider in the U.S. that completely switched their GPS tracking over to SuperCom products. Can you maybe expand a little bit on is that a repeatable opportunity? How do you see that sort of engagement with the service provider versus M&A with an LCA?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Great question. We actually had 14 service providers just this year that signed on. The model in the U.S. is so fragmented. It is not like in Europe, where it is just a national project. There are many different counties, and they each have their own programs, multiple programs in each county. What is beautiful is that there are these service providers who have become mini experts in the field, and they have tried all the technology.

We come to them, we show them our technology, and they're able to quickly evaluate just how much more advanced and superior it is in many aspects to what they've tried. In many of these service providers, it actually completely replaced the technology they have with our technology. Sometimes it's all immediately. Sometimes it's in process, but they swap out from live offenders. They bring them back in to swap the technology because the advantage is so significant they're willing to go through that. Now, when you go directly to an agency, and some of the larger agencies have the personnel in-house to run these programs, they know how to put the bracelet on, to write the report, they run the technology, then we sell directly to that agency.

When it's a service provider, they aggregate 5, 10, 20, or more agencies, and so that's an advantageous angle as well. Both of them are valuable. Both are great strategies for expansion, and both have been working very well for us.

Matt Galinko (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks. Final question for me before I jump back in the queue. It looks like your debt position declined by about $2 million in the third quarter. I know you mentioned historically doing those debt-to-equity swaps, but I'm curious if you can talk about if there was another one in the third quarter.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

As we discussed in the past, we strategically with our lenders have been doing conversions of debt to equity. It's small ones. In aggregate, they become meaningful to the company as you've seen over the last few years.

We typically do them at a premium, and that helps reduce our debt balance as described. You see that as well in the numbers as you follow the quarters. One thing I wanted to add about your question with the service providers. Another thing that's unique in the U.S. that we're doing, because we're already in nine countries around the world with our domestic violence solution, and we have a very strong small bracelet with long battery life, it becomes very effective to put on people and ensure that after someone hits his wife, for example, he doesn't come anywhere close to the victim. Our technology does a great job in that. Many other vendors have struggled with this. In the U.S., of course, like any other place, there is domestic violence.

The fact that we can offer this with such a high level of experience and seamlessness allows the service providers to add a whole new solution to everything they're offering today. That is also something else that helps us with these service providers together with the normal GPS and house arrest that you've been asking.

Matt Galinko (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is from Greg Mesniaeff with Kingswood Capital Partners.

Greg Mesniaeff (Research Analyst)

Yes. Good morning, guys. A couple of questions. When you kind of analyze your revenue number of $6.2 million, if you break that down by geography, how does that compare to a year ago? It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that your U.S. business has been quite strong. It appears to me that the softness has come from other geographies in the world. Can you kind of give us some color on that?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Yes. It's a great question. In Europe, most of our revenues are still from Europe and other geographies outside the U.S. That is where our focus was originally. We wanted over 15 national programs around the world with our PureSecurity suite. These projects are multi-year projects, and they have various phases. Some phases are more deployment, and then scaling, and then afterwards, additional add-ons and changes and so forth. There are many different projects that are running at the same time around the world, and we need to, when we report the financials, aggregate the revenues from each of them. That can mix differently in different quarters. It is not a consistent monotonous growth or monotonous decline. One quarter, there could be more of this project and less of the other one.

The volatility that you would see between the quarters, a lot of that comes from those projects. In the U.S. market, which is newer for us, we have a strong base in California that we've been running for years. Over the last 12 months, we've signed over 30 new contracts. Some of them start small. Some of them start at a medium size, but they typically continue to grow and add more and more units. What's beautiful about the U.S. market is that almost everything is recurring revenue per unit per day. Now, the majority of our business is recurring revenue, but there are still components that are not, especially in Europe. In the U.S. market, those numbers will grow and grow.

Over time, because the U.S. market's 6x that of Europe, we expect more recurring revenue to be the prevailing part of our revenues, and we expect more consistency upon the quarters together with improved margins. We continue to grow in Europe and around the world, but the U.S. is becoming, and will become in the future, based on our expectations and plans, a more consistent and predictable element for our total revenues and our financials.

