Greetings, and welcome to the Byrna Technologies Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and all participants are in a listen-only mode. Before turning the call over to Bryan Ganz, Byrna Technologies' Chief Executive Officer, I will read the Safe Harbor statement. Some discussions made today may include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the statements made today. Please refer to Byrna's most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these projections and assumptions. The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. As this call will include references to non-GAAP, please see the press release in the Investors Section of our website ir.bynra.com. For further information regarding forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP results to GAAP results. I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Bryan Ganz. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Byrna's fiscal 2022 fourth quarter earnings call. David North, our CFO and I will be discussing our Q4 and full year 2022 results. And I will provide some additional color on both the quarter and the year and discuss recent developments. We'd like to start by turning the call over to David so that he can discuss the Q4 and full year full year results and financial performance. David and I will be taking questions at the conclusion of the presentation. David?

Thanks, Bryan, and thanks all of joining us today. Let's start with a review of the financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $16.0 million that's a 43.5% increase over the $11.0 for last year's fourth quarter. Gross profit increased by 52.0% to $8.7 from $5.7 in last year's fourth quarter while gross margin improved to 54.1% of net revenue from 51.1% in last year's fourth quarter. The improvement in gross margin was driven by a reduced dependence on air freight and an improved product mix with higher margin ammo sales representing a greater percentage of overall sales. Operating expenses remained relatively flat at $8.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $8.8 million in the fourth quarter of last year. The combination of higher revenue and a higher gross margin percentage coupled with flat operating expenses resulted in improved profitability. Net loss for the fourth quarter was near breakeven at $0.1 million or $0.01 per share compared to a net loss of $3.2 million or $0.14 per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. Excluding long-term stock-based compensation and one-time severance costs, our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA was $1.4 million for this year making this a second sequential fiscal quarter with positive non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA. Taking a look now at the full year financial results, revenues for the full year increased by 13.8% to $48.0 million compared to $42.2 million in the prior year. In 2022, the company saw increases in international sales, dealer sales and Amazon sales specifically, international sales increased by $5.7 million or 164%, dealer sales rose by $1.6 million or 28.4% and Amazon's sales grew by $4.6 million or 522.5%. This more than offset the decline in Byrna website sales of $6.6 million or 20.9%.…

Thank you, David. As David said, the fourth quarter was a record quarter for the company, the second in a row and the third consecutive quarter of sequential top line growth. Q4 was also the second consecutive quarter of profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis. The improving profitability is due to improving operating leverage. Sales last quarter grew by 43% in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2022, while operating expenses were actually down slightly, down 1% compared to the same quarter last year. Well, our sales growth for the full year of 2022 was a disappointing 14%. Over the last two quarters of the year, Byrna experienced year-over-year revenue growth of 43%. Full year sales growth was dragged down by the 14% decline in the first half sales of 2022. And as David mentioned, this decline in the first half the sales of 2022 was due to the $9 million spike in sales in the first half of 2021 resulting from an unexpected and frankly unsolicited endorsement from Sean Hannity on live television in April of 2021. If we back out the $9 million of Hannity effect sales that occurred in the second quarter of 2021, sales in the first half of 2022 would have been up 47% year-over-year and full year 2022 sales would have been up 45% year-over-year more in keeping with Byrna's long-term growth trajectory. In fact, over the last four years, Byrna has experienced compound annual growth rate of 272%. This significant top line growth for Byrna has been driven by both growing brand awareness and an overall increase in the demand for less lethal alternatives to traditional firearms. Byrna specifically and the less lethal industry generally is benefiting from two societal trends that while on their face may seem to be countervailing when taken…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning, everyone. First, let me say congratulations on the [indiscernible] launch. Great to see that among other new product launches. So multipart questions here, so appreciate you guys bearing with me on the. Wondering if you could speak a little bit more about what you saw in projectile sales in Q4, maybe any sense you can give us of concentration of overall revenues and call it ammo And then with the launch of the [indiscernible], just wondering what you're seeing out there in early days realize it is very early. And then maybe remind us of the margin on the shotgun projectiles and that will that change when you have your own launcher and the projectiles change? And then also, maybe you could just touch on the payload shotgun projectiles. I guess, what needs to happen to get those completed and ready to launch and any timeframe there? Sorry, I know there's a lot in that?

