Earnings call transcript: Acorn Energy’s Q3 2025 revenue dips, margins expand

Acorn Energy Inc. (ACFN) reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a decline in total revenue to $2.48 million from $3.05 million in the same period last year. Despite the revenue drop, the company achieved a record high in high-margin recurring monitoring revenue and expanded its gross margin to 78.5%. The stock remained stable at $23 in after-hours trading, reflecting a neutral market reaction.

Key Takeaways

• Total revenue decreased year-over-year, but high-margin recurring revenue reached a record high.
• Gross margin improved significantly to 78.5%.
• The company maintained a strong cash flow from operations, up 143% year-over-year.
• New product launches and innovations are underway, with a focus on residential and commercial markets.
• Acorn Energy remains debt-free, with a strong emphasis on product development and cybersecurity.

Company Performance

Acorn Energy’s performance in Q3 2025 displayed mixed results. While total revenue fell compared to the previous year, the company managed to increase its high-margin recurring monitoring revenue, indicating a strategic shift towards more profitable segments. The gross margin expansion to 78.5% from 71.7% suggests improved operational efficiency. The company’s commitment to innovation is evident with the beta launch of next-generation monitors, aimed at enhancing its competitive edge.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $2.48 million, down from $3.05 million in Q3 2024.
• High-margin recurring monitoring revenue: $1.56 million, up by $422,000.
• Gross margin: 78.5%, up from 71.7%.
• Net income: $252,000 (10 cents per diluted share).
• Cash flow from operations: $1.8 million, a 143% increase year-over-year.
• Quarter-end cash: $4.17 million, increasing to $4.37 million by November 4, 2025.

Outlook & Guidance

Acorn Energy is targeting a 20% average annual revenue growth over the next three to five years. The company plans to capitalize on commercial and industrial opportunities, expand its residential market, and explore potential mergers and acquisitions. The guidance for fiscal years 2025 and 2026 projects EPS of $2.05 and $2.79, respectively, with revenue forecasts of $13.18 million and $14.83 million.

Executive Commentary

CEO Jan Loeb emphasized the importance of remote monitoring as a cost-effective tool for enhancing operational performance. "We expect that these major secular trends will continue to support our long-term growth," Loeb stated. CFO Tracy Clifford highlighted the company’s competitive edge, citing ongoing investments in product development as a key factor in maintaining market leadership.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential market saturation in the remote monitoring sector.
• Macroeconomic pressures affecting consumer spending and industrial investments.
• Supply chain disruptions impacting product availability and costs.
• Increasing competition in the IoT and energy monitoring markets.
• The need for continuous innovation to keep pace with technological advancements.

Acorn Energy’s strategic initiatives and financial discipline position it well for future growth, despite the current revenue decline. The company’s focus on high-margin segments and technological advancements is likely to sustain its competitive advantage in the evolving market landscape.

Full transcript - Acorn Energy Inc (ACFN) Q3 2025:

Operator: Good morning and welcome to Acorn Energy’s third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. Following management’s prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. I’ll now turn the call over to Tracy Clifford, CFO of Acorn Energy and CEO of its OmniMetrix subsidiary.

Tracy Clifford, CFO, CEO of OmniMetrix, Acorn Energy: Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining our call today. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that today’s remarks, including responses to questions, contain forward-looking statements. Such statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Factors that may impact our future operating results and financial performance include general risks such as potential disruptions to business operations or changes in consumer or customer demand, as well as specific risks related to our ability to execute our operating plan, maintain strong customer renewal rates, and expand our customer base. Additional risks may arise from changes in technology, competition, or shifts in the macroeconomic and financial environment.

These forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are based on management’s current beliefs, assumptions, and information available as of today. There can be no assurances that the company will meet its growth targets or other strategic goals or objectives. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances that occur after today’s call. For a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our business, please refer to the risk factors section of our most recently filed Form 10-K available online at www.sec.gov or on our own website. Now I’ll turn the call over to Jan Loeb, CEO of Acorn Energy and OmniMetrics, for further remarks. Jan.