Greg Mesniaeff (Research Analyst)

Great. Ordan, thank you. If I could expand on that just a bit. As you win contracts in the U.S., what are typically their time spans compared to similar wins in, say, Europe? You had mentioned that the U.S. opportunities have been much more recurring in nature, which is a good thing.

If you could just kind of give us some idea of how long, what's the typical length of one of these contracts? Also, what is the renewal rate that you've been seeing on them on a percentage basis? Thanks.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Okay. Great. Great questions. Let me try to structure it in a way. First of all, in the European market, these are national projects with long bid cycle and with a competitive process for RFPs. That could take from four months to 24 months or even more sometimes to win these. Usually, the projects are structured at a five-year span, nine-year span, something like that, between five and ten years. Typically, the incumbent vendor wins it over and over again. I mean, we displaced the incumbent vendor in Sweden. They were there for 24 years. Since then, we won two more projects in Sweden.

When we displaced the incumbent vendor in Israel, they were there for over 20 years. When we displaced the incumbent vendor in Germany right now, they were there for over 20 years. Even though the initial contract is for five years or ten years, you typically see the incumbent winning again and again. Now, for someone to come and displace them, you have to have a significant value proposition that's more advantageous than what they have today. That's exactly what we've been doing with SuperCom in Europe. We've been coming in, displacing long-term incumbents, showing that there's a better way to do things with newer technology, and that's helped us enter the market and then expand. Naturally, once you win one project or two, you have an easier time winning the next projects.

In Europe, when there are projects coming out in countries where we already exist, we have a much higher likelihood to win them than it was originally. Originally, we had, in our expansion, roughly a 65% win rate in Europe. That is the European market. In the U.S. market, you have a mix. You also have, of course, these large RFPs like for ICE, and you have it for some state-level contracts. Some counties are very large. Some county projects in the U.S. are $30 million, $40 million, $50 million alone. There are also many smaller counties and many smaller programs. You could start with them, especially if it is with a service provider. It is not a government RFP. It is a private company at the end. They sign a contract with you. The idea is they continue running with you indefinitely.

The contractor just continues to renew. They run with you for many years, just like in Europe, because once they're comfortable with you and they've worked with you and they like the technology, there have to be a big change for them to teach everyone brand new technology. In the U.S., it's faster to deploy, especially with the smaller programs. We're able to deploy them faster. They might even start with fewer units and then grow the amount of units, which is different from in Europe, where you start with a large amount pretty quickly on. Over the years, because we've been deploying so many programs, we have such a high win rate, and we've been expanding so fast, we've reached very fast deployment rates.

Some of our projects in Europe, we deploy within a few weeks, and we are able to manufacture very fast and deploy very fast and do it with an impeccable record of doing it seamlessly without causing issues, whereas some other vendors take a much longer time for the deployment. That is one of our advantages. In the U.S. market, almost everything is recurring. They usually charge per unit, per day. It would be $4, $5, $3.5. Depends what services are included. They like your technology. They start with you, and then you see the numbers. Right now, what we are doing in the U.S. with over 30 contracts in over 12 different states is we are just putting the seeds in different states. You can see that after we do a deployment, shortly afterwards, there is another deployment in the same state.

In some states, already a third and fourth deployment. I think that speaks to the satisfaction of the customers and to the work that we're doing there. There is a mix, and it's a little bit different between Europe and the U.S. In the U.S., as the projects grow in size, just like they did in Europe, you also see the RFPs and the larger project sizes. Hopefully, as we do continuously, the speed of the deployment will continue to improve as we get better and better at doing more deployments.

Greg Mesniaeff (Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Is it fair to say that as more and more of your revenues come from the U.S., your revenue volatility should decrease over time?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Yes. That's a great statement. Also, over time, the margins should expand. Predictability, margin expansion.

As I said in the preparatory marks, everything in the U.S. is on the cloud. Everything's in English. We have inventory managed at centralized. We have a 24/7 monitoring center that's centralized. You can imagine that's much more simple than having a server farm in Sweden and another one in Denmark and another one in Finland and another one in Germany with local partners in different languages and different inventory management systems in different. The U.S. has a lot of advantages in that remark, and we're very excited that we're able to expand so effectively into the U.S. market with our technology.

Greg Mesniaeff (Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question is a follow-up question from Matt Galinko. Your line is live.

Matt Galinko (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey. Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just wanted to touch on operating expenses for a moment.

