Earnings Call Transcript
Symbotic Inc. (SYM)
Earnings Call Transcript - SYM Q4 2024
Operator, Operator
Thank you for joining us for Symbotic's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. There will be a question-and-answer session following the speaker presentation. I will now turn the call over to Charlie Anderson, VP of Investor Relations. Please proceed.
Charlie Anderson, VP, Investor Relations
Thank you. Hello. Welcome to Symbotic’s fourth quarter 2024 financial results webcast. I'm Charlie Anderson, Symbotic's VP of Investor Relations. Some of the statements that we make today regarding our business operations and financial performance may be considered forward-looking. Such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially. Please refer to our Form 10-K, including the Risk Factors. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, during this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is distributed and available to the public through our Investor Relations website located at ir.symbotic.com. On today's call, we are joined by Rick Cohen, Symbotic's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Carol Hibbard, Symbotic's Chief Financial Officer. These executives will discuss our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2024 results and our outlook followed by Q&A. With that, I'll turn it over to Rick to begin. Rick?
Rick Cohen, CEO
Thank you, Charlie. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to review our most recent results. We had a strong finish to the year, delivering on our commitment to quickly return to high growth and historical gross margin levels. This was highlighted by completing a record number of system deployments in the fourth quarter, reflecting solid project execution. System starts also reaccelerated to a record level. For the full year, we grew revenue 55%, more than double the number of sites in operation and more than doubled our software revenue reflecting our ability to convert our backlog and scale. Importantly, we expect to maintain a high rate of year-over-year revenue growth while continuing to stabilize our gross margin in our first quarter. Carol will expand on this in the guidance. On the customer front, we recently announced a new customer, Walmex. By expanding into a new geography, Mexico, we are now officially executing on all five of the growth vectors laid out at our Investor Day in May, namely customer penetration and expansion, new verticals, new products and now new geographies. Working with Walmex drives home the point that our solution can deliver significant ROI for customers in new geographies and further expands our addressable market. We believe customers in these geographies see the value of palletizing and transportation savings of labor savings. The bottom line is that the number of opportunities we see for our technology portfolio continues to expand, and I'm excited by what that means in both the short and long term for my fellow shareholders. Turning to GreenBox, it continues to make progress building out its team, customer pipeline and site network. This quarter, we began deployment on a second GreenBox installation, this time in the state of Georgia. On the innovation front, we highlighted last quarter that we added vision capabilities to GreenBox at customer sites. Among other features, vision gives our customers the ability to perform tele-operations which enables remote bot control for enhanced productivity. We have now successfully demonstrated this capability at multiple sites and view it as a key differentiator. Last, we are making targeted investments in both people and products given the expanding opportunities in both new products and new geographies to augment our growth. In summary, this quarter, we delivered on our commitment to quickly return to higher system gross margin, top line growth, and reaccelerated system starts. Our key objectives for 2025 are scaling for growth and investing in our innovation engine all while maintaining a focus on delivering high-quality systems for our customers. By doing so, we look forward to another year of strong top line growth, a significant rise in completed sites as our deployment process improves and expanding profitability. I want to thank our entire team for their efforts, our customers for their trust, and our investors for their support. Now, Carol will discuss our financial results and outlook. Carol?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Thank you, Rick. Before I talk about our financial results, I want to mention the restatements we made to our quarterly financial statements included in the earnings press release. While reviewing our business processes and preparing our full year financial statements, we found instances during fiscal year 2024 where we expensed goods and services related to Symbotic milestone achievements before those milestones were actually met. This resulted in timing differences between the quarters in fiscal 2024, but did not affect our full year results since the proper expenses were recorded in the fourth quarter. Our earnings press release provides further details on the restatements, and we have posted a supplemental presentation outlining the variances on our Investor Relations website, which is also included as an exhibit to the 8-K filed today. Due to the restatement of previously reported financial results, we will be submitting amended Form 10-Qs for fiscal year 2024 to reflect the updates mentioned in the earnings press release. We also plan to file our 10-K on time next week. Now, let me move on to our financial results. Fourth quarter revenue reached $577 million, driven by strong performance across our 44 systems in deployment. Our strong fourth quarter results demonstrate a successful alignment of vendor and customer collaboration, contributing to $1.8 billion in full year revenue. We also achieved our first quarter of net income as a public company. Furthermore, we fulfilled our promise to increase system starts sequentially, launching nine new system deployments and completing four, bringing our total to 25 operational systems. Regarding backlog, our