Byrna Technologies Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to Verna's Fiscal 4th Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Shamala, and I will be your operator for today's call. Joining us for today's presentation are the company's CEO, Brian Ganz and CFO, David Noyes. Following their remarks, we will open the call to questions.

Operator

Earlier today, Werner released results for its fiscal Q4 and full year ended November 30, 2023. A copy of the press release is available on the company's website. Before turning the call over to Brian Ganz, Verna Technologies' Chief Executive Officer, I'll read the Safe Harbor statement. Some discussions held today include forward looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the statements made today.

Operator

Please refer to burner's most recent 10 ks and 10 Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these projections and assumptions. The company assumes no obligation to update forward looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. As this call will include references to non GAAP results, Please see the press release in the Investors section of our website, ir.verna.com, for further information regarding forward looking statements and reconciliations of non GAAP results to GAAP results. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Bernard's CEO, Brian Gantt. Sir, please proceed.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today. This morning, we issued a press release providing our financial results for the fiscal Q4 full year ended November 30, 2023 along with key business accomplishments for 2023 and an update on for 2023 and an update on Q1, 2020 performance, 2024 performance. We will also be filing our 10 ks with the SEC later today. I'm going to begin this morning by passing the call to David North, our CFO to discuss our financial results for both the Q4 and the full year 2023. Following that, I'll review what was a very eventful year and offer insights into our operations and go forward strategy.

Speaker 1

Lastly, we'll open the call to questions from our publishing analysts. David?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Let's discuss our financial results for the fiscal Q4 and full year of 2023 ended November 30, 2023. Net revenue for the Q4 in 2023 was $15,600,000 compared to $16,000,000 in the fiscal Q4 of 20 2, the slightly lower net revenue is primarily attributed to exceptional international sales in Q4 of 2022, which included a $3,400,000 stocking order for the company's distributor in Argentina, total international sales in Q4 of 2023 were $225,000 compared to $4,300,000 in the prior year. Without this one time surge in international sales in prior year, the 4th quarter displayed strong growth. Domestic revenue in the quarter totaled 15,400,000 dollars that's 32% 32% increase from Q4 of 2022 and it's a quarterly record.

Speaker 2

Gross profit for Q4 2023 was $9,000,000 or 58 percent of net revenue compared to $8,700,000 or 54% of net revenue for Q4 of 2022. The increase in gross margin primarily resulted from much smaller percentage of lower margin national sales. Operating expenses for Q4 2023 were $9,700,000 compared to $8,800,000 For Q4 of 2022, the increase in operating expenses was primarily driven by an increase in marketing spend As part of the company's influencer partnership strategy, net loss for Q4 2023 was negative $800,000 compared to negative $100,000 for Q4 of 2022 and the increase in net loss was primarily due to the increase in marketing spend. Adjusted EBITDA, which is a non GAAP metric for Q4 of 2023 totaled $400,000 compared to $1,400,000 for Q4 of 2022. Net revenue for the full year totaled $42,600,000 compared to $48,000,000 for the prior year.

Speaker 2

This decline was again largely due to a $7,600,000 increase decrease in international sales from South Africa, South America and Asia, which are characterized by large but infrequent orders as experienced in the prior year. This impact was partially offset by a $900,000 increase in sales on Amazon and a $400,000 increase in FOX Lab sales. Despite temporary headwinds from social media advertising bans, domestic dealer and distributor sales, which are less dependent on online advertising grew by $1,600,000 Gross profit for the full year ended 2023 was 23 point $6,000,000 or 56 percent of net revenue compared to $26,300,000 or 55 percent of net revenue for the prior year period. Gross margins remained stable as the increase in lower margin dealer and distributor sales was counterbalanced by the reduction in lower margin international sales. For the full year, operating expenses were $31,400,000 which is a decrease from $33,700,000 in the previous year.

Speaker 2

This $2,300,000 decrease was largely achieved through strategic realignments and cost optimizations in key areas. Notably, sales and marketing expenses were reduced by approximately $920,000 due to lower advertising spend earlier in the year resulting from the social media advertising ban. Additionally, Professional fees including legal and accounting service were reduced by $680,000 while insurance costs decreased by $510,000 due to renegotiated premiums. Payroll expenses decreased by $340,000 contributing to our overall more efficient cost structure. Looking ahead, we are focused on maintaining a balanced approach to managing our operating expenses.

