Earnings Call Transcript - LGMK Q3 2024

Operator, Operator

Good afternoon and thank you for participating in today's Third Quarter 2024 Conference Call. Chia-Lin Simmons, Chief Executive Officer and Mark Archer, Chief Financial Officer, are joining me from LogicMark today. During this call, management will be making forward-looking statements, including statements that address LogicMark's expectations for future performance or operational results, and anticipated product launches. Forward-looking statements involve risks and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. For more information about this risk, please refer to the risk factors described in LogicMark's most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent periodic reports filed with the SEC and LogicMark's press release that accompanies this call, particularly the cautionary statements in it. Statements made on this call may include reference to non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including adjusted EBITDA, which is reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Management believes that non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA provides investors with insight into the company's overall operating performance. The content of this call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, November 12, 2024. Except as required by law, LogicMark disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any information to reflect events or circumstances that occur after this call. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Chia-Lin Simmons. Please go ahead.

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Thank you, Kathleen, and welcome, everyone. I'm pleased to share that we delivered improved third quarter financial results with double-digit gains in key metrics. Our $2.7 million of revenue reflects a 14% increase compared to the same period last year. Gross profit improved by 13% to $1.8 million, and the gross margin was 67%, a critical KPI we have maintained for the last six consecutive quarters. I want to congratulate our employees on their contribution to this progress. While we have much we can still accomplish, these numbers reflect our commitment to grow unit sales and operate efficiently. I believe our third quarter results also validate our go-to-market strategy. LogicMark is now a software and hardware solutions provider, growing our footprint in personal safety and in emergency response systems. We're making progress because of all the great work that our team has done through research and development, the creation of a tremendous intellectual property portfolio, new products and expanded sales and marketing efforts. Our Freedom Alert Mini has been well received with its many great features. These include patented superior fall detection technology, integrated geo-fencing to notify caregivers when the device exits the map boundary previously set as well as two-way communications for the 24/7 U.S.-based customer care service that dispatches emergency services for support and care. It doesn't end there. The FA Mini has an extended battery life of six days in the always-on mode and 30 days in a standby mode for fall detection. Also included is GPS-location services, which provide accurate location tracking for enhanced safety and a caretaker companion app, which offers emergency notifications, enables location monitoring and facilitates service on both iOS and Android. That's a terrific set of features for the price. Yesterday was Veterans Day, a time to honor the brave men and women who have faithfully served our country. We are privileged to continue working with the Veterans Administration to provide solutions that enhance many veterans' quality of life. Our recent partnership with Black Knight, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business retailer further strengthens our commitment to the veteran community by expanding our sales and marketing channels to reach even more customers. Service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses, also called SDVOSBs, and other resellers like Black Knight play a vital role in the healthcare ecosystem, especially in making essential products like PERS and other assistive devices more accessible to a broader audience. This new collaboration aligns seamlessly with our mission to deliver innovative solutions in the care economy, supporting those who have given so much to our country. Needless to say, there is excellent potential to continue expanding our customer base and growing sales. Our longstanding relationship with the VA is only part of the market opportunity we can capture. The caregiving gap is a widening problem that can only be solved with technology. Baby Boomers are turning 65 at a rate of over 10,000 per day. By 2040, one in four Americans will be over the age of 65. So for independent living and aging, the market opportunity is projected to reach $17.26 billion by 2028. In addition to PERS devices, we have also established a footprint in the personal safety market. The smart personal safety market opportunity is projected to reach $33.5 billion by 2030. Why? Personal safety fears are at a three-decade high; 66% of adults avoid social outdoor activities due to the fear of personal crime. 53% of women are afraid to walk alone at night. When we began transforming this company three years ago, we reinvented our approach to the PERS and safety markets. Since then, we've strengthened our staff and Board of Directors, expanded our product portfolio and found many important new patents. Our IP portfolio now includes 23 total patents allowed and issued, 16 patents filed from May 2021 to May 2024, with many that are focused on AI and ML. Given our progress, I'm pleased to say that we are attracting the attention of many who are interested in our story. Our focus on operational excellence and sales growth will continue. We are committed to developing and implementing technology solutions that enhance everyone's quality of life by utilizing leading-edge AI and machine learning tools. Our dedication to building a Care Village with proprietary technology continues to drive us forward and towards creating innovative solutions for the care economy. I'll turn over the call to Mark to further comment on the financial results.

