Amprius Technologies Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q1 revenue was $28.5 million (153% YoY, +13% sequential) and management raised full‑year 2026 revenue guidance to at least $130 million, implying re‑acceleration in the June quarter.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management highlighted meaningful customer momentum and program wins — including contracts tied to Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, AeroVironment, Teledyne FLIR — plus a DIU contract increase to $18.1 million and a $21 million LEV purchase order, boosting near‑term PO visibility.
  • Negative Sentiment: Q1 gross margin declined to 20% (about 22% ex‑Colorado) and operating loss widened to $6.7 million, with legacy SiMaxx overhead and one‑month Colorado costs cited as temporary drags; adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.8 million.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management is optimizing the capital structure — ended Q1 with $62.4 million cash and no debt, paid $20 million to settle the Colorado lease, and announced a warrant exchange to convert ~7.1 million public warrants (management says this saves ~$70 million of future dilution).
  • Neutral Sentiment: Manufacturing scale‑up is in progress — SiCore comprised 97% of product revenue, Nanotech validated a U.S. 21700 cylindrical cell, and DIU‑funded pouch prototyping plus Korean CMs are being ramped, but further capacity and margin improvements remain to be realized.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Amprius Technologies Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Company Representative at Amprius Technologies

Morning. Welcome to the Amprius Technologies first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining us for today's presentation are the company's CEO, Tom Stepien, and CFO, Ricardo Rodriguez. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's remarks, we will open the call for questions. Please note that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding our financial and business performance, our business strategy, future product development or commercialization, new customer adoption and new applications, our growth and the growth of the markets in which we operate, and the timing and ability of Amprius to expand its manufacturing capacity, scale its business, and achieve a sustainable cost structure.

Company Representative at Amprius Technologies

These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause Amprius' results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to Amprius' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This pre-presentation includes a non-GAAP financial measure, which is adjusted EBITDA. This non-GAAP financial measure does not replace the presentation of Amprius' GAAP financial results and should only be used as a supplement to, not a substitute for, Amprius' financial results presented in accordance with GAAP and may not be comparable to calculations of similarly titled measures by other companies.

Company Representative at Amprius Technologies

A reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, is included in our press release, a copy of which is filed with the SEC and posted on our website. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being webcast. A recording will be made available for replay on the company's investor relations website at ir.amprius.com. In addition to the webcast, the company has posted a press release that accompanies these results, which can also be found on the Amprius investor relations website. Before turning the call over to management, I want to highlight a few near-term IR events. On May 12th, Tom Stepien will be at XPONENTIAL in Detroit. Any investors that are attending the expo are welcome to stop by the company's booth.

Company Representative at Amprius Technologies

At the same time, Ricardo will be at the Needham Conference in New York City on May 12th and 13th. His fireside chat will be streamed online and will be available for replay on the company's IR website. On May 14th, the management team will be in New York City and taking investor meetings with KKR. The following week, management will be attending the B. Riley conference on May 20th and 21st in Los Angeles. To round out the month, management will be at the Craig-Hallum conference in Minneapolis on May 28th. Looking to June, the team will start off the month in Chicago for the William Blair Conference.

Company Representative at Amprius Technologies

Management will then attend the Jefferies eVTOL Summit on June 8th, the TD Cowen Technology Summit on the 17th, the Roth London Conference on June 17th and 18th, and the Northland Conference on June 23rd. We hope to connect with many of you at these upcoming events. I'll now turn the call over to Amprius Technologies CEO, Tom Stepien, for his comments. Sir, please proceed.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. Let's start with slide 3. Last quarter, I compared the advantages offered by our batteries to the difference between standard brewed coffee and espresso. It's an idea that illustrates the difference between our cells and those of our competitors. In this analogy, a standard graphite battery is like normal drip coffee, and we're the concentrated power of espresso. Our batteries contain the same energy as standard cells in a much smaller package. If you match the volume and weight of standard coffee with a double espresso, you achieve twice the energy. When you double the energy in a battery, you can double flight time for an unmanned aircraft or double the travel distance of a light electric vehicle. That's the Amprius Espresso Advantage. Turning now to slide four.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

This energy advantage continues to drive robust financial performance, and in the first quarter, we sustained our strong business momentum. Our second generation SiCore silicon anode batteries are gaining broad adoption across unmanned aerial system customers, and we are pleased to see the momentum we have built in Europe is now taking hold in the United States. U.S. defense spending is at an all-time high, with a growing emphasis on UASs, commonly referred to as drones. Three Amprius customers leveraging our SiCore batteries have recently received notable multi-million dollar awards. First, I'll mention Kraus Hamdani Aerospace, a Northern California-based drone manufacturer. Their K1000ULE is a fully electric, ultra-long-range endurance UAS capable of 24-hour flight and a 1,000-mile range, designed for autonomous intelligence, surveillance, and communication missions across land, sea, and air.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

They recently received a major sole source award from the US Department of War for their UAS and a separate contract worth up to $270 million from the United States Air Forces Central Command. There's AeroVironment, a leading U.S. defense technology company and a long-term Amprius customer. In March 2026, AV won a $117 million firm fixed price U.S. Army contract to deliver P550 UASs designed to provide front-line units with real-time intelligence and targeting in contested environments. There's Teledyne FLIR, a global leader in thermal imaging, surveillance sensors, and unmanned systems, and another tenured Amprius customer. They recently announced a European order for their Black Hornet 4, a palm-sized nano drone measuring just 25cm long with a 200 mm rotor diameter.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