Speaker 2

We are preparing for a measured uptick in these costs as part of our strategic investment to drive revenue growth. Net loss for the full year was $8,200,000 compared to a loss of $7,900,000 for the prior year. The slight increase in net loss was primarily due to the decrease in revenue, partly offset by a decrease in operating expenses. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA totaled negative $2,000,000 compared to negative $1,000,000 in the prior year. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to the increase in net loss previously noted.

Speaker 2

Cash and cash equivalents. Here I want to call attention to a complete reversal of the trend of declining cash balances that prevailed through the 1st quarter 3 quarters of the year due to declining sales and high inventory balances. The balance of cash and cash equivalents was $13,700,000 at the end of the Q3 on August 31, 2023. By year end, on November 30, 2023, cash and cash had risen to $20,500,000 due to the increase in sales and also to our ability to sell down high inventory Inventory at November 30, 2023 totaled $13,900,000 compared to $16,700,000 at August 31, 2023. The company currently has no current or long term debt.

Speaker 2

And that concludes my prepared remarks. I'll turn it back over to Brian.

Speaker 1

Thanks, David. 2023 was a pivotal year for Verna and it was marked by both Formidable challenges and frankly remarkable achievements. The year began with burner running headlong into 2 challenging problems. The first was a number of unforeseen production problems related to the rollout of the new BERNDA LE launcher. The second was what was in essence a total ban on our ability to advertise on social media when we redeemed to be contraband product by Meta, Google and Twitter.

Speaker 1

First, the Bernard LE. We rolled out our new much more powerful Bernard LE launcher to great fanfare at SHOT Show in January 2023 where we gave industry insiders and the press the chance to test fire the Burna LE At Industry Day, better known as Range Day, the Burna LE was tremendously well received and it generated a flood of orders in the wake of SHOT Show. However, as we ramped up production, we ran into a number of production problems and quality control issues that required us to halt production and stop taking orders. Not only was this a black eye for the company, it had a material negative impact on sales as many customers wanted to wait for the more powerful or an LE after it was introduced at SHOT Show. The production problem stemmed from out of spec components received from our vendors as they transitioned from prototype production to serial production.

Speaker 1

This led to an unforeseen stack up of tolerances that adversely the operation of the launcher. The team went into high gear as we work closely with our vendors to improve DFM or design for manufacturability. In fact, I personally spent 3 weeks essentially living at the factory. The incredible effort by the entire Verna team in combination with our vendors paid off. And in May, we're able to relaunch the Verna LE.

Speaker 1

Since then, production and demand for the LE have remained strong. And for the most part, we've been able to keep up with the elevated demand for the LE launcher, even though it has proven to be much stronger than originally predicted. Prior to the launch of the LE, we forecasted 10% of the demand would be for the much more expensive burnout LE. However, LE demand has been running more than a third of our total demand. In the wake of this production problem and product launch, we terminated the VP of New Product Development and Production and we demoted our Chief Technology Officer, which ultimately led to his resignation.

Speaker 1

We have since replaced both these positions with 2 highly qualified individuals. To replace our VP of New Product Development and Production, We hired John Brasseur as our Head of Product Development and Production. John joins Barna with more than 2 decades of On Point experience, Including more than 10 years as VP of Product Management at Sig Sauer, a leading manufacturer of firearms. This gun industry experience has given John an extremely good understanding of both the particular engineering issues we face, as well as the nature of our market. In addition, we just recently hired Stuart Poots as Director of Design and Manufacturing Engineering.

Speaker 1

Stuart who will be starting later this month brings more than 30 years of design and engineering experience to Berna. Most recently Stuart was Director of Test and Manufacturing Engineering for Walmart Advanced Systems and Robotics, where he successfully led the development of internal and external technology resources for the Alphabot Warehouse Micro Fulfillment System. We are confident that the new policies, Procedures and processes that we have put into place, along with the addition of these 2 very senior and experienced managers that we've added to the engineering team will prevent a repeat of the mistakes made with the LE rollout and will ensure a smooth introduction of the much wanted and highly anticipated burn a compact launcher which is due out next year. The second and frankly much more serious challenge that we ran into in the early part of 2023 With the almost total prohibition on advertising our products on the major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter. We have never been able to advertise on mainstream media including both broadcast and cable TV due to the nature of our products.

