Powerfleet, Inc. (AIOT) Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning everyone. This presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include statements with respect to power-feet's beliefs, plans, goals, objectives, expectations, anticipations, assumptions, estimates, intentions, and future performance, and may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may be beyond power-feet's control, and which may cause its actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from future results. Performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements and historical facts are statements that could be forward-looking statements. For example, forward-looking statements include statements regarding prospects of additional customers, potential contract values, market forecasts, projections of earnings, revenue synergies, accretion or other financial information, emerging new products and plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations, including growing revenue, controlling operating costs, increasing production volumes, and expanding the business with core customers. The risks and uncertainties referred to above are not limited to risks detailed from time to time in PowerPleet's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including PowerPleet's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31-2026 and subsequent 10-Q filings. These risks could also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by on behalf of PowerPleet. Unless otherwise required by applicable law, TARP assumes no obligation to update the information contained in its presentation and expressly disclaims any obligation to do so, whether it's a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I now hand the call over to Steve.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The momentum we've been building over the last several quarters has accelerated. Our pipeline is strong and customer demand has exceeded our expectations. Next slide, please. Let me start with the breadth and scale of new business. In Q1, we were selected as vendor of choice by a European Headquarters construction leader operating across 26 countries to significantly expand its deployment with us into AI premium video both on the road and in the yard, a multi-million dollar ARR deal and a strong proof point of the land and expand model we've built. Our on-site business continues to gain traction, with strong cross-sell expansion quarter-over-quarter as we drive adoption across our existing customer base. Predominantly in North America, we secured a $2 million expansion with a Fortune 500 manufacturing leader, a $1.3 million deployment with a national transportation and logistics enterprise, and a $1 million win with a national automotive technology leader. 12 Fortune 500 companies expanded their on-site footprints this quarter, and 10 global Fortune 500 customers broadened their AI video adoption. AI video bookings increased 20% sequentially. 16 diverse industries delivered enterprise wins above $100,000 in total contract value this quarter. On to the next slide, please. The major South African contract has seen material acceleration since last time we spoke, a testament to the strength of our solution capabilities and strong execution of our sales efforts. We came into this contract expecting $20 to $30 million in ARR to ramp over an 18 to 24 month period. We now have in excess of $27 million in ARR required for near-term activation with more pipeline building. On a five-year basis, that puts the potential total contract value above the top end of our original expectations. To put this in context, at this point in the year, we had originally anticipated 10,000 assets to be set for installation. As of today, we have over 70,000 vehicle installations to deploy in the near term, and we expect this to increase to between 80,000 to 90,000 assets over the next couple of quarters. That represents roughly seven to nine times the deployment volume we originally expected to be addressing at this stage of the program. It's a substantial and exciting undertaking that requires focus to ensure smooth execution. This philosophy presents choices. We therefore have taken the decision to forego a portion as the current and projected revenue base, predominantly in South Africa, that we have deemed to be non-strategic. It treats more capacity to deploy 90,000 vehicles at the pace this contract demands. It de-risked delivery on our largest and most important customer relationships in the region and it removes the operational complexity that would otherwise compete with this rollout for our team's focus. This targeted reprioritization from lines of business that are consuming operational capacity, working capital and management retention maximizes our ability