Good morning, everyone. This is Natalie. I'm with ClearBlue Technologies, and I'd like to welcome everyone here today. Sorry for the technical difficulties we had, but we should be off and running now that we've got everything fixed. So I have today here with me, Miriam Turk, the Co Founder and CEO and our CFO Farooq, and they are going to be presenting today on the 2021 Q1 Financials.
Just a few housekeeping notes, please put any questions you have in the Q and A and we will address them at the end of the presentation. So now I'm going to turn it over to Miriam. Good morning, Miriam.
Good morning, everyone and welcome to our Q1 2021 earnings I'm joined by Farooq Anwar, who is our CFO for ClearBlue. Q1 is his 1st full quarter as our CFO as he joined us in December of last year. So I look forward to making a contribution to this presentation. Next slide. As always, I would please encourage everyone to remember that there is a forward looking Notice that we are trying to provide you with the best information that we can, but please take it with the appropriate A warning that things can change in the future as we've all learned with COVID.
And please use your own information and read the forward looking guidance. From an agenda perspective today, we are going to go over a overview of ClearBlue and provide you with a quick discussion of what our technology and our business is. Farooq, next slide please. Then we're going to go over the 2021 Q1 results. And after that, I will give a bit of an outlook, from that perspective.
Baruch, if you can go to the next slide on overview and then skip to what we do. So ClearBlue is a clean tech company that delivers clean, managed Wireless power anywhere, anytime. If you look at the telecommunications infrastructure and the telephone networks of the world 30 or 40 years ago, everything was cabled, connected together. And today we have evolved to a hybrid system where you have both wireless telecommunications and Wired telecommunications. The power infrastructure is where the telecom infrastructure was 4 years ago.
Most of the world's Power infrastructure is a wired connected to a single integrated electricity grid, and that no longer meets the needs of the world that we have today. The power infrastructure is going to evolve to one that is both wireless off grid as well as a wired on grid. And ClearBlue's business and vision and mandate is to focus on bringing technology and solutions and services that address that new and exploding growth wireless power infrastructure. So what it is that we do is we generate energy from Various power sources, solar or hybrid wind capability. We Take that energy, we put it into energy storage systems, which are batteries and technology, and then we power individual loads.
So in terms of upfront one time sales, we sell a one time power pack system and solution that provides an Higher mini electricity grid of energy generation, energy storage and load and distribution control. We then manage and operate that system and solution for our customers and we do that through our Cloud platform through communications, remote management and control. We do that anywhere around the world. And when you take our hardware technology solutions as well as our smart off grid management analytics data capabilities. We're able to deliver the lowest Total cost ownership solution both in one time uptime cost as well as ongoing solutions for our customers with the ability to deliver Such as modularity, paralyzation, sizing efficiencies.
So, where do we sell into? We sell into mission critical infrastructure. So we're not the solution for your sailboat in Georgian Bay. We're not the solution for a residential home infrastructure that you want to build off the grid. What we are focused on is Mission critical infrastructure such as telecom, street, smart city infrastructure, lighting, security, Plumbing, not plumbing, sorry, sewage, waste management, all of our industrial, commercial and government infrastructure that might benefit from, smart off grid wireless systems.
In order to meet that market, you have to deliver the brand promises that we focus on all Maximum uptime, longest life and easy to install and maintain. You have to build reliability into it. Even though the sun might shine or might not shine, it might be plus 35 Humidex one day and plus 3 Celsius the next day. No matter that you need good reliable uptime power. The way that we deliver that is through our differentiator.
We use data and analytics to provide energy forecasting and management. And we have sophisticated troubleshooting and remediation tools. Next slide, please. So sometimes I find it's a bit hard to visualize what does this mean. And so, I thought I would just give you a kind of a picture of what a Power system for a telecom tower might look like, when you're driving down the highway and you see a telecom tower and there's A small building or shack at the bottom of it.
When you go inside, what you will find is a bunch of analog manual devices with Physical relay switches, breakers, fuses, connections, a bunch of systems put together. And oftentimes if it's off grid, the only way to get A reliable system is to have a generator. So you have many systems using generators where you just keep adding gas to that system. Very manual, very maintenance intensive. It's okay when you have a small number of large sites because you can justify sending a technician there every week to make sure everything's good and having gas fuel top up to all of those sites.
But when you move to 1,000 and 1,000 and tens of 1,000, 100 of 1,000 of sites, what's on the left doesn't work anymore. You need to move something to something that is automated. It doesn't require any physical maintenance. And basically what it means is you're moving from the Analog world of the 1950s to the digital world of today. And so what you can see on the right hand side as an example of a ClearBlue smart off grid Solution that we might provide for telecom.
