SurgePays, Inc.

Good day, and welcome to the Surge Pays Incorporated Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brian Prentiveau. Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Surge Pays third quarter 2022 earnings webcast and conference call. Today's date is November 14, 2022. And on the call today from Surge Pays are Brian Cox, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tony Evers, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements as they are defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please see surge pay's most recent filings with the SEC. All forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only, and we undertake no obligation to update any statement to reflect the events that occur after this call. Also, during the course of today's call, the company will be discussing one or more non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the press release we issued this afternoon. Copies of today's press release are accessible on the SurgePays Investor Relations website, ir.surgepays.com. In addition, SurgePays Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2022. also be available on the Surge Pays Investor Relations website. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Cox.

Thanks, Brian. We were tremendously busy in the third quarter of this year, and the team's hard work is translating into not just growth, but growth with a strategic direction. Revenue exceeded $36 million in the third quarter, a two-and-a-half times increase compared to last year. In the first nine months of 2022, revenue increased by 131% compared to the first nine months of last year. And it's important to note this was during a timeframe where sales were intentionally throttled by management in order to grow without dilution. We believe continuing along this disciplined growth plan that we've laid out earlier this year will be rewarded in shareholder value. We're thrilled with our progress and even more excited about where the company can go in the future. Last month, we announced that we had eclipsed 200,000 mobile broadband subscribers, our year-end target, in our wireless business through the Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP. We continue to grow our subscriber count in this huge long-term opportunity by providing subsidized broadband internet access to low-income households. As we discussed previously, Estimates vary, but it looks like there's 50 million households that qualify for ACP, and after almost a year and a half, only 14 million households have taken advantage of ACP, which puts the adoption of this benefit at around only 28%. We believe we've only scratched the surface of the program, and there's significant room for growth, which is why we're so excited about being able to do enrollments and activations over our SurgePays software platform, inside convenience stores. We will be strategic and long-term in our decision-making and business operations, especially when it comes to leveraging existing synergies to accelerate sales using our competitive advantages. 150,000 mobile broadband subscribers was my benchmark for analyzing our efficiency in purchasing our wireless equipment, our ongoing reoccurring margins, and customer retention. This evaluation has led to opportunities to expand gross margin in both our equipment and services. Additionally, we have implemented new protocols to enhance customer retention. One tool that will accelerate subscriber growth is the surge-based FinTech platform. While speaking with convenience store owners, they estimated 75% of their customers are actively using Snap EBT, to purchase things like energy drinks and food at their stores. Our platform enables the clerk at these stores to take prepaid wireless payments and can now initiate ACP customer enrollments at the checkout counter. As most of you know, receiving SNAP qualifies you to get ACP. We have created a way for the clerk to quickly enter the data we need at the time of purchase for our compliance team to work directly with the customer to enroll and activate them. The store owner is compensated for helping his customers gain access to this valuable benefit. This will help entice more store owners to sign on with Surge Pays as well. Currently, almost all ACP companies, our competitors, get enrollments using pop-up tents outside in low-income neighborhoods. The weather is now changing, and in most parts of the country where it's cold, things slow down. There's a huge opportunity for us here. To our knowledge, there is no other ACP company offering or even able to offer this opportunity to convenience store owners. This benefits both the consumer and the local convenience store owner while benefiting both of our surge pays core revenue channels. Until recently, The SurgePay Spintech platform has taken a backseat to the intense subscriber land grab in ACP enrollments and growing SurgePhone. Now we can synergize the growth of both channels. We've begun adding bandwidth into growing the network of stores using our platform. Our recent announcement of hiring Jeremy Gies as president for SurgePay Spintech is an example of that new emphasis and should be a kickstart for revenue growth. Jeremy has an extensive background in the telecom and fintech space and will be tasked with expanding SurgePay's fintech revenue by increasing the number of stores on our network, the sales per store, and margins per sale. We couldn't be more excited to add Jeremy to the team. In addition to adding Jeremy to the SurgePay's fintech team, we've also inked a new master service agreement with GPO Plus, Inc., GPO Plus is a distribution company focused on independent regional retailers. Under the agreement, GPO will be considered a master agent and will be compensated for setting up stores to transact on our network. We're excited to start seeing the benefits of a 40-plus salesperson team pulling doors, bringing sales, and what the impact of such a different sales pitch they have now when you can lead with enabling the store to offer ACP to their community. One area of focus that is always top of mind is managing our cash and cash flow and deploying that cash in the best manner possible. I like to look at current assets as a gauge of where we've been, where we are, and where we want to be. Accounts receivable has steadily increased throughout the year from 3.2 million at the end of 2021 to 5.6 million at the end of the first quarter and 8.3 million at the end of the second quarter and $9.5 million at the end of the third quarter with $7.5 million of cash. In the future, we will continue to balance the need for growth with the cash flow provided and the cash opportunities. I've walked a path of not diluting shareholders to finance growth. I am the company's largest shareholder, and let me tell you, I'm not eager to see my share cut. To address our cash flow needs, We're at the finish line finalizing a significant financing backed by U.S. government receivable. This will help us ramp our wireless subscriber growth over a more extended period. I couldn't be more excited about the process we've made as a company and how much more we can achieve. I'm incredibly proud of how much we've accomplished in a short time and the market that is going on around us that we've accomplished this in. and the results are starting to be demonstrated in our financial results. Revenue growth is accelerating, and we have several programs to improve margins. We're learning more and more about our subscriber base each month. We have more cash to fund growth and more tools at our disposal today than we did three or six months ago to drive growth even further. As I've said, we are uniquely positioned to offer these products and services to the underbanked and underserved, because giant corporations have overlooked these communities for a long time. The ACP program is a great government initiative that provides valuable internet access to households who previously couldn't afford it. We want to gauge success by growing revenue and profit, but we also believe we can do this by providing valuable services to households and communities that desperately need them. Being a licensed mobile broadband provider perfectly complements our existing business of providing products and financial services to the underbank and underserved communities. We still aim to reach one billion in annual sales with profitable growth in communities that have not been adequately addressed. We are now scaling a business that can grow organically or through accretive acquisitions and better serve our customers. I'll turn the call over to Tony to provide a brief review of our financial results before summarizing today's call. Tony?