AstroNova Q1 2026 Earnings Report

AstroNova EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.05
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

AstroNova Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $37.71 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

AstroNova Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 6/5/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, June 5, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

AstroNova (NASDAQ:ALOT) designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes specialty printers, and data acquisition and analysis systems in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, Central and South America, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Product Identification (PI) and Test & Measurement (T&M). The PI segment offers tabletop and production-ready digital color label printers, and OEM printing systems under the QuickLabel brand; digital color label mini-presses and inline printing systems under the TrojanLabel brand; and label materials, tags material, inks, toners, and thermal transfer ribbions under the GetLabels brand. This segment also develops and licenses various specialized software programs to design and manage labels and print images; and provides training and support. This segment serves chemicals, cosmetics, food and beverage, medical products, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and other industries; and brand owners, label converters, commercial printers, and packaging manufacturers. The T&M segment offers airborne printing solutions, such as ToughWriter used to print hard copies of navigation maps, arrival and departure information, flight itineraries, weather maps, performance data, passenger data, and various air traffic control data; ToughSwitch, an ethernet switches used to connect multiple computers or Ethernet devices; TMX data acquisition systems; Daxus DXS-100 distributed data acquisition platform; SmartCorder DDX100 portable data acquisition systems for facility and field testing; and Everest EV-5000, a digital strip chart recording system used primarily in aerospace and defense. This segment serves aerospace and aerospace and defense, automotive, commercial airline, energy, manufacturing, and transportation industries. The company was formerly known as Astro-Med, Inc. and changed its name to AstroNova, Inc. in May 2016. AstroNova, Inc. was incorporated in 1969 and is headquartered in West Warwick, Rhode Island.

AstroNova Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Q1 fiscal 2026 revenue rose 14.4% year-over-year to $37.7 million, with 83% recurring revenue and double-digit growth in both aerospace and product identification segments.
• Consolidated adjusted operating income increased 13.5% year-over-year, driven by the transition to ToughRider printers, renewed defense shipments, and acquisition-related sales.
• The company accelerated its $3.0 million annualized cost reduction program, achieving $1.9 million in savings during Q1 and expecting to complete the remainder by Q2 to improve cash generation and margins.
• Three next-generation product identification solutions (QL425, QL435 and AJ800) launched ahead of schedule, with strong customer interest and six more disruptive products planned before fiscal year-end.
• Reported a net loss of $0.4 million ($0.05 per share) versus net income of $1.2 million a year ago, though adjusted EBITDA climbed 27.6% to $3.1 million, and maintained full-year revenue guidance of $160–165 million with an 8.5–9.5% EBITDA margin.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings. Welcome to AstroNova First Quarter Fiscal Year twenty twenty six Financial Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

[Operator]

It is now my pleasure to introduce Deborah Pawlowski, Investor Relations for AstroNova. Thank you. You may begin.

[Deborah Pawlowski, Founding Partner at Alliance Advisors]

Thank you and good morning everyone. We certainly appreciate your interest in AstroNova and thank you for sharing your time with us today. Joining me on our call are Greg Woods, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Tom DeByle, our Chief Financial Officer. You should have the earnings release that went out this morning as well as the slides that will accompany our conversation today. If not, you can find these documents on the Investor Relations section of our website at astronovainc.com.

[Deborah Pawlowski, Founding Partner at Alliance Advisors]

If you would turn to slide two we'll discuss the cautionary statement. As you are likely aware during the formal presentation as well as the Q and A session management may make some forward looking statements about our current plans, beliefs and expectations. These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated here today. These risks, uncertainties and other factors are provided in the earnings release as well as in other documents filed by the company with Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents can be found on our website or at sec.gov.

[Deborah Pawlowski, Founding Partner at Alliance Advisors]

Also as noted on the slide management will refer to some non GAAP financial measures. We believe these will be useful in evaluating our performance. However you should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. You can find reconciliations of non GAAP measures with comparable GAAP measures in the tables that accompany today's release and slides. Now if you will please turn to slide three, I'll turn the call over to Greg. Greg?

