Welcome to the Blackline Safety Corp Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Boston, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.
Welcome, and thank you for joining us. Today, we will be discussing our fiscal results for the fourth quarter and year-ended October 31, 2023, which were issued before market opening this morning. With me today is Cody Slater, CEO and Chair of Blackline Safety Corp, as well as our CFO, Shane Grennan. I will turn the call over to Cody in just a moment for an overview of our fourth quarter. Following that, Shane will discuss the financial highlights of the quarter in greater detail. Cody will close with our outlook and some additional commentary before we take questions. I'd like to remind everyone that an archive of this webcast will be made available on the investor section of our website.
I would like to note that some of the information discussed in this call is based on information as of today and contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in such statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please review the forward-looking statements disclosure in the earnings news release, as well as the company's SEDAR+ filings. During this call, there will be a discussion of IFRS results, non-GAAP financial measures, non-GAAP ratios, and supplementary financial measures. A reconciliation between IFRS results and non-GAAP financial measures is available on the company's earnings news release and MD&A, both of which can be found on our website, blacklinesafety.com, and on SEDAR+. All dollar amounts are reported in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. With that, I will hand the call over to Mr. Slater.
Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Blackline Safety's Fourth Quarter 2023 Conference Call. I'm pleased to share today Blackline's fiscal fourth quarter results, our 27th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth, and the milestone achievement of CAD 100 million in revenue for the fiscal year. Our CAD 30 million in total revenue for the fourth quarter was also a record for the company and is a 36% increase over the prior year. We saw our annual recurring revenue, or ARR, surpass CAD 51 million, up 40% year over year, driven by new hardware sales, as well as our industry-leading net dollar retention of 129%. We continue to achieve greater scale with our service revenue, which grew 38% overall to CAD 15 million for the quarter.
With more customers adopting more value-added services, our service margin hit a new high of 77%, generating CAD 11.6 million of gross profit. Our hardware segment generated a record CAD 4.9 million of gross profit, up 66% year-over-year, driven by increased sales and margins of 32%, our highest in 3 years. Improvements in our pricing, supply chain management, and manufacturing automation will continue to push our margins higher and unlock even greater profitability. With our improving margins, growing ARR, and a step-change decrease in cash burn, we exited the quarter in the strongest financial position ever, with total liquidity of CAD 29.2 million in our cash, short-term investments, and operating facility, and CAD 50 million available on our lease securitization facility. 5 quarters ago, we set out to work towards turning Blackline into a profitable business.
I'd like to highlight the dramatic progress we have made since that time. In that quarter, our EBITDA loss represented 78% of our CAD 18.6 million of total revenue, and our cash used in operating activities was 105%. Today, we reported an EBITDA loss of less than 5% of our total revenue, an improvement of 82%, with cash used in operating activities dropping to just 7%, an improvement of 90%, all while achieving revenue growth of 36%, finishing with a record CAD 30 million in the quarter. So we did not hit our ambitious goal of reaching positive EBITDA, yet it is clear Blackline has been transformed into an engine that can continue to deliver strong top-line growth with significant profitability in the long run.
I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Shane Grennan, to discuss our fiscal fourth quarter results and financial position in more detail.
Thank you, Cody, and good morning, all. As Cody mentioned, we achieved our 27th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth of 36%, generating total revenue of CAD 30 million. This includes CAD 15 million in product revenue, which increased 35% year-over-year. The increase in the current year reflects the efforts of Blackline's strong global sales team and distribution network, as well as continued targeted demand generation and sales development activities. Product gross margin of CAD 4.9 million improved 66% in the fourth quarter, thanks to the growth in revenue and an increase in gross margin percentage to 32% from 26% in the prior year period. Product margin increased every quarter during 2023, as we saw benefits from our increased scale, manufacturing automation, enhanced pricing, and improved supply chain management....
