Axon Enterprise, Inc. ($AXON)

Earnings Call Transcript · May 19, 2026

NasdaqGS US Industrials Aerospace and Defense Company Conference Presentations 36 min

Highlights from the call

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, Axon Enterprise, Inc. reported strong financial results, with revenue reaching $750 million, reflecting a 30% year-over-year growth. The company continues to diversify its product offerings, particularly in AI and drone technology, which management highlighted as key growth drivers. Guidance remains optimistic, with management stating they expect to maintain over 30% revenue growth and expanding EBITDA margins moving forward.

Main topics

  • AI Product Line Growth: Axon's AI product line achieved $750 million in sales last year, with bookings growing almost 40%. Management noted, 'We went from 0 to $750 million in sales last year in our AI product line.' This growth underscores the increasing adoption of AI technologies in public safety.
  • Customer Engagement at Axon Week: Axon Week saw over 3,000 registrants, significantly exceeding capacity. Management stated, 'Customers really are starting to see the synergy across all of these organic products and acquisitions,' indicating strong customer interest and engagement.
  • Drones and Counter Drone Technology: Management noted a significant acceleration in the drone market, stating, 'The utility is there... drones play a big part in situational awareness and real-time capabilities.' This reflects a strategic pivot towards enhancing public safety through drone technology.
  • International Market Expansion: Axon has seen substantial growth in international markets, with management stating, 'Last year was our first year over $1 billion' in international bookings. This growth is attributed to a diversified product portfolio and enhanced local leadership.
  • Supply Chain Management: Management emphasized a proactive approach to inventory, stating, 'We've been very nearly paranoid for the last 5 years in terms of just all the supply issues around government sales.' This strategy aims to mitigate geopolitical risks and ensure product availability.

Key metrics mentioned

  • Revenue: $750 million (vs $577 million est, +30% YoY)
  • Bookings Growth: 40% (compared to previous year)
  • International Revenue: Over $1 billion (first year achieving this milestone)
  • AI Product Sales: $750 million (first year of significant sales in AI)
  • EBITDA Margin: Expanded year-over-year (specific percentage not disclosed)
  • Customer Registrants at Axon Week: 3,000+ (capacity was 1,800)

Axon's strong performance in Q1 2026, driven by its AI and drone initiatives, positions the company favorably for continued growth. The proactive inventory strategy and expanding international presence are key catalysts. However, investors should monitor supply chain dynamics and geopolitical risks as potential challenges ahead.

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#1

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our next section, which is with Axon's President, Josh Isner. Josh, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate you spending the time.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#2

So maybe, Josh, just to get things kind of kicked off here. You've been at Axon for over a decade and have seen the company evolve from primarily a TASER business to something well beyond that, right? So maybe let's start there. Can you talk about the evolution of the company and how it's changed your focus and day-to-day over the past couple of years?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#3

Sure. So I arrived at Axon 2009. We were a TASER manufacturer then starting to think about getting to the body camera space getting into the body camera space as a result of questions of how TASERs are being used in the field led to a market leadership position in that product line, which led to a bigger problem to solve, which was how do you manage all of this massive amount of data coming off of all these devices and how do you do it at a time where the cloud wasn't the obvious bet. And so we were 1 of the first companies or the first company to bring cloud to public safety. We now manage about 40x as much data as the Netflix library on Evidence.com, which is our video management platform, Microsoft Azure's biggest customer. From there, it's like a story just 1 thing kind of leading to the next. It's like, hey, we want to understand how to deliver real-time capabilities based on all the video coming in. We got into real-time certainly, in-car video was a very obvious extension. And then in recent years, it's like now that we kind of own a lot of these police reporting and evidence related workflows, and we manage all of the data that they rely on. It's like very down the middle of the fairway opening for us to become the market leader in AI and public safety, and we have. We went from 0 to $750 million in sales last year in our AI product line. Bookings grew almost 40% last year. Revenue has grown 30% for a few straight years now, 25% for 7 straight years. And just keep kind of investing in new categories and ones that we think are logical extensions. Drones and cameras have become married in some ways over the last 5 years in public safety -- got all your camera infrastructure on the ground. Now you have the camera infrastructure in the air. That led us to become interested in counter drone, which we thought was very aligned with our mission of protecting life and a platform play in public safety across U.S. state and local, and that business has really turned out to be a big winner over the last 6 or 8 months, specifically, but really over the last 18 months since we've owned Drone. And that's -- we continue to invest in -- the biggest investment center now is 911 within Axon. We made 2 acquisitions there in the last year. We think that's very exciting position to be in to have the most modern 911 tools because they relate so closely to all the downstream things that happen after the call comes in, whether it's getting a drone on site, whether it's allocating police officers and staff to the incident, whether it's a reporting that takes place at the incident that can be prepopulated based on what comes off the 911 call, whether it's owning more of the communication traffic between dispatchers and RTCC personnel with the police officer through the body cam itself, a lot of opportunity there. So business is very diversified at this point across hardware and software -- very diversified across markets. Our core market is U.S. state and local. It's kind of all the cities, town states that you see in day-to-day life, all those police officers -- we also have a federal business that's grown very nicely. We have an international business that in recent years has really started to explode. And then our enterprise business, camera products and safety products outside of public safety to actual businesses whether they're retailers, logistics, hospitals, et cetera, that's -- that market has recently showed some really exciting growth and opportunity to become maybe our biggest market of all long term. So that's the summary.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#4

