Symbotic Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 5, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Symbotic reported Q1 revenue of $369 million, an 80% year-over-year increase, and maintained a robust backlog of $23.2 billion.
  • The new SIMBOT platform, featuring NVIDIA chips and AI-powered automation, achieved a record full-build deployment in just 20 months by boosting throughput and reliability.
  • BreakPac has moved beyond prototype to general availability, targeting drugstore formats and long-tail slow-movers, with initial revenue anticipated in late fiscal 2024.
  • The joint venture Green Box is attracting strong inbound interest, with Symbotic expecting to recognize its first revenue from the venture in fiscal 2024.
  • System gross margin improved by 110 basis points to 20% and Q2 guidance of $400–420 million in revenue with $12–15 million in adjusted EBITDA implies >50% growth and over 700 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Symbotic Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Symbiotic's First Quarter Fiscal 20 24 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentations, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Evanson, Vice President of Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Val. Hello, everyone. I'm Jeff Evanson, Symbiotic's VP of Investor Relations. Our press release and discussion today will include forward looking statements based on assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements, including as a result of the factors described in cautionary statements and risk factors in Simmonetix' financial release and regulatory filings with the SEC, by which any form of looking statements made during this call are qualified in their entirety. In addition, during this call, we will discuss certain financial measures that are not recognized under U.

Speaker 1

S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which the SEC refers to as non GAAP measures. We believe these non GAAP measures assist management in planning, and evaluating our business and financial performance, including allocating resources. Reconciliations of these non GAAP measures to their most comparable reported GAAP measures are included in our financial press release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website and is on file with the SEC. These non GAAP measures may not be comparable to measures used by other issuers.

Speaker 1

Today, we'll provide guidance for the Q1, including revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We're not providing guidance for net loss today, which is the most GAAP financial measure to adjusted EBITDA. We're not able to provide reconciliations of adjusted EBITDA to GAAP financial measures Because certain items required for such reconciliations are outside of our control and or cannot be reasonably predicted such as the provision for stock based compensation. On today's call, we'll be joined by Rick Cohen, Symbiotic's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Carol Hibbard, Symbiotic's Chief Financial Officer. These executives will discuss our Q1 fiscal 'twenty four results and our outlook followed by Q and A.

Speaker 1

With that, I'll turn it over to Rick.

Speaker 2

Rick?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Jeff. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review our most recent results and discuss the year ahead. In our Q1, we reported strong financial results and posted equally impressive operational results. Our team set a new deployment record, completing the full build, installation and commissioning process for an entire Symbiotic system in only 20 months.

Speaker 3

While we can't currently deploy all systems this quickly, this reflects the deployment speed improvements we are making and we are focused on further reductions in deployment time as we build capacity to support growing customer demand. One such improvement is SIMBOT. The mobile bot is now well established as our platform workhorse. SimBot has the newest NVIDIA chips with an enhanced version of our automation software that is powered by artificial intelligence. While SIMDOT can perform more transactions per hour and has improved reliability over our previous generation bot, Simbot will also improve our ability to deploy systems more quickly and efficiently with even higher customer ROI.

Speaker 3

Simbot also helps extend the capability of our system and sets the stage for our entry into new markets such as non ambient food. Turning to BRAKEPAK. Our development of BRAKEPAK progressed faster than expected over this past quarter and has advanced beyond the prototype stage. While we are always refining all our products, BRAKE PAC is now ready for general availability to our full range of potential customers. Turning to our joint venture, Green Box is receiving a lot of inbound interest.

Speaker 3

So like Symbonic, Green Box is being selective in choosing the right customers to work with. Green Box will share more about their roadmap when they announce their first customer, but we expect to be recognizing our first revenue from Green Box in fiscal 2024. So in summary, our story is unchanged. We will continue to innovate, execute and scale to deliver for our customers as we grow and drive increased profitability in a capital efficient way. Now Carol will discuss our financial results and outlook.

Speaker 3

Carol?

Speaker 4

Thank you, Rick. I've enjoyed an exciting first 90 days here at Symbiotic. During that time, we've enhanced capability and scope of the entire Symbiotic team to scale for the future. For example, we successfully implemented SAP software across the company, which helps with everything from scaling to Sarbanes Oxley compliance. Our first quarter revenue grew to $369,000,000 up nearly 80% to the same quarter last year and reflects an accelerated pace of growth from last quarter's 60% year on year growth.