The Black Hornet 4 provides soldiers with live video feeds, target data, and real-time situational awareness for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in both dismounted and vehicle-integrated operations. We commend these three customers on their recent wins. Their success boosts our visibility into future purchase orders for SiCore cells. We look forward to continuing to earn their trust and business. We are pleased to announce that our silicon anode cells were selected by a leading light electric vehicle customer based in China. This customer placed a $21 million multi-quarter purchase order for batteries for two and three-wheeled vehicles. China is home to many of the world's most successful battery companies, which makes it especially satisfying to win business in this highly competitive region. Meanwhile, our ongoing project with the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit continues to expand. In July 2025, Amprius won a development contract from the DIU.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

In the March quarter, the contract was increased for a third time and now totals $18.1 million. This recent increase adds delivery of three types of silicon anode cylindrical cells and four standard-size pouch cells. Standardization is really critical for the government. It reduces cost, simplifies logistics, and ensures systems can use the same safe, reliable, NDAA-compliant power sources. It is gratifying to receive awards from credible and independent media and trade groups. After winning a competitive CES Innovation Award in January, we were recently named a top 100 green tech company by Time. Turning now to our financial performance, I'm pleased to report Q1 revenue of $28.5 million, up 2.5x year-over-year and 13% higher sequentially.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

The strong results give us the confidence to increase our revenue guidance for the full-year to at least $130 million, $5 million above our previous forecast. While it is not our practice to provide specific guidance for the current quarter, I would note that a revised annual forecast implies a re-acceleration of sequential top-line growth in the June quarter. Ricardo will provide more highlights on our financial performance and outlook shortly. He will also share details on our press release earlier this morning, in which we announced an agreement to exchange our outstanding public warrants for common shares, which will simplify and strengthen our capital structure. Let's now take a look at slide five. Taking a step back, I'd like to review our substantial opportunity set in five principal end markets. The first is UAS's, including drones used for defense, public safety, security, and logistics.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Defense platforms that require high energy density typically support long loiter missions and are primarily targeted for ISR, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Public safety drones include DFR, drone as a first responder, systems integrated directly into emergency workflows. DFR programs are expanding nationwide because they deliver faster situational awareness, reduced response times, and materially improved public safety outcomes. As more agencies adopt DFR as a core part of 911 operations, demand for higher performance, longer endurance batteries continue to accelerate. That plays directly to our strengths. Our second market segment is satellites and space, where our high energy density cells directly improve launch economics. Satellite launch providers charge customers by weight, making our ability to deliver the same energy at roughly half the weight, our espresso advantage, extremely valuable.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

The $21 million multi-quarter purchase order I mentioned earlier is an example of our traction in a third segment, light electric vehicles. The customer advantage here is fitting more capacity into standard packs or constrained spaces and enabling range. We're optimistic about the opportunity in the fourth segment, robotics. Robot performance is closely tied to battery characteristics, as our CTO, Ionel Stefan, recently shared with a leading battery journal. Quote, "Balancing the extreme discharge demands of actuation with the computational intensity of real-time AI processing requires a new generation of energy solutions," he said. "High silicon anode cells represent a breakthrough, delivering the energy density needed to extend operational runtime while minimizing the weight penalties that constrain efficiency." Unquote. Our fifth market segment is eVTOL, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. eVTOL and other advanced air mobility customers are developing autonomous point-to-point regional transport for both passengers and cargo.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

These vehicles only work with high-energy-density batteries because aircraft must lift a heavy structure, a pilot, and three to four passengers. Without enough energy per kilogram, the vehicle simply can't achieve the required range, payload, or safety margins. If standard cells are chosen, the aircraft can likely get off the ground, but it likely cannot perform the required mission. Working with a third-party research firm, we size these five end markets as shown on the right-hand side of slide five. Lithium-ion battery applications across these markets are estimated at $7 billion this year, growing to $13 billion by the end of the decade, nearly doubling in just a few years. Looking further out, we expect growth to accelerate meaningfully, reaching $35 billion by 2035. Let me now turn over the call to Ricardo to review our Q1 results in detail.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. I'm happy to report that Amprius had another record-breaking quarter. As shown on slide six, we delivered $28.5 million of revenue in Q1, which translates into 13% growth over the fourth quarter of last year and a 153% increase year-over-year. As Tom mentioned, those results give us the confidence to increase our 2026 full-year revenue forecast by $5 million to at least $130 million. I'll provide more color on the outlook shortly. As Tom noted, our revenue growth was driven by continued expansion in our SiCore customer base, combined with increasing order volumes from existing customers as they scale their own deployments. SiCore represented 97% of product revenue in the quarter, continuing our transition away from our legacy SiMaxx platform.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

