Q4 2020 Aware Inc Earnings Call
Joining us today is the company's CEO and President, Bob <unk> and CFO, David Barcelona.
Following their remarks, we will open the call for questions if you'd like to submit a question you can do so at any time using the built in ask a question feature in the webcast player.
Before we begin today's call I would like to remind everyone that the presentation. Today contains forward looking statements that are based on the current expectations of a wheres management and involve inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described.
Listeners should please take note of the Safe Harbor paragraph that is included at the end of today's press release.
Paragraph emphasizes the major uncertainties and risks inherent in forward looking statements that management will be making today.
We're wishes to caution you that there are factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results indicated by such statements. These risks and uncertainties are also outlined in the company's SEC filings, including its annual report on form 10-K, and quarterly reports on form 10-Q.
Any forward looking statements should be considered in light of these factors.
You are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon any forward looking statements, which speak only as of today.
Although it may voluntarily do so from time to time, where undertakes no commitment to update or revise the forward looking statements whether as a result of new information future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws.
I would like to remind everyone that this presentation will be recorded and made available for replay via a link available in the Investor Relations section of the company's web site.
Now I would like to turn the call over to aware CEO and President Bob <unk> Bob.
Thanks for the introduction mat.
Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today.
After the market closed we issued a press release announcing our results for the fourth quarter and full year ending December 31 2020.
A copy of the press release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website.
As many of you know this is our first earnings call as the new aware.
We are thankful for the opportunity to share what we've been up to for the past year.
We're also excited to share with you, our new strategy to accelerate growth and rapidly scale.
In the future, we expect to enhance our investor engagement initiatives by hosting quarterly earnings calls participating in financial conferences, and having a more frequent conversation with our investors and analysts on this call I will provide you with a high level overview of this quarter's operational results turn it over to our <unk>.
Oh, David Barcelona to review, our financial results for the quarter on a full year and lastly, I'll take some time to share.
What we've been up to.
And where we're going after that we'll open the call for questions.
Yeah.
This quarter, we generated our second consecutive quarter of revenue growth as well as a 40% year over year quarter increase in revenue.
This was driven by a nearly doubling of our overall pipeline.
And a quick toppling the size of our subscription revenue equally.
Equally important we ended the year by completing our first acquisition.
I'll touch on our acquisition of <unk>, a fixed product suite in more detail a bit later, but the transaction was immediately accretive and providing us with a strategic IP portfolio that enables us to expand and serve a diverse set of customers.
Even with these accomplishments we are not immune to the pandemic related headwinds that so many of us have faced.
During this time.
Thankfully, we took a thoughtful and proactive approach prioritizes, the health and safety of all of our stakeholders as well as the long term viability of our business.
Though the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has hindered and changed our sales tactics, we continue to make headway expanding aware as market presence through industry partners and our direct sales team.
Furthermore of the pandemic has helped bring to light several growth catalysts that we believe bode well for our business commercial enterprises of all sizes are finding value in biometric technologies as everyone transforms our daily interactions.
Adopting touchless infrastructure and performing remote Verifications gear.
Given that software is expected to be the fastest growing market for biometric systems, we stand well positioned to benefit from these trends now.
Now I'll turn it over to Dave Barcelona, who will walk us through our financial results for both the quarter on a year Dave over to you.
Thank you Bob.
Good afternoon to everyone on the call Alright, now, let us turn to our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31 2020.
Our total revenue in the fourth quarter increased 40% to $3 $4 million from $2 5 million in Q4 of last year.
Sequentially revenue increased 38% up from $2 5 million in the prior quarter.
With the sequential and year over year increases were primarily due to higher software license and subscription revenues.
For the full year 2020, our total revenue decreased 7% to $11 3 million from $12 2 million in 2019.
The year over year decrease in revenue was primarily due to lower services revenue related to a multiyear international project signed with a systems integrator in the second quarter of 2018, which was partially offset by higher subscription revenue.