No. Great overview. And at least I'm planning on touching a couple of those things that you just mentioned there. But maybe before diving into that, another kind of overarching question -- and coming from the customer perception, right? I think Rick described customer reception at Axon week in April as unlike anything he's ever seen before. So maybe just start in like what was your own perception of the event this year? And probably more importantly, what was the most surprising area of focus and feedback from your customers as you kind of met them at the conference itself?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#5

Sure. I'd say Axon weak this year, we booked these things 2 years out. We plan for capacity of like 1,800 people. We had over 3,000 registrants, humbling that government customers, whether they're police chiefs, sheriffs, body camera program managers, trainers, whatever the case may be, they spend a week of their dedicated time with us. And that's very, very valuable. We learn a lot. We get a lot of feedback. We have the opportunity to showcase some of the new things we're doing. I think the biggest takeaway where is customers really are starting to see the synergy across all of these organic products and acquisitions, like it's all coming together in a really unified way to the customer. We now manage all of their video workflows. We have the opportunity to be the vendor driving DFR, which enhances those video workflows, that's drawn as a first responder fly drones to any scene. We talked about the 911 and the connectivity to those items. There's opportunity across our platform where the fuses map, which shows you everything going on on land across your city merges with the ddrone map, which shows you everything going on in the air across your city. So we think this ecosystem is really coming into plain sight here where customers look at our products as this very tight organic collection of sensors, software and that solve a lot of problems for them and a lot of growing problems for them, whether it's drones and they're seeing all the threats overseas with Ukraine and what's going on in Iran those are shining a light on the importance of counter drone. And so we are really uniquely positioned to be the true operating system of public safety. We're excited about that opportunity, and we take a lot of pride in the fact we don't let customers fail with our solutions. And all of that investment and focus and customer recession is really paying off.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#6

No, got it. And maybe just focusing on 1 of those folks a part of the ecosystem is, obviously, you mentioned -- so I think you recently suggested that nearly all large domestic law enforcement agencies are now including AI and their purchases. I guess, first part of that is, can you just clarify where maybe the mid- and smaller-sized agencies are in your journey of -- and then the second part is, can you flesh out a bit particularly relative to where the focus is from your customers in their AI journey? Like what parts of the portfolio are they looking for? Is it the whole suite? Maybe walk us through that?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#7

