Operator
Good morning and welcome to Acorn Energy's first quarter 2026 conference call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Tracy Clifford, CFO of Acorn Energy and COO of its omnimetric subsidiary. Thank you, Regina, and thank you all for joining us today.
First, I'd like to remind everyone that today's remarks, including responses to questions, contain forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Factors that may impact our future operating results and financial performance include general risks such as potential disruptions to business operations or changes in consumer or customer demand, as well as specific risks related to our ability to execute our operating plan, maintain strong customer renewal rates, and expand our customer base. Additional risks may arise from changes in technology, competition, or shifts in the macroeconomic or financial environment. These forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are based on management's current beliefs, assumptions, and information that is available as of today. There can be no assurances that the company will meet its growth targets or other strategic goals and objectives. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise such forward-looking statements to reflect future events or specific circumstances that may occur after today. For a more detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties that may affect our business, please refer to the risk factors section of our most recent Form 10-K and our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2026, which are available online at www.scc.gov or on our own website. Now I'll turn the call over to Jan Loeb, CEO of Acorn and Omnimetric.
Thank you, Tracy, and to everyone for your interest in our company. Our Q1-2026 results reflect continued expansion of our base of monitoring endpoints, offset by an anticipated decrease in year-over-year hardware revenue related to our material cell phone provider contract. We recognize $93,000 of hardware revenue from this customer in Q1-2026 related to our original contract, and now hardware shipments for our initial contract are largely complete. This compares to $876,000 of hardware revenue from this customer in Q1 2025. Our Q1 2026 results also reflected $167,000 of monitoring revenue from this customer compared to $69,000 in Q1 2025. related to first-year monitoring revenues on the original contract. Based on our ongoing dialogue with this customer, we are optimistic about securing further hardware deployments and related revenue that will build on our initial contract starting in Q2, 2026. It has always been our goal to build on this customer opportunity, so this initial follow-on activity is a good indication of the strength of our relationship and the customer satisfaction with our solutions and the services we have been providing for over a year. We currently expect incremental hardware revenue from this customer in the range of $350,000 to $500,000 in 2026. Tracy will review our financial highlights, but I would like to address one item up front regarding increased non-cash management and board compensation in Q1. Based on our record financial performance in 2025, accomplishing our NASDAQ uplisting, and the completion of the AIO Partnership Agreement on January 1st, the Board approved an increase in our 2026 Stock Option Awards to compensate management and the Board in lieu of additional cash compensation or fees. These options were issued at a market price of $19.02, so their potential value is tied directly to value creation for all shareholders. The $50,000 options issued to management invest over 12 quarters, so higher stock comp expense will have an impact on financial results through the third quarter of 2028. If you exclude the impact of non-cash competition, Acorn's consolidated results would have been profitable in Q1, and the company continues to generate cash as reflected by $53,000 of cash provided by operating activities in the quarter and the stable cash balance of $4.3 million at quarter rate. In past communications, including our year-end news announcements, we have reviewed our five complementary growth initiatives, one of which is our ongoing pursuit of accretive M&A opportunities to expand our monitoring product offerings, market reach, and revenue and customer base. Through this process, we identified the AIO opportunity, which we decided to pursue as an acquisition of commercialization and distribution rights through a technology partnership. We are now actively working to bring their industry-leading multifaceted suite of products for cell towers, data centers, and utility substations to North America for the first time. These infrastructure solutions protect against theft, power issues, environmental, and other risks, and maximize energy utilization. We believe the acquisition of these rights is an ideal way to leverage our 20-plus year reputation and establish base of customers and substantially expand our capabilities and