Blink Charging Co. (BLNK) on Q1 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to Blink Charging Company First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. . I will be standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to John Nesbett, IMS Investor Relations. Please go ahead. John Nesbett: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Blink Charging's first quarter 2021 investor call. On the call today, we have Michael Farkas, Founder and Chief Executive Officer; Brendan Jones, President and Michael Rama, Chief Financial Officer. Michael Farkas: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We had a solid start to 2021. First quarter revenue grew 72% compared to the first quarter of 2020. And we continued to aggressively expand the geographic footprint of our chargers. During the quarter, we made tremendous progress with 1,597 commercial and residential charters contracted, sold or deployed, and the number of Blink-owned charging stations contracted or deployed grew more than 370% compared to the same period in 2020. Our target locations are high density, high volume venues like hotels, multifamily residentials, and healthcare networks. We're also working with a broad range of countries, states and municipalities to strengthen EV infrastructure as more individual drivers as well as fleets transition to greener transportation. EVs is gaining traction worldwide. And in the U.S., the transition is being aided by favorable legislation initiatives in the Biden administration. In fact, as many of you know, in early April, the White House published this infrastructure plan with among other initiatives, proposes a $174 billion investment for the electrification of cars and trucks, and also proposes to establish grants and incentive programs to build a national network of 500,000 EV charging stations. Brendan Jones: Thanks, Michael. Well, good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to speak with you today. We have been very busy here at Blink as evidenced by many of the recent deployments and developments within the company. I would like to review some of the highlights, to begin with our latest news. We're very pleased to have acquired Blue Corner and his portfolio of more than 7000 charging points. This acquisition provides us a solid foothold to access the European market, a underpenetrated market that has the potential to be a growth area for Blink as the transition to EVs continues to progress. To provide some additional context. The European EV market is growing faster than the United States. Sales of plug-in electric vehicles in Europe rose 137% to 1.4 million vehicles last year, whereas the U.S. rose 4% to 328,000. These numbers are according to EV volumes.com. The surge in EV adoption will increase demand for EV charging infrastructure. In addition, European regulations are further accelerating widespread EV adoption with regulatory reform that supports zero emission vehicles. Now we haven’t lost focus domestically, we are effectively leveraging EV infrastructure grants, incentives and programs across the country with some of the recent deployments including the deployment of 42 charging ports at 10 Four Brothers Pizza in locations across New York, which was made possible through the charge ready program from the New York State Energy Research and the Development Authority otherwise known as NYSERDA and Make Ready incentives by New York utilities. Additionally, we upgraded 19th first generation Blink EV charging stations in Plano, Texas to the Company's IQ 200 Fast Level 2 charging stations in support of the city's commitment to electrify their transportation infrastructure. The deployment of Blink IQ 200 charging stations at Native American Youth and Family Centers in Portland, Oregon, which was made possible with funding from the Portland General Electric drive charged funds through the Oregon Clean Fuels program and an electric mobility grant from Pacific Power Oregon Electric. Also there is an ascent through Oregon Clean Fuels program. Michael Rama: Thank you, Brendan. And good afternoon, everyone. We are off to a solid start in 2021, with total revenue growth of 72% to $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, as compared to the first quarter of 2020. This growth was driven by increased product sales, as well as increased network fees. Product revenues grew by over 113% in the first quarter of 2021, as compared to the same period of 2020, related to the robust demand for our commercial and residential chargers. Network fees grew 100% as compared to the first quarter of 2020, related to the increase in charges within our network. The growth in these two areas of our business was offset slightly by a decrease in revenues from charging services for the quarter. Despite the continued reopening of the economy travel in general is still a big constraint as the economic as a certain pandemic related restrictions remain in place, which impacts EV travel. Michael Farkas: 2021 has really been a busy year. We are energized and prepared to capitalize on the opportunities we're seeing to grow our role as a key contributor to the establishment expansion of worldwide EV infrastructure. This is an exciting time for our company in our industry, and we look forward to driving continued growth and progress. With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator: We will take our question from Gabe Daoud with Cowen. Please go ahead, your line is open. Gabe Daoud: Thanks. Good afternoon guys. Could we maybe just start with the Blue Corner acquisition, how it’s expanding the footprint in Europe, pretty attractive price? Could you maybe give us a little bit of background on maybe the process and just maybe any color around what the business does from a revenue standpoint? And, any perspective, I guess on why Blue Corner would be interested in selling instead of selling at this point in the cycle? Michael Farkas: Okay, this is Michael Farkas. I'll take the beginning of that. And then I'll let Brendan follow up on. Blue Corner, and the reason why does it become easier is extremely attractive for us is because of their base in Europe. Not only that they own network, they have their own hardware. Although outsource production, they have an amazing base of customers throughout Europe, and they're constantly growing. For us, it was an amazing opportunity to be able to integrate Blink hardware, Blink network, ultimately, and use it to springboard our major portion advance into Europe. Brendan, would you like to follow up with that? Brendan Jones: Yes, I think we went through a fairly exhaustive search for opportunities that were based. in Europe, and we look primarily on the continent as well as Ireland and England as well. Blue Corner popped up as a company that