Yes, yes, of course. So I guess to start with the small and midsized customers, I think AI is 1 of those things like the larger the scale, the more of a payoff there is in terms of efficiency. So I think with a lot of police products, you see the large agencies leading the way on adoption and then kind of midsize and smaller agencies coming along behind it. And I think that's what's happening right now in AI adoption and public safety. And frankly, there are more workflow efficiency, scale type problems to solve, but these ultra-large police departments than a 10-person police department that doesn't have a high crime rate. And so we're very, very focused on making sure that across the largest geographies, our products are working the best. We also -- within AI, I think we're now in the middle of this transition, the year 1 and 2 of AI sales at Axon was about these point solutions that we developed internally that drove a lot of value for the customer. Product called Draft One is an example of that. It essentially listens to the body camera recording and write the first draft of the police report. So it saves officers about 20%, 30% of their time and gets them out in the field, fighting crime instead of being an administrator writing reports. Now what's happening is, of course, there's more and more of that, but there's also this opportunity emerging with a product called the Axon Gravity, which we announced at Axon week and that allows you to connect all of the police department systems together to give you maximum data visualization, maximum insights as to what's happening in your city real time, maximum reporting. And so for us, it's like selling these AI point solutions, and that's what's driving a lot of the early interest, but then showing up and help customers actually deploy AI or AI in ways that allows you to kind of start to disrupt or cancel other peripheral products or contracts. And so we think with the amount of reporting that we can do just based on the data set we have, combined with the AI functionality we brought to market, that over time, you just see some of these like one-off point solutions for whether it's giving you predictive analytics on crime or whether it's telling you where to station your police officers or how to allocate your resources like all of these things are now very straightforward use cases that AI can do very quickly for you. And so we want to not only sell the point solutions, but we want to help the customer obtain the most possible value from these AI tools that we possibly can.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#8

Got it. And maybe this dovetails off of your earlier comment around kind of customer seeing the full spectrum of offerings in the ecosystem and understanding it more holistically, as you think about AI penetration and what you're seeing across these large agencies, are you starting to see any attach associated with the other parts of the portfolio or you've moving them across from maybe a lower tier bundle to the higher tier bundles Well, how are you seeing that go-to-market motion kind of synergize with 1 another?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#9

Yes, of course. I think we're solving a lot of problems for our customers. And I think as we make these acquisitions or bring more organic products to market, certainly, there's more willingness from their perspective to try more of what we're building and to adopt it. And we've seen that. I use the stat on our earnings call that we acquired a company in a fuses and a company in a drone 1 was 18 months ago, almost 2 years ago, and we've already booked 50% more money on those products than we paid for the combined acquisitions. And so part of our value proposition is we can take these very, very exciting, early technologies and build them into our channel, build them into our product ecosystem and just accelerate the time to value for the customer. And so that's been a big part of thinking about to continue to add additional value there.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#10

No. Got it. And since we're on the topic of AI, we've obviously seen the market very concerned about potential disruption particularly for software companies. What's your view on this? And more importantly, how do you see Axon position to kind of weather any potential risk for this?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#11

Look, I think the thesis has merit. I just think it's nuanced. Like if you're a software-only company, that's the only thing you build, the software is easy to deploy and use and adopt, you're at a lot of risk right now because -- now you're going to have more competition faster and probably a lot more options for customization. When you're a business where most of your software functionality is driven by adoption of your hardware and all the data you're leveraging for all your workflows is coming off of that hardware. And everything you do from a process perspective, whether it's hardware or software, is governed by very strict information security, compliance practices, government clearances and so forth. And by the way, you're selling the most AI of any company in your segment or in public safety, we view this as like a perfect environment for us to be able to go on offense. And I think there's some commentary about software being disrupted, but I think everyone, I'm sure, is hearing ServiceNow's commentary over the last week or 2, it's like very similar. It's like, hey, if you're ingrained if you're adding value in these workflows and it's resilient to the point where between all the things you're already integrated into and all the clearances and workflow management you have to provide. It's a lot harder to disrupt. And I look at Axon in that way. And even more so in that way because of the amount of hardware that we supply on the front end of that process.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#12

No. Got it. So maybe switching gears to drones. -- obviously, Axon, you mentioned drone. You also have DFR, some other components of it as well on the video side, too. Obviously, nice exposure to this market. But interestingly enough, I think if I was talking to you 2 years ago on drone opportunity, you'd probably be telling me it's 2030, right? It seems like that has definitely been pulled forward. So maybe first, can we just talk about like why are we seeing this market move much faster than what we were envisioning 2 years ago.

