ChargePoint Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CHPT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Rex Jackson : That’s a fair question. The thing I would represent to you is if you go back in history with the company in like private lands. We’ve been very consistent. Two things have been consistent. One, as low Q4. Last year was unusual as the first time. I think for 5 years for sorting that’s happened. So Q1 is always lighter. It varies in terms of percentage. I don’t think this year’s dip from Q4 to Q1 is extraordinary or surprising. It’s just kind of what we’re used to. And we know the reasons for which we explained. And then, as you know, we think of ourselves as a growth company. So when you take Q1 and you look at that and go, okay, that’s a baseline for the year and how does it grow from there. There’s pretty decent information in our history that would allow you to extrapolate. So I guess, the net of it is, I’m not concerned by Q1.

Matt Summerville : You kind of think about the portfolio position of the balance sheet, how should we be thinking about M&A over the course of your fiscal ’24 and maybe what sort of technological or otherwise innovation, intellectual property you may be looking to add to the portfolio? Do you have things that are actionable in your pipeline? How should we be thinking about M&A over the next 12 months or so?

Pasquale Romano : M&A, are you to referring mergers and acquisitions?

Matt Summerville : Yes.

Pasquale Romano: Yes, I’m sorry to discern that.

Matt Summerville : We heard we have a partner called MN8. So I heard it that way. Please go ahead, Pas.

Pasquale Romano : Yes. The way we think about acquisitions is we have a very full technology portfolio and lots of very good stuff in the pipeline. What I’ve commented on before is that we — due to the fact that our portfolio is well built out with the exception of a few things that have not emerged yet that are deep in R&D — we have the ability now to rebalance where we put the R&D resources to look at the scale technologies necessary to deal with streamlining customer onboarding, ongoing customer interaction and the like. And remember, we have a very, very, very deep channel business — so we have to do — we have to have core product services technologies that enable that all the way through the channel. And I made some references to that in my remarks.

So as a result, we don’t see a deep need from an M&A perspective at all on a technology basis. The way we look at M&A opportunity is customer acquisition capabilities. So if there’s a good customer base with low liabilities on the installed base and it’s a practical integration, we would certainly consider it. But that’s really the lens that we’re looking at from it is not a technology lens.

Operator: Next up from Credit Suisse is Maheep Mandloi.

Maheep Mandloi : Sorry if I may have missed this earlier — there’s a squeeze on gross margins. I’m sorry if I missed this earlier. Can you just talk about how should we think about the gross margins in Q1 and through the year, specifically as you have this higher mix of DC, should we expect this continue your trend here?

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