It looks like R&D has been steady for a pretty long time, as well as sales and marketing has been pretty level. I'm just wondering, as you continue expanding in the U.S. market, should we expect to see operating expenses pick up at all to help support that effort? If you put more spending into boots on the ground in the U.S., would that help to accelerate kind of your uptake into the U.S. market?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Good question. It depends on how much growth you're talking about. The beauty in this market and in our industry is that the contribution margin of each additional bracelet into an existing region is extremely high. It's just that there's fixed costs from running these operations in a server farm, on the cloud, with inventory management, with this 24/7 support.

Now that we're in the U.S. market and we have a good hold, adding additional units doesn't require a lot of additional costs. Our sales team is still fairly small, and maybe there could be some expansion to it. We've won most of these projects around the world based on our technology. We come technology first, less leveraging some relationship that other vendors might have. We come with new technology that works and that's been resilient and successful in many other projects around the world. That's how we enter these new markets. There could be some expansion, but minimal, to our operating expenses in order to achieve the continued plan that we're seeing. In terms of research and development, we're doing very well. We already put over $45 million in technology. We're far ahead than most of our vendors in almost all aspects.

We continue to invest to make sure that we are ahead of them. Even if a competitor comes with a brand new technology that they spent tens of millions of dollars on, it's still going to take them 5-6 years to get that operational to the level that a large contract will take it. They want to see it first run in smaller projects for a year or two, and then another project, another project, and only afterwards they'll take it on to larger projects. We are already in the large projects. Some of our projects, like Romania, over 15,000 units. We are in a very good place with our technology. We continue with every new project to add more capabilities. We continue to add more seamless integration. We are able to bring a lot of the things that our local partners do.

We're able to bring a lot of that in-house. We're able to bring a lot of technology that third-party vendors have developed in-house. We're able to optimize to make the process more seamless, to have lower costs, and also to make things much more efficient as we continue to deploy and improve our product offering.

Matt Galinko (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question for today is from John Mason with Aegis Co.

John Mason (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, Ordan. Thanks for taking my question. I guess in terms of the, sorry, can you hear me?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Yes. Yes.

John Mason (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. In terms of the revenue year-over-year, I know you've been winning all these contracts in the U.S. When do you expect to sort of return to growth year-over-year on a quarterly basis as those contracts sort of start to flow in?

I know you mentioned that they're essentially seeds at this point. I guess, one, when do you expect that to inflect? I guess, B, is it essentially that there's turnover on the European markets or lower usage? What is causing that kind of year-over-year decline? I have a second question. Sorry.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Good question. Good question. We're not really losing customers, essentially. As I said, many of these customers stay for a very long period of time. As you see, we continue to announce more wins in the same region, either with the same government or with sister agencies in the same government. It's not that we're losing customers. It's that some projects that are not recurring have phases where they're more heavy, more deployments, more expansion, more work. Then there's phases that require less work.

Until they, again, purchase more equipment and more expansion and more capabilities and more units. In the U.S. market, that is less of a metric because everything is pretty much recurring per unit per day. That helps you just consistently grow, just like with any software as a service model. We lease our equipment, but a lot of it is software on the cloud. That is the model that is prevailing in the U.S. As I said, the U.S. is 6x the size of Europe. Over time, we expect that our financials look very much in that way. Currently, there is still some volatility. It is because the mix of different projects in different stages, that some have recurring revenue and some have purchases and other one-time items. That can create naturally some volatility. We do not give specifically guidance.

I said that some of them are seeds, but some of the projects in the US are also larger. It is just that any project that is in a new territory, and a lot of these are brand new, we see as a seed that can grow into many different plants or very large trees. Just like when we started in Europe, the projects for Lithuania of $100,000 or Latvia of $100,000. Now we are talking about projects that are $7 million, $33 million. There are others that we are bidding on that are also fairly large. It is just a process. We entered the U.S. just a year ago. We have been doing great. We have won many different projects. We are winning against incumbents that are in the U.S. market for a very long period of time and have very strong relationships.

We're still able to come in brand new with our technology and displace them. I think that speaks monuments to the potential that we'll see going forward. Over time, we hope that everyone will see the benefits of our progress.