We expect to continue our incremental improvements to this gross margin level during fiscal 2024. Service revenue during the quarter increased 38% to CAD 15 million, our sixth consecutive quarter with greater than 30% growth in this segment. Software services were a major contributor to this growth, up 36% year-over-year, which also drove ARR growth of 40% to CAD 51.1 million. Newly activated devices contributed to year-over-year growth of CAD 1 million in the quarter, and net service increases within our existing customer base contributed CAD 2.5 million. This resulted in a net dollar retention of 129%, as we continue to raise the bar on this key metric.
Our pricing increase, combined with customer device count expansions and the efforts of our client success team to increase the penetration of higher value services, such as Blackline's Safety Operations Center, Personnel Monitoring, Two-Way Voice, and Push-to-Talk, all contributed to this impressive number. Our rental business also continues to generate robust growth, setting a new record of CAD 1.8 million in revenue in the seasonally strong fourth fiscal quarter, a 69% improvement over last year's quarter. We expect continued strong year-on-year growth in the rental business in fiscal 2024, with the rental team having expanded to cover Europe and the Middle East regions, where there is huge demand for our connected area and wearable monitors for 3- to 9-month projects. Our service gross margin percentage set a new benchmark, 77%, generating over CAD 11.6 million of gross margin for the quarter.
We believe this is a sustainable margin percentage throughout fiscal 2024, as we continue our penetration of value-add data and communication services for our customers. Our total gross margin percentage came in at 55%, yielding CAD 16.5 million, setting another quarterly record for total gross margin. The growth in total gross margin is due to revenue mix, cost optimization efforts across our business, and our increased scale. In terms of our geographic growth mix, we are pleased with our performance, as each one of our key geographic markets improved from the year-ago comparable period. The U.S. market represented our largest growth region, improving 89% from last year's Q4, as our sales team secured several major wins across the region.
Our Rest of World market also saw strong growth at 14% compared to the prior year quarter, and is primed to provide significant growth in fiscal 2024. Additionally, our Canadian and European markets were able to see year-over-year increases of 12% and 1%, respectively, as we continue to have excellent product wins and customer loyalty across these regions. Shifting now to operating expenses. Our total expenses for the quarter were CAD 19.8 million, which was down CAD 0.5 million, or 3%, compared to our expenses of CAD 20.3 million in the prior year quarter. Excluding impacts of foreign exchange, this was the seventh consecutive quarter where Blackline has reduced its total expenses as a percentage of revenue.
General and administrative expenses increased just 2% from the prior year quarter to CAD 5.8 million, which represented 19% of revenue, compared to 26% of the prior year. The slight increase was due to an increase in salary costs, which is offset by lower consulting and professional service fees. Sales and marketing expenses increased 24% from the prior year quarter to CAD 11.2 million, which represented 37% of revenue, compared to 41% of the prior year's period. The increase was due to higher commissions, resulting from higher hardware sales in the quarter, and bad debt expense arising from a bad debt recovery in the prior year, which was not present in the current year.
It is important to note that the 36% increase in annual revenue for fiscal 2023 was achieved while keeping total annual sales and marketing expenses flat. Product research and development costs decreased 35% from the prior year quarter to CAD 3.6 million, and decreased as a percentage of revenue to 12% from 25% to the prior year period. Salaries, consulting, and contractor costs were all lower following the workforce reduction that occurred in the prior year. Our development teams remain focused on next generations of our core products and services. We look forward to the impact these innovations will make as these products begin to launch in late 2024. Moving on to capital expenditures.
These totaled CAD 1.9 million for the quarter, primarily for additions of revenue-generating sensor cartridges being used by customers and rental equipment to support the continued growth of that service line. Inventory totaled CAD 17.1 million at the quarter end, compared to CAD 18.7 million at the end of the prior year, with inventory turnover improving significantly as our sales continue to grow. We see inventory continuing to be a source of cash for us over the next several quarters. Our lease program had a total of CAD 39.6 million in future contracted cash flows at October 31, 2023, up from CAD 36 million on October 31, 2022. During the quarter, we received proceeds from our lease securitization facility, with CWB Maxium of CAD 0.6 million, and made scheduled repayments of CAD 1.5 million.