had a great deal of similarities to Blink. We have a similar model, we both own and operate chargers, they sell charters, they vote they own or operate their own network. And they maintain their own charters. And they have manufacturing agreements, customer manufacturing as well. And they have a good footprint in four countries with the ability to expand to other countries throughout Europe. So when we examine this, then the cost of acquisition, we saw this as a unique opportunity to really energize and rapidly expand our presence in Europe. And keep in mind, we're also prepping Europe for relationships in Greece, where we've already made several announcements with our partners over there. And this further, looks at Blink and says we are going to be in an international presence. We're now active in Europe, and Greece, and the four countries we just outlined in South America, in the Dominican Republic and other countries and continents to come. Gabe Daoud: Thanks, guys. That's all fine. Michael Farkas: One other thing I'd like to also add to that. The value proposition, for someone having to pay for fuel. In Europe versus America, it's so much greater in favor of electric vehicles. And they're just more environmentally conscious today than the American market is. This really allows us to participate in really one of the most active eating markets in the world. You have countries within the EU, where you see double digit, EV sales today, even more than half the market of EV's. And we're now going to be able to enter those marketplaces directly, we believe impact utilizations tremendously, and people get an understanding what a worldwide portfolio of charging stations really can imagine . Gabe Daoud: Thanks, Michael. That's helpful. And thanks, Brandon. And so those 7000 or so ports of those all owned and operated by Blue Corner. Is there a split on that? And those are all levels, I assume, right? Brendan Jones: Yes, these are all level two charts that has a very similar makeup to our unit. Some are privately owned where they were purchased. But the greater majority of them are public chargers that are accessible to the public and owned and operated by Blue Corner. Gabe Daoud: Got you. Got you. Okay. Thanks, Brendan. And then a follow up for me. I know as part of the Blue LA acquisition you picked up some ride sharing cars which I guess now is kind of showed in the financial separate leaser I actually think about that like line item moving forward, it was looked like a pretty decent drag on gross margin and 1Q just like that, do you plan on keeping that over times? Just what happens with that segment over time? Michael Farkas: Our plan really is to be able to provide the charging infrastructure in the streets globally. And opportunity arose nearly to buy the program, which gave us car sharing, EV sharing, as well as infrastructure. In the Los Angeles market, it’s our plan to operate the cars, run the program, but they're also opportunities globally where we bring in a local partner who may own and operate the cars through our systems. So we're looking at each market individually. Our focus is really on the EV charging market. But the opportunity really allowed us to be able to prototype the service, which would include EV charging, EVs on the road for ride sharing, and car sharing, advertising and also having some communication services as well. So the LA market was something that we could use to prove the service and product, and then to be able to roll it out globally. But our focus is not internally on owning the cars. Gabe Daoud: Got it. Thanks, Michael. And then just finally on the -- you mentioned advertising, and you talked about potential media towers, is there any timeline that you could talk to where you'd be rolling out something like that? Is it at some point this year? Is that like a 2022 type of new product? Just any any thoughts around that? Michael Farkas: We're hopeful to have something in the streets this year. Gabe Daoud: Got it. Thanks, guys. Michael Farkas: You’re welcome. Operator: We will take our next question from Vikram Bagri with Needham & Company. Please go ahead, your line is open. Vikram Bagri: Good evening, everyone. Just a couple of quick ones for me. I saw that there was a small decline in charging services revenue. And I was wondering if there is a way to quantify the impact of the pandemic on these, these, this revenue stream? If you want to take the utilization pre-pandemic and apply it to your larger and bigger asset base right now? Or how should we think about growth going forward? Is there a way you can quantify how pandemic is impact impacting this line item? Michael Farkas: You know, I’ll add to that, this is Mike. Yes, the first quarter we saw obviously, it was declined quarter-over-quarter on the charging station because of the pandemic but we've continuously have seen an increase quarter-over-quarter since Q2, of an increase going from Q2 of 2020. Going forward on the charging station revenues, utilizations are continuing to increase. You know, we have a different mix of product now in our portfolio. So what's producing at a higher rate, we're starting to really start monetizing, I'm looking at data coming in every day. And every day the charging revenues continuously increase. So we're very optimistic that charging revenues are increasing. And we're starting to see through the pandemic and the increase in utilization. Vikram Bagri: Thanks, Michael. The second question I had was, you mentioned that there were certain onetime items in your operating expenses. I heard new hires to new offices, Miami and Phoenix. How should we think about competency and then I was wondering if you can quantify the impact of acquisition related expenses? And if there were any one time year end incentives baked into the numbers in first quarter? How should we think about OpEx going forward? Michael Farkas: Obviously we continue to have some, related to the Blue Corner, we'll have some acquisition related expenses. New hires are part of our sales is part of our strategy is strengthening the IT, strengthening sales, strengthening all the different core skill areas to support the growth, anticipated growth. So, obviously salaries are continuing. But, one-time expenses related to acquisitions, obviously, we had some acquisition related in Blue LA, and as well as the acquisitions from 2020. But obviously, the bigger one time we'll see that coming through more so in the second quarter with the closing of the Blue Corner. Vikram Bagri: Thank you. And just the last one for me, could you talk about the M&A landscape in Europe, one of the markets for instance, Netherlands, you have the lowest EV to ESV ratios of about three. So it seems like it's a pretty fragmented market, there are abundant