Blink Charging Co.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Blink Charging Company first quarter 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, but we will open the floor for your questions after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Jennifer Bilodeau, IMS Investor Relations. Jennifer, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Blink Charging Company first quarter 2022 investor call. On the call today, we have Michael Farkas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Brendan Jones, President, and Michael Rama, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that there is a live presentation accompanying today's earnings call where viewers can follow along. The slides can be accessed on the investor relations section of the Blink Charging website. I'll now take a moment to read the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements in terms such as anticipate, expect, intend, may, will, should, or other comparable terms involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of Blink and members of its management, as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in Blink's periodic reports filed with the SEC that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, Blink undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions. With that out of the way, I'll turn the call over to Michael Farkas, Chairman of Blink Charging. Go ahead, Michael.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We delivered a strong start to 2022, highlighted by record revenue of $9.8 million, an increase of 339% over the first quarter of 2021, driven by exponential growth in both product sales and service revenues. Our record first quarter results are reflective of the solid platform and reputation that we've built in the EV charging industry. as partners and customers recognize Blink as a leading provider of charging technology and services. In the quarter, we contracted, sold, or deployed 3,174 commercial and residential chargers, an increase of 99% compared to the same quarter last year. We also continue to see success winning new grant and rebate awards from various government programs, receiving $3 million in awards in the first quarter of 2022. and $30 million since January of 2021. Federal and state grant and rebate programs have been an integral part of our growth, providing us with numerous opportunities outside of the traditional sale of our products to expand our charging footprint, which Brendan will speak more in depth about later on in the call. The legislative environment surrounding the EV industry is incredibly favorable, and we believe we are positioned to win many more grants and rebates as federal, state, and local governments allocate the $7.5 billion from the Biden administration for state-of-the-art EV charging infrastructure. Following the close of the first quarter, we announced our acquisition of Electric Blue, or EV charging, a leading provider of integrated EV charging and sustainable energy solutions in the United Kingdom. This acquisition both expands our European presence into the UK and adds over 1,150 chargers installed or committed to delivery. It's adding that to the Blink charging footprint. A key part of Blink's strategy is to make acquisitions and to establish multi-year exclusive partnerships that increase charge deployments and our market reach. With the acquisition of EB charging, we are now present in over 19 countries, including the US, Belgium, UK, Greece, and nine countries in Latin America, as well as others. Turning to slide five, as you can see, The EV industry is still in its early stages and poised for massive exponential growth over the next decade and beyond. As such, I'd like to take a moment to reiterate just how much we believe in the opportunity Blink sees for future growth as a leading provider of EV charging solutions. According to the International Energy Agency, global EV sales are projected to grow at a KGAR of 24% from 2021 to 2030. with the number of vehicles sold increasing from 3 million in 2020 to about 25 million in 2030. This projected increase in electric vehicles creates an immediate demand for robust EV charging infrastructure, with the need for over 120 million EV chargers globally by 2030, as compared to the only 2.8 million chargers available globally in 2021. The growth is massive. As a leading provider of EV charging technology, we believe this growth presents a tremendous opportunity for Blink to significantly expand our charging footprint over the next decade and beyond and exponentially increase our share of the market. Now looking at slide six, we highlight Blink's unique value proposition that differentiates us from our competitors as a leading provider of EV charging technology. Our innovative product portfolio offers our customers a variety of charging options to fit almost any location or environment. As I mentioned last quarter, we unveiled seven new next generation charging products at CES in January, including our Vision IQ200 charger targeting the 1 million plus retail locations across the United States. The H2200 residential charger that allows us to target the 10 million plus home charging market. And the Blink management software and Blink mobile app, connecting our charges across all fleet operators. We are constantly looking for new ways to improve our product offerings in order to remain at the forefront of the industry and to resist obsolescence. And we design our products with the future innovation in mind. Complementing our industry-leading product portfolio are our multiple business model options centered on providing flexible and fully integrated charging solutions to our customers. While we have several different deployment options to fit our customers' needs, our main focus is on our owner and operator model. As an owner operator, we're intimately involved in every step of the installation process and can facilitate upgrades and other maintenance as needed to provide the best technology for the location, while also benefiting from anticipated increased charge utilization as more EVs are on the road. We also have the discretion to add chargers to a particular location when we decide that this is necessary and obviously when demand requires. Additionally, we provide long-term exclusive contracts with automatic extensions, which allows Blink to establish a long-term presence and increase brand recognition in the locations where our chargers are Blink owned and operated. With our unique model, Blink remains the only fully vertically integrated EV charging infrastructure company in the USA today. Another part of our strategy is the expansion of our domestic and international charging footprint. In the United States, we've made progress by continuing to identify the best locations to deploy our chargers in areas that will maximize utilization rates and drive increased revenue. Internationally, we successfully expanded our European charging footprint through our acquisition of Blue Corner in May of 2021, which we've grown significantly since we've taken over the management of that business. And recently, we acquired EV Charging to establish a presence in the UK. To date, we are now present in over 19 countries, including the US, France, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Greece, Latin America, South America, as well as others. and we continue to expand our presence and visibility, we believe that we are well-positioned to capitalize on the numerous opportunities emerging from the increasing demand for reliably recharging infrastructure, both organically and through M&A activity. As you can see, we've made tremendous progress in the first quarter of 2022, and I'd like to extend my gratitude to all of our employees, members, and our partners with whom we deploy our charging infrastructure. and we commend them for their hard work and dedication to growing Blink into a leader in the EV charging industry. We are energized by the many opportunities we're seeing and look forward to driving strong results and momentum as we progress through 2022. Now, I'll turn the call over to Brendan Jones, president of Blink, to discuss some of our recent developments.