The lease facility continues to be an important part of our cash management strategy, and we will leverage this throughout 2024. At the end of the year, we had over CAD 50 million Canadian equivalent of availability on this facility. At quarter end, we had total cash and short-term investments on hand of CAD 16 million.... with over CAD 13 million of availability on our 2-year senior secured operating facility with ATB Financial, that was renewed and expanded to a maximum capacity of CAD 25 million in October. We remain confident that we have the resources required to execute our business strategy of achieving sustainable growth, innovation, and disciplined cost management, so that Blackline can generate positive free cash flow in fiscal 2024. I will hand it back to Cody to discuss our outlook and to provide closing remarks. Cody?
Thank you, Shane. In 2017, Blackline introduced the industrial world to the idea of connected safety, as we brought the G7 Connected Wearable to market. We believed that the market would adopt and pay for the added values from this innovative approach to protecting their people. Clearly, our customers agree with us, as at CAD 100 million of annual revenue, we are now one of the most significant players in the gas detection industry, and by far, the fastest-growing. Over the last fiscal year, we not only bolstered our financial strength, we also realized numerous corporate achievements and milestones. To keep pace with increasing customer demand for our solutions, we doubled our manufacturing capacity while maintaining the same physical footprint of our production facilities in Calgary, Canada.
We secured numerous multi-year contracts with prominent global customers, including multimillion-dollar deals in the Middle East and a $3.2 million deal in the Permian Basin, protecting over 1,000 workers with our connected devices. We continued expansion of our global reseller network. We now partner with over 260 distributors around the world, and our commitment to product innovation was, yet again, recognized by health and safety professionals, as Blackline secured our tenth New Product Award from Occupational Health & Safety. As we look to fiscal 2024, we remain committed to a balanced approach of top and bottom-line growth, as well as product innovation. I see this driving us towards the gold standard for SaaS companies and exiting 2024 as a Rule of 40 company, where the combination of our top-line growth and EBITDA margin equal or exceed 40%.
To put our progress towards this goal in perspective, a year ago, our Rule of 40 calculation was negative 37%, and this Q4 saw the company reach positive 31%, clearly on the right path. I'm proud of the dramatically stronger company that we are today than we were 18 months ago, when we first embarked on our path to profitability. We are well-positioned to accelerate along this path while becoming the dominant player in the multibillion-dollar gas detection and connected safety industry. The way forward is clear for us: to drive growth in our top and bottom lines, generating significant shareholder value over the coming years as we continue to lead the way to a connected safety future. I want to thank the Blackline team across the globe for their commitment to our purpose and for the incredible results they have collectively delivered.
I speak for all Blackline employees when I say that we are grateful to our customers for their continued trust in Blackline to protect their people around the world. Thank you for your attention this morning, and I'll now turn it over to the operator for questions.
Thank you. To join the question queue, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. The first question comes from John Shao. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. First of all, solid progress on the cost reduction front on a year-over-year basis. So my question is, when we benchmark this quarter's EBITDA loss to the breakeven expectation at the beginning of the year, what is the delta here? Is this because there were some deals that were delayed in Q4, just because the OpEx is higher than expected?
Hey, John, it's Cody here. I'd say the biggest delta would be a few larger deals that we're expected to see in Q4 that were shifted out. A few of the cost reductions we were looking to see, even though we made great progress on our margin on... You know, moving our margin forward on our hardware, we were looking for a few additional cost reductions to take place there that have been delayed due to supply quality issues that have pushed that out a little bit. But, you know, again, as you can point to, the trend is all there, of course, the other thing being the FX impact when you looked at that adjusted number overall.
The core things would be just a little bit light on some of the hardware revenue side and a little bit light on the hardware margin from where we'd anticipated to be.
Okay. Got it. Maybe help us understand that the roadmap to the updated breakeven timelines, so which I suppose are gonna be the second half of the year. So how much operating leverage do you think the business has, given the current cost structure and the current total OpEx?
