Byrna Technologies Inc. (BYRN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Byrna Technologies Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Before turning the call over to Bryan Ganz, Byrna Technologies' Chief Executive Officer, I will read the safe harbor statement. Some discussions made today may include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the statements made today. Please refer to Byrna's most recent 10-K 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, please see the press release and the Investors section of our website, ir.bernard.com. For further information regarding forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP results to GAAP results. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Bryan Ganz. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Byrna's fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. David North, our CFO, and I will be discussing our Q4 and full year 2022 results. And I will be providing some additional color on both the quarter and the year and discuss recent developments. We'd like to start by turning the call over to David so that he can discuss the Q4 and full year results and financial performance. David and I will be taking questions at the conclusion of the presentation. David?

Thanks, Bryan, and thanks to all for joining us today. Let's start with a review of the financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $16.0 million, that's a 43.5% increase over the $11.0 million for last year's fourth quarter. Gross profit increased by 52.0% to $8.7 million from $5.7 million in last year's fourth quarter, while gross margin improved to 54.1% of net revenue from 51.1% in last year's fourth quarter. The improvement in gross margin was driven by a reduced dependence on air freight and an improved product mix with higher-margin ammo sales representing a greater percentage of overall sales.  Operating expenses remained relatively flat at $8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $8.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The combination of higher revenue and a higher gross margin percentage, coupled with flat operating expenses resulted in improved profitability. Net loss for the fourth quarter was near breakeven at $0.1 million or $0.01 per share compared to a net loss of $3.2 million or $0.14 per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. Excluding long-term stock-based compensation and one-time severance costs our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $1.4 million making this a second sequential fiscal quarter with positive non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. Taking a look now at the full year financial results. Revenues for the full year increased by 13.8% to $48.0 million compared to $42.2 million in the prior year. In 2022, the company saw increases in international sales, dealer sales and Amazon sales. Specifically, international sales increased by $5.7 million or 164.6% dealer sales rose by $1.6 million or 28.4% and Amazon's sales grew by $4.6 million or 522.5%. This more than offset the decline in Byrna's website sales of $6.6 million or 20.9%. 2022 website sales were lower than in 2021 because 2021 benefited from a one-time $9 million spike in sales attributable to an unsolicited endorsement from Sean Hannity in April of that year. Higher sales drove an increase in gross profit of $3.4 million to $26.3 million in fiscal 2022 as compared to gross profit of $22.9 million in fiscal '21. The gross margin percentage of the full year for fiscal '22 remained relatively consistent at 54.7% compared to 54.3% in fiscal '21 as the increase in the proportion of lower margin international and dealer sales was offset by lower freight costs and an improved product mix.  Operating expenses rose by $7.5 million to $33.7 million in 2022 from $26.2 million in fiscal '21 due primarily to increased spending on marketing, which increased by $3.3 million. Noncash stock compensation expense was up by $2.3 million and variable selling expenses increased by $1.2 million due to the higher sales volume. Net loss for this fiscal year was $7.9 million compared to a net loss of $3.3 million in fiscal year 2021. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA loss was a loss of $1.0 million versus a profit of $1.3 million in fiscal '21. Finally, a look at our balance sheet and financial position. We ended the fiscal year with $20.1 million of cash on the balance sheet. Obviously, the sequential [ could ] be lower than the $56.4 million on the balance sheet at the end of 2021 after having raised $56 million from the sale of 2.8 million shares of common stock in the third quarter of that year at $21 per share. In 2022, we used $17.5 million of cash to buy back $2.2 million of those shares at an average price of $8.08. The other main use of cash was to increase working capital levels. We increased inventory levels by $8.8 million from $6.6 million at the end of 2021 to $15.5 million at the end of 2022. That's allowed us to cut our reliance and exorbitant air freight for raw materials and to move to slower but far less expensive, ocean freight. Our accounts receivable balance of $5.9 million was $4.3 million higher than the prior year-end balance mainly due to large international sales in the fourth quarter. We also used $1.9 million of cash to enter the self-defense spray market with the acquisition of Fox Labs in May of 2022. At year-end, there was no current or long-term debt. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Bryan.

