Greetings, welcome to the AMMO, Inc. fiscal fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Reed Anderson of ICR. Thank you. Reed, you may begin.
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to AMMO, Inc.'s conference call to discuss results for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022. On the call today from AMMO, Inc. with prepared remarks are Fred Wagenhals, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rob Goodmanson, President, and Rob Wiley, Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to the earnings release, which went out this afternoon at approximately 4:05 P.M. Eastern Time.
If you have not received the release, it is available on the investor relations portion of AMMO, Inc.'s website at www.ammoinc.com. This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the company's website as well. Before we begin, we would like to remind everyone that our prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions.
These statements do not guarantee future performance, and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them. These statements are based on current expectations of the company's management and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including those identified in the Risk Factors section of AMMO, Inc.'s most recently filed Forms 10-K and 10-Q. Please note that during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including results on an adjusted basis.
Management believes these financial measures can facilitate a more complete analysis and greater transparency into AMMO, Inc.'s ongoing results of operations, particularly when comparing underlying operating results from period to period. We've included a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures with today's release.
This call also contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this live broadcast, June 29, 2022. AMMO, Inc. assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking projections that may be made in today's release or call. Now, I will turn the call over to Fred Wagenhals, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AMMO, Inc .
Thank you, Reed, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Fiscal 2022 was a banner year for AMMO, far exceeding even our highest expectations. Revenue, which reached $240.3 million, were up an incredible 285% from fiscal 2021, and we generated nearly $76 million in Adjusted EBITDA and $0.53 in adjusted EPS for the year.
We did all of this with COVID, crammed working space, the move from Payson to Manitowoc, and the supply chain issues. The acquisition and integration of GunBroker.com marketplace platform has also proven to be transformational for the company's business model, and we are only beginning to introduce several initiatives to further leverage profitability on the $1.8 billion, that's billion with a B, in transactional volume on the platform in the past year.
Over the past five years, we have grown AMMO from $2 million in revenue in 2018 to what we expect to be more than $300 million in revenues in the fiscal 2023. In light of this spectacular growth, I would like to focus on why we remain confident that AMMO remains well positioned to double its market share over the past two to three years.
First, we are at capacity in our current facility, delivering 400 million rounds of loaded ammunition this past year. That has caused us to build our new 160,000 sq ft world-class facilities, where we expect to increase our capacity to 1 billion rounds once fully operational. This gives us significant opportunity to increase revenue, drive down manufacturing costs, and improve margins.
Next, our marketplace platform, GunBroker.com, was fully integrated in 2022, and we are now rolling out a number of initiatives to capture a significantly greater percentage of the transactional volume from that platform, including credit card processing, credit products, gift card and loyalty programs for both the buyer and the seller.
Finally, AMMO continues to make great progress in our military programs division. Primarily with the support of our U.S. Army Special Forces, we have entered into the last stage of our procurement path on our BMMPR program and are continuing to move through the development of our signature OnTarget program. We started AMMO in 2017 with the goal of integrating technology into the ammunition industry. By all measures, we have succeeded in doing so.
Judging by our financial performance over the past fiscal year, however, we continue to believe and to operate as if we are still early in our growth curve. There remains multiple opportunities to substantially grow revenue, enhance margins, and drive shareholder value, and we intend to continue to capitalize on those opportunities and look forward to updating our progress to shareholders at the appropriate moment. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our President, Rob Goodmanson, to provide more detail on the operational performances for this quarter.
Thanks, Fred, and thank you all for being on our annual earnings call. This has indeed been an exciting year, full of enormous business opportunities and interesting challenges. We would never have been able to execute upon these opportunities so effectively, but for our Stellar Team, Fred, and our entire management team put together.
Our incredible successes fall squarely on their shoulders. I would now like to announce our forecast for fiscal 2023. $300 million-$310 million in revenues, $82 million-$85 million in EBITDA, and $108 million-$111 million in Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2023. Being successful in predicting the future is best done by looking back at the past successes and the historic track record. Growing from $2 million- $240 million in sales in five years speaks for itself.