John Mason (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you. Last question, I guess. I think there's been quite a buildup of accounts receivable or trade receivable on the balance sheet. I know obviously it's a testament to the increased book value growth. I guess, how do you see the cadence of release of that? Right? I think it's been a pretty big drag on free cash flow. I think you've reported operating cash flow on a semi-annual basis. We'd love to know kind of how you expect that to flow through and when you expect to see that free cash flow.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Yes. Good question. It's not, and I don't know if you followed SuperCom historically, but there was a period of time where we were working in Africa and South America. Over there, collections are sometimes delayed. It was more of a matter to look at here. We actually don't experience that in the U.S. market or in the European market. Things are timely. If we do see expansion to our AR, it's because sometimes you have percentage of completion of these projects. The amount of time and effort to recognize revenues is different from the time when you get paid. There's a misalignment in timing with percentage of completion projects, which is mainly coming from, again, the long multi-year project deployments at a national scale in the European market. We don't see an issue there. They're paying on time.

We do not have any—we have not had to have bad debt or anything of that sort in a significant manner like we had in Africa and, sorry, South America. When you look at the bad debt that is done on an annual basis, that is typically from the E-gov business, from old debt from those regions, not from the Electronic Monitoring business in the U.S. and Europe. One of the reasons why we expanded and shifted into this market was because of the very good collectibility and predictability with these customers.

John Mason (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. All right. I think that is all my questions. Thanks so much.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question for today is from AJ Hoffman, a Private Investor.

AJ Hoffman (Private Investor)

Hey, man. Congratulations on everything. I may have missed this earlier, but.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Thank you.

AJ Hoffman (Private Investor)

Did you state a win rate so far for all these contracts you're getting in the U.S. for the ones where the bids have closed? Is it as high as Europe? Is it lower? Yeah.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

It's a good question. We haven't yet assessed. In the U.S., we've been doing very well. It's probably higher than Europe. We haven't assessed it because we're still looking at such a large variety of projects and different sizes. We're going to wait till we have more consistent flow in size of projects before we start to do analysis. As you see, we're announcing many wins in many new states with many new resellers, with direct agencies. We have very good feedback from our customers.

AJ Hoffman (Private Investor)

As far as scalability in the United States, have you guys calculated what your—let's say, after you launch everything, after you put everything on the ground and you're expanding inside of that state, maybe to different municipalities, and at that point, all you're doing is adding just bracelets to the equation, what is the break-even for putting that bracelet on somebody to recouping the costs of that bracelet? Is it one quarter? Is it a year to recoup your costs? Can you break that down for us so we can kind of understand the longevity of these contracts versus when the ROI is complete on actually assigning the bracelet to somebody?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Yes. It's a great question. I'd love to share that with you. For competitive reasons, we don't share that specific number.

As you can imagine, there are 10 other players in the industry, and everyone is trying to understand the cost structure and the exact prices per bracelet that the competition and all the customers as well. At an aggregate level, you could see from our financials, when there is a new project, a large one, there is cash that is outlaid to manufacture them. Then over the lease, we bring it back. The margins, especially the additional contribution margins for additional bracelets, are high. Over time, we expect to see margin expansion in our business as we continue to have the same costs leveraged for higher revenues. Yeah.

AJ Hoffman (Private Investor)

Thank you. I can appreciate that response. Final question. There have been rumors circulating that you guys have been approached for a buyout. I take it with a grain of salt, but is getting bought out something that you guys are considering?

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

I don't know where these rumors come from, but I'll share. And I've shared before that we've been approached by a variety of strategics or financial firms to acquire us. The decision of the Board, as always, will be what is best for the shareholders. So I can't get any specifics on that. But I have shared that that is a situation that has occurred to us. And it's natural considering our performance in the market. We have a very high competitive rate. We're expanding very nicely. And our technology, I believe, is highly coveted by other players. And it could perform very well to help disrupt the criminal justice industry.

AJ Hoffman (Private Investor)

Awesome, man. I appreciate it. Appreciate your answers.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

At this time, I will pass the call back to Ordan for closing remarks.

Ordan Trabelsi (President and CEO)

I want to thank you all for participating in today's call and for your interest in SuperCom. Please contact us directly if you have any additional questions. We look forward to sharing our progress with you on our next conference calls, filings, and press releases. Thank you very much, and have a good day.

Operator (participant)

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