reach within the North American infrastructure market in a focused and highly capital-efficient way. We are currently working to finalize sales and marketing materials for the Unmetrix-planned solutions. We are initially targeting cell tower operations where we have a good base of existing customer relationships. Utilizing that experience, we will then pursue opportunities in fast-growing markets for data-driven and utility-scale infrastructure management. Relative to our focus on backup generators at cell towers, this new suite of solutions provide remote oversight for the full cell tower campus. Our solutions provide actionable insights through advanced analytics, machine learning, and comprehensive real-time monitoring that significantly reduce downtime, improve maintenance processes, and extend asset lives, lowering cost and delivering measurable ROI. Based on our initial assessments and customer discussions, we view theft as perhaps the most pressing issue facing cell tower operators today. Theft alone can potentially cost cell tower operators hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and it is a growing and largely unaddressed problem in the United States. As copper, fuel, and assets cost rise, it's widely expected that theft could become an even bigger risk management issue in North America, as it already is on other continents. To combat this risk, we are bringing to market the strongest available solution backed by years of proven performance. We are still working through final hardware and services pricing models, but given the expanded scope of AIO solutions, we currently expect our average AIO sale to be five to six times the average sale of existing on the metric products. Given expected pricing and the scale of the opportunity, it provides a very meaningful growth potential for our company. We currently have our first two AIO-based power sites live and running for customer demonstrations. For those of you who may or may not be familiar, cell towers are typically managed by independent tower companies who own and operate the physical structure and lease space to multiple wireless carriers. The two sites we are running are both in the Atlanta area with an existing telecom customer, where we are monitoring their shelter or hut within the cell tower, as well as the front gate. Our dashboard shows everything, including staff on power systems, fuel levels, battery voltage, operating equipment, temperature, humidity, HVAC runtime, flood detection, et cetera, along with live feeds from security cameras that monitor physical access. We have secure permission to take prospective customers to these sites and expect to begin these efforts in the coming weeks. As I mentioned, we are in the process of advancing our program to launch these products in the U.S., including fine-tuning features and alerts, the sales approach, installation protocols, customer materials, as well as sales and training collateral that our team will need to scale this offering. The AIO team has been to Atlanta for several weeks to train and work with our engineering, tech support, and sales and marketing teams to set up for success in this product launch. In terms of our financial reporting, we have set up a separate reporting segment called Infrastructure Solutions, or IS, to track this line of business, which you will note in our 10-Q. We do not expect revenues from this segment in the first half of 2026. We continue to believe that attractive secular tailwinds should support our value propositions and growth potential for years to come. Companies are increasingly focused on ensuring reliable access to the energy infrastructure and the compliance report they need. At the same time, broader demand drivers such as AI, data centers, electrification, EV adoption, and reshoring continue to strain an aging U.S. grid compounded by severe weather trends, all of which underscore the importance of energy resilience. In March, we saw severe storms across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic to leave more than 1 million customers without power in the PJM and MISO's territories. Even with significant investment, it will take years and not decades to address these challenges, and we believe this positions us well, both for the near term and longer term. Given substantial unmet needs in our current markets plus opportunities in adjacent addressable markets, we believe 20% average annual revenue growth over a three- to five-year period remains achievable. Further, our capital-like, cost-efficient, and scalable business model positions us to bring roughly 50% of each incremental revenue dollar from our existing businesses to operating income line. As a small company, large hardware segments will make our quarterly results bad, but our high-margin recurring revenue model supported by strong secular trends position us well to continue to live a growth and value to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tracy for financial and operational insights.