I'd like to take a few moments now to expand upon Fred's comments and talk about certain company initiatives at AMMO and at GunBroker.com. Obviously, we're anxious to get into our new Manitowoc, Wisconsin, manufacturing facility, slated to open in just over two weeks. This facility is just around the corner from our current operating building and is approximately 300% larger than our main production.
In the new plants, we have planned to double our output capacity of loaded ammunition over time through the deployment of new equipment, which is currently owned, expand our manufacturing automation, and better leverage our production team in their newly consolidated buildings. We are also adding cart capabilities for GunBroker.com. Currently, our 7.3 million registered users could only purchase one item at a time. Soon, they will have the ability to purchase multiple accessories at one time, including ammunition.
GunBroker.com, the largest outdoor website of its kind, which has been around for 22 years, we're making some additional enhancements in conjunction with our auction site. We are adding new sellers to the platform that will mirror Amazon, which will drive growth in users and transaction volume, whether they be manufacturers, dealers, distributors, or we function as their online storefront, which will only add to their distribution model.
This is a solid concept and is one way to monetize one of GunBroker.com's greatest assets, that being data. No other company in this space has the vast information in a timely manner that shows what is selling, where it's selling, and at what price levels, making trend prediction more reliable and accountable, whether you be a store, manufacturer, or distributor. This will be significant for both the sellers and the buyers.
Obviously, our goal with these initiatives is to enhance user experience. Whether you're a buyer or seller, we're currently adding new products and product lines to the GunBroker website. With north of 7.3 million registered users and adding an average of approximately 55,000 new users on a monthly basis this past year, we strongly believe we will be the preferred destination in the space. Because of these initiatives with our two businesses, we believe we can double our revenues in both companies over the next 12-24 months. Again, to reiterate our forecast, $300 million-$310 million in revenues, $82 million-$85 million in EBITDA, and $108 million-$111 million in Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2023. That is a growth story that should be paid attention to.
In closing, I'd like to add that because of our success, it has allowed us to look at many unique opportunities and take advantage of them, such as our support of the Ukraine war effort by donating 1 million rounds of ammunition. We're also pleased that some of our competitors finally followed our lead. With that, let me turn this over to Rob Wiley, our CFO. Rob?
Thank you, Rob. Welcome, everyone. Let me now review our financial results in more detail. Total net revenues for our fiscal 2020 year increased 285%, or $178.1 million over the prior year. This increase was the result of our increased production capacity, coupled with strong demand from our customers, resulting in $107.1 million of additional sales of bulk pistol and rifle ammunition, an increase of $4.7 million in sales of proprietary ammunition, an increase of $1.3 million of sales from our casing operations, and $64.6 million in revenue generated from our marketplace, GunBroker.com. Looking forward, we expect the sales growth rate of proprietary ammunition to greatly outpace the sales of our standard ammunition.
Our gross profit percentage increased to 36.9% from 18.2% during the year compared to the year period prior. This was a result of the inclusion of our marketplace, GunBroker.com, which by nature has significantly higher margins than our manufactured products. We believe as we continue to grow sales through new markets and expanded distribution, that our gross margins will also increase, as evident by the improvement over this time last year.
Our goal in the next 12-24 months is to continue to improve our gross margins. This will be accomplished through the following. Increased product sales, specifically of our proprietary lines of ammunition like the STREAK Visual Ammunition, /stelth/ and now the ammunition we have developed in support of our military and government programs. Introduction of new lines of ammunition that historically carry higher margins in the consumer and government sectors.
Reduce component costs through streamlined operation of our ammunition segment and expansion of strategic relationships with component providers. Expanded use of automation equipment that reduces the total labor required to assemble finished products, and better leverage of our fixed costs through expanded production to support the sales objectives. Moving on to operating expenses.