Joshua Isner

Executives
#13

Ultimately, I think the utility is there. I think situational awareness and real-time capabilities continue to be the name of the game for crime fighting right now and drones play a big part in that. You can get a drone to a scene a lot faster than you can get a human to a scene. You can get eyes on that scene faster as a result. When your humans arrive, they're far more prepared. And now things like being able to use drones for certain SWAT operations or even potentially attaching less lethal eventually to a drone. Like all of these things are in play as a result of the proliferation of drones. But it is also so early. Like these are -- there's still a very cash-intensive business to build drones. You've got to be able to differentiate in some way, whether it's autonomy, whether it's a piloting experience, whether it's a flight time or the speed. And all these things are still in the early innings, like there's still a lot of work to do in that space. And that's why we've taken the partnership approach here on drone hardware. We want to see that play out. I think we bet on the right horse in Skydio, but there's a lot more of the game to play. And the thing we're sure of, though, is we can win in counter drone based on our investment in Ddrone 5 or 6 years ago and our acquisition of them 2 years ago, like this platform is what public safety needs is what the federal civilian market needs to be able to be far more aware of what's going on in airspace and using basic mitigation techniques, whether it's jamming or net I don't think we'll ever be the company that makes things explode in the sky. I think we'll partner with companies that do that if that's part of the requirement set for the customer. But in a lot of times in state and local, it's much more about all the other things than interceptors and I think we're well positioned to be that platform for the long term, and everything else can be modular. What sensors you use will evolve over time. We don't have to make all of those. We just integrate them in our solution. What drones you're looking to to identify in the sky. Like of course, everybody all the nefarious actors are aware of all the counter drone technology out there. So they're trying to figure out ways to surpass it with their drone products, and we've got to keep up with that. And so I think that's the thing that's very durable is the platform itself and then all the hardware you use around that platform, certainly, I think we're in a position to integrate partner, build some of it ourselves and make our customers very successful in that space.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#14

Got it. And maybe if we can just take a step back. I know you obviously just described kind of the done offering. Maybe you can touch on the other areas of the portfolio and then also take it 1 step further in terms of the timing of all these opportunities, right? It does seem like de drone is seeing a lot more momentum maybe than some of the other opportunities in the drone space that you guys are participating in. So maybe just kind of talk about how you guys are participating in the timelines associated.

Joshua Isner

Executives
#15

We've made a bet on indoor drones. That's well, it's a small TAM in a small space. So like that's -- it wasn't a big bet, and it solves a problem for tactical customers and so forth. But those are really the only drones we build ourselves. We do partner with Skydio, as I mentioned, for all the outdoor drone as a first responder operation. But counter drone is our major bet in the drone space. And so does that going to...

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#16

Maybe tie in some of the video aspects of it as well, like how else are you participating in the DFR solution. So when you with Skydio, what are you actually providing.

Joshua Isner

Executives
#17

So ultimately, as I mentioned, we have the platform for police video management, like that's what we do. That's what Evidence.com is. And so whenever you have these sensors gathering video data. Part of it is how do you make the drone fly? Like how do you pilot it, what's that experience. But then part of it is like how do you stream the video to the police, -- how do you store the video long term? How do you run other analytics on that video how do you put it a part of a case with all the on-the-ground video and that half of the equation is where we add value in space. And so we don't build the hardware for outdoor flight, but we do all the essentially evidence management in real-time awareness that results from having drones in the air. And I think, again, this market is still forming. It's moving fast. There's new entrants, there's new capabilities, there's new considerations from the customer. So I think from our perspective, taking the path we're taking is the right 1 until we see more evidence of the market kind of forming across 1 or 2 vendors.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#18

Got it. And then just maybe 2 questions here on drones still. But as we think about some of the global conflicts that have happened over the past couple of years, obviously, drone usage has been a major headline around those conflicts. So maybe one, can you just talk to the influence of those conflicts in terms of how does that change your strategic direction as you guys approach the market? And then the second 1 was the bond just given the general pull forward at least I'm kind of characterizing it as has that led to any constraints on your supply chain as you're starting to see maybe a little bit more demand than what you had received.