Jan Loeb, CEO of Acorn Energy and OmniMetrics, Acorn Energy: Thanks, Tracy, and thank you, everyone, for joining this call. First, let me start by acknowledging that although monitoring and hardware revenue each grew over 20% for the first nine months, driving a 35% increase in net income, our Q3 2025 revenue was significantly lower than in Q3 2024 due to lower hardware revenue. The Q3 2025 revenue variance is logical due to the timing of hardware revenue from our large cell phone provider contract. Given the size and nature of our business, a contract of this magnitude, while highly beneficial to both our short-term and long-term cash generation, can create variability in our quarterly reporting primarily due to the timing of hardware revenue. This contract was originally expected to roll out over two years, but the customer desired faster deliveries, which were largely fulfilled over the first 12 months.

Final deliveries that we had expected to record in Q3 2025 have been pushed into Q4 2025 and possibly Q1 2026, resulting in no hardware revenue from this contract in Q3 2025 versus revenue of $724,000 from initial hardware deliveries in Q3 2024. Additionally, we recognize $215,000 of deferred hardware revenue in Q3 2025 versus $436,000 in Q3 2024, a difference of $221,000. Deferred hardware revenue reflects the non-cash amortization of hardware sales prior to September 2023, which were deferred and amortized over three years. The amount of revenue recognized from the amortization of deferred revenue will continue to decrease as we have not deferred revenue from hardware sales since September 1, 2023, when we began selling hardware units that can be sold independently from our monitoring services. Hardware sales are recognized to revenue upon shipment or transfer of title.

We expect all deferred hardware revenues to be fully amortized by August of 2026. Adding the $221,000 difference in Q3 hardware amortization plus the $724,000 of hardware revenue results in a delta of $945,000, or approximately 95% of the hardware revenue variance between Q3 2025 and Q3 2024. An additional factor is the reality that new hardware sales have been soft on the residential side of the business, but stronger in the commercial and industrial segment. Echoing this residential trend, last week a leading generator OEM reported Q3 revenue below expectations in the home market, which they attributed to reduced incidents of power outages, one of the lowest rates in 10 years, due in part to fewer U.S. hurricane impacts this season. As you can imagine, power outages from any source are a major driver of backup generator demand.

We also believe ongoing economic conditions, including high interest rates, slowing job growth, and other financial uncertainties, have slowed deployment of backup generators, which range between $7,000 and $24,000 to purchase and install depending on the home size. It is our sense that these economic challenges have tempered residential demand for several quarters. Longer term, we expect residential demand will rebound as economic conditions moderate, grid uncertainty builds, and power outage incidents grow in frequency and duration. In terms of our large cell phone contract, since inception, we have realized $3.9 million of hardware revenue and $343,000 in monitoring revenue, totaling roughly $4.2 million. We are told that there will be additional purchase orders under this contract, but as of right now, we have shipped all the initial hardware ordered.

We will continue to recognize monitoring revenue under this contract that was deferred at the point of sale over the 12-month period, commencing on the install date. Total deferred monitoring revenue at September 30, 2025, under this contract was $290,000. Of course, we fully expect this customer to renew our monitoring services given the customer’s over $4 million hardware investment. We expect them to be a long-term and happy customer. This is supported by the value and cost savings of our service and cost-prohibitive nature of switching to a competing offering, all of which are reflected in our history of greater than 90% annual renewal rates. Looking forward, the big question for shareholders is, what is our strategy to build on our scalable, high-margin, cash-generating business to achieve our long-term growth goals?

The answer is that we are pursuing a number of initiatives across commercial, industrial, and residential markets that fall into five distinct buckets. One, larger commercial and industrial opportunities being pursued by our direct sales team. Two, strategic OEM relationships in which we partner to provide our industry-leading technology and services. Three, expanding our penetration of the residential market through our over 600 generator dealers. Four, developing new products and expanding the capabilities and value of existing products. Five, through accretive M&A transactions. I’ll briefly touch on each of these growth initiatives. Larger commercial and industrial opportunities are being pursued via our internal sales team across sectors including healthcare, telecom, real estate management, retail, and the military.