Our operating expenses increased by approximately $34.8 million over the prior year, but more importantly, decreased as a percentage of sales from 26.8% in fiscal 2021 to 21.5%, a 25% decrease in the reported period. The dollar increase was primarily related to approximately $20.6 million of additional operating expenses related to GunBroker.com, including $12.1 million out of $13.7 million non-cash depreciation and amortization expenses for the year.
Total non-cash operating expenses were approximately $20.1 million for the year, compared to $3.2 million in the prior year. We expect to see operating expenses continue to decrease as a percentage of sales in the 2023 fiscal year as we leverage our workforce and expand our sales opportunities. Operating income was $42.5 million for the year compared to an operating loss of $5.4 million in the year earlier. As a percent of net revenues, operating income was 41.9% compared to a -8.6% a year earlier, a 586% increase.
As a result of increases in revenues from increased production as well as our acquisition of GunBroker.com, we had a net income of approximately $33.2 million for our fiscal 2022, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of approximately $7.8 million or $0.14 per diluted share in fiscal 2021.
Adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.53 versus an adjusted net income per share of $0.07 in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA was $75.5 million compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $8.1 million in the prior year period. The significant improvement in Adjusted EBITDA was due to increased sales and improved gross margins, reflecting growth in our core ammunition segment, plus the addition of our higher margin marketplace segment.
Please note that Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure, and you should refer to the reconciliation of our GAAP to non-GAAP results in today's press release for additional details. To reiterate our performance this past year, our revenues went from $61 million- $240 million. We reported net income of $33.2 million from a net loss of $7.8 million in the prior year period.
Our balance sheet remains strong with $23 million of cash and equivalents and essentially no outstanding debt. We are well-positioned to make a swift transition into our new facility in just a few weeks, and we are guiding our 2023 fiscal year to revenues of $300 million-$310 million, EBITDA of $82 million-$85 million, and Adjusted EBITDA of $108 million-$111 million. This concludes our prepared remarks. We are now ready to take questions, so I'll pass it back to our moderator. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Matt Koranda with Roth Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to start off with the fiscal 2023 guide on revenue. Maybe if you could just comment on sort of the expectations of the split between GunBroker versus the core ammunition business and sort of the growth rates between the two for the year.
Hi, Matt. Thanks for the question. I would expect a majority of the growth rate to come from our loaded ammunition operations. We obviously do expect growth in our GunBroker segment as well, but majority of the increase will come from the loaded ammunition and our increased capacity coming from our new facility.
Okay, gotcha. Just on the AMMO business, segment, could you maybe just talk about the visibility you have into the year? In the past, I think you guys have shared some backlog figures, so maybe if you could share any backlog figures that give you confidence on sort of the numbers that you'll do this year.
I know a lot of folks in the industry have sort of talked about end demand slowing a bit, but maybe, you know, it seems like you guys do have the opportunity to take some share and there's some channel fill opportunities. Maybe you could just speak to sort of where you see the majority of the growth coming from in the AMMO business this year.
Matt, this is Rob . You know, we see the growth, as Rob Wiley said, you know, coming out of the ammunition side. You know, we would be looking at a number of around $230 from that side. I think you probably see. Well, I know our backlog is 100% sold. Now, that of our current capacity.
Just to clarify, 100% sold within the current capacity. Could you maybe just quantify that a bit more for me? Current capacity, I guess is in flux a little bit because you have the Manitowoc facility ramping, and so I'd assume, you know, that number may change a bit. Does that mean $230 million in the backlog, or does that mean, you know, sort of we have a little bit less than that just given the capacity to deliver is a little bit lower than that at the moment?
No, that would be the backlog, but you pretty much answered your own question. There is a little bit of a sliding scale on the move. You know, we anticipate and hope where everything smooths and all the machines work and the capacity increases on a rapid basis. In that case, that backlog number would be a little bit too light.