No generators, no gas, no relays, no switches, no breakers, no go reset The breaker because the dryer and the microwave were running at the same time. None of that happens. Everything is done from a remote management control And ClearBlue has because we focused on this market before anyone else did, we have the market leadership in this technology and solutions. And as a result of that and the growing market demand, we are strongly established as the market leader and, are looking forward to very strong growth in this market. Next slide, please.
So in terms of looking at some of the key applications and verticals, we right now today have 2 key physical verticals that we are focused on. 1 is in telecommunications. Telecommunications actually has its own sub verticals, But we are focused today on 2 gs, 3 gs, 4 gs rollout in rural and countryside applications where there is no connectivity today. And it might interest everyone to know that there are almost 4,000,000,000 people who are not connected well to the internet today. And so there is significant movement and investment being made in that market and we are the power provider.
So examples will be of our Uganda installation. We have a project that we're doing with Facebook and a company called Mayu in Peru. We have a lot of activity happening in Nigeria and there is an entire ecosystem of partners that we are working with in order to meet the need and provide the solution in this marketplace. Next slide, please. Our other vertical, is our street infrastructure vertical, using streetlights and Smart city infrastructure to light up various different applications.
And in the Telecom world, when we went from wired to wireless, the part of the world that was already wired like Europe or North America moved to wireless phones more slowly than the part of the world where there was no wired communications. And so we're seeing the same thing in street lighting. Our businesses, both in Europe and emerging markets like South Africa and the Middle East as well as in North America, but most of our bread and butter projects across North America. It's a fabulous suite of customers, people like New York and North Dakota Department of Transportation, a number of cities across North America. And right now we're doing projects like rural intersections, City areas where it might be very difficult to get power to a pole.
If you look at the second slide here, you can see a system in downtown Toronto. And the reason why they've gone off grid is because look at all the landscaping and the concrete and the tiles interlocking brick below, The cost to get power to that pole would have been prohibited where it's just putting an awkward system works very nicely. City of Hamilton, railway infrastructures and Next slide please. So just in summary, what it is that we deliver is we build and sell technology, power Off grid power systems. We use 3rd party solar panels and industry leading technology for Batteries in the case of lead acid, we use market batteries in the case of lithium.
We now have our own branded battery in order to meet this specific use case and need. The key to our technology is the brains of the system, the power electronics, the control and the software, which sits in our charge controller and our other power electronics device at the site, but then talk to the cloud. Through that, we then Parallel that one time sale with an ongoing service where we manage and operate every single system we install And what that means for our customer is they get maximum uptime, longest system life and easiest to install and manage. Next slide please. So just in conclusion, a big part of our business is energy as a service.
We manage and operate the power and systems for our customers on an ongoing basis that delivers significant value to our customers and assures them that they will have the experts behind the technology managing and operating their systems as well as a build a recurring revenue service model for ClearBlue, which we consider to be significantly valuable. Next slide, please. We're now going to turn to our 2021 results. And at this point, we're going to move on to the next slide, please, Farooq, and I'm going to turn it over to Farooq, who's going to give you an update on our financials.
Good morning, everyone. So Q1 quarterly revenues were 3,459,000 to a 1352 percent increase over Q1 2020 and a quarterly revenue record for Q1 of the year. Trailing 4 quarter revenue was a record 7,244,647 for the company in 2021, Which is a 87% increase over the previous trailing 4 quarter period, a significant growth resulting from higher sales in the African market, fueled by the growth in the telecom sector. So if you move on to the next slide where we're talking about our annual sector and regional results. So for trading Q4 of 2021, the lightning vertical posted a 41% decline year over year, But as a result of the launch of our Energy as a Service business, wherein we see significant growth in our recurring revenue offset somewhat by declining over time to declining one time revenue.
For the trailing Q4 2021, our telecom sector vertical posted a 4 14% Increase compared to 2020. As you're aware, 2020 was impacted by COVID, which caused the office closure last year and also a delay in large contracts. Starting in Q4 of 2020 and continuing in the recent quarter, 3 of our key accounts began their large rollout programs. As you will have seen from our guidance, we see telecom projects often going through POC, then first installs, and then large rollouts. So fiscal 2020, so increased POC and first installs activity, Which has now been followed by more substantial orders.
Geographically, the Canada and Middle East Africa markets Grew 84% and 237%, respectively, driven by both telecom and lightning projects. The U. S. Market actually experienced Strong sales growth in the trailing Q4 of 2021 over 2020. However, due to the change to the EAS, Which is our energy as a service recurring revenue model.
The one time in year revenue was lower than in 2020. So in terms of our bookings, Miriam, do you want to walk through our booking slide?