Speaker 4

This is driven primarily by scale and the increasing number of systems we have in deployment. During the Q1, we initiated 5 new system and completed 3 as we continue to add both new customers and additional projects for existing customers. So at the end of Q1, we had 15 fully operational systems and 37 systems in the process of deployment. This is an increase from 12 operational systems and 35 deployments in progress last quarter and 8 operational systems and 22 deployments in progress in the Q1 of last year. While we have temporarily stabilized the pace of system deployment starts, Our future revenue growth is really driven by our ability to scale deployments and progress.

Speaker 4

Continued reductions in system deployment time As demonstrated by the system we recently deployed in just 20 months, leaves us well positioned to support customer demand. It is important to note that as we scale, our customer base is becoming more diverse. The 37 deployments in progress are with 6 of our 9 customers. We continue to standardize our system platform and identify opportunities to further streamline our deployment processes. To that end, our network of outsourcing partners is executing well.

Speaker 4

We continue to see significant opportunities to gain efficiencies over time and to build capacity as we continue to add partners to our outsourcing network. Our backlog remains stable at $23,200,000,000 and now reflects the addition of Southern Glaziers who became a customer in November. Our recurring revenue streams grew 5% sequentially and 45% year on year. Adjusting for our 53 week year in 2023, recurring revenue streams reflect nearly a 12% sequential growth, but still below the 25% sequential increase in completed systems because these systems were completed in the back half of the quarter. So we expect accelerating recurring revenue growth as we head into our second.

Speaker 4

Gross margin increased sequentially by 90 basis points to 20%, driven primarily by improvement in system gross margin. While we do not expect gross margin to improve every quarter, do expect it to improve each year well into our future. Our first quarter non GAAP system gross margin increased 110 basis points from last quarter. As a reminder, these results still reflect significant costs associated with lower margin innovation projects like BrightPack, The burden of pass through costs that protect gross profit dollars but can weigh on a reported gross margin percentage and costs associated with rapidly scaling our operations. Our recurring revenue streams again contributed to positive gross profit.

Speaker 4

This demonstrates the high leverage in our business model showing that we can be profitable with such a small number of active sites with recurring revenue while also being invested for the much larger number of systems still in deployment. We continue to expect that as we scale over time that recurring gross margins can trend to over 60%. Operating leverage improved again sequentially as we achieved a 3.8% adjusted EBITDA rate compared to a 3.4% rate last quarter. This is driven by a rapid revenue growth and gross margin expansion along with stable operating expenses. Our cash and equivalents including marketable securities and restricted cash grew $129,000,000 sequentially to $677,000,000 During the quarter, Walmart exercised its last remaining warrants at $10 per share, adding $159,000,000 to our cash balance.

Speaker 4

Excluding the warrant proceeds, this total would have been $518,000,000 reflecting a $30,000,000 use of cash in the quarter. As the working capital benefits of 2023 temporarily reset, we expect cash to decline slightly again in the second quarter before we return to working capital expansion in the back half of twenty twenty four. For the Q2 of fiscal 2024, We expect revenue of $400,000,000 to $420,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA between $12,000,000 $15,000,000 which represents revenue growth of over 50% and improved adjusted EBITDA margin of over 700 basis points,

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Piyush Abhafi.

Speaker 5

I think for the Q2 guidance, the implied EBITDA margin is modestly below from what you did in 1Q, maybe some color on what is impacting margins in this quarter? And taking a step back, I know you don't give full year guidance, But when do you expect a more meaningful sequential improvement in margins?

Speaker 4

Thanks for your question, Piyush. Our guide for the Q2 reflects our flexibility to accommodate increased spending if needed as we need to accelerate deployment schedules and ensure we have a high quality deployment with as little disruption as possible. Ultimately, the customer satisfaction of that quality system rests on Symbiotic. And so as we continue to ramp, we're going to deploy resources as necessary to ensure we meet that schedule. So that's what we're seeing for the Q2.

Speaker 4

In terms of the longer term profitability, we continue to be on a trajectory to improve and you're going to see that start to improve in the second half of the year and year over year continued improvement in our profitability.

Speaker 5

Got it. Helpful. And Rick, I think you talked about RigPac being available as a standalone product now. Maybe like Talk about the target customers here and how have the initial conversations been?