We have a range of ongoing discussions, but many of the organizations are larger and more complex, resulting in sales cycles that are longer, and the timing and outcome is hard to predict. We see meaningful long-term growth potential from CNI customers because of their regional and national scale and our proven ability to deliver a compelling return on investment in terms of cost savings, improved data and analytics, as well as reduced operational risk. Strategic OEM relationships in which we partner to provide our industry-leading technology and services. We continue to advance discussions with OEMs regarding potential strategic relationships, where monitors would be bundled and sold by the manufacturer rather than in the aftermarket. We believe OmniMetrix technology and service leadership, combined with our ability to support all generator brands, puts us in a very strong position to partner with OEMs.

This would allow an OEM to focus on their core business while delivering a superior total solution across their customer universe. Of course, these initiatives require discussion, research, testing, and planning, yet there’s no guarantee of success. We believe the concept makes good sense for both sides and will continue to pursue this avenue, which could be an important growth driver for us. Three, expanding our penetration of the residential market through our over 600 generator dealers. While retail adoption of generators has been slowed due to a number of factors, we expect the pace to pick up moving forward. We go to market in the residential space through our network of over 600 generator dealers, and our primary drivers are working to support them in their outreach. New product development is another area of long-term importance that Tracy will touch on in her remarks.

M&A transactions remain a priority in our growth efforts. We are evaluating several complementary M&A prospects with monitoring components to their business. Negotiations with two of these are progressing, though it’s too early to predict if or when they might happen. We are very motivated to execute on one or more transactions to accelerate our growth and drive further operating leverage. We remain disciplined on managing risk and the price we are willing to pay to ensure we are building value for our shareholders. As we have new investors on today’s call, I’ll just touch on some of the long-term secular trends supporting our growth. First, remote asset monitoring is projected to grow approximately 23% annually through 2032, driven by the increasing adoption of IoT-connected devices, real-time data collection, demand for predictive maintenance and data analysis, as well as compliance and reporting obligations.

Even some of you on today’s call are probably monitoring things you probably didn’t or couldn’t just five years ago, like home thermostats, lighting, doorbells, HVAC systems, appliances, etc. Newer cars allow you to monitor the car’s location, fuel efficiency, fluid levels, and other measures, or you may use your remote start, remote climate control, or door locks. The same thing is happening within businesses. Remote monitoring is increasingly being seen as a necessary and cost-effective tool to enhance operational performance and reduce the risk of disruption, providing reliability, cost savings, and convenience, and OmniMetrix is ideally positioned to meet this growing demand. We all read of growing energy demand from AI and data centers, which is taxing the U.S. energy grid and reducing the reliability of electricity access. Though the hurricane season has spared the U.S., the prevailing trend has been more frequent.

Severe weather and other natural disasters increasingly disrupting the grid. Electrification demands across the economy are compounding a fragile grid and creating a supply and demand imbalance for electricity. The point is CNI customers and residential customers increasingly need reliable backup power, and that’s the key driver of our business. We expect that these major secular trends will continue to support our long-term growth. Based on the trends and our growth initiatives, we continue to believe 20% average annual revenue growth is an achievable target over the next three to five years. It will not be a straight line, and it will require that we execute on one or more of our larger growth initiatives in coming periods. We feel the scope of opportunity and the strength of our position makes this very achievable.

With that, I’ll turn the call back to Tracy to go over our financials and for her perspectives on our operations. Tracy. Thanks, Jan. As Jan noted, the primary driver of our year-over-year performance in Q3 and through September relates to the timing of orders under our cell phone provider contract. Focusing on third-quarter performance for 2025 versus 2024, we realized $148,000 of monitoring revenue related to the contract in Q3 2025 and zero hardware revenue versus $724,000 of hardware revenue and no monitoring revenue in Q3 2024, an aggregate difference of $576,000. Q3 2025 total revenue was $2,478,000 versus $3,050,000, a difference of $572,000. High-margin recurring monitoring revenue grew $422,000 to a record $1,560,000 in Q3 2025. Our Q3 2025 gross margin expanding to 78.5% from 71.7%, driven by a significantly higher proportion of monitoring revenue relative to hardware revenue.

