Thank you and welcome to the Boxlight third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. By now, everyone should have access to the press release issued this afternoon. This call is being webcast and is available for replay. The remarks today will include statements that are considered forward-looking within the meaning of securities laws, including forward-looking statements about future results of operations, business strategies and plans, customer relationships, market trends, and potential growth opportunities. In addition, management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations as of today and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and may cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. A detailed discussion of such risks and uncertainties are contained in the company's most recent Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and other reports filed with the SEC.
The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. On this call, management will refer to non-GAAP measures that, when used in combination with GAAP results, provide additional analytical tools to understand the company's operations. The company has provided reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in the earnings press release, which will be posted on the investor relations section of the company's website at investors.boxlight.com. With that, I'll hand the call over to Boxlight Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Pope.
Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining. The third quarter was yet another tremendous result. We again exceeded our guidance and delivered our strongest quarter to date with $61 million in revenue, $7 million in adjusted EBITDA, and for the first time as a company, positive net income and positive earnings per share. For five consecutive quarters, we have now reported both above-market revenue growth and positive adjusted EBITDA. For the trailing twelve months ended Q3, we reported $214 million in orders, $173 million in revenue, and $15 million in adjusted EBITDA. We concluded the third quarter with an improved balance sheet, including $32 million in working capital and $55 million in net assets.
We continue to see double-digit growth globally and expect to deliver $40 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, representing 26% growth over the same quarter last year. For the full year 2022, we are forecasting $230 million in revenue, representing approximately 27% growth over our 2021 guidance and greater than 10% adjusted EBITDA. Expect to augment our growth through strategic acquisitions that are accretive to both our enterprise value and profitability. Just last week, we announced plans to acquire FrontRow, a leader in classroom and campus communication solutions for the education market. The acquisition is expected to close by November 30 but will be effective as of October 31. Headquartered in Petaluma, California, FrontRow provides solutions for classroom audio, campus communication, emergency communication, and audio visual control. The company's product suite includes the Juno all-in-one line array tower.
The company's product suite includes the Juno all-in-one line array tower with teacher and student microphones, installed distributed audio solutions, and IT-based campus communication, including bells, paging, and intercom. The company was founded in 1963 and has sold solutions into over 25 countries, including 9,600 school districts in the United States. Jens Holstebro, CEO at FrontRow, will accept the position of Senior Vice President of Audio Solutions at Boxlight and manage Boxlight's audio strategy going forward. Today, the company has 44 employees, of which 17 are sales representatives located in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia. On an unaudited basis for the trailing twelve months ended October 31, FrontRow generated approximately $25 million in sales, greater than 50% gross profit, and $6 million in EBITDA.
We identified classroom and campus audio as our top growth opportunity outside of displays late last year, and we actively pursued FrontRow with its standout solutions. We look forward to fully integrating the FrontRow products into our Boxlight ecosystem. We also expect to substantially increase demand for the FrontRow solutions as we leverage our global sales team and reseller channel. During the third quarter, we published another nine case studies, bringing the total to 39 customer success stories since the beginning of the year. You can read the case studies by visiting both boxlight.com and clevertouch.com or by following Boxlight, Clevertouch, and Mimio on the various social media platforms. The case studies cover implementation of our broad solutions, including interactive displays, digital signage solutions, STEM education, and professional development services.
The examples also cover both the education and enterprise markets and are evidence of our commitment to be a trusted partner to our customers, providing and supporting our solutions in varying environments. In July, we released our updated STEM guide reflecting our robust portfolio of STEM solutions, including standards-aligned lessons and activities, 3D printers, robotics and coding, and sensor technologies. Our STEM offering provides turnkey solutions with teacher training by our STEM subject matter experts. In August, EOS Education, our professional development division, earned recognition as a Google for Education service partner with the Google Cloud Partner Advantage program. This allows us to offer educators customized professional development and support specific to Google Workspace for Education and Google Cloud functions.
By earning this upgrade, we are recognized as a Google Cloud partner with an education partner enterprise designation, further broadening our service market to provide professional development and training to organizations outside the U.S. We continue to receive industry recognition for our innovation and cutting-edge solutions. In August, we were winners of Tech & Learning's 2021 Best Tools for Back to School for both primary and secondary levels for four of our solutions. Our MimioConnect blended learning platform, ProColor interactive displays, Robo 3D printer, and MyStemKits platform bundle, and professional development by EOS Education. Earlier this month, we were recognized for two Tech & Learning awards at this year's InfoComm, the largest pro AV event in North America. Our Clevertouch IMPACT Plus interactive touchscreen and CleverLive content management platform were both recognized as Best in Show winners.
We also recently expanded our partnership with Samsung to offer our Samsung Boxlight Chromebook Class Collection, a state-of-the-art one-to-one technology solution. The collection combines the best-in-class technology Samsung Chromebook with our MimioView document camera, MimioConnect blended learning platform, and Boxlight professional development content. Lastly, I'd like to take a moment to recognize our amazing leadership team and talented and diligent employees. Our success as a company is a direct result of our ability to hire and retain tremendous talent. As a growing company, we are conscientious about nurturing a positive, collaborative, and supportive culture where every member of our team is enabled and motivated to contribute to our collective mission. Our recent company-wide survey confirmed that 96% of our employees enjoy working with each other and feel that they receive the support they need from their managers.
We will continue to foster a positive and winning culture which will propel us to our goal to lead the industry. With that, I will now turn the call over to our President, Mark Starkey, to provide additional insights.