Well, I mean, again, you're right, we're talking the second half, as you know, I think as you're aware, on our sales cycle tends to be that we'll see a growth up to Q4 and then a drop in sales back in Q1. Q2, Q3 tends to be back where we were as far as. Again, we're talking solely hardware here. Service revenues just keep growing on a quarterly basis. You're gonna see pretty stable cost controls across the board. You know, there were some elevated costs in Q4 here for one-time elements from our sales mix and our distribution commissions, et cetera. It elevated that a little bit. You'll see that drop back down in Q1.
You know, all of that just provides the leverage going forward to see that strong EBITDA growth, you know, driven as well by, you know, year over year, you'll see improvements in the hardware margins. Still, part of that's volume driven, that part, part of that, some of getting in some of the supplier changes that we're looking towards. And, you know, small margin increases on the service side as well, too. Also driven by really the price increases we put in place and seeing customers, contract cycle through those, renewals and renew at that higher price point. So slightly stronger margins, good product mix, good, strong, you know, top line growth, and continued management of the cost control will just drive that, in that second half.
Okay, lastly, Cody, you mentioned 40% product margin is the goal for 2024?
We're looking really about, you know, high 30s, very high 30s, just under 40%, yeah, towards the, at the end of the year. So, you know, again, two more, just a bit more cost reduction based on the scale, based on some supply aspects, and then really the rest being driven by just, you know, the, increased scale as that margin improves and as well, the now annual, cycle of price increases, which you'll see, come again June this year.
Okay, I appreciate the color and I'll pass along.
Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Martin Toner from ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking it. Pardon me. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on a good number. Just wondering about the sequential increase in sales and marketing expense. Can you give us some more color on the drivers there? Was it in part a function of revenue growth over the past four quarters that you know are some compensation annual and annually paid? And you know, what's the rationale for increasing that sequentially in terms of what's gonna happen, what you think will happen in 2024?
Sure. Martin, a couple, I mean, a couple of things. One is Q4 always has a bump with us in the context of the larger trade shows. The NSC, the A+A, drive a pretty significant variance from Q3 to Q4. One of the other sort of, I would say, you know, less predictable elements of what happened in what we saw in Q4 was a larger percentage of our lease business going through distribution channels. If our distributors are selling a product, they purchase the product at a discount, but if they sell the product to a lease opportunity, then we wind up paying the distributor a commission. So that drove a, you know, a significantly higher increase in commissions during that quarter. We'd see that normalizing.
That was really driven by one or two very major deals in the quarter. See that going down as we go forward. So you should look to see in Q1, you know, a lot of those one-time elements that were driving some of those numbers higher, drop back down, and then, you know, there still will be impacts as we go forward from growth from commissions, but as a percentage of revenue, you see that number drop down.
Super. Can you walk us through the impact that a strengthening Canadian dollar has on your P&L? You know, I presume a substantial portion of COGS and fixed costs are in Canadian dollar.
Martin, this is Shane here. Thanks for the question. So, you know, of the different foreign currencies that we have, Martin, are US dollar, GBP, Euro and Australian dollar, and the US dollar vis-a-vis the Canadian dollar is the biggest impact as we do our realized, non-realized calculations each period. As you know, the Canadian dollar did strengthen against all the currencies, in particular the US dollar. As a proportion of our accounts receivable, we have a lot larger receivables balance denominated in US dollars at the end of the year, as for example, compared to last year. And we also have our finance leases and the financing equivalent with CWB, denominated in US dollars that we didn't have last year.
So there's a bigger base that the recalculation is getting done over, and that strengthening of the Canadian dollar has a more exaggerated effect now than it would have had in the past, on our numbers.
Super. You know, one of my preconceived notions is that a lot of enterprises, many of whom are your customers, were rationing spending in anticipation of a recession that's not yet come. Are you seeing any impact of customers releasing some of those budgets? And do you think that could be a positive impact to 2024?