Thanks, Farooq. So in 2020, we began reporting our bookings at the end of each quarter to provide us as much information as to Cantu shareholders in the investment market. We define bookings as all future Olumiant and Energy as a Service deferred revenue that's been pre purchased and all contracted by customers as well as committed order contracts where projects and customers where we have Purchase orders, contracts and or deposits and of course, which do not include the revenues that we have. So if something comes in quarter and we ship in the quarter, then it won't show up in bookings because it's At the end of each quarter, we will be reporting these numbers to give you some guidance on what's happened to you in the future. As at March 31, 2021, our bookings were almost $2,400,000 as can be seen in the table here.
The amount of revenue that is in 2021 and the remaining of the year is another $1,200,000 and the remaining is in 2022 and beyond. Recurring revenue assists us in providing Leadership in the marketplace, it is the basis upon which we are able to maintain our market leadership, our technology leadership and it builds strong from a loyalty and differentiation in the market. It's key for mission critical applications, which is the market we're going after and one of the reasons why we're getting significant success in the market. Over to you, Farooq.
So as you know, ClearBlue's ongoing management service is a key differentiator and value creator. The company has been building the service and launched its premium energy as a service at the end of q2 2019. As the graph indicates, notwithstanding the downswing due to COVID in Q2 of 2020, our recurring revenue is growing significantly. Because every system is sold with ongoing illuminance monitoring and management, ClearBlue has the most expense Extensive data collection of production systems in the world with over 5,400,000 operating days of site production data, Allowing the company to build even smarter and higher performing products and services. Recently, we passed a key milestone of 10,000,000,000 transactions Processed between our production power sites and our cloud management platform.
This data and the knowledge and expertise behind it is what gives ClearBlue its market leadership position. So in terms of our gross profit, Our gross margin was 22% of sales for the quarter, down from a gross margin of 32% in the same period of 2020, But it was mainly resulting from a strategic one time deal to support a major customer in their first rollout in Africa. ClearBlue provided certain Towers and Fences along with its core product in the current quarter. Excluding this one time deal, the gross margin percentage of the company actually remained relatively at 30% for the quarter. Trailing 4th quarter gross margin increased to 27% of sales, up from a gross margin of 22% in 2020.
This achievement is a result of significant efforts by the company in R and D to prepare for its to Prepare for it to scale its manufacturing and supply chain, all of which will support our plans to increase our gross margins. So in terms of our operating expenses, so management of operating expenses has been a key focus of the company through this period. Quarterly operating expenses decreased by 239,000, basically around 240,000 to 1,000,000,246 for the 3 month period ended March 31, 2020 versus 1,264,337 for the 3 months 3 month period ended March 31, 2020. Operating expenses for the trailing 4th quarter ended March 31, 2021 were $4,389,751, a decrease of around $1,026,854 or 19% compared to the same period ending Q1 2020. This reduction was mainly due to government COVID-nineteen funding support of around 995,816 And lower bad debts written off by around $146,044 for the trailing 4 quarter ended March 31, 2021.
So our adjusted EBITDA, so beginning in 2020, the company is now reporting on adjusted EBITDA, which is a non IFRS metric. For Q1 2021, adjusted EBITDA was negative $416,969 versus 903,420 for the comparative period in 2020. We choose to keep the government subsidies out of the adjusted EBITDA calculation because it is a unique one time event. So ClearBlue's non IFRS adjusted EBITDA for the trailing Q4 of 2020 was a negative 3,000,000,000 100 and 3,830 as compared to the respective comparative of 3,673,380. So that was our financial result for Q1.
Miriam, do you want to take over from the next slide?
So, yes, So in summary, I think we had a fantastic Q1 and that followed it was our best quarter ever and it follows a Strong Q4 of 2020. We are now doing we did in Q1, 3 large rollout projects for 3 different customers shipped in the quarter, and each of those rollout customers to have plans for follow on. It's part of an ongoing program that's a multiyear program. So, we saw strong growth in one time revenue. We saw strong growth in recurring revenue.
We kept our margins in a pretty good shift of situation. On the market side, we were very thrilled to be named the top performer on the TSXB over 2020. So we were named 1 of the top 50. We also began trading on the OTCQB in the States during the quarter. And from a company perspective, we're continuing to focus on Managing operating expenses, growing our margins and delivering strong value for customers and shareholders.
I'm now going to spend next slide, please. I'm now going to spend a bit of time talking about, where we're going from here. I think you've started to hear us talk about the fact that we are the market leader. Next slide, please. And we did that with some very strong Reflection and caution before we started to talk about that.