committed contracted orders remained steady at $22.4 billion as revenue recognized this quarter was somewhat offset by final pricing on contracts already in progress. I should mention that Walmex was signed after the quarter ended and will add to the backlog next quarter. As noted earlier, system margins have rebounded significantly, returning to historical levels. Gross margin on software maintenance and support increased by 50% for the quarter, moving towards typical industry patterns as more systems become operational. In operational services, we encountered a slight negative gross margin due to adding resources at certain sites where we have large projects and expanding new capabilities. We anticipate improvement in this area and expect to achieve modest profitability in operational services as we progress through the fiscal year. We ended the year with cash and equivalents totaling $727 million, a decrease from $870 million in the third quarter, mainly due to the timing of cash receipts that we received in the first week of October. For the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we project revenue between $495 million and $515 million and adjusted EBITDA between $27 million and $31 million. We continue to see strong year-over-year growth, stable gross margins, and a rise in operating expenses due to ongoing investments. In summary, we are making the improvements noted this quarter and expect significant EBITDA margin expansion as we grow. We now welcome your questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our first question comes from Andy Kaplowitz of Citibank. Please go ahead, Andy.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Hi, this is Natalie on behalf of Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup. My first question concerns the margins in the quarter, which were better than your guidance. For the first quarter, you're projecting stable growth margins with a sequentially lower EBITDA margin. Can you explain what factors are pressuring the margins this quarter? As you look at the rest of the year, do you think that the first quarter could be the lowest margin quarter, with margins improving sequentially throughout the year?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
All right. Good evening, and thanks for the question. So our gross margin this quarter hit 19.6%, which was a rebound back to historical levels. So we quickly returned to those historical gross margins. If you remember, our 3Q margin was depressed due to the long-dated construction schedules and the implementation of several improvements that we had put in place. We see that same occurrence in 4Q. As we think through our 1Q '25 guide, it really reflects a continuation in a period of transition to higher gross margins as we focus on achieving several significant milestones across some of our larger systems. We continue to prioritize quality deployments. And then we're going to still be on a trajectory to continue to improve schedule and improve costs and expand those gross margins throughout the year.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Okay. Helpful. And then if I could just ask one more question. I think you've spoken about increasing sales penetration in Europe. Can you briefly touch on any updates that you have in that region? And then this quarter announced an agreement in Mexico. Would you say that relatively lower-cost geographies could potentially be either Symbotic or GreenBox's customers or was it more of a one-time opportunity with Walmex given your relationship with Walmart?
Rick Cohen, CEO
Yeah. So we have nothing new to report on Europe. We continue to have discussions, but nothing new to report there. On Mexico, in new geographies. Certainly, it speaks highly of the relationship that we have with Walmart and the fact that they're happy with us. And working with Walmart on understanding these new geographies, I think we're appreciating some of the value-creation opportunities that we're creating in other markets other than just the U.S. where supply chains are different. Transportation is different. Wage rates are different, but there are other things that we add value to. So I don't think Mexico is a one-off. I don't think South America and America are one-offs. But right now, we have our first customer, and we're very excited.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Got it. Thank you so much.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti of Needham & Company. Please go ahead, Jim.
Jim Ricchiuti, Analyst
Hi. Thank you. I was wondering, if we could just go back to the quarter and the revenue coming in above guidance. Maybe you could talk a little bit about what drove that? And the follow-up on that is, we don't obviously have a lot of history with the company, but don't recall many instances where we've seen sequentially down revenues. So maybe if you could just help us understand what drove the Q4 revenue performance and what's baked into the Q1 guidance? Thank you.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Good evening, Jim. Our fourth quarter operational performance resulted in $577 million in revenue. This was a strong quarter driven by several factors. We made significant progress on our 44 systems that are in deployment, completing four systems, which was a record, and starting nine systems, also a record for Symbotic. The scheduled delays we experienced in the third quarter, which involved construction delays, corrected faster than we had anticipated, enabling us to achieve additional milestones. As we reflect on this strong quarter, we often see robust performance in the fourth quarter, similar to last year. Our first quarter guidance indicates continued strong growth, projecting a 40% year-over-year increase as we enter the first quarter.
Jim Ricchiuti, Analyst
Got it. And Rick, you alluded to some vision technology that you're adding. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the technology acquisition you made of Veo Robotics, what it brings to you. And just in general, how you're viewing the M&A environment, if we could potentially see additional technology-type acquisitions?