Thank you, David. As David said, the fourth quarter was a record quarter for the company, the second in a row and the third consecutive quarter of sequential top line growth. Q4 was also the second consecutive quarter of profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis. The improving profitability is due to improving operating leverage. Sales last quarter grew by 43% in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2022, while operating expenses were actually down slightly, down 1% compared to the same quarter last year. While our sales growth for the full year of 2022 was a disappointing 14%. Over the last 2 quarters of the year, Byrna experienced year-over-year revenue growth of 43%. Full year sales growth was dragged down by the 14% decline in the first half sales of 2022. And as David mentioned, this decline in the first half sales of 2022 was due to the $9 million spike in sales in the first half of 2021, resulting from an unexpected and, frankly, unsolicited endorsement from Sean Hannity on live television in April of 2021. If we back out the $9 million of Hannity-effect sales that occurred in the second quarter of 2021, sales in the first half of 2022 would have been up 47% year-over-year and full year 2022 sales would have been up 45% year-over-year, but more in keeping with Byrna's long-term growth trajectory. In fact, over the last 4 years, Byrna has experienced compound annual growth rate of 272%. This significant top line growth for Byrna has been driven by both growing brand awareness and an overall increase in the demand for less lethal alternatives to traditional firearms. Byrna specifically and the less lethal industry generally is benefiting from 2 societal trends that, well, on their face may seem to be countervailing when taken together, they create a tailwind for the less lethal industry. First, as we all know, there is an overall sense of unease driven by a spike in violent crime and growing civil unrest. This is a global phenomenon as people around the world are becoming increasingly concerned for their safety and the safety of their families. At the same time, there is growing outrage over the level of gun violence. Again, this is a global phenomenon and is resulting in tougher gun laws. Just a few months ago, Canada essentially banned the sale of handguns. This had an immediate effect on Byrna as we saw sales in Canada to more than triple after the ban went into effect. Even in the U.S., an increasing number of states such as Oregon are adopting more stringent gun laws, we believe that this is the beginning of a longer-term trend that will greatly benefit burn. These tailwinds can be seen in the increased interest in Byrna's line of less lethal personal self-defense products. In 2022, web sessions on bernard.com grew by 32% year-over-year. If we include Amazon DTC sessions, total visitors grew by 75% year-over-year to more than 11 million visitors with more than half of the traffic being new to Byrna. At the same time, we are seeing an increase in repeat customers. In fiscal year '22, 47% of Byrna sales on bernard.com were to repeat customers compared to 40% in 2021 and 24% in 2022. This supports our thesis that Byrna benefits from a razor-razor blade model. As our installed user base grows, we are seeing an increase in sales of higher-margin ammo accessories and other products such as pepper spray, BodyArmor and less lethal rifles to our existing customer base. In fact, as of the end of the year, our top 250 customers on Byrna.com have each purchased more than $4,200 of Byrna products.  Two months ago, we said that we would be introducing several new products at SHOT Show. SHOT show is the premier trade show for the shooting sports, hunting, law enforcement and firearms industries. SHOT Show, which takes place in Las Vegas every January was back in full swing this year as worries over the pandemic subsided. I am pleased to report that the show this year was an amazing success for Byrna. We debuted our new Good, Better, Best Pistol strategy with the introduction of the price point Byrna EP and the all new much more powerful Byrna LE or law enforcement addition. Consumers representatives of the media and industry insiders had the chance to test fire these weapons at both the industry range Day, which takes place the day before SHOT Show and at the grand opening of Byrna Las Vegas Retail Center. We also introduced Byrna's new 12-gauge round at SHOT Show, and the response was overwhelming. With a 100-foot effective range, no recoil and tremendous stopping power, Byrna's new less lethal 12-gauge kinetic round was a smashing success. It was named one of the 4 best new products at SHOT Show by Police One magazine and made the list of bestest personal defense world's top picks for 2023. Most importantly, our first production run of 250,000 rounds, 25,000 boxes is completely spoken for based on the demand at SHOT Show. Based on the strong demand that we have already seen, we have commissioned additional 12-gauge molds that will allow us to