Thank you, Michael. Q3 was another quarter of rapid growth for Boxlight, and I want to take this opportunity to thank our employees, our customers, and our investors as this performance would not have been possible without their continued support. As Michael stated earlier, we booked $51 million of orders in Q3. That represents 756% growth in order intake year-over-year. If we include Sahara in the pro forma numbers for last year, then the organic growth rate in orders for Q3 is impressive at 55%. The growth in order intake reflects the huge market opportunity that we see in both education and corporate sectors. The value of orders booked for the first nine months of this year is $179 million, compared with $20 million booked in the first nine months of the previous year.
That represents nearly a nine-fold year-on-year increase in orders booked. We are now forecasting order intake in excess of $210 million for this financial year, and we will enter the FY 2022 with a healthy backlog. Our largest customer in Q3 in terms of order intake was ASI in Australia, with $6.7 million of orders received. Our growth in Australia has been very significant, with our partner ASI being recognized as the fastest-growing private company and taking us to the number one market share position over the past 18 months. In the U.S., our partner network continues to grow with over 350 active partners.
We received $3.1 million of orders from our U.S. distribution partner, D&H, and a further $2.1 million of orders from Trox to highlight some of the U.S. orders that we received during Q3. In Spain, we received $2.9 million of orders from our partner, Charmex Internacional. In Northern Ireland, we received $1.7 million of orders from our partner, Niavac. In Denmark, we received $1.6 million of orders from Unit.DK. In Finland, we received $1.3 million of orders from EET Europarts. In the U.K., where we have over 600 active partners, we received $1.2 million of orders from IDNS and just over $1 million of orders from Roche Audio Visual to highlight a few of our key customers.
The U.S. and the U.K. both accounted for 27% of our orders booked during Q3, with EMEA, excluding the U.K., accounting for 32% and the rest of the world 14%. In Q3, 81% of our revenues came from sales of interactive flat panels, both ProColor and Clevertouch. Our overall global market share of IFPDs, excluding China, increased from 6.1% to 7.1%, according to the latest report from Futuresource. We remain in the top two IFPD providers in the U.K. with 15.2% market share and are confident that we will become the market leader very soon.
Our biggest opportunity for significant growth remains in the U.S., where we are ranked number 5 with 8.6% market share. It should be noted that our growth in the U.S. has seen our market share nearly double from 4.6% to 8.6% over the past 12 months. In terms of market size, the U.S. market for IFPDs is estimated to be worth $1.8 billion in 2021, growing to $2.2 billion in 2022 according to Futuresource. The market in EMEA is slightly smaller at $1.5 billion, growing to $1.7 billion by 2022. Overall, this gives us an addressable IFPD market of about $3.3 billion in 2021, growing to about $3.9 billion in 2022.
Given that our overall market share has grown from about 6% to approximately 7% this year, it gives us plenty of room for substantial organic growth over the next few years. In terms of end users, we had another quarter of great wins across the globe. In Germany, we had a fantastic win with the pension authorities. The win includes a commitment for a minimum of 500 units of UX Pro IFPDs over the next four years, a minimum of 100 units of the CM series, and a minimum of 25 of our newly released 98-inch UX Pro solutions. The deal is worth at least $1.4 million and will help propel our growth into corporate solutions with the German public sector.
In Holland, we won a contract to supply our UX Pro solution to GGD, the Dutch national health provider, putting our Clevertouch solution into their offices, vaccination centers, and COVID test locations. In the U.K., we had some fantastic wins with schools such as Camden in London and Bury Grammar School. In both instances, it was our software, including LYNX Whiteboard and CleverLive, that enabled us to differentiate from the competition. In Northern Ireland, our partner, Niavac, won a large deal with Belfast Metropolitan College for nearly 400 screens. In the U.S., we won a fantastic deal with Everett School District near Seattle for 800 classrooms with our Mimio ProColor solution. The school district really liked our unplugged casting solution, and this differentiated us from the competition.
We also had another great win at Harford County in Maryland for 500 classrooms, replacing their old Promethean screens. The teachers evaluated our solution and again really liked the ease of use and the unplugged solution. Finally, with our Cal Ripken partnership, we have already installed our STEM 3D printers in over 138 centers around the country, and we are looking to expand the offering to build super STEM centers that are comprised of both STEM products, IFPDs and audio equipment from Boxlight. During Q3, we sold more than 3,300 MimioConnect software licenses for Samsung products. These are three-year term-based licenses and will create future repeat software business on an ongoing basis when they're renewed.
In total, we had $1.4 million of software revenue in Q3 and have invoiced over $3.4 million of software during the first nine months. We expect software revenues greater than $4.8 million for the full year, and we are continuing to explore the monetization of our software suite. Our expectation is that MimioConnect, LYNX Whiteboard, and our app store will be the foundation of our SaaS-based solutions and create a high margin annuity stream moving forwards. The addition of FrontRow to our Boxlight family means that we extend our reach into the classroom. We now have a comprehensive solution set that includes IFPDs, both Mimio and Clevertouch, STEM solutions, including Robo 3D printers, Labdisc portable science devices, Mimio MyBot robotics, and coding solutions, all utilizing MyStemKits platform.
We also have a multitude of software such as MimioConnect, MimioStudio, OKTOPUS, and LYNX Whiteboard, and professional development solutions from EOS. The addition of market leading audio solutions from FrontRow means that we are very well positioned to lead the growth in edtech and become the natural choice for many schools, districts, and colleges across the globe. As Michael mentioned earlier, during the quarter, we expanded our Samsung partnership to introduce a student Chromebook bundle as part of our classroom solutions, including our MimioConnect software and our MimioView camera. This deepens our relationship with Samsung and widens our solution sets to include devices in the classroom. In summary, Q3 was an outstanding quarter in terms of order intake with record revenues and profitability. Our solutions are gaining traction in the market and we continue to build out our sales channel.