And it really comes from this slide. 37 countries, more than 400 customers, good coverage across the United States, multiple countries in Africa, More than 7,000 units deployed and significant amount of data. And so from that perspective, we have a strong platform to grow from. And we see ourselves growing stronger and stronger in terms of enhancing our penetration in the North American marketplace and in the global marketplace from a smart city and African lighting market. Our telecom sector is Really started to move now.
We still have new POCs and 1st installs coming of course to build the funnel for future growth. But the key partnerships The initial projects are all transitioning to large scale rollout and we have multiple partners who are doing multiple project rollouts. And we have proven to them and established to them that we are a key partner in what they're trying to So we're very excited about that. Our energy service is growing strongly in North America. Allumiance is offered across the world energy as a service, which is a more comprehensive step up.
So think of it like the basic plan versus the Premium plan in terms of recurring revenue managed services. We rolled out Energy as a Service in North America, a year and a half ago, And it is our plan to begin offering energy as a service in the telecom African marketplace later this year. So it's a key driver for our growth. Next slide, please. In terms of the streetlight business, I think you all understand that there is a strong focus on spending for clean infrastructure.
It's Top of mind with many governments. You could see investment and focus moving away from traditional old school energy sources such as oil and towards new cleantech infrastructure. This is happening both in Canada and the U. S. And so for that reason, we're seeing strong growth in the marketplace.
When you look at some of the announcements, Conrail not Conrail, my apologies, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and Heidi partnership across the Midwest. You can see us being mainstream from our perspective. We love doing parks. We like doing Pathways. It's a wonderful, nice area to do, but the key As the market moves to mission critical infrastructure, that's part of security, safety for streets, highways, roadways, Rural country intersections, those are exciting advancements for us.
Energy as a service has been well received in the marketplace and it's Having a big potential impact on the value and the growth of our business and our goal to market strategy in this area is really to work on partnership Strategies and that is proving successful for us. It helps our local agents. It gives us local content, local people on the ground who could work with the local governments and businesses to plan rollouts. Next slide please. As a result of our business in Africa, we have actually opened an office in Kenya and I thought you might like to see the team and the office there.
We have a technology people, service people and now also sales people in Africa and the level of to continue. We are planning on expanding into the Latin American marketplace more strongly later this year, and that is on our to do list. From a telephone perspective, it is a complex ecosystem of many players. You have different backhaul operators, you Different cell phone radio providers, they then turn into tower operators who supply with solutions to the large tier 1 providers. So oftentimes you'll hear me talk about people like IHS or their new or new ran Parallel Wireless, they are all supporting customers like you will have heard of, like MCN's largest Mobile Telecom Operator in Africa, Orange, which is a large global player, Vodafone, Vodafone, Vodacom, 9 Mobile, etcetera, etcetera.
So we are establishing ourselves in partnerships, in projects, in references and in relationships across this entire stack in the marketplace to get ourselves well integrated with people. Next slide, please. So why has ClearBlue been the winner in this new wave? What is it about us that is allowing us to help these customers do what they need to do. And the answer is really the word Smart in our smart off grid.
And so everybody likes smart, everybody likes beautiful intelligent things, but what does it mean from a business perspective? When you look at our customers, what it means from a business perspective is if they look at their business case, which has a high upfront CapEx and then an ongoing operating expense. And oftentimes these customers are doing a risk model where They're launching, they're basically getting a franchise of that area of operation and it depends how much revenue they're going to get. So they might have great Also, they might not have been success. When they go with ClearBlue, the upfront CapEx is the lowest in the marketplace.
And when they go with ClearBlue, the ongoing OpEx is the lowest in the marketplace. So because of our lights out operation And because we have the data analytics for energy and weather, you can size the system smaller. It's not just reducing margin or cutting the profit. It's all about reducing the amount of solar panels and batteries you have to buy in order to meet a business need. And so we use our predictive analytics, all of the information we have in the field in order to be able to deliver that value proposition.
And that's what makes it so compelling and what makes us have the success that we have. So the M and D investment and the data analytics And the operational business model, all of that put together is what basically drops right to the bottom line dollars and values to the customers in the business that We put that together with a very strong customer and partner oriented culture. I once, about A month ago, we kind of date and we get married and with a customer, so they lower some equipment, everything's raised in the sales process and then you start implementing and sometimes it So I was talking to a customer a month or 2 ago and I said, what is it we need to do better? And his answer was Just keep being the ClearBlue that you have been to date. And that was after we had already done installation and systems up and running.
So it's really in the culture and the mandate and mission of this company to think about running things and not just shipping hardware. Next slide please. So we are the market leader. We have a technology leadership position and that is a big note. The number of days, the amount of data, the number of transactions and the ability to take that data and allow us to improve Our solutions for customers and meet the needs of their business case.