Sorry, Martin, this is Sean Stinson here. You know, we haven't seen much in terms of restricting spend from our customers. It's something that we can keep a really close eye on. You know, we look at deal velocity and things like that to tell us if there's something in the market that's coming up. And typically when that happens, we would see that on both sides of the ocean. We'd see that in the European business and the North American business. But frankly, I haven't seen any of that yet. So in our customer base, still strong. Our pipeline for Q1 is strong. So no, I haven't seen either the restriction or the release, frankly.
Okay, thank you very much. I'll pass the line.
The next question comes from Jason Zandberg with PI Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much. Just a couple of questions. First, you know, the latter part of the year, you introduced several new features for G6, G7, E XO. So just wondering if you could comment on customer feedback and whether these new features are converting to sales? You can quantify that at all?
Yeah, Sean here again. Really great feedback so far. These really—these features really did target the... You know, primarily, I'd say they targeted the top end of the market for us, and that's where they were very well received. So you know, they're not resulting in closed deals yet. There is a bit of a lag between the time you introduce a feature and you see the results of that, but the initial feedback has been very strong, and we see the, you know, associated growth in the pipeline due to those features.
Okay, perfect. Second question. You know, gross margins have now improved, I think it's seven consecutive quarters, which is just, you know, a fantastic, trend that you've built here. Just wondering if you could talk about when, you know, when you'd expect to see peak margins? Sort of how long can you continue this improvement on your gross margin line?
Yeah, it's Cody here, Jason. Just a couple of points around that. If you're looking at the overall gross margin, still one of the biggest drivers for that is the mix between product and service, so can be a bit misleading. We can see that number drive up with our hardware numbers are a little lower. But the real drivers behind both being the core margin for hardware and service, you know, I'd see really that we're going to hit peak on those early 2025, but continue to see growth, so growth through 2024 on the percentage margin for both our hardware and our service and, you know, stabilize out really in 2025.
Okay, great. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from Doug Taylor with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning. A lot of revenue growth highlights to talk about here. I'd like to focus on the Net Dollar Retention rate, which was again impressive, almost 130% in the quarter. Pricing increases obviously is a big factor there. I believe, Shane, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned a number of other factors, including increased feature uptake and expanded devices within existing customers. The question is, I mean, can you expand a little, a bit on, you know, what the relative contributions are from some of these factors, with the goal of, you know, better visualizing the durability of this Net Dollar Retention performance after the effect of the pricing increases you put through subsides here?
Yeah. Thanks, Doug. This is Sean again. You know, I think the durability is strong. I forecast higher net dollar retention for the next year. I think we still have a lot of room to grow there. The pricing increases, because we have a lot of contracts that are multi-year, the pricing increases actually take a few years to roll through the entire thing, so there are still more gains to be made based on the pricing increases. Feature uptake is... I'd probably say, you know, if you had to rank these in order, I'd say expansion of devices into existing large clients is number one, pricing increases is number two, and feature uptake is the third largest contributor.
You know, from an expansion standpoint, you know, we have a lot of great logos, a lot of great businesses we do business with, and in many of those, we don't have full penetration yet. So, you know, a big part of this and a big part of the reason we're gonna be able to grow the NDR over the next year is just continued penetration of those large clients.
That's fantastic color. Just to put a finer point on that, are you saying you, you're expecting the NDRs to continue in the same range as they are, or to actually even potentially increase further from the, the levels we've seen in the last couple of quarters?
You know, I think we'd say, like, very modest growth. The rate of increase will decline. I think we've made significant advances in how we run this part of the business over the past year. So, you know, I'll say I want to temper expectations a little bit. I'd say modest growth on that.
Thanks for that. I'll ask another question on the, the G6 ramp, which, you know, we've been anticipating. You've spoken about the pipeline building, pent-up demand in previous quarters, particularly with the features that you've added. Could you maybe just, like, discuss the, the contributions you've seen to date and whether some of the previous, you know, targets in terms of the number of devices you expect to have, you know, live and, and active in the, in, in the market, are still relevant in, you know, from where you sit today?