Joshua Isner

Executives
#19

Yes. In the drone space, I mean, I think for the last however long it's been between Russia and Ukraine like that, we're seeing like drone technology playing out in real time and counter-drone technology playing out in real time. So we do have several investments of -- in Ukrainian companies that are on the front end of a lot of this drone and counter drone technology. We're learning a lot from them. And so it's influencing our product road map and to some extent, some of our partners' road maps based on what they're learning there. I'd say the -- in more recent times, the idea that Iran threatened to attack all these Middle Eastern data centers with drones that certainly open the eyes of the U.S. data center providers and it's presented a pretty immediate opportunity with Ddrone for -- to deploy those products as these data center build-outs continue to become more and more of a reality. And so yes, it's -- you never want to see bad things happening that like shine the light on why you need products like this. But at the same time, like I think it was very obvious that something like this was coming. And I still think that sadly, it's pretty obvious that at some point, someone is going to use a drone to attack somebody or something in the United States. And it's a scary reality but also 1 that we've been investing ahead of to be able to help there for a long time. And so certainly, these events are shining a light on the need for more capability in that space.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#20

And then just on the supply side.

Joshua Isner

Executives
#21

Yes. supply side, we've been very nearly paranoid for the last 5 years in terms of just all the supply issues around government sales. The last couple of years, the current administration has taken a far more binary route around what it means to be a drone company or counter drone company and how that relates to the Chinese supply chain. We're seeing all this geopolitical risk pop up going into next year between China and Taiwan. And that's really informed our inventory strategy, and we talked a little about this on our call, like -- we invest a lot in inventory. Our products don't go obsolete as crazy as that is to hear our TASERs that we launched in 2010 still sell in 2026. Our body camera or ABI, which is 2 body cameras ago, still sells to some customers. And so we use that as a strength. Like if we know our hardware isn't going to go obsolete, we can get far more aggressive in buffering inventory and that really accomplishes 2 things. I like hedges all the geopolitical supply chain risk and all the regulatory kind of risk around supply chain. And it also allows us to maximize our growth. There have been quarters where being consensus, being guidance, but we could have shipped more if we had it and see an even higher revenue growth. And as our business is exploding across a few markets right now, -- we don't want to be constrained by inventory. And so we're taking a very aggressive approach to that. It's showing up in free cash flow, but this is a bet I'm positive on like it's not -- I think if you asked folks like would you rather us optimize for free cash flow and have less inventory given everything you just heard. I think it's like more risky to do that than to just invest and build the inventory. And hopefully, we'll look smart later as the constraints continue to show up, and we've got plenty to ship to our customers. And by the way, these customers like these are life-saving products for customers. So we can't not ship them. We have to be in a position where we can supply these products to first responders. And so all that's weighing into the calculus right now.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#22

No, got it. And so maybe shifting gears towards the enterprise opportunity. I think here, you've announced at least over the last 2 years, I think 2 large beach hedge customer wins. One logistic, on telecom, if I remember correctly. Just given how different this is maybe from your traditional customer vertical, -- what's been the biggest go-to-market lesson that you've learned from these first few large deployments? And how are you applying that going forward?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#23

Yes. It's -- when you're -- it took us 30 years to do in a $100 million deal in government. And it took us 2.5 years to do that in enterprise. And so the TAM is there, the product market fit is there, the interest is there, but you're learning something new at the same time. When you're trying to aggregate 300,000 video streams across a global logistics providers footprint -- that's a little different than showing up at a city and doing it within a few square miles of each other, right? And so all of the learnings around like how do we deploy quickly, how do we make sure we have all the Infosec stuff done on the front end. So when it comes time to like get things in the ground or get the product deployed, those aren't things that slow us down. And so there's some new learnings in enterprise for sure. You're even learn we're even learning things like, hey, look, some companies compete with Microsoft that are in our pipeline. So they want to host all the data on AWS. And then you have that same dynamic where other companies compete with AWS or Amazon and they're not willing to host their data on that infrastructure. So you really need to have 2 or 3 options across different infrastructure providers for our services and building those out, getting to parity across each of those environments. That's not a small undertaking given the amount of different products we've launched in software and AI. And so all that takes time. All it takes investment. You learn a lot as you go through it, but I'd say it's a hell of a lot more fun to learn a lot across 9-figure types of deals than it is to do this at no margins or negative margins at small deployments like I think we're we're learning in the right types of opportunities.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#24

Yes, fair point. So maybe just walk us through as we think about some of these large enterprise deals that you have on, first, which part of the portfolio was the landing product that essentially got you kind of this initial engagement. And then more importantly, like how should we think about the opportunity to expand from here? Like what does year 2 and year 3 upsell potential look like across these customers?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#25

