Our second quarter financial results reflect continued momentum throughout the business, including notable across-the-board strength in new product adoption.
Revenue growth of 31% year over year was driven by strong demand for Axon Cloud SaaS solutions, Axon Body 3 and Axon Fleet 3 systems, and our TASER 7 platform. Revenue from new SaaS products — such as productivity solutions, real-time operations, Axon Air, ALPR and VR(1) — nearly tripled year over year, highlighting our ability to drive customer adoption of our new software solutions.
We also executed against several key priorities in the quarter that position us well for future growth — including deepening our relationships with key partners and strategically investing to build out the Axon Ecosystem.
In June, we renewed our strategic technology partnership with Microsoft Azure — signing a six-year agreement that provides long-term pricing certainty and cost visibility for our Axon Cloud business. The renewal will support our software gross margin target of 80%+, and enables us to offer pricing predictability to our own customers. We discuss other ecosystem developments in more detail, below.
Customers are increasingly demonstrating their confidence that we are the right technology partner for them, for the next decade. We make it easy for our customers to bet on us, because we deliver. In the second quarter, 108 customers signed contracts for longer than five years. The quality of the deal flow is also strong. About a third of our top 100 deals were for a decade or more. This drives our confidence in our ability to continue scaling a rapidly growing, highly recurring SaaS business, with virtually zero churn.
(1) ALPR is the industry acronym for automatic license plate recognition. Enabled by artificial intelligence, Axon’s ALPR solution comes standard with the Axon Fleet 3 in-car camera system. Plate read data that is collected during patrol is then retained and can be queried through Axon Evidence for later investigations.
VR is Axon’s virtual reality training solution, which is included stand-alone or included in our highest value bundled offerings.
In June, we appointed Josh Isner to the role of Chief Operating Officer, a newly created position to expand the office of the CEO. Josh is an executive familiar to investors who have tuned into Axon’s earnings calls, which we’ve hosted over Zoom since early 2020. He’s had an outsized impact on Axon, including during his most recent tenure as chief revenue officer. As CRO, Josh was responsible for Axon’s global growth, customer service, professional services, and sales operations. He has been instrumental in building Axon’s revenue stream to support our 2022 guidance above $1 billion, and was a key member of the executive team responsible for driving historical annual revenue growth rates exceeding 25%. He now oversees Axon’s operational functions including business operations and execution, policies and employees.
In July, we appointed Isaiah Fields to the role of Chief Legal Officer, where he will spearhead Axon initiatives across legal operations, government affairs, risk management and compliance. In Isaiah’s previous role as general counsel, he drove success across all elements of our global organization. We are confident that Isaiah’s leadership, devotion to his team and passion for our mission will help Axon successfully navigate this phase of rapid growth as we scale in complexity and expand globally.
Our search process for a permanent CFO is progressing well and includes a strong pipeline of quality candidates. We hope to welcome shortly an outstanding executive who brings an appetite for strong financial rigor, along with the operational expertise to continue to drive scale and long-term growth at Axon.
New VR simulator promotes de-escalation for public safety: The Phoenix Police Department and New Castle County Police in Delaware are the first agencies to deploy Axon’s latest improvement in its VR offerings. The new simulator allows officers to train from anywhere. Trainees learn to operate TASER 7 devices and training firearms in VR. Scenarios include indoor range and an outdoor, nighttime setting. The fast-paced exercises help trainees learn safety features, recognize proper spread and probe placement on moving subjects, manage clothing disconnects, and practice for higher effectiveness when deploying TASER cartridges. More than 1,000 U.S. agencies now use Axon VR training.
TASER 7 Device adoption accelerates in Canada: Police services in Ontario, including Toronto, found that simply presenting a TASER device de-escalates a situation between 70% to 90% of the time, without having to deploy a cartridge. Recent TASER 7 device adoption in Canada has included the Calgary Police Service, York Regional Police, Peel Regional Police, Toronto Police Service and the Edmonton Police Service.