In the quarter, we generated 58% of our revenue from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, 21% from North America, and 21% from the Asia Pacific region. The North American share increased meaningfully, both sequentially and year-over-year, consistent with the growing interest we're seeing from U.S.-based customers. While we expect this mix to fluctuate over the course of the year, we think the U.S. business could accelerate in the second half. Now moving on to cost of revenue and gross margins. Our Q1 gross profit was $5.7 million, producing a gross margin of 20%. For context, Q4 gross margin was 24%. We did step back quarter-over-quarter, and I want to be transparent about why.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Overhead costs associated with our Fremont facility are being absorbed across a larger SiCore revenue base, while the SiMaxx product line continues to wind down. Our Q1 SiMaxx related overhead costs were of more than $3 million. Essentially, these are fixed costs against only $618,000 of revenue. That created a material but temporary drag on the blended margin. We also had one month of expenses from Colorado in the quarter, without which our gross margin would have been 22%. Turning over to operating expenses. Quarterly R&D expenses were of $3.8 million.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

SG&A was $8.6 million, bringing total operating expenses to $12.4 million, which was down approximately $19 million quarter-over-quarter, though that comparison is heavily distorted by the $22.5 million non-cash impairment charge for Colorado in Q4 of last year. On a clean basis, our adjusted OpEx run rate is up modestly quarter-over-quarter, driven by targeted investments in our sales and go-to-market organization as we build a team to support the commercial momentum Tom described. Putting these elements together, our Q1 operating loss was $6.7 million, compared to a clean operating loss of approximately $2.9 million in Q4 after removing the Colorado one-time charge. The increase reflects the gross margin setback I described and the continued investment in commercial and R&D capabilities.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Q1 adjusted EBITDA was -$1.8 million, which compares to -$5.2 million in the same quarter of last year. After two quarters of positive adjusted EBITDA, we had expected a modest step back in Q1 due to the SiMaxx phase out and the one month Colorado cost carryover that I described. Our Q1 GAAP net loss was of $5 million or -$0.04 per share, based on approximately 136.9 million weighted average shares outstanding. Now turning over to the balance sheet and cash flow. We ended Q1 with $62.4 million of cash and no debt. Our cash position is down from $90.5 million at year-end due to several factors which consumed $37.3 million of cash in the quarter.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

First, accounts receivable increased by $11.5 million, reflecting the strong revenue growth we experienced near the quarter's end. Over $6.5 million of that figure has already been collected. We also paid approximately $20 million to settle our Colorado facility lease obligation, as previously announced. That agreement settled what would have been an expense of more than $110 million in highly favorable terms. Largely due to that transaction, our liabilities were reduced by $29.8 million in the quarter. Q1 capital expenditures were of $980,000, funded largely through the DIU contract. Total shareholders' equity stood at $109.4 million at quarter's end.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Before turning the call back to Tom, I'd like to spend a moment framing our outlook and commenting on the warrant exchange agreement transaction that we announced this morning. Let's also please turn to slide seven. When we communicated our 2026 baseline of at least $125 million of revenue, we said we would rather size the upside as it happens than commit to it ahead of time. We continue to see healthy demand indicators, a growing backlog, higher production volumes at all of our manufacturing partners, and increasing urgency from defense-related customers around NDAA compliant supply. With this in mind, we are raising our revenue guidance to at least $130 million in 2026.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

The setup for the rest of the year is constructive for our economics, particularly as our collections normalize and additional capacity from our Korean and U.S. manufacturing partners comes online. We continue to expect 2026 adjusted EBITDA of at least $4 million and a net loss of no more than $8 million or less than $0.06 per share, assuming 136.9 million shares. Our CapEx will ramp up over the course of 2026, but remain below $10 million for the year, and we expect this to be funded by our contract with the Defense Innovation Unit. Finally, I'd like to briefly comment on the recent announcement of our agreement to convert over 7 million public warrants that were held by institutional investors into common stock.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

This agreement reduces future dilution by converting warrants that would have been exercisable at lower prices into a fixed number of shares on terms that we believe are favorable to existing shareholders. It is consistent with the broader optimization of our capital structure that we've been executing, such as closing the ATM, settling the Colorado lease, and now managing our warrant overhang proactively. We're constantly looking for opportunities to simplify the balance sheet and optimize the capital structure as our operating performance gives us the leverage to do so. Thank you to everyone who worked with us on this and to the Amprius team for enabling it, thanks to the prompt execution of our plans. Now I'm happy to turn the call back to Tom. Thank you all for your continued attention and support.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Our Q1 performance bodes well for a successful 2026. Revenue increasing at double-digit percentage points quarter-over-quarter, continued gross margin at or above 20%, with our warrant exchange underway, we are removing a potential dilution overhang. Competition in the lithium-ion battery space is fierce. We embrace it. In 2026, the team is driving next-generation silicon anode performance with higher energy density and sustained power without sacrificing safety or reliability, while meeting all manufacturing and country origin requirements.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

We're expanding our portfolio to reach new markets and converting more customer engagements into formal qualifications and deployments, particularly in mobility-focused platforms. We remain deeply bullish about the opportunities in front of us. We look forward to meeting and reconnecting with many of you at the investor conferences we'll be attending in the weeks ahead. Thank you for your continued interest in and support of Amprius. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll open the line for questions from the company's publishing research analysts. The company requests that each participant limit their comments to one question and one follow-up. To ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question will come from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Please state your question.