Operating expenses increased 24.8% to $1,786,000 from $1,431,000 in Q3 2024 due to higher SG&A and R&D expenses. Increases included $110,000 in non-recurring corporate expenses related to our NASDAQ uplisting, a $60,000 increase in tax professional fees, of which approximately 50% is not recurring as it related to our Section 382 study that was completed in October, a $40,000 increase in our other public company expenses and stock compensation, and $33,000 of higher R&D investment. Q3 2025 net income to stockholders fell to $252,000 or 10 cents per diluted share versus $725,000 or 29 cents per diluted share in Q3 2024, a function of lower revenue and higher operating costs. The year-to-date highlights include revenue of $9,101,000, which is a 22% year-over-year increase.

The first-time month gross margin improved to 75.9% versus 73%, reflecting the benefit of adding revenue on a largely fixed cost structure and progress we are making in our hardware product margins. EPS of $0.57, an increase of 36% year-over-year, even after consideration of income tax expense of $331,000 in the current year period compared to $67,000 of income tax expense in the prior year-to-date period. Cash flow from operations was $1,795,000, which is a 143% year-over-year increase. Quarter-end available cash of $4,167,000, which increased to $4,372,000 as of November 4, 2025, and we continue to be debt-free. As a leader in remote generator and pipeline monitoring, we maintain our competitive edge through ongoing investment in product development. Q3 was the beta launch of our next-generation monitors, Omni for residential and Omni Pro for commercial and industrial use.

These next-generation monitors offer a smaller size and quicker processing speed, other new features that reduce installation time and service costs and enhance reliability such as over-the-air updates, and they offer remote exercise programming and enhanced compliance reporting. These features and upgrades increase the value of our offering relative to our competition. Also, in Q3, we began testing a redesigned version of our remote AC mitigation disconnect, or RAD, for our pipeline segment. Without getting too technical, the RAD product allows remote disconnection and reconnection of alternating current or AC mitigation tools for enhanced employee safety and lower cost versus manual field disconnections, which are required for maintenance. The new RAD EX design adds pipeline measurement capability in addition to the disconnect feature, combining two important pipeline maintenance requirements into a single product.

We also continue to improve our OmniView 2, or OV2, user interface in response to customer requests and suggestions, and we routinely review and update our cybersecurity protocols to mitigate constantly changing risks. Many of our ideas for improvements come from listening to our customers and being proactive in addressing customer concerns and needs in our future offerings and updates. This requires close relationships and partnerships with our customers, which we are very proud of at OmniMetrix. Our customers sincerely value that our products improve reliability, reduce costs, and assist in their compliance and operational reporting. Based on feedback, we’re excited about the opportunities ahead, and we look forward to updating you in the coming quarters. Operator, you may now prepare the lines for questions. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone.

If you’re using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Chris Tuttle with Blue Catterpillar. Please go ahead. Hey, guys, thanks for taking my question. I actually have a couple. Let’s start with the positives. Your recurring revenue on the software monitoring side was up nicely, and I’m curious, is that something you see as being sustainable? Are we going to experience kind of ongoing some level of sequential growth in that category? It is sustainable. It is recurring. So we expect consistent growth in that number. I’m not saying you’re going to see 37% every quarter, but since we amortize first years, so.

It comes in over time, and you should see consistent growth. We view that as the core value builder of our business. Okay. I mean, unless something unusual happens, like a customer cancels or something, there should be some, as more units come online, that the number will go up at least a little bit over time. In other words, this quarter should be at least marginally higher than last quarter. 100%. Hopefully better than not anymore. Got it. Yes, got it. Perfect. Now, my other question is, just turning to hardware for a moment. Obviously, a little bit weaker than maybe people were expecting. I just wanted to make sure I understand what you said. It sounds like there are still a few more deliveries on these long-term, the big contract that kind of propelled you guys in this quarter and in Q1.

Do I have that right? Basically, we finished the majority of our deliveries to this customer in Q2 of 2025. We started Q3 of 2024. We ended Q2 of 2025, so over a one-year period. However, there’s, we’ll call it, other stuff that they have told us that we’re going to be getting. They haven’t given us a date yet. The tail end of the contract is still to come, and hopefully it’ll be Q4, maybe it’ll be Q1 of 2026. Again, that’s on equipment, right? That’s on the hardware line, right? Additional deployments. With your last question, sort of with respect to this contract, obviously, the customer is a large customer. They moved to their own feet. They own the football. Do you still believe that there’s a possibility you might get, do they have additional.

