Allot Ltd.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Allot's second quarter 2023 results conference call. All participants are at present in listen-only mode. Following management's formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If you have not received it, please contact Allot's investor relations team at EK Global Investor Relations at 1-212-378-8040 or view it in the news section of the company's website at www.alot.com. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Kenny Green of EK Global Investor Relations. Mr. Green, please begin.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to a lost second quarter 2022 conference call. I would like to welcome all of you to the conference call and thank Allot's management for hosting this call. With us on the line today are Mr. Erez Entebbe, President and CEO, and Mr. Ziv Leitman, CFO. Erez will summarize the key highlights, followed by Ziv, who will review Allot's financial performance of the quarter. We will then open the call for the question and answer session. Before we start, I'd like to point out that this conference call may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future performance of the company. These statements are only predictions, and a lot cannot guarantee that they will in fact occur. A lot does not assume any obligation to update that information. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected, including as a result of changing market trends, reduced demand, and the competitive nature of the security systems industry, as well as other risks identified in the documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And with that, I would now like to hand the call over to Erez. Erez, please go ahead.

Thank you, Kenny. I'd like to welcome all of you to our conference call. Thank you for joining us today. Our second quarter revenues were $25 million, 24% lower than the comparable quarter last year. In June, 2023, our CCAS ARR was $9.7 million, 4% higher than our CCAS ARR in March, 2023 and 41% higher than our CCAS ARR for June, 2022. The first half of 2023 was challenging for us. The transition of the business into CCAS recurring revenue model has proven to be slower than we originally anticipated. In addition, our core DPI business is experiencing some macro related headwinds. While we don't expect these challenges to disappear in the near term, given the challenging economic backdrop, we continue to make progress with the aspects of the business that we can control. I remain optimistic about our future. During today's call, I will discuss the challenges we are facing, the opportunities we see, and why I am confident in the future. During the second quarter, our cash balance fell by $11 million as a result of the loss, inventory increase, and account payable decrease. This cash burden is, of course, higher than we would like it to be. As our cost-cutting efforts come into effect partially in the fourth quarter and in full in 2024. Together with a projected increase in revenues, we expect to improve our cash flow and we are reiterating our expectations to be profitable in 2024. Our gross margin in the second quarter was 71% due to our deal mix. We continue to target a gross margin of 70% for 2024 despite expecting a lower gross margin in Q3 as a result of the specific deal mix. In July, we announced an increase of approximately $14 million in the allowance for credit losses relating to receivables arising from sales in three African countries. We have been assessing the collectability of these accounts receivable on a quarterly basis, and in our most recent assessments, the company determined that these accounts previously disclosed as outstanding will not, with reasonable certainty, be collected. We are continuing our efforts to collect these amounts and believe we should be able to collect them. However, as I said, we can no longer state this with reasonable certainty, so we took an allowance for credit losses. As we announced in July, given the challenges facing our business, The board formed an executive committee that has worked with management to identify and recommend opportunities for further improvement with a focus on driving sustainable profitability and enhancing shareholder value. The executive committee and management agreed that the right direction is to maintain CCAS as our main growth engine. In this area, we will continue to focus on network-native security solutions. In our traffic management and analytics solutions, we are modifying our initiatives to prioritize profitability. In order to conserve cash, reach profitability in 2024, and ensure that we have staying power even as CCAS takes longer to ramp up, we are implementing a cost reduction plan. Specifically, our actions will result in a reduction of approximately 20% from our current employee headcount as well as other cost reductions. We expect this cost cutting effort to save approximately $15.15 million per year. The relevant employees that may be affected have already been notified. This cost reduction plan will have a one-time cost of approximately $2 million, which will be booked in the third quarter. Now, I would like to discuss our different product lines. I would like to start by discussing our traffic management and analytics business addressed by our smart product line. The main use cases we see today in CSPs continue to be in traffic management, congestion management, quality of user experience, especially for video, policy and charging control, and digital enforcement. As governments look to fight crime and terrorism, we see a growing interest globally in being able to block illegal activities such as drug trafficking child pornography, and terrorism. We have solutions that address these issues, and we are seeing growing interest in our products. We will continue to pursue this direction, as we believe this is a segment that will continue to grow. In CSPs, we see the need for analytics continuing. In traffic management use cases, such as fair use, policy-based charging, and congestion management, we still see quite a few opportunities from low R2 countries some of which are to replace a competitor's product. In our enterprise business, we continue to see demand for on-prem systems such as ours from enterprises in developing countries where bandwidth is relatively expensive. In developed countries such as North America and Europe, we see reduced demand from enterprises that are moving to the cloud, but growing demand from government entities that require, mostly for security reasons, on-prem solutions. Currently, after our deal with Broadcom, we remain the major solution provider for this need. Overall, we recognize that we are facing several challenges that continue to make it more difficult for us to forecast our business over short timeframes. First, as we discussed in previous earnings calls, due to tighter headwinds and tighter expense control by the CSPs, it is taking longer to close DPI deals than in the past. and the total number of DPI bids for CSPs we are seeing is not growing. Second, the move of CSPs to 5G standalone core is very slow, negatively impacting our ability to grow with our 5G Net Protect product. Third, in the enterprise market, we believe the growth we saw as a result of the Broadcom deal has peaked. As we stated in our last earnings call, While we continue to have a strong pipeline of large deals for the remainder of the year, the dynamics I just mentioned, together with the potential lumpiness of large deals, makes it challenging to forecast our DPI business over short timeframes. I want to turn your attention now to what we see in our cybersecurity business and how the market is developing. As I have said previously, although this transforming into a cybersecurity company, And this is where we see most of our future growth coming from. Our CCAS revenues are growing steadily, albeit not at the pace we would like, as we continue to see slower deployment than expected. Nevertheless, there are quite a few positive notes worth highlighting. I would like to start with the North American market. I am very happy to announce that a couple of months ago, Verizon Business launched their network native security service, which incorporates Alloc Network Secure. I am very excited about this offering from Verizon, which provides protection services for segments of Verizon's fixed wireless broadband business customers and helps defend them against cyber threats. This cybersecurity service puts a layer of defense at the internet gateway intercepting threats before they can even reach devices. Verizon believes that simple, zero-touch solutions like ours are especially helpful for small businesses, which might not have the in-house expertise to manage more complicated security measures. The service is being well received, and we are discussing with Verizon various ways to expand its reach. I will note that Verizon did not generate any CCAS revenues for Alot during the second quarter, but Verizon will begin contributing to revenues in the third quarter. As I stated in earlier calls, I continue to believe that the Verizon opportunity is our single largest signed CCAS opportunity. Furthermore, as other CSPs see Verizon's success, I believe some will follow suit. where we are already getting enhanced interest from other operators to better understand what Verizon is doing and how they might do the same. On a bittersweet note, one of the operators we signed with, a Canadian CSP, has decided not to launch the CCAST service for now as they are refocusing their business following a major network issue they had unrelated to Alot. This CSP is also an Alot smart customer and they have recently expanded significantly the CapEx business they have with us. The cancellation of this CCaaS launch is a significant contributor to the reduction in our ARR forecast for the year. In APAC, we are also progressing well. Recently, we signed two additional CCaaS deals in APAC. One is a relatively small deal where we deploy network secure in a small Pacific island. The other is a DNS secure deal with a major tier one telecom operator with more than 50 million subscribers, most of whom are prepaid. The services will initially be offered to their postpaid customers and potentially later to other high-value customers. I believe these deals are a testament to the importance CSPC in providing business and consumers with network-based security services. also in Asia, Far East, or FET, in Taiwan, has experienced a very successful launch. Since the launch in December of 2022, the service has been expanding rapidly, and we are now in the process of expanding the capacity to handle more subscribers. I will note that our ARR from FET has not been growing, even as the number of subscribers has ramped, because FET committed to a minimum payment per month from day one. That minimum has been exceeded, so we should start seeing ARR growth as the number of subscribers grow. FET and their