Speaker 3

Yes. So, the target customers for a break pack operation like that would be Typically what you see in BrightPack is customers that are in the drugstore business, which is obviously a big market. And the original brake pack that we designed for Walmart was really you think of it, there's 4,500 supercenters and there's 45 drugstores within a Walmart supercenters. So these would be Some of the customers that would logically look at a system like this, smaller store formats, smaller customers would be interested in Breakback. And also people with a long tail of slow movers that might be interested in shipping each as opposed to cases.

Speaker 3

So we think it's a very big customer base. We're not actively selling that BrightPack right now, but where We've finished the prototype. It's no longer a prototype. And so, as we get more and more comfortable with it, We will begin to market it as an add on product to our basic product.

Speaker 5

Got it. Very helpful. Appreciate the color, Dennis.

Operator

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Ross Berenberg of William Blair. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey guys, thanks for taking the question. Maybe on the supplier network, I know you guys noted that You're still adding suppliers. I thought we're kind of through that dual sourcing that would then begin to allow you to start alleviating some of the inventory challenges and bringing down those lead times. Can you just provide any update as you think of the timing around that?

Speaker 3

Yes. I've spent a lot of time with suppliers. What we're seeing is better inventory, higher quality products coming from our suppliers, which means that we're actually pushing the suppliers to do a lot more testing in their factories as opposed to on sites. And as a result, you'll see the implementation time For our systems faster, which is why we mentioned the fastest that we've done yet. This was completed this past quarter.

Speaker 3

And when we turned it on, it was above customer expectations for quality. So what we're seeing from suppliers now and what we're working at is The suppliers now understand how real we are. There's a lot of interest from suppliers. They're more price competitive. They're more willing to invest in quality.

Speaker 3

So I think we're behind. We're past The struggles to find good suppliers and now we're working with more good suppliers to be higher quality and more competitive. So I think it's I think we are in a good place with suppliers now.

Speaker 4

Yes. So Ross, I'll just add to that. If you think about 2023 is really focused on getting those partners. And so there is probably more substantial growth in terms of the number. Now we're tweaking because we do need to continue to scale.

Speaker 4

And as Rick indicated, We know are coming in with a lot greater scale and suppliers are more interested. And so in 2024, as we focus that we're also focused with our suppliers are ensuring we're gaining those efficiencies. We're going to start to see the benefit of that.

Speaker 2

Okay, got it. And then maybe just thinking about new customer mix as we move through the year. Can you just maybe help us better understand what steel was? And then also Of the 5 additions, what would have been kind of customers outside of Walmart?

Speaker 4

Yes. So out of Our new customers, so as we indicated, we had 5 new systems in this quarter. One of those was Southern Glaziers. So we announced in November, we had the addition of Southern Glaziers. So that's our new customer out of that mix of 5.

Speaker 4

The other 4 were additional statements of work existing customers. I think that was your first question on the new customer mix. Ross, can you go you had another part to that. Can you

Speaker 2

Yes, just understanding what the steel impact was. I know it's been pretty variable quarter to quarter here.

Speaker 4

Yes. So in our contracts, We have pass through clauses that help us see that fluctuation of steel. We actually saw the benefit for steel fluctuation early in the year. Now we're looking at Headwinds as we head into 2024, and still seeing that fluctuate. But I will emphasize our contract structure allows us to have some of those costs as pass group.

Speaker 4

But we continue to monitor that and ensure that we're getting out ahead of it.

Speaker 2

Got it. So maybe just real quick, we think about the 90 basis points of sequential margin expansion with Steele maybe half of that?

Speaker 4

No, steel would not have been that big of contribute to that margin expansion.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Rob.

Operator

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Summerville of D. A. Davidson.

Operator

Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Couple of questions. I was wondering if you can maybe take a second back to some of your prepared remarks just regarding Symbbot, can you maybe review with us some of the KPIs, if you will, around Symbbot versus prior, the next closest prior generation, trying to get an understanding for You mentioned more transactions an hour. If you can kind of put some numbers around how, Symbod is differentiated versus your legacy

Speaker 3

So the first thing that we did with Simbot is it can actually this may be one of the most important things. It can actually handle a tapered box And our original bot could not do that. So that was one of the first things that forced us to relook at long term flexibility of a SIM bot. So that part didn't actually help us go faster, but it gave us a much bigger universe of products that we could handle. Most of our competitors might do trays or something else.