Colin Rusch
Colin Rusch
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thanks so much, guys. Tom, you know, you've been with the company now, about a year, and one of the big focuses was around driving better visibility on customer volumes, so you could plan out production. You know, given some of the fluctuation that we're seeing with, you know, mix and margins here, just wanna get a more fulsome update on where you're at in that process and how much there is to go in terms of, you know, being able to drive increased volumes with key customers and do a little bit more work around planning and supply chain optimization.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Colin. There is a lot of upside going forward here. We are in early days. We are starting to see some of the One Big Beautiful Bill dollars. The bill was signed, what, 10 months ago. The three customers that we referenced in the call are starting to receive contracts. The suppliers to those customers, including Amprius on the battery side, are next. We see that also in some of the light electric vehicle work. We announced a win. We've been a little bit vague about that in the past because it's been smaller purchase orders, but now there's larger ones coming in. There is a lot of opportunity out there for us. We are going to robotics conferences that we have not attended in the past. We're going on offense. We're adding people to the team.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

We have some additional firms that are helping us. We just signed up a new group in South Korea that's helping us get started there before we establish our own team in place there. We are very bullish about this market in general, and we are making plans so that we can capture as much as we can get.

Colin Rusch
Colin Rusch
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thanks so much. For my follow-up, I just wanna focus in on some of the mobile robot opportunities here. You know, given the form factor and the flexibility that you guys have with the different SKUs and the potential for multiple zones within some of these bots, particularly on the humanoid side, just wanna get a sense of, you know, kinda product market fit, what you're seeing from a competitive standpoint and the evolution of that opportunity to move into more substantial production.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah, it's early days on robotics. We don't have any real meaningful revenue in our Q1 numbers. We're starting to have some really good discussions with folks in the U.S. and in Asia about what really is ideal. To a certain extent, some of these companies are learning for themselves. One thing that we have learned is Amprius' strength, our high energy density really helps us in unstructured environments. If you have a warehouse robot and you can go around the corner and plug in, okay, maybe we're not as strong.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

If you have a variety of different power needs, I reference Ionel's analysis in the call, where you have some intense power needs if you're lifting, and then you have some low energy needs for extended use. Those play to our ability to have blended batteries, some that are power-focused, some that are energy-focused, a lot of which are balanced. We're getting started. We have some really good conversations with customers, and done well that will start to show up in terms of revenue toward the end of this year, early next.

Colin Rusch
Colin Rusch
Analyst at Oppenheimer

Thanks so much, guys.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Thank you.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Colin.

Operator

Your next question comes from Mark Shooter with William Blair. Please state your question.

Mark Shooter
Mark Shooter
Analyst at William Blair

Hey, gentlemen. Thanks for letting me ask a question here, and congrats on the progress in the quarter.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Mark.

Mark Shooter
Mark Shooter
Analyst at William Blair

Hey, thanks, Ricardo. Last earnings call, I believe we had just entered the Iran conflict. I'm wondering, how have your conversations developed over the last three months, especially with the U.S. military and the defense contractors? Has there been any increase or a sense of urgency from these drone programs that you can talk about?

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. Again, we're starting to see some of the flow in. We, we referenced some over the weekend calls, I think, in the March quarter, and that has translated to some of the business. One of the customers that we talked about in the call was one of those customers. We, as a, as a nation here, the U.S. is getting serious. I think we've seen that in a number of public announcements, and we're starting to see that flow down to us. It will, it will likely continue the Gauntlet II and the Drone Dominance program.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

The Gauntlet itself starts in August. There's some qualifiers next month in June. We know the 11 winners in Gauntlet I. There's more that are entering into Gauntlet II. We're really close with that community and intend to stay close and intend to emphasize our ability to have a longer loitering time, which for many of the scoring in these drone contests is super important.

Mark Shooter
Mark Shooter
Analyst at William Blair

Thanks, Tom. One follow-up for Ricardo about the warrant transaction at the tape this morning. Can you unpack a little bit more of the strategy around the transaction? Is there any more color you can provide to us on the what the potential dilution would have been and what it will be now?

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Mark. Yeah, definitely. I mean, just to get us all on the same page, right? There were basically just nearly 16.5 million public warrants that were issued back in 2022 in September when the company went public with a strike price of $11.50. Here what we're basically doing is we took 7.1 million of those of those warrants and negotiated with the holders of those warrants to convert them into stock at an exchange ratio that'll be determined here next week. Per our math, we are basically saving shareholders at least $70 million of dilution that would've otherwise happened if those warrants were exercised. The other bit is when these warrants are held by institutional investors, they manage a hedge, right?

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

They generally just want the performance from the warrants rather than the performance to be linked to the stock and its volatility. Given where the stock has been trading, meaningfully above $18 a share, which is the level at which we can call the warrants, if we trade above that level for 20 out of 30 trading days. They, in essence, had a 100% short position, relative to those warrants. I do think that this should relieve some of the short interest on the stock to the tune, if you believe the math, of about 7.1 million shares at least.

Mark Shooter
Mark Shooter
Analyst at William Blair

That's really helpful. Thanks for the color.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Absolutely.

Operator

Your next question comes from Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please state your question.

