Badger Meter, Inc. (NYSE:BMI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And so we’ll continue to do that. Obviously, the current landscape with the backlog where it is and our growth aspirations clearly, have us looking at capacity, probably more directly than we have in the past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a market change in CapEx, but we’ll continue to be prudent in those investments and pivot and shift as the market evolves.

Ken Bockhorst: Yes. And let me follow on to one other point there because you said generally our volumes remain the same. That’s true in meters. That is not true in radios. Every quarter, for the last several years, we’ve been talking about increased sales in BEACON radio. So the radio volume is growing sequentially every quarter. And the key to remember about that is that also then has the 100% attachment rate to BEACON Software as a Service.

Bob Wrocklage: And even within a more or less static metering volume, you’ve got shifts in technology that require different manufacturing processes and assembly tables in areas. So it’s not as if just holding the volume constant doesn’t mean there aren’t investments or expansions needed as you trade up one for another.

Nathan Jones: Makes sense. Thanks very much for taking my questions.

Operator: The next question today comes from the line of Andrew Krill from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, Andrew, your line is now open

Andrew Krill: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I think I wanted to follow up on the sales results, which were impressive. And I just wanted to check, like was there any, in your view, meaningful backlog execution or kind of like major onetime projects that helped the results and are kind of not going to be repeating looking forward?

Ken Bockhorst: No. So if you recall, if our orders were greater than our sales, so this growth did not come from eating down any backlog, in fact, it slightly grew. So it’s not backlog execution and there’s not any one-off projects that would be meaningful that you need to think about as you model.

Andrew Krill: Okay. Great. Makes sense. And just secondly, I kind of see you don’t give guidance, but just any color you’re willing to provide on like how July is trending maybe between utility water and flow instrumentation?

Ken Bockhorst: So Andrew, I know you’re pretty new to us, and that was a nice try, but we’ll never talk to you about months. So we don’t provide guidance. And frankly, there’s a really good reason for it, and it’s because we don’t feel like it really provides value for investors for us to give a quarterly guidance. Our customers think in 10-, 15-, 20-year cycles. We run our business from a very long-term strategic view. We certainly execute and we strive to deliver fantastic quarters every quarter. But we really do think for the long term. And whatever I would tell you in July would be meaningless to the future of what we’re doing here.

Andrew Krill: Okay, great. All makes sense. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question today comes from the line of Rob Mason from Baird. Please go ahead Rob, your line is now open.

Rob Mason: Yes, good morning. Ken, I hear what you’re saying about no large onetime or large revenue items in the quarter. But as you think about the bookings in your order funnel, that’s even more than keeping pace with the revenue despite it stepping up. I’m just curious how that has evolved over the last 12 months? Are you seeing larger projects start to free up that maybe were bogged down in the deliberation process during COVID, or are we still just — it’s just a lot of singles and doubles in the order funnel?