Speaker 3

So we have a lot more flexibility on what size and shape of packages we can handle. The second thing that Simbot did over what we call the BotX was it has vision. And in order to put in vision, we needed graphic interfaces and so we upgraded to NVIDIA chips and their vision and graphic interface boards. And so that allows us to actually see boxes that in the past we couldn't see. 3rd thing is we can pick and place packages 10 seconds faster than we could with the original bot.

Speaker 3

So those are some of the other things that we did. And then the last thing is that we can now actually on this spot pick up. On inbound, we always were able to bundle and deliver 2 or 3 cases at a time. Now for the first time on outbound, we can handle more than 1 box at a time. So I won't give you a lot of numbers because Some of the stuff is still proprietary, but you got a sense this bot is I would say The upgrade for this spot would be from a motorcycle to an SUV.

Speaker 6

Super helpful there. Thanks, Rick. And then as my follow-up, you kind of talking about BreakPack generally available, Not really actively selling it yet. I'll ask same question along the lines of Green Box. Do you expect Breakback to start to contribute to revenue in fiscal 2024?

Speaker 6

And then when do you see Symbiotic starting to attack the non ambient market per one of your other prepared remarks? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. So It right back may have impact in 2024 right at the end of the year. So, in the last quarter, if it does, because of just the cycle of selling And so that would be 1. Ambient, we're actually piloting some Perishable testing in a perishable warehouse as we speak. So, I think that could be, I would say, Probably not this year, but I would say 12 months from now just from the cycle.

Speaker 3

But we will be able to offer perishables and then after that would be frozen. But The first go around would be stuff like dairy, produce and meat, which is around 32 degrees. And then after that, We would develop a system for minus 20.

Speaker 4

And then Matt, I'll just add to that. Break pack, our proof of concept is already to revenue this year and has been over the past year. And so our product that we have in Flow is already a revenue Now in terms of what we're able to add to that as we continue to offer it, you'll see that grow as we expand that at the end of 2024.

Speaker 6

Yes, understood. Thank you. I was aware of that, but thank you for yes, thanks for clarifying.

Speaker 3

I should have stated a little differently. Thanks, guys. Yes, you, Kevin.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking the questions. If I heard correctly, Carol, you mentioned stabilizing temporarily the number of system starts. And if I heard that correctly, I'm hoping to better understand the thought process and how you're thinking about managing the company operationally, Especially with the company adding more outsourcing and manufacturing partners, I would have thought there had been some potential to increase the number of starts the company was doing.

Speaker 4

Yes. And you'll see that thanks for the question, Mark. You'll see that by stabilizing. So last quarter, we introduced 4 new systems Into the quarter, this quarter you're seeing 5. By stabilizing, we indicated don't expect that to grow to 6 to 7 to 8 every single quarter, but we will see improved number of systems as we grow over the next couple of years.

Speaker 4

When you think about what we already have in our backlog, the other comment related to that stabilizing is you're going to start seeing us delivering on our systems with the backlog that we currently have. And so we're going to continue to ramp the number of systems that we turn operational every quarter And then the number that we continue to add from either new customers expect a new customer 1 to 2 every year we've indicated in the past, there's really no change to that. And then as we expand into Green Box into 2024 and 2025, I think that's when you'll really start seeing the additional ramp.

Speaker 7

Understood. That's very helpful context. And then In the first question about the EBITDA guidance, you mentioned guidance assuming The ability and flexibility to deploy resources to support customers. So I mean to better understand what you meant by that and is there something with Yes, some of the more recent projects that's been more difficult or are you more alluding to you're supporting some newer customers and just wanting to make sure you have the capability to them in the event that is necessary? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yes. Thanks for the follow-up. So in terms of our guide, When we talk about wanting the ability to deploy on schedule, we are now in the stage where we have 37 different projects in deployment. So that's up from 22 a year ago. And so we are scaling right now.

Speaker 4

And what we want to make sure we do is that we adhere to schedule and that we're able to deliver that high quality. So if that means providing a few additional resources are taking a week or 2 longer, to go ahead and deliver. That's what you're going to

Speaker 1

see in some of what

Speaker 4

I'll call the lumpiness, in the next quarter around both revenue and in our margin.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 4

We don't want to do anything short sighted to save a points on margin that will help us in the long term.