All right, well, at least Jeff, they're all sort of ammo-based question. So let's focus on the 12-gauge first because I think that that is the more important product. All of the initial production was spoken for by our Byrna Authorized Stocking Dealers. So the large chain stores that carry Byrna. And frankly, most of our dealers were interested in carrying the 12-gauge. We made a commitment to the dealers at SHOT Show that we would not start selling to the consumer so long as there were open orders and that we would give their refill orders priority. And the reason for this is pretty simple. We want to make sure that if they're giving us shelf space that we don't let it sit empty. So we've told them that we will not offer it online until we feel that we have adequate stock to fulfill their restocking orders and also to sell online. So initially we expect the margins on 12-gauge to be lower because a 100% of the sales will be through retailers and our margins through retailers are right around 50%. Our margins when we go to sell this online are going to of course, be much higher, again, closer to 70% gross profit margins. We don't again we don't know whether we're at the right price point on this product. We're selling a 10 count box of rounds for $50. We didn't seem to get any pushback at all on this if we have difficulty maintaining production to keep up with demand. We could consider raising the price, but I think a $50 price for a box of 10 rounds is a fair price. And gives us adequate margin and again, the most important thing here is that we get them out into the market. We…

Yes, ammo in the fourth quarter was - the mix of ammo and accessories has traditionally been around 25% in the fourth quarter. It was closer to 30% and that's up from -- it was lower than that in the fourth quarter of last year. So we're seeing a gradual increase in that as a total percentage.

And keep in mind, what we're seeing is a couple of things with the increase in returning customers. So this year as our returning customers went from 40% to 47% of sales, we obviously saw an increase in ammo sales, a slightly lower average order value. We went from $345 average order value in 2021 to a $320 average order value in 2022. But we saw improving margins. So we think that over time ammo and accessory sales will get closer to 45% of overall sales. And again, I don't know if that's in five years or 10 years, but that's the line that we will probably end up trending to and we base that on what we've seen with other less-lethal companies, including Mission Less Lethal, which we purchased and one of our direct competitors as we have several employees that were former employees and a competitor. And it seems that that 45% range for ammo is where you end up with when you stop growing at double-digit rates of return.

Okay. I think you covered all those questions pretty well.

Those were a lot of questions.

It wasn't a lot of questions. A few more questions in my next question, but I guess if we can just touch a little bit more on - it sounds like you're putting the dealers first with a 12-gauge allocation at least. Maybe you could just speak a little more about production plans when will the Pump Action Launcher be introduced? And then also with the new Latin American facility, the factory in Argentina, how much of your production do you expect to move there? And also does that include the shotgun rounds in Argentina?

That was a lot of questions.

Yes. The shotgun rounds, the plastic pieces that make up the shotgun rounds are going to be made at one factory. But each factory, the U.S., South America, the Argentinean factory and South Africa will each put in the propulsion. So it doesn't become ammo or a, pyrotechnic ammo until we put the propulsion into it. So that will all happen in the local markets. And it's just easier for us to ship.

It has to do with regulation and new taxation and…

Yes, it's easier for us to ship when it's just plastic pieces and not ammo.

I wanted to weigh in on this question because the question implies kind of a misunderstanding about what we're doing in our Latin American joint venture. We asked how much of production will be moved there? The reason for the Latin American joint venture is not to move production there. It is not to take advantage of a lower cost production location. It is to take advantage of the two giant South American markets in Argentina and Brazil. That's much to take advantage, but to get access to them. And to get access to them, with local content manufacturing within the tariff boundaries of Mercosur, which has a 20% tariff surrounding those countries. So we're able now to sell our products into those markets at a profit. And pay that 20% tariff. But by moving in there and putting production there, we're able to get all of that profit margin for the investors and to have direct access to those markets. So it's really moving inside the castle walls is what we're doing.

I think that's a very good point. And in fact what drove this home was the last shipment that we sent to Argentina we ended up having to pay $37 a launcher in freight and another $38 a launcher in duty. So we had $75 in freight and duty. The bill of materials for that launcher is $82. So basically by moving inside the moat, inside Mercosur, the bill of materials is essentially free because we're getting rid of the very expensive freight and duty getting into the Mercosur region.

And the other thing that happens is that that becomes a barrier to entry to competition. So in my career, I've worked in several multinational manufacturers. And the way you get access to those markets and take the market share is you put your production there.

Okay, good. That's really helpful to understand that. I'll let somebody else jump in, if I ask you too many questions already.

Thank you, Jeff.

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Rackley with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Actually, sorry to do this, but I have a couple more on the 12-gauge round. It's really interesting to us. I just wanted to clarify. So you've seen demand across all of your dealers or is it concentrated just within a few? How's that spread across your customer base?

It's been pretty universal. Obviously, we've got some very large dealers that are taking thousands of boxes, tens of thousands of rounds, but we've got a lot of dealers that are taking 10 boxes, 100 rounds. So it's pretty universal. I think that the dealers like us are very anxious to see what the sell through is. We will know a lot more three months from now. So we need to get it on the shelf and we need to see how quickly it moves off the shelf. So the one good thing is this is a relatively easy market to reach shotgun owners. There are very specific magazines for us to advertise in. This product is being written up by a lot of various magazines lauded by places like Police1 and the Personal Defense World. So we should see what the consumer demand is, but frankly, we need to get it on the shelves first. And we felt that dealers were important to this because we don't actually know what percentage, of our current Byrna customers own a shotgun. My guess is its well under 50% I mean it may be only 10% that actually own a shotgun and that's the reason they're buying at Byrna. By going after these customers through the brick and mortar dealer base that we have, we're doing two things one, as I said I mean, we see this as potentially being a several hundred million dollars market in and of itself. But just as importantly, we are going to get people to now come to our website. So a guy that has a shotgun and may buy a box of non-lethal or less-lethal ammo for it will then see, oh look, they've got a Byrna Shield for my elementary school age child. And maybe my wife would like this Byrna SD or Byrna LE. So we're hoping that this is a very inexpensive way to get them into the Byrna ecosystem. So right now, the most important thing is just to get these into market and as widely disseminated as possible. And that was the reason we chose the brick and mortar route.