to deliver well. Sharp execution on the first 90,000 vehicles increases our odds of winning more of the 150,000 total addressable fleet and gives us room to sell incremental services to this new base. Turning to Q1, the underlying performance was solid and bookings were strong. Normalising for the South Africa actions I just described, we delivered double digit ARR growth. In addition, we expanded gross margin and adjusted EBITDA year over year. The reported numbers this quarter reflect two discrete items. Neither changes our underlying trajectory. Firstly, South African revenue was approximately $1.6 million lower as the company began the reprioritisation I've just described. Secondly, late in the quarter, we experienced a production constraint affecting a single product line related to a compatibility issue with a new component. this delayed approximately 3.2 million dollars of product revenue in the quarter we've identified the issue and the solution and production is being restored importantly the underlying customer demand and orders remain intact and this issue does not impact the deployments of our major south african contract given the timing of the recovery the company anticipates that some associated Q2 revenue may shift into Q3 with the full amount expected to be fully captured within the fiscal year. David will shortly update you in detail on the in-year guidance amendment. Our revised guidance reflects a single item, our deliberate decision to forego some non-strategic revenue ahead of the ARR ramp from the substantially larger new contract. our updated guidance reflects that timing gap we believe this decision strengthens the quality scale and long-term economics of the revenue base we are building we also expect the revenue cadre from fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2028 to remain consistent with our prior expectations with stronger growth in fiscal 2028 fueled by the ramp of the south african projects we anticipate annualised Q427 revenue of approximately $495 million, with adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 27%. Overall, our land and expand strategy is compounding bigger deals, broader adoption, and deeper wallet share with the customers we already have. Our response to the acceleration in South Africa demonstrates the operating discipline we're bringing to the business, prioritising resources towards the opportunities with the greatest strategic and economic return. Our optimisation programmes are running to schedule, with our focus remaining on cash flow and deleveraging. As we continue to compound the business, investing in talent is also a key component for future success. Next slide, please. We continue to strengthen our executive team, and I'd like to share two important additions. Firstly, I'm delighted to announce that Paul Lalji joins Power Freak this week as our President and CFO. Paul brings 25 years experience in finance and technology, including as both CFO and CEO of 2U, and CFO of Newstell. Paul has actually been a strategic advisor to the business over the last few months, and I'm delighted that he's able to hit the ground running to help spearhead our future As President and CFO, Paul will combine financial leadership with a broader mandate around operating execution, capital allocation, and the enablement of the next phase of profitable growth. I want to sincerely thank David Wilson for his significant contribution and partnership through a period of extensive transformation for the company. David will serve in a consultancy role for the next few months to support Paul with a smooth transition. Secondly, I'm excited to announce that Vishal Vallaba has joined Powerfleet as Chief AI Officer. Vish has also been acting as strategic advisor to the business in recent months on AI transformation. Vish brings over 20 years of experience as a senior technology and AI executive. He's held CTO and Chief Data and AI Officer roles at large global businesses including Freeman Company, Lumen Technologies, and he has significant domain expertise from his time as CTO of TomSom Telematics. He has led enterprise AI, cloud, and platform modernization programs tied directly to commercial growth and margin expansion. Most recently, as founding partner and CTO of NextGen AI, he has led AI-enabled transformation engagements for major clients, including Microsoft and Bain Capital. Bish is going to be central to how we scale our AI-first platform strategy. So as we execute on the plan, we're delighted to be able to attract this calibre of talent. Both Paul and Bish have already added significant value to the business, having worked closely with the team as trusted advisors over the last few months, and we're thrilled to now have them on board. With that, I'll turn it over to David.

