FARO Technologies Q4 2024 Earnings Report

FARO Technologies EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.50
• Consensus EPS: $0.40
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.10
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.36

FARO Technologies Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $93.54 million
• Expected Revenue: $91.40 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.14 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

FARO Technologies Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/24/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Monday, February 24, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

FARO Technologies (NASDAQ:FARO) designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and supports software driven three-dimensional measurement, imaging, and realization solutions worldwide. The company offers FaroArm, a combination of a portable articulated measurement arm, a computer, and CAM2 software programs; FARO Laser Tracker, a combination of a portable large-volume laser measurement tool, a computer, and CAM2 software programs; FARO Laser Projector, which provides a virtual template that operators and assemblers can use to position components; FARO Laser Scanning Portfolio to measure and collect a cloud of data points for 3D rendering of an object or area; and FARO Mobile Laser Portfolio provides 3D scanning while attached to other mobile devices, such as drones for metrology, reverse engineering, factory automation, building information modeling, public safety, and other applications. It also provides FARO Software, a software solution that integrate with FARO hardware products to merge data and provide collaborative workflows and applications. It sells its products to automotive, aerospace, and metal and machine fabrication industries. FARO Technologies, Inc. was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Lake Mary, Florida.

FARO Technologies Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the FARO Technologies Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during our question and answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. Also, today's call is being recorded.

[Operator]

And if you Now at this time, I'll turn things over to Mr. Mike Funari at Sapphire Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

[Michael Funari, Partner at Sapphire Investor Relations, LLC]

Thank you. Good afternoon. With you today from FARO are Peter Lau, President and Chief Executive Officer and Matt Horwath, Chief Financial Officer. Today, after market close, the company released its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024. The related press release and Form 10 ks is available on FARO's website at www.faro.com.

[Michael Funari, Partner at Sapphire Investor Relations, LLC]

Please note certain statements in this conference call, which are not historical facts, may be considered forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control and include statements regarding future business results, product and technology development, customer demand, inventory levels, our outlook and financial guidance, economic and industry projections or subsequent events. Various factors could cause actual results to differ materially. For a more detailed description of these and other risks and uncertainties, please refer to today's press release and our annual and quarterly SEC filings. Forward looking statements reflect our views only as of today and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise them. During today's conference call, management will discuss certain financial measures that are not presented in accordance with U.

[Michael Funari, Partner at Sapphire Investor Relations, LLC]

S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or non GAAP financial measures. In the press release, you'll find additional disclosures regarding these non GAAP measures, including reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures. While not recognizing our GAAP, management believes these non GAAP financial measures provide investors with relevant period to period comparisons of core operations. However, they should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for a measure of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.

[Michael Funari, Partner at Sapphire Investor Relations, LLC]

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Peter Lau.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Thank you, Mike. Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone, to our call. In the fourth quarter, we continued to make strides in optimizing our operations and again exceeded all of our targets. Revenue was $93,500,000 above the midpoint of our guidance range. Non GAAP gross margin was 57.4, expanding over 600 basis points year over year and at the high end of our guidance range.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Non GAAP operating expenses were $39,900,000 below the lower end of our targeted range of $40,000,000 to $43,000,000 per quarter. As a result, in the fourth quarter, we generated $0.5 of non GAAP EPS, which was near the high end of our guidance range and represented the seventh straight quarter of exceeding our expectations. Adjusted EBITDA was $16,700,000 or 17.9 percent of sales, the highest single quarter in over a decade with operating cash flow of $17,300,000 representing our fifth straight quarter of operating cash flow generation. It's also worth noting here that we delivered these results despite the FX headwinds we faced in the fourth quarter. Had exchange rates remained in line with the levels we saw during the third quarter, revenue would have been $2,000,000 higher with a corresponding positive impact to both gross margins and EPS.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

