Bird Global, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the BIRD Global First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone today should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn it over to Investor Relations. You may now begin.

Good morning, everyone. and welcome to BIRD's first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. On this call are Shane Torchiana, BIRD's CEO, and Michael Washinushi, BIRD's CFO. Before we begin, I need to remind you that all statements made on this call that do not relate to matters of historical fact are considered forward-looking statements under the U.S. Federal Securities Law, including statements regarding our current expectations for the business and our financial performance. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the historical experience or present expectations. A description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by forward-looking statements on this call can be found in the risk factors section of our Form 10-K for the year December 31, 2022, and in our other filings with the SEC. On this call, management will also reference non-GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted operating performance, ride profit before vehicle depreciation, and free cash flow, which we view as important in assessing the performance of our business. A reconciliation of each non-GAAP measure to the most directly comparable gap measure is available in our earnings release on the company's investor relations page at ir.berg.co. Growth percentages that follow are in comparison to this same period in the prior year, except as otherwise specified. I will now turn the conference call over to Shane.

Thank you all for joining us today for our first quarter fiscal 2023 financial results conference call. We reported $29.5 million in revenues in Q1, with $28.5 million in sharing revenues, with a 16% sharing gross margin and 52% ride profit margin before vehicle depreciation, up from 35% last year. As a reminder, Q1 is our slowest and coldest seasonal period, but as we enter Q2 and warmer weather, we continue to see strong demand for micromobility and eco-friendly transportation across the hundreds of cities we serve. To put this into context, there are 90 markets that launched operations in Q2 that weren't operating in Q1, including all of our Canadian markets, representing 14% of expected Q2 revenue. We also see higher revenue per vehicle per day as the weather warms and people get out into the world. As we step into 2023, we've seen great progress on the transformation we began in Q3 of last year. As part of that, we remained laser-focused on our mission to provide clean, equitable transportation alternatives for the consumers, communities, and cities we serve, while fully committing to be a self-sustaining company that generates positive cash flow this year. That transformation relies on three focus areas, aligning our cost to cash inflows, improving asset efficiency, and being a trusted partner to the cities we operate in. This strategy has set us on our way to a free cash flow and EBITDA positive 2023, and also supports our long-term growth plan in what continues to be a multi-billion dollar addressable market. Now I'd like to dive a bit deeper into Q1 specifics in those three major focus areas. First, aligning cost structure with inflows. As we've discussed, our top priority is to be free cash flow positive and ultimately self-funding. As part of this, we continue to decrease our adjusted operating expenses year over year targeting approximately $100 million of total cost for this year. We ended the first quarter with adjusted operating expenses at $30.6 million, down 39% year-over-year, and expect our cost optimization initiatives will continue to flow through our financial performance as we progress in fiscal 2023. Ride profit margin before vehicle depreciation, which is a proxy for city-level cash margin, reached 52% for Q1 2023, Throughout Q1, we continue to aggressively reduce our central cost structure with savings from exiting our lowest performing cities in the man, North America, and reducing unnecessary central overhead costs aggressively. Our second focus area is improving asset efficiency. To reiterate, the three legs of our asset efficiency stool are, one, improved supply-demand matching for a demand-based vehicle drop model, two, increasing our vehicle deployment rate, and three, extending the average life of our vehicles. At the beginning of the year, we began deploying a new software at scale to improve where we drop scooters that also layers in predictive models that anticipate where the next rides will take place with the goal of improving scooter utilization. As we increase adoption of new vehicle placement technology, we continue to see substantial optimization. Specifically, that markets where it's been implemented have seen a over 25% increase in revenue per vehicle per day compared to the markets where this technology has not been implemented. This is in line with our prior expectations, but there is still far more upside to this figure as we further improve drop locations, routing, and rebalance logic using this model. Additionally, we are in the process of repairing and refurbishing damaged and under-utilized devices, ensuring our key markets have the latest vehicles and that they are in excellent shape for riders this spring and summer. Building out a more robust repair capability in local markets leads to longer-term CapEx as we get more rides out of the same vehicles and also extends the useful life of the vehicles to several years or more. We expect to see continued upside ahead in repair and in useful life as we roll out learnings from our recent Canadian acquisition, where we saw repair rates that were considerably faster in average vehicle life on the same vehicles that we operate at Bird Global of one to two additional years. The third pillar to our roadmap is to be the trusted partner that cities deserve. We are focusing on generating cash flow from our existing markets and exiting any lagging markets, while deepening existing partnerships within our possible cities and selectively expanding where we expect to see a clear return on our investment. Our relationships with city regulators and officials are the key to Byrd's long-term success. Ensuring they are happy with our relationship not only streamlines our operations, but also unlocks growth in the business. We are working constructively with cities around the world to evolve regulations to better meet the needs of all stakeholders. As an example of our efforts to improve relationships with cities and regulators, we have recently worked with city officials in Atlanta, Nashville, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Richmond, Lexington, St. Louis, and Gainesville to extend the hours and areas of operations for their micromobility programs. By permitting micromobility operations in new areas and in the evenings, These cities are offering their residents a reliable, sustainable transportation option for getting home at night, and of course, these policies benefit our revenue as well. Moving on to our European operations, over the past eight months, we have also shut down a significant portion of the European markets we operated in. As planned, this results in dramatically reduced operating expenses and a higher quality footprint, which is one of the main drivers behind the financial improvement in our European business. With these changes, we continue to be more focused on executing on our core business and portfolio in the region. I'm also pleased to share a recent RFP success that we had in Australia with the city of Perth. This new city that launched in Q2 marks the first major Australian city for our shared e-scooter services, building upon momentum in the country with successful operations across Bunbury, Albany, and Margaret River. In Q1, we experienced continued momentum in North American Europe as well, including notable city winds in North America. Lincoln, Nebraska, Burlington, Vermont, Logan, Utah, Montgomery, Alabama, Grand Junction, Colorado, Orange County, Florida, and Pocatello, Idaho. In EMEA, we saw winds in Grosseto in Italy, Bastio, Ajakio, Bichi in France. These winds point to the market potential we have yet to capture. In addition to new launches, we are seeing success with permit renewals in a number of cities where Byrd already operates. In the U.S., this notably includes Louisville, Kentucky, South Bend, Indiana, and more. Internationally, we renewed our permits with Tel Aviv in Israel and Turin in Italy, showcasing the continued demand for micro-mobility as well as a strong satisfaction with BIRD from our city partners. In many cases, these renewals include expanded operating zones and led to bigger flea caps. Lastly, we are committed to investing in new technologies. These new technologies are designed and integrated into BIRD's rider experience in order to support safe riding and parking. New product solutions include global Google Maps integration, enhanced bird visual parking system, rider age verification, double riding detection, and camera-equipped vehicles to detect unsafe riding. These technologies, plus many more to come, will continue to give bird an edge with cities, especially in comparison to sub-scale players in the category that cannot invest in the same level of technological development. To conclude, I'd like to thank our riders, city partners, and our team of bird employees around the globe Without you, none of this would be possible. We are still in the early days of seeing the impact from our transformation, but with the dramatic improvement on margin year on year, even in our coldest quarter, I am more than excited about our prospects of becoming a self-sustaining, free cash flow, positive company in 2023. I will now turn the call over to Michael to review our financial performance in more detail.