Speaker 1

However, we had spent 1,000,000 of dollars on social media advertising over the prior 2 years. In truth, up until just recently, Social media advertising had been our primary means for both educating the public about less lethal self defense and driving demand for burner products. When without warning, we were denied access to this advertising venue, the effect frankly was devastating. We saw an immediate 60% drop in web traffic from Q1 to Q2. Initially sales were somewhat resilient due to the tail effect of our prior advertising.

Speaker 1

However, by Q3 we saw a significant negative impact on sales Posting our worst quarter in years at just $7,100,000 in revenues as we averaged only $44,000 a day on burn.com $11,000 a day on amazon.com. This sharp decline in sales resulting from the social media advertising ban had the potential to be an existential threat to the company if we could not find a way to manage around it. We simply could not cut expenses enough while maintaining our robust R and D efforts and new product development pipeline to be profitable at $7,000,000 a quarter. While other industries such as firearms and tobacco have also had to deal with wide ranging advertising bans, These were mature industries with well known products and large well established markets and customer bases. By contrast, Few Americans know what less lethal is and even fewer have ever heard of burnout.

Speaker 1

We needed to find a way to both educate the general public as to the benefits of less lethal self defense and drive demand for our products and we needed to find it quick. The management team worked around the clock Every conceivable option to build brand awareness before settling on the celebrity endorsement model pioneered by Phil Knight at Nike. In September of 2023, Barna signed its 1st celebrity endorser Sean Hannity and committed to a multimillion dollar advertising campaign on Sean's afternoon drive time radio show aired nationally on Iheartradio. This shift in strategy not only helped us circumnavigate around the mainstream and social media advertising bands, but it propelled us to a record breaking Q4 As our daily sales spiked to $120,000 a day on burner.com and $35,000 a day on amazon.com Posting $15,400,000 in domestic sales. This represented a 182% increase from the 3rd quarter.

Speaker 1

Our new marketing approach has significantly enhanced brand visibility and has driven a dramatic increase in website visits and sales. In the Q4, daily web sessions jumped to 32,500, an increase of 174% from the 3rd quarter and a 22% increase from the same period in 2022 before the social media advertising ban. This surge in web traffic led to a 41.2% year over year increase in 4th quarter direct consumer sales. Based on the initial success of our partnership with Sean Hannity, our network Celebrity Partners has expanded over the past several months with the addition of Judge Jeanine Pirro, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. These partners whose influence spans radio, TV and social media have been instrumental in offering a substantial return on advertising spend or ROAS.

Speaker 1

Our ROAS for the holiday 4th quarter reached 7.5x. We are seeing a continuation of this momentum with a 5.9x as in the 1st 2 months of fiscal 2024, that's December January. These campaigns have been effective in attracting new customers with first time customer rates soaring to 66.5 percent of daily orders in Q4, an 11% increase from the prior year when our first time customer rate was 55.5%. Higher first time customer rates means higher average order values, AOV, as first time customers purchase a launcher kit at the very minimum. For Q4, we saw a 15.2% increase in average order value.

Speaker 1

Higher first time customer rates also give us the opportunity to Go back to the well as we engage these customers with fallen offers of ammunition and accessories as we look to garner the lifetime value of these new I'm extremely proud of what the team at Barna accomplished in dealing with these twin challenges. It's no secret that we are under tremendous pressure. Our stock price had fallen as low as $2.24 at the end of September, Giving the company a market cap of less than one time sales as investors headed to the exits. Analysts reduced both sales projections and price targets And some even downgraded the stock despite the already precipitous decline. Some investors even questioned whether burner had enough cash to survive.

Speaker 1

This led to some mid level management employees giving notice. In the face of these mounting pressures, the senior leadership team at Burnout remain laser focused on finding a way around these problems. And as my dad always used to say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I am proud to say that I am surrounded by a group of tough SOBs here at Berna that do not know the word surrender And it was through their grit, tenacity and determination that we were able to lick these twin challenges and frankly come out the other side even stronger. I'd now like to discuss our 2023 performance across the various sales channels.