A stable demand in certain sectors such as three d metrology, while facing ongoing challenges in others including commercial construction and specific regions like China and Germany. Within our served markets, discretionary CapEx remains a key area of focus for our customers. In The Americas, we continue to see stability and demand following the election, while the European region is becoming increasingly cautious and Asia is remaining pretty soft. With the ongoing conversations we're having with our customers as well as broader industry sentiment indicators like global PMI, we remain cautious on the market outlook beyond the next quarter. Looking back, 2024 was a record year for Ferro and we're extremely, extremely proud of the team's outstanding execution and focus towards optimizing our operations.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Non GAAP gross margins grew by eight fifty basis points year over year to 55.2%, while non GAAP operating expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased by 200 basis points. As a result, 2024 marks the first time since 2018 that Ferro has achieved double digit EBITDA margins and the first time in a decade we surpassed 11% EBITDA margins for the full year. As we discussed in our investor event last March, Ferro is on an exciting multi year journey, which can be categorized into three phases. The first phase is focused on operational excellence, instilling an eightytwenty minuteor set throughout all aspects of our organization. This mindset has enabled us to execute on high return on investment items to enhance gross margins and optimize operating costs, resulting in a highly efficient organization and a financial base that gives us the ability to invest in key areas of growth.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

The outcomes of this first phase being consistent cash flow generation and improved gross margin and EBITDA, building significant operating leverage in the business. The second phase continues to utilize eightytwenty as a key tool and will allow us to capitalize on this operating leverage with the introduction of three organic growth initiatives to ensure Ferro grows faster than the market over the near to medium term. The third and final phase shift our focus back to strategic investments such as M and A in organic programs further away from our core. Given the risk associated with these higher reward investments though, we want to be disciplined and achieve our long term aspirational goals first to ensure the organization has a solid foundation from which to build. Matt will talk about the updated aspirational goals in just a few minutes.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

In 2024, we executed on the commitments we made and saw significant progress in Phase one of our strategy, remaining deeply focused on driving operational excellence across every aspect of our business. The results of this commitment enabled us to exceed the aspirational margin goals we set last March well ahead of schedule. Given this strong momentum, we're now updating these goals to reflect the continued improvements we anticipate, driven by the ongoing optimization of both our operations and financial performance. While we'll continue to identify opportunities for further optimization, as we enter 2025, our focus is transitioning to the next phase of our multi year strategy, driving organic growth. Over the past several quarters, Ferro has invested in three key strategic initiatives designed to accelerate our growth beyond the market.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

These actions include refreshing our core solutions, expanding our core addressable opportunity with new offerings and forging strategic partnerships to enhance our scale and reach. With regards to our core product portfolio, as we discussed on our last call, in the fourth quarter, we refreshed two cornerstone product lines. First, with the FARO Arm Quantum X, building on our legacy of delivering the best accuracy available to the market. And second, the new Focus Premium Laser Scanner portfolio, including the versatile Premium Max with an improved range of 400 meters and the fastest scan mode utilizing our unique Flash technology. Building on that momentum, we launched our new Orbis Premium Mobile Scanner in November, a game changer in digital reality capture with a new powerful three sixty degree camera and improved data quality making it a highly versatile solution whether you're a building professional looking to manage your assets, a scanning service provider expanding its capabilities or a public safety expert collecting information for pre incident planning.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

On the software front, in the first quarter, we updated our CAM2 software for three d metrology applications. Our updated version of CAM2 now offers different additions tailored to all customer needs. It includes options for scanning and probing devices and unifying data in the same software environment. CHAM2 streamlines industrial metrology applications for dimensional controls, incoming parts and first article inspections, part to CAD comparisons, assemblies, repeat part measurements and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. Across the board, receptivity from our customers remains strong and we look forward to seeing further traction in 2025.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Turning to our initiatives to expand our addressable opportunities. I'm pleased to share that in January, we successfully launched the FARO LEAP ST handheld scanner. This marks a significant milestone for FARO as we enter a new category of handheld scanning, approximately 35% to 40% of the $800,000,000 addressable opportunity expansion we're targeting. LEAPST further expands our product portfolio, making Ferro a company that offers customers a complete range of portable three d metrology devices and strengthens our presence across the manufacturing sector, where speed, accuracy and throughput are essential. Fast time to data with high data quality is assured for a vast number of customer profiles such as quality managers, product designers, product developers and production managers.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

As a metrology grade tool, it excels at measuring and verifying a variety of surfaces and parts. The design is compact, portable and suitable for multiple industries and applications, making it extremely versatile. LEAPST adds another tool to the toolkit of our direct sales force and represents a significant share of wallet expansion opportunity within our existing and future customer base. As we've stated previously, our plan over the next several years is to increase our addressable opportunity by 40% through the introduction of solutions which are closely aligned with our core business and directly address the needs and the requests we've received from our customers. Our strategy here is really to build off the strength of our core business, where we have an extremely high brand loyalty and deliver more solutions to our existing served market.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

