ChargePoint Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CHPT) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Mansi Khetani: I can take that, Craig. So, in terms of headcount exiting the quarter, you’ll get more details in our 10-Q, but we were a little over 1,800 people that includes our COGS and OpEx heads, total heads across the company. In terms of the savings targets, we achieved the $30 million that we had talked about in Q2. In fact, if you look at our Q3 OpEx number is lower then what that $30 million would indicate, meaning thereby that we’ve actually been able to reduce cost a little bit more. We’re constantly looking at areas for improvement. We’re looking at facilities costs, at external services, consulting and what have you. And we showed that in Q3 by cutting more than the $30 million that we had laid out. And we’ll continue to do that, as Rick mentioned, and as I said in my prepared remarks as well, we’ll continue to look at that. That is one area that is in our control. And we will look at it constantly to make sure that we hit our EBITDA positive goal in Q4.

Craig Irwin: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Dendrinos with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Chris Dendrinos: Yes, thank you. I wanted to go back to that last question and explore a little bit more. I guess maybe just on that EBITDA target for the year and next year, can you maybe talk a little bit more about the levers that you have to pull in order to hit that goal and then sort of maybe what kind of growth you’re looking at for next year to get you there? Thanks.

Mansi Khetani: Yes, I can take that. So, we’re not guiding specifically to revenue for next year, but as I said, we are expecting revenue to grow modestly. We’re using conservative estimates on large programs that are expected to hit in the second-half of next year, especially across auto and fast charge segments. We’re expecting continued delivery on the USPS contract and other large auto and transit contracts that we’ve already won. We are being also extremely cautious on the transactional and workplace side business since that recovery will depend on economic conditions and the interest rate environment. Another indicator is the heavy bizdev activity, RFP activity and win rates that we’re seeing. So, that kind of gives us confidence in the modest revenue growth that I’ve assumed in the second-half.

In terms of gross margins, I think we will see improvement as well as we second source to Asia manufacturing as Rick alluded to and as we continue our cost down efforts. And lastly, we will be constantly monitoring and controlling OpEx and will continue to focus on efficiency. There are a number of significant cost improvements we are evaluating and that is one thing that is definitely more in our control.

Chris Dendrinos: Got it. Okay. And then, maybe just building on that comment around the Asia supply chain, is there any way you could quantify that a bit more just kind of in terms of what kind of I guess margin uplift that might provide and how that supply chain differs, I guess from what you all have right now? Thank you.

Rick Wilmer: Yes, today the supply chain, we’ve largely have each of our products built by one manufacturing partner. So, we have not had a position of competitive tension regarding our manufacturing services. We’ve changed that. And this is what the Asia manufacturing footprint brings to the table. It has every product in our portfolio built in more than one location by two different partners that allows us to put them in competitive tension against product cost, obviously, which is a major priority along with on-time delivery and quality.

Chris Dendrinos: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Gengaro with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Stephen Gengaro: Thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. I guess two for me. One might be a little naive, but I’m kind of curious. When you talk about network reliability and charger uptime, what are the factors that create downtime? Like is it the quality of the charger? Is it lack of maintenance? Is it abuse from customers? Is it all, what actually is it? And how do you, what are the steps to kind of improve that really?

Rick Wilmer: Great question, Stephen. Thanks. It all starts with the reliability and durability of the hardware. And we invest a lot of energy and money into building very reliable, very durable hardware. But that by no means is the entire solution to the problem. The next step is to get the hardware installed correctly. And this is a major area of focus for us going forward into the future. This is an area of investment for us. And this is surrounding training, the electricians of the regions we do business in to work with charging infrastructure correctly. If it’s built correctly and it’s designed to be reliable and durable but if it’s installed incorrectly, you’re going to end up with failure modes that are going to prevent EV drivers from charging.

The third piece of this relates to physical damage. These are products that are technically complex. They’re out in the wild, everywhere from, the far Northern reaches where they go well below zero to the deserts where they get way over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and they’re expected to last for a decade or longer. And in those environments, in addition to being outdoors, they’re also subject to physical damage. It’s shameful, but we see vandalism. We see people backing into chargers. We see people running over charger handles. And a lot of that physical damage is difficult to detect through our remote monitoring technology, which is what I alluded to in my opening comments regarding our network operation center enhancements where we’re now going to be crowdsourcing a lot of additional data sources that observe chargers that are down such that we can action those.

So, to summarize, if you build reliable hardware it’s installed correctly and you’re able to react to problems that occur that are largely out of our control because it’s mostly physical damage, we’re going to have a very reliable network.

Stephen Gengaro: Got it, great thank you and then just the one for me and it’s — I know you’ve touched on this a bit but as we think about the sort of path to the EBITDA positive target, what should we be watching every quarter I mean is it just as simple as controlling your costs and getting your volumes off like do you need a certain volume level to get there and is there any more color you could add to those pieces of the puzzle?

Mansi Khetani: So, as Rick mentioned, we’ll give you more color to our path to profitability in our Q4 call, our next call. But what I can say at this point is, with the modest revenue growth and slow increase in margin, sequentially each quarter we can get there. Of course, the final level will be operating expenses.

Stephen Gengaro: Okay, great. Now, thank you both for the call.