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. I'm glad to be with you today. I'll start with our first quarter highlights and then provide more details on revenue, margins, operating expenses, profitability, and cash flow, and close with our updated fiscal 2027 outlook and the bridge to that guidance. Next slide, please. Total revenue for the first quarter was $107.8 million, up 6.4% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $21.5 million, compared to $20.1 million a year ago, at a margin of 19.4%. Gap income from operations was $300,000, compared to an operating loss of $2 million in the prior year quarter. That loss to the common stockholders was $8.4 million, or $0.06 per share, an improvement from $0.08 per share a year ago. As Steve covered, two discrete items affected first quarter revenue. First, South Africa revenue was approximately $1.6 million lower, reflecting the early impact of the reprioritization he described. Second, late in the quarter, we experienced a production constraint affecting a single product line related to a compatibility issue with a new component. This delayed approximately $3.2 million of product revenue. We identified the issue and the solution, and production is being restored. Importantly, the underlying customer demand and orders remain intact, and this issue does not impact the deployment of a major South Africa contract. Given the timing of the recovery, the company anticipates that some associated Q2 revenue may shift into Q3, with the full amount expected to be recaptured within the fiscal year. Next slide, please. Services revenue increased 9.1% year-over-year to $94.3 million and represented approximately 85% of total revenue, while services' gross margin expanded nearly one percentage point to 61.1%. Adjusted EBITDA services gross margin extended by 40 basis points to 75.9%. The South African National Treasury contract is now ramping, with booking for rents and building behind this recurring higher margin revenue base. Product revenue was $16.5 million, down 6.7% year-over-year, reflecting the production timing issue I just described. Product margin was 21.3%. The deferred shipments were concentrated in a higher margin business, while the lower volume also limited fixed cost absorption. Total gap and adjusted EBITDA gross margins continued to expand despite the pressure on product margin, increasing approximately one percentage point year over year to 55.2% and 67.8% respectively, reflecting the continued shift in revenue mix towards recurring services. Next slide, please. Total operating expenses were $60.9 million, or 55% of revenue, an improvement of roughly one percentage point year over year. SG&A was $56.5 million, up 5.3%, against revenue growth of 6.4%. So we continue to generate leverage on that line. Research and development was $4.4 million, or 3.9% of revenue. Gap income from operations was $300,000, compared with an operating loss of $2 million in the prior year quarter. Net interest expense was $6.7 million and accounted for most of the gap between operating income and our net loss. Free cash flow improved by more than $6.5 million year-over-year to negative $500,000 from negative $7.1 million in the prior year quarter. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 2.5 times at quarter end, essentially unchanged from fiscal 2026 year-end. Next slide, please. Now let me turn to our outlook for fiscal 2027. We're updating full-year revenue guide to a range of 468 million to $473 million, and adjusted EBITDA guide to a range of $111 to $114 million. From our prior ranges of $485 to $490 million dollars and 122 to 125 million dollars respectively here's the bridge the guidance update is driven by the south african reprioritization steve describes relative to the midpoint of our prior guidance we are reducing projected fiscal 2027 revenue by approximately 17 million dollars as we reallocate capacity to support over 27 million dollars of committed demand The associated impact on adjusted EBITDA is approximately $11 million, comprising approximately $6 million of flow-through from lower revenue and $5 million of one-time costs. This change in guidance is purely a timing gap rather than a change in our underlying trajectory. We expect the revenue CAGA from fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2028 to remain consistent with our prior expectations, with growth accelerating in fiscal 2028 as the South African National Treasury contract burnt. The near-term financial impact is reflected in the revised revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance I just outlined. We anticipate annualized Q427 revenue of approximately $495 million, with adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 27%. The updated adjusted EBITDA outlook also flows through for net loss and free cash flow. Net loss is expected to range from $6 million to $8 million, compared with our prior range of net income of $4 to $8 million. Free cash flow is expected to range from $20 to $23 million, compared with our prior range of $30 to $35 million. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged, including our commitments to deleveraging. Next slide, please. The bridge from adjusted EBITDA to free cash flow includes capex of approximately $52 million, cash interest of approximately $24 million, cash taxes of approximately $8 million, and restructuring other costs of approximately $8 million. Given the timing variables associated with the South Africa National Treasury contract, we continue to present its balancing impact separately from free cash flow. Importantly, payable payment terms and financing options are expected to substantially offset the upfront investment in in-vehicle device capex, resulting in approximately break-even cash performance for the fiscal year. To wrap, services revenue remains the growth engine of the business, up 9% year-over-year. We expect to exit fiscal 2027 at a Q4 annualized revenue run rate for approximately $495 million, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 27%. and a wealth addition for accelerating growth as we enter Fiscal 2028. I now turn the call back to Steve.