Speaker 7

Understood. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Nicole DeBlase of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Yes, thanks for the question guys. Good evening. Maybe just starting with R and D, it's been on a bit of a declining path for past few quarters. I guess, why is that? And then, what is the outlook for R and D expense over the next several quarters?

Speaker 4

Thanks, Nicole. So on R and D, I think what you're seeing from when you compare 4th quarter to 1st quarter is that additional week that we talked about. So in the Q4 last year, we had a 14 week quarter versus the 13 week quarter. So we We had an extra weight contributing to R and D. So that's a little bit of the fluctuation from Q4 to Q1.

Speaker 4

I would expect our R and D to continue to ramp modestly throughout the course of the year. But what we do want to make sure we do is we're looking at multiple innovation projects. And so we want to maintain the ability to ramp our R and D if those innovation projects come to light

Operator

and we

Speaker 4

want to expand that at the back half of the year. So I wouldn't I'd expect moderate growth, but we are looking at projects that not only drive innovation, But we're also looking at projects that drive improved efficiency that would help improve our cost structure as well as the operational efficiency on the end customer for the systems that we deploy.

Speaker 8

Got it. Okay. That's really helpful. And then, When you spoke about getting to one deployment in the 20 month zone, I guess what would be the long term goal of the length of deployment once you feel good about the whole process? Thank you.

Speaker 4

So I'll start and then Rick can chime in, in terms of long term vision. As we've talked about in the past, we expect that 20 month cycle over the long term to get down to 12 months or lower. So we've talked about the things that we need to put in place to be able to go do that. So that's from a long term perspective. I think one of the other things to think through is what really enabled that 20 months.

Speaker 4

That might be one of the questions so that we can make sure We're looking at how do you enable that going down to 18 months and then to 16 months. So a couple of things enabled us hitting that achievement this quarter. One was we now have continuous learning over multiple deployments. So our outsourcing partners, they've now got multiple deployments under their belt and they're improving on each one. We've also got increased collaboration from our entire deployment team.

Speaker 4

So our deployment team includes Symbiotic Resources, our suppliers as well as our customer And we've really seen an increase in that collaboration over the past quarter. And then the last one is the quality and standardization of what I'll call the build. So our build instructions, our test procedures, we're standardizing that more and more from deployment to deployment and that's really enabling the improvement from our partners.

Speaker 8

Thanks. That was super helpful. I'll pass it on.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Nicole.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Snyder of UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Thank you. I wanted to follow-up on the communication earlier around accelerating or picking up growth investment to drive or to

Speaker 3

help facilitate the accelerated growth.

Speaker 9

And when we look at OpEx, over the last Four quarters, OpEx has generally been sideways and the number of projects in process and the revenue has gone up 40%. So I guess, is there something that's happening now that's causing this, the OpEx meeting to pick up into Q2 because we've seen so much growth already without that. So finally, I guess the question is why now?

Speaker 4

Yes. We continue to modulate our OpEx because we're getting better on that spent. So what I think you're going to see the improvement on that is where we'll continue to grow OpEx, but it's not going to grow nearly at the same level of our revenue because we're also getting improvements on our spending as we do that.

Speaker 9

Okay. Fair enough. And then I wanted to talk about or follow-up on about the non Ambient Food opportunity. Specifically, if we think about the existing customers that the company has, Is there any way to frame the size of the opportunity from non ambient food with those existing customers? And then also when you see the Walmart backlog, does that include any revenue for systems related to non ambient food?

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Speaker 3

The Walmart backlog does not include any systems that are non ambient. So obviously and none of our other customers whether it's CNS or UNFI Also there's no we weren't selling non ambient. But in the future, we'll be able to And we think that's a big market. It's a slightly different market because this is a market where And when we're focused on ambient, we're really focusing on one, we can obviously build pallets, But building in a perishable warehouse, the space is just so expensive. We're actually working on increasing the density of our system, which may help us across a number of areas.

Speaker 3

But it's I can't give you a number for the market, but it's a big market. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti of Needham and Company. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Hi, thank you. Rick,

Speaker 1

question just

Speaker 10

on BreakPac. You alluded to the drugstore business. How important is it to you to get a use case outside of your large customer for break pack in a market like that?