Rick Cohen, CEO
Yeah. So Veo is a very unique company that has some really valuable IP on safety and access which is very important because our robots move very quickly. And so the opportunity at Veo was really unique, and we jumped on it right away, hired the whole company. They are working here now, great people. And I think we are going to find, even in the last quarter, we have a lot more inbound. We're very focused on being a good acquirer and building good relationships with these companies that we're acquiring. The vision technology that we're employing allows for safety and a bunch of other things to be used in applications that typically aren't used in mobile robotics. So we think there's lots of opportunities, and we continue to get inbound for new technologies.
Jim Ricchiuti, Analyst
Got it. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ross Sparenblek of William Blair. Please go ahead, Ross.
Ross Sparenblek, Analyst
Hey. Good evening, guys.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Hi, Ross.
Ross Sparenblek, Analyst
Hi. The GreenBox is in Georgia announcement. Maybe I missed it. Was that with CNS wholesale or is that a new customer?
Rick Cohen, CEO
No. The GreenBox is our first facility that we're building, and we're currently developing the market to attract customers. We are constructing this without an anchor customer at the moment, but it will take about 18 months to two years before the building is operational. We are actively recruiting customers and are particularly focused on a multi-tenant solution, which we believe presents significant opportunities for GreenBox. We have received interest from both small and large consumer packaged goods companies as well as other e-commerce businesses. Now that we have a building, we are hopeful to secure some customer deals in the next year or so, although it will take some time before the building is ready for deployment.
Ross Sparenblek, Analyst
Yeah, I can imagine. That's helpful. I mean, how should we think about the financing of that? Is it a CapEx or OpEx decision with you and SoftBank? And this is all to ask. I mean, CapEx has started to tick up a little bit. Is this late in the GreenBox or is it just more capacity expansion as you guys look to kind of double your ability to deliver in the next couple of years?
Rick Cohen, CEO
Yeah, it’s both. I mean there will be CapEx that will be spent on getting the infrastructure and the Atlanta facility ready, and we’re also continuing to invest in new R&D here at Symbotic.
Ross Sparenblek, Analyst
Perfect. Thank you, guys.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, Mark.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Thanks for taking our question. You have Will on for Mark Delaney. And so, for my first question, in fiscal '24, you guys have been targeting one or two new customers per year. Is that for the right framework to think about for fiscal '25. And just kind of on that, when you think about your go-to-market margin and expanding it to some of these new vertical geographies, do you need to expand your sales force as well?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
I'll start and then, Rick, you can talk to what we need to do to potentially expand our sales force. So if I think about one to two customers per year, for 2024, our new customer of Southern Glazers, we accomplished that in the first quarter of the year. It seems like forever ago. And as we look forward to 2025, as we announced a few weeks ago, Walmex will be our first new customer in 2025 that will bring our customer set to 10. So I think we're still on that trajectory of one to two customers per year. We always want to make sure we're prioritizing the build-out of our $22 billion backlog with our existing customers and make sure that we're deploying and executing to the systems we have in our backlog as we create capacity going forward to identify additional new customers. Rick, do you have anything?
Rick Cohen, CEO
And we also made the decision this year that we will be expanding our salesforce, and we're in the process of designing what that salesforce would look like and how big it will be. But we will be expanding our sales force.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Okay. Thank you for the color there. And just for my follow-up, on the Walmex deal, I believe you said with two new systems. Pardon me, if I missed it, but how much of that adds to the backlog? And then on the pricing side, do those sites have preferential pricing similar to Walmart, given the relationship there or is this somewhere or is it closer to the Southern Glazers? Thank you.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
So Walmart Mexico will add about $400 million to the backlog. And again, we'll do that in the first quarter. So that's for two sites. So the two first sites that we have in Mexico are much larger than what we have seen and what we've deployed so far, and they're also greenfield sites. And so the timeline in terms of when you actually see revenue contributing for Symbotic will be a little bit different timeframe. But the sites are large, we're excited that they are greenfield because it also shows that we have the capability to not only do a brown side, but it is a greenfield. Walmart Mexico is not part of the existing contract geometry. And so that’s why it’s a new customer and a new opportunity for us going forward. We believe that Walmart has clear ambitions to deploy further than the two, but we’re excited to get started on the first two.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Newman of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your question, please Ken.
Ken Newman, Analyst
Hey, thanks. Good evening, guys.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Hi, Ken.
