Blink Charging Co.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Blink Charging Company's first quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and we will open for questions following the presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your phone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Vitaly Stolya, VP of Investor Relations. Vitaly, over to you.

Thank you, Jenny, and welcome to Blink's first quarter 2024 earnings call. On this call today, we have Brendan Jones, President and CEO, Michael Rama, Chief Financial Officer, and Michael Battaglia, our Chief Operating Officer. The discussions today will include non-GAAP references. These are reconciled to the most comparable US GAAP measures in the appendix of our earnings deck. You may find the deck along with the rest of our earnings materials and other important content on the Links to Investor Relations website. Today's discussions may also include forward-looking statements about our expectations. Actual results may be different from those stated and the most significant factors that could cause actual results to differ are included on page two of the first quarter, 2024 earnings deck. Unless otherwise noted, All comparisons are year-over-year. And now, regarding the investor relations calendar, Blaine and his team will be attending the B. Reilly Institutional Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on the 22nd of May, the Stifel 2024 Cross-Sector Investor Conference on the 4th of June in Boston, and the J.P. Morgan Energy Power Renewables Conference on the 17th of June in New York City. We will be meeting with investors during all of these events. Please also follow our announcements and our website for additional events in the future. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Brendan Jones, our President and CEO. Please go ahead, Brendan.

Sure, and thank you, Vitaly. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks again for joining us today. Let's just jump right into the presentation. So let's go to slide four. So 2024. is off to a strong start with revenues for the quarter growing to 73% year over year. That is a first quarter record of $37.6 million for Blink. Blink service revenue increased by 72% to $88.2 million. Now, our charging service revenue increased by 74% to 5 million compared to 2.9 million in the first quarter of 2023, representing a $2.1 million increase in charging revenue. We also recorded a 27% increase in network services fees to 2.1 million for the quarter, And our network servicing fees are reoccurring in nature, and they represent what we call a reliable and high margin revenue stream for Blink. Blink's company-wide gross profit in the first quarter of 2024 was $13.4 million, or 36%, compared to $4.5 million, or 21%, of the first quarter 2020. of last year, representing a gross profit increase of $8.9 million or 195% in gross profit. We contracted, sold, or deployed 4,555 chargers globally in the first quarter of this year. Blink's chargers dispersed approximately 30 gigawatts of energy across all Blink networks globally in Q1 of 2024. As you can see from these numbers, our revenue is becoming increasingly diversified. We have a competitive advantage in our industry because we offer flexible business models and we can provide L2 and DC chargers as well as network and charging services. We can be nimble, not only in our response to addressing customers' needs, but also in reacting to changes in the market, which allows us to effectively manage revenue generation and profitability. Our first quarter was characterized by strong performance by the Blink team and is indicative of healthy customer demand. Furthermore, demonstrating our ability to leverage our manufacturing and logistical strengths to meet that demand. Vertical integration is working for Blink. If we move to slide five, for 2024, we are keeping our full year 2024 revenue target unchanged at 165 million to 175 million. Now, while we had a strong Q1, which we, by the way, are very, very excited about, we are also seeing some lower bookings in April. We are closely monitoring the market, and it's too early to tell if we will see an impact in the full-year revenue targets. We regularly review our pipeline and will provide an update, if necessary, in the future. As a result of several companies exiting the charging space or reducing their presence, along with confirmation of some very strong orders in the Q3 and Q4 timeframe, we expect opportunities for additional growth in the second half of 2024. We are also maintaining our target of achieving positive EBITDA run rate by December of 2024, as well as our full year 2024 gross margin target of 33%, which you've already seen that we've overachieved in the first quarter. If we jump to slide six, we have recently strengthened our balance sheet and are properly capitalized to achieve our adjusted EBITDA run rate target. Our cash and cash equivalents at March 31st, 2024 were $93.5 million. Now let's move on to slide seven. Let's take a minute on slide seven to discuss what is happening in the industry with demand for EVs and EV infrastructure. Despite reports that EV sales are slowing, Kelly Blue Book indicates that First quarter 2024 EV penetration was 7.3% of sales in the U.S., which is an increase of 2.6% versus Q1 of 2023. Sequentially, there was a bit of decline when you view EVs in terms of the number of vehicles sold as compared to Q4 of 2023. This decline is primarily due to Tesla volumes. as the other nine leading EV manufacturers, including Tesla, reported EV sales growth of over 50% in Q1 of 2024. And that includes Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Mercedes, Cadillac, BMW, and others. Additionally, we saw on March 27, 2024, that Hyundai revealed an ambitious $50 billion investment to secure the top three spot in the EV market. We continue also to see growth in Europe, and specifically the markets where we generate a significant amount of charging service revenue. In Belgium, the Netherlands, UK, and Ireland, EVs continue to gain significant momentum with robust growth. In Belgium, battery electric vehicle registrations increased nearly 50% in Q1 2024 versus Q1 2023. In the Netherlands, there was growth of nearly 20% versus last year. And in the UK, according to the Guardian newspaper, a record number of chargers were installed in Q1 of 2024. UK also recorded a number of battery electric vehicle registrations this month of March, representing nearly 25% of all cars sold in the country. In the US, McKinsey currently forecasts over 28 million chargers will be needed by 2030. And globally, EV infrastructure spending is forecasted to be about 260 billion by 2030, with about 90% of those chargers being L2. Now, moreover, industry data shows that EV infrastructure significantly lags behind the current EV fleets on the roads today in the U.S. and also lags to some extent in Europe. We also see increasing consolidation in our industry with certain of our competitors choosing to reduce their presence or in some cases even pull back entirely. Blink sees these as opportunities to grow and deploy our disciplined operating models in both the L2 and DC fast charger markets. Now let's pivot over to slide eight. You can see that cumulatively The end of Q1 of 2024, Blink has contracted, sold, or deployed nearly 95,000 chargers since the company's inception, on the way to exceed 100,000 very soon. Now, if we look at that geographically, 77% of the total company-wide number is attributed to North America, and then 23% to Europe and some other international locations. Now, let's move over to slide nine. you can see our innovative product portfolio and flexible solutions for both L2 chargers and high-powered DC fast chargers. The variety of products we offer appeal to a broad and diverse range of customers. Our Series 7 and 8 chargers, which are produced in-house in the U.S. at our Bowie, Maryland facility, are the most popular Level 2 model among our customers. 10, it shows a representative group of our customer base, including many recognizable names across commercial entities, multifamily complexes, planned communities, healthcare facilities, fleets, and municipalities around the world. As we said before, we take advantage of places where vehicles idle and sit. And just last week, we announced that Blink was selected as one of the official electric vehicle chargers and network service providers for the state of New York. We are excited to have this opportunity to work in close cooperation with New York authorities to electrify the state and municipal fleets, provide public charging for employees, for residents, and for visitors of the city. So with that, I will now pass the presentation over to Michael Rama, our CFO. Michael, take it away.