Speaker 3

It would be great. I mean, we're that's one of the things that I spent a lot of time on is figuring out who are the best use cases, who are the logical customers for what we're doing. And one of the things that we find, and we've been pretty busy. So we haven't been doing A tremendous amount of marketing because we're very focused on delivering for the customers we have in place. But One of the things that we do when we bring a new customer to the market just to see a site is many times their response is, I didn't even know this was possible.

Speaker 3

So that's why we're very, very focused on delivering on time, delivering with a braggingly happy customer expectation and we're going to focus on that for the rest of this year. And as we get better, then we'll have bragging, we have the customers. And then the stuff that we're doing that people said, I've never seen this before, gives us instant credibility. And I think that makes it very easy for us to expand our market.

Speaker 10

Yes. Follow-up question is just going back to that 20 month deployment that you achieved. As you bring on more partners, outsourcing partners, it sounds as though there will be some fits and starts and that we're going to Do this move around, it's not going to be or tell me if we're going to see consistent progress on this It just seems like as you bring on new partners, it's going to bounce around a bit.

Speaker 3

No, I don't think that's We don't think that's going to happen. We are now when we started the outsourcing process, I think our team was smart enough to say if there's a better way to do this than show us. What we've been doing for the last year now is We are asking people to build to print is what is the expression they use. So you don't change our design. We if you want to talk about an improvement that may happen a year from now, but we're really working very hard to standardize our design, which speeds up the implementation, which simplifies the programming, The programmable logic, they call it PLC code that goes into our machines.

Speaker 3

So the ability to replicate what we do at the very highest level is what we're focused on. So no, I don't think you will see I mean, I think we had a lot of learnings last year and I think we talked about that openly. I don't think going to see that again in the future. Good. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Newman of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Hey, good morning. Hi, good afternoon, actually.

Speaker 4

Good afternoon, Kathy.

Speaker 11

Yes. Thank you. Carol, curious if you could just dig down the comment about The increased spending to service the higher growth in the second quarter. I mean, when you think about that, is the biggest bottleneck there To service those deployments, is that just in house engineers? Is it the 3rd party supplier base?

Speaker 11

Just any color there to kind of help us

Speaker 4

Yes, it's a mix. Thanks, Ken. It's a mix of I wouldn't say it's mostly engineering because our engineering folks are focused on the R and D part of the business and less of that goes into our cause. But it's the operators and it's the folks we're putting on-site for that final stage of commissioning and deployment to ensure we're hitting the reliability. And that includes some of our outsourced, you referred to it as suppliers.

Speaker 4

So that would be their spend as well.

Speaker 11

Okay. And then of course, just wanted to get a little bit more color. I think you mentioned working capital expansion in the second half, obviously, we saw a big ramp in accounts receivable and maybe prepaid expenses this quarter. I'm guessing that's from Southern Glacier, but just any color on what drives the working cap expansion to the second half and just how confident you are about Op cash or free cash getting better into the back half of this year?

Speaker 4

Yes. So as most of you know over the course of our Our cash inflows tend to be very front loaded. And so that's driven our favorable cash flow as we've ramped. Then in any particular quarter depending on the maturity of that particular deployment, we might see a higher cash outflow. As we're ramping to having 37 different deployments in flow now as we're heading into this quarter, we're going to see higher cash outflow in the second similar to the Q1.

Speaker 4

What we're expecting for the year excluding the warrant exercise, I'd expect our cash to be flat.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Giordano of TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hey, guys. Can you hear me? My phone seems like break up a second there.

Speaker 4

Yes, we can hear you, Joe.

Speaker 3

Okay, great. So I preface this by saying

Speaker 5

it's a high class problem, but and you guys delivered revenue at like the high end basically of what you said you would. But it's To be fair, it's the first time you haven't like pretty easily gone considerably ahead of the high end. And I just want to like it's a little bit of a tough question, Carol. I know You haven't been there for those prior quarters, but is it was there a need to be more conservative with guiding back then because you had fewer Projects under that were in deployment and it was more variable by nature and now you have more kind of precision around the guide, I guess you have More projects to like limit the inherent volatility there?