Ken Newman, Analyst
Maybe just to start on the OpEx side. Carol, I'm sorry if I missed it but can you just give a little bit more color on sizing the OpEx increases in 1Q? Just relative to the tech innovations versus maybe some of the EPC in-sourcing initiatives you highlighted last quarter. Just to clarify, is the in-sourcing done or just how far are we into it before that's all settled?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
I'll start with the EPC. You're not going to see increases in our operating expenses that affect our cost of goods sold. The EPC is part of our contractual agreement for building out our system, so it's not impacting the OpEx in that way. To elaborate further, we will have a base transition plan for bringing the EPC back in-house. We are phasing out our previous operations, and Symbotic is gradually taking over several sites. We've started the resourcing and hiring process for the sites we're assuming control of, and that process is progressing well. We'll continue to look for schedule and cost improvements as we bring this in-house. From an operating expense perspective, the increase you see in the first quarter of 2025 is mainly due to R&D and additional SG&A as we scale up. As Rick mentioned earlier, we are maintaining our focus on innovation, and that is reflected in the rise of our OpEx in the first quarter.
Ken Newman, Analyst
That's helpful. Regarding the gross margin, I understand you're expecting it to remain stable from the fourth quarter to the first quarter. Steel prices have become a significant part of your costs, and we've noted their rebound since late September. There's some uncertainty about how much they might increase further due to tariffs. I'm interested in what you expect the nominal gross margin impact from rising steel costs to be in the first quarter and any preliminary thoughts on how tariffs might affect margins.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
So the majority of our contracts on steel have pass-through clauses. And so what we've focused on is making sure that we're identifying a shorter return once we're on contract going and turning on our steel contracts so that we don't have any pricing issues. So we're maximizing that pricing power. And taking advantage of the fact that we've got pass-through clauses in our contracts, and that will continue. So that will give us protection around steel in the event that there are tariffs and higher prices need to go worry about.
Ken Newman, Analyst
So just to clarify that there. I mean, gross profit dollars are protected, correct? But nominally, margins could be impacted. Is that the right way to think about it?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yes, correct. Think about it that way. Yeah.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Damian Karas of UBS. Your question, please, Damian.
Damian Karas, Analyst
Hey, good evening, everyone.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Hello.
Damian Karas, Analyst
So obviously, it seems like a fair amount has changed since you guys reported some 3.5 months ago or so, last time around. There's been the removal of some uncertainties out there for investors and the market and the economy just thinking about kind of some of the uncertainty around the U.S. election. And obviously, kind of we're moving forward in this said rate cutting cycle. Just curious if that's changed or helped advance any of your conversations with customers at all or not really just yet and it's kind of still slow and steady on thinking about some of the expansion opportunities with newer customers.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
I believe we always pay attention to macroeconomic trends, and I rely on several advantages our system offers regarding the benefits and returns for customers who decide to make a capital expenditure commitment. The returns related to labor, resource availability, and inventory reduction will persist even as we face any macroeconomic uncertainties.
Damian Karas, Analyst
Okay. Understood. And then a follow-up question on Walmex. So beyond the two DCs that you spoke to, what's a good way to think about the potential timing of winning further opportunities with Walmex beyond those two sites and how that potentially plays out over time?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
So how we're thinking about Walmex, we're excited to start with that customer, and we're going to focus on the two deployments that we have in front of us. There is an opportunity. There are several thousand stores across Mexico for Walmart. So we do believe there is expanding opportunities there. But first and foremost, we have to perform on the existing sites that we have just contracted for, and that's what's going to be our both.
Damian Karas, Analyst
Thanks very much.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Summerville of D.A. Davidson. Matt. Please go ahead, Matt.
