Stephen Trundle
Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open
Thank you, Matt. Good afternoon and welcome to everyone. We're pleased to report fourth quarter and full-year results that exceeded our expectations. Our SaaS and license revenue for the year 2021 was $460.4 million up 17.1% over the last year. Our adjusted EBITDA for the full-year was $142.5 million. Our results benefited from continued momentum in both the residential and commercial connected property markets in the U.S. and Canada. We close the year with more than 10,900 service provider partners, who deliver our technology to more than 8.4 million subscribers in 58 countries around the globe. I want to thank our service provider partners and our employees for their resilience and contribution to our 2021 performance. As we get the New Year underway, I will use today's call to discuss our strategy and how we plan to continue to grow. I will also highlight a few examples of the new capabilities that we introduced to our markets in 2021. Our strategy is to be the defining security oriented IoT platform for four different property types, residential, multifamily, small business, and commercial or institutional enterprises. For each of these property types, we have a roadmap to deploy fully integrated best in class applications that span security and surveillance, automation, energy management, water management and health. The key areas that drove much of our growth in 2021, and that I expect to continue to drive growth in 2022 and beyond are our expansion into commercial markets, our video software initiatives, our expanding international business, and our energy management business. I'll begin with our commercial opportunity. As I reported to you during the year, commercial market activity returned to pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter. Our strategy is to develop software based capabilities that will deliver unique value to commercial customers through the deep integration of security, video, access control and energy management solutions. We initially built a solid toehold in the small business segment and have since been growing upstream. Last year, we released an innovative video analytics service called Business Activity Analytics, which we designed for mid-tier commercial customers. This segment consists of properties that require more elaborate video surveillance solutions, and then much higher number of cameras than a typical small business. Business Activity Analytics provides occupancy tracking, people counting, monitoring and detection of crowd gathering. It also includes our robust enterprise business intelligence reporting, subscribers can analyze activity trends and heat maps, and monitor foot traffic and customer flows. The initial uptake of this capability has been solid with nearly 1,700 new accounts per month, activating business activity analytics as we exited 2021. We have also been growing OpenEye. OpenEye is an Alarm.com business and a leading provider of video surveillance as a service for large scale enterprise commercial customers. These enterprises have robust video surveillance requirements and include universities, banks, national retail chains, schools and property management companies. Since we acquired OpenEye in 2019, the team has developed new platform capabilities, including integrating our AI software. And this has allowed them to expand their market opportunity and begin to shift their business models on to one that also drives SaaS revenue. Next, I'll shift to the residential market. We saw solid demand for Smart Home Security in North America throughout 2021. Consumers are investing in their homes and security remains the primary purchase driver of Smart Home technology. Our home builder program has been one of several bright spots in the residential market. We launched the program in mid-2018 and our team has worked hard to engage potential partners and tailor our offerings for builders. These investments put us in an advantageous position as demand for new housing accelerated. Currently, 18 of the top 20 builders now use Alarm.com, some of which have standardized on Alarm.com for all of their new home developments. In the fourth quarter, we also launched the Alarm.com Smart Thermostat HD to round out our thermostat lineup with a premium offering. It has a high resolution full color touchscreen display and our cloud based energy management software provides intelligent next level of comfort and control. An important element of our residential strategy is our initiative to apply our AI software to monitoring stations and Alarm response events. Last year, we introduced a first to market capability called Ambient Insights for alarm response. It evaluates alarm signals, and then provides a real time determination to the monitoring station as to the likelihood that the property owner will cancel the alarm. Operators can then more effectively prioritize multiple alarm events. As a result, they can dispatch emergency services faster to the highest priority alarms and can also help reduce false alarm dispatches. Coupled with our visual verification service, monitoring stations can provide a broad range of critical information to public safety dispatchers and first responders. Another tenet of our strategy is to deliver the most capable video monitoring offering and a broadly accessible price point. Investments in our video platform has led to innovative new capabilities that drive growth for our service providers, significantly increased customer engagement and improve installation efficiency and performance. I'll give a few recent examples. In 2021, we began broadly deploying video analytics capabilities designed to proactively deter break ins and other security incidents. The Alarm.com 770 Video Doorbell fully launched last year, with a market leading video analytics package that can identify people and monitor them based on a range of customizable settings. We also launched Perimeter Guard. This video analytics capability identifies people anywhere around the perimeter of a property. Coupled with our new set of 24 outdoor camera, Perimeter Guard can respond with both audible alerts and flashing lights. This increases the deterrence value of our systems by putting a potential intruder on notice that they are being actively watched. Our international business is another area of growth and a key element of our strategy. In 2021, we continue to expand our global presence and product offering and grew our solid base of International Service Providers. During the fourth quarter, and despite a difficult international COVID environment, SaaS revenue from our international business increased by over 25% from a year ago. We believe that we are in a good position to continue to meaningfully grow our international business in 2022. The final key element of our strategy is the expansion of our addressable market through our segments businesses. These include PointCentral, EnergyHub and Building 36. Each business is focused on an attractive market opportunity and are in different stages of development. As reported in our other segment, SaaS revenue for these businesses grew 26.9% in 2021. PointCentral supports vacation rental property management companies and apartment properties. Its solution fully integrates devices, sensors, and systems to give property managers an enterprise service for access control, energy management, and property security. Building 36 partners with HVAC servicing companies provide energy, water and air quality solutions. The Building 36 team also leads our product development efforts in these domains, including the development of our new smart thermostat HD. In 2021, they made solid progress expanding their product and partner base. EnergyHub provides enterprise software services that enable energy utilities to flexibly manage demand on the electricity grid through customer owned and enrolled distributed energy resources. These resources include smart thermostats, batteries, commercial and industrial resources, solar inverters, and electric vehicle chargers. Energy Hub has expanded its customer base and now works with 60 of North America's leading energy utilities. Its platform manages over 700,000 grid edge devices. The largest fleet of any distributed energy resource management solution provider in North America. To conclude, our key growth initiatives are delivering increasingly meaningful contributions to our business. Going forward, our focus is on blocking and tackling as we continue to execute the strategy we have laid in place so that we can further grow these areas in 2022 and beyond. And with that, let me turn things over to Steve Valenzuela. Steve?