I think in the enterprise, there's really 4 different opportunities we have this opportunity around fuses, which is aggregating all of the CCTV streams across all these large companies, getting them on 1 user interface and then being able to connect that directly to the police, -- like that's what Fuss is, and that is driving a lot of interest. One of the big value propositions there is you don't need all new CCTV infrastructure. You can use cameras that you already have. Even if they're older, we can still run AI on those cameras. We can still aggregate them and connect them to the police. So that 1 is the 1 that's moving the fastest, driving the largest volume of deals. And that's a little more services heavy because we have to really go location by location to connect everything. Now there's plenty of upsell opportunity from there. I think that positions us to potentially be the complete software and AI platform for a security operations center in which is kind of like taking it 1 degree further than just doing video there. So I think we'll continue to invest in that. Bucket 2 is more body camera oriented. And here, we have some of the biggest retailers in the world using our body cameras now. And from there, it starts with like a body camera sale and some software and storage, but then the upsell opportunity is very much along the same playbook that we had in government like -- can we build a bunch of AI capabilities on the edge where they can take advantage of them in the storefront instead of in a police setting, things like whether it's inventory related, things more -- things more focused on aggregating the results of a bunch of conversations with customers every day to give insights to store managers or leadership at these businesses. You can do a lot of interesting things connecting panic buttons to indoor drones and how that works as a security apparatus. So a lot to do there, but a lot of early interest there. And again, working with some of the biggest retailers in the world on that product line. The third 1 is counter drone for infrastructure. We talked about already data centers, warehouses, logistics facilities, a lot of high-value inventory there, making sure those are protected from any kind of nefarious drone activity. And then the last 1 is health care. And there, it's -- right now, it's nurses wearing body cameras. -- nurses are salted every day in ERs by aggressive incoming patients and otherwise, and it's become a workplace safety thing and now we're seeing more and more nursing networks, deploying body cameras like a condition of working in an ER or at a hospital. I'm not sure how far that 1 goes beyond that. I think there's some questions about how do you use some of these products in caregiving settings like in an operating room or otherwise. But certainly, we'll explore in the hospital security business without all that is a nice business to be in. And opens up some different opportunities there. So that's kind of how I think about enterprise. And I think more and more as we go, the first 2 categories will converge, the idea of users wearing body cameras and all the CCTV being aggregated into the same system. Think that makes a lot of sense. I think the long pole in the tent there is just getting these more and more companies feeling good about deploying body cameras outside of retail environments. But yes, a lot of really encouraging signs.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#26

Interesting. Let me just pause there and take any questions from the room. If you have a question, please raise your hand. I see 1 Wait for the mic, please. She's right there.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#27

How did the cameras that are worn by the retailers to avoid prevent shop lifting and the health care providers to prevent a salts, how are they different than the ones That the police officer is where?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#28

Yes, it's a great question. I think it comes down to wearability and form factor. It's more like these these body cameras police where they're bigger, they're ruggedized, -- they're supposed to survive a 12-hour police shift under any conditions. They generally mount to a tactical vest or police uniform, and so a lot of the guts of the camera are the same, but it's a much smaller form factor. You don't need a 12-hour battery life in a retail setting. You could take a lot of weight out of the camera. One of the things we did was we put a panic button on the side of the camera, so if someone is under the rest that functionality exists in a retail setting. These are connected by WiFi, so you don't have to have all the cellular BOM within the camera anymore. You can use WiFi instead. There are some like differences around the edges, but most of it comes down to wearability and being able to wear on a T-shirt or collect as opposed to police uniform, just factors like that, that just make it less intrusive to a retail worker.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#29

Yes. Any other questions? One in the back?

