Axon Enterprise, Inc. (NASDAQ:AXON) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And so, you know, just, you know, more adoption of DEMS, more adoption of software add-ons, more adoption of Records management, more adoption of our standards product. And it’s really exciting to see all that come together. Talked a lot about our flywheel of this idea that really, you know, OSP is the driver of that flywheel into new products and that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now. So really proud of our product team for doing a great job, you know, understanding where this, you know, where this platform evidence.com can take us and listening to our customers in terms of where they see value and then doing an incredible job building those products. And our sales team is doing a great job selling them on the back end. So things are aligning really, really nicely in the cloud business and we’re really excited about it.

Brittany Bagley: From a modeling standpoint for all of you guys. The only thing I would add is we have historically guided you to take an average of, you know, the last six to eight quarters. And think about that as the size of the step up in that revenue. I think because of this impact that Josh talked about of more and more customers moving to our premium bundles, the size of that step will start to get bigger every quarter. It probably won’t be as big as it was this quarter, though, because you are seeing some of the benefit of the Fleet 3 installations start to turn on and come into that. So while there was nothing, you know, one time this quarter, you are seeing Fleet 3 come in. But I think we’re also comfortable saying that because of premium, we are going to see slightly larger steps up each quarter in software than we have historically averaged out.

Mike Ng: Wonderful. And maybe if I could just have a quick follow-up. You know, if we assume a kind of continued step up in that cloud revenue, you know, is there something that’s offsetting that as you think about the consolidated revenue guidance for the fourth quarter on the product side? Thanks, Brittany. Thanks, Josh.

Brittany Bagley: Yes. So I would say I think the step up in software is particularly large this quarter. So I don’t think there’s anything offsetting it. As you look at Q4, you know, we’re putting forth pretty healthy growth year-over-year, 24% to 25%. That’s on top of a Q4 quarter last year that grew about 55%. So I think it’s still a very healthy guide that is taking into account the premium software piece. AB4, TASER 10, all the momentum we’re seeing.

Mike Ng: Wonderful. Thanks for the follow-up. Brittany.

Brittany Bagley: Of course.

Andrea James: Hey, Jonathan Ho at William Blair, go ahead.

Jonathan Ho: Hi, congrats on the strong quarter. Can you help us understand what some of the main components were that drove the 122% net retention growth this quarter?

Rick Smith: Sure. Hey, look, it always helps when you have new products that people want to buy. Like, that’s the underlying, you know, thing there is, you know, again, this goes back to our product team really doing a fantastic job just building new value into evidence.com with new — with these, you know, new software features that save legitimate time every police officer shift. And so when we can keep showing that type of ROI, every conversation on a renewal or an upsell is not only, you know, a — driven by satisfaction with what the customer already has, but it’s driven by interest in what we’re doing next and how they can participate in that. And so when you have that combination, we have a very, very talented customer success organization that, you know, really drives deep relationships with our customers.

The — and any, you know, a side note, any account that is managed by a customer success manager at Axon, their NPS score is 81 right now. So that’s, you know, an off the charts high number when you think about the range of NPS going from negative 100 to 100. And so that just shows the type of trust these customers have built in our customer success team, our product team, our sales team, so forth. And so, you know, all those things being true, it actually is, you know, it just comes down to execution in terms of, you know, sales and account management to get these deals across the finish line. And we see ARPUs going up as a result. And then NRR, you know, is also rising as a result of that.

Jonathan Ho: Great. And then in terms of the DHS and U.S. federal government contracts that you’ve signed, is there potentially a halo effect here? Meaning, you know, does this help you sell to other federal law enforcement agencies or international agencies, you know, that maybe look up to these, you know, federal and defense contracts? Thank you.

Josh Isner: Sure, I’d say within the federal government, there’s certainly a network effect there. No question. You know, once we’ve started with being FedRAMP authorized, that was kind of a big breakthrough for us. And then, you know, Impact level 5, et cetera, just all the kind of table stakes, clearances that our products needed to achieve. And then, you know, once, you know, the Customs and Border Protection has been a really great customer of ours. We heavily value that relationship. And having a lot of momentum there has just kind of permeated out into other branches of the federal civilian space. Rick talked about the opportunity in the military as well. I think there is something there to leveraging our success federally into other international governments. That’s happening a little bit here and there, but there is potential that that could accelerate. So, yes, I’m really pleased to see, you know, the types of network effects we’ve seen in the federal space.