The headline takeaway from our Q1 2026 results is the continued strength of our recurring monitoring revenue stream and the improved gross margin profile of the business set against a challenging year-over-year hardware comparison driven by the timing of our largest contract. I'll also point out that our Omnometrics operating subsidiary remained solidly profitable in the quarter, delivering operating income of $395,000. We've provided a fair amount of detail in today's news release and in our Form 10-Q, so I'll just touch on a few of the key highlights. Focusing on Q126 versus Q125. Total revenue was $2,227,000, down 28.1% from $3,098,000 in Q125. The decrease was driven by a $1,019,000, or 55.7% decline in hardware revenue, primarily attributable to the timing of deliveries under our material cell phone provider contract, partially offset by $148,000 or 11.7% increase in monitoring revenue. Monitoring revenue grew $1,417,000, reflecting continued expansion of our installed base of monitored endpoints. Hardware revenue was $810,000, which included $556,000 of new hardware sales and $110,000 from the amortization of deferred hardware revenue. The latter compared to $315,000 in the prior year period as we approached the final recognition of the remaining deferred hardware balance later this year. Gross margin improved 510 basis points to 80.2% from 75.1% in Q1 2025, reflecting both the higher mix of monitoring revenue, which carried a 94% gross margin in the quarter, and a lower contribution from material contract hardware. Operating expenses rose 11.2% to $1,914,000, driven by a $228,000 increase in SG&A, partially offset by a $36,000 reduction in R&D following completion of the new Omni and OmniPro development programs. The SG&A increase was primarily due to a $136,000 increase in non-cash stock-based compensation expense related to stock option grants to officers and directors, plus $111,000 in higher omnimetrics SG&A, reflecting incremental personnel and technology investments partially offset by lower conditions. Omnimetrics segment operating income, the combined operating results of our PG, CP, and IS segments with $395,000, demonstrating the continued profitability of our core operating subsidiary, even in our seasonally lowest revenue quarter, and even after absorbing approximately $50,000 of operating expense in our pre-revenue infrastructure solution segment, which included the hiring of a new sales manager in February for the IS segment. On a consolidated basis, including unallocated corporate headquarters costs, we reported a net loss of $77,000, or $0.03 per basic and diluted share, compared to net income of $464,000, or $0.19 per basic and diluted share in Q-125. The Q-126 results include $197,000 in non-cash-based stock compensation expense versus $61,000 in the prior year period. We recognized an income tax benefit of $25,000 in Q-126 compared to income tax expense of $154,000 in Q-125. We did not record any change to our deferred tax asset valuation allowance in the quarter, we continue to maintain a partial valuation allowance of $10.3 million, leaving a meaningful base of NOL and capital loss carry forwards to support future growth and potential M&A initiatives. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the quarter with cash of $4,257,000 compared to $4,454,000 at year-end 2025. Excluding deferred revenue and deferred cost of goods sold, networking capital was $6,024,000 at March 31-26 versus $6,184,000 at year-end, and I remind you all we remain debt-free. T1 cash flow from operations was $53,000. We also used $260,000 in investing activities, of which $250,000 represented the upfront payment for the acquisition of the exclusive commercialization and distribution rights under the AIO Technology Partnership Agreement executed January 1st with the remainder of the other capital items. Stock option exercises generated $10,000 of financing cash influx. Omnimetrics's deferred revenue, or what we refer to as our backlog, was $3,269,000 at quarter end, of which $2,934,000 is expected to be recognized as revenue in the next 12 months. Operationally, our next-generation Omni and OmniPro generator monitors and our RAD-EX cathodic protection product are all built on our new OCOM proprietary communication score and now being deployed in the field. These platforms reduce installation time, lower service costs, and enhance reliability, which strengthens our value proposition on our competitive position as we move further into 2026. Within the infrastructure solution segment, as Dan mentioned, we now have two telecommunications tower sites live for customer demonstrations. We're really excited about this opportunity to bring AIO solutions to North America under the Omni brand and the broader set of growth opportunities ahead of us. I very much look forward to updating you as we progress in the coming quarters. Operator, at this time, please prepare the lines for questions. Thank you very much.
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, simply press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, that is star 1 for questions. We'll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. We'll take our first question from the line of drill squad. Please go ahead with your question.
Good morning, Jan and Tracy. Let me start off by saying I'm suffering with a bad head cold. So if I point on inaudible or cough, please let me know and bear with me. First, just a comment in that your option package, you know, I'm an investor in a lot of other public companies, and I don't think it's in any way unreasonable given the success that Omnometrics and Acorn has had. I think it's wonderful that your leadership is going to participate in the future success of the company, and I don't think the number of options is in any way out of line. So that's my opinion. Question. We've seen very long sales cycles for the omnimetric generator monitoring equipment. Given that your new infrastructure solutions partnering with AIO are going to maybe, you know, be even greater outlays, is there a chance that we're also going to see a very long sales cycle there? Or do you feel that the solutions that you're offering in this infrastructure segment are so compelling and urgent that we'll see a shorter sales cycle?
Joel, thank you very much for your comments, and I hope you feel better. The answer is we're not 100% sure yet.