As a result, we believed our revamped product roadmap that is geared towards where we play and if proven we can win has a much higher probability of being commercially successful than some of the other opportunities we have been considering. With a meaningful portion of this opportunity addressed with the launch of LEAP, our plan is to roll out more products in the coming quarters and years to address the remaining 60% to 65 to reach our target. Lastly, as it relates to our global partnership initiatives, I'm pleased to say in the first quarter, we signed two meaningful partnership agreements that are both global in nature. The first, a multi year collaboration and distribution agreement with Topcon, a worldwide leader in the digital reality space, which was announced last week. Our collaboration with Topcon launches in the first half of twenty twenty five and is an exciting step to make STERO state of the art laser scanning hardware and software solutions more widely accessible.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Topcon has a significant worldwide distribution channel that has expertise in delivering solutions in key verticals such as construction, surveying, mapping, architecture, building information modeling and industrial plant and process applications. We expect this exciting relationship to continue to expand in the coming years. The second agreement that we signed in the first quarter was on the three d metrology side of our business. This is a multiyear OEM partnership agreement that aligns us with a leading metrology company and enables our partner to white label certain ferro products and deliver them to the market in a broad manner through our partner's extensive global marketing and supply chain network. This partnership is expected to be announced and launched to the market in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

We will plan to share more details closer to the launch event. To provide a sense though for the scale generated from these two partnerships, we expect to add over 200 new channel partners and 1,000 plus sellers of FARO's technology from these partnerships in 2025, which in essence triples the number of feet on the street than what we have today. Taking all three of these organic growth initiatives into account, we are thrilled about our momentum heading into 2025. While we recognize that it will take some time for these initiatives to ramp and meaningfully contribute to our top line growth, we are very confident that they position us well for long term success. The announcements we've made in the first quarter represent meaningful progress on the execution of these initiatives we committed to for Phase II, but we will not rest on our laurels.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

We will continue to introduce more products and explore more partnerships as we move forward. These efforts are a clear testament to our commitment to our strategy and belief that Ferro can continue to outpace market growth in the years ahead even amid the ongoing uncertainty in the broader market. Coupled with our ongoing operational excellence initiatives designed to enhance profitability, we anticipate significant operating leverage as our revenue returns to growth. We are enthusiastic about our strategic direction in the coming years and are confident in our ability to drive substantial value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Matt to provide an overview of our fourth quarter and full year financial results as well as an outlook for our first quarter.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

Thank you, Peter, and good afternoon, everyone. Fourth quarter revenue of $93,500,000 was down 5% versus prior year. Geographically, The Americas and European regions were down 52% respectively, while in the Asia Pacific region, we experienced a decline of over 11% versus the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three due primarily to continued weakness in China. Fourth Quarter hardware revenue of $62,300,000 was down 7% year over year, while software revenue of $11,600,000 was down 5% and service revenue of $19,700,000 decreased by 2%. Recurring revenue was $17,100,000 and represented 18% of sales and declined by 2% year over year.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

GAAP gross margin was 56.7% and non GAAP gross margin was 57.4 for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to 51.3% in 2023. GAAP operating expenses were $48,400,000 and included approximately $3,900,000 in acquisition related intangible amortization and stock compensation expenses and $4,500,000 in restructuring and other costs. Non GAAP operating expense of $39,900,000 was down $1,400,000 from Q4 last year as we continued to realize productivity improvements. GAAP operating income was $4,700,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared with operating income of $1,400,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Non GAAP operating income was $13,800,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to operating income of $9,400,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

Adjusted EBITDA was $16,800,000 or approximately 18% of sales compared to $11,900,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Our GAAP net loss was $986,000 or $0.05 per share. Our non GAAP net income was $9,500,000 or $0.5 per share for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to a net income of approximately $5,800,000 or 0.31 per share in Q4 twenty twenty three. Our cash and short term investment balance at the end of the quarter was $98,700,000 up $9,800,000 sequentially with cash flow from operations of $17,300,000 representing our fifth consecutive positive quarter. As Peter mentioned in the fourth quarter, the U.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