president look at security service as strategic and important to their brand image and in line with their core commitments to their customers. As we discussed in the past, this is an excellent example of how successful CCAS can be when the CSB aligns security with its strategy. It is noteworthy that this FET experience shows that on average, the security service blocked 47 attacks per user per month. I believe this is a strong validation of the importance and value of the network-native security solution. As we look at the market, we see that the direction and momentum of operators interested in launching network-based security services continues to be positive. We see that in many markets, the various operators provide services that are on par with respect to speed, coverage, and reliability. As they look for differentiation, network-based security is emerging as an important element. Because it is a service native to the operator's network, network security is directly coupled to the access network itself. There are several Tier 1 operators who have reached the conclusion that providing network-based security to their customers is of significant importance to them, and they are discussing with us how to do so. In addition, we are in discussions with several other operators globally where we hope to be able to conclude deals over the coming months. I would like to say a few words about Convergence. CSPs worldwide have been talking about convergence for quite a few years, mostly combining their fixed and mobile services. Unfortunately, many CSPs have been struggling to bring tangible value to their customers and basically provide unified billing and discounts. The iLockSecure platform Yellow secure platform combines security enforcement in the core, on the DNS line, and in the routers under a unified management system and portal. This is perhaps one of the few tangible convergence values CSPs can bring to their customers, offering a unified experience on both mobile and fixed access. We don't see CSPs starting with a convergent offering, but we are in discussion with several CSPs in Europe that have launched our CCAS service to mobile customers and are looking to expand it to a converged mobile plus fixed offering. As we discussed in previous calls, I want to remind you that we changed our strategy for the Elote Secure business. We are putting more emphasis on large strategic accounts that can have a high revenue impact while in small to medium deals, we are looking for minimum revenue thresholds. These changes reduce the number of new CSPs we can sign up. However, it allows us to focus our resources on the smaller number of CSPs that see more strategic value in the CCAS service, which should drive profitable revenue growth for ALOC. We remain excited about our CCAS opportunity as we have a differentiated, scalable solution for CSPs. Our CCAS revenues for the second quarter were $2.4 million, and the CCAS ARR at the end of the second quarter was $9.7 million, a significant growth year over year. As of June 30th, 2023, we have 28 signed customers, but seven of them have been canceled and discontinued, mainly due to our strategy to focus on large customers. Unfortunately, only 14 have started to generate revenues. Most of them are relatively small operators, and the majority of them launched the service only to a portion of their subscriber base. There are a few more launches planned for this year. Looking ahead, I want to summarize our expectations for 2023. We expect CCAS revenues for 2023 to be around $11 million. We expect the CCAS ARR for December 23 to be between $12 million and $14 million, and our total ARR, including support and maintenance, to be between $51 million and $55 million. Regarding our total revenue, operating loss, and cash flow guidance, we are providing a wide range because of a specific large expansion deal we expect to close this year. We expect our total revenues for the full year 2023 to be between $95 million and $110 million, non-GAAP operating loss to be between $38 million and $44 million, including the $14 million doubtful debt reserve, and cash burn for the whole year to be between $24 million and $44 million. As I stated, remain committed to reach profitability for the full year 2024. This will be achieved through some revenue growth, mainly in CCAS, combined with tight expense control. We expect the third quarter revenues to be approximately $25 million, but with a lower than average gross margin of 50% due to the specific expected deal mix. Our strategy remains the same. While we believe that our DPI business has limited growth potential and the lumpiness of the business makes it difficult to forecast over short timeframes, we think we can maintain a stable level of revenues through new use cases and market share gains, and we are using DPI's profitability and cash flow generation to invest in our CCAS business because our CCAS business is where we see significant future growth opportunities. While our CCAS revenues are being recognized later than we would have liked and later than we expected, I remain convinced of the large potential of this business, and I'm confident that it will grow significantly in the coming year. I have full faith in our company, our team, and our products, and I believe in the actions we are taking to make our goals achievable. And now I would like to open the call for questions and answers. And Ziv and myself will be available to take your questions. Operator?