Yeah, I mean, contribution to date has been, you know, very modest. Say, you know, frankly, we're behind where we thought we would be on this, but the product is very strong, and we are seeing that uptake. So, you know, we had our first couple of large wins with the G6 this last quarter. So that, you know, really, again, cements the value proposition here, and it's all just about delivering on that value proposition as we go forward. So we'll see, you know, higher contribution throughout the year, but the primary products for us will still continue to be the G7 and the EXO in terms of revenue mix.
Okay, one last question for me. You know, the securitization facility, you know, you've been pretty static with the amount that's been, you know, taken up of that or used of that, that facility. I believe at the outset, you, you expected to use that, you know, to, closer to CAD 20 million. I think it's at CAD 10 million right now. Is there anything we should take away from, you know, that? Is anything deliberate there in terms of, your use of that facility or, you know, the, the uptake of lease-based, purchasing versus, you know, outright purchases?
Hi, Douglas, Shane here. So yes, you are correct. This is a key part of our cash management strategy at Blackline and will continue through next year to be that. In terms of the uptake in the periods, it does vary period to period. I would say the only thing I would add there is, you know, our lease customers, whether they come on as new lease customers or where they're renewing, there's different paperwork, different legal contractual obligations that they go through that we have to satisfy with our securitization partners at CWB Maxium. So that is one of the criteria that we navigate as we go through the funding requirements.
Our strategy is to optimize that to the fullest as we can each period, but there is fluctuations, period on period based on some of the contractual, paperwork that is involved between our customers, ourselves, and our banking partners.
Thank you, Shane, and everyone else. I'll pass the line.
Thanks.
The next question comes from David Kwan with TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, morning, guys. I just want to clarify a couple of the questions asked earlier on the call. I guess, first off, you guys alluded to a few larger deals that you were expecting in Q4 that got pushed out. Are they—I assume they're still in the pipeline, and they haven't been lost? First question, and then secondly, just as it relates to customer buying behavior, it sounds like there hasn't been any changes there. There's still some strong demand. Have you seen, though, any changes, in particular, as it relates to your energy customers, just given the softening pricing environment?
Thanks for the question, David. No, we haven't seen any softening. Again, we keep an eye open for that because, you know, there may be ways we need to react when we start to see that come. So we, you know, we do keep a close eye on that. So we haven't seen any of that, any of that softening yet. You know, frankly, I've been kind of expecting this for six quarters. I think I've been really, like, vigilant about watching for signs of recession for a while, but we're still not seeing that in our customer base. You know, not entirely sure what Q2 and Q3 hold, as the price of oil might go up or down. And then to your question about the, deals that moved from the pipeline in Q4, they primarily moved into quarters 1 and 2.
So we'll see some of that land in Q1 here, and then some of those did move into Q2, and that's not. I wouldn't say that that's an economic softening. That was, you know, things that have come up late in the sales process with specific large clients that are just taking a little bit longer to close, but still strong demand.
I think I'd add just one thing. A couple of those orders that got pushed out, they actually are being part of the time delay is that the orders are looking to be larger than we were anticipating them to be initially. Something gets larger, it gets more complicated. You'll see some of that, I think, in some of our international world as we go forward here. But nothing that indicates, you know, anything but a strong, as to Sean's point, a really strong working pipeline for this year—for the year here.
Great. And one other clarification. Just, you commented as it related to the elevated or increased sales and marketing expenses, you know, commissions being paid to distributors for, it sounds like a couple of large leasing deals. Can you quantify that?
Yeah, but there was a— I mean, if you look at it quarter-over-quarter, the increase in distributor commissions was close to CAD 400,000.
Great.
Q3, Q4.