opportunities for you to both expand organically and do EV sales expand, you know, through M&A. Could you talk about how many of how many M&A opportunities you're seeing, are you? Are you looking to expand through M&A rapidly in other countries. Could you just talk about the M&A landscape in Europe? Michael Farkas: Yes, we see some extremely exciting things out there, and you were correct. It's extremely fragmented. You have a lot of Mom and Pops that own a charging station in their in their locations. And we see the ability of us being able to consolidate markets, not only in the U.S., but globally. Remember, Blink is a consolidation about 10 companies today. We were built on acquisitions. I think we're better equipped than any of our competitors to out there and start buying up our competitors. We've done this before, we've integrated these companies, we have tremendous experience in doing so. There are a lot of opportunities in Europe, one of the biggest things that that made it so compelling for us is how fragmented the industry is, while there's a lot of infrastructure out there, but not nearly enough infrastructure that's going to be required in the future. So you may have a location with a unit or two, and then it may get a little bit more complicated expensive for some of these property owners or start deploying in those locations. That's where the Blink model is really going to be very helpful in Europe, which is not very prevalent. Also owning and operating these charging stations throughout the continent, and we believe it's going to be, we're going to have a lot of opportunities on the M&A front. We just started basically listed. Vikram Bagri: Understood. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Operator: We will take our next question from Noel your line is open, please go ahead. Unidentified Analyst: Good afternoon. Just a couple of things. Going back to the Blue Corner acquisition, you're just talking about greater penetration and greater perception of value of ease in Europe. Can you keep it sort of a ballpark sense of what that means for sort of payback on incremental investment for units you in time would be deploying in Europe versus in the U.S. where, the penetration and the utilization is slower. Just kind of comparison of, what makes that more attractive, you quantify that at all? Michael Farkas: Okay, there are a lot of factors. Number one, the cost of our equipment is much lower in Europe than in the U.S. the port cost is less than half. We're also looking at each and every one of those ports on an AC side, that are twice as fast as what we have in the U.S. So for half the cost of the hardware, we can make twice as much money in that same period of time. That in its own right, just, again, the value proposition is off the charts from us when we're looking at it, us versus Europe, again, and utilization is key. So if we're talking about on our hybrid model, at a 10%, straight line utilization, getting paid back on a per port basis, less than a year, you can see that in less than half the time. On installation costs, still aren't cheap, but it's still even cheaper when you're dealing with three phase installations versus what we do here in the U.S. So the installations are cheaper, the hardware is cheaper, and the hardware is actually faster. So when you add all that together, that the end, the amount of EVs that are on the road is much greater there than here. We believe that it will be a very, very significant boost to our business in very short order. Unidentified Analyst: Great, thanks. And my second one is, with your new Chief Technology Officer coming on board, very much an industry veteran. Can you just give a sense of maybe what the sort of most important or most urgent initiatives might be sort of tactical things for the near term that would be on his plate, and also, if there's any sense of and I know, he probably hasn't had a lot of time to sink his teeth into it, but what some of the more strategic changes or needs might be going forward. Michael Farkas: Okay, I'm just going to point out a couple and then Brendan will follow up. But one of the key things obviously, we're internationalizing the entire company. So internationalizing the network across the board, so you could have one mobile application that can operate all of our charging stations globally. And having multicurrency, multi language. That's something that we're launching in short order, and that's something that Harjinder is going to be focused on, getting through the process. Harjinder will touch every single corner of this company. He is as you know seasoned. I was fortunate enough to work with him for quite some time. While he was at ChargePoint, most people don't notice but our largest, our vendor, our main vendor of the time was ChargePoint and we interacted with Harjinder, quite often. And we're very excited on seeing the things that he's going to bring to the table. And Brendan can be a bit more specific. Brendan Jones: Yes, so thanks, Michael. And I'll be brief as Michael hit the highlights there. But if you look at the changing needs of networks in today's world, versus what they were, say five years ago, more feature sets, more integration to the vehicles via 15118 standard, the plugin charge standards, more requests from both sides hosts on reservation systems, more integration. So with the utilities, on-demand response and other models, and generally just more feature sets in general. And that's just on the software side. And then on the product side, everything keeps reinventing its side. So we made a decision, we were happy on the path we are in. But what we really wanted at Blink is accelerated growth, to take advantage what was going on to do today, and then prepare for the future. And that's why we brought him on. So as Michael alluded to, if you think of all the product and technological underpinnings of a leading edge EV infrastructure company needs to do to keep up and surpass the competition. That is why we brought Harjinder on and that is his mission statement. And we've already laid that out. And I'm happy to report we're already beginning to work. Unidentified Analyst: Terrific, thanks a lot. Operator: It appears we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back over to management for any additional or closing remarks. Michael Farkas: Thank you, everyone for joining us. This is an exciting time for a company and we really focused on expanding our footprint, growing our customer base and establishing new partnerships. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Operator: This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect.
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Blink Charging Co. (NASDAQ: BLNK) Overview: Navigating the EV Charging Market

  • The consensus price target for Blink Charging Co. (NASDAQ: BLNK) has decreased, indicating a cautious outlook from analysts.
  • Mike Battaglia's leadership is expected to drive global expansion and navigate the competitive EV charging landscape.
  • Regulatory changes and regional market dynamics could significantly impact Blink's strategy and market performance.

Blink Charging Co. (NASDAQ: BLNK) is a key player in the electric vehicle (EV) charging industry, offering a variety of charging solutions for both residential and commercial use. The company operates the Blink Network, a cloud-based system that manages charging stations and related data. Blink's operations extend beyond the United States, reaching international markets as well.

The consensus price target for Blink has shown a downward trend over the past year, dropping from $3.00 to $1.50. This suggests a cautious outlook from analysts, possibly due to market conditions or increased competition in the EV charging sector. Despite this, analyst Vikram Bagri from Needham has set a notably higher price target of $27, indicating confidence in Blink's future under new leadership.

Mike Battaglia's appointment as President and CEO is expected to drive Blink's global expansion in EV infrastructure. His leadership could be pivotal in navigating the competitive landscape, where new entrants and established players are vying for market share. Blink's strategic partnerships across various sectors could also enhance its market presence and support revenue growth.

The EV market is rapidly evolving, with global sales surging by 31% year-over-year. However, regional differences are notable, with China's EV sales increasing by 51%, while the U.S. saw a decline of 13.7%. These dynamics could influence Blink's strategy and performance, especially as the company expands its network of charging stations.

Regulatory changes, such as potential tax deductions for car loan interest proposed by former President Donald Trump, could impact the EV market. Positive regulatory developments may provide a boost to Blink's business, while negative changes could pose challenges. Investors should consider these factors, along with the consensus price target trends, when evaluating Blink Charging Co.

Blink Charging Co. (NASDAQ:BLNK) Faces Downgrade Amid EV Adoption Concerns

Blink Charging Co. (NASDAQ:BLNK) is a company that provides electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment and services. It operates a network of charging stations across the United States and offers both residential and commercial charging solutions. Blink competes with other EV charging companies like ChargePoint and EVgo. The company aims to support the growing demand for EV infrastructure.

On November 14, 2024, UBS analyst William Grippin set a price target of $2 for Blink Charging, while the stock was trading at $1.69. This target suggests an 18.34% potential increase. However, UBS downgraded Blink from a Buy to a Neutral rating, as highlighted by StreetInsider. This downgrade reflects concerns about the company's future performance.

UBS's decision to downgrade Blink Charging is influenced by several factors. The firm points to a higher likelihood of slower EV adoption, which could negatively impact Blink's sales outlook. Additionally, the recent U.S. Presidential election has increased the risk that potential commercial and fleet customers may delay purchasing EV charging equipment. This hesitation is due to worsening market sentiment regarding EV policies and adoption rates.

Currently, Blink's stock price is $1.69, showing a decrease of 5.06% with a change of $0.09. The stock has fluctuated between $1.69 and $1.82 today. Over the past year, BLNK has reached a high of $4.66 and a low of $1.53. The company's market capitalization is approximately $170.9 million, and the trading volume is 5,109,431 shares on the NASDAQ exchange.