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star 1. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Please stand by while we poll for your questions. The first question is from Eric Martinuzzi of Lake Street. Please go ahead.

I have a question regarding the bad debt write-off, the $14 million credit allowance. Are we still doing business with the reseller or resellers in Africa that were responsible for that write-off?

Hi, Eric. We are not doing the new business with this reseller, but we are making an effort to collect the money. But we don't have any new business.

All right. The strategy examination that you announced on July 17th, are we complete with that or is that still an ongoing process? Obviously, we're focused on growth on CCAS and a return to profitability, but does that say that the strategic examination is complete?

I would say that we've done a lot of work over the past few weeks on this. We've reached some high-level conclusions, both on the general strategic direction that we have reached We are continuing to focus on the CCAS opportunity because we believe in it. We've reached the conclusion that we need to significantly reduce our cost structure, which we are implementing already. And I think that we will continue to work to see how we both implement this and continue to bring the company back to growth. in the future. So I wouldn't say it's complete. I would say it's a work in process that we've done a lot on until now.

Okay. And I appreciate the color on the full year outlook as well as the Q3 revenue of $25 million. And I think you said it was 50% on the gross profit. What should we be thinking about for a normalized operating expense post-restructuring?

So as we said, the total cost reduction is supposed to be around $15 million on a yearly basis. And let's assume the baseline could be Q2 expenses. Most of it will be in the office. Smaller part of it will be in the course. But altogether, as we said, we are targeting be positive in 2024.

I understand. Thanks for taking my questions.

The next question is from Nihal Chachkikshi of Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Ziv, I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you that well. What was the comment? What was the detail on the Octex run rate that you had just given out? Could you say that again? I'm sorry.

So the baseline is the Q2 expenses. And the $15 million reduction in cost, most of it will be in expenses and small expenses smaller part would be in COPs. But altogether, this should bring us to be profitable in 2024. But as was mentioned, we will see the full effect of this cost-cutting only towards the end of the year.

Okay, understood. And when you say profitable in calendar 24, Does that mean profitable in each quarter of calendar 24, profitable for the full year of calendar 24, or just profitable by the end of calendar 24?

It means the full year of 2024. It doesn't mean each one of the quarter, as we mentioned already in the previous quarter.

OK. And so looking into the September quarter, What's the worst case scenario you see transpiring with respect to the DPI business?

Not quite sure how to answer that. And honestly, I'm not quite sure the question. We gave the forecast for the revenue or the guidance, I would say, for the revenues in the third quarter. So Maybe if you can elaborate what you're looking for, I can try and help.

Yeah, okay. Let me be a little bit more explicit. So your full year guidance of $95 million to $110 million, that's a big range given that you have two quarters left. And what I'm trying to figure out is if you basically see this $25 million that you did in the June quarter as a sustainable level given your order book, and the uncertainty is with whether or not you have an inflection of DPI within the December quarter, or is there uncertainty with respect to even the September quarter revenue level?

So, Niel, as we talked about this issue also in previous quarters, Even at this point, one month before the end of the quarter, we don't have all the revenues in hand. So when we say that our forecast for the third quarter is 25 million, this is our forecast. We don't have it in hand. So for two, we don't have all the revenues of Q4 in hand. So when we set the range in 95 to 110, this is our focus. It doesn't mean that we have an end in 95 and we are just waiting for the upside. This is the normal course of business. It was the same situation also a year ago and three years ago.

OK. Understood. And how do you know that the DPI softness is definitively macro-related as opposed to, you know, say, hey, encryption is reducing irrelevant to the DPI market or some other market phenomenon that might be going on?

I think it's very hard. It's hard for me to really differentiate what the macro level consists of. I do see the operators tightening very much their budgets and expenses. You know, you've seen operators in the U.S. announce layoffs and reduction in costs. You've seen that in operators in Europe. So this affects, I think, not only Alot, I think it probably affects other technology providers who are selling to the operators. Now, I don't think that there is, I don't see technically a material change in the ability of DPI to provide value because of encryption or something like that. We're dealing with increased encryption and we have certain algorithms and I would say certain algorithms, some of them heuristic, some of them based on AI and machine learning, to help us cope with that. I don't think that that's a major contributor, but the macro environment is definitely harder for operators then as a result for companies providing them with their technology.