Typically, I would say that the cell tower solution will have as long a sales cycle as our generating monitoring solution, just because we're dealing with, you know, large corporations, and so there's just a lot of hate to get through with large corporations. Offsetting that is that theft is really a very big problem that they are now beginning to address. So it could be that because of the need, the sales cycle will be quicker, I just don't know yet because we haven't really started to get into the weeds with our customers. But, you know, certainly the technicians that we've spoken to in the field as we were putting up these units, they certainly feel that there's a strong and very current need for the product.
Operator
Again, for any questions, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question will come from the line of James Kahn. Please go ahead.
Well, so you've got a lot of new initiatives that are interesting. I just wanted to ask about, you know, you had that big sale about a year ago to the large customer, and then they didn't renew in September. Can you just give us some background on what happened there? Was it the product that didn't really work or why that one did not get continued?
Your basic assumptions need to be corrected. So, you know, the contract was for approximately between 5,000 and 10,000 monitoring units. They wanted us to ship it to them within a year. Initially, when we were negotiating with them, it was two years, but then they changed it. They wanted to have it all within a year. And so, we did that. And so, Q3, Q4 of 2024, and Q1 and Q2 of 2025, we basically shift all the product to them, which doesn't actually mean that that's when all the total revenue of that was recognized, because they need to – it needs to go into the system, whatever. But we've finished that major contract, and that's that. Now, what – and what I said in my prepared remarks here is that they have come back to us in 2026 in that I anticipate that we'll have another $350,000 to $500,000 worth of equipment sales. Now, this is not monitoring because we continue to monitor everything. So, you know, that's approximately, you know, call it 7% to 10% of the original order. They now come back for additional stuff. So, I mean, they have installed the original number of units that we've sold to them, and now as they're putting it into new cell towers, they're ordering new stuff for us. So we have a very good relationship with them. The product works very well. They're very happy with it, and they continue to be a very big and happy customer of ours.
Okay. Well, thank you. That clears things up. I appreciate that.
Operator
And once again, to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. We'll take a question from the line of Richard Sosa. Please go ahead.
Hey, Jen. Tracy, good morning. Another great quarter. Love seeing you in the monitoring revenue continue to trend upward. Sorry, I did get on the call really, really late. Just on the AIO, did you guys discuss, and I can go back to the notes afterwards, but did you discuss the go-to-market strategy for the product?
We mentioned it briefly. First of all, good morning, Richard. We mentioned it briefly that our main focus is going to be telecom customers because we already have them as customers, so it's easy. We don't have to sell the Omnimetrics name to those customers. So that's going to be our first target, and, you know, we have these two demo sites up and live that we take people to. So that's going to be our first strategy. Data centers is going to be our second strategy. AO has a very good data center product, and that will be, you know, after telecom, we're going to focus on data centers. and then third is utility substations. So that's kind of how we see it. You know, we've already put out some initial phone calls to our customers. We're working on the pricing models, CapEx model and an OpEx model that we're going to roll out in the next few weeks. And so that's kind of our game plan.
Very exciting. And, you know, I noticed on 10Q that you did break out, you are breaking out in IS division going forward. Is that something you had to do, or did you just feel strong enough that it was worth doing?
I mean, our expectation, Richard, is, you know, that this will be a material contributor moving forward. So we felt like in an abundance of transparency, it was important to, you know, to carve that out from the initiation point to monitor this segment and give our shareholders the opportunity to see that, you know, from the beginning.
Okay, that's great. So you didn't have to do it. You just felt strongly enough that, you know, it was worth doing for transparency.
Well, from the statement of HAC, you know, you evaluate whether something is material, And certainly it's not material today because, you know, the expenses we've spent so far wouldn't be material from the context of looking at it as a percentage of the total. But we just felt like it will be material. That's our plan. That's our hope. That's our focus. And we felt like doing that from the beginning was the right thing to do, right thing to do.
Yeah, it definitely makes things easier. Well, you know, continue the good work.
I look forward to future updates.
Operator
We have a follow-up from the line of Joel Squarr. Please go ahead.