Speaker 4

Yes, you're exactly right, Joe. So as we scale and we have more and more Systems in progress, the variance on a single project, we're not going to see that have as much contributions to an individual quarter's revenue. So before when we had fewer projects, if you had one project either complete a month 30 early or complete month later or even a week here and there, it was really driving the variation in the revenue. And as I indicated just in the opening remarks as well, we've deployed SAP And some of the controls we're putting in place should help us standardize and drive our ability to tighten up that prediction range.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's kind of what I figured. And your commentary suggested that you put in 5 into production this quarter. It sounds like it will be give or take that level for a bit here. I know like if you models have that ramping pretty large at some point.

Speaker 5

We can debate exactly when that starts. But I just want to make sure I understand like what is is there anything that specifically not allowing that amount to be significantly higher right now? Or is it just subject to the scheduling of your large customers. Like if your customers wanted that to be 15 next year, is that like theoretically possible right now?

Speaker 4

So I'd say you're spot on. Our ramping of additional customers, We've indicated 1 to 2 a year and that is metered by our ability to want to provide excellent customer service and satisfaction to the backlog that we have. And so we don't want to continue to take on more and more statements of work and additional customers and not have the ability to deliver on the $23,000,000,000 backlog that we have.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then one for Rick, if I can. Rick, going through the SIMBot characteristics there, I'm just curious like when you now have the ability to handle multiple boxes at one time on the outbound, like Does this ultimately allow you to accomplish the system with fewer bots? And is that kind of going to be somewhat required as you move into non ambient where As you said, the facilities are smaller and you probably need to get like more bang for your buck from a square footage standpoint. And does That whole dynamic lead to like any sort of difference in margins that you think you'd be able to get?

Speaker 5

Is it better or worse equal versus what you've been doing on at scale? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. So, I can honestly say everything we're doing is trying to increase our margins. We're not doing anything I consciously decrease them, but seriously, the journey that we're on with the SIMBot, We expect that we will be able to run systems with less bots because they will be more capable, faster, be able to do more work and that's the journey that we're on and that will only increase margin. The other thing that that will do is it would allow us to do a smaller system, because we could So we could use less bots because they're more capable. So that would allow us to on the low end hit a new price point, which is one of the things that I'm very focused on.

Speaker 3

I love having these big customers and I love having these big sales, But if we could sell a smaller system with a lower price point and still increase our margins, that's an even bigger market than we're talking about right now.

Speaker 5

Yes, absolutely. Okay, great. I'll pass it along and jump back in queue. Thanks guys.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Palm of Craig Hallum. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Hey, I think I heard my name, but something cut out. In terms of Green Box, I was hoping to dig into a little bit more on the deployment schedule. Rick, I think you said deployments or maybe initial rev rec in fiscal 2024. So I'd like you to confirm that if possible, but how do you think about the ramp up Of deployments specific to Green Box and just in terms of aggressiveness, is it dependent on customer announcements or sign or sign ons or how you're thinking about that over the coming years?

Speaker 3

I think that we well, the answer, we're doing in parts. So we've been talking to some large customers and large suppliers about the opportunity. And so I think what will happen is that Green Box will start off slowly and then go very fast. So, there's a proving out concept where if we build a green box site and we have multiple vendors in that site and they test it, Then logically they're going to say, okay, I want 10 of these sites around the country because I need to cover a national network. So I think what we're doing is doing all our homework, putting in the foundation for Green Box.

Speaker 3

And I think we'll We expect to have some good news on Green Box in 2024, but we're also doing a lot of diligence to make sure that we set the foundation correctly.

Speaker 12

Okay. And just to be clear, you expect deployments or rev rec to start in this fiscal 'twenty four, is that right?

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 12

Okay. And just from a follow-up question on the pace of deployments in general, Obviously, a lot of progress over the last year or so since the outsourcing strategy ramp up. But Kind of as we sit here today, is there any constraints to not maintaining that current pace but accelerating further, whether it's bringing on additional partners, whether it's continuing to kind of reduce that timeline per deployment. Just Trying to get a sense of anything that's changed internally where you're not trying to further accelerate deployments from current levels. I just want

Speaker 6

to make sure we're all kind

Speaker 12

of clear on what's changing if anything here.

Speaker 3

So I'll take this one. So The deployments we're doing now in this quarter were actually started a year ago. What we know a year later, which is now from where we were a year ago, we can go fast. We can go a lot faster.