There's a huge market that's now moving, and you can see Everyone in the market, whether it's public sector, private sector, large players like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Starlink, Tesla, Or governments, regulatory bodies, governments are now saying you want a license to operate in my market, you're going to provide world connectivity and internet connectivity and new technologies such as the next generation of satellite Wi Fi that's coming. We've got the 1st mover advantage. We've established the leadership in the marketplace. We've proven it to people and in that entire ecosystem, Consultants, the contractors, the project managers, the entire stack top to bottom are seeing them and sharing that information for each other. And now that we're moving into the larger contract rollouts, making sure that the experience The same with the large rollout as they have had with the first installs and the pilots is a key part of the focus of what we're working on today in the company from a go forward perspective.
Next slide, please. So for 2020, what is the outlook? As we continue to build out our R and D, we're going wide and deep in the rural rollouts. Number 1 job 1 this year is that at the end of this year, When those large rollouts are up and running in the field, the customers feel the same way then as they do today. That is our top priority in the company beyond anything else.
And we're continuing to do that through service, through team, and through everything we're doing, but we're also making sure that we do that within our technology platform to deliver that. By the way, as we deliver that increased value, to deliver that. By the way, as we deliver that increased value for the customer, it allows us to also increase our margins for ClearBlue to pay back all of that R and D investment that we have done into the company. So using that base, we are focusing on We're ensuring the success of the large rollouts. We're expanding our presence with new partners in new geographies.
We're going to develop the next Two pillars of telecom growth, satellite Wi Fi is something that we are involved with. We are doing projects today, And they're at the early stage and we hope in the future to be able to announce some larger partnership. And then of course, after that, we start to move into 5 gs And, maintaining our leadership position across everything we do is what we see happening in 2021. Next slide, please. So in summary, management is not Sitting back on our deals, assuming that everything is all good to go, but we feel confident and strong in that we are poised and positioned for We're not taking it to granted.
We are all over it for success, but our sales funnel and backlog is quite strong with building. We're growing our partner network and solidifying it. Our technology is proving out its strong leadership in the market. Our service model is a huge asset and differentiator, and our team. I do want to shout out to the team because people say, well, why is data so important?
Data and That is behind it. And so as this company has grown with our Kenya team and our growth in our sales, our Our solutions, our operations, our production, and our technology team. I'd love to list 50 people and I started last night with naming a few names, you know who you are in ClearBlue, but They are running the things. They are making sure things are working well. We have a very diverse team, as you know, And they are the ones that are making it happen.
And I love to hear from customers when they say, we're so happy with your service team or this project implementation or this So I can't say enough about the team that we have built in the company, and I'm honored to be able to present and share with you today the results that they have achieved. Next slide, please. One last thing. You all know, you've heard me speak before, teams, companies are built by communities. And so when I say teams, I also So, me, our shareholders, our investors, our investment bankers, our financial partners, all of you have helped to make it And a big part of that is when you ask us questions.
So we're going to open it up to questions now, and ask you to Natalie will curate the questions. If your question doesn't get answered, we try to answer them all, but we don't want to take up too much people's time. Please don't ever hesitate to reach out to me. I do try to respond as soon as I can. If I can't respond sometimes, it's because I have to be quiet about certain things, that I do enjoy very much engaging with shareholders and investors and institutional investors.
So, Natalie, do we have any questions for Farooq and I?
We do. Yes. And I'll just ask that you try and speak up a little bit, Miriam. It's getting a little bit fuzzy, on the audio there. So if you could just
Try and
speak up a bit more. That should help a little bit. So
I will do that, but that's not ever happened in my lifetime where I have to speak louder. So I will speak louder. Go ahead.
Okay. So the first couple of questions, are regarding EBITDA. So in response to your statement on the last earnings report for Q4 of 2020. You had said that you thought that ClearBlue would be EBITDA positive for this Q1 of 2021, but it looks like we've got a bit of a ways to go there. So have things not gone as planned?
Could you elaborate?
Very good question. I think that, things have changed a little bit in that respect. And I think it's really about the growth that we see coming beyond Q1. We hired 2 additional sales people. We hired a production manager.
We expanded our finance And we expanded our service team. And so as we did our 2021 budgeting and planning, preparation for Scaling and being able to respond, I hope one of the next growth will be what's your capacity for shipments and delivery. Are you going You can't shift more than ship as much as what customers are asking for. That is definitely Something that when we looked at it, we said we want to on the side of the right resources to make sure we're planning for ahead. And we do see the great potential for additional orders to come and making sure we're ready for it.