Hello again, Jan and Tracy. Just a couple of quick follow-ups. One is sort of leveraging off of Richard's question. I'm curious, this may be a little nitpicky, but your partnership with AIO, is that with Acorn, the parent, or with Omnimetrics? So, in other words, I know the branding is going to be Omnimetrics. I don't know whether that means it falls under Omnometrics and we owe 99% of what we wind up getting from that partnership or whether it's under Acorn and we get 100%.
That's the first question.
It's going to be under – I mean, everything's going to be done under Omnometrics. I'll put that in the sales, the sales manager that we hired for AIO is under Omnimetrics and is resident in Atlanta. So, and it's going to be having Omnimetrics brand name. So, we view it as an Omnimetrics product.
Okay. So, your former CEO of Omnimetrics will be happy about that. The other question is, can you tell us whether, I expect the answer is yes, but whether the existing AIO sales model is also a subscription model where there are customers overseas, they make money certainly from hardware sales, but do they also get continuing revenue from monitoring and maintenance and whatnot?
Yeah, so their model is that they mainly sell the equipment and then they have a what they call SLA. They have an ongoing revenue stream as well. We don't think it's going to be as big as our monitoring revenue because we're going to be offering more services, and we also, as I said, might have an OPEX model where we'll roll in the complete package, meaning equipment, monitoring, et cetera, for one price, one monthly price. So our model is going to be a little bit different than their model because we think our market's a little bit different than the markets that they address.
Okay, great. Thank you. At the risk of getting greedy, just one more question. So if an existing cell tower or other customer who would potentially be a customer for your generator monitoring came to you, and they wanted generator monitoring as well as your full infrastructure solution through the AIO partnership, Will you be then – will you need to integrate the omnimetrics generator monitoring? Or my impression is that the infrastructure solution will – as the name of the company implies, all in one, will encompass that. Can you comment on that?
Yeah, so they have their own generator mining solution, and we have our own generator mining solution. Ours is a little bit more comprehensive than theirs, and we will be integrated in the software. So, for example, the two cell towers that we are on as the demo models happen to have our generator monitors in them, and so they are integrated into the software system of AIO.
Right. So your customers will get the best of both worlds. Then they'll get the maybe slightly more advanced and feature-driven current omnimetrics generator monitoring together with the new infrastructure solutions provided by AIO, if I understand correctly.
Yeah. We hope our customers believe the same thing. Okay. Thank you once again, Jeff.
Operator
Again, to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. While we compile the roster, I'll hand the call over to Bill Jones for any pre-submitted questions.
Thank you, Operator. We do have a pre-submitted question from a private investor, and the question is, over the past two quarters, companies like Generac and Caterpillar have both reported greater than 20% year-over-year growth in their power generation segments, along with increasing backlogs, primarily selling into C&I customers in the data center market. Are you seeing any opportunity whatsoever in OperatingMetrics' ability to attach itself to this opportunity? I understand that there is the AIO partnership, which in theory helps to address this market, but it would be great to hear any further thoughts on this.
So, as I said in previous calls, we at Omnometrics have not been focused on the data center market because our product is a remote monitor, and most of the data centers have 24-7 people on-site monitoring their equipment, their servers, et cetera. And we only had one product, a generator monitor. And so that was not a focus of ours. With the AIO product, AIO has, again, a full suite of products for a data center. And one of the other things we are getting with the AIO partnership is a NOC. So we think that the data center market is a market that we can address and we hope to address it totally. But again, as I said before, we want to first tackle the cell power market, and then we would go after the data center market. I'm sorry, I said NOC, that is a network operations center.
And the second question is regarding potential OEM white labeling and bundling progress that you've mentioned in the past. Could you provide an update on the ongoing dialogues for bundling omnimetric solutions with new OEM equipment?
Yeah, I have no update. We continue to have discussions with two OEMs, but no update to report.
Operator
And this concludes our question and answer session. I'll now hand the call back over to Jan for any closing comments.
Thank you all for joining today's call. We appreciate the continued support from all of our shareholders. If you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to myself or to our IR team, whose contact information is in today's press release. We hope to meet some of you next month at the Planet Microcap Showcase that we are planning to attend on June 17th and 18th in Las Vegas. And as always, we look forward to updating you on our next conference call. All the best.
Operator
This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