U.S. federal funding momentum: Axon’s Federal business outlook continues to strengthen with recent developments signaling broad support for body camera adoption. In May, the White House issued an executive order that mandated body cameras for federal law enforcement. In addition, the White House’s proposed FY2023 budget includes body camera funding for the Justice Department. We are also seeing support in Congress for body camera programs among the following federal law enforcement customers: Justice Department agencies, including the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Department of Homeland Security agencies, including U.S. Customs & Border Patrol, and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement; and Department of Interior agencies. The House is also proposing funding for state and local agency matching grants to drive body camera adoption.
In May, we hosted our seventh annual Axon Accelerate — our user conference that has become the largest technology conference in public safety. On display was the strength of the Axon Ecosystem, featuring a growing network of partnerships and integrated products. Our go-to-market strategy for the Axon Ecosystem has graduated from an idea to now delivering tangible customer value.
In addition to extending our technology partnership with Microsoft, highlighted at the beginning of this letter, we also executed several new key strategic initiatives during the second quarter:
In addition to these recent new initiatives, we are also seeing positive momentum across our broader ecosystem. In late 2021, we acquired Occam Video Solutions, a leader in digital video investigations software. The business has been integrated with Axon, and, in addition to powering our Third-Party Video Playback solution, Occam’s flagship investigative software, iNPUT-ACE, has been relaunched as Axon Investigate, and is seeing growing interest from our customers.
Our partnerships with Flock Safety and RapidSOS are also expanding in value for the Axon Ecosystem. We are seeing strong adoption of Flock Safety’s ALPR cameras nationwide. Plate reads captured by Flock Safety’s cameras can be shared to cases with a single-click and managed within Axon Evidence workflows. RapidSOS’s technology powers Axon’s recently launched consumer focused smart phone app for personal safety, Axon Protect (available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play), which enables users to connect with a live Axon agent. We also recently launched an Axon Respond integration with RapidSOS, which enables 911 operators that use the company’s Jurisdiction View software platform to see live locations of first responders equipped with Axon Body 3 cameras and also live-stream videos from those cameras.
(2) These innovative stock-based compensation plans were approved by shareholders in 2018 and 2019 and align the interests of management and employees with shareholders.
The following forward-looking statements reflect Axon’s full year 2022 expectations as of August 9, 2022, and are subject to risks and uncertainties.
We are energized by the momentum in our business, superior execution by our teams and the underlying strength of our model, all of which sets us up to continue accelerating growth and profitability.
Thank you for investing in our mission to protect life.
Quarterly conference call and webcast
We will host our Q2 2022 earnings conference call webinar on Tuesday, August 9, at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET.
The webcast will be available via a link on Axon’s investor relations website at https://investor.axon.com (https://investor.axon.com/), or can be accessed directly via https://axon.zoom.us/j/98326867283.
Bookings: We consider bookings to be a statistical measure defined as the sales price of orders (not invoiced sales), including contractual optional periods we expect to be exercised, net of cancellations, inclusive of renewals, placed in the relevant fiscal period, regardless of when the products or services ultimately will be provided, so long as they are expected to occur within five years. Most bookings will be invoiced in subsequent periods. Due to municipal government funding rules, in some cases certain of the future period amounts included in bookings are subject to budget appropriation or other contract cancellation clauses. Although we have entered into contracts for the delivery of products and services in the future and anticipate the contracts will be fulfilled, if agencies do not exercise contractual options, do not appropriate funds in future year budgets, or enact a cancellation clause, revenue associated with these bookings may not ultimately be recognized, resulting in a future reduction to bookings. Bookings, as presented here, represent total company bookings inclusive of all product. Certain customers sign contracts for time periods longer than five-years, which generates a larger-sized booking — but the expected exercise amounts after the five-year period is not included in bookings, as described here, in order to facilitate comparisons between periods.