Matt Summerville, Analyst
Thanks. Carol, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned the 44 systems ongoing, a record four completed, a record nine started. How should we think about those metrics, those KPIs, if you will, how they move over the course of '25. I mean, the jump from 39 as an example, to 44 ongoing deployments. I think that's the biggest jump or equal to the biggest jump, obviously, off of a larger jumping off point. But just help me understand how I should think about those three KPIs evolving over the course of the year? And then I have a follow-up.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yeah. Thanks, Matt. So certainly, the jump from 39 to 44 in deployment is our biggest one we've seen, and that is driven by the fact that this quarter, we started nine new projects which is a record for us. And I think we've talked about before that we're not going to see a level of nine every single quarter. The considerations around starting a project are a collaboration between ourselves and our customers. We've got to be ready to start as well as they have to be ready to start. I think what we saw this quarter is the four completes. So that's also the highest number we've seen. We've been ticking up from two per quarter to three per quarter and now we hit four. I think you're going to see that continue in that neighborhood of four. And then we've got a lot of progress. And the more we focus on making sure we're hearing the schedule. I think you're going to see that consistent throughout the year. We don't guide on a number of new starts, which I think we've talked about before, nine is an unusual amount for the quarter. A lot of things pulled together for us to be able to start nine. The confidence from our customer as well as we were ready to start. So I think if you think about 2025 from an annual perspective, you'll see additional starts from what we had in 2024, but it's certainly not going to be nine every quarter.
Matt Summerville, Analyst
Got it. I appreciate that. And then maybe just a little color on, Rick, you mentioned the remote bot capability as part of your prepared remarks. Can you help me understand how that drives more efficiency or more transactions per hour, whatever the right metric is? And then can you also comment on where you're at with your non-ambient system development? Thank you.
Rick Cohen, CEO
Yeah. So the vision really helps us with the reliability of the robots. So the packaging that we deal with, one of the reasons what we do is difficult is leads pop open. There are us, bottles leak. And so in the past, when we started on this journey, our robots had sensors, but essentially they were blind. So now what's happening is that the robot actually sees where there's a problem, can communicate with the operator. And so there's a process of machine learning where we actually teach the robot how to handle these situations. And we can actually run these robots now remotely from anywhere in the world. And so that has made the systems more reliable and it's giving the customers a lot more confidence on our ability to scale and to do bigger systems. So that's the real value of vision. And the vision is complicated because these are not controlled environments. It's not like a fab plan. I mean you need any changes, there's us, there's different products, they leak. So the ability to see and to use the vision and to teach the bot, how to do better is very, very important to us. And it's been a long journey, but we made huge progress there. As far as non-ambient work, we continue to get discussions with our customers. We’re continuing to work on that as far as our R&D backlog but nothing new to report on that at this time.
Matt Summerville, Analyst
Got it. Thanks, guys.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg of Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open, Derek.
Derek Soderberg, Analyst
Yeah. Hi, everyone. Just another question on Walmex. Carol, you mentioned that Walmex, you think has ambitions to go beyond those two facilities. I think Walmex has something like 40 or 50 distribution centers. I'm wondering if you can quantify that opportunity, should Walmex sort of roll out Symbotic's across their distribution network as they have plans for Walmart U.S. What does that opportunity look like?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yeah. We don't want to get ahead of our customer. And again, we're excited to start with the first two, and we want to prove that out. As we look at the overall contribution across Mexico, Central America, South America in terms of the opportunities out there, that has never been contemplated in our TAM or our SAM. And so we think there's billions of opportunities in that space certainly wouldn't attribute all of that to Walmart is certainly, not all of Walmex. We have not quantified what the total amount is. I think you're right to think about it in terms of they have a number of distribution centers servicing thousands of stores, and we hope that we're part of that opportunity.
Derek Soderberg, Analyst
Got it. That's helpful. And then, Rick, as my follow-up, just around GreenBox. I'm wondering, if you could talk a bit more about the Georgia facility. I'm wondering if that facility, is the point of that profit center or a center to sort of prove as a proof of concept for the market? And then just taking a step back, the GreenBox agreement that you have with SoftBank, I think they committed to $11 billion in orders by 2029. Otherwise, they have to pay you. Is that still generally the framework of that agreement? And do you think you're tracking well along to sort of hit that agreement? Thanks.
Rick Cohen, CEO
Yeah. So obviously, the first question, Atlanta is one of those places where there's always opportunity to fill up a distribution center. So Atlanta was almost from day one that the site that we wanted to go first. We got a good facility. It's over 1 million square feet. A lot of potential customers there. So Atlanta will be a multi-tenant facility. And in some cases, what we're having discussions with people now is some people might say, well, instead of buying a whole system, maybe I just want to run 100,000 cases a week through your system and it's a good test pilot. So we think Atlanta will be very successful and will create a lot of growth opportunities. And some of the customers have already said, well, if we like Atlanta, where else are you going to go? So we feel good about the ability to build out multiple systems. And to your second question, nothing has changed between the relationship between SoftBank and Symbotic, the way we've done this partnership with GreenBox, and we're very excited about where we are.
