SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., May 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Axon Enterprise, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAXN), today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017.

"We are off to a strong start on the year as we executed across all of our business lines," commented Rick Smith, CEO and Founder of Axon. "We recently rebranded the company as Axon to better reflect our ecosystem of connected solutions and robust pipeline of new offerings. We also launched our national free trial offering to accelerate adoption of our body camera program. The initial response has been encouraging, and we see tremendous opportunity to extend our market leadership."

First Quarter 2017 Financial Highlights:

• Net sales increased 43% to $79.2 million in the first quarter of 2017 compared to $55.5 million in the first quarter of 2016. International sales were $14.5 million in the first quarter of 2017.
• TASER Weapons segment revenues increased 26% to $57.7 million in the first quarter of 2017 compared to $45.8 million in the first quarter of 2016.
• Software and Sensors segment revenues increased 122% to $21.6 million in the first quarter of 2017 compared to $9.7 million in the first quarter of 2016.
• Consolidated gross margin was 61% in the first quarter of 2017 compared to 66% in the first quarter of 2016.
• TASER Weapons segment gross margin remained consistent at 69% in the first quarter 2017 and 2016.
• Software and Sensors segment gross margin was 42% in the first quarter of 2017 compared to 53% in the first quarter of 2016. Service margin was 70% in the first quarter of 2017 including $1.0 million of non-recurring data migration expense compared to 76% in the first quarter of 2016. Hardware product margin (excluding services) was 8% in the first quarter 2017 compared to 30% in the first quarter of 2016.
• Income from operations was $5.4 million in the first quarter of 2017 compared to $5.1 million in the first quarter of 2016.
• Net income for the first quarter of 2017 was $4.6 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared to $3.5 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2016. Excluding a $1.0 million discrete tax benefit related to stock-based compensation for restricted stock units that vested and stock options that were exercised during the quarter, net income for the first quarter of 2017 would have been $3.6 million, or $0.07 per diluted share.
• Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2017 was $10.6 million compared to $8.4 million in the first quarter of 2016.
• In the first quarter of 2017, the Company used $6.6 million in cash from operating activities. Cash, cash equivalents and investments were $71.6 million at March 31, 2017, compared to $89.3 million at December 31, 2016.

Business Highlights:

• As of the end of the first quarter of 2017, 36 of the 68 major city law enforcement agencies have purchased Axon body-worn cameras and/or its digital evidence management solution: Albuquerque, Atlanta, Baltimore, Baltimore County, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Fresno, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Louisville, Memphis, Mesa, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Montgomery County, New Orleans, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Tampa, Tucson, Washington, DC, and Wichita.
• Axon's Evidence.com platform user count continued to grow, extending the Company's market leadership. During the three months ended March 31, 2017, the Company booked approximately 16,400 seats on its digital evidence management platform, Evidence.com, net of renewals. Since inception, the Company has booked cumulative Evidence.com licenses of approximately 148,400.

Quarterly Conference Call:

The Company will host its first quarter 2017 earnings conference call on Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. ET. To join the live audio presentation, please dial toll free 877-303-9126, or for international callers, please dial +1-253-237-1156.

The Company has posted supplemental materials including its key operating metrics on its website to provide additional information about our first quarter financial results.

The Company plans to update and post its investor relations presentation to http://investor.axon.com within the next two weeks with the first quarter results. Archived presentations from previous quarters can also be found on the website.

Statistical Definitions:

• Axon cameras and Evidence.com bookings represent a statistical measure defined as the sales price of orders placed in the relevant time period. Bookings are an indication of the activity the Company is seeing relative to Axon cameras and Evidence.com. We consider bookings to be a statistical measure defined as the sales price of orders (not invoiced sales) placed in the relevant fiscal period, net of cancellations, regardless of when the products or services ultimately will be provided. Some bookings might be invoiced in subsequent years.
  
  Due to municipal government funding rules, certain of the future year amounts included in bookings are subject to budget appropriation or other contract cancellation clauses. Although the Company has entered into contracts for the delivery of products and services in the future and anticipates the contracts will be completed, if agencies invoke a cancellation clause or do not appropriate funds in future year budgets, revenue associated with these bookings will ultimately not be recognized, resulting in a future reduction to bookings. In the first quarter of 2017, the Company did not record any reversals related to prior period bookings due to non-appropriation or other cancellation reasons.
  
  For more information relative to our revenue recognition policies, please reference our SEC filings.

Non-GAAP Measures:

To supplement the Company's financial results presented in accordance with GAAP, we present the non-GAAP financial measures of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash Flow. Our 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 our performance, and when planning and forecasting our future periods. A reconciliation of GAAP to the non-GAAP financial measures is presented at the end of the release.

EBITDA is defined as consolidated net income before interest expense, income taxes and depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA, as presented herein, is defined as EBITDA before certain other items, including: stock-based compensation; net gain/loss on write-down/disposal of property, equipment and intangible assets; and loss on impairment.