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

Thank you Debbie, and good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. Before I get into the details of the quarter, I want to reiterate our strategy to drive long term revenue growth and improve profitability. AstroNova has a unique position in the global data visualization market with deeply embedded relationships, high performance technology, and a strong recurring revenue model. Our goal is to leverage our technologies and market position and our streamlined organization to deliver stronger growth and earnings with more predictable performance. Core to the strategy are three strategic drivers.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

First, our aerospace segment, which has a leading market share in cockpit printers, is rapidly advancing the transition of customers from our legacy models to our high performance and high reliability Tough Writer printers. This transaction deepens our position with leading aerospace customers, decouples us from royalty costs associated with legacy products, and simplifies our product portfolio, which reduces supply chain complexity and inventory levels, improving cash generation and margins. The transition also enables us to capture a larger percentage of aftermarket sales. Our ToughRider technology enables us to better leverage the positive macro backdrop of the commercial aerospace market as both Boeing and Airbus continue to ramp up their build rate. The second strategic driver is the launch of highly disruptive next generation product identification solutions.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

These commercial scale printing solutions unlock new end markets with large customers that have higher volume printing needs. They also allow us to better control the supply chain for our ink and critical print engine components, lowering costs over time. This provides more avenues for growth, and we have already been gaining traction with both new and existing customers. And the third strategic driver is further streamlining operations through headcount reductions and restructuring, while strengthening segment level accountability. We are working to structure incentive compensation with key performance indicators including growth, profitability, cash generation, and earnings per share to further improve alignment between management and shareholders.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

We are laser focused on executing this strategy. With that, if you'll turn to slide four, let me touch on the quarterly highlights. We believe that our first quarter of fiscal twenty twenty six results are an early indication of the traction we are making with our strategy. We delivered double digit growth in both segments and increased consolidated adjusted operating income by 13.5% year over year. This was driven by our continued Tough Writer transition, renewed defense shipments of half a million dollars, higher demand for our desktop label printers, and a $1,400,000 increase in product sales from last year's acquisition.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

We also accelerated our previously announced $3,000,000 annualized cost reduction plan by completing 1,900,000 of annualized cost saving actions in the quarter, most of which will begin to be realized in the second quarter. We plan to complete the remainder of the cost saving actions in the second quarter. During Q1, we launched three next generation product identification solutions ahead of schedule. The QL425 and the QL435 were launched as an extension of our flagship quick label line of high resolution color label printers, bringing a new level of speed, flexibility, and cost efficiency to our professional labeling customers. We also released a new direct to package printer, the AJ800, which enables printing on sustainable packaging materials like corrugated cardboard, die cut boxes, and paper bags, as well as wood.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

And the AG-eight hundred expands our product portfolio into larger print media and higher volume production. We are ahead of schedule with the rollout of two additional next generation products that we have in our pipeline. These are expected to be launched in the second quarter. In Q1, we up trained and upgraded our sales team, implemented a new targeted sales strategy under our recently appointed segment leadership, and restructured our go to market approach. We are pleased with the progress the team has made already and encouraged by the early interest and orders they have generated.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

In aerospace, at the end of the quarter, we announced a renewed $10,000,000 multi year contract win for the delivery of our Tough Rider products over the next five years to a prime defense contractor. And shipments on this program began late in Q1. We expect to realize $1,700,000 of revenue this fiscal year from this program. The hard work and hard decisions made over the past six months are improving results, but we still have more work to do. We expect our margin profile and aftermarket sales to strengthen as the rollout of our new product ID solutions gain market acceptance and our top rate of transition continues to advance.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

For the full year, we continue to expect to deliver revenue in the range of 160,000,000 to $165,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 8.5% to 9.5%. This is a critical juncture for AstroNova and we are confident in our ability to deliver long term shareholder value through the focused execution of our strategy. Looking at slide five, we will review orders and backlog and discuss the opportunities we are seeing in our markets. First quarter orders of $34,900,000 were up 5.4% or $1,800,000 compared with prior year period driven by a combination of higher demand for new and existing product identification hardware and supplies. Product ID orders were up 3,300,000 to 26,200,000.0.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

We secured a three year label supply contract with a multinational beauty company, which is a new account for us. We also captured a renewed upsize contract from a large private label coffee grocer in The UK. This current customer also will be upgrading its entire fleet of quick label printers. While declines of $1,500,000 in aerospace orders partially offset overall order growth, we continue to have strong demand for tough riders, reflecting the improved bill rates of the major commercial aircraft OEMs. As we have previously pointed out, aerospace orders can vary quarter to quarter based on timing of customer contracts.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