Thank you, David. So let me leave you with three things. Customer demand is strong and broadening across our platform. For South Africa, opportunities developing materially faster and at a greater scale than we originally anticipated, and we're deliberately reallocating and investing resources to capture it effectively. We remain confident in the underlying growth, margin expansion, and cash generation trajectory of this business. The opportunity ahead of us continues to grow, across geographies, verticals, and the Unity Suite. We have the team, the platform, and the financial foundation to capture that opportunity and deliver sustainable, profitable growth. Operator, let's open the line for questions.

Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that is star 1 to ask a question. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Your first question for today is from Scott Searly with Roth Capital.

Good morning, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Dave, I want to wish you all the best in your future endeavors. It's been a pleasure working with you over the past couple of years. Maybe just to dive in, in terms of the cadence over the course of this year, could you just kind of take us through a little bit? It sounds like there might be some headwinds in the second quarter, but acceleration then into the third and fourth quarter. And I'm not sure if I heard a SAS number in terms of growth for fiscal 27. I'd love to get your thoughts on that. And I just want to make sure to clarify a couple of numbers. I think you said $495 million is the exit rate in terms of fourth quarter revenue. But I think from a 27% EBITDA margin standpoint, that's looking at over $30 million in EBITDA, so an exit rate of north of $130 million. I want to make sure that's correct. and then SaaS growth into fiscal 28. It sounds like we're accelerating into, you know, double digits, you know, low teens, mid-teens kind of number. I wonder if you could comment on some of those items.

Yeah, sure, Scott. And to be honest, as you're working through the list, in terms of timing, think about the revenue growth sequential quarter about 4% each quarter between now and Q4. So that would be the way to think about that. In terms of the services revenue, it'll be sort of obviously higher than the growth imputed in terms of our annual guide. So sort of high-ish single digits would be the way to think about that. And then in terms of as we go into next year, it is going to accelerate. So in essence, there's a lot of $27 million of national treasury revenue that will be up and running. Obviously, we won't get a full year's benefit of that. But as we build that book up, we're going to get many months' worth of revenue next year than we did this year. So do expect services revenue to be growing comfortably north of 10% as we go into fiscal 2028. So they'll be the key points there. And just keep me honest in terms of your list. In terms of EBITDA, yes, it would be north of $30 million in terms of where we would be exiting the year. So we'd be north of 130 on a run-right basis.

Gotcha. And just to clarify, David, in terms of the South African contracts starting to kick in from a services standpoint, a lot of implementation this quarter, do you get full contribution in the third quarter, or is that ramping up into the fourth quarter?

Yeah. So in terms of the current guide, the current guide holds that revenue pretty consistently with what we had in our initial guide. There is upside to that. for the moment it really is a question about getting everything installed so we're working on sort of opening up those capacity constraints so we can do more but in terms of where we'll be it will start flowing through it's too early to be sort of definitive now in terms of when it's all going to start flowing through but we're working hard to get as much in as possible and obviously that will be a boost both for this year as well as the jump-off point for next year.

So just how to frame it is, you know, the down spike of taking out and reprioritizing the revenue is quite sharp. The spike back up in terms of the new contract spikes harder and faster. So think about it, you know, we'd originally planned to do at this point in time around 10,000 installs in total. I think we talked last time about, you know, we were in dialogue around $60,000 at that point. We've actually converted to mandate $72,000. So, you know, these are big, gnarly, complex contracts with government departments that take time, probably six to nine months, to kind of really ramp that all the way through. And it's really hard to predict the actual smoothness of the revenue incline because ultimately, you know, You know, you've got to go and, you know, these are, you know, tens of thousands of vehicles per government contract and work that through. So it's just a challenging period in order to get, you know, it's not a smooth kind of pure sash. You turn a button off and you turn a button on. We've, you know, we've taken the decision to reprioritize. We're pushing everything we can towards the new revenue. And then that comes with a sharp incline. So what we're kind of saying is, you know, it's almost like shifting our previous expectations to the right by one quarter. as we ramp through the remainder of 2027 and into 2028. I was also kind of just for, there's a lot of focus on the South Africa contract, but at the start of the call, we talked about, you know, a number of contracts, you know, predominantly North America with Big Land and Expand, Big Fortune 500 expansion, plus these other major contracts, you know, a vendor of choice to deploy both over the road and in the yard across 26 countries. So, you know, this is a result really of, you know, we're actually selling much better and there's phenomenal demand for our products and services and our strategy is resonating. The hard part with such a kind of, you know, big growth transformation is to make it linear and that's kind of where we're taking these decisions. And, you know, once all this flows through, we'll be, you know, far more consistent.