Okay, great. Thank you for answering my questions.

The next question is from Mark Silk of Silk Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.

uh excuse me thanks for taking my questions um i had questions on the july 20th uh announcement of the tier one with more than 50 million mostly prepaid customers so you're initially offering it to the post paid customers and then potentially to other high value customers does that include the prepaid customers or that's basically something that that's not a product for a prepaid

High valued customers include both postpaid customers, which typically pay a lot more than prepaid, and some of the prepaid customers as well. Prepaid means different things in different geographies. I mean, it always means prepaid, obviously, but It's not necessarily just, you know, very, very poor people who have very, very little money and are trying to save every cent. It's also a way of how people spend their money and how they choose to contract with the telecom operator. So high-value customers are a mix of both. Now, having said that, The majority of, and you can imagine this is an APAC customer, tens of millions of customers. We said more than 50. You can assume that a majority of them are really very low revenue producing or very low ARPU type customers to the operator, and they will probably not be relevant or not relevant to a large extent to the services.

Okay, so there's reports that China continues to basically try to infiltrate Taiwan as far as with, you know, phishing, et cetera, et cetera. Are you seeing that from other Asian countries that that might be, I don't know, an impetus to use your product, or you don't really hear that from some of these customers?

No, I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that as a reason or a motivation from any of our customers or any of the operators, neither in Taiwan or elsewhere.

Okay. And then I'm just concerned about this 2024 profitability, which I know you're trying to do the right things here, but I'm worried that we could have a recession next year and then you have another excuse. So I think it's important that the executive committee, as you're looking at this, as it goes throughout the rest of the year, they've got to really make an assessment if you can get the profitability because the story's getting a little old and it's frustrating because you have fantastic technology. So I think they've got to kind of maybe think outside the box because your stock price is not reflecting your revenues or the success of your product. So has that been discussed as well? as saying that maybe a bigger company could do better.

I've shared what I can from the discussions and the conclusions that we've had with the executive committee. And I think, as I said, with the response to a previous question by someone else on this call, the work is not done. We've reached the conclusions until now, and we will continue to work to make sure that we find a way both to reach profitability next year and to create shareholder value.

Okay. On a positive note, I did see an advertisement for Verizon, and I did call them, and it's being well-received. And I said, has there been any issues with the customers? And they say, usually, if people call us back, then there's problems, and they haven't really had any callbacks. So let's hope that this can accelerate growth and maybe bring some other big customers on board. Good luck, I guess. And I'd like to see the board and management buy shares in the open market. It's the only way to show confidence because talk is cheap. Money talks. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next question is from Rory Wallace of Outbridge. Please go ahead.

Hey, residents. Following on Mark's point there, It does seem like Verizon is showing a pretty good commitment to the service with the way they've launched it, the way they've priced it. They're certainly pricing it as a pretty incrementally valuable service at $10 or $20 per line. And there's obviously 30 million Verizon business lines across their group, But currently, probably a million of that or less is on FWA. So you mentioned potential expansion opportunity within Verizon. Based on how the service seems to be going for them so far, it would seem logical that they might expand at some point. But I wanted to understand your thought process around that and also just when you talk about it being the largest contract that you've won and the biggest opportunity you see, what are you sort of basing that analysis around? Is it the FWA opportunity over a few years' time, and that alone is enough to make it the biggest, or is it really predicated on kind of growing outside of FWA into the full business group or even the consumer group?