Derek Soderberg
Derek Soderberg
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Yeah. Good morning, everyone, thanks for taking the questions. Wanted to start with the $500 million in defense orders awarded to your long-standing customers. What's Amprius' typical attach rate look like on those programs? Can you sort of frame the timing of when those might translate into POs?

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

We haven't traced attach rates because some of these programs are brand new, right? We enjoy those three customers, and these are long-standing customers, right? That have been with us for a number of years. We are in some of the programs, but not all. Some of the companies, of course, have changed over time, and there's different divisions. AV bought BlueHalo, so it's a bit of a different company than it was when we first got close to them four or five years ago. The good news is that we are a known quantity, and the groups tend to talk to each other. We're getting to the point where we're starting to share roadmaps.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

As these companies are concerned about getting to U.S.-made batteries and U.S. content, we're able to share our roadmaps on exactly when we will get there, who will build those for us. That gets us closer, and that allows us to have the right kind of discussions with the engineers and the program managers that are selecting different components, batteries, motors, cameras, et cetera, for these unmanned systems that they're either producing today or have on the drawing board for release in future quarters.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Derek, maybe just to add, I think a rough guide when thinking about what this could mean for us is the batteries are usually 5%-15% of the bill of materials, depending on how advanced UAV is. The timing, I mean, we do think that this will have to be fulfilled in the second half of this year, spilling over into the following year, but that's being determined by the manufacturers right now.

Derek Soderberg
Derek Soderberg
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Got it. Super helpful. Just on the gross margin guide for 25% for the full-year. It looks like Q1 came in around 22% ex Colorado. What specifically gets you back to that 25% for the full year in the back half of the year? Thanks.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. I think there are three points that are worth considering here. The first one is our U.S. mix continues accelerating due to what we just discussed, right? U.S. customers pulling demand ahead of even our own schedule and really driving quite a bit of the growth of the business. There's also the mix of China within that, which we are working to manage as well. Our sales there, along with the rest of the Asia Pacific region, are accelerating too.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

If you look at what the team basically does every single week, month and quarter, we're kind of playing this game of Tetris, where the demand comes in in a certain set of flavors, and then we work to sprint the supply it across our different SKUs and manufacturing partners within a certain period of time and not leave any revenue on the table. You can gear that for profit or you can gear it for revenue depending on what growth rate you're managing to. We are managing that process pretty extensively day by day, literally. You know, were there another 3 to 4 percentage points of gross margin on the table if we had the logistics coordination capabilities of a couple hundred million dollar revenue company? I think so.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

This is just a matter of us sharpening our axe when it comes to that regard, developing those capabilities, and in essence, getting that margin back into the company. It's easy to fulfill as much revenue as possible and then have all of your profits go to the FedEx and UPS if you don't manage that. you know, we continue sharpening our axe in this regard. The team is pretty focused on it, and we do believe that the 25% gross margin target that we set externally is still pretty well in sight. we'll catch up mainly in the second half of this year.

Derek Soderberg
Derek Soderberg
Analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald

Great. Thanks, guys.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Austin Bolig with Needham. Please state your question.

Austin Bolig
Austin Bolig
Analyst at Needham

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the nice quarter. First question, kind of has to do with your current customer base. I think last quarter you guys revealed like a customer base of 550. Curious on what like the new customer add was in the quarter. Secondly, it sounds like you guys continue to go deeper with these current customers. If you could talk about the cadence on how that is going with current customers.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. On the first part, the count, Austin, thanks for the question. It continues to be robust and more than 50% of our shipments in the first quarter were for new customers, which certainly bodes well for the future. It's a little bit of a misleading statistic, the actual number of counts, so we're gonna tend to move away from it. It's very robust. Lots of interest. We'll be at XPONENTIAL, the drone conference that is coming up, starting Monday in Detroit.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

That's that continues to go well. We're starting to see, again, increased interest, some of that because of the mandates for U.S. batteries, National Defense Authorization Act approved batteries. Korea is coming online. We have three CMs there. There's work underway at the 1 cylindrical CM in the U.S. and more coming. We're not ready quite to announce who's next, but we are getting ourselves organized in order to intersect that demand that we see.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Austin, maybe just to add, I think, you know, the reason why the customer count metric has sort of run its course is we are seeing a lot of scalability with small customers by leveraging our battery pack partners. If you look at a lot of the folks that were competing in Drone Dominance, even some of the ones who won, they're buying our cells through our pack partners. That's giving us even more scalability than we thought of only a couple months ago. It does tend to over time, you know, maybe give us a lower customer count that's kind of meaningless when the real customer count is actually increasing and accelerating relative to where we were in the last quarter.

Austin Bolig
Austin Bolig
Analyst at Needham

Well, thank you. Then I guess, Ricardo, one follow-up for you. From like a modeling perspective, how should we think about OpEx kind of progressing through the year off of this Q1 number? Should we expect it to grow sequentially or kind of taper off as maybe SiMaxx continues to roll off?

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. Through the year, and I think we have it there on slide seven. Through the year, we do expect it to, in essence, top out at $50 million for this year. With the main change basically being this reallocation of roughly $1.4 million of costs from cost of goods sold over to OpEx. Some of the main hires that we were looking to make this year actually started in Q1 already, so they're reflected there. Then any incremental ones will be managed below this level of roughly $50 million a year.

