AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVAV) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And in fact, work cohesively as a team where Puma can identify a target, pass on that information to a Switchblade operator automatically work for the Switchblade to be launched. So these capabilities is really, to some extent, unique and gives us an advantage against our competitors because we have the largest family of system solutions that is integrated and inoperable and intelligent as a whole. So that’s really where our investments have been going, and we look forward to reporting more progress in these areas in the quarters to come.

Louie DiPalma: Thanks, Wahid. And Kevin, you mentioned that, I think, there were $230 million worth of TMS orders for fiscal 2023. Are you able to share roughly how much of that was related to the Switchblade 600 as there’s obviously a lot of investor excitement over the 600? And investors are looking for data points in terms of how that product is progressing. Thanks.

Kevin McDonnell: Thanks for the question, Louie. But we don’t really break out the orders or backlog by the particular products. I think both products have different markets and we hope they both sell really well.

Wahid Nawabi: Yeah. And we have had very strong success so far with our — both all three models of our Switchblade variants, Switchblade 300, Switchblade 600, Louie as well as the Blackwing, as you know, it’s a fairly well-received product within the US submarine community. But Switchblade 600, we feel very good about it. The market for that is very large. We have shipped that product to our customers, and they’re quite happy with it, and we continue to increase capacity and production to meet the growing needs of our customers.

Louie DiPalma: Sounds good. Thanks, Wahid, and thanks, Kevin.

Wahid Nawabi: Thank you, Louie.

Kevin McDonnell: Thank you, Louie.

Jonah Teeter-Balin: Thanks, Louie.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Greg Konrad with Jefferies. You may proceed.

Greg Konrad: Good evening and nice quarter.

Wahid Nawabi: Thank you, Greg.

Kevin McDonnell: Thanks, Greg.

Jonah Teeter-Balin: Hey, Greg.

Greg Konrad: Maybe just to start on TMS, you called out revenue doubling in the quarter and only being the start. How are you thinking about supply chain into fiscal year ’24? And how is that balanced with demand and the ability to ramp? And given the commentary around international, does that have any impact on profit mix within the segment going forward as those international awards do ramp?

Wahid Nawabi: So Greg, yes, we’re very pleased with the progress we’ve been making on TMS. As I said, I consider this to be also an inflection point for loitering munitions in general. Our loitering munitions product line is the most battle proven product in the market. There’s nothing out there that can match its track record and success and battle proven sort of performance so far, number one. Number two, we do expect significant growth in fiscal year ’24 on TMS even though we had a very strong year last year, and our backlog is very, very strong for TMS, but that’s just the beginning in my view. I think over the next several years, the TMS business is going to continue to grow. Really, we’re at an inflection point in this market.

We’ve got a lot of customer indicators and engagements that tells us that their demand for this could be very large. It’s a multibillion dollar market in my view worldwide, and it’s going to continue to grow. And we haven’t even addressed the market so far or penetrated the market for air launch effects, the capability of Switchblade to come off of such as helicopters, next-generation helicopters, next-generation fighter jets as well as from ground vehicles such as the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. In terms of the lead times, that continues to be a slight challenge. The lead times for some of our products is for the supply chain is a little long. And we constantly are working on that, but that does put some limitation into how much growth we can have this year versus next year.