Mark Archer, CFO

Yes. Thank you, Chia-Lin. The entire team shares your enthusiasm for our third quarter results. Third quarter revenue of $2.7 million reflects a 14% increase compared to the same quarter last year. Higher sales of both our legacy Guardian Alert 911 Plus product and the recently released Freedom Alert Mini monitored PERS device drove the improved results. In fact, sales of the FA Mini improved from 191 units in the second quarter to over 1,100 units in the third quarter. Gross profit in the third quarter rose 13% to $1.8 million compared with $1.6 million in the same quarter last year. And gross margin was 67%, remaining constant for the last six quarters. The shift to higher-margin products this quarter offset cost pressures. Total operating expenses in the third quarter of 2024 were $3.4 million, which was virtually flat with the same period last year and 6% lower than the second quarter of 2024. Lower spending in general and administrative expense offset higher depreciation expense. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was a loss of $785,000, an improvement over the $1.1 million loss in the third quarter of 2023. Adjusted EBITDA includes the add-back of non-cash stock-based compensation charges. Net loss attributable to common shareholders for the third quarter was $1.6 million compared with a net loss of $1.5 million in the same quarter last year. And on a fully diluted basis, the net loss per share was $0.20 compared with a net loss of $1.10 per share in the same period last year. As of September 30, our cash balance was $5.6 million. And this balance reflects the completion of a registered secondary offering in August that resulted in approximately $4.5 million in gross proceeds. At this time, I'd like to open the call up for questions. Kathleen?

Operator, Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from the line of Marla Marin. Your line is now open.

Marla Marin, Analyst

Thank you. So I have a couple of questions. So the Freedom Alert Mini, it's based on the numbers you just cited, it appears to be gaining traction in the third quarter. So can you give us a little bit more color on what you're seeing there, what you're thinking? And specifically, did you conduct some increased promotional activities for the new product?

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Hello, Marla. How are you today? Thank you for the question. I will sort of answer and then pass it off to Mark as well to see if he has additional feedback. On our side, the product was, we certainly have actually participated in additional marketing activities, but nothing that's out of the ordinary. In a sense, we have created a really fantastic product. In fact, one that probably has better and richer features than our competitors in, for example, the government space. We have been very active in going out and sharing the enhanced services of those products, and I think that's what you're seeing as a result of that. So we launched the product around the mid-second quarter of this past year. And so I think the improvement that you're seeing is really about a lot of groundwork that we're doing and getting out there and sharing the message of the product and its enhanced services.

Marla Marin, Analyst

And when you say sharing the message with some of your partners, just in terms of when you're meeting with some reps, how are you positioning that so that you continue to see that traction accelerate?

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Sure, absolutely. So we spend a lot of time now on the ground with our sales force. Speaking with, for example, government business divisions of the Veterans Administration. We've actually beefed up all of our marketing collateral and the products that we send them, basically touting the features of the product. It is really a brand-new product in the system, and it's one that is unique and differentiated from those that our competitors are putting out in the market. We're spending a lot of time communicating via email, in-person, on calls, actually sharing with them how the product is differentiated in the pricing structure that I think is very competitive. Also, we spent some time as a small business selling to the Veterans Administration in things like small business days and also the different conventions that speak to the veterans directly. It really helps us when we do those conferences in the summer that we've attended to have the veterans walk in and say, 'Look, we've heard about this amazing LogicMark product, and that's the unit that we want to have.' That's really helped us boost those businesses as well. Related to the consumer side, I think that we are spending a little bit more time further enhancing our message in social media. We're enhancing this message in our Amazon store, and that's showing some level of initial traction as well.

Marla Marin, Analyst

Got it. Okay. So you just mentioned – I have a follow-up on something you just said about the Amazon store. And I know that direct-to-consumer and online sales, that's been a sort of push for the company recently. Can you give us any color there in terms of what you're seeing, if you're satisfied with the way things are growing or if it's still too early to really say?

