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Moving iMage Technologies, Inc. (MITQ)

Q4 2024 Earnings Call· Fri, Sep 27, 2024

$0.67

-2.52%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Moving iMage Technologies Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year End 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Brian Siegel, Vice President of Investor Relations and Strategic Communications. Thank you. You may begin.

Brian Siegel

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Moving iMmage Technologies earnings conference call and webcast. With me today is Chairman and CEO, Phil Rafnson, who will provide an industry overview, Co-Founder, Executive VP of Sales and Marketing, Joe Delgado, who will provide a strategy and business overview and our CFO, Bill Greene. For those of you that have not seen today's release, it is available on the Investors section of our website. Before beginning, I would like to remind everyone that except for historical information, the matters discussed in this presentation are forward-looking statements that involve several risks and uncertainties. Words like believe, expect, anticipate, mean that these are our best estimates as of this writing, but that there can be no assurances of expected or anticipated results or events will actually take place. Actual future results could differ materially from those statements. Further information on the company's risk factors is contained in the company's quarterly and annual reports filed with the SEC. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Phil. Take it away.

Phil Rafnson

Analyst

Thank you, Brian. And thanks to everyone joining us today. I'm Phil Rafnson, CEO of Moving iMage Technologies, or MiT. We're excited about the future of cinema and the broader entertainment industry, where MiT is positioned to lead with cutting-edge technologies. Fiscal 2024 was truly a tale of two vastly different business environments. We began with excellent first quarter results marked by strong revenue growth and profitability. However, the momentum we built was halted by the actors and writer strikes, which significantly affected our second through fourth quarter results. Our customers were unable to initiate their budgeting process and consequently spend their budgets until the strikes were resolved. This created a tough environment generating near-term value, but we remain focused on positioning MiT for long-term success. During this challenging period, we took proactive steps to strengthen our future prospects. We repurchased stock in the open market, move forward with the development and go-to-market strategies for our emerging higher-margin recurring revenue products such as MiT Translator, eCaddy and CineQC, and most recently implemented $600,000 in annualized cost reductions. These actions are not only enhancing our operational efficiency, but also aligning us with future growth opportunities. We believe we successfully navigated this period and position the company for a return to growth with greater operating leverage as a result of the strategic initiatives we've executed over the past 12 months. By the June quarter, we saw the cinema industry regain its footing despite the strikes with the resurgence of blockbuster films and growing demand premium cinema experiences, driving a revitalized market. MiT as a leader in innovative technology solutions or exhibitors is well positioned to capitalize on this momentum and ride the wave of industry growth moving forward. Looking ahead, we're confident in the continued strength of the industry. Consumers are demanding…

Joe Delgado

Analyst

Thank you, Phil, and good morning, everyone. As Phil mentioned, fiscal 2024 posed its share of challenges, but we face them head on and continue to make progress across several key growth initiatives. These efforts are setting the stage for a significant transformation of our business model and one that we're confident will fuel even higher growth rates and profitability in the years to come. Starting with our core cinema business, we're seeing strong signs of a promising future. A key driver of this optimism is the technology upgrade cycle. Over the next four years, more than 10,000 projectors will reach the end of their life cycle and will need to be replaced with newer laser technology. These projectors range in price from $30,000 to $130,000 depending on brightness and overall variables. While we won't capture every opportunity, our experience gives us confidence and during the last upgrade cycle, we reached $50 million in annual sales. And this time, we're more diversified, having introduced over 200 proprietary higher-margin products. Many of which complement these upgrades. And additionally, since the last cycle, we've added the Caddy brand of products and ADA compliance offerings to our portfolio, giving us even more avenues for growth and margin expansion. We continue to be excited about our partnership with LEA Professional, where we have global distribution rights for their smart power amplifiers in the cinema market. LEA's products not only carry a higher margin, but also stand out with a warranty that's twice the industry standard, setting them apart from the larger competitors. The opportunity here is tremendous. We estimate that the total installed base in this market is valued at about $630 million and 5% to 10% of this space will need replacement annually, giving us a total addressable market or TAM of about…

Brian Siegel

Analyst

Thanks, Joe, and thank you, everyone, for attending our earnings call. We started the year strong with 13% revenue growth and solid profits in Q1. And however, the year evolved into a transitional period as revenue flattened gross margin decline and non-GAAP losses increased. This shift was largely due to the actors and writers strikes, which impacted the entire industry beginning in our fiscal second quarter. The strikes caused a temporary freeze in customer spending and even after the resolution, it took time for the box office to recover with some of our clients taking up to 6 months to finalize their 2024 budgets. Despite these challenges, we saw encouraging momentum in Q4. Revenue grew 10%, reaching $6.3 million. This growth was driven by the completion of a significant project for Alamo Drafthouse, initial orders from our LEA products from major theater chains for testing purposes and purchases related to the technology upgrade cycle for projectors and servers. For the full year, revenue was flat at $20 million. Gross profit for the fourth quarter was $1.4 million, a 2.3% increase from the prior year. However, gross margin declined by 170 basis points primarily due to the fulfillment of a large low-margin, but high operating margin, seat order as well as lower capacity utilization. For the full year, gross profit decreased by 11.8% with gross margin down 300 basis points, reflecting changes in product mix and capacity utilization. On the expense side, GAAP operating expenses totaled $1.9 million compared to $2.8 million last year. GAAP operating loss was $0.5 million compared to $1.4 million last year. For the full year, our operating loss narrowed to $1.6 million from $2 million last year. Notably, last year's results included $1 million in onetime write-offs, which did not recur in fiscal 2024. GAAP net…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And there are no questions at this time. Therefore, we do thank you. And this does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

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Analyst