Okay. Then any revenue in the AMMO segment that is factored in from the military opportunities that you guys have highlighted. Obviously, a lot of stuff sort of deeper in the funnel in that space, especially with SOT. I'm curious, have you guys factored any of that into the guide, the $230 million that you mentioned there, Rob? Or is that sort of icing on the cake, if you will, for the year?
That would be icing on the cake. We're not factoring that in. On the ballistic match, you'd see very late in the inning. On the Signature OnTarget, we're moving rapidly through the system.
Okay. Gotcha. And then maybe I'm curious, since this is a bit of a unique situation where you guys are reporting Q4 toward the end of your first quarter. I'm curious if you could just speak to maybe some of the trends over the last quarter and maybe separately between GunBroker and the AMMO segment.
Just so we can sort of directionally model the year, and the ramp up that you've got going in the AMMO segment. I'd assume GunBroker's been relatively steady, but maybe just correct me if I'm wrong there and maybe any trends that you've seen in the recent months, with some of the headlines in the news for GunBroker.
On the AMMO side of the business, just curious about sort of how the ramp transpires, how it has transpired in the first quarter, and then how you expect it to kind of unfold for the rest of the year?
Thanks for the question, Matt. This is Rob Wiley. I think you kinda, you know, spoke to the question itself. You know, we see the business continuing strong and we, you know, expect another strong quarter in this first quarter that we're currently in now. We're not gonna see a big ramp in revenues until we're into the new facility, but really expect to see the benefits of that in the third and fourth quarter of this fiscal year once we've completed the move and have everything up and running, the equipment set we've already purchased, just installing and hooking up and putting into production. Still expect to maintain current levels of production until we're up into that point.
Okay. Just to put a finer point on that, I guess in the fourth quarter, looks like the AMMO business, you did about $52 million in revenue. Maybe pulling that run rate forward in the first half of fiscal 2023 would be the safer bet, and then assuming there's a bit more of a kicker in the third and fourth quarter in terms of, you know, revenue from the AMMO side of the business.
Yeah, I think that's the right way to think about it.
Okay. Got it. Just I wanted to make sure I understood what you said, in terms of the ramp up and capacity at Manitowoc. I think that in the release you guys talked about a billion in incremental rounds. I guess my assumption was that the facility was probably gonna add more like, you know, half a billion rounds in the near term. Maybe just speak to sort of how much capacity are we adding, this fiscal year for 2023 and then over time if we get to the billion, you know, how soon do we get there? Maybe just so I can kind of understand and so folks can kind of help, so you can help folks model this out for the next year or two.
Yeah. I think the way to think of it is, you know, once we're fully installed and in the new facility, you know, day one that our capacity would essentially double and our goal is to get, you know, at a run rate of 1 billion rounds a year by the end of this fiscal year. If that helps, we'll add a little bit more color to it.
Okay. Total of $1 billion, not incremental $1 billion. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, that's correct.
Okay. Got it. Last one for me, and I'll turn it over. Sorry for all the long-windedness here, but there's a lot to get through. The margin ramp as we look at production in the Manitowoc facility and starting in July, maybe just help folks understand sort of how should we level set on ammunition gross margins? How is that factored into the full year Adjusted EBITDA guide that you gave? Is it more of a tale of two halves, where the first half is quite a bit lower than back half kind of ramps up to backfill? Or should we just be sort of level setting on the margins for the full year?
No, I think you had it absolutely right. Expect to maintain, you know, for first quarter and most of the second quarter, but as soon as we're, you know, the additional capacity comes online, expect to see the benefit of that in the third and fourth quarters of this fiscal year.
Okay. Gotcha.
The new cost savings.
I'll turn it over. Thank you.
Put in place.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all the vertical integration activities we have coming online in addition to the production capacity increases. We're very excited about moving into the new facility and to see what we can do coming out of that.
Gotcha. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Our next question is from Mark Smith with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. I wanted to dig in real quick on just kind of cadence of sales as we think about this next fiscal year. Is it safe to assume that, you know, September quarter would likely be the lowest just as you transition equipment, you know, from the existing facility into the new facility that we'll see some slowdown in business in September quarter and then June quarter being the next highest, and then more of that ramp in sales in second half of the year? Thinking specifically about loaded ammunition.