Speaker 1

First, let me start with international sales. As David mentioned, the primary reason for the dip in our full year revenue for 2023 was the $7,600,000 decline in year over year international sales. While the timing of large international orders is often sporadic and hard to predict, the real reason for the decline in international sales is that starting in 2023, our sales to South America no longer showed up in Bernard Technologies numbers, rather they are reported in Bernard LatAm's numbers and because we do not consolidate Bernard LatAm's results For financial statement reporting purposes, their sales are not included in burn's top line revenue number. For this reason, we expect that our reported international sales number in sales number in 2024 will remain depressed and will come in well below our 2022 record of 9,000,000 That said, we expect to see continued strong sales in South America, particularly in Argentina and with some luck Brazil. If you remember, in October, we announced 2 large sales in Argentina through Berna's Argentinian distributor and our Latin American partner Bursa.

Speaker 1

Notably, one of these was the landmark $6,000,000 order from Cordova Provincial Police, The largest single order for BERNAL launchers in the company's history. Since the launchers sold to the Cordova Police By Bursa were part of the initial stocking order Bursa placed last year in Q4, this sale wasn't reflected in our 2023 numbers, but rather was part of the $4,300,000 in international sales we reported in Q4 of 2022. This year, we project that burner left hand will do $8,000,000 in sales. And while these revenues will not show up as part of Verna Technologies reported sales numbers, we will benefit as a 51% owner of Bernalatam. More importantly, the breakthrough in Argentina with the Cordova police as well as Agencies in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, La Neuse highlights the products appeal to police departments around the world.

Speaker 1

As the demand for less lethal use of force grows ever stronger, orders like the one from the Cordova police can only serve to further validate Werner's suite of less lethal products and confirm Werner's position as one of the leading less lethal companies globally. With sales in South America going through our Vernalatam joint venture subsidiary, our focus in 2024 as it pertains to international sales will be heavily reliant on Mexico and Canada. In 2023, sales into Canada were slightly more than $1,000,000 with most of this coming through our online DTC efforts. We expect to see significant growth in this market in 2024 with the opening of our 1st premier dealer in Canada, Verna Toronto. Starting with only a $25,000 initial stocking order in January, Buena Toronto sold out in just 2 days.

Speaker 1

The owner and operator of Buena Toronto, Emiliano Montz reported that the second order for 100,000 placed 2 days after selling out the initial stocking order was also sold out before the product even arrived. He has since placed the 3rd order all in the span of less than 2 months. The overwhelming success of Bernard Toronto underscores the opportunity that exists in Canada as restrictive gun laws serve to drive the demand among Canadians looking for a means to be able to protect themselves and their families. Based on the success of burna. Ca and of burna Toronto, the company has made a decision to hire a person dedicated to the Canadian market With a particular emphasis on growing our online presence in Canada, with both an online and dealer presence in this important market to our North, we to see our Canadian sales eclipse $1,500,000 in 2024.

Speaker 1

In 2023, our sales into Mexico were de minimis. In fact, they were so insignificant, we did not even bother to report our sales into Mexico as a separate line item as they amounted to less than $200,000 Rather we simply lump them in with dealer sales. Recently, however, Verna has seen significant interest from Mexico and orders during the 1st 2 months of the year for Mexican dealers have already exceeded our full year 2023 Mexico sales. We believe that Mexico offers an amazing opportunity for growth as we expand our presence into both law enforcement and military markets as well as consumer market through dealers and assumed to be created online presence. We project 20 will be more than $1,000,000 Turning to our domestic dealer channel, dealer sales were one of the bright spots for 2023 with sales growth of $1,600,000 or 21%.

Speaker 1

This was on the heels of $2,900,000 in growth or 52% the prior year. We expect to see strong continued growth in the dealer segment. While dealer sales are less impacted by Berna's advertising efforts. We have seen a recent spike in dealer sales which can be attributed to increased brand recognition resulting from our celebrity endorsement program. In addition to the growth, we expect to see from our traditional brick and mortar dealers, We expect significant growth in our dealer our premier dealer program.