As Michael stated earlier, our current revenue guidance for Q4 is $40 million, giving a full year revenue guidance of at least $181 million. We expect our order intake number to be north of $210 million for the full year, providing a substantial increase to our sales backlog. Our adjusted EBITDA percentage has continued to improve throughout the year from 4.8% in Q1 to 11.5% in Q2, and then 11.9% in Q3, despite strong margin pressures due to increased freight and shipping costs. The improvement in profitability and adjusted EBITDA percentage is due to the ability of the business to leverage higher revenues and gross margins without substantially increasing the cost base. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Patrick Foley.
Thanks, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. To further expand on what you've already heard from both Michael and Mark, I would like to add a few figures to provide the context to Boxlight's international operations. On a revenue by country and region, as you've heard, our total revenues in Q3 were $61 million. EMEA was 46% of the total, or $28 million, of which the U.K. represented 57%. The Americas were 45%, $27.7 million, and the rest of the world 9%, $5.3 million, which was mainly Australia. In terms of our customers, the top 10 customers represent approximately 54% of total sales in Q3, with the single largest customer at about 15%, and these are based across a number of markets, namely the U.S., Australia, U.K., and Denmark.
2/3 of total sales are covered by the top 20 customers at approximately 66%, which is pretty similar and consistent with our positions of Q1 and Q2. The sales product mix and gross margin in Q3, hardware remained the largest proportion of total revenues at about 85%. These were largely sales of interactive flat panel displays, IFPDs, and represented 91% of this total, with related accessories being the balance of 9%. The balance of total revenues coming from our software, services, and STEM solutions. Gross margin for the quarter was 25.9%. The IFPD margin was about 23%, which would have been slightly higher. However, as reported previously, increased global shipping costs, where we are seeing 4 times normal rates, have reduced margin by up to 4 percentage points, and we anticipate the higher costs will remain throughout 2021.
As noted in previous quarters, we have experienced some supply chain challenges, including interruptions to our inventory production schedules as a result of component shortages, along with continued delays in the shipping and receiving of goods. We've seen manufacturing costs increase due to these issues, which has reduced gross profit margins. These are global challenges and are not unique to us. However, we believe we are managing as well as most and are extending our production planning and increasing prices to customers. In terms of screen sizes, in Q3, the education sector represented 96.5% of all interactive display sales, with approximately 73% of these were 75-inch and 86-inch panels, which follows our trend we're seeing the shift to larger screen formats. I'll now review the third quarter results. The financial results for the three months ended September 30, 2021.
Revenues for the three months ended September 30, 2021 were $61 million as compared to $9.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020, resulting in a 544% increase due primarily to the acquisition of Sahara in September 2020 and increased demand for our solutions. Gross profit for the three months ended September 30, 2021 was $15.8 million as compared to $2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020. The gross profit margin for the three months ended September 30, 2021 was 25.9%, which is an improvement of 45 basis points compared to the three months ended September 30, 2020.
Gross profit margin adjusted for the net effect of acquisition-related purchase accounting was 27.1% as compared to the 23.4% as adjusted, reported for the three months ended September 30, 2020. As reported in previous quarters this year, gross margins have been adversely impacted by approximately 4 percentage points due to increased freight and customs costs caused by supply chain challenges associated with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is anticipated to continue for the remainder of 2021. Additional pressure on margin has been seen on the cost of manufacturing as a result of the component shortages, which have had an adverse impact of approximately 5% in the quarter. To mitigate this, we have increased pricing to customers.
Total operating expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2021 were $12.3 million as compared to $3.8 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020. The increase primarily resulted from additional overheads associated with the acquired Sahara operations in September 2020. Other income and expense for the three months ended September 30, 2021 was net expense of $1.4 million as compared to a net expense of $2.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020. Other expense decreased primarily due to $1.1 million fewer losses recognized upon the settlement of certain debt obligations in exchange for the issuance of common shares, offset by a $339,000 increase in interest expense associated with increased borrowings.
The company reported net income of $729,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2021, as compared to a net loss of $4.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020.
The net income attributable to common shareholders was $412,000 and $4.2 million dollar loss for the three months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 respectively, after deducting the fixed dividends to Series B preferred shareholders of $317,000 in 2021 and zero in 2020. Total comprehensive loss was $1.2 million and $3.7 million loss for the three months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020, reflecting this, the effect of cumulative foreign currency translation adjustments on consolidation, with a net effect in the quarter of $2 million loss and $536,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 respectively.
The EPS for the three months ended September 30, 2021 was $0.01 per basic and diluted share, compared to a $0.10 loss per basic and diluted share for the three months ended September 30, 2020. EBITDA for the three months ended September 30, 2021 was $4.7 million as compared to a $3.4 million EBITDA loss for the three months ended September 30, 2020. Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended September 30, 2021 was $7.2 million as compared to a $0.8 million loss for the three months ended September 30, 2020. Adjustments to EBITDA include stock-based compensation expense, gains losses recognized upon the settlement of certain debt instruments, gains losses from the remeasurement of derivative liabilities, and the effects of purchase accounting adjustments in connection with acquisitions.
At September 30, 2021, Boxlight had $6.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, $32 million in working capital, $31 million inventory, $173.6 million in total assets, $23.9 million of debt, and $54.9 million in stockholders' equity. 61.1 million common shares issued and outstanding and 3.1 million preferred shares issued and outstanding. The financial results for the nine months ended September 30, 2021. Revenues for the nine months ended September 30 were $141.2 million as compared to $23 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020, resulting in a 513% increase due primarily to the acquisition of Sahara in September 2020 and increased demand for our solutions.
