Axon Enterprise Stock
Cristy Borovetz
Axon is pleased to report a strong start to 2024 with another quarter of impressive financial performance supporting an improved outlook for FY 2024, and continued long-term innovation that we expect will fuel our growth for years to come. First quarter revenue growth of 34% marks our 9th consecutive quarter of growth above 25%, and we delivered improved profitability with first quarter net income margin of 28.9% and Adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.6%.
Axon Cloud & Services revenue of $176 million grew 52% year over year, more than doubling over the last two years. Our software revenue growth is driven by both adoption of new products from our existing customers and attracting new users to our ecosystem. Our net revenue retention remains a powerful driver at 122%, and we aim to sustain robust software growth over the longer term through disruptive product innovation. This includes recently announced significant new advancements leveraging artificial intelligence ("AI") and virtual reality ("VR") to enhance officer training and productivity, and our planned acquisition of Dedrone, which will help make our vision for Drone as a First Responder ("DFR") a reality.
Our integrated subscription plans drive value for our customers beyond what can be achieved through disparate point solutions and our software growth is also linked to record demand for our TASER and Sensors products. TASER revenue of $179 million grew 33% year over year propelled by demand for TASER 10. Sensors & Other revenue of $106 million grew 14% year over year driven by adoption of Axon Body 4.
Axon's consistent growth at increasing scale is a result of execution on our strategy to build the modern technology ecosystem for public safety and trusting partnership with our customers. Their feedback energizes our teams to work on the next innovations to help drive better outcomes, and we see tailwinds across our product portfolio now and in the future. Looking ahead, we aim to deliver improved financial performance and are increasing our revenue and Adjusted EBITDA expectations for the year. We are humbled to provide this update and share more detail, below.
Axon Week has become one of the largest user conferences in public safety and is an exciting way to bring our customers together with our teams to share ideas, and showcase the full power of the Axon ecosystem. Each year, we also use this event to introduce and highlight new products and solution applications to our customers. Our announcements from Axon Week 2024 include advancements to our VR training portfolio, an improved mobile app, and Draft One, which we explore in greater detail next in this letter.
Draft OneAxon's latest AI-driven product, Draft One, is a revolutionary new software tool that drafts high-quality police report narratives in seconds based on auto-transcribed body-worn camera audio. Draft One leverages the advanced power of Generative AI and includes a range of critical safeguards, requiring every report to be reviewed and approved by a human officer, ensuring accuracy and accountability of the information before reports are submitted.
Draft One is one of many examples of Axon's commitment to innovating responsibly. Axon conducted a double-blind study to compare the quality between report narratives written with Draft One and those without. Results showed that Draft One performed equal to or better than officer-only report narratives across five dimensions, including completeness, neutrality, objectivity, terminology and coherence. In addition, we partnered with our Ethics & Equity Advisory Council ("EEAC") to rigorously evaluate word choice selection, draft quality and potential racial bias. Input from Axon's EEAC also included setting the default experience to limit report drafts to minor incident types and charge levels, and specifically excluding incidents where arrests took place and for felonies from the default settings. In practice, customers can still adjust from these default settings based on their specific preferences.
The Axon mobile appAxon recognizes the versatile nature of law enforcement duties, which require presence both in the field and at the station. We also recognize the benefit of providing tools to increase officer efficiency, enabling our customers to get more done regardless of where they are. In fact, Axon's 2024 Digital Evidence Trends Report found that 41% of officers return to the station multiple times per shift to review evidence or write reports. The same report also found that 55% of officers desire a mobile app that gives them the ability to review evidence in the field. In response, we have developed the Axon mobile app, which consolidates crucial features of the Axon ecosystem into one mobile platform.
The Axon mobile app is the first mobile app combining both digital evidence and records management into the same user interface. It enhances on-the-go accessibility and efficiency, and improves the experience for each user of our products, individually. Officers can handle evidence workflows and start and complete reports from the field, all without needing to return to the station. The app also includes a dynamic dashboard that provides a clear visual of action items that require attention, and it allows officers to search for, review, request and maintain evidence including evidence categories, identification items, titles and other metadata. Over time, we plan to continue to build even more Axon experiences available in Axon's desktop applications and into simplified mobile applications purpose-built inside this new unified, modern, mobile app.