Okay, so I'm obviously very excited about what's happening in Verizon, and so far it looks to be successful for everyone, and that's great. Now, right now, as you mentioned, it is being sold only to fixed wireless access customers. We're talking, and I mentioned this in my notes before, we're talking to Verizon about, because it's going well, about possibility to expand that, to expand the service and the reach of the service beyond what it is today. I cannot elaborate where this will be expanded to and if it will be expanded to anyone. If and when things are concluded and Verizon allows us to share, I'll be happy to share it. Regarding my comment on the potential size of Verizon, I think that The contract we have is with Verizon as a company. We don't have a contract on fixed wireless access in Verizon. We have a contract with Verizon. They have launched it to a certain segment. When I look at overall, I look at the size of Verizon and the potential where this can go. I look at not just the number of subscribers, but also the fact that Verizon is in the United States with high revenue per customer and high ARPU. You mentioned that the price that they're putting out in the market for the security services is between $10 to $20 a month. And I think that translates to a very large opportunity for us. How much of that opportunity will materialize? I do not know. But any way I look at it, I believe today will be the single largest signed opportunity that we have.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate those comments. So, yeah, good work, and congratulations on that launching and doing well so far. To your comments on the rest of the U.S. market or sort of halo opportunities coming out of Verizon launching the service, can you be any more specific about the nature of those conversations? I know it takes a long time to win these Tier 1s, and you've been knocking on their doors and having meetings with senior executives for some time with some of these companies, but is it really, you know, potentially accelerating actual signings of large near-term opportunities for you?

I think, you know, as you said correctly, it's a long process. It takes time. It's hard for me to predict any short-term revenue, short-term, sorry, results. So I would rather not create any expectations that I may not be able to stand behind. So I think we're talking to the other operators. I think it's interesting. I think there's potential there, but beyond that, I wouldn't comment.

Got it. And then as far as that tier one Canadian operator, they've had a few things come up and it's not totally shocking to hear that, um, I guess they're pushing out the launch. I just wanted to be clear, are they backing away from offering CCAS, you know, at any point in time? Or is it just that they've sort of deferred the launch date to an unknown future date? So you've kind of conservatively taken that out of any future projections. And then I think you mentioned they're still taking DPI equipment from a lot. And I was wondering if that might be part of the – the reason for the Q3 gross margin being lower might be that maybe there was a bundled thought process around how you structured that contract. Just trying to understand, because the gross margin, did you say 5-0 or 6-0 for Q3? But it's a lot lower than the gross margin you've had in any other quarter.

So I said 5-0 for Q3, 50%, 5-0 for Q3. Look, there's no difference between postponing indefinitely to not doing, because it's subject to change anyway, regardless. So right now, they're not doing it. That's how we look at it. In the future, the future can be many things. It's obviously no longer in any of our forecasts. And regarding the Q3 projected margin, it's very low and it's related to a mix of a few deals. But beyond that, I don't want to specify where exactly it's coming from.

Okay, that's fair. And then with the sort of other large opportunity on Vodafone for home secure, I think you mentioned the convergence of mobile and then fixed services, but can you comment any more on the opportunity with Vodafone or any of these other fixed line deals that you've won for the home secure product?

Like we announced, I don't remember when, but a while ago we signed an agreement with Vodafone to launch the Home Secure product. And we're very hopeful that it will launch and will be successful. I don't have other comments on that. We're talking to various other operators, both in Europe and other places, about launching Home Secure. It's one of our product lines. We are actively selling it. And I'm not sure I have much more to add beyond that.

Okay. And then the operating expense run rate, you mentioned the use Q2. You previously said Q3 would come down from Q2 levels. That was before this most recent cost reduction action. So is there some cushion in that, or is there a reason why that prior – sort of expected step down in the Q3 OpEx level wouldn't have been happening anyway.

Also, Paul, in Q3, as we said, we are going to book the $2 million one-time REIT expenses. The other expenses should be roughly in the same level as the second quarter.

Okay. Got it. And then in terms of working capital, you've had the inventory come up quite a bit. I guess some of that's going to be related to the lower margin business. But what should we expect from working capital going forward? I mean, is your goal going to be to kind of bring back these days of inventory and receivables and payables kind of back to where they were? And that should be a tailwind to cash flow at some point. letting alone that $14 million bad debt receivable that's still sitting out there. I mean, is it fair to think that working capital should normalize at some point?

Currently, I wouldn't take it into account that it will sharply go down, but definitely it will not be increased further. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. Okay. Thank you.

This concludes the question and answer session. Mr. Antebi, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Yes. I want to thank you all again for joining this call. and for asking the questions and participating. And I look forward to talking to you in the next conference call next quarter. Thank you very much.

Thank you. This concludes the Allot Second Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.