Derek Soderberg, Analyst
Got it. Really appreciate it. Thanks.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Atanacio of TD Cowen. Please go ahead, Michael.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Hi. Good morning, guys. How are you doing?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
We are good.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
I wanted to take a closer look at the GreenBox announcement. The initial headlines suggested it involved about $150 million for a 1 million square foot facility. How should we be considering this in terms of the size of Symbotic content? Additionally, regarding the revenue margin opportunity for GreenBox, how does it stack up against typical Symbotic customer sites? Thank you.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
So I'll start with that one and then Rick pile on top, if you like. So the GreenBox Atlanta announcement, our Georgia announcement that I believe you're referring to at $150 million, the press release that was out there. Think about that as the entire warehouse and facility. So a GreenBox site, similar to where we go in and build a system in with our other customers, has a whole lot of other infrastructure associated with it, of which Symbotic a piece of it. So you could consider Symbotic system similar to what our average modified has been on our contracts that we've gotten flow right now for our Symbotic system. So it's no different. But that number that you saw that was out there includes more than just the Symbotic piece of it, that's where the overall how GreenBox will operate that warehouse. In terms of GreenBox revenue and margin opportunity, and so our systems that we are selling into GreenBox are Symbotic system. And so they’re similar in revenue and gross margin like we are selling to our other customers. It’s our portion of that, then we are a 35% JV partner in that, and some of that comes back to Symbotic.
Unidentified Participant, Analyst
Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Mason of Baird. Please go ahead, Rob.
Rob Mason, Analyst
Thank you, guys. Good afternoon. Carol, I wanted to just circle back to gross margin. Your expectation for the first quarter sounds similar to the fourth quarter in that regard. But how should we be thinking in fiscal '25, the ability to scale that from that level? Have you worked through some of the issues that you talked about last quarter that were pulling gross margin lower? Just where we are on that in terms of the progression?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Rob. So we've worked through several of the issues that depressed our 3Q margin to lower than historical levels. So I'd say, what we've rebounded in the fourth quarter is a level we will likely see as we head into the first half of next year. What we'll continue to focus on are whether those opportunities to improve as we look at the back half of 2025 and then into 2026. We recognize we're not at the gross margin we want to be. So we're focused on what can we do to improve schedule, which we've talked about in the past. The faster we can complete the where we can save from a cost perspective, and we're continuing to look at ways that we maximize our cost performance as we're building a system.
Rob Mason, Analyst
Very good. The next question is for Rick. I noticed that during the quarter, you added a new leader focused on transformation initiatives. Can you share what you expect that person to bring to Symbotic?
Rick Cohen, CEO
We've brought on several new leaders, and the one you're referring to is expected to assist us in accelerating product development and support our R&D initiatives. Their role won't involve conducting the R&D themselves, but rather prioritizing the R&D projects that will deliver the greatest value to our customers.
Rob Mason, Analyst
Very good. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Palm of Craig-Hallum. Your question, please, Greg.
Greg Palm, Analyst
Yeah. Thanks. I wanted to follow up on the Walmex, if I could, first, I think what struck me as maybe most surprising as your first international win was in Mexico, a lower cost sort of labor wage region, which I guess kind of begs the question of what does that mean for your broader TAM, thinking broadly speaking, Asia, for instance, this maybe increase the TAM potential in terms of opportunities of deploying Symbotic in regions maybe you thought weren't maybe at an appetite you saw previously?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Thank you for the question, Greg. We are really excited about this specific development. It highlights the return on investment even in lower cost regions. As Rick mentioned earlier, it focuses on sites in these areas, and there is also an appreciation for improvements in inventory management, transportation costs, and the overall quality of what we can implement. We believe this opens up more geographical opportunities and reinforces that our system delivers a strong return on assets even in low-cost regions.
Rick Cohen, CEO
In some ways, what is so interesting and reassuring for us is, in some ways, the U.S. is the hardest market because it really has one of the best supply chains in the world. But when you get to some other markets where the supply chains really are not very sophisticated, there's lots of opportunity to take inventory out, probably in labor in terms of inefficient labor and transportation in terms of getting all the right products in the right place at the right time. So we're very excited, and we continue to learn about the opportunities that there are in these markets.