Axon believes better training will play a critical role in achieving our moonshot goal to cut gun-related deaths between police and the public in half by 2033. VR is a core technology powering our approach to help improve officer response and performance through more repetition, better practice in dynamic scenarios and more immersive experiences.
Over the last year, we introduced all-new ergonomically accurate TASER 10, TASER 7 and firearm VR controllers and expanded our training library to include more community engagement and de-escalation training modules. To take VR to the next level, we have now introduced Virtual Reality Based Training ("vRBT") Live-Action, which incorporates 360 degree video immersions, featuring real human actors with realistic emotions and expressions, and vRBT Simulator CGI, which overlays VR training with interactive computer generated imagery ("CGI") elements in 3D.
Now, Axon VR Training and TASER 10 are closely linked, and every TASER master instructor course includes VR training elements. Before these advances, TASER trainees would have limited experience with deploying a live TASER 10 due to budgetary limits on the number of cartridges that could be dedicated to training. VR democratizes TASER training across large and small agencies, enabling our customers to deploy hundreds of TASER 10 cartridges in VR at no incremental cost. In our newly introduced TASER 10 VR Validation Course, each trainee will deploy TASER 10 probes in VR on 40 different targets, which equates to a savings of more than $1,000 in real-world cartridges.
Game-changing acquisition of Dedrone to accelerate next-generation drone solutionsAxon believes robotic security applications through drones and related technologies will play an enormous role in our mission to Protect Life. Today, Axon announced we have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Dedrone, a global leader in airspace security. The acquisition of Dedrone is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second half of 2024.
Dedrone is one of the most widely used and reliable counter-drone systems in the world, protecting the public by ensuring drone technology is used as a force for good. As unauthorized drone activity increases, enhanced airspace awareness and drone defense technology have become essential in ensuring public safety and national security. Dedrone can help rapidly detect, track, identify and, where permitted, mitigate drones and locate their pilots across multiple use cases both in civilian and professional security settings.
Dedrone's technologies are also a key resource to expanding the authorized use of drones as first responders ("DFR") in public safety. DFR programs are designed to deploy drones to a scene in advance of ground units, enhancing situational awareness to improve response strategies, optimizing the allocation of already limited resources and reducing the risk of harm to human officers.
Dedrone is another example of our execution on our investment strategy, which is geared to accelerate our product roadmap and enhance our ecosystem while building our talent base in product categories accretive to our long term growth. Dedrone follows our acquisitions of Sky-Hero and Fusus in the last 12 months and similarly complements our existing portfolio while expanding our product applications across our customer verticals. We estimate Dedrone will add approximately $14 billion to Axon's total addressable market ("TAM"). In total, our acquisitions of Sky-Hero and Fusus and our planned acquisition of Dedrone would expand our TAM by more than 50% over the last year from $50 billion to $77 billion.
Operating cash flow reflects a $16 million outflow in the quarter, an improvement of $40 million year over year and in-line with expected cash flow seasonality of prepaid expenses and other payments, such as company-wide bonus payouts and commission payments tied to strong 2023 performance.
The following forward-looking statements reflect Axon's expectations as of May 6, 2024, and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to "Forward-looking Statements" below for more information.
Statistical DefinitionsAnnual recurring revenue: Annual recurring revenue is a performance indicator that management believes provides more visibility into the growth of our revenue generated by our highest margin, recurring services. Annual recurring revenue should be viewed independently of revenue and deferred revenue because it is an operating measure and is not intended to be combined with or to replace GAAP revenue or deferred revenue, as they can be impacted by contract start and end dates and renewal rates. Annual recurring revenue is not intended to be a replacement or forecast of revenue or deferred revenue. We calculate annual recurring revenue as monthly recurring license, integration, warranty, and storage revenue, annualized. As of the first quarter of 2024, in order to comprehensively cover recurring warranty revenue, we have recast our annual recurring revenue figures to include recurring TASER segment warranty revenue, in addition to the existing inclusion of recurring warranty revenue from our Software & Sensors segment.
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