CEO Commentary
Jan Loeb, Acorn’s CEO, commented, “Our Q2’23 performance benefitted from strong demand from
large national telecom customers for our TrueGuard
TM
PRO commercial and industrial monitors and
True Guard 2 residential monitors for emergency stand-by generators.
“We achieved our second consecutive quarter of monitoring revenue growth, following the end of the
revenue impact from the sunsetting of wireless carrier support for 3G monitoring technology. Building
upon 3% growth in Q1, monitoring revenues grew 10% in Q2 and we expect positive momentum to
continue over the balance of 2023 and beyond.
“Cash-basis revenue grew 33% in Q2’23, also indicative of strength across the business, and we closed
Q2’23 with a record backlog of $6.4M. Our backlog is essentially deferred revenue, more than 60% of
which will be recognized as revenue within one year under GAAP accounting.
“Our Q2’23 gross margin remained stable at 76%, though down slightly from 77% in Q2’22 due to the
relative strength of equipment sales, which carry a lower margin than monitoring revenues.
“Given both the business and environmental benefits of our solutions, we remain confident in our
ability to achieve our long-term 20% annual, cash-basis revenue growth goal. We delivered
consolidated profitability and positive cash flow in Q2’23, and if we are able to meet our revenue
growth goal, we’d expect to be profitable and operating cash-flow positive at the consolidated
corporate level for the full year. Our operating company, OmniMetrix, has been profitable since 2019
and remained so through the pandemic.
“We have been working very hard the past several years to position Acorn for sustainable growth and
profitability. Given Acorn’s net operating loss carryforwards (NOLs) of over $70M, future profits
would be largely shielded from tax liability, further benefitting cash flows as we achieve ongoing
profitability.
“With heatwaves, flooding and related power outages this summer, the value of stand-by generators, as
well as Demand Response (DR) programs, for electric grid operators has been in the news. We
continue to advance our work with our DR partner C-Power and our network of stand-by generator
dealers with the goal of enrolling our first DR customers in the second half of this year. We will
update you on our progress in this initiative, which we expect to be a very important revenue and
profitability driver for our business moving forward.”
Financial Review
Q2’23 revenue of $1,973,000 rose 22% from Q2’22 revenue of $1,621,000, driven by a 39% increase
in hardware revenue, primarily for True Guard Pro (C&I) and True Guard 2 (residential) generator
monitoring devices. The company has seen strength in its business across the board and particularly
from large national customers for remote monitoring and control of standby generators. For the six
months ended June 30
th
, revenue increased 10% to $3,722,000, driven by the same contributing factors
as in Q2’23.
Q2’23 gross profit increased to $1,490,000, reflecting gross margin of 76%, as compared to gross
profit of $1,246,000 and a gross margin of 77% in Q2’22. The slight decline relates to the relative