I feel confident that our second quarter will be as good as our first quarter that we just ended.
Okay. Perfect. I want to dig into just gross profit margin a little bit. You know, certainly a bit lower here than we've seen in the other quarters of this year. You know, can you talk about, you know, cost pressures that you're seeing, you know, especially as we think about components, primers, projectiles, even raw material costs? Talk about anywhere where you're seeing pressure there.
Yeah, no, I think, you know, the cost profile is, you know, relatively similar to what it has been in the past. I think on our last call, we had mentioned that we're really gearing up for the new manufacturing facility so that we can make a swift transition in the next couple of weeks here when the doors finally open up.
That's, you know, definitely adding to the margin profile that we're currently seeing today. You know, come the end of their second quarter, we really expect to see the benefit of the new capacity coming online and the production capabilities and vertical integration activities to be able to really improve our margin to a profile that, you know, we expect to see given everything that we put into it up until this point.
Something that we're very excited for.
Anything in particular to call out in Q4 that put more pressure on margin?
Yeah, I would say labor more than anything.
Okay.
We increased labor substantially for our move into our new building to train people, and it just took a lot more work than we thought, getting people trained, hiring quality people.
Okay. Perfect. This might be broad-based, but just walk me through kind of what gives you confidence in your guidance that you gave for the full year. As we think about, you know, top line given, you know, sounds like backlog's still strong, but what you're seeing in demand that kind of gives you confidence in that top line number, you know, and this is GunBroker as well as AMMO side. The bottom line, just given, you know, inflationary pressures that we're seeing today, you know, what gives you the confidence in being able to hit the guidance numbers that you gave for this next year?
Sure. Let me take a crack at that. The inflation pressure, you know, is really always passed on anyway. You know, we've gone through that for the last number of years. That would just continue as in every company in our space. You know, why do we think it will continue? I think two of the biggest reasons, A, is we still are in the midst of a lot of civil unrest. We have the sanctions on Russia, which is 20%-25% of the ammunition sold in the U.S.. Now we have, you know, the U.S. government, you know, basically telling Lake City they cannot sell into the commercial market. These are all gonna be beneficial to this space.
We really are the only ones who are adding any kind of capacity that where we can, you know, more than double our production. Do we feel good and confident that the winds are still at our back? The short answer is yes.
Perfect. Thank you, guys.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks, Mark.
Thank you. Our next question is from Edward Riley with EF Hutton. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. We're seeing a bit of an increased level of ammunition in stock at retail stores. Was wondering from, you know, an industry level if you could comment on pricing overall and maybe your ability to pivot towards ammunition that still has unmet demand, if there are any types of ammunition.
Yeah. I think, you know, we're still seeing all-time highs in levels of sales prices, you know, at least from manufacturer's side. Our sales team and production team are conscious of the markets and, you know, I think they have a close pulse on what's going on and you know, what the next big SKU may be. It's something that, you know, we're attuned to and are looking at daily to see if we need to make adjustments to what we're currently manufacturing, and how we can, you know, deliver the product that our consumers want.
Okay, got it. On the GunBroker side, could you just unpack a little bit for us, you know, the initiatives you're undertaking to maybe increase the sellers and buyers on the platform?
Yeah. There's a number of different initiatives that we're doing. You know, Fred had mentioned the financial suite of products, whether, you know, with the credit cards or the programs. These types of things will significantly ease for the sellers and the buyers, increasing transactions, you know.
On top of that, you know, adding some different services, the cart service, where, you know, like I had mentioned in my talk, they can purchase one item at a time. When the cart is completed, which should be soon, they can do multiple purchases. You know, hypothetically, you buy a gun. Do you need the cleaner? Do you need the ears? Do you need the eyes? And there are significant margins in the accessories on top of that. That'll be the highest margin business.