I think that this also - it also may give us access to more dealers that we might not already have, because you've got a gun dealer who's selling 12-gauge shotgun ammunition. He might not have been interested at the beginning in a CO2 launcher. But now he is interested in this product. So it expands our relationships as well with the brick and mortar. But in all of this, we're early in the game. And this is why Bryan said that this is one of the variables that we don't have any history on the product. We know that there's a great big installed base of 12-gauge shotguns out there in the country, but we don't know what the overall demand will be. We don't know what the dealer sell-through will be. We're at very early stages.

Great. And are you seeing any interest from dealers that don't sell traditional ammo?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

And frankly, we're also seeing interest in from dealers that are not selling our Byrna. So there's been a number of dealers that we've spoken to that we've been unable to get our foot in the door that we've made several presentations who have now reached out to us and said that we'd like to start with the 12-gauge and then we'll see how it goes from there.

Okay, all right that's great. So just last one on the 12-gauge. The pump launcher for the fin tail project, just want to clarify that, that won't be considered. I know your fin tail project out can be shot out of the firearm. But your pump launch will not be a firearm?

Correct. So no, interestingly, fin tail projectile was originally developed to be fired out of this Pump Action Launcher. So they were sort of developed in tandem. And we came up with the idea of putting that little projectile in a 12-gauge casing. And the reason for that is the Pump Action Launcher is going to be $1,000 launcher. So while there is a market for us, it's not a market in the millions. There aren't millions of people that are going to buy $1,000 launcher to shoot these projectiles. But there are 10s of millions of people that have a 12-gauge. And for them, the entry is not $1,000, dollars it's $50, dollars. So, we sort of pivoted, we didn't stop the development of the Pump Action Launcher and frankly it is very, very far down the road. We have working prototypes of that currently. It's an amazing technological tour to force. But we don't think it will have anywhere near the commercial impact that putting that same projectile in a 12-gauge casing. Well and we started off initially just thinking that we would drop it in an existing 12-gauge casing that we would buy a casing from [indiscernible] or from one of the big ammo companies. Because of the shortage of ammunition, we were unable to get at with casings from any of these ammo manufacturers which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it forced us to go develop plastic casing ourselves. And by having a plastic casing, we're able to do a couple of things. One, we have a round that does not look at all like a normal shotgun round. And this was a big concern, particularly from law enforcement, they didn't want rounds that could be confused where somebody thought they had a less-lethal round in their shotgun, but in fact had a lethal round. So with the plastic casing, we don't look anything like a normal 12-gauge that has a brass casing. Secondly, we're now in control of our own destiny. We're not limited to buying these from [Fieokie]. So the next time there's a shortage of 12-gauge casings, we can't sell our 12-gauge. We manufacture every single piece of this other than the primer. So we really have complete control over this situation with the 12-gauge.

Great okay, that's helpful thanks. So I guess, so jump into the 2023 guide. I know there is a lot of moving parts. The new products your Amazon relationship is maturing. How are you thinking about the season seasonality of '23 relative to '22 and should we expect a similar pattern or is there anything different that might stray from what we saw in 2022?

No, we think 2022 is pretty indicative of what we should see. Q1 is always soft because it comes on the heels of our big Christmas shopping season in Q4. The summer months are a little slower, but what we saw in - 2022 with the constant build, I think is probably what we should see in '23. 2020 and 2021 both had an endorsement from Sean Hannity, which made the sales very lumpy and made quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year comparisons very difficult. This is the first time in 2023 that we will be comparing ourselves to a year that did not have it exogenous event.

Yes, I think the overall seasonality, we all agree, should stay there. The main thing in forecasting as I think is difficult for this year is just figuring out what were the effects of the macroeconomic factors that we've seen due to the pandemic and that sort of thing, particularly on the fourth quarter. So it's hard to say in the past two fourth quarters what were the effects of what was going on in the macroeconomic environment and how will that affect '23.

Okay, great. Well, that's it for me. I really appreciate the time.

Thank you, Ryan.

Thanks, Ryan.

[Operator Instructions]

Any questions?

And it looks like we have reached the end of question-and-session. I'll turn the call back over to Bryan Ganz for closing remarks.

Great, thank you very much. Once again, I just want to thank everyone for joining us today and for your interest in Byrna. If anyone would like to set up a one-on-one call with either me or David, please reach out to Erol Girgin at Stonegate. His email is erol@stonegateinc.com and he will make an arrangement for a one-on-one conversation. Once again, thank you very much and we'll be signing off.

And this concludes today's conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.