S. Dollar rapidly strengthened, which had an adverse effect on our business outside The U. S. To help provide some perspective on this impact, had FX rates stayed at similar levels to the third quarter of twenty twenty four, our revenue would have been $2,000,000 higher, our gross margin would have been 50 basis points better and our non GAAP EPS would have been $0.06 greater. This is important to highlight for comparison purposes as it more clearly reflects the progress we made in the fourth quarter, including a year over year increase of approximately six fifty basis points in non GAAP gross margin and a $0.25 improvement in non GAAP EPS.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

Moving to our annual results, we are very pleased with progress we've made in 2024. Despite a difficult macroeconomic environment throughout the year, on a year over year basis, we were able to deliver an eight fifty basis point improvement in gross margin to 55%, a $15,000,000 reduction in non GAAP operating expense to $160,700,000 a $1.49 improvement in non GAAP EPS to $0.97 and a $29,600,000 increase in cash flow from operations to $30,600,000 With this significant improvement in cash flow, we were able to repurchase $3,000,000 of principal from our outstanding convert, $10,000,000 of outstanding shares and increase our cash and short term investments on our balance sheet. As a result of our progress throughout the year, we updated our long term aspirational goals versus the previously communicated goals during our investor event in March 2024, less than one year ago. At $400,000,000 of revenue, we now expect gross margin of 59%, up 200 basis points from our prior goal, EBITDA margin of 20%, an improvement of 500 basis points and annual free cash flow of greater than $56,000,000 representing an increase of $16,000,000 Turning to our outlook, the macroeconomic environment remains choppy and we expect the headwinds we experienced last quarter to continue resulting in a similar level of year over year market contraction quarter in Q1.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

While we believe our growth initiatives will help offset industry softness as they gain momentum throughout the year, we remain mindful of broader challenges. With continued softness, tariff related uncertainties and potential government spending slowdowns, we want to remain thoughtful and measured in setting expectations for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. As a result, at present FX rates, we expect first quarter revenue of between $77,000,000 and $85,000,000 At those revenue levels and given corresponding non GAAP gross margin between 5556.5% and non GAAP operating expenses of between $38,500,000 and $40,500,000 we would expect non GAAP earnings per share ranging from $0.1 per share to $0.3 per share for first quarter profitability. In addition, to help provide a more apples to apples comparison relative to last year given the rapid change in exchange rates, assuming an FX rate in line with the third quarter of twenty twenty four, the midpoint of our first quarter guidance would increase by $1,700,000 in revenue, 40 basis points in non GAAP gross margin and $0.02 in non GAAP earnings per share. This concludes our prepared remarks.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

At this time, we'd be pleased to take your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll go first this afternoon to Jim Ricchiuti of Needham and Company. Jim, please go ahead.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Hi, thank you. Wanted to go to the two OEM distribution agreements and maybe we could start with Topcon. Peter, Ferro has had at least going back a number of years ago had an OEM distribution agreement, I believe it was with Trimble on the laser scanning product. Can you give us a sense because that agreement I think produced mixed results. Talk to us a little bit about why this agreement might be different with Topcon.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Obviously, it's a different company, but just trying to get a sense as to how the agreements might be different and what it does for you in this part of the business?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes. Hey, Jim, thanks for the question. I think, I mean, look, they're a really good partner, someone we've been talking to for about eight months. We've as a part of our discussions and negotiations, we've been able to talk about how we really kind of take this partnership and deliver growth for both companies. And so we've talked about things like deal registration and certain geographies where one of us would take the lead versus the other.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

It's a very, very comprehensive plan, Jim, that we expect to deliver kind of into the 8 figures for us and at its full ramp. And obviously, we expect it to expand as we get going.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

So full ramp, could that occur by the end of the year? Is that your expectation?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Jim, It's something that we want to be very cautious. I mean, the first thing we want to do is make sure that this is all about growth. And so as we sort of kind of look to the future, we'll take a very pragmatic approach to make sure that we are delivering growth for both companies. And so we'll just continue to watch and see how it grows.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Got it. On the second agreement, the digital metrology agreement, you obviously I guess, we'll learn who this is down the road, but just want to make sure I understand. So in other words, we could see this agreement coming into play in late 'twenty five. Is that correct?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes. I think that's what we're looking for. I mean, ultimately, the reason that we're not sharing all of the details right now is because our partner has not launched the product yet. And so we don't want to steal any thunder and that it's not available. But the target and the timeline all indications point to the second half fourth quarter of twenty twenty five.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Is this relationship something that will help you geographically? I assume it can you say and maybe you can, just whether what part of the digital metrology product line it covers? Any sense there?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes. I think I mean, ultimately, it's a company that we believe helps us scale to a lot of different parts of the world and a much larger customer base, obviously, with the addition of this partnership than the one that we have today. So it's global in nature. It serves every portion or part of the world. And we'll start with one of our metrology products and likely over time expand that into more than one.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

