ON24 Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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February 10, 2025

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to CSPI's First Quarter Fiscal Year twenty twenty five Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded.

Operator

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Michael Polivu. Michael, you may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Paul. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review CPI's fiscal twenty twenty five first quarter financial results as well as recent operating developments. The fiscal quarter ended 12/31/2024. Today, with me on the call is Victor DiLovo, CSPI's Chief Executive Officer and Gary Levine, CSPI's Chief Financial Officer. After Victor and Gary conclude their opening remarks, we'll then open the call for questions.

Speaker 1

During the Q and A session, we ask participants to limit themselves to one question and one follow-up question and then requeue if they have additional questions. Statements made by CSPI's management on today's call regarding the company's business that are not historical facts may be forward looking statements as terms identified in federal securities laws. The words may, will, expect, believe, anticipate, project, plan, intend, estimate and continue as well as similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements. Forward looking statements should not be meant as a guarantee of future performance or results. The company cautions you that these statements reflect current expectations of the company's future performance or events and are subject to several uncertainties, risks and other influences, many of which are beyond the company's control and may influence the accuracy of the statements and the projections upon which the segment and statements are based.

Speaker 1

Factors that may affect the company's results include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties discussed in the Risk Factors section of the annual report on Form 10 K and the quarterly report on Form 10 Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward looking statements are based on information available at the time those statements are made and management's good faith believe as of the time with respect to future events. All forward looking statements are qualified in entirety by this cautionary statement and CSPI undertakes no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date thereof. With that, I'll turn the call over to Victor Delovo, Chief Executive Officer. Victor, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Michael, and good morning, everyone. Has been less than two months since we last talked with you and during the first quarter, our business maintained the momentum we described to you back in December. We generated an increase in total revenue boosted by 17 percent in service revenue and expanded our gross margins by a healthy 200 basis points, while earning $0.05 per diluted common share. We finished the quarter with more than $30,000,000 in cash while continuing to invest in our AZTProtect product line. And the Board of Directors authorized another $0.03 per share quarterly cash dividend.

Speaker 2

Our Technology Solution business once again led the way for us during the quarter, generating approximately $15,200,000 in sales. We've added a second major cruise line order to the one we mentioned back in December and we continue to succeed in the ocean freightliner market where we continue to add new ships whose operators are utilizing our managed service offering following the retrofit, boosting our monthly recurring revenue. Another bright spot during the quarter was the increased demand for our cloud based service from companies wanting to outsource these critical needs to our value tested platform. Overall, service revenue grew 17% during the quarter and drove our gross margins up 200 basis points. We continue to introduce AZT Protect into the operational technology or OT markets where the need for enhanced solutions have never been higher.

Speaker 2

We signed up several new customers during the first quarter and in the process increased both the successful industries we are addressing, as well as customers for whom we are providing critical cybersecurity solutions. We should also note that the large pharmaceutical company that purchased AZT Protect a year ago has renewed their annual 6 figure post contract support agreement and we are glad to report they are completely satisfied with the product and related services. An example of how we are building presence for AZT Protect in target operational technology cybersecurity markets is a partnership we announced with Unified Flow Technologies just before the end of the calendar year. U of T provides products in system integration services to water and waste treatment facilities located in 40 states. Water treatment facilities have hard hit by zero day malware and ransomware that today's cybersecurity solutions struggle to prevent.

Speaker 2

In addition, these facilities are often targeted by nation state sponsored attacks that bypass today's leading protection measures. We are now working with UFT to implement AZTProtect into water treatment operations to better protect them against cyber attacks and our first deployment included protecting one of U of T's own operational technology facilities. ACT Protect uses AI based countermeasures to stop categories of attacks as they land on the water treatment facility's most vulnerable critical production control systems. These countermeasures locked down critical applications from adulteration while stopping code base attacks such as malware and ransomware from executing. Further, they disrupt any nation state effort to take control of the facility.

Speaker 2

U of T has more than 16,000 customers to sell a built in solution for effective cyber protection and we are quite excited about the potential for our partnership as a reference film installations are developed. AZT Protect also has the ability to drive our high performance product business and we expect to see increasing levels of revenue from our partnership with the likes of UFT and Rockwell Automation as the fiscal year unfolds. As we reported back in December, we had a very successful participation in the Rockwell Automation Fair back in late November twenty twenty four with Gary Southwell, our Vice President and General Manager of a high performance presenting an in-depth review of the LACE attack techniques in their financial impact. Gary's presentation as well as our participation in the American Petroleum Institute show for oil and natural gas resulted in generating approximately 100 leads. We have been following up on these leads with several already transitioning into active proposals.

Speaker 2

We are hoping to convert a growing number of these proposals to orders during the next couple of quarters with the help of our Rockwell distribution partners. Along those lines, we have targeted the top U. S. Rockwell Distributors having signed up three and hoping to have two more signed by the end of this month. Our strategy with the Rockwell distribution channel is to focus on the middle market OT customers, which tend to have a shorter sales cycle than the larger OT organizations and successfully executing on this strategy will be a major factor behind our performance for the remainder of fiscal twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2

With the large OT customers, our internal sales team continues to address the market, which have sales cycles up to eighteen months. A typical point of entry is through a project for one operation and then as the installation proves its worth, we are introducing to other opportunities within the corporate entity. We are actively working that expansion opportunity as many as the results from AZTProtect are certainly worthy of broader system rollout at these big customers. All of our sales and marketing efforts is supported by the nine major industry awards AZT Protect has received since its launch, including the winner of the Application Security category at the 2024 Fortress Cybersecurity Award presented by Business Intelligence Group. We continue to benefit from the CrowdStrike update failure of last July with the risk that continuous cloud updates can have on an OT applications, including industrial automation industries control systems.

Speaker 2

There was a growing recognition from the industrial automation vendors that their distribution channels that the traditional IT focused endpoint protection methodologies are not meeting their requirements. In summary, we are off to a solid start for fiscal twenty twenty five and we are working to continue this momentum as the year progresses. With that, I will now ask Gary to provide a brief overview of the fiscal first quarter financial performance.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Victor. For the first quarter ended 12/31/2024, we reported revenue of $15,700,000 as compared to $15,400,000 for the prior year's first quarter and $13,000,000 for the fiscal fourth quarter ended 09/30/2024. Service revenue represented $4,700,000 of overall sales compared to $4,000,000 of overall sales during the year ago period and $4,000,000 of overall sales during the fiscal twenty twenty four fourth quarter. Gross profit for the three months ended 12/31/2024 was $4,600,000 or 29.1% of sales compared to gross profit of $4,100,000 or 26.6% of sales for the quarter ended 12/31/2024, reflecting the continued execution of the company's strategy to focus on higher margin offerings. Driven by the improved gross margin, interest income and foreign currency exchange, the company reported net income of $472,000 or 0.05 per diluted common share for the fiscal first quarter compared to a net loss of $73,000 or $0.01 per diluted common share for the prior fiscal year's first quarter.

Speaker 3

For the fiscal first quarter, our engineering and development expenses were $786,000 compared to $700,000 The increase was for outside consulting services and stock compensation. For SG and A, was at $4,100,000 compared to $3,700,000 in the year ago fiscal quarter. The increase was marketing expenses for the trade show and travel expenses as we scaled up the our conferences and participation for the ACT Protect and for higher commission on sales in the TS Group. The company had a tax benefit from reversal of the valuation allowance related to expiring state and R and D credit and investment credits and benefits from our federal R and D credit. The company continues to maintain a robust balance sheet as of 12/31/2024, and had cash and cash equivalents of $30,700,000 The higher cash balance relative to liabilities enhances the company's resources to pay a quarterly cash dividend, while executing growth, which includes the continued rollout and market awareness of the AZT Protect offering.

Speaker 3

With that, I will turn it over to the operator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. And the first question today is coming from Joseph Nerges from Seggren Investments. Joseph, your line is live.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Good morning, guys. Start with one question that, this is off from off, your LinkedIn, with the web page. It was sort of a summation of AZT Protect which it said, no updates, no upgrades, no daily maintenance, saves time, reduce expenses. This is a sort of a summation of what AZT Protect in managing that in the, any security team we have in managing it.

Speaker 4

Except for one exception there and you mentioned it at the annual meeting, I think it's important. We are you are doing you are currently doing a slight well, an additional feature upgrade to AZT Protect. You haven't announced it yet, but there is some work on an upgrade. And I just wanted to get that on the record.

Speaker 2

Correct. All now to soon.

Speaker 4

Okay, very good. Thank you. And one other point, I know we've discussed this in the past. You have a number of patents that have already been assigned or awarded to you on the area platform. And I'm assuming you have some pending patents too.

Speaker 4

Do you have a summation of that at all of the total we have on that?

Speaker 2

Yes. Three have been completed. Two more have gone through all office actions by the Patent Office and are expected to issue by year end. And then two more recent submissions, that should be done sometime in 2026. So three issued and four in the middle stages.

Speaker 4

All right. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. I'll leave it open to somebody else on the questions.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Joe.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Brett Davidson from Envestletter. Brett, your line is live.

Speaker 5

Good morning, gentlemen. I have questions regarding the AZT sales. I was wondering if you guys could shed some light on what sales channels those sales have been coming through. And I know, Victor, you indicated that the Rockwell is going to be important the rest of the year. Have any of those sales come through the Rockwell sales channel?

Speaker 2

No. Those are all been the stuff that we've been working on. The Rockwell channels, we literally have just been setting up contracts with these large distributors. I announced one, I think you guys saw CED back a month ago or so. And there'll be another announcement here soon of another one.

Speaker 2

And then the other ones are we're pretty close to signing. So I'll announce all those as they come along, but these channels are really, really new. So some of the sales we've had have been the ones we've been working on for months or years.