Speaker 1

As we have previously explained, premier dealers are essentially burner franchisees. Well, we do not require a franchise fee to become a premier dealer. Premier dealers must derive more than 50% of their revenue from burner products and can only sell non lethal self defense products. The minimum annual purchase commitment for a premier dealer is $250,000 and the store must adhere to strict brand standards including a firing range on premises so that potential customers can test fire the burnout launchers. In return, We assist with the design of the store, provide point of sale display materials and allow these dealers to use the burner name and nomenclature.

Speaker 1

For example, We're in Toronto, the Ungun Bar in Breckenridge, Colorado and of course our original Premier Dealer, LiveSafe Hawaii in Oahu. The premier dealer concept was developed in May of last year and in just 6 short months, we opened 15 premier dealers in addition to the original premier dealer, LiveSafe Hawaii. We look for potential premier dealer partners from the ranks of the entrepreneurs who are committed to our mission of saving lives. This year we will be attending several franchise shows in the hopes of finding enough new premier dealer partners to double the size of our premier dealer program in 2024. The big story of 2023, as I previously explained, was of course turnaround of our online DTC program on both berna.comandamazon.com.

Speaker 1

If we look at full year's online sales through burner.comandamazon.com, sales were relatively flat ending the year at $29,200,000 down less than 2% from 2022. That of course is very misleading as strong Q4 sales up 33% for the prior year made up for a significant shortfall in Q3 before we had settled on a means to replace the sales driven by social media advertising. While dealing with the social media advertising ban was extraordinarily stressful, It was a blessing in disguise. While our social media advertising program was effective, its effectiveness had been waning As consumers were becoming numb to the barrage of social media ads, compounding the problem was the reduced effectiveness of ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter due to the fact that the big tech companies were bowing to public pressure when it came capturing and selling personal data, making it more difficult for us and other businesses to micro target consumers. The net result is that our online growth had waned in terms of both sessions and sales.

Speaker 1

In 2022 prior to the advertising ban, Sessions growth had gone from 95% in Q1 to 56% in Q2 to 35 percent in Q3 to 22% by Q4. This negative trend accelerated in 2023 once the advertising ban took effect. For the 1st 10 months of 2022, the year over year sessions growth was 56 0.3%. By contrast for the 1st 10 months of 2023, year over year sessions growth was a negative 11%. In the last 2 months of the year, however, once we had fully implemented the celebrity endorsement program, Sessions grew to 37,550 a day, up 41% from the 27,000 daily sessions for the last 2 months of 2022 demonstrating the effectiveness of the new celebrity endorsement program compared with the social media advertising program employed the prior year.

Speaker 1

What do we see when we look forward to 20 24 and beyond. How confident are we that we can maintain the current sales momentum? And What is the risk of further production problems or supply chain disruptions? First, let's talk about sales. When we initiated the celebrity endorsement program, we had 3 questions.

Speaker 1

1, was it replicable? 2, was it scalable? And 3, was it sustainable? After almost 6 months, we can answer the first two questions. First, it is replicable.

Speaker 1

After kicking off the program with Sean Hannity, we have been able to successfully add 3 additional celebrities to the mix, Judge Jeanine, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly. In each instance, we have seen very similar ROAS numbers. 2nd, we found out that it's not scalable. Adding more money to these individual campaigns results in diminishing returns. Once we're advertising 3 to 4 days a week, increasing the frequency does not yield a commensurate increase in revenue.

Speaker 1

3rd, with regards to sustainability, the simple answer is that we do not yet know how sustainable this program is. Will we see a drop in ROAS over time once we have saturated each celebrity endorsed market? To date, we've not seen any material decline over time. However, it's still early and we will be closely monitoring ROAS numbers for any changes in the trend. So what does that mean for growth?

Speaker 1

As we look ahead to the rest of the year, based on what we have seen to date, we are quite optimistic about the sustained impact of our celebrity endorsement model. For the month of December, the only month in 2024 where we've closed the books, burner.com's preliminary revenue numbers were up 89% over last year and amazon.com's preliminary revenue numbers were up 98% over last year. Well, this torrid pace has slowed somewhat in the post holiday selling season. The trend in January February to date remains very strong. There is of course no assurance that these trends will and given the fact that we are still in the early innings of our new celebrity endorsement program, we will not be giving guidance.

Speaker 1

However, it is safe to say that based on the 1st 11 weeks of Q1, we expect to see strong growth in our online business in Q1 and hopefully well beyond. Of course, strong sales requires significant ad expenditures And we expect to see a significant increase in marketing expenses related to our celebrity endorsement program. However, With a 5 times ROAS and a 60% plus gross profit margin for our online sales, The return on marketing spend is very accretive. At the same time that we expect to see strong sustainable growth in DTC sales, We also expect to see a marked increase in dealer sales driven largely by our premier dealer program as we look to double the number of participating dealers. We also expect to see strong double digit growth from both Canada and Mexico this year.

Speaker 1

All told, we have every reason to expect strong yet manageable year over year growth in 2024. In 2025, we may look to add additional names to our roster of celebrity endorsers. However, that decision will depend largely upon the success of our new compact launcher, which we hope to debut early in 2025. This launcher will be the size of a micro compact pistol Similar to the Sig Sauer P365, the most popular handgun in the world, We believe that the compact launcher will be a game changer for Verna. As the number one complaint we currently get about the Verna SD is its size.

Speaker 1

For this reason, we believe that this new much smaller launcher will appeal to many of Burns current customers and at the same time expand our market to women and those consumers interested in easily concealable non lethal launcher. If 6 Hour's success with the introduction of their micro compact pistol is any indication, we should see a dramatic increase in overall sales when we introduced this Micro Compact Launcher. For 2024, we also expect to see improved operational efficiencies, reduced product costs and improved margins as a result of a number of initiatives that we are undertaking. Change we made is to simplify our product offering. Recognizing the need for simplicity and ease in the purchasing process, Last month we introduced the burn a universal kit, a one size fits all solution that is legal in all 50 states and Canada.

Speaker 1

This replaces the burn a pepper and burn a Connecticut. Having 2 different configurations created a lot of confusion for first time customers. Now we have only one configuration. Customers are asked to choose between the Berna SD, our most popular pistol and the Berna LE, our most powerful pistol. They are then asked to choose their color black, orange or tan.

Speaker 1

Every other color will be a special offering, For example, pink on Valentine's Day, which we're actually rolling out today. Finally, customers will be asked if they want to launch with or without a thumb safety. The configuration of each kit however will be the same, 1 launcher, 1 extra 5 round magazine, 1 5 pound tube of Kinetic, 1 5 count tube of Eco Kinetic and 1 5 count tube of Pro Training. Chemical irritant rounds will be sold separately. This streamlines the checkout process and offers additional opportunities to upsell ammunition making this a win win for customers and burnout.

Speaker 1

We anticipate that this change will lead to a slight increase in average order value over time as the universal kit is selling for the same price as the pepper kit was previously selling for despite the fact that it does not come with chemical irritant rounds. This change has also allowed us to reduce the number of product variants offered by more than 25 SKUs. This should allow us to both reduce inventory levels and improve factory efficiency, which in turn should bring down costs over time. This simplified offering coupled with our new expedited shipping offering option should help improve both revenues and margins. To be able to keep up with the anticipated growth this year, We've recently initiated plan to scale up our manufacturing capabilities.

Speaker 1

This initiative includes increasing our production personnel by 25% and opening a second assembly line. These steps are designed to increase launcher production capacity from 10,000 units per month to 12,500 units per month. Since we are still operating on only one shift a day, We have significant excess capacity for expansion as needed. In addition to the expansion of our launch of production capacity, We are also focusing on increasing ammunition production by opening a second ammunition production facility which will be located here in the U. S.

Speaker 1

This move is aimed at both strengthening our supply chain and reducing the risk of supply chain disruption, thereby ensuring that we can meet the forecasted demand for our high margin ammunition products even if international shipments become more difficult for any reason. We expect these projects to be completed in the second half of twenty twenty four, setting a strong foundation for Berna's continued growth and operational efficiency. Fortunately, Berna's strong financial footing provides the foundation to be able to undertake these projects and handle the expected growth in sales. At the end of December, cash had actually climbed to $23,000,000 And as David mentioned, there is no debt on our books. So we are well positioned for growth.

Speaker 1

In conclusion, we believe that 2023 demonstrated that this management team can react to whatever challenges are thrown our way, safely navigating Birna through troubled waters on the way to our chartered destination. Now let's open the call for your questions. Operator, please provide the appropriate instructions.

Operator

Thank you. The company will now be taking questions from its publishing Our first question comes from Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 3

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking our questions. I guess the first question I had is really just around marketing. Realize that you've added a bunch of new folks to your influencer group. I'm just wondering what we should anticipate for the advertising budget in 2024?

Speaker 1

The advertising budget in 2024 is currently around $7,500,000 That's up from $5,000,000 that we had when we were focused on social media advertising.

Speaker 3

Okay. And then since you were just mentioning the universal kit, maybe you can just touch on sales trend by product, wondering if your new marketing is driving sales of any of the other products, Maybe higher velocity products versus lower velocity products? And then which products you're seeing the ramp in the most outside of the universal kit?

Speaker 1

Well, again, the big surprise for us was the demand for the LE. So the LE has a MSRP of $4.79 versus an MSRP for the SD of $3.79 So for an extra $100 we thought that we'd only get about 10% of customers opting for the LE. That's run as high as 40%. Right now, it's averaging about 33%. So that's been a little bit of a surprise.

Speaker 1

We've also seen some very strong interest in accessories. So again, one of the Benefits of this new advertising campaign is that we're bringing in a lot of new customers. And these new customers are then coming back buying things like our Target tent, holsters, sites, etcetera. So we've seen a pretty across the board interest. Where we've not seen significant strength frankly is in our 12 gauge.

Speaker 1

That's been disappointing. We are going to be looking to partner with a manufacturer of pump action, shotguns, so that we can have the 12 gauge sent out with each New shotgun, but that's probably been the biggest disappointment is 12 gauge.

Speaker 3

Do you think that That 12 gauge would be more something for law enforcement at this point or do you think it's still consumer?

Speaker 1

No, we think if there's a large law enforcement market. Keep in mind, our law enforcement sales in the U. S. Are still relatively small. They represent 1% to 2% of our overall domestic sales.

Speaker 1

We do have interest in the 12 gauge outside of the U. S, but again there's issues with manufacturing and shipping and so forth. But I do think that ultimately law enforcement will probably be the bigger market for 12 gauge.

Speaker 3

Okay. And then just as a final follow on to that, maybe you can just touch on kind of the trend in ammo sales and then what the outlook is ammo sales given the increasing base of launchers?

Speaker 2

Yes. Ammo sales have always bounced around about 25%. If we look at the full year, they are at 25% IMO plus accessories. However, in the Q4 it was down to 22%. And I think that that's due to the 4th quarter real extreme growth and probably a lot of new

Speaker 3

Okay, fair enough. Thanks for taking my questions and best of luck.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Jeff.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Hickman with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed with your question. And Brian, could you walk through what would happen on your income statement If you got another order from Latin America?

Speaker 1

Well, again, The orders what do you mean orders from Latin America?

Speaker 2

Do you mean just in accounting terms how that works or?

Operator

Yes.

Speaker 2

Sure. Yes. Basically right now, we're using the equity method of accounting, which means that Latin America shows up simply as an investment on our balance sheet. And each quarter, we give our 51% of their net loss or gain. So if they have an order There locally say the Cordova police order more laundries from them, you don't see anything on our financial statements.

Speaker 2

You simply see that okay they're more profitable. So we've got better results from investment in joint venture. If they make an order from us right now from Verna Technologies that does show up as an external sale.

Speaker 1

But keep in mind that there is a manufacturing facility down in Buenos Aires. So hopefully they're not ordering too much directly from us. Right now they're producing their own launchers at Berna LatAm. They're buying parts directly, components parts directly from Berna LatAm. So the only sales that go from burner technologies to burner LATAM are ammo.

Speaker 1

So we're still supplying them with ammo because we don't produce ammo in Latin America. But otherwise, there really are very little in the way of sales from Verna Technologies to Verna LatAm.

Operator

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim McIlree with Dawson James. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Good morning. I'm trying to understand the increase in Operating expenses and here's how I'm looking at it. So in Q4 of this year, your OpEx was $9,700,000 and that's up about $1,000,000 from the year ago quarter. And sales were Down a little bit and I understand all the puts and takes as to what's going on with the sales.

Speaker 4

But you talk about Your current marketing campaign being much more efficient than the prior one, but we're seeing similar sales and much higher OpEx And you're talking about a meaningful increase in OpEx going forward. So I'm just trying to figure out what's going on there.

Speaker 1

Yes. As we said, in Q4 of 2022, dollars 4,300,000 in sales were international with $3,400,000 of that going directly to our partner in Argentina Bursa. So the real comparison is not 15.6 versus 16, it's 15.6 versus 11. So we had a significant sales growth accompanied by an increase in marketing spend. As I explained, with a 5x ROAS as a minimum And as we described, our ROAS numbers have been running above 5x and with a 60% gross profit margin As a minimum with our online DTC, every advertising dollar we spend is quite accretive.

Speaker 1

David, is there anything you want to add to that?

Speaker 2

Yes. I mean, what you need to do is, if you're looking at the Q4, yes, that advertising spend does make our breakeven point go up. But when we talk about efficiencies, I think point go up. But when we talk about efficiencies, I go back to what I said in my remarks that domestic revenue in the quarter totaled $15,400,000 And that's a 32% increase from the same quarter a year ago. So That's where we're really seeing the effect of this.

Speaker 2

And those are our highest margin sales as well.

Speaker 4

Okay. And then also, Brian, you talked about, I just want to make sure I heard you properly. You said that Increasing the frequency of advertising does not increase sales, Is that true? And then so what is the current frequency of advertising that you were referring to when you said increasing it doesn't increase sales?

Speaker 1

So once we've reached kind of the threshold of around 4 days a week, going up to 5 ads a week, 10 ads a week with the same celebrity doesn't have the same impact, you start to see a diminishing return in terms of ROAS. So if we're spending let's just say $2,000,000 a year with Sean Hannity spending $4,000,000 a year with Sean Hannity would not double our return from Sean Hannity. So you reach a point where You can't just pour more money into the successful celebrity endorsers, but you have to add celebrity endorsers to the roster. This year, our intention is to add 1 more celebrity endorser, which will start next quarter in March. But beyond that, we do not intend to add any more celebrity endorsers to the roster because we feel that with these 5, We will be able to generate all the growth we can handle.

Speaker 4

Okay. And just one other thing on the same issue. So when you start with a new Celebrity endorser, do you scale up to that, let's call it that 4 times a week baseline or Does it take and does it take a little time to get that ROADs that you referred to? Or do you get it somewhat instantaneously?

Speaker 1

Our experience has been that we get it Somewhat instantaneously. One of the things that we've discovered is if we can get on their show, In other words, if we can get an interview on their show as we did with Sean, as we hope to do with Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, it allows us to really jump start the advertising effectiveness. But so far we've not seen any delay in hitting our ROAS numbers. In fact With Glenn Beck, the ROAS numbers were extraordinarily strong right out of the box because in December, Glenn spoke about our product on his show not as part of our advertising, but just as something that he was interested in. So we're looking for those celebrity endorsers that really believe in our product, that are passionate about our product, that believe in less lethal self defense and as a result there's a tendency for them to talk about it beyond just the advertising that we're paying for.

Speaker 2

The other thing is that with all of these we start out with a relatively short term contract that we can make sure that this is going to be effective before we commit to anything long term?

Speaker 1

Yes, that's Correct. So for example, with Sean, we started with a 90 day contract, but then we this year we've now committed to the full year 2024 With Glenn Beck, the same thing. With Bill O'Reilly, the same thing.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you. That's it for me.

Operator

Jim. Thank you. At this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Gahan for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you, operator. And thank you everybody who participated today and particularly our investors. I want to thank you for your Continued support. Thank you.

Operator

And this concludes today's conference. We thank you for joining us today for Vernon's fiscal 4th quarter and full year 2023 conference call. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
Byrna Technologies Q4 2023
00:00 / 00:00
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