So we adjusted our operational model with a bit of additional expense And with focus along that area, we are also increased our R and D a little bit for some new market opportunities that we have that we hope to talk to you about later And so, we really when balancing the long term view of where this company is going to go and the potential to take us order of magnitude and then order of magnitude above that. We judged that it was better to make sure that we weren't overly lean in what we were doing. And that resulted in a little bit of pressure. I will also comment and if you look at the MD and A, As you know, our target margins are in the mid-30s and it was a bit lower than we had expected. Part of that was due to the one time order.
But within that order and across everything we see, you will have seen that Steel costs went up 48%, solar panel costs have gone up 30%, lithium costs have doubled inside. So when you're talking about, for example, everybody's talking about what it costs to go and buy a piece of 2 by 4 of plywood, We are seeing significant market pressures across the board and both in our supply chain procurement that's requiring extra work to make We have alternative sources that we're sourcing it where we need to source it, but also in our shipping logistics, getting things there in time. When things like we couldn't find containers across my desk, we are making sure that that doesn't have an impact on our top line for the year or an impact on our customers and that also had some pressure on margin. I will comment that Guidance from the market tells us and history tells us if you go back to 2,008 that this upward blip that we're seeing right now It's not something that will be permanent. There's lots of discussion about how fast it will come back down again.
And we do have the ability to Pricing then over a longer period of time, but you will see quarter to quarter. So I think the 2 main impacts to Q1 EBITDA, a decision to make sure we're doing the right things for future growth and recognizing bottom up that that needed a little bit more Investing in growth from a sales perspective and team capacity perspective and then also some pressure and Shipping costs are going out the window compared to what was even forecasted a week before. People are calling us and saying, I can't meet your price. I just You need to be able to let me say, take that ship and you have to pay whatever comes. And so some of that is occurring, but we don't see it as a long term indicator of lower margins and we do think that we will get there.
Great, thank you. Just to follow-up on that, do you have an expectation of when you will become EBITDA positive?
The short answer is, no. We're not providing guidance on when we will become EBITDA positive. Certainly, improving it is an ongoing management metric and focus. And if you look at the trajectory over the last Here, you will have seen that we have improved this significantly. So we've proven that we have the ability to build a business that's Profitable at good margins.
We've proven the ability to as we scale, we can we're not linearly scaling our At the same time as we're doing our revenue, so you're seeing significant increases in revenue without significant increases in operating expense. But I'm not able to provide forward guidance on that perspective. There's a lot of uncertainties, and I don't think as the size that we're at with the lumpiness that we have, All I can say is our plan to continue to improve it and get EBITDA part of it as soon as we can be.
Okay. Following on that, it's probably a similar answer. We have, one, that would like to Congratulate us on our strong revenue growth, but wants to know if we expect the average revenue growth and what we expect that to be over the next 1 to 3 years. So I would assume it's probably a similar answer.
Yes. I mean, look, the reason why we give you trailing 4 quarters forecast is because we want you to look at the long term trajectory growth. We still have a lumpy business. I can tell you based upon where we are today that Q2 won't be as good as Q1. And but and if you look at our historical quarters, you could see very small quarters and very big quarters.
And so But in terms of the trajectory, we do see strong growth. We do see that our sales funnel is growing and we do plan on adding the hockey stick continued to go upwards as it has over the last two quarters.
Okay. Thank you. A couple of questions here now on our global sales. Do you have a breakdown for each vertical segment by geographic region. They'd like to know why the U.
S. Revenues went down.
Basically, the US revenues didn't actually go down. It was because of our energy as a service. Our our US Revenue is basically more of lenience. And as I said in the in the meeting, it looks like our Our revenue has gone down, but it's a one time it's basically a one time revenue that's been now spread over the future as energy as a service. So Over the future, we're going to get more revenue, and that's why it appears that the one time revenue has gone down.
Okay. Thank you. We have another question about who our customer is in Russia. Looks like we're having a little bit of Technical issue with Miriam, are you back with
us?
And maybe Farooq can jump in for these. What is your midterm operating margin on more normalized basis in the next 2 to 3 years?
So we have as you can see that our margins are pretty steady. Excluding this one time deal, our margins are around 31%. So we would continue to focus and try to have our margin on the same level. And so I would say a little bit north of 30%.
Great. Thank you. Do you have any debt on your balance sheet?
We do. So our main debt is our long term debt from Finance institution, and then we've got some convertible debentures. We recently paid our Short term debt, so we had a short term debt of around $1,000,000 which we paid off. We've got around $2,400,000 of long term debt and around You know, dollars 600,000 worth of convertible debentures.
Thank you, Farooq. I'm back again, all of you. Great. So one more question on the financial side. Was the quarter very back end loaded?