double our production of the Kinetic 12-gauge round by June of this coming year. Until then, we will allocate all production to our Byrna-authorized stocking dealers. The first shipments to dealers will begin later this month. We will roll this product out to our online customers. Once we have taken care of our dealers, we expect that to be sometime in April. We plan to release the payload rounds later this year. These rounds will carry the same chemical irritant formulations as the 68 caliber projectiles used by our range of less lethal lodgers. Accordingly, we will be introducing the ByrnaPepper 12-gauge rounds, the Byrna Max-12-gag round and the ByrnaPro-training 12-gig round. We are also developing a dedicated launcher, our pump action launcher that will be able to shoot the 61 caliber fin projectiles that are currently fired from our 12-gauge rounds without the need for a 12-gauge shotgun and the need for a casing watt and protective clamshell. For 2023, while we remain bullish on the long-term prospects for less lethal industry. And while we expect to maintain our leadership position in the consumer segment of the less lethal industry, we do not expect to see sales continue to grow by 40% this year. Rather, we are forecasting revenue growth for fiscal year '23 of approximately 20%. And accordingly, we are providing revenue guidance of $55 million to $60 million for the full year of '23. The reason that we have damped our growth expectations somewhat for this coming year is because we believe that 2023 will be a more difficult economic environment than 2022 for consumer products companies. whether or not the U.S. is technically in a recession and whether or not the Fed has engineered a soft landing, rising prices and higher interest rates have reduced demand for high-priced discretionary consumer goods.  In coming up with this guidance, we also took into account the uncertainty associated with rolling out 3 brand-new products with no sales history and opening an all-new production facility in South America. For this reason, we did not think it would be prudent to provide precise earnings guidance at this time. However, we do expect to be solidly profitable for the full year 2023 on an adjusted EBITDA basis, and we expect to be cash flow positive this year. The improvement in profitability is a result of the operating leverage that comes from growing sales, improving profit margins and stable operating expenses. For 2023, we expect to be able to hold the line on operating expenses other than variable expenses that track with sales and expenses at our South American Byrna LatAm joint venture. We also believe that we will see a minimum 5% improvement in gross profit margins for the full year 2023 due to a continued transition from air freight to ocean freight and an improving product mix. In addition, for 2023, we are significantly reducing our reliance on discounts and special pricing to move our products on bernard.com. During much of 2022, Byrna relied heavily on discounts and special pricing to drive DTC sales. This had the negative effect of conditioning our customers to expect discounts and to wait for discounts. It also undermined our dealer sales effort and the constant discounting depressed margins. For 2023, Byrna committed to maintaining price integrity, prices will only be discounted on special preplanned map holidays, and these map holidays will be shared with our dealers well in advance. The first such map holiday for 2023 will be the 4-day period over President's Day weekend. Understandably, reinstating pricing integrity may negatively impact sales for a period of time as our customers adjust to our new pricing policy. We believe, however, that this short-term pain is well worth the long-term gain. Already during the first 6 weeks of Q1 gross profit margins company-wide have come in at 62%, a full 8 percentage points higher than the 54% we reported for Q4 of 2022. 2023 should be a very exciting year for Byrna as we roll out these new products, and we began production at our new Argentinian production facility. While there are always hiccups with any new product launch or the opening of any new subsidiary or facility, we expect that the combination of new products and a production facility dedicated to the South American market will open significant new markets and new opportunities for Byrna. Once the Argentinian facility is in full swing. And once we have better visibility on the sell-through of the new products, we should be able to better refine our guidance both top line and bottom line. In conclusion, we've made excellent progress this year in terms of both growing the top line and controlling expenses. As I said in our last earnings call, we have reached the point in terms of operating leverage that will allow us to consistently generate positive cash flow and strong year-over-year revenue growth. Now I'd like to turn it back to the operator, and we'll be happy to take questions from our analysts.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley.