Speaker 9

Okay. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Derek Soderbergh of Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open. Yes.

Speaker 9

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Just sort of piggybacking off the last question, Just around turning on the live systems, with deployment timelines where they're at, it sounds like around 20 months or so. I think a year and a half ago, you're at 13 systems in progress, a year ago, 22. I guess I'm wondering if you think you can bring Maybe those 13 systems to live operation this year, maybe less.

Speaker 9

Can you share what expectations you have The number of systems you think you can turn on this year?

Speaker 4

Yes. So we typically don't guide on the number of systems we've gotten But as was pointed out, we had gone quarter over quarter for 4 quarters in a row where we were deploying 1 system a quarter. We accelerated that to 2 last quarter and now you saw that accelerate to we deployed 3 this quarter. I would expect We see continued improvement on that throughout the year. And as you said that 20 month deployment, but what we also pointed out is that 20 month deployment, that's for what I'll call an average system.

Speaker 4

So there will be variability, not every system will deploy in 20 months depending on the size of the system. We have some systems that we're implementing, which will be significantly larger and those will take additional time to go ahead and deploy. But overall, The average we're looking to continue to reduce that time deployment and that does enable clearly the ramp of how many we deploy in a given quarter.

Speaker 9

Got it. And then as my follow-up, just trying to work out some of the math on the recurring revenue. I'm wondering we should think about the recurring fee from a percentage standpoint? And is that moving higher as new systems are turning online? And Should we really think about recurring revenue to more or less grow at a similar rate as these live systems come online?

Speaker 9

Thanks. Yes.

Speaker 4

And so the recurring revenue stream and I'll start with software. So you saw our 2nd profitable quarter, 430 bps up from where we were. So in terms of profitability, we're seeing progressive improvement to the software margin. From a recurring revenue perspective, when you look 4th quarter to 1st quarter, you're not seeing as big of a ramp. Those three systems that we brought on live hit live in the last month of the quarter.

Speaker 4

So you're really going to see a much steeper ramp on that recurring revenue. It was in a not we had we went from 12 systems in deployment to 15 in deployment, but those last happened in December. So we didn't see the real benefit. So I think you're going to continue to see that revenue grow. But in terms of your question on The attach rate, we still have, I'd say, a third of the 15 systems that we've got really early proof of concept systems where our attach rates were significantly lower.

Speaker 4

So you're seeing the impact of that. New customers that we're signing on, We're looking to improve that recurring attach rate

Speaker 1

as we've talked about in the past.

Speaker 9

Perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Dirk.

Operator

Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Rob Mason of Baird. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Yes, thank you. Just to circle back To Green Box a moment. There were some costs, it looked like in the quarter, small costs, just related to the JV formation. I'm just curious how you expect those in the call on cash to trend through this year. And if Rick, you could speak to any major milestones As we work towards their first customer announcements, I guess maybe just structurally internally at Green Box major milestones that still need to happen just in the formation of that entity

Speaker 1

structure?

Speaker 4

Yes. So Rob, I'll take the first part of that question that additional Small amount of joint venture fees that was trailing costs associated with all the work we did last year. So you should not expect to see that continue. And that was a one off trailing expense from last quarter. So your second part in terms of Green Box, As we've indicated, we expect our first customer this year and we've got a lot of inbound as Rick addressed And we're on the trajectory we had planned for Green Box.

Speaker 4

I don't know if that answers the second part of your question,

Speaker 1

Bob or not.

Speaker 13

I mean, can you Is the management in place or again, I'm just trying to think is that any comes to be what are the other milestones that we're looking forward to there.

Speaker 3

Yes. So the management is We're recruiting, we're interviewing management to put that in place, but there's also from the outside that may have different skills than we have whether it's at SoftBank or Symbotic. But right now we have between the SoftBank talent team And what we're doing at Symbiotic, we can actually sell systems into Green Box. But we expect to expand the management team over the next period of time fairly quickly to build a bigger sales force at GreenBox. And so that's the process that we're on.

Speaker 13

Excellent. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. I'd like to turn the call back over to Jeff Evanson for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Val, and thank you everyone for joining our call tonight. We appreciate your interest in Symantec. Look forward to seeing many of you at investor conferences, our warehouse tours, or when we talk next quarter. Have a great night.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.

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