When do you expect to be collecting your outstanding accounts receivables?
Yes, it was. So our main customer That that we shipped our, you know, our our goods to to Africa and it was it was around end of March. And then but most of those are, as you can look into our MD and A, those receivables are backed by LCs. And so those are basically based on Presentation of documents. We received some of the money and then the rest is based on, you know, x days of of bill of lading and y days of bill of lading.
So We would expect to receive all of our receivables soon and within this month, I think or early next month. It just depends on what the time frame is from the date of the bill of lading. But it was yes, it was You know, that the sales were right near the end of March. The shipment happened right near the end of March.
Okay. Thank you. So switching back to some of our global sales. So Mary, we had a question about who the customer is in Russia.
The customer in Russia is an illumiant lighting system. It's just a small Project we did in Russia, in Moscow, but it's a Lumiate Lighting project.
Okay. Thank you. And one more question here. Do you have a South American sales office?
We do not today. We expect to have one established in the next few months.
Perfect.
So that's all the questions that, I'm seeing so far. So, I think with that, Miriam, I'll let you tie things up for today. Actually, hold on. It looks, We have one more question, and it says, do you provide guidance for 2021?
The guidance that we provide is the bookings and we've also talked about number of pilots And first installs, for telecom that was previously announced in, I think, the last presentation. So the type of guidance we're providing is, Is where we've got solid numbers to share with in terms of true full guidance like large corporations, we're still too small as an organization without enough trend history and predictive capabilities to provide solid guidance. It's Early stage and we do expect revenues to be lumpy on a go forward basis. That is normal.
Okay. Actually, it looks like we've got a few more coming in here. So with one more question here, how is the COVID situation going with regards to the business.
So in terms of impact to ClearBlue, we've had We have very strong practices in place. We haven't had any outbreaks or any shutdowns as a result. Most of our employees work remotely to keep the number of people in the office very, very small. And by that, I mean almost always less than 10. We've had, I think, 3 or 4 employees who've gotten it, but not in the office and was able to keep it out of the office.
We have had a couple of employees who've had some very traumatic deaths. We had 2 employees who both had lost their mother and their father within a few weeks. So I think it's touching everyone. Where we do see it is supply chain parts reliability. We are now having to plan out rather than planning Parts and volume forecasting, you know, 2, 3, 4, 5 months out, with only a handful of long lead time items.
We now have to plan everything out 12 months. It's changing on a daily basis and getting shipping things, is also a big challenge for us. So from an operational perspective, there's lots of logistical challenges, both downstream in terms of supply chain and upstream in terms of getting things to our customers.
Okay. Following on that, are you seeing any inflationary pressures in your supply chain?
Absolutely. As I mentioned, for example, steel prices have gone up by over 50% in the last few months. Solar panel prices have gone up since the beginning of the year and are forecast to increase. The price of lithium has gone up significantly. Now, not all of that is hitting us, because, we have relationships and volume procurements and volume purchasing.
And so it's not impacting us in a huge extent right now. As we go forward, it will either Price itself into agreements over time, and we do have provisions in some contracts. We try to cover ourselves in terms of, you know, if there's a big market change in a certain cost Our commodity like lithium, then we have to pass that on to our customer. But there has definitely been significant Increases in that area. It is a risk.
Right now, it's a managed risk. Right now, it's under control, but it is a risk that we have highlighted. Okay.
2 related questions to that are, Are you able to pass the cost pressures to customers and specifically what does the supply chain look like for microprocessors?
So, we do make sure that we have the ability, Either the contract is ending or there's price quoting per deal or whatever, or if it's The longer term price formula that we have an ability to adjust and vary things as prices go up and down, etcetera, etcetera. In terms of microprocessors, we're okay right now. The big challenge that we have is that the U. S. Has announced They are going to be turning off all 3 gs in the United States next year, by April 1 And we have to move to 4 gs Processors and you can't get them anywhere in the marketplace.
They're 6 to 8 months delayed. So, we do have some pressures in that respect, but, we're developing, the implications are that we're developing alternative sources. And so it might require our R and D time to do a port from 1 cell modem to another cell modem for no other reason than supply chain reasons. And so those types of things we're trying to avoid, but right now as I said, it is being managed and we're okay.
Thank you. What's the typical conversion rate from proof of concept to commitment?
So I want to mention a proof of concept is not a let's Prove out that the ClearBlue power system will work. What it is, it's a proof of concept that the telecom network Design will perform at a certain level in a certain configuration and can be integrated into the telecom network. So it's a telecom proof of concept supported by the power. It's not really a test of our technology. Sometimes those projects move forward quickly and sometimes they don't, move forward quickly and sometimes we win versus we don't to win the deal.