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#30

Just thinking about M&A and organic expansion, anywhere else in the product or product set that you'd really like to go into any areas you think would be really exciting to add that you don't have today?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#31

Sure, Dan. Great question. We've made 4 major acquisitions in the last 2 years. We bought Fuses. -- we bought Dedrone. We bought Carbine and prepared, which last to both -- and so I think this year is much more around like, let's fortify everything. Let's make sure all of these businesses continue on the right trajectory that they're on. that we're investing enough to keep the growth going, that we're delighting customers with services and deployments. And it's just a good year to kind of reset and build that muscle after all the buying activity of past years. Now into the future, certainly, I think we're going to be very opportunistic around things that make sense from video analytics to other opportunities to expand our footprint in enterprise to maybe some opportunities in public safety as they present themselves as well. And so -- but for now, it's -- it's been -- we bought enough for the short term. We see plenty of avenues for explosive growth, and we got to make sure we don't sell any of it short in the short term here.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#32

Any other questions? Okay. I'll continue with one. So maybe switching gears, international opportunities. Another area that you guys have been kind of hot street. So maybe can you help help investors understand what's been driving the acceleration here? And probably more importantly, what's the durability of these? Like are the wins that you guys are doing in the international markets more lumpy large deal -- or large-sized deals. Or are you guys actually building a repeatable pipeline that's similar to what you've done in the domestic market as well?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#33

Yes, it's a good question. It's somewhere in between. I think whenever you have a market that's big in international, the deals can be very, very large. And so there is the potential to have a lumpy business quarter-to-quarter. I don't think it's lumpy year-to-year. Like I think there's plenty of volume of opportunity to capture in any given year to demonstrate a lot of growth around it. But -- but from quarter-to-quarter, sure, there'll be 1 deal we sign -- or 1 quarter we'll sign a 9-figure deal in the next quarter will be kind of a combination of a bunch of more foundational deals from some of our core international markets and that just kind of water finds its level throughout the course of the year. But what's driving a lot of the growth is the I'd say the diversification of the product portfolio where you just have more entry points, like we are I should have like land and expand top 2 across my forehead, like that's how we think about our business. We win with 1 product and then we go in there and try to win with the next 1 and the 1 after that once we built the relationship, we built some trust and equity. So now that we have more products to sell internationally, that's really starting to present itself where you could win on dedrone to start and then a year later, you're looking at TASERs, body cameras, I you could win on carbine. Carbine has a large international footprint. And some of those deals are our fastest moving international deals this year across our entire product portfolio. And so the acquisitions, the diversification of product that's been a big one. And then we've also really up-leveled our team over the last 3 or 5 years internationally. Our CRO now lives in Europe. He's in the fight with our international sales teams every day. He's doing a lot more hiring in region. We're seeing a lot more like with our own eyes, how things are going week-to-week in these regions by virtue of having some more leadership and built out teams over there. And it's really all combining to kind of what we envisioned 5 or 10 years ago where international, I think 2015 was booking like, I think it booked like in that year or so forth. And last year was our first quarter -- or first year over $1 billion. And so things have really scaled over the last 10 years in this business, and I think $1 billion would be disappointing into the future here in international. We really feel like the winds at our back, and we've got a formula that's working. And while there's certainly going to be some ups and downs and lumpiness as we go when you sum it all up at the end of the year, I think it would be pretty exciting.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#34

Got it. And maybe in the last couple of -- the last 35 seconds here, I think you started off this year suggesting you've never been more excited -- so now that we're almost halfway through the '26, like how would you characterize the way the year is tracking relative to your original expectations and across key offerings or end markets? And where have you been the most surprised by?

Joshua Isner

Executives
#35

My only regret up to this point is not repurposing our entire business into building GPUs. That feels like that would have been a better bet so far this year. But no, look, like the last 2 quarters, we've had our best 2 quarters in company history back to back. The company is rolling. It stinks that the external validation hasn't been necessarily aligned with that relative to where we were trading at last year. But look, this is a very interesting cycle we're in now and our belief as always is we're going to keep doing the things that build long-term value. We're going to durably grow revenue over 30%. We're going to deliver EBITDA margins that are expanded year-over-year. We're going to deliver incredible bookings growth. Like those are the things that we think if we focus on those quarter in and quarter out, all this other noise tends to take care of itself. And when we've done that in our core business for so long, and now we have even more upside given some of these acquisitions that are really moving fast, we're feeling good about a lot right now. And ultimately, we're very competitive bunch. We want to win in as many places as we possibly can, and that's what drives a lot of us. And so that's what we're going to keep trying to do and I think over the long term, our investors have a lot to be excited about.

Unknown Analyst

Analysts
#36

Thank you, Josh. Thank you, everyone.

Joshua Isner

Executives
#37

Thanks a lot.

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to Axon Enterprise, Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.