Phunware, Inc. (NASDAQ:PHUN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Russell Buyse: That actually came from our direct sales force and I don’t know the exact genesis, but it was one of our one folks who joined us in the spring. So relatively new to the company and he got hold of the owner-operator there at Thumper Pond and talked about kind of the advantages and the benefits that we could offer for a property like theirs. So this is, I am excited about this. One of the nerdy things I didn’t mention is this is a customer that’s not requiring like a full beacon install to take advantage of our platform, so they’re going to be using both the wayfinding and the messaging to get closer to their customers, without us having even to send a team there to set it up. So this is really exciting for us.

Lucas Ward: Cool, sounds good. Okay, that’s it from me. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And your next question today is coming from Howard Halpern from Taglich Brothers. Howard, your line is live. Please go ahead.

Howard Halpern: Hey, good afternoon, guys. Wonder if you could also talk a little bit about the recent win with the new luxury high rise in Houston and you consider that sort of a different type of vertical that has great potential across the US?

Russell Buyse: Yes, I’m happy to talk about that. That is absolutely the case. So we can serve multiple verticals, but as you’ve heard me say ad nauseam, we focus on our outreach with hospitality and healthcare, but we do have some channel partners also in other markets like smart buildings and this Houston opportunity is exactly that. So we have a partner involved in that transaction and they’re basically setting up a smart residential building with all of the integrations for that a tenant could want, access to the building, parking, door locks, the whole thing and so our solution was just a natural fit and slid right in there. We think we can do a lot more of those. The pace of smart building has been a little bit slower just with higher interest rates. But we think that we’ve got like a killer solution here and we’ve got experience with integrations galore that make us pretty close to an out-of-the-box solution.

Howard Halpern: Okay and could you talk a little bit about your strategy in expanding within? Like Atlantis and Gaylord throughout their properties across, the country need and…?

Russell Buyse: Sure ? So one of the things we’ve done is try to refine our sales pitch. So we’re focusing on kind of the core mapping and wayfinding capabilities. And then from there like the next leg up for a lot of them is using our mobile engagement which lets them have that closer relationship with the customers, send them messages, whether it’s property wide or when they say enter the parking lot or enter the hotel or let them know if they’re passing a point of interest like say an attraction that they might want to go visit. And so that’s kind of how this kind of rolls out. And of course, if you’re in hospitality space, we are working on basically a door access capability. Our first version was out on iOS this past quarter and that will allow us to kind of plug in, in these facilities where they have smart door locks for the guests there to just use their smartphone through the branded app to get into their rooms and then it expands from there.

So there are lot of other channels and more things we want to do with them.

Howard Halpern: Okay, okay guys, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And there are no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back to Phunware’s Chief Executive Officer, Russell Buyse for closing comments.