Making the end users, both sellers and buyers, give it more ease and more credibility, this is what's going to drive the existing base and new people coming to the market. Now, as these things get rolled out, you know, it's not a light switch, unfortunately. There's a lot of technology that goes behind this. We will not, and we've been spending a, you know, fair amount of money on these enhancements to get everything done right. When they are done right and when it is perfect, these will be rolled out, so it will be seamless for the end users.
Gotcha. Another question on that. Just how are you making, you know, potential sellers that aren't on the website aware of these types of initiatives?
Well, some of the initiatives aren't out there yet because they're not ready to roll out. They are, let's say, with the storefronts and the manufacturers. I mean, we are working with them, and we are signing up new sellers for those types of things. You know, what they're interested in and what they really need is one of the things that they've never could get their hands on before, which was the data.
Manufacturer needs to know what the hot products are, where are they being sold, where are the prices good, where are they getting weak? Same for the dealers, same for the distributors, you know. From a buyer's standpoint, you know, they're usually looking at, you know, what are the prices? Where are these?
These things are how we are gonna be monetizing our take rate. Our take rate, which if you noticed in our document, went from about 4.6%- 5.1%, you know, these types of enhancements will bring that take rate up to, you know, let's say conservatively about an 8.5%.
Gotcha. Thanks for that. Last question from me. You know, given the facilities nearly online, how should we maybe be thinking about CapEx going forward?
Thanks for the question. You know, as far as capital expenditures in relation to the new facility and the production that's coming online with that, most of the capital expenditures, virtually all to this point, has been expended to date. Looking forward, you know, unless we go through and add significantly more capacity from this point, you know, all of the costs have been incurred from this point. We really just are looking forward to the benefit that comes from that. You know, as I mentioned before, very excited to move into the new facility.
Gotcha. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Rob Jost with Invesco. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Thanks. I'm a little bit new to your story, but wanted to ask on cash flow, do you have just a general sense for next year with this outlook, that you would be able to generate a meaningful set of cash flow going forward? Or maybe speak about uses of that cash flow.
Thank you for the question. This is Rob Wiley. Yeah, absolutely. We do expect our cash flow, at least incoming cash flow to increase quite significantly. I think you saw on the 10-K that we just reported, we have positive cash flow from operations. A lot of the cash outflows this year were in relation to our GunBroker.com. And we also had a significant cash outflow just due to our growth.
You know, as we continue to grow, we will be spending cash, but we do expect to see that cash flow increase moving forward. Also, we're working towards including a credit facility, asset-based credit facility, so that to free up some of our cash that is tied up in our working capital to aid us in our growth.
Yeah, that was one of the questions. Is there, at the moment, it seem like your inventories went up quite a bit. Is there any unwind in that in the next year? Or is that at levels that you would expect to be or characterize as kind of normal?
Yeah. I think a big reason for the growth in our inventory is just due to our increase in our sales. As our sales continue to increase, I would expect our inventory levels continue to grow. Just a side note about our inventory, most of the inventory that we have on hand, virtually all of it is either raw materials or work in process. We're not holding a lot of finished goods on hand today.
One other little side note on the increase of the inventory is, you know, the inventory is all sold. The issue we have is not supply chain. The issue we have had up until this point is shipping. We currently have one dock for shipping and receiving. We're moving into a facility in just over two weeks that has 12. You know, it makes it a little bit easier. We just cannot get some of the stuff off the docks in time. You know, had we had multiple doors, a larger facility, you wouldn't have had to ask that question.
I just got back from our new facility this morning, and it's almost impossible to even walk in that building, as cramped as it is. You know, I'm just amazed that we've done what we've done this last quarter to get product out the door.
That's really helpful. Appreciate that. Well, that kind of dovetails into my other question, which is when you think about being at run rate at the new facility, do you have a target margin that you're shooting for? Have you talked about that?
Yeah. On our loaded ammunition product, I think we've always had the goal of maintaining a margin of higher than 30%. I think, you know, until we get there, we're going to do all we can to make that up.
Sounds great. I appreciate that. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question is from JD Abouchar with Glass Creek Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Congratulations on a great year. A question I had on the e-commerce side. With just the sheer size of GunBroker, I think last time I looked at online statistics, it was like 16 million unique users and ranked twice as high as Bass Pro in terms of, you know, website rank.
The industry is shifting to direct to consumer, so it's giving all brands, you know, a balancing act between not wanting to tick off their traditional channel, but obviously wanting to take advantage of online. With the sheer volume going through GunBroker, what are some of the opportunities to capitalize, you know, obviously on the increased take rate, but also both firearm and non-firearm sales, and really just build that platform up?
That's one of the things that we mentioned, you know, in the call. Thanks, JD. This is Rob, by the way. We had obviously, we're adding the cart, putting that together with the financial products. Really how to attract more buyers and sellers is really through adding more of the Amazon-like storefronts, dealers.
You know, I mean, the key here is all these people need distribution of their product, and they do want to get it out. Sometimes they, you know, some don't have all they have is brick and mortar. They need different things. You can look at a number of the different marketplaces out there that are very successful because they do this. We happen to be unique in our marketplace.
Because of that, and with the 7 million-plus users, and the new users joining, I mean, you know, these users are sellers and buyers. So this is how we can monetize, you know, all the interesting information and, you know, systems that we are currently putting in place, you know, to make GunBroker truly a huge growth engine.
Yeah. Just a follow-up question on that. You know, Fred's background is you know premier marketer and you know in drawing people in. It seems like right now you're not spending much at all in marketing or SEO or you know are there opportunities there to sort of drive at the appropriate time a branding initiative drive more people to the website by strategically doing some marketing? Or is the strength of the website so strong that's really not necessary?
You'll see some marketing this year. We're working on it right now, but, you know, up until now, we've focused on building this plant, building our, buying equipment, and now it's time to really fire up the marketing.
Opportunities.
Correct. With those marketing opportunities.
Terrific. Yeah.
increasing the technology and the availability and ease of access to give the users a better experience, it's all going to be tied into one. I think you'll see the marketing, like Fred said, beginning this year.
Terrific. Well, thanks, guys. Keep up the great work.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Andy Johnson with Royal Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon, guys. With one day left in the current quarter, can you give a somewhat narrow range on what the revenue will be?
Nope.
Okay. Last call, you said you were going to, you authorized funds for purchasing shares.
Mm-hmm
Can you make any comment as to whether you have done that or not?
We can make comment. We have not. We have taken our cash, and this year has been full of unique opportunities, which is something we look at on a daily basis to deploy that capital. Because we deployed it, I believe profitably and correctly, you're seeing the results of that cash deployment. When it is a better time to start acquiring the stock from the open market, you will see it, and it will be announced.
Gotcha. When you donate 1 million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, how is that accounted for on AMMO's books?
This is Rob Wiley. Thank you for the question. Yeah, that's an expense on our books. It would show up in operating expenses.
My assumption is that you had to have or already did jump through the government hoops just to be qualified to give it away. Assuming that that's correct, and you've already mentioned that I was unaware that your competitors have also made contributions. With the United States kicking an extra $40 billion that way, do you expect to get paying orders from Ukraine?
That wasn't the reason for the donation.
I didn't say it was.
The reason for the dona-
I'm asking you.
The reason for the donation wasn't because we knew that the administration would kick in $40 billion, you know, three months later. It was what they needed at the time.
I understand. Now that they have kicked in $40 billion.
Mm-hmm
Do you expect to get orders from Ukraine?
It's possible.
Yeah, it is possible, but it wasn't an expectation.
It hasn't happened yet?
No, it hasn't.
No.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for any closing comments.
Well, I'd like to thank you all for listening today. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to us. If you'd like to talk offline, we'll be happy to take your call. Again, thank you for your time.
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This concludes.
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