Austin Bolig
Austin Bolig
Analyst at Needham

Okay. Well, thank you, guys. Good luck the rest of the year.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Austin. We'll see you around.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley Securities. Please state your question.

Ryan Pfingst
Ryan Pfingst
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Hey. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Could you provide some commentary broadly on how you've progressed with nanotech to gear up for production with them and where you might stand related to signing up additional U.S. or other allied manufacturing partners?

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Nanotech is a cylindrical provider in Chico, California, north of Sacramento. Step one with them was to validate the cell and make sure that they can handle our silicon anode materials and produce a product that is on par with some of our CMs that do that in Asia. They've done that. Percentage-wise, they are about 10% better. We have a 6.8Ah, those of who are keeping score here, which is above the 6.6Ah cell of its kind. This is a 21700 cell. It can handle up to 20 amps, and some of the competing cells can handle less. We are pleased with the technical performance of the cell that they make for us, that we make together.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

We are in the process of scheduling demand. There is demand for that cell. There is demand for U.S. cells, and they're our go-to company to do that. The second part on others, we have numerous discussions underway. We are being encouraged by the Department of War to continue to advance those discussions, and we are. We're not quite ready to announce anybody yet, but we are actively working on that. It'll be focused on the pouch cells. The pouch cells are about the size of a teabag. That's what the DIU has funded us to advance, both in Fremont with our prototype line, as well as manufacturing in Korea and in the U.S. Stay tuned. We are hard at work, and we will eventually be able to share news of who we're working with there.

Ryan Pfingst
Ryan Pfingst
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

I appreciate that detail, Tom. Secondly, curious if you can talk about the potential opportunities that the recent defense budget request might provide you guys.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

As we all know, the Big Beautiful Bill puts it about a trillion dollars in defense spending. A couple analysts have commented that that is heavily weighted, more biased to the unmanned aerial systems, which of course, is our strength, as we have commented in the call and previously. The proposed $500 billion addition has more of that coming. There's this group called DAWG, Defense Autonomous Working Group, I think it stands for. That group, the proposed budget is something like $58 billion, which is the size of the Marine budget today. A lot of that is again with drones and counter drones. That is our sweet spot. We're starting to see more of that come. We are in the right discussions.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Ricardo and I were just on a call with some guys from the DoD just yesterday about some of this. We are in a privileged position. It's wonderful when the market is expanding and the product characteristics that we have line up, so we're seeing really strong product market fit. We got more work to do. There's areas that we want to reinforce, but it's coming together and we feel good about where we are.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

The other thing there, Ryan, is basically that you can apply the same rough rule that we mentioned to Derek, right? Roughly 5%-15% of the bill of materials is the battery inside of it. I don't think our current market analysis captures the effect of this budget request if it were to be approved.

Ryan Pfingst
Ryan Pfingst
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Understood. I appreciate it, guys. I'll turn it back.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Anytime.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Ryan.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum. Please state your question.

Eric Stine
Eric Stine
Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Hi, Tom. Hi, Ricardo. Thanks for sneaking me in here again.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Hey, Eric.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Morning.

Eric Stine
Eric Stine
Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Hey.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Absolutely.

Eric Stine
Eric Stine
Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Good morning. I know last quarter you talked about or highlighted that, for the 11 key components, of your battery that you had reached NDAA compliance. I know that an objective there, a near-term objective, is to get those suppliers under long-term agreements. Just curious where that process stands, I guess, a couple months later.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Getting the 11 components, the internals, anode, cathode, separator, electrolyte, et cetera, is super important. As you commented, Eric, we checked that box last quarter. We have several under contract, several of the major components. Not all, but several. The nice thing is that we have primary and secondary, and we have a very good understanding of the landed cost. What will it take to get Japanese anode powder to Korea? What would it take to get Korea anode powder to the U.S.? We understand the details of that. We understand what they should be costing and those that we have not entered into long-term agreements with. We're having the arm wrestling on the should cost versus the landed cost. We're progressing well.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

We have shipped, the company has shipped full NDA cells. As we bring on South Korea and really get them hitting their stride, one of our CMs there is delivering to customers, including one of the customers that we talked about in the call and on slide three of the deck. We need to get the other ones up to speed. Nanotech, as I mentioned, in the U.S., checks a full box on technology. We need to get them up to the delivery cadence that we wanna get to. A lot of that will occur with these suppliers. Progression on track. The DIU is pleased with where we are, as evidenced by their continuing to provide us some incremental funding based upon good work done to date.

Eric Stine
Eric Stine
Analyst at Craig-Hallum

That's great. Thank you for that. Then, for me, my follow-up, you know, just on light electric vehicles. I know that obviously, you know, UAS, drones, robotics, all of those other end markets, you know, the growth profile is quite significant. I'm just curious, I mean, you're now into the Chinese market. It's, you know, I mean, it's not even arguably, it is the best electric mobility market. Is there a scenario where light electric vehicles, you know, could match, could exceed the growth in some of these other end markets, which, you know, arguably right now might be more top of mind?