For example, shortly after the end of Q1, we received a $1,000,000 ToughRider printer order from an in flight entertainment customer. During the quarter, we did also further expand our space launch data acquisition business. We secured an order from a new customer, Amazon Kuiper Systems, for our data acquisition systems to be used on their low earth orbit satellite program. Backlog for the quarter declined by $2,800,000 year over year to $25,500,000 primarily driven by clearing previously delayed shipments. As we move through fiscal twenty twenty six, we expect to benefit from our new product introductions and the increasing build rates with Airbus and Boeing.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

Before I pass the call over to Tom, please turn to slide six and I will touch on what we are seeing regarding tariffs. The headline commentary is that so far the impacts have been negligible for our business. Our aerospace shipments are insulated from many of the tariffs due to the contracts we have in place, which essentially hedge our exposure on the sales side. Most of our exposure comes from the component part. However, due to the expense and regulatory difficulties associated with making changes to aerospace avionics, we typically carry large inventories of the most critical component.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

This gives us a multi month protection from vendor and or tariff issues. For product ID, our next generation print engine allows us to source ink from across the world providing flexibility on supply costs. Additionally, our global manufacturing presence in The United States, Europe and Canada gives us more options for rerouting our shipments. To further combat tariffs we implemented price increases on April 1 and tariff surcharges in the May. We continue to remain agile and look for ways we can partner with and source from alternative suppliers to minimize cost impacts.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

I'll now hand the call over to Tom for the financial review. Tom?

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone. On slide seven, you can see our first quarter revenue of $37,700,000 grew 14.4% year over year and 0.9 sequentially. 83% of the quarter's revenue was reoccurring. The first quarter is a seasonally slow quarter, so we expect improvements throughout fiscal twenty twenty six.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

Year over year revenue growth was 13.8% in product identification and 16.8% in aerospace. Product identification sales increased for the quarter was driven by 1,400,000.0 incremental Emtek sales and higher demand for tabletop and direct to package printers and supplies. Importantly, we unveiled three new product identification solutions at the Fespa Global Print Expo in Germany. We expect these product launches to help drive product identification hardware sales in the second half of fiscal twenty twenty six with continued growth of our recurring media and supply sales as we increase the installed base. For aerospace, increased printer shipments to a major OEM and the carryover of shipments to a defense contractor under the recently renewed contract primarily drove revenue growth.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

The $10,000,000 multi year contract award began shipping in the first quarter, and we expect to ship the remaining portion of the expected $1,700,000 in orders before our fiscal year end. We also expect an increase in the ToughRider shipments from an existing commercial aerospace customer beginning in the second quarter as we transition away from the legacy printers. ToughRider aerospace printers were 42% of the first quarter shipments and we remain on track to double the percentage by the fiscal year end. Turning to slide eight, gross profit was $12,700,000 up $700,000 increase year over year, representing 33.6% of sales. Adjusted gross profit was 13,100,000.0 a $1,100,000 increase year over year, representing 34.6 of sales.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

The increase in gross profit was primarily driven by higher sales volume, but year over year margin was negatively impacted by dilution related to the acquisition and a legacy aerospace printer contract, which we expect to be completed by the end of the second quarter of fiscal twenty twenty six. On an adjusted basis, gross margin increased 30 basis points from the trailing period, reflecting higher volume in the quarter. Going forward, we expect gross profit and margin to improve throughout fiscal twenty twenty six as we increase the percentage of ToughRider sales and the next generation Product ID printer sales and supplies. Looking at slide nine, Product ID operating income for the quarter was $2,800,000 or 10.6% of sales compared with $3,000,000 in the prior year period. On a non GAAP basis, operating income was $3,100,000 or 11.9% of revenue.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

The year over year and quarter over quarter improvement in non GAAP operating income was driven by higher sales, was partially offset by lower margins on the acquired legacy technology. Looking at Slide 10, Aerospace operating income for the quarter was 2,800,000.0 a 24.2% of sales compared to $1,700,000 in the prior year period. On a non GAAP basis, operating income was $2,900,000 or 25.7% of revenue. The sequential and the year over year growth of operating income and margin were driven by improved product mix as we transitioned commercial and defense customers to our higher margin ToughRider solutions and benefited from operating leverage gained on higher volume. Operating income was partially offset by legacy printer contract that is expected to be completed in the second quarter.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