Speaker 5

So you're anticipating then that some of these Rockwell partners are going to generate sales through the course of the year?

Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. We're hoping next quarter if everything goes well. Because the way we're going to work it is, we're going to push all the even if sales come directly to us, we're going to start pushing it through the Rockwell channels of some sort. So that's our game plan long term is to fulfill all through the Rockwell channels.

Speaker 5

And one other quick question. Is there anything that prevents AZT from being sold in the overseas markets?

Speaker 2

No.

Speaker 5

Perfect. All right. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Brett.

Operator

Thank you. The next question will be from Mike Price. Mike is a private investor. Mike, your line is live.

Speaker 6

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It was July of twenty twenty three that you first issued the press release calling AZT game changing technology. And a month later, you said that CSPI lacks name recognition. And at that time, I asked if you have game changing technology without the name recognition, you're better off trying to find a partner that can get this into a market more quickly and in a big way.

Speaker 6

And here it is, and you said at that time, it's only been thirty days. So here we are nineteen months later and you won nine awards, which has, I assume, given you visibility and credibility. You've got several resellers in the Rockwell relationship. And the ACT revenues are not material in an OT market that you have estimated at about $50,000,000,000 And, the last conference call, the year end conference call, you said that this is pretty much like a start up and you're building infrastructure. So the question is, have you gone to somebody with name recognition or somebody come to you saying, you have game changing technology, we have infrastructure, you don't, we have name recognition, you don't, where this could get into the market more quickly in a bigger way.

Speaker 6

And this isn't seemingly just important to the CSPI shareholders, but it seems to be important for national security.

Speaker 2

The quick answer to that is no one's approached us. And working with these large distributors is our first step into trying to build a name recognition and get into more feet on the street.

Speaker 6

Door, you haven't gone to anybody looking for any kind of partnership to get this done in a big way? Because when you put out, partnership to get this done in a big way. Because, you know, when you put out you put out some of these blogs about, you know, 2024 in review and 2025, what's in front of for cybersecurity measures. It's these things all take time and every day that passes, there's higher risk to infrastructures, they're not. So it seems like the sooner that AZT gets in the market, the better and the safer it is for everybody.

Speaker 2

Absolutely. We're evangelizing that through our partners, directly to the customers. We're at trade shows. We have Gary Seltro, who are speaking to them. We're trying to get the blogs.

Speaker 2

We're trying to it's education. With the Rockwell partners, it's all about training them right now, getting in front of them, getting the message out to them on how to position it, where it falls in place, why it's different than the other products that are out there, how we complement in case you come up with some issues of, oh, we already have this product. The messaging and how we while there's still faults in those products, as you can see, there are people getting hacked constantly. This is how we would protect that infrastructure along with whatever product they may be using already. So unfortunately, things take time.

Speaker 2

I'm as impatient as probably most people are, but we are definitely working the channels, working the messaging, developing the product and trying to evangelize in as many areas as possible to get that messaging out there. And a lot of people still have that. Even with the news as what it is, a lot of people will be like, well, I haven't been hacked yet, so I'll be okay right now. And then we have to be like, well, it's only a matter of time when you won't be saying that.

Speaker 6

Do you see an inflection sometime this year where we see some kind of significant ramp up in AZT revenues? You think it takes place as soon as this year or is it longer out longer period in the half?

Speaker 2

No, we're counting on this year to have a significant increase in revenue. Yes, we're budgeting for that. Okay.

Speaker 6

All right. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Operator

Thank you. We did have another question coming in from Mike Price. Mike, your line is live.

Speaker 6

Yes, thanks for taking another question. This comes up every quarter, Joe Nour just didn't ask it, but the question about using some of the cash to buyback shares. And if you are so optimistic about AZT and the future of CSPI, it still seems like a good use of the cash, especially at least to offset any shares that go to management and directors such that the rest of the CSPI shareholders aren't diluted. Can you comment on using cash to buy back shares a little bit more aggressively than the past?

Speaker 2

Well, last quarter we were in a complete blackout period

Speaker 4

as a company.

Speaker 2

So and we're actively looking at it to support the stock this quarter and then in the future.

Speaker 6

Right. But the quarter before, I think you bought what 4,200 shares. It's been nominal from one quarter to the next. Right. Right.

Speaker 3

Yes. We're taking a good close look at that, Mike. So we will be purchasing probably more shares going forward.

Speaker 6

Okay. And again, I know it's a pretty good sized number that is going to management, but you can see if management is getting these shares and you don't use cash to buy back shares, my position, everybody else's position in CSPI is somewhat diluted, right? Understand. Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. And there were no other questions from the lines at this time. I will now hand the call back to Victor Delova for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you. As always, I want to thank our shareholders for the continued interest and support. Our results in Q1 demonstrate the progress we are making in this success also highlights the ever growing market interest interest of AZT Protect. We look forward to updating you on our Q2 progress in May. Thank you.

Operator

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

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