Greg Palm, Analyst
Got it. That makes sense. I have another question regarding gross margin, which may have two parts. You reported a restructuring charge of $775,000 this quarter. What segment did that pertain to? You mentioned operation services, and based on my calculations, it seems like that was nearly a 100 basis point impact on the overall gross margin. I'm not sure if the restructuring charge was included in that. Generally speaking, as we look ahead to Q1, particularly in operation services, you indicated there might be a slight rebound. Could you provide more detail on what transpired in that segment during the quarter?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yeah. So the restructuring charge was actually a benefit. And so, what you're seeing there is the restructuring that we did around inventory two quarters ago and we had obsolete inventory. We are working to go sell some of that inventory, and we had a pickup associated with the settling of that. And so that's what that $800,000 roughly was sitting in the restructuring charge. It was actually a benefit. From an operation services perspective, we did have a significant drop in terms of the margin on that. What we saw this quarter is, we added resources at a couple of sites where we have some large projects in deployment. And we expect that run rate going forward will improve over time. We don't expect to see that negative run rate. We had a few sites where we provided additional resources to ensure our projects are moving forward.
Greg Palm, Analyst
Okay. Thanks for that clarification.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Good. Thanks.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Latimore of Northland Capital Markets. Your line is open, Mike.
Michael Latimore, Analyst
Hi. Great. Thanks very much. Yeah, in terms of cash flow from operations, how should we think about that over the course of the year? Should that maybe as a percent of EBITDA?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
So we really don't have any change to our fundamentals of our working capital. Our cash inflows continue to be front loaded. What you saw in our cash for this quarter was really focused on timing of receipts. And we expect that to rebound as we head into 2025.
Michael Latimore, Analyst
Got it. Great. Thanks. Regarding the EPC investments, it seems you are hiring project managers. Can you provide details on how many project managers you have hired and how many you plan to hire throughout the year?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yeah. So I won't quantify the number of people, but we have hired the resources for the first five to seven sites where we’re ready to go deploy. We’ve got program managers in place as well as a couple of other resources for each of those sites, and we’re moving forward in taking that work on as we indicated last quarter.
Michael Latimore, Analyst
Okay. Thanks very much.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Thanks.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Guy Hardwick of Freedom Capital Markets. Your question, please, Guy.
Guy Hardwick, Analyst
Hi. Good evening.
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Hello.
Guy Hardwick, Analyst
Carol, I just wanted to understand your comments on the backlog a little bit. I think you said the backlog was stable. I assume you're talking sequentially there, even though there was over $500 million of revenue burn from the excellent quarter you had in systems revenue. So can you kind of explain a little bit more what happened? I think you said something Rick, about contracts being revised outputs, mean to borrow a phrase from another industry. It sounds like there's some sort of plus-ups there. Can you explain that a little bit further, please?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Yeah. So you got it. It's that simple. So last quarter, we were at $22.8 billion in backlog, and now we're at $22.4 billion and you're going to see our backlog adjust as we continue to deploy systems. And so that reflects the revenue of $575 million for this quarter, $577 million. And then every time we sign an individual project, there are pluses and minuses, puts and takes around what our final configuration might look for that particular project. And so that's what you're seeing as the offset to the reduction from revenue this quarter. But there were no other specific customers additive to the backlog in this course. So the nine new projects that all came from backlog.
Guy Hardwick, Analyst
Okay. I was trying to understand the information you provided about the 44 systems at the end of the year, as well as the completions and starts moving forward. It seems like your revenue guidance is quite conservative given your year-end position and the potential for further completions and starts throughout the year. The guidance for Q1 suggests a significant decline in revenue for each average system, whether considering the systems deployed at year-end or averaging over the last eight quarters. Is there a specific reason why the revenue is expected to decrease on a per-system basis?
Carol Hibbard, CFO
Our 1Q guide reflects strong year-over-year growth. And what you're seeing is fourth quarter was a unique quarter, which we had the highest number of starts that we've seen as well as the highest number of completions and really achievement of significant milestones in this quarter. So our revenue in an individual quarter is more driven by the amount of systems that we have in deployment at a time. And just to the nature of the timing of the milestones and where they're at in their life cycle. And so as we move forward to 1Q, and we've looked at what we have out in front of us in terms of what's in deployment, and that's what our guide reflects.
Guy Hardwick, Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Charlie Anderson for closing remarks. Sir?
Charlie Anderson, VP, Investor Relations
Yeah. Thank you, and we appreciate everybody for joining our call tonight and your interest in Symbotic and we look forward to seeing many of you during the quarter at the various investor conferences that will attend. Thank you, and goodbye.
Operator, Operator
And this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.