Aerospace operating expense was lower year over year as we benefited from a $300,000 reserve reversal related to a commercial airline. Turning to Slide 11, net loss was $400,000 or a negative $05 per share compared with net income of $1,200,000 or $0.15 per share in the prior year period. Adjusted net income was $400,000 or $05 per share. Adjusted EBITDA of $3,100,000 increased 27.6 compared with the prior year period and grew 28% compared with the trailing fourth quarter of fiscal twenty twenty five. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first quarter expanded 80 basis points year over year and sequentially.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

We are expecting operating expenses to be benefit from the restructuring program for the remainder of fiscal twenty twenty six. Moving to slide 12, during the quarter we strengthened our balance sheet by paying down $3,900,000 in debt and improved liquidity. We ended the quarter with $12,600,000 in total liquidity, including $5,400,000 in cash and $7,200,000 in revolver availability. Our leverage ratio of funded debt to EBITDA is 3.5 times. Our targeted leverage ratio is approximately two times.

[Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO at AstroNova]

At the end of the quarter, we are in compliance with our covenants of our lending agreement. Cash provided by operations in the first quarter was $4,400,000 down from $6,900,000 in the prior year period. The decline was primarily driven by the timing of associated with bulk replenishment of legacy ink, print heads and media supplies amounting to about $3,000,000 We are focused on improving our inventory turns from current levels of approximately two times to more than three times over the fiscal twenty six and twenty seven years. Capital expenditures were $60,000 in the quarter and we expect to be less than $2,000,000 for the full fiscal year. Now, please turn to slide 13 and I'll hand the call back to Greg for closing comments.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

Thanks, Tom. We are executing a clear strategy to deliver revenue growth and improve our profitability. We have implemented changes in the organization and are working diligently to deliver on our strategic plan. We believe that this quarter reflected a positive turning point in our business as we gained traction in both of our segments and controlled our costs. We have several catalysts that we are confident will propel our growth in fiscal twenty twenty six and beyond.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

First, we are focused on launching our innovative product ID solutions, three of which have already been launched and are receiving strong customer interest and orders. We expect to launch six more disruptive solutions before the end of fiscal twenty twenty six. Second, we continue to make rapid progress on the ToughRider transition program with several large commercial and defense customers transitioning to ToughRiders that will ramp up shipping in Q2 and beyond. Importantly, we are looking critically at our cost structure and cash flow generation. We are on track to complete our 3,000,000 cost reduction program by Q2, and we will continue to manage our costs prudently as we roll out next generation and higher margin solutions across our product ID and aerospace segments.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

We believe the actions we have taken in the past six to twelve months put us in a position to scale into new end markets and new geographies with high margin solutions. Furthermore, we have additional long term opportunities to improve margins through the roll off of royalties from legacy cockpit printers and through our multi source ink supply program based on our new print engine technology. We are reiterating our guidance for the full year of fiscal twenty twenty six. We expect to deliver full year revenue of $160,000,000 to $165,000,000 a 7% year over year increase at the midpoint, and adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 8.5% to 9.5% or an 80 basis point expansion year over year at the midpoint. In summary, we are pleased with the progress that has been made this quarter, but we have more work to do.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

I want to thank our team for their hard work and position us for the future. We remain confident in our plan and believe we have the right people, infrastructure, and go to market strategy in place to drive long term growth and profitability. Now Tom and I will be happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

Thank And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, it is star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question, and we will pause for a brief moment to poll for questions. Once again, will poll for questions. We'll just pause for one brief moment to see if there are any final questions. There are no questions at this time.

[Operator]

I would like to turn the conference back over to management for closing remarks.

[Gregory Woods, President and CEO at AstroNova]

Great. Thank you. And thanks everyone for joining us here today. We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress at AstroNova. And enjoy the weekend and we'll talk to you guys soon. Have a good day.

[Operator]

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Gregory Woods, President and CEO
• Thomas DeByle, VP, Treasurer & CFO

Analysts

• Deborah Pawlowski, Founding Partner at Alliance Advisors