Gross profit for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was $37.2 million as compared to $6.3 million for the 9 months ended September 30, 2020. The gross profit margin for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was 26.3% compared to 27.4% for the 9 months ended September 30, 2020. Gross profit margin adjusted for the net effect of acquisition-related purchase accounting was 28.0% as compared to 28.4% as adjusted and reported for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. As reported in previous quarters this year, gross margins have been adversely impacted by approximately four percentage points due to increased freight and causes of supply chain challenges associated with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is anticipated to continue for the remainder of 2021. Additional pressures on margin have been seen through the cost of manufacturing as a result of component shortages mentioned above and have an adverse impact of approximately 3.9% in the nine months to September 30, 2020. To mitigate this with increased pricing to customers. Total operating expenses for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was $34.2 million as compared to $11.5 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. The increase primarily resulted from the additional overheads associated with the acquired Sahara operations in September 2020.
Other income and expense for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was net expense of $5.8 million as compared to net expense of $2.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. The increase in other expense was due to $1 million of increased interest expense associated with increased borrowings, $2.5 million of losses recognized on the settlement of certain debt obligations that were exchanged for common shares. The company reported a net loss of $6.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2021, as compared to a net loss of $7.6 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020.
The net loss attributable to the common shareholders was $7.2 million and $7.6 million loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 respectively. After deducting the fixed dividends to Series B preferred shareholders of $952,000 in 2021 and the fair value revaluation deemed contribution of $367,000 for the redemption amendment with the Series B shareholders signed on June 14, 2021. Total comprehensive loss was $8.4 million and $7.2 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020. Sorry, excuse me.
Reflecting the effect of cumulative foreign currency translation adjustments on consolidation, with a net effect year-to-date of $1.7 million loss and $0.4 million loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 and 2020 respectively. The EPS loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was $0.12 loss per basic and diluted share compared to a $0.31 loss per basic and diluted share for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. EBITDA for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was $5.2 million as compared to a $5.2 million EBITDA loss for the nine months ended September 30, 2020.
Adjusted EBITDA for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 was $14.1 million as compared to a loss of $1.5 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020. Adjustments to EBITDA include stock-based compensation expense, gains, losses recognized upon the settlement of certain debt instruments, gains, losses from the remeasurement of derivative liabilities, and the effects of purchase accounting adjustments in connection with acquisitions. At September 30, 2021, Boxlight had $6.2 million in cash and cash equivalents, $32 million in working capital, $31 million in inventory, $173.6 million in total assets, $23.9 million debt, $54.9 million in stockholders' equity, 61.1 million common shares issued and outstanding, and 3.1 million preferred shares issued and outstanding.
With that, we'll open up the call for questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question at this time, you may press star one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue to ask the question. We ask if listening on speakerphone to please pick up your handset this afternoon to provide optimal sound quality. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, it'll be star one on your telephone keypad at this time to enter the queue to ask the question. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions. The first question is coming from Brian Kinstlinger from Alliance Global Partners. Brian, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Great quarter.
Hi, Brian.
Apologies, one moment. Stand by one moment while we bring Brian back into the queue. Please stand by. Brian, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Great. Sorry. Great quarter. Wanted to ask, an easy one, if the fourth quarter includes the two months that you expect from FrontRow, or does it exclude FrontRow?
Yeah. The guidance we provided would include the additional two months of FrontRow. Yeah, the way we look at it. Now, I think, again, that's a baseline where we think we can beat that. Yeah, that would include the FrontRow revenue.
I'm curious if you could break down the U.S. growth versus the rest of the world in the third quarter. I guess the way I'm thinking about it right now is there's a slowdown in the fourth quarter. Maybe that is the shortage because if you add FrontRow into it suggests that with the total growth. If we can go through the breakdown of growth and maybe where we're maybe seeing a temporary slowdown based on timing or component shortages.
Sure. Brian, it's Pat. I can take that one. In terms of our total revenues on a combined basis, U.S. and rest of the world for our Sahara and Boxlight solutions. In the U.S., in the quarter, it was $27.7 million in the U.S. and $33.3 million in the rest of the world. If you compare that to last year's Q3, we had obviously $9.5 million of total revenue, of which $8.7 million was U.S.-based revenues. It gives a 218% growth in the U.S., as you would see. From a combined basis, obviously.
Yeah.
Sorry. Say again, Brian, please.
Sahara. Sorry, and Sahara. If I looked at the $33 million, what did Sahara do in the quarter?
For Q3 last year? Obviously, on a combined basis, I haven't done it on a pro forma basis. Obviously, it was only,
Right
We only consolidated at the end of Q3 last year.
In the fourth quarter, is there a slowdown? If so-
No, there's no slowdown. It's actually seasonality actually, Brian. The key things obviously from a school districts and schools globally actually operates usually on the Q2, Q3 being the busiest period of the year, which, if you look at on a combined basis, that kind of represents probably about 60% of total revenues kind of appear in those quarters, and then Q1, Q4 the balance. That's, you know, really where that comes from in terms of the totals. So, as you can see from our guidance, we're kind of calling 40 because it's not a slowdown, it's just usual seasonality that we would see in all markets for that time of year.
Okay.
Brian, by comparison.
as Michael has said that, yeah.
If you look at Q4 of last year, we did $32 million. That's your comparative quarter.
Yes.