Steve, maybe just quickly follow up on that and then I'll get back in the queue. But some of the other areas of development, you mentioned some of the Fortune 500, but you also have other strategic relationships in terms of M&O ramps, right, and getting those sales forces trained. And I think you were pursuing some M&O opportunities in other geographies, as well as the Accenture relationship. I wonder if you could give us some quick thoughts on that in terms of how that ramps up. And just from a global perspective, you know, in terms of where you guys think you sit from a share perspective, Because we've got some one-time items here that I think are obscuring the core growth capabilities. But, you know, win rates or kind of how you see your global share perspective.

Yeah. So, I mean, if we stand back from this and we appreciate there's a lot of noise and ins and outs and there's been a confluence of a couple of things, you know, all at once. But the reality is, so all these decisions we're making have in mind exactly what you just said, The expansion of the M&O's, both with our current and further M&O's, the extension relationship that we talked about, moving that to a global basis, and that's getting some very nice traction. We're winning more business. We're winning bigger deals, as I said, and we're doing that on a global basis. So, you know, it's kind of – we put these three companies together. We scaled the organizations, and then it was all about could we produce the products and services that resonate well with customers for us to improve our growth we bought jeff flat and back in and kind of around about this time last year and you know we've been talking about talent and i think jeff is a great example where we've bought better talent just bought better talent better rigor bigger process from a sales perspective and now we're really seeing those opportunities come to come to fruition so you know our win rates are growing as i said our share is growing we're growing in the geographies that we want to as well in terms of you know some of the high quality geographies that have always been important to the company plus obviously we've got this um you know this substantial um contract in south africa which is going to be an absolute diamond in terms of future growth as well into 2028 so we're juggling all of that and that's why we're making some of these decisions but i just want to reiterate and double down this is actually because Agra's trajectory is biking.

Great. Thanks so much. I'll get back to you, too.

Your next question is from Anthony Stoss with Craig Hallam.

To follow up on the component shortages, was this a new supplier to this component, or he just got a bad batch and then had a couple of followers?

It was purely Tony. We had an end-of-life component for a Wi-Fi chip. We put the new component in. We thought it was good. It wasn't. It's been a pain and frustration for a few weeks as we've kind of – we need to get the operability much better than it was. We've now solved the problem. We're starting production back. It was one product line, painful in the quarter, just got to ramp back up, but nothing else, nothing more substantial than that. So painful and frustrating in the short term, but, you know, we're through it now.

Then to follow up on Scott's question, what kind of incremental impact are you seeing from AT&T, Rogers, and others? For instance, and then lastly, Yeah.

So I think we talk a lot about the over-the-road and where I have stuff in terms of the wins that we've had. So, again, the differentiated solutions are what are driving our growth. You know, if we pro-forma for the South Africa thing, We remain in double-digit growth from our services, and that is coming from and being helped and supported by those channels. And our North America growth is improving off the back of those channels as well. So doing what it said on the tin, lots more to come from those guys. If you look at the AI video bookings growth, a good part of that can also be attributed to those channels.

Next question for today is from Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Just want to understand exactly what's going on here, Steve. I'm trying to write it down and keep up with you. You're seeing an acceleration in the South African business with the government contract, but you're walking away from some revenues in South Africa and deploying those resources towards the new contract. Is that the best way to read this?