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

It is a nice win, and it's a nice win as we come at it in that region because it's super competitive. There are other areas, right? India, Vietnam, right? A lot of two-wheelers and three-wheelers there, and they care about some of the same things. We have aspirations of expanding our technology into those.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Will it be dominant? I think at least for the next year or so, it will be second, maybe third place if some of the other segments that we show on slide five, if we get some of the traction that we aim to get, right? Today, LEVs are number two. We'd like to think that as some of the other ones come on, robotics, in particular, even some of the space activities, that they would rival LEVs. They are very early today. It'll probably stay at number two for the next year or so.

Eric Stine
Eric Stine
Analyst at Craig-Hallum

Okay. I appreciate that. I guess good problem to have if it's because some of the other end markets growth is that significant. Okay. Thank you.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

All right. Thanks, Eric.

Operator

Your next question comes from Chip Moore with Roth. Please state your question.

Chip Moore
Analyst at Roth

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. wanted to go back to, you know, that importance of standardizing for the government customers. Just maybe talk a bit more about that process and then, you know, the cells you called out, any sense of size of opportunities, you know, those specific cells could translate to.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. The cylindrical cells are standardized, as many of us know, so that flashlights and headlamps and night vision goggles all can be interchangeable. That does not exist with the very popular pouch cells. Pouch cells tend to have a little bit higher energy density, and they're very popular with drones. That is exactly why the DIU funded us. We're the only company, as we've talked about in the past, that was funded under this program last year in a very competitive situation. The goal is to make pouch cells in the U.S. to make them at our prototype line. Some of the funding that we received is to increase the capability and capacity of the prototype line in Fremont.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Standardized has been talked about and in the discussions and during Q1 that got solidified with the incremental $3 million to our grant. It's all about making standard cells in the pouch format, and they are the size of the pouch cells. Again, a teabag is one of the smaller sized ones, ranging to an iPhone size pouch cell. It's about the same thickness, by the way, as an iPhone. Just so folks get a sense of what we're talking about. We are maybe the first, certainly among the first that are pushing standardized cells. We wanna make those available so that that interchangeability that we enjoy on the cylindrical side can be done. You don't wanna have to worry about batteries for a lot of these components.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

To get the friction out, that's a big part of what's happening in the defense land these days, is just to make it easier to source components, batteries, cameras, motors. There are websites, Amazon-like websites for the military, where these components are available, just to add some of the efficiencies that we all see on our daily lives to the military side of things. We're all over that. Standardized pouch cells certainly makes sense to us. We will deliver to that incremental funding, make these cells available. It's very much in line with our interest as a company, and certainly the Department of War's interest, for the reasons we mentioned.

Chip Moore
Analyst at Roth

Very helpful, Tom. Maybe for my follow-up, I think in, you know, your closing remarks, you talked about mobility folks, platforms, and qualifications. Is that mostly LEVs, to your point on the last question, or should we think about broader mobility applications? Thanks.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

It's LEVs. It's also some of the robotics, right? I mentioned that we're going to some of the first conferences. It's certainly early days. We're getting smarter. We have some really good discussions going on. Look, anything that moves, and we all know that we have that in our daily lives, should be able to benefit from a higher energy density, which is our claim to fame. Sometimes it's also a better volumetric energy density. You only have so much space, but if you can get more energy out of that space, out of that volume, then that should win. These are higher performing cells, so we're at the high-end of the market. That's okay.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

We don't make sense today for large electric vehicles like we would drive, but for the light electric vehicles, that certainly makes sense. For robotics, it makes sense. As we said, when you pay per kilogram to get something up in space, if you can save some kilograms, but you have the same energy, that should be a win. That's how we think about these markets, and that's how we try to reference our advantage, and then listen to customers to see, of course, if it resonates.

Chip Moore
Analyst at Roth

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Ted Jackson with Northland Securities. Please state your question.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Thanks very much. Congrats on the quarter.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

My first question is around the Fremont plant and, you know, the overhead costs with SiMaxx. I mean, is there a point where you just go to a, you know, you do an asset impairment and write it down and, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like, how does that play out? You know, you've got equipment in there that's very bespoke for the manufacturing of that product. That product's clearly fading out. You know what I mean? It's a sunk cost. It's not like it impacts cash flow.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

At some point, is there, you know, a case to be made to where, you know, you either, you know, write down, you know, the assets that are in there or, you know what I mean, like, or, and then, or just get rid of them, you know, as you get rid of SiMaxx. That's my first question.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah, that's a good question. The asset impairment actually happened in Q4 of last year. You may have seen our D&A went down pretty meaningfully from, you know, well over a million dollars to only about $800K. This was in essence just, you know, this is where accounting is really an art more than a science. We literally allocated the cost of Fremont by square foot and what that square foot is used for now to drive the allocation. We feel pretty good with where we landed here for Q1 and carrying that going forward until we start producing a little bit of SiCore in Fremont again late this year, early next year.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Mm-hmm. Is there a roadmap to just, you know, get out of that product or are you just kind of tied to it because of the customer base that's already there?