Yeah, no, that, that's, that's good, Cody. I appreciate the color. Last question. Interesting, you talked about a Rule of Forty target exiting this year, which I think would be pretty impressive, particularly given your hardware mix. Can you maybe talk about how you see that balance between organic growth versus margins? Like, are you—do you think you can maintain your north of 30% organic growth this year?
Yeah, that's really, you know, we really wanted to focus on that Rule of Forty internally here. You're right, it's a, it's a big goal from a software standpoint. If you're looking at hardware-enabled SaaS, maybe even more so. But, you know, we've highlighted the growth we've made we've already done towards that. But it is that point of that balanced growth. It's the point that we're looking at both that increased, revenue growth going forward, you know, in that 30% range, and moving into the high positive, you know, the strong positive EBITDA numbers. And, you know, that gives us the opportunity to, you know, to balance that focus between our costs and our growth, getting towards, you know, what is, you know, a pretty, you know, significant target for the company.
So I assume that you're forecasting north of 30% organic. To get to that target, you're forecasting north of 30% organic growth and EBITDA margins and somewhere in the single digits?
Yeah. You know, the nice thing about the Rule of Forty is that you, you can look at a range there. You know, revenue growth can be from, you know, 30%-35%, and EBITDA from 5%-10% kind of thing. So, and you're still in that Rule of Forty basis, and that's sort of one of the reasons we want to focus on that, not just so much a single point number, but really, I think it's a better metric for looking at the performance of the company.
Yeah, I'm just trying to get a sense of, you know, exiting the year. I know Q4 is seasonally stronger, but, you know, do you think that you could get to double-digit EBITDA margins exiting the quarter, understanding that, you know, Q1 of, I guess, 2025, you know, might come in below that just because of seasonality?
Yeah, I mean, again, when we're talking about the Rule of Forty, we're really talking about exiting with that. So we're talking about Q4. And again, I'd say those Q4 margins—the Q4 EBITDA numbers we're talking about will be in between that, you know, high—mid-single to high, to mid-single to double, to low double. And the growth will be, you know, from the, you know, high 20s to the high 30s kind of thing.
Okay, great. That's it for me.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and congrats for steering Blackline on the right path to profitability last year. Lots, lots of info to digest from this call already, but Cody, as you look forward to the next 12 months, what would you say are the, you know, three priorities that would rank highest on your list, be they financial, operational, or strategic?
Yeah, you know, it's an interesting question. I think, like, to me, it starts with that context of balanced growth, and we use that term internally, maybe a little differently than other people, because balanced growth for us still means pretty high. We're still talking high targets for growth, but balancing that against really strong cost controls going forward. You know, a little bit more investment as we get forward towards the end of 2024 into driving that 2025. Inside the company, that comes across all the aspects of what we're doing. You know, if you go back a few years, one of our biggest goals was always exposure and getting people to understand what the business was. You know, when we, you know, when we launched the G7 product, we were doing CAD 11.7 billion a year, in revenue.
Nobody knew who we were, nobody knew what the G7 was, nobody knew what connected safety was. Today, at CAD 100 million, we're one of the biggest players in the industry. So that, you know, that shifts that focus, and it really becomes much more business operational metrics that we're really looking at here. You know, again, that balanced top-line growth, balanced cost base. And we have some very significant new product introductions that are happening towards the end of the year. From a competitive standpoint, we don't want to get into real details there, but there's some interesting, new drivers that are really, you know... This year there's a focus not only on where are we going to wind up in 2024, but what's the trajectory into 2025.
Great. That's super helpful. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
The next question comes from Raj Sharma with B. Riley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my questions, and congratulations on your solid progress. I had a question on—just wanted to clarify the, in terms of the top-line growth. You expect top-line growth, for the year, in product and services, both in... If I understand correctly, your margins would likely keep rising on the product side, and there is some room in services as well, to peak in 25. So did I hear it correctly, that you think EBITDA profitability would be in second half only and about 5%-10% for the overall, or EBITDA margins, or in Q4 or in the second half? I want to understand that-
So really—
And I have—
Sure.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's Cody here. A couple things, some background there. Yes, we do expect margin expansion to continue. You know, there'll be some variability in that, depending on product mix, et cetera, on the hardware side. But there's, you know. But again, you know, peaking at that high end of the thirties, hitting, you know, really, in 2024, and then a little bit more movement up into 2025. Service will see a little bit more increase through the year. Again, there's some potential for flex, for variability in that, but really, as those price increases roll through, Sean's point on those multiyear contracts, that alone will help drive some of those numbers. When we're talking the EBITDA positive numbers of that, you know, 5%-10% range, that is Q4, not the year.