Net revenue retention: Dollar-based net revenue retention is an important metric to measure our ability to retain and expand our relationships with existing customers. We calculate it as the software and camera warranty subscription and support revenue from a base set of agency customers from which we generated Axon Cloud subscription revenue in the last month of a quarter divided by the software and camera warranty subscription and support revenue from the year-ago month of that same customer base. This calculation includes high-margin warranty but purposely excludes the lower-margin hardware subscription contingent of the customer contracts, as it is meant to be a SaaS metric that we use to monitor the health of the recurring revenue business we are building. This calculation also excludes the implied monthly revenue contribution of customers that were added since the year-ago quarter, and therefore excludes the benefit of new customer acquisition. The metric includes customers, if any, that terminated during the annual period, and therefore, this metric is inclusive of customer churn. This metric is downwardly adjusted to account for the effect of phased deployments — meaning that for the year-ago period, we consider the total contractually obligated implied monthly revenue amount, rather than monthly revenue amounts that might have been in actuality smaller on a GAAP basis due to the customer not having yet fully deployed their Axon solution. For more information relative to our revenue recognition policies, please reference our SEC filings.
Total company future contracted revenue: Total company future contracted revenue includes both recognized contract liabilities as well as amounts that will be invoiced and recognized in future periods. The remaining performance obligations are limited only to arrangements that meet the definition of a contract under Topic 606 as of June 30, 2022. We expect to recognize between 15% – 20% of this balance over the next twelve months, and generally expect the remainder to be recognized over the following ten years, subject to risks related to delayed deployments, budget appropriation or other contract cancellation clauses.
To supplement the Company’s financial results presented in accordance with GAAP, we present the non-GAAP financial measures of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Non-GAAP Net Income, Non-GAAP Diluted Earnings Per Share, Free Cash Flow and Adjusted Free Cash Flow. The Company’s management uses these non-GAAP financial measures in evaluating the Company’s performance in comparison to prior periods. We believe that both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing its performance, and when planning and forecasting our future periods. A reconciliation of GAAP to the non-GAAP financial measures is presented herein.
Caution on Use of Non-GAAP Measures
Although these non-GAAP financial measures are not consistent with GAAP, management believes investors will benefit by referring to these non-GAAP financial measures when assessing the Company’s operating results, as well as when forecasting and analyzing future periods. However, management recognizes that:
Further, these non-GAAP financial measures may be unique to the Company, as they may be different from similarly titled non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. As such, this presentation of non-GAAP financial measures may not enhance the comparability of the Company’s results to the results of other companies.
Axon is the global leader in connected public safety technologies. We are a mission-driven company whose overarching goal is to protect life. Our vision is a world where bullets are obsolete, where social conflict is dramatically reduced, where everyone has access to a fair and effective justice system and where racial equity, diversity and inclusion is centered in all of our work. Axon is also a leading provider of body cameras for US public safety, providing more transparency and accountability to communities than ever before.
You may learn about our Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts by reading our ESG report at investor.axon.com.
We work hard for those who put themselves in harm’s way for all of us. More than 270,000 lives and countless dollars have been saved with the Axon Network of devices, apps and people. Learn more at www.axon.com or by calling (800) 978-2737. Axon is a global company with headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a global software engineering hub in Seattle, Washington, as well as additional offices in the US, Australia, Canada, Finland, Vietnam, the UK and the Netherlands.
Apple and App Store are trademarks of Apple, Inc., Cellebrite is a trademark of Celebrite Mobile Synchronization Ltd.; Dedrone is a trademarks of Dedrone Holdings, Inc.; DroneSense is a trademark of DroneSense, Inc., Facebook is a trademark of Facebook, Inc.; Flock Safety is a trademark of Flock Group, Inc., dba Flock Safety; Google Play is a trademark of Google, Inc.; Microsoft and Azure are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation; RapidSOS is a trademark of Rapid SOS, Inc.; Skydio is a trademark of Skydio, Inc.; Twitter is a trademark of Twitter, Inc.; and Zoom is a trademark of Zoom Video Communications, Inc.
Axon, the Delta Logo, Axon Accelerate, Axon Air, Axon Body, Axon Evidence, Axon Fleet, Axon Network, Axon Respond, TASER, TASER 7 and Protect Life are trademarks of Axon Enterprise, Inc., some of which are registered in the US and other countries. For more information, visit www.axon.com/legal. All rights reserved.
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