Yes, it's the demand has outweighed our original expectations substantially. And with any company that's starting to really get green shoots of growth, and we brought three companies together with heritage sets of revenues, in order to focus and be very disciplined in terms of capital allocation, resource allocation, focusing on business and has been just future growth because there is major growth still to obtain a lot more vehicles within the government contract. There's also a substantial opportunity to sell lots more services to these bigger customers so you have fewer customers. So we've looked at our revenue base and said how best do we amplify that compared with, you know, when When you bring three companies together, you can spread yourself thin in terms of your sources of revenue. So whether that's we've decided to take our throttle off growing some areas of that revenue in order to pivot to getting more from the South African contract, whether that's stopping some product lines, whether that's being able to remove ourselves from onerous contracts, all of that has built itself in to our ability to A, make sure this goes really, really well with this phenomenal new demand, and B, they maximize that opportunity and use our capital globally to, you know, really kind of double down where Scott and Tony have been in terms of our over-the-road and in-warehouse solution capability, you know, in tandem, in terms of our other channel opportunities, in terms of our Accenture opportunity. So, you know, as PowerFleet, you know, has transformed organizationally, we're now transforming really from a revenue perspective. And because we're seeing such positivity and confidence and demand for the products and services, we're taking what we think is smart and disciplined decisions to help grow the business in the best possible way. And from a consistency perspective and make sure that we get to, you know, a consistency of growth both on the ARR line and also less lumpiness in some of the business we do. We think this is a very sound move for us to do, brought on by the phenomenal demand and the execution of that demand by our sales team from, as I said, we started in our own internal expectations when we first won this mandate, we thought we'd be doing around 10,000 vehicles over the next few months, and we're doing 72,000, and that's a big undertaking. We want to do that super well.

Okay. Thank you for that explanation. It clears it up. So, I guess the next question I would have is on this overall South Africa contract. You're going from initially planned 10K to 72K vehicles.

What's the total TAM there, and do you have the ability to capture most of that TAM in this contract? yeah yeah so the total total time is 180 000 relevant for us we think there's 150 000 uh in terms of vehicle opportunity and then once we're in these accounts and think about it gary we can we can kind of chase smaller contracts and smaller customers we've got we've got captive for the next five years some large um you know large customers who we can sell lots more of the portfolio that have obviously by the fact that they've you know signed mandates to take our solution so quickly in the cycle are excited about further opportunity with

us and that's really where we want to concentrate so there's an expansion in terms of more vehicles and there's a significant expansion opportunity in terms of more products and services to those customers that we've now captured okay thank you as a reminder if you would like to ask a question please press star one your next question is from dylan becker with william blair hey guys appreciate it um steve maybe for you going from 10 to 72 and in such short order i guess what's driving kind of the urgency or pull forward from the customer perspective um there and then as you're thinking about deploying against those 72 maybe the importance for other customers around kind of improving out the scalability of that, right, like driving traction across a broader enterprise base. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of eyeballs on the success of that deployment as well, too.

So I think, firstly, you know, there's a big shift in the territory for safety, and there's a big need for efficiency. So that bodes well. And I think, you know, some of these customers have had legacy solutions that they've looked at the Unity platform, they've looked at our capabilities and feel that there's a very big value add and remember that this was previously a bunch of different contracts and this is the first time it's been consolidated into one kind of umbrella so i think you know um those guys coming together seeing the capabilities looking at how they can be used for different departments i think has also helped for that perspective so you know i think this is something that is the demand is there and we fit that demand very very well and you know i'm very proud of the the team in south africa who's been able to you know bring this bring this to the table um a lot faster than we expected so that's why we want to do this really well and to your point we're it's already starting to emerge other large-scale opportunities i mean you know we talked about some of the the the um deals um at the top of the call which kind of are dwarfed by this but these are still big deals for the company um including you know a lot of expansion with fortune 500 and there's a lot of eyes on us doing this really well because we can see and we have pipeline towards doing more enterprise and pure enterprise deals which is you know these companies have been you know fleet complete was a mid-market company i would say power fleet and mix were kind of small enterprise but we're now you know getting more share and more confidence in the larger enterprises so all of these decisions are based on that forward thinking and what we can see and you know we've been very proud of the fact and you know throughout the time that we've been in the company we always we will not sacrifice on quality we will not sacrifice in terms of getting customers long-term outcomes and we see the shift we're making is an important stage to make sure we can do that on a much bigger scale and it's it's so exciting for us as a team um but you know we have trade-offs we have to make some decisions to to ensure that we don't put stretch ourselves too thin you've heard me say many times when people said what's the what's the uh what's the challenges to the success of the company

i've always said you can spread yourself too thin so this is operational discipline that we're taking these decisions that we can very helpful thank you and then just to kind of clarify one other piece too uh as a part of this right all of that reorganization is taking place purely around for of the South African operations side of the business, because it does sound like, right, 20% quarter over quarter video safety, bookings, momentum, everything kind of ex-South Africa dynamic seems to be tracking quite well, just kind of maybe a sense of resource prioritization there and broader kind of business momentum outside of this one segment.

Yes, so Melissa Ingram, I think, was it last call, took you through some of the centralization pieces we're doing here which is the next place of our optimization which will support this contract as well but you know this is this is changed predominantly for our south africa team and their focus and but you know what we're making sure that we do is we're bringing the best practice so we can repeat this you know the geographies and we can get you know as i say we're kind of two years into that operational cadence and organizational change so you know we're making sure that we do a lot of repeatability across the business, which not only supports the South Africa contract, but also, as well, these other large-scale contracts, you know, that we have going on in North America and Europe and elsewhere.

Your next question is from Alex Sklar with Raymond James.

Steve, just following up on Gary and Dylan's questions on South Africa, the $17 million a foregone revenue. Can you just elaborate what exactly is that? Is that tied to existing revenue that's turning off? Is that projected bookings that you just can't sell anymore given the reprioritized go-to-market or implementation team? And then as we think about the kind of implied margins of that revenue you put on the slide, we're kind of accretive to the overall business. So maybe just a bit more color on your kind of internal deliberation on why that has to be foregone versus maybe staffing up a bit and trying to delay it.

Yeah, let me pick that one up. So in terms of the revenue, it is a combination. So part of it is walking away from certain books of business. It's just the operation, the OPEC overhead is so high that it sort of drags things down and we need to free up that capacity, obviously, for the growth that's coming through. So that's a huge part of it. To Steve's earlier point in terms of spreading ourselves too thinly, We do have to sort of refocus in terms of working through the backlog of the bookings that are coming through the National Treasury Contract. So that does mean foregoing revenue that we plan to get elsewhere in the market. That's at least part of it as well. And then in terms of the implied margins, obviously there's significant operating leverage from an OPEX standpoint. So in terms of the margin, you're losing a lot of gross margin without necessarily an average recovery in terms of UPEX. So, you know, the implied margin would actually be higher if it flows through than you would expect just looking at EBITDA margins by themselves. So that's why it's a relatively high number from an EBITDA standpoint.

I appreciate that answer and the clarification.

And just to add to that, sorry, Alex, it's about quality of revenue. It's around cash, right? So, you know, the South African contract comes with more opportunity to improve cash collection as well. So that also was in our minds as we look to make these deliberations. And you can stack it up and you can kind of, you know, think, can you do both? But I think where we've got the weathered eye on what's going on in the rest of the world and the continued growth there, I mean, we're dominating this call on South Africa quite rightly. but we could also dominate this call on some of the other growth areas. So all of that is not just like an individual kind of balance sheet and P&L view for South Africa. This is a much broader set of deliberations that have brought us to this choice.

I appreciate that. Maybe let's talk about the rest of the world then. So that 26-country European construction win, you're obviously in a strong competitive position. You've got the global footprint, pretty good differentiation. You have some enterprise customers already. Can you talk about, did that deal start off looking for someone globally across 26 countries, or was that the team really able to expand the size of the opportunity? And then you mentioned kind of vendor of choice. Is that a book deal, or is that still coming in the next couple of quarters? Just those questions.

So it's in contract at the moment. It was a customer who had a smaller footprint with us, But what they wanted on a global basis was someone who can provide safety and visibility both in the yard and over the road. So obviously that is the key differentiation, both nationally and internationally. So that's why, you know, it's been so exciting for us as a vendor of choice because we are the company who can, A, cover that footprint with our global footprint that we have, and secondly, in terms of the unique proposition to give consistency, single visibility, single sources truth for unity, as I say, in a yard and over the road and in a warehouse, that gives us that unique capacity. Great.

Next question for today is a follow-up question from Scott Searley. Your line is live.

Hey, Dave, just to follow up a little bit on the cost front, gross margins on the product front down because of component availability and absorption issues. I think it was 21% versus 29% in the prior quarter. What's the recovery look like into the second half of this year? And thinking about that 27% EBITDA margin exiting the year, you know, what do product gross margins look like at that point in time? And also on the OPEX front, a little bit higher this quarter, but you've been going through some integration and otherwise, right, trying to optimize the cost structure. What is the non-GAAP OPEX that we should be thinking about exiting the year?

In terms of the product margins, it will sort of come back in terms of the second half of the year. In terms of expectations, I think sort of 31%, 32% is the right expectation there, Scott, in terms of where we're at. In terms of OPEX, as we said on the last call, we are investing ahead of taking significant costs out. So we've got a target of $12 million of annual costs to come out in the second half.

So in terms of what that means from a sort of a sales and marketing SG&A standpoint, that will be 19 percentage points or so in terms of sales and marketing, and then expect G&A expenses to come down to much closer to sort of 20%. as we exit the year and Scott if I can just be really really clear on the product margin so the only reason that it was down at that level was the lateness on the production thing and all of that those orders are being fulfilled and they're all intact it's just a timing thing that will recover either through this quarter or maybe a little bit into Q3, and it's a very high-margin business, and we're actually seeing a lot of strength in our high-margin product line. So just want absolute clarity there that that was the only reason that was down. As production ramps back up, as we're able to fulfill customers, it just springs back.

Great, thank you.

We've reached the end of the question and answer session, and I will now turn Nicole over to Steve Toe for closing remarks.

Thank you, O'Brien. And just before we do, we do have Paul Walsh on the call with us. And so we're delighted to have Paul join us as our president and CFO. So, Paul, you might just want to say a quick hello to everybody.

Thank you, Steve. And good to meet everyone on the call. I'm genuinely excited to join PowerFleet as president and chief financial officer. Over the past several months, I had the opportunity to work alongside Steve and the executive team as a strategic advisor. one example that stood out for me was the South Africa opportunity which grew from an initial estimate of roughly 10,000 vehicles to more than 70,000 in a matter of months that kind of expansion don't happen by accident it happens when a differentiated platform addresses a real customer need and when the team behind it knows how to execute that experience helped make my decision straightforward i believe in what power fleet is building and i want to help turn the momentum that we're seeing in the business today into durable and profitable growth a little bit about me i bring more than 25 years of experience leading finance and operations across technology companies including more than a decade as a public company cfo and most recently as steve pointed out CEO of a publicly traded company I've led businesses through growth acquisitions capital raises and transformations and at times in markets that were anything but easy those experiences have shaped three commitments that bring to power fleet clarity discipline and delivery first clarity means communicating transparently with investors with customers and with our teams and building trust through honest and consistent dialogue second discipline discipline for us means making deliberate choices about where we invest how we allocate capital and how we balance growth profitability and risk I believe finance could be an engine for better decisions not simply a score keeper and third delivery delivery means converting strategy into measurable results a compelling strategy creates the opportunity consistent execution creates value so what does this mean you should expect me to be transparent about our progress rigorous about how we measure performance and accountable for commitments that we make thank you steve david and the board for your confidence and warm welcome i'm excited to get started and help write power fleet's next chapter thank you thank you paul and we're delighted to have you on board full-time paul's made a big difference to us already um and both having him and vision we haven't really spoken too much about VISH but you know our AI capabilities have won us awards they're resonating really well

and we think that VISH can help us amplify that on a much broader global stage so excited about VISH joining us as well and you'll get to meet VISH the next time around I want to thank the Powerpeak team for their continued execution our customers for their trust and our shareholders for their confidence we continue to execute with focus appreciating that this is sometimes you know a bit of an in and out story and we look forward to getting to a place of consistency and we're excited about what's ahead. Thanks everyone for your time. Bye-bye.

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