I would say if we're doing a proof of concept, We're not losing the business because we lost in the competitive tender. What's happening is, the movement from Proof of concept to 1st install, and from 1st install to large rollout isn't happening or isn't happening as quickly. And most of the time, it relates to their inability to get funding. And so, we've had, Last year at the beginning of the year, I forecasted potentially 5 customers that were going to move forward with MTN Roll out, we knew that all 5 wouldn't roll out. We didn't assume they'd all 5 happen.
3 of them have Move forward, 2 of them are still flopping around trying to get going, and the jury is out whether they will happen or not. So, I think we see probably 50% conversion rate from a first and POC first install to That would be probably what I would say. Some of them we know about, so It's just a phase. We've got a contract where the customer signed a contract for a large rollout. They're just going through the Technology steps of POC first install, and we know those.
So we take that into consideration in our, sales funnel forecasting.
Great. Thank you. Another question here on how the Africa Business Office is going. And, a question about, is Newrans Sales in every contract, I'm not totally sure what that what that means. So if you could talk about how the Africa business is going.
Yeah. And I think I can answer the new one. I know what the question. I think I know what the question is. So, for Africa, Things are going very well.
We are thinking in 7 or 8 countries. We've shipped to Benin and Anna and Cameroon and Nigeria and DRC and Uganda And, Zambia and South Africa and South Sudan, like you can see the list is Egypt, the list is getting longer and longer, all at various different stages. So Africa is moving and it's moving very well. As I said, some faster, some slower, but it's coming nicely, and we see multiple partners moving at the same time. So it's not just one customer or one contract.
In terms of Newran, we had previously announced a Cameroon deal with them. I think they've since announced that that deal is bigger than they had originally announced. We have the contract for Cameroon with NewRehn. They went to competitive tender on the DRC project, I believe, as a result of some whatever reasons, which was fair and fine, and we are working through that process with them, and hopeful that we will be the selected vendor. It's never done, so it's done, but we're going through that competitive RFP process with them.
And once we have news, we will let you know.
Okay, thank you. I think you actually answered another question in that one as well. What Is the amount of business that is in the pipeline and contracted backlog?
So that was in our deck from a backlog perspective. So we have a total of 2 $400,000, $2,341,000 worth of bookings which includes just under a $1,000,000 of Alumiant Energy as a Service deferred revenue And another $1,400,000 worth of purchase orders contracted business. Of that, dollars 1,200,000 will be delivered in 2021 through the remaining 3 quarters, Q2, Q3 and Q4, and 1,100,000 is for next year and beyond.
Okay. Thank you. So the last one we've got here, is why are the contracts so cyclical?
Capital budgets and construction years. So North American Olumiant, For example, is very cyclical. It's 0 in Q1, 1 or 2 small ones in Q2 and most of it is August, September, October, November delivery and installation. When they do a construction project for a roadway, the last thing that gets installed is the streetlights. And so we regularly see, the only time we have revenue in Q1 is when it's kind of left over from Q4 and it's just a little bit late.
Also, most people have budget years from January 1 to December 31st and even though they have a budget for next year, It doesn't get confirmed until the beginning of the budgeting year and then the procurement purchase order comes. So, it's very regular from that perspective. In the telecom sector, we see a little bit of the same thing because they make annual commitments and then they start their planning in January and then they make their orders. And so the timelines are always a little bit lumpy in terms of which quarter the most. We traditionally see Q3, Q4 being our biggest quarters.
And so Q1 was a bit of an anomaly from that perspective. It was a huge quarter for us, and We hope that as we go global and as we get more long term multi phase contracts that that will flatten out and average out, but it is the nature of the beast. No one wants to install a street pole in North Dakota in February.
Thank you very much, Miriam. I'm not seeing any other questions come in. So it looks like we've answered most of the questions for today, but again, we do, We've got one more here. Let me just grab this one. But again, if,
I
think we'll maybe take this one as the last one, because we're a little bit over time. And then, if you do have any additional questions, we'd be happy to follow-up with you by email. Sales in the US are illuminant with the EAS model, and they've grown every year. But in 2019, dollars 100 sales was a one time
I think that's my response to Rick.
That's me answering it So To Rick,
so we're good. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for everyone's participation and attention and interest on this Call, I believe we'll be putting it on the website as a recording for you to share with any other investors who might be interested. Natalie, I'm going to turn it over to you to say goodbye. Thank you so much.
Okay. Yes. Thank you, everyone. And, we should have
this recording posted momentarily.
And, we really appreciate you joining us today and look forward to more updates as we move forward. Thank you. Goodbye.