But we've got one in mind that again we don't want to be we don't want to betray any confidences here, but we'll start with one and look to see how that relationship goes and then look to expand it over the coming years.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Thanks. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Okay. Thanks, Jim.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll go next now to Greg Palm of Craig Hallum.

[Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Yes. Thanks. Congrats on the results, especially in light of that FX headwind that emerged in the quarter.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Thanks, Greg. Good to hear you.

[Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Maybe just starting with if you look back in the quarter and maybe even kind of year to date what you're seeing in Q1, anything that surprises you, whether that was the cadence throughout the quarter, some geographically end market mix, maybe just a little bit more sort of detail on what you're seeing out there in the market?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes. I think largely, Greg, what we're seeing in the market is about what we saw in Q4. Obviously, we launched our LEAP ST ST and we've got good hopes for these partnerships. And so as it ramps, we expect obviously for these initiatives to help us grow faster than the market. But Q1 kind of what we're seeing is about what we saw in Q4, no material or meaningful change.

[Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

And how do you sort of rank order the various growth initiatives that you have highlighted from the Topcon, the unnamed white label announcement, new products and the wallet share expansion opportunity. And from like a timeline standpoint, do we think of that as being kind of a more of a full run rate impact next year? What type of contribution would you expect this year as it ramps up or is it too early to say?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes, look, I think it's a couple of things here. I think it's a little too early to say, but obviously, look, on the product side of the house, having refreshed products is a strategy that's worked tried and trued for us over the last two decades, right? So we're excited about that. Look, the new addressable opportunity expansion, this is a huge opportunity for us, right? It's been a long time since we introduced a new product versus an updated product, probably since 2010, right, since we've done that.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

And these are products that our customers are asking to buy from us. We feel reasonably confident about the commercial viability of these projects. And then again, the partnerships are companies that fit us well culturally. The negotiations or the discussions have been very, very good. They've been very two way in nature.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

And look, we believe all of these are really, really great opportunities for us. In terms of kind of when we get to to full run rate, hard to say, Greg, because we're not going to stop on the partnerships and we're not going to stop on the new products, right? So we're going to launch more products in 2025 and we're going to look at other partnerships. So to me, this strategy of these three initiatives is evergreen. And look, I think as with everything new, new products and new partnerships, we want to be disciplined, we want to be thoughtful and measured, as Matt said.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

We want to make sure that we're not getting out over our skis, but we are very, very excited about what we've been able to deliver in that Phase two that we talked about and are really bullish about our future.

[Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

As we think about the LEAP specifically knowing it's only been on the market for a month, but are you able to talk about maybe not necessarily order rates, but kind of feedback from the marketplace at all?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes. Look, I think all of the KPIs that we're tracking and so think pipeline, think discussions, think demos, think orders, all of those KPIs I would say are ahead of what our initial expectations were.

[Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Okay, great. And then just lastly, thinking about tariffs and trying to maybe figure out how you are either better or worse impacted versus some of the competition. So maybe remind us in terms of the manufacturing footprint and any color on maybe the competitive landscape and if there could be maybe a competitive advantage that emerges here depending on what happens over the coming months or year?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes. No, good question. It's something that we're obviously thinking about a lot. And I think right now as a reminder, most of and then all of our products by the end of the first quarter will be manufactured with our partner in Thailand. And so obviously not here in North America, over in Asia and in the country that likely has not been a huge target so far.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

But nonetheless, when we think about reciprocal tariffs, we do think that there's potentially an impact, but it's not a very sizable impact if you put it in absolute dollars. Look, I think we would probably in the beginning look to cover some of it with price. But we do retain with this partner the ability to potentially move our production around the world. They're obviously a contract manufacturer with locations around the world. We do have 13 service centers across the world that still have the ability.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

They service the parts today. They calibrate the products. They test the products. And so we do have the ability to really, really go local for local. And I think as more news comes out from a tariff standpoint, we'll be able to really kind of be in a better position to talk about what our strategy is.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

And again, we think that at least early returns say, hey, it's a relatively low absolute number, we could probably cover it with price and then figure out kind of how it goes from there. In terms of the competitive environment, I would say just broadly, maybe some puts and takes from what we know, but the reality is we just don't know a whole lot about the competitors. And right now, Greg, we're just worried about ourselves and being able to deliver high quality products that have high paybacks to our existing customer base.

[Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Yes, makes sense. All right. I will leave it there. Best of luck. Thanks.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Thank you, Greg.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll take a follow-up question now from Jim at Needham.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Just wanted to address the question on tariffs maybe a little differently. I'm just curious if as you're what you're hearing from your customer base, whether you're seeing any caution as they evaluate the tariff trade policy impacts on their own businesses?

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Yes, Jim, it is a great question. I think Matt briefly touched on it when he was talking about our kind of our view or outlook for the first quarter. And look, we've obviously unknown is not really productive for anybody. And so generally when there's unknowns, we see customers kind of pinch their pennies a little bit. And look, we've been having those types of conversations.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Obviously, you got some customers who are moving forward, some customers who are going to be a little more cautious. And I think we'll continue to monitor that and but we took that into account when we provided a thoughtful and a measured guidance to Q1.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Is the reaction that you're seeing, Pete, more pronounced in one vertical versus the other? Whether it's automotive or aerospace or just say, yes, I know you're selling to a broad range.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

No, it's a good question. Probably I speak to that more regionally. And obviously in places like Canada and Latin America, probably it's the second thoughts are more prevalent in those areas of the world as we sit here right now. But obviously, again, we'll continue to monitor that and do what we can to help those customers and do what we need to do to deliver a solid first quarter.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Last question for me is just on pricing. You guys put through some price increases, I believe, in early January. I'm just curious how they've been received and whether you can give us a sense as to how broadly that covers the metrology product line and whether you're seeing any similar pricing actions from some of your competitors?

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

Yes, Jim, this is Matt. We did increase our list prices as of 01/01/2025. So there was an initial kind of first time since COVID, we had increased our list prices back in January 2024 and then we did so January 2025 as well. And I would say, we did see some nice realization of that price increase in 2024. And I think early days in 2025, with a month and a half, almost two months under our belt, I don't think we're getting significant pushback there.

[Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO at FARO]

We give some opportunity that if we are in a competitive deal that we would allow our team to discount. That's a great thing as we have increase in list prices, but we do have the ability to discount when needed in a competitive deal. And so I don't think we've seen anything significantly different from our competitors. They're increasing their prices, we're increasing ours and we feel like we need to go get the value for our products that our products deserve and that's kind of how our sales organization treats it and that's kind of what we've seen early days in 2025.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Thank you and congrats on the results and the announcements.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Thank you, Jim.

[Operator]

Thank you. And gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions this afternoon. Mr. Lau, I'd like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

Good. Thank you, operator. I'd just like to take a moment to really and sincerely thank all of our employees for their dedication and hard work in delivering an outstanding 2024. Despite facing a challenging 2024. Despite facing a challenging market environment, we exceeded our targets in every area within our control.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

And we also made significant progress on several of our key strategic growth initiatives. In short, our team executed well on everything we said we were going to do. While we remain focused on identifying additional opportunities to further enhance these results, the success we've achieved so far gives us strong confidence moving forward. As we execute on our organic growth initiatives in the coming quarters, we are confident that we'll be well positioned to outgrow the market and unlock significant value for our shareholders, both in the short and long term. We look forward to sharing our progress and execution in the quarters ahead.

[Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director at FARO]

This concludes our call today. Thank you very much everyone.

[Operator]

Thank you, Mr. Laugen. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's Ferro Technologies fourth quarter earnings call. Again, thanks so much for joining us and we

[Operator]

wish you all a great day. Goodbye.

Participants

Executives

• Peter Lau, CEO, President & Director
• Matthew Horwath, Senior VP & CFO

Analysts

• Michael Funari, Partner at Sapphire Investor Relations, LLC
• James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company
• Greg Palm, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC