ADDvantage Technologies Group, Inc.

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Advantage Technology Group's fiscal 2023 first quarter financial results. At this time, all participants are in the tsunami mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rich Moss of Hayden IR. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. We're joined today by Joe Hart, President and CEO, as well as Michael Rutledge, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, I'd like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities and Allegation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events, such as the ability of advantage technologies and its subsidiaries to maintain strategic relationships and agreements with certain original equipment manufacturers and multiple system operators, as well as future performance of advantage technologies. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Participants are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions, and they materially differ from the actual future events and results due to a variety of factors, such as those contained in advantage technologies. Most recent report on Form 10-K on the file of the Security and Exchange Commission. Actual information presented on this conference call should be considered in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included in the company's first release issued earlier today and including Advantage Technologies' most recent report on Form 10-K. The guidance regarding anticipated future results on this call is based on limited information currently available on Advantage Technologies. We have started to change. Although any such guidance and factors may change, Advantage Technologies will not necessarily update this information as the company will only provide guidance at certain points during the year. Such information speaks only of the date of this call. During the call, we may also present certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as non-GAAP net income and certain ratios that are used with these measures. In our press release and in the financial tables issued earlier today, which are located on our website at advancedtechnologies.com, you will find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the closest GAAP financials and a discussion about why we believe the non-GAAP financial measures are relevant. These financial measures are included for the benefit of investors and should be considered in addition to and not instead of GAAP measures. I'd like to now turn the call to Joe Hart, President and CEO of Advantage Technologies. Joe, please go ahead.

Thank you, Brett, and thank you to everyone joining us on the call today. This was a challenging quarter. The March quarter is always a challenge for our wireless segment, due largely to winter weather in the Midwest. It is typically our slowest quarter. But compounding that was the sudden and precipitous decline in demand for our telco segment. For the last two years, our telco segment has been delivering robust growth, benefiting from several pandemic-related trends, such as the disrupted supply chain, the global chip shortage, and the remote workforce. Simply put, enterprises needed more telco equipment, from office phones to optical switches, to better support a workforce that was more distributed than ever. But the chip shortage, supply chain constraints, and high cost to borrow made it difficult, and in some cases impossible, to buy new equipment. Last year, this led to a large demand curve for used and refurbished network components. The result was overbuying in 2022 from network operators concerned that they wouldn't be able to get critical parts or spares for their network. Now that the OEMs have improved delivery intervals for new equipment, the operators have focused on burning off the excess inventory that they have built up of spares, which has had a significant impact on our business. We expect that inventory buildup will burn off at some point in the next few months. and that our equipment business will normalize back to more historic levels during the second half of this year. In the meantime, our wireless segment continues to perform at normal levels with a slight decline in January due to winter weather. As the weather improves, we are highly confident that our wireless revenue will accelerate significantly this year. We think we've only scratched the surface of the wireless opportunity. We continue to add experienced talent to our team, broadening our opportunities and improving our competitive position. Moreover, the wireless industry is facing unprecedented upheaval. Some of the largest service integrators who have served large carriers in many areas of the country are struggling. Some have had service issues and one has failed. This has created greenfield opportunities for reliable partners, and we believe we will capture a meaningful share of the near-term CapEx spend. The overall opportunity is massive, and the new additions to our team bring established relationships and significant experience. The continuing 5G opportunity represents a multi-year growth opportunity for tower work, as the carriers are less than halfway complete with their initial 5G deployments. Although some of the carriers are announcing a brief pause or slowdown in their expansion plans, they continue to invest billions of dollars in their networks as they must deliver the capacity and coverage required by the ever demanding wireless subscriber population. On the bright side, we benefited from the cost reduction initiatives we put in place last year. We again lowered our SG&A expenses and we are poised for solid profitability as revenues normalize in the telco segment and increase in the wireless division in the second half of this year. While consolidated revenues decreased 38% from the same quarter a year ago, gross margins remained essentially flat, and our operating expenses decreased by $0.8 million. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Michael Rutledge, our CFO, to provide a more detailed review of our financial results. Michael, please go ahead.