So we're looking at a positive year overall, but really, the real impacts you're going to see is, you know, as the company scales towards its traditionally stronger second half there.
Right. And thank you for that. And in terms of the infrastructure build and related OpEx, do you expect more increases, or is there more of a sales infrastructure to be built out in different parts, or are you pretty much done there?
Really, I mean, the you know the growth you're going to see, you know, there's some movement inside in different aspects, but, you know, there'll be inflationary growth across the board. And then from a sales and marketing standpoint, the drivers you're going to see are increased revenue drives an increased commission line. And, you know, there will be a point where we're starting to invest a little more into that as far as adding people down the line, but nothing, you know, nothing that's, you know, dramatic in any context.
Got it. And then geographically, I know, Canada and U.S. did really well. Europe was kind of flat. Do you expect, you know, growth in that area, or... And also, any specific industries that are kind of not experiencing this continued growth or, you know, are slowing down? I hear there's not much of a slowdown, but any specific areas you see that are less growth peak?
No, not right now. I'd say it's, you know, we see growth in a lot of the different markets that we serve. You know, one thing that we are focused on is when we have success in a vertical market in one region, we're getting better at taking that success and rolling it into that same vertical that's in a different region. There'll be changes in buying patterns. Like, for example, the, you know, we've been successful in the water business in Europe for a long time, but in North America, the business looks completely different in the water and wastewater processing. So, you know, we try to take the learnings into North America, but fundamentally, it's a very different business here. But we are seeing some new successes in natural gas transmission around the world.
So I think that'll become, you know, another really strong market for us. That's been strong in North America for a while, and we'll see that growth in the rest of the world. To the question about regional growth, you know, the United States had 89% growth. That's phenomenal growth over this past year. You know, Europe was a bit softer, but we also, you know, the sales team in Europe was a bit smaller, this past year than it was before. So you'll see some rebuilding of the sales team in Europe, and then that should drive, you know, strong growth again, over fiscal 2024.
Got it. And then the last question is on the G6. Can you talk about the contribution to the overall sales mix? You know, can you quantify that? Is that less than 5%, less than 2%? And then how are the margins panning out, and do you and also about the outlook for G6, could you quantify that possibly for the year?
Sure. Well, we don't give exact product breakdowns. As we said earlier, the G6, it took a lot longer to get this started rolling than what we thought. The launch of that Protect Plus and Protect versions of the G6 has started to get, you know, the revenues onto track, and as Sean mentioned, starting to see some of the, the real kinds of orders we want to see in that, the north of 1,000-unit orders. So this last year, phenomenal impact. In 2024, it will become one of the staple products for the company. So again, you know, its price points are, you know, a quarter of what G7 is. It's a, you know, fifteenth what an EXO is, so as a dollar contributor, it's always going to be light.
But the really nice thing about the G6 is it rounds out that customer base so that we're able to serve every aspect of that customer's gas detection needs. And, you know, again, that, that's where the G6 is going to be truly successful in 2024.
Great. Thank you for answering my questions, and I'll take it offline. Thanks.
The next question comes from Martin Toner with ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
My questions have all been answered. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Martin.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Cody Slater for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thanks, operator. Thanks, operator, and again, I would just like to thank everybody for their attention today and their support through the year. This has been a pretty, you know, fundamental year for the company, which has driven us into a position that makes us look very, very forward to 2024 and having an even more exciting call a year from now. Thank you very much, everyone.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.