First, let me take congratulations on the unbalance. Great to see that among other new product launches. Some multi-part questions here. So I appreciate you guys bearing with me on the Wonder if you could speak a little bit more about what you saw in projectile sales in Q4? Maybe any sense you can give us of concentration of overall revenues in, call it, Ammo? And then with the launch of the shot down rounds, -- just wondering what you're seeing out there in early days realize it is very early. And then maybe remind us of the margin on the shotgun projectiles. And will that change when you have your own launch here and the projectiles changed? And then also maybe you could just touch on the payload shotgun projectiles. I guess what needs to happen to get those completed and ready to launch in any time frame there? Sorry, I know there's a lot in that.

All right. Well, at least, Jeff, they're all sort of amino-based questions. So let's focus on the 12 gauge first because I think that, that is the more important product. All of the initial production was spoken for by our Byrna authorized stocking dealers. So the large chain stores that carry Byrna and frankly, most of our dealers were interested in carrying the 12-gauge. We made a commitment to the dealers at SHOT Show that we would not start selling to the consumer so long as there were open orders and that we would give their refill orders priority. And the reason for this is pretty simple. We want to make sure that if they're giving us shelf space that we don't let it sit empty. So we've told them that we will not offer it online until we feel that we have adequate stock to fulfill their restocking orders and also to sell online. So initially, we expect the margins on 12 gig to be lower because 100% of the sales will be through retailers. And our margins through retailers are right around 50%. Our margins when we go to sell this online are going to, of course, be much higher, again, closer to 70% gross profit margins. We don't, see we don't know whether we're at the right price point on this product. We're selling a 10-count box around for $50. We didn't seem to get any pushback at all on this. If we have difficulty maintaining production to keep up with demand. We could consider raising the price. But I think a $50 price for a box of 10 rounds is a fair price and gives us adequate margin. And again, the most important thing here is that we get them out into the market. We allow consumers to use these rounds. When we were trying to understand the TAM for 12 gauge, our research told us that there's about 100 million shotguns in the U.S. and probably somewhere between 30 million and 50 million shotgun owners in the U.S. If we can get that market over the next 5 years, that's 5 million people. If all they do is buy 1 box of round, that's $250 million in revenues. So we think getting this into the market, developing this market with shotgun owners, getting the word of mouth out there is extremely important. In terms of the payload rounds, the payload rounds are significantly more complicated to produce because not only do they require us to create the 61 caliber round ball payload projectile, but we then have to fill the tail fit and weld that into the tail fed. So it's requiring some very, very expensive equipment to be able to do that. We expect that equipment to be in the factory in South Africa sometime in June. Right now, we're going through basic testing of this process. But I'm not sure how important the payload rounds will be because the kinetic rounds have tremendous stopping power. So with the ByrnaSD, we didn't really advertise the kinetic rounds as being a self-defense round. We advertise the kinetic rounds really as being a training round around to be used for target practice because out of the SD, the joules energy of these rounds is about 10 joules. With the introduction of the Byrna LE, which is a much more powerful launcher, the energy is up to 16 joules. These routes become a legitimate self-defense round at 16 joules. And as we go to the 12 gauge, that climbs to 20 joules of energy. We did a lot of human effects testing, and we were having to pay people, of course, to take the rounds, and we were paying people $100 around. And we had a lot of tough guys say, I'll take 5 rounds. Nobody took more than 2 before they said no more. So we know that the Kinetic round has a lot of stopping power. So again, we're committed to the payload rounds, but we're not sure at twice the price, whether they're going to be a significant portion of our overall sales or not. David, I'm going to turn it over to you to talk about the product mix of the ammo.

Yes, ammo in the fourth quarter was -- the mix of ammo and accessories has traditionally been around 25% in the fourth quarter, it was closer to 30%, and that's up from -- it was lower than that in the fourth quarter of last year. So we're seeing a gradual increase in that as a total percentage.

And keep in mind, what we're seeing is a couple of things with the increase in returning customers. So this year, as our returning customers went from 40% to 47% of sales, we obviously saw an increase in ammo sales, a slightly lower average order value. We went from $345 average order value in 2021 to a 320 average order value in 2022. But we saw improving margins. So we think that over time, ammo and accessory sales will get closer to 45% of overall sales. And again, I don't know if that's in 5 years or 10 years, but that's the line that we will probably end up trending to. And we base that on what we've seen with other less lease companies, including mission-less legal, which we purchased. And one of our direct competitors as we have several employees that were former employees at a competitor. And it seems that, that 45% range for ammo is where you end up with when you stop growing at double-digit rates of return.

Okay. I think you covered all those questions pretty well. There was a lot of questions. A fewer questions on my next question. But I guess, if we can just touch a little bit more on -- it sounds like you're putting the dealers first with a 12-gauge allocation at least. Maybe you could just speak a little more about production plans. When will the pump action monitor be introduced? And then also with the new Latin American facility, the factory in Argentina, how much of your production do you expect to move there? And also does that include the shutdown rounds in Argentina?

The shotgun round, the plastic pieces that make up the shotgun rounds are going to be made at one factory. But each factory, the U.S., South America, the Argentinian factory and South Africa will each put in the propulsion. So it doesn't become ammo or a pyrotechnic ammo until we put the propulsion into it. So that will all happen in the local markets, and it's just easier for us to ship. It has to do with regulation... Taxation and... Yes. It's easier for us to ship when it's just plastic pieces and not came.

I wanted to weigh in on this question because the question implies kind of a misunderstanding about what we're doing in our Latin American joint venture. We've asked how much of production will be moved there. The reason for the Latin American joint venture is not to move production there. It is not to take advantage of a lower cost production location. It is to take advantage of the 2 giant South American markets in Argentina and Brazil, not so much to take advantage, but to getting access to them and to get access to them with local content manufacturing within the tariff boundaries of Mercosur, which has a 20% tariff surrounding those countries. So we're able now to sell our products into those markets at a profit and pay that 20% tariff. But by moving in there and putting production there, we're able to get all of that profit margin for the investors and have direct access to those markets. So it's really moving inside the castle walls is what we're doing.

I think that's a very good point. And in fact, what drove this home was the last shipment that we sent to Argentina, we ended up having to pay $37 a launcher in freight and another $38 a launcher in duty. So we had $75 in freight and duty. The bill of materials for that launcher is $82. So basically, by moving inside the moat inside [ Americasur ], the bill of materials is essentially free because we're getting rid of the very expensive freight and duty getting into the America Store region.

I And the other thing that happens is that, that becomes a barrier to entry to competition. So in my career, I've worked in several multinational manufacturers and the way you get access to those markets and take the market share is you put your production there.

Okay. Good. That's really helpful to understand that. I'll let somebody else jump in since I've asked you too many questions already. Thank you, Jeff.