Coverage that they want to implement? Could that mean additional purchase orders for you at some point in the future, along the same lines of what you had with them? The answer to that is yes, but they have given us no indication that that’s forthcoming. Okay. The last question. Tracy talked about some things on the new product side, and you guys got to show me at least the new box that you were putting out. It looks like a real step forward. This time, you talked a little bit more about AC power. I mean, maybe you could help me understand. I mean, I get it at a high level, but is there a specific kind of market use case customer type that you think about when you look at the AC-based, some of the things that Tracy talked about?

I believe what you’re referring to was AC mitigation, which is in our corrosion protection side of our business. I’m sure you know, about 90% of our revenue comes from power generation and about 10% comes from corrosion protection. This is a product that we’ve been beta testing in corrosion protection and has seemed to have gotten some industry attention. We’re hopefully going to roll that out in the fourth quarter, and we’ll see what happens. That’s in our corrosion protection side of our business versus our power generation side of our business. I got it. That’s helpful clarification. All right. I’ll get off the box here and let other folks jump in if they’ve got questions. Thanks a lot, Jan and Tracy. Thank you, Chris. Again, if you have a question, please press star then one.

The next question comes from Jason Mullencamp, private investor. Please go ahead. Hi, Jan and Tracy. Always good to hear from you both. I have a more timeless question here, perhaps. I’m a bit curious if you could discuss. You guys have always been good about reinvesting in the business and moving the product forward. What I don’t have a sense for, would love to hear from you, is when you launch a new product, kind of what percentage of those are to existing customers? I’d imagine some customers upgrade, some don’t. Could you just discuss that a little bit for folks? Sure. In the case of the Omni and Omni Pro, those are products that are replacing existing products. We have TruGuard and TruGuard Pro as existing products, and we’re now replacing them with Omni and Omni Pro. As Tracy discussed, all the.

She did not discuss all the benefits, but some of the benefits of the new product versus the old product. In the case of the RAD EX, that would be a totally brand new product. We do not have an existing product like that in the marketplace. Our product for corrosion protection is the Hero. That would be a brand new line for us. Does that answer your question? Actually, I think, Jason, let me add to that for you. When we introduced the new generation of TruGuard and TruGuard Pro, our existing customers would not typically replace the units that they currently have. Certainly, moving forward, as you know, we have customers that order on a repetitive basis and dealers that order on a repetitive basis. Their new orders would then be fulfilled with the new generation of products.

We will essentially, as our inventory depletes on our existing older generation, that will be entirely replaced with the new generation inventory. Anyone who orders from that point forward will receive the new generation of products. It is not our expectation that anyone would replace an existing unit that is functioning properly to replace it with our new generation product. I think that was more what you were asking, correct? Yeah, correct. That is very helpful. The growth there is generally tied to your existing customers or dealers having growth in their business, essentially. Is that true? Yes. Or consistency in their business. Yes. Thank you. Consistent demand. Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Joe Stein with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Operator, I guess you can. Hi. Excuse me. Close that line.

Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Joe Stein with Oppenheimer. I can’t do it. The television. Let’s move on, Operator. Jan? Hello? No problem. We can move on. Jan? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. I’m on the machine. It’s Joe Stein. I’m sorry. I got on a little late, but my question was. Was the problem not having the inventory and receiving product or a lack of demand where you got no revenue in this quarter on the telephone side? Did I misread that? Yeah. No. We did not have the order. We did not have the PO to ship anything, so. We don’t have an inventory. We have whatever our customers need. We’re very good about that. That’s what I thought. Okay. All right.

Everything else reads very well, but thank you for clearing that up for me. Okay. Thank you. Okay. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Jan Loeb for any closing remarks. Thank you all for joining today’s call. We appreciate your continued support. If you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to our IR team, listen to today’s press release, or to Tracy, or myself. We look forward to updating you again on our next conference call. Take care. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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