That $32 million had a full quarter of both the Sahara Group plus Boxlight in that quarter. That's a true comparable. We're expecting to go from $32 million for fourth quarter last year to minimum of $40 million in the fourth quarter of this year.
I assume that.
This is again 20% growth.
million dollars
Yeah
from the acquisition.
Well, the acquisition, you have seasonality and acquisition as well, right? If you look at kind of similar seasonality because it's all in the same market, you know, there will be, you know, there's gonna be definitely revenue that comes in from acquisition. But you can't take a straight line percentage.
Okay. Just quickly on the guidance one more time, the margin, the Q4 margin is also EBITDA margin doesn't look like the second quarter when revenues are somewhat similar, maybe a little bit lower. So maybe, are we seeing additional pressures in the fourth quarter on top of what we're seeing in the third quarter to the margin?
We've seen some pricing increases in Q3, which obviously will carry on in terms of inventory and manufacturing costs, which will carry through in terms of Q4, obviously, because we have stock ordered manufactured for our sales in Q4. There will be additional pressures on that in Q4. Our mix against that is actually increasing prices where possible and pass that on through to customers to actually alleviate some of the pressure on that margin.
Okay. Lastly, the recent press release on Trox becoming a exclusive reseller of Clevertouch. Talk about what that means. I think Newline is their leading product up till this point. Have they made commitments to your product being the leader or what they'll lead with? And then who was selling Clevertouch before in the U.S., and what kind of revenue did they generate, you know, like that you have to replace, I guess?
Yeah. Do you want me to take this one, Michael?
Yeah, go ahead, please.
Yeah. Great question, Brian. Previously, you know, we had an exclusive arrangement for all states bar Texas with Tierney. One of the key reasons that Trox acquired Tierney was actually because of the exclusive contracts that Tierney had with Clevertouch. That was a key reason why they wanted to buy them. Now, as you state, you know, Trox does have a big relationship with Newline. However, they are very, very interested in the exclusive arrangement that we've got with Clevertouch. It took us a long time to renegotiate that contract with Trox. It doesn't change overnight, but we're working very, very closely with Trox, and we expect, you know, significant growth in that contract over the next 12 months.
You don't lose anything because Tierney continues to sell because they're part of Trox. From the Trox-
Correct
From a standpoint, you'll get incremental because to the degree they sell your product instead of Newline, that's incremental revenue.
Yeah. Well, I mean, to put it in perspective, Tierney had about, I don't know, 20-25 sales guys, and Trox have got 180 sales guys. You know, we were doing those numbers with the Tierney sales team, and now we've got the combined, you know, Trox and Tierney sales team. It's a much larger sales team. We've got much better coverage with our partnership with them across the U.S. You know, there's a very significant opportunity for us.
Great. Thanks for your time.
Your next question is coming from Jack Vander Aarde from Maxim Group. Jack, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Okay, great. Hi, guys. Congrats on the solid results in the GAAP profits. Pretty good to see that. It's the first time I think I have seen that from you guys, so congrats on that, and in the supply chain environment we're in. Couple questions. I'll start with a question on the federal funding programs that are in effect, at least in the U.S., and how I guess a general progress update there from your guys' perspective on how you're working with districts to help them get those funds allocated to them and sort of what that represents for what's left untapped for remaining opportunity to help grow sales in the U.S.?
Yeah. Jack, appreciate the question. There's a tremendous amount of opportunity for federal funding both in the U.S. and internationally, but the funding in the U.S. of course is substantially larger than what we're seeing in other countries. In the U.S., you'll remember that the federal government made available just shy of $200 billion for education. You know, and they've termed those as ESSER funds, right? ESSER standing for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund. There's three tranches, and some of this may be redundant from previous calls, but there's three tranches of those ESSER funds. The first tranche was the smallest tranche, and then the second and third got progressively bigger. Of those first couple tranches, those are being spent now.
You know, you remember the first tranche was the CARES Act money, and a lot of that's been spent. The second tranche is being spent, and the third tranche, which is by far the largest, that is, a lot of that hasn't been spent. It's being accessed and applied for now, but a lot of that's still available. In short, you know, of all of that money, and keep in mind, the third tranche was about $130 billion of the, you know, roughly $200 billion. So you know, the largest amount is available. Now we're still trying to work with school districts and administrators to help them access and identify how to spend those funds. And as part of that process, we've done a lot of marketing around it.
We've created guides and white papers on how to access the funds. We have a dedicated person, Dr. Gemeinhardt, who's our Director of Strategic Grants, and he helps work with schools to access the funds. That's something we're definitely actively pursuing. Of that nearly $200 billion, most of our solutions will qualify in one way or another for those funds. That is a major strategy of ours.
Okay, great. That's helpful. If I just follow up from your comments around, you know, obviously every company in any industry virtually is being impacted by the global supply chain issues. Just you did mention that you, to combat this, you have been raising prices. Can you just talk a little bit more detail there of like when you began raising prices, on what products, in what markets, and you know, what the general response has been from your end customers?
Yeah, I can say a couple things, and then Mark, feel free to jump in.
Yeah, sure.
We've had several price increases both internationally throughout Europe as well as in the U.S. We've had three or four price increases in Europe, I believe. Mark, correct me if I'm wrong. We've had two to three price increases or so in the U.S. We look at each of our solutions, solution by solution, of course. The largest price increases have been on our interactive flat panels, and that's because those are quite expensive to ship, and so there's been, they've been hit really hard on shipping costs. Also, there's a lot of components that go into those displays and a lot of the cost increases happen there.
Also, our margins are slimmer on the interactive flat panels, and not as much on some of our other solutions. We have increased prices across the board, with, you know, higher increases on the panels. We've done pretty well of offsetting the increase in the cost of the goods. We've done pretty well there to offset most of that. Shipping's another story, and you've heard Pat talk about in his talk track that we've given up about 4 points of gross profit margin just on shipping. As that starts to normalize, you're safe to add another 4 points or so to our gross profit margin in the future.
I mean, what I would add on top of that, Michael, is you know, customers generally understand, right? We've had little pushback. The other thing is where we do have you know, fixed term contracts, there's been some customers where we've had to hold the price as we agreed per the contract. It is, it's a mixed bag. But I think generally you know, most of our customers have worked with us and those prices, those price increases have been passed on.
Okay. Appreciate that. Maybe just somewhat tied to maybe gross margin upside in the future, would be, you know, I can imagine an increasing mix of software sales. And so, you did mention, you know, interactive panel displays continue and will continue to be, you know, a core in the bulk of your revenues. Right now, I think, you know, software, I think you said you're on track for about $4.5 million, nearly $5 million of software revenue this year in 2021. Just longer term, looking at 2022 and then, you know, beyond 2022, can you just share your view on how software is tied into your long-term revenue model and how that's kind of how you're strategically going about that? Is it all Samsung driven in the future?
What are the other drivers qualitatively?
Yeah, it's a good question. Thanks. Couple thoughts. First off, software is a major part of our strategy, both to differentiate our total solution and then also as a profit center. So, first off on differentiation, you know, most of our sales, 80% of our sales are coming from the sale of interactive flat panels today. But to be successful in selling flat panels, you have to have the software, you know, because no school district or corporate customer is gonna purchase a panel without having the software experience. So it definitely helps us on selling our hardware. But we are moving towards a focus on monetizing software in the future. That hasn't been part of our strategy historically.
This is something we started talking about a couple years ago, and we've made a lot of headway the last, you know, last several quarters. But we're focusing on SaaS strategies. That's true of our new MimioConnect software platform. That's true of our LYNX Whiteboard software platform. That's true of even our app stores that we're making available, that there's ways to monetize those. As far as guidance, we haven't given specific guidance about what software should look like, but I will say the growth in software sales should be dramatically higher than our total sales, that's for certain. I would say, you know, longer term, because we're selling this broader solution, we're expecting software, you know, could be as much as 10% of our total sales, something like that, and we'd be very happy with that.
Keep in mind, in education, we're focusing on the classroom. If you look at the amount of dollars spent in the classroom, there's a lot more dollars that are gonna be spent on hardware when you think of handheld devices for the students, interactive flat panel and cameras and you know, other devices in the classroom. A lot more dollars will go to hardware than to software, but we wanna participate both in the hardware, software. I think a good long-term approach would be something around 10% of our total sales.
Okay, great. Maybe just one more from me. In terms of the 2022 guidance, $230 million revenue, as well as the 10% adjusted EBITDA or above the 10% adjusted EBITDA margins, just given all of this uncertainty in the world with the supply chain environment and then also, you know, pandemic kind of related disruptions are always on the back of people's minds. Just how much, what level is your confidence to lay out that guidance in terms of like that that's a big uptick in revenue, which, you know, you have to sell a lot more products, and you have to have a lot more components and inventory for that.
Given the current state of the world, what level of confidence do you have that those targets are achievable given how everything's playing out right now?
I'd say we're very confident. You know, yeah, the demand is there. There's no question about that. We're seeing higher demand now than we've ever seen. That's a testament to the solutions we're providing. Those numbers take into account the potential struggles around sourcing. That's baked into those numbers, and we feel very good about achieving those numbers. Keep in mind, we have five quarters in a row where we've beat the guidance we've provided. We have a pretty good track record at this point, and we're gonna beat those numbers as well.
Great. Good to hear. Well, I appreciate the time, guys. I'll hop back in the queue. Thanks.
Thanks, Jack.
The next question is coming from Scott Buck from H.C. Wainwright Scott, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Optimize it or as necessary. We have no concerns at this time.
Scott Buck, your line is now live. Please ask your question.
I'd like to officially welcome Drew McReynolds, RBC Capital Markets.
Initiated coverage in October. Thank you to Drew and his team.
Please stand by. We'll come back to Scott. Your next question is coming from Martin Roth from Ferret Capital Management. Martin, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good day, gentlemen. This is my first exposure to management. We purchased stock a few months ago, and we're gratified by the continuing trend. I don't know why, maybe you have an idea. The stock sold off immediately following the earnings release, and the last time I looked, it was down about 9% on the day. Do you have any thought as to anyone who was disappointed by the performance?
Well, first off, I wanna say we appreciate you as an investor, so we're glad that you took a position, and it's definitely good to meet you. I mean, as far as insight into moving the stock, the only thing that we could point to is, analysts had us at $0.04 per share, and we came in on $0.01 per share, and I think that's the only thing that we potentially could point to. Now, that was not our guidance, right? Our guidance was that we would be net income positive.
Right.
We would be, you know, positive EPS, which we hit both those numbers. We also gave guidance on revenue. We guided to $60 million. We beat that number. We guided to $7 million in EBITDA, we beat that number. Now for us as a company, we focus a lot less on net income and earnings per share because there's a lot that flows through the P&L that's non-cash, and we think not applicable to our business.
Mm-hmm.
We focus on that adjusted EBITDA number, which we think is the best number when you're evaluating the business. Like I said, you know, very, very happy with our performance. We beat all the guidance we provided, but I think there was just a little bit of a disconnect on the couple analysts that cover us on EPS versus where we ended up.
I would say, by the way, that if anyone sold on this news, they are not long-term players, and chances are they were cleaning out a losing position. I have some questions on the gross margins in general, and I'd like to throw this analogy. You're familiar with CDW?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
Okay. Well, my thought is that in a way, you're in a different specialty, but you're similar to CDW in that I see you as a wholesaler distributor of largely other people's products, and that what you do is you integrate and provide as much of a coordinated system as possible. And therefore, with the exception of selling more software, you're not going to be a business that can easily go into the high 20s or even 30 in the next few years. Do you disagree with that?
Yeah. Martin, just to clarify, CDW is one of our largest reseller partners, so they sell our solutions. We're quite different than CDW or, you know, Attrex we talked about earlier or Howard. These are some of the larger resellers in the U.S. We're different because we are the manufacturer. We manufacture solutions under our Clevertouch brand as well as our Mimio brand, and we sell those through reseller partners or the channel globally in the U.S. as well as internationally. We should be valued very differently 'cause we own the IP, we own the technology. You know, we're gonna be able to prove much higher margins over time than these various reseller partners. Definitely should be evaluated differently than, say-
What percentage of your sales come from self-manufactured products?
Yeah. Yeah.
Or-
Yeah, 95+ or 90%+ of our sales come from our own-
90%, yeah.
Our own branded solutions.
The question is, how high can you go on your proprietary products as far as an achievable gross margin, let's say, in the next five years?
Yeah. Right now our gross profit is being hampered a little bit, as we talked about, by some of the challenges in the supply chain.
Yes
and shipping. If we took some of those challenges out, we would be at a 30% or 30%+ gross profit margin company.
Right.
That's largely selling interactive flat panels. We've talked a lot about in the past that we expect to improve our product mix over time to where interactive flat panels are less of our total solution because we're selling a lot of other high-margin solutions like software, which is, you know, 90%+ margin, and various accessories, which a lot of those are 50%+ gross profit margin, and our STEM solutions, which are typically 50%+, and our services division, that's 40%+. In the foreseeable years to come, we should trend up from a 30-point, you know, adjusted gross profit margin to something closer to 40% or even something higher than 40%.
So you know, we're not guiding to time periods on that, but because again, we believe our product mix will improve over time with higher gross profit margin solutions, you're gonna start to see that. And I think you'll start to see it as soon as next year. You'll see movement in the right direction.
Okay. Thank you so much.
I think also just in addition, Michael, just to add on that in terms of other things that can obviously improve margins just on our interactive flat panel displays is obviously I always kinda pick up the shift to the larger screen formats, which come with a greater margin. Also, importantly is it's not just in the educational sector that we also sell into the corporate sector, and that's going to be a key growing part of the business going forward, which come with much higher margins ordinarily just on our interactive flat panels. That also adds to the kind of the product mix as well and the margin mix.
I'm reading in between the lines of what was said. We're talking about mitigating against the price increases that you had to absorb. I get the impression that with the price increases or cost increases that you've seen, you still are going to be behind where you'd like your gross margins to be because of this situation. That your price increases have not carried enough with them to offset. Am I correct?
For the current year.
Yeah.
For the current year. Yeah. We do expect the kind of, you know, as with all businesses globally, global freighting to actually normalize at a point. At the moment, obviously, everyone is seeing significantly increased costs, ourselves included, in terms of products, shipping and freighting in globally. And as I kind of mentioned, that has had an impact of about 4% incremental kind of cost and that's, you know, straight kind of margin. That should begin to normalize when we, you know, when we get through the back end of the effects of this pandemic. So you know, 2022, within 2022, we should start seeing that also naturally kind of improve.
The gap will remain that you had in the third quarter, assuming we see more increases, that the fourth quarter won't show an improvement in gross margin. Is that fair to say?
I think it'll be pretty static, and I think an earlier question that came was asking a question of comparison of Q2 versus Q4, which would have similar, you know, kind of revenue, kind of, well, slightly, our guidance is slightly under the Q2 revenues. Yeah, that would be one of the reasons, because there are these increased costs that we are currently bearing. Some of them are temporary.
Let me ask a question on another subject, which is, I believe it was said that between the United States and overseas, you have 17 sales rep. Considering how much product you've added in the past year or so, are 17 sales people-
Oh.
enough to cover the world?
No, I think no. The 17 related to the acquired business that we're acquiring.
Okay.
So the 17. So the, uh-
Yeah.
FrontRow has 44 employees, of which 17 are their current sales staff.
I see.
which includes some people located internationally. We have a significant sales force.
Yeah.
across the Sahara operations and the Mimio operations.
Yeah, look, we have over 25 already in the U.S. and probably over 60 across EMEA. We've got a significant sales force. Obviously, the extra 17 coming in from FrontRow is fantastic. You know, don't get confused with us only having 17 salespeople.
Okay, I got that. Thank you. One other question regarding the integration of your acquisitions of the past year and the ones that are pending. Is there still benefits to get from integration and the elimination of duplication?
Yeah, as far as savings, there will be maybe some small amount of savings. But I think the major focus of us is revenue capture and future profitability from growing our overall business. So, I think, again, you know, minimum cost savings and more focus on combined growth of our business, which will drive more to the bottom line.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Martin.
Your next question is coming from Ryan Mao from 1031 Private Exchange Group. Ryan, your line is live. You may go ahead.
Hi. I know you guys don't like giving earnings projections, but if the growth over the next 2022, if your gross margins are improving, I see there are some charges in relation to currency and some legal settlement charges or something. Can you give me some idea of where the earnings might be? And also on the recent purchase of this company, there's no terms disclosed, but I notice your cash position is just $6 million. What do you perceive as your cash burn going forward?
Pat, how about you take the first question? I'll take the second question about the FrontRow.
Sorry, could you just repeat the first thing? Because obviously it's split into two parts. Sorry. Please say again.
I'm sorry, I got greedy. Well, one of the questions was based on the margin improvements and the purchase of FrontRow, and revenues of $230 million, do you have a kind of a guidance as to the earnings forecast? Earnings per share.
Obviously we are forecasting an improved position. As Michael said, we're not expecting to do a kind of a cost saving exercise. It's pure growth. With that comes the increased margin covering, you know, the predictable unknown overhead, which then will improve our overall profitability as a group. So without going into kind of giving total kind of forward-looking positions, the results as we're calling, you know, this year, you've heard kind of our adjusted kind of EBITDA number we're calling for this year. Next year, that's going to grow significantly. The difference will be that in 2022 net income position this year, we're still going to show a forecasted net income loss. 2022 would have a net income result for the year and beyond thereafter.
It's gonna be a you know a fundamental change. You've seen the growth kind of year-on-year and what we've been going through on a quarter-to-quarter basis as well. Yes, there's seasonality, which you explained earlier, but that will continue throughout 2022. We've got the accretive and incremental a kind of FrontRow business, which is really excellent. It's high-margin business, which is really excellent. So that is purely incremental to the total results. We should see good performance improvements throughout 2022.
Would you say $0.05 a share is the number that you guys can hit or is that too optimistic?
I don't wanna give too much kind of like information, I would say, on the call I can, but yeah.
I know we did, but I know Michael said it earlier.
Yeah. Ryan, our guidance.
We did guide 10% adjusted EBITDA, yeah.
Yeah, our guide-
Yeah.
Our guidance is specific to the adjusted EBITDA figure, which is the figure we think is the most important figure in evaluating the business on the bottom line. So yeah, we've guided to for next year $230 million in revenue and 10% or $23 million in adjusted EBITDA. That's what we're comfortable with. We say greater than that number.
Okay.
meaning we think we can beat that number.
Yeah, just a couple more comments.
Okay.
Ryan, on FrontRow, 'cause I think it's, you know, it's good that you brought that up. We initially did not provide a lot of details when we announced the transaction, and that was intentional because the seller didn't want us to disclose some of that information. We did, however, if you go look at the SEC filings, we did include the purchase agreement, and you can go look at that. Then we provided some more information today when I was sharing my portion of the script. That being said, just to reiterate the purchase price, the way you think of it is, it's $23 million for the company, plus we're paying for roughly the total net assets. We think there's gonna be roughly about $11 million in net assets at closing.
If you add those two numbers together, it's approximately $34 million. That's the purchase price. Now, of that $34 million, you commented what our balance sheet showed for cash. We don't have $34 million in the balance sheet. So, the way that we're looking to close the transaction is we are looking to raise debt to fund the acquisition. That's something we're working on now. We're doing that intentionally because we don't wanna do anything that's gonna be dilutive to the equity, given where the stock price is today. We feel like we're undervalued, and we're looking to raise money in the form of debt.
And the terms of that debt, we expect, and the service of that debt, we think will be covered by Front Row very comfortably by just the cash flow that Front Row spits off. We think financially it's gonna put us in a good cash flow position.
I appreciate that. With that, I have one last question. I saw a company structure a deal where they bought another company, and they had a certain amount of cash up front, but then they also had it based on revenues going forward, you know, over the next 18 months or 12-18 months, which I thought was pretty good, you know. And I'm wondering, do you have eyes on for other acquisitions? Are there any candidates potentially for that type of M&A growth or is this pretty much it for the next year or so?
Yeah, we're constantly looking at opportunities, and we are evaluating opportunities as we speak. We don't have anything that we can share specific at this time. Also, as we structure those transactions, oftentimes we'll look at earn-out approaches like you mentioned. We've done that with some of our previous transactions, so that's definitely something we'll evaluate case by case.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Ryan.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, the floor remains open for questions. You may press star one on your telephone keypad now if you would like to enter the queue to ask a question. Once again, it'll be star one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue to ask a question. We have a question from Kyle LaFlamme. Kyle, your line is live. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Awesome quarter. Real quick, two-part question. Boxlight got accredited with Texas Instruments curriculum K through 12. Have we seen any contracts or revenue from the accreditation? Are we trying to get any accreditations from any other state curriculums right now?
Yeah. Kyle, that's part of the initiatives that we have within our EOS Education Professional Development team, and they're working on all sorts of opportunities. You know, we talked about some opportunities that we've successfully been able to tackle with Google and other big names. I would say, yeah, we're constantly looking for different partnerships and accreditations to be able to grow the opportunities that we can provide within that professional development group. I would just say maybe a little bit more on that when we talk about our product strategy, professional development training is a big part of it.
And as we sell interactive displays and various accessories and software, now we understand that there's not gonna be the proper adoption of those solutions if we're not providing the training and the PD that's required, especially in the education environment. We look at every opportunity where we sell hardware, software, we wanna make sure that we can also sell and provide training and professional development. And that adoption is gonna lead to, of course, the solutions being successful in the various environments, but also that adoption is gonna lead to happy and successful customers that result in follow-on sales and orders. That's a big part of our strategy. In short, yeah, we're looking at all sorts of opportunities where we can receive various, you know, partnerships, certifications, et cetera.
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
Yeah. Thank you, Kyle.
Thank you.
There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would like to pass the floor back to Michael Pope for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone, for your support and for joining us today on our Q3 2021 conference call. We look forward to speaking to you again in March when we report our Q4 and full year 2021 results. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.