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

We'll definitely be out of it here in Q1. The last $600,000 of revenue were delivered in Q1. Quite a bit of that was inventory that was produced in Q4. We should be out of the woods on SiMaxx.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah, we converted all of our customers from SiMaxx to SiCore.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Okay. Okay, that's good news. Excuse me. My second question. On your battery pack partners, I know that, you know, that's a good way to leverage your business and, you know, grow revenue. I guess my question on that is can you kind of walk us through maybe a timeline and, you know, like maybe how many partners do you have? You know, maybe kind of what percentage of your revenue is coming from that and where it's come from, and how you see, you know, those partners helping drive your forward revenue. Thanks.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Some of our customers are vertically integrated, take our cells, build them into packs, add some electronics to manage the battery, to worry about, okay, is the battery full? Is it empty? What is the state of charge, et cetera. Other of our customers do that through pack partners that we have who in turn receive our cells. They're an intermediary. There are about 40 different pack companies that we work with in any given quarter. About six to 10 of those are major volume pack providers, those that we have under a certain program. There are three or four on our website that we have worked with. We're formalizing that program so that there are standard gold, silver, bronze type of partners where we share our roadmap with the pack partners.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Those that we are close to will be in our booth at shows. We've had joint press releases with a couple of the pack partners that we work with closely. They are a multiplier, a force multiplier for us because they often are asked by component companies, "Gosh, whose cells do you recommend?" They will listen to their customers and then say, "Well, look, if you want to optimize for energy density, there's really only one choice here." They help pull and add to our customer base. We like that relationship. It allows us to focus on what we do really well, which is make these industry-leading cells. It allows them to add the level of customization. We want this connector, we have this battery management system. We need it in this size or shape.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

You'll often hear that you need to match voltages and to the voltages of the systems. They'll put six of our batteries in series and then put two of those groups in parallel in order to do that. They do all that customization. They're great partners, and we're formalizing even stronger our relationship with them.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Is it fair to say that they've, as a percentage of your revenue, have they grown in terms of how they, you know, the percentage of revenue that's coming through them and, you know, you talk about them being a force multiplier and they're allowing you to, let's just say, reach a customer set that you might not be able to reach otherwise?

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. For standard cell sizes, they're a key driver, and we do expect their portion of sales to increase on some specific cell sizes.

Ted Jackson
Ted Jackson
Analyst at Northland Securities

Okay. All right. Thanks very much. Got my two questions.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Absolutely. Thanks, Ted.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Thanks, Ted.

Operator

Your next question comes from Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright. Please state your question.

Amit Dayal
Amit Dayal
Analyst at H.C. Wainwright

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. On the pouch cell performance.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Hey Amit.

Amit Dayal
Amit Dayal
Analyst at H.C. Wainwright

Hey, hey, Ricardo. Good morning. The pouch cell performance, should we expect this to match or even improve over the cylindrical format?

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Because the pouch cells have less overhead, they don't have a metal can, you take a little bit of weight out, and the gravimetric energy density tends to be higher. If you look at the 450 Wh/kg, those cells are pouch in format. The cylindricals tend to be 330-350, so a bit lower, again, because of some of the overheads.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

That's where the pouch lines up, and that's why the pouch are preferred for some of the high-end drones because you're really trying to eke out any weight that you can. If you can use a carbon fiber container for the pack housing versus metal, a little bit more expensive, but it's lighter.Those choices, again, back to the last question about pack partners, those choices would be made with the pack partners. That's super important. If you're trying to max energy density, you would choose a pouch.

Amit Dayal
Amit Dayal
Analyst at H.C. Wainwright

Understood, Tom. Thank you. Just as a follow-up to that, once the pouch cell is, you know, cemented and, you know, confirmed all the design, et cetera, is that when you get a little bit more aggressive about sort of building the pipeline for maybe the U.S. non-drone defense opportunity?

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Yeah. That's where some of the standardization comes in. Standardized cells and then putting them into standard packs can really make a lot of sense. There's standard voltages in automotive, right? We all know 12 volts and then 24 volts, and then even the data centers, they've got 800 volts standards that are either here or emerging. The same thing is happening in drone land, where there are preferred voltages and components.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

If you have standardized cells, you can put them together into packs that meet those voltages, so you can be part of this ecosystem. All that's focused on adding some of the efficiencies, taking out some of that friction on the engineering side, so you can get these iterative better drones available with using off-the-shelf, but in our case, premium products to maximize the missions that these crafts might be addressing.

Amit Dayal
Amit Dayal
Analyst at H.C. Wainwright

Thank you. Great to see the execution, guys. Congratulations. I'll take my other questions offline. Thank you.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Okay. Thanks, Tom.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

Thank you.

Ricardo Rodriguez
Ricardo Rodriguez
CFO at Amprius Technologies

Take care.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, this concludes our question and answer session. If you have any additional questions, you may contact Amprius' investor relations team at ir@amprius.com. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Tom for his closing remarks.

Tom Stepien
Tom Stepien
CEO at Amprius Technologies

I wanna thank all of our shareholders, employees, and partners for their continued support. At Amprius, we believe the next decade belongs to those who push the limits of what is possible, and that's exactly what we intend to do. Thank you for your time and attention this morning. Operator.

Operator

Thank you for joining us today for Amprius Technologies' First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Ricardo Rodriguez
      Ricardo Rodriguez
      CFO
    • Tom Stepien
      Tom Stepien
      CEO
    • Company Representative
Analysts
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