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Well, I'm never going to be satisfied ever. My job is to bring more shareholder value via e-commerce through every channel that we go through. That said, I think it's a little bit too early to tell for those folks who have experience working as a seller on Amazon. It is not an easy platform to navigate. They are difficult in terms of placements, and we do shipping through them. There are always pluses and minuses of doing that. They certainly take a bite out of your margins as well. But it is one of the best methodologies to reach the end consumer. We're actively participating in all of the different programs available to us on Amazon. The Transparency program is to make sure that people are buying brands directly from us and not used versions of the product that may not have a warranty on it. We are very focused on Amazon shipping and all of those things that help us get the products into the hands of customers as quickly and easily as possible through Amazon channels. We're very excited about the work that we're doing there. But as anyone who's ever worked with Amazon, it takes a toll, and it's a lot of work. We're clearly working through all the different layers and challenges often to work with Amazon to reach our customers. I think we're slowly succeeding there.

Marla Marin, Analyst

Okay. And then switching gears a little bit. So you mentioned in the prepared remarks your patent position and it's been growing. Given the IP portfolio that you have, how are you feeling about potentially, down the road, obviously subject to what's going on with other things you're working on, but how are you thinking right now about potentially licensing some of the technology to third parties?

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Yes. I think that's a really great question. We've been saying that since I joined the company, that we're interested in being more than just a hardware company. I'm very proud that along with Mark and my executive team, we have been steadfastly working to ensure that our margins are high for a hardware company. But as we all know, shareholders are also very interested in ensuring that we have software margins that they're typically seeing out in the technology industry. Very soon, you'll see the launch of one of the first highly visible ecosystem products that we're working on. With the portfolio that we have, we certainly see a lot of promise. When entering the company, we had a strong focus on building an IP portfolio strategy. Oftentimes, when people approach technology companies, they're trying to build new products and happen to file the patents coinciding with the work they're doing, which I think is fruitful, but it's not strategic. What we've done here is build great technology and ensured that we've put very strategic structures around the IP portfolio so that we actually have the right products from an IP perspective that would make it more likely for people to want to license from us. We've been very thoughtful versus randomly shooting about building that portfolio. Most importantly, I think there's a lot of talk about AI and generative AI, which is very exciting. We're an applied AI company, and we're excited about the AI and machine learning work that we're doing here because, ultimately, the application of AI into health and personal safety is where we all want to see applications. It's always fun to see AI applied to photos, text, and all that kind of stuff. But wouldn't it be better if we saw AI applied to the caring of our loved ones? We're very excited about our work.

Marla Marin, Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you. And last question from me. Aster represents a new demographic target market for you, a different way of getting your technology out there. Are you getting any kind of meaningful feedback yet? Or is it still too early since product launch or since launching Aster?

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

I tend to think that it's always a little bit too early. It really takes time to ensure that everything is well-adjusted for product market fit. As a woman who's probably afraid to walk at night, one of the 53% of women who may be a little bit afraid to walk alone at night, I don't think that I'm my only customer. We've spent a lot of time talking to focus groups and doing initial testing of the product, and we're making adjustments to the product as we move forward. This is the beauty of where the company is directionally today, right? We have a very interesting new product that is a hardware and software package. It gives us the opportunity to provide and refresh and enhance as we hear back from customers in a way that, if you were building a hardware-only company, that feedback loop is a bit of a longer cycle to adapt to. You'll see us get feedback constantly from the marketplace and enhance the product. It's a bit too early, but you'll see us also take on new activities to market the product in Q4 as well.

Marla Marin, Analyst

Okay. Thank you so much.

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Thank you. I appreciate your questions.

Operator, Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Chia-Lin Simmons for the closing remarks.

Chia-Lin Simmons, CEO

Thank you, Kathleen. And thank you, everyone, for attending this call. In closing, I'd like to thank everybody for joining the call as well as for the continued support from our Board, employees, and investors. We will continue to make significant strides in the personal safety and care technology landscape. As we approach the holidays, I'd also like to wish everyone a joyous season of Thanksgiving and celebration. Be sure to check our logicmark.com website for some holiday gift ideas for your loved ones. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.