Tritium DCFC (“Tritium” or the “Company”) a global leader in direct current (“DC”) fast chargers for electric vehicles (“EVs”), provided an update on its business. Announcement will be followed by a conference call for investors at 10:30 AM Eastern time.
“We are very pleased to deliver these excellent revenue and margin results for our shareholders,” said Tritium CEO Jane Hunter. “Our commitment to product quality, spanning our hardware, software, and service offerings, is a key differentiator and competitive advantage for Tritium. In recent months, we’ve been proud to see our EV charging customer bp pulse achieving over 97% uptime across their Tritium charger networks in Australia and New Zealand. UK customer Evyve also recently published their achievement of 98% uptime across their fleet of Tritium fast chargers, and Australia’s largest public fast charging network, Evie Networks, reports uptime of 97% across their Tritium fleet. These high uptime achievements are a major strategic objective for the business and verification of our technology – beyond those named customers, our global fleet data shows a growing number of customers across the fuel, fleet, and charging network segments achieving between 97% and 99% uptime across their Tritium charger networks.”
Financial Results
Tritium achieved record revenue of $112 million for the six-month period ended June 30, 2023, a year-over-year growth rate of over 286% over the $29 million in revenue for the comparative prior six-month period. The Company also achieved record revenue of $185 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, a year-over-year growth rate of over 115% over the $86 million for the prior fiscal year.
Significant increases in production capacity throughout the fiscal year, including in the first half of the 2023 calendar year, have occurred as Tritium’s Tennessee facility scales, enabling Tritium to convert its backlog into revenue and expand its gross margin as the benefits of operating leverage materialize. The Company still maintains an order backlog valued at approximately $99 million at June 30, 2023, which compares to $149 million for the same timeframe at the end of the previous fiscal year.
Sales orders for the six-month period ended June 30, 2023 amounted to $56 million, compared to $105 million for the comparative prior six-month period; the Company also reported sales orders of $146 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, compared to $224 million for the comparative prior fiscal year. The Company expects strong order growth in the second half of the 2023 calendar year as customer forecasts for 2024 deployments are anticipated to translate into purchases. These expectations are substantiated by recent large purchase orders across Tritium’s primary product offerings, which were secured following the June 30, 2023 reporting period from a number of industry players, including a major global fuel retailer and independent charge point operators.
Business Update
Tritium continues to expand its working capital investments to meet the continued growth in demand across its customer base. Tritium has inventory assets valued at $140 million at June 30, 2023, comprised of finished goods, raw materials, and work-in-progress, compared to total inventory assets valued at $54 million for the same timeframe in the previous year. The Company also maintained cash and cash equivalents of approximately $29 million at June 30, 2023, compared to $71 million for the same timeframe in the previous year. The Company maintained approximately 160 million common shares outstanding and total borrowings of $195 million at June 30, 2023, of which $127 million consisted external borrowings and $68 million consisted of related party borrowings from shareholders. This compares to cash and cash equivalents, common shares outstanding, and total borrowings of $71 million, 127 million, and $88 million at June 30, 2022, respectively.
The Company maintains its previously issued 2023 revenue and gross margin guidance. Given the Company’s higher focus on its path to profitability versus growth, the Company now expects an advantaged sales mix of higher price and margin products than originally contemplated to drive its revenue and gross margin targets, thereby requiring a lower unit production profile than the previous guidance of 11,000 units.
Gross Margin
The Company reported gross margin of 4% for the six-month period ended June 30, 2023, compared to -18% for the comparative prior six-month period; the Company also reported gross margin of -2% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, compared to -2% for the comparative period. The 4% gross margin achieved in the first half of calendar year 2023 represents a nearly 2,200 basis point improvement over the comparable previous period and was underpinned by continued improvement throughout the six-month period, with record corporate-wide gross margins being achieved as the reporting period concluded. Investors should note that Tritium reports gross margin in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”), while certain other publicly traded electric vehicle charging manufacturers report gross margin as revenue less only materials cost of goods sold, excluding costs associated with labor and/or other variable expenses.
Throughout the fiscal year, Tritium saw a number of improvements across its business that contributed to gross margin performance in the second half of the fiscal year, despite the opening of its new Tennessee factory in July 2022 and ramping the factory to full production over the course of the first half, which was expected to dilute overall gross margins. Tritium has seen gross margins benefit from recent order fulfillments, which include price increases negotiated to address components and freight cost inflation driven by the pandemic. Finally, with an increasing proportion of the Company’s production originating from Tennessee rather than Brisbane, the Company is seeing a reduction in freight out costs which contributes to margin expansion.
Easing conditions across global supply chains during the fiscal year compared to the same period last year have been noticeable, with shortening delivery and lead times for certain key product inputs and an easing of the disruption to sea and air freight.
Capital Raise
In September 2023, following this reporting period, the Company secured a financing commitment of up to $75 million, with an initial funding of $25 million. The Company intends to use the proceeds to continue its investment in working capital to meet expected continued strong customer demand in the 2024 calendar year. The Company is engaged with several parties, both financial and strategic, around supporting Tritium’s business. Tritium believes the appetite for its solutions and demand in the marketplace for its offerings remains very strong and growing, although the market for capital for growth and cleantech platforms remains constrained. As such, the Company will continue to prioritize deepening and broadening both existing and new strategic customer relationships with particular emphasis on its path to profitability.
Tennessee Factory and Production Update
Tritium continues to believe that it has the largest published global production plans for DC fast chargers outside China and the largest published planned production capacity onshore in America. Tritium further believes that this production capacity places the Company in a strong position to capitalize on the anticipated surge in demand for Buy America-compliant EV fast chargers over the next five years, due to funding programs like the National Electric Vehicle Incentive (“NEVI”) Formula Program, Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program, and the Inflation Reduction Act.
In March 2023, Tritium began accepting orders for the Company’s first product offering for the NEVI program. Tritium’s NEVI system is expected to achieve the Build America, Buy America Act waiver milestones set by the Federal Highway Administration. In July, Tritium made an announcement that it will provide all fast chargers for the State of Hawai’i’s first round of NEVI funding. Tritium believes that as US states deploy their NEVI funding allocations, the Company will see measurable growth in US orders, particularly in 2024 and 2025.
Several US states have begun to require or propose to require the North American Charging Standard (“NACS”) for NEVI-funded projects. Tritium is prepared to meet this demand and has committed to providing NACS connectors on Tritium chargers in late 2023 or early 2024, both at the point of manufacture and as a retrofit kit post-manufacture. Tritium offers a highly competitive NEVI charging system with four dual-cable 150kW fast chargers, meeting the federal requirement for four Combined Charging Standard (“CCS”) connectors with four NACS connectors to meet customer and driver demand and certain state requirements.
Reporting Schedule
Tritium announces that it has changed its fiscal year end from June 30 to December 31, beginning in the 2024 calendar year. As a result, Tritium expects to file its last report for the fiscal year ended June 30 on Form 20-F and intends to subsequently file interim financials for the six-month period ending December 31, 2023, before beginning an annual reporting cycle of January 1 through December 31 beginning in the 2024 calendar year and beyond.