Free Cash Flow is defined as cash flows provided by operating activities minus purchases of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets.

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:

• these non-GAAP financial measures are limited in their usefulness and should be considered only as a supplement to the Company's GAAP financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, the Company's GAAP financial measures;
• these non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered to be superior to the Company's GAAP financial measures; and
• these non-GAAP financial measures were not prepared in accordance with GAAP and investors should not assume that the non-GAAP financial measures presented in this earnings release were prepared under a comprehensive set of rules or principles.

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.

About Axon

The Axon network is a network of devices, apps, and people that helps law enforcement become smarter and safer. Our mission is to protect life. Our technologies give law enforcement the confidence, focus, and time they need to keep their communities safe. Our products impact every aspect of an officer's day-to-day experience:

• In the field - Our Smart Weapons offer a less-lethal intermediate use of force response and our body-worn and in-car cameras collect video evidence to capture the truth of an incident; and our mobile applications enable simple evidence collection.
• At the station - Our secure, cloud-based digital evidence management solution allows officers and command staff to manage, review, share and process digital evidence using forensic, redaction, transcription and other tools.
• In the courtroom - Our solutions for prosecutors make collaborating across jurisdictions and agencies easy so that cases can be resolved quickly.

We work hard for those who put themselves in harm's way for all of us. To date, there are more than 100,000 licensed users from around the world and more than 182,000 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, the "Axon Delta" logo, Axon network, Smart Weapons, and Evidence.com are trademarks of Axon Enterprise, Inc., some of which are registered in the U.S. and other countries. For more information, visit www.axon.com/legal. All rights reserved.

Note to Investors

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), including statements regarding our expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. We intend that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe-harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking information is based upon current information and expectations regarding Axon Enterprise, Inc. These estimates and statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, are not guarantees of future performance, and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Axon Enterprise, Inc. assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release, except as required by law.

We caution that these statements are qualified by important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by the forward looking statements herein. Such factors include, but are not limited to: market acceptance of our products; our dependence on sales of our TASER X26P and X2 CEWs; our ability to design, introduce and sell new products; delays in development schedules; rapid technological change and competition; product defects; breach of our security measures resulting in unauthorized access to customer data; outages and disruptions relating to our Evidence.com service; budgetary and political constraints of prospects and customers; the length of our sales cycle and our ability to realize benefits from our marketing and selling efforts; our exposure to cancellations of government contracts due to appropriation clauses; changes in civil forfeiture laws; the long-term revenue recognition cycle for our SaaS Evidence.com product; our reliance on third party cloud-based storage providers; litigation risks resulting from alleged product-related injuries and media publicity concerning allegations of deaths occurring after use of the TASER device and the negative impact this publicity could have on sales; the outcome of pending or future litigation; our ability to protect our intellectual property as well as intellectual property infringement claims and relating litigation costs; challenges in obtaining and enforcing our patent rights in foreign countries; risks of governmental regulations, including regulations of our products by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, regulation of our products as a "crime control" product by the Federal government, state and local government regulation and foreign regulation and the adverse effects that could result from our products being classified as firearms by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; regulatory and political challenges presented by international markets; the possibility that the United States may withdraw from or materially modify the North American Free Trade Agreement; the adverse effect of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union; our compliance with regulations governing the environment, including but not limited to, regulations within the European Union; regulations relating to voice, data and communications services; regulations relating to conflict minerals;  our dependence on third party suppliers for key components of our products; component shortages; rising costs of raw materials and transportation relating to petroleum prices; that we may experience declines in gross margins due to a shift in product sales from CEWs to Axon devices; our ability to manage our growth and increase manufacturing production to meet demand; establishment and expansion of our direct and indirect distribution channels; our ability to pursue sales directly with customers; risks relating to acquisitions and joint ventures; goodwill impairment; catastrophic events; the adverse effects on our operations and financial results from foreign currency fluctuations; fluctuations in our effective tax rate; counter-party risks relating to cash balances held in excess of FDIC insurance limits; employee retention risks; volatility in our stock price; quarterly fluctuations in our operating results; and other factors identified in documents filed by us with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those set forth in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016.

Please visit http://investor.axon.com, www.twitter.com/axon_us, and www.facebook.com/axon_us where Axon discloses information from time to time about the company, its financial information, and its business.

For investor relations information please contact Arvind Bobra via email at IR@axon.com.

Future contracted revenue for the Software and Sensors segment represents a statistical measure defined as cumulative bookings minus cumulative recognized revenue related solely to that segment. Future contracted revenues are an indication of momentum of longer-term contracts being signed and the expectations of future revenues in the Software and Sensors segment. These financial metrics are exclusive of TASER Cam recorder revenues.

CONTACT: Arvind Bobra
Investor Relations
Axon Enterprise, Inc.
IR@axon.com

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SOURCE Axon