Turning to our operating expenses.
For the fourth quarter of 2020, our operating expenses increased 26% to $5 3 million from $4 $2 million in Q4 of last year.
For the full year 2020, our operating expenses increased 27% to $20 7 million from $16 4 million in 2019.
The quarterly and annual increase was primarily due to an investment in sales and engineering resources as we scale to execute on our growth strategy.
The annual increase also includes $1 $2 million of nonrecurring expenses, including in the first half of 2020 related to severance payments recruiting fees and COVID-19 related charges.
The corresponding operating loss for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $1 $9 million compared to an operating loss of $1 7 million in the same year ago period.
The year over year increase in operating loss resulted primarily from higher total costs.
For the full year 2020, our operating loss was $9 4 million compared to $4 2 million the year before.
The annual increase in operating loss was primarily the result of lower revenue as well as higher total costs and expenses in 2020.
For the full year 2020, GAAP net loss totaled $7.6 million or <unk> 35 per share compared to a GAAP net loss of $8 3 million or <unk> 39 per share in 2019.
On the balance sheet, we had $38 6 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter.
Compared to $42 3 million at the end of the prior quarter and $47 7 million on December 31 2019.
Throughout the year, we invested $2 $9 million to acquire <unk> ethics product suite and other capital purchases.
The <unk> 9 million to buy 298000 shares in our share buyback program.
And we used $5 $3 million in the course of operations.
Aware maintains a strong and strategic cash position that enables us to allocate capital to high ROI opportunities as they present themselves.
Actively continuing to evaluate opportunities to ensure that we are making strategic investments to realize growth and scale as an organization.
Okay.
Organically, we've seen significant growth from our nomi subscription accounts, we surpassed 5 million transactions in the fourth quarter alone and over $11 million for the year.
Growing volumes that tested the strength and scalability of this product line and the success is paving the way for future growth as new customers on board based on the recommendations of our current customer base.
This completes my financial summary, now I'd like to turn the call back to Bob for additional insights on our operational progress in Q4 key initiatives and priorities in 2021 and beyond.
Bob.
Thanks, Dave for review on our company's financials.
Prior to joining the aware team as a CEO just over a year ago I work strategically with the aware as management team as a consultant.
At the time the company had a reputation as the biometric middleware go to partner for some of the world's most renowned government agencies.
Saw a great deal of potential upside in scale on a company and reputation focusing on the product offerings and growing our commercial customer base directly and through channel partners I've dedicated my early tenure to enhancing aware as market profile and addressing these opportunities along with building our team.
For those of you that are new to the story I would like to take a little bit of time to explain why aware his excellent reputation is warranted.
Simply put aware is built on a 30 year plus foundation of success and trusted by over 100 commercial leaders 80 of the world's most premier government agencies 20 industry partners in 20 countries.
This trust comes from our expertise and liveliness spoofing prevention any implementation of customer manage and integration ready multi modal biometric and middleware solutions and systems.
All of which are proven through our robust installations on customer success.
Our robust integration is what distinguishes us from others in the biometric space.
Historically, we have relied on SDK and tool kits to provide customers with the functionality they need.
At a high level these products enable customers to enroll identify authenticate and manage identity data and transactions with frictionless <unk> touchless access and professional grade security.
Now more than ever there is a growing need for this biometric functionality in both the government and commercial sectors.
The rising complexity combined with growth in remote access requirements and access to advanced technologies.
Enterprises open themselves up to identity fraud, and imposture scams day.
These result in billions of dollars of loss each year.
The convergence of market readiness and the technological capability prompted us to prepare the company for our strategic transformation.
We certainly didn't anticipate a global pandemic and macroeconomic downturn this year, but it nonetheless accelerated a massive transformation not just for our business, but for the global community at large.
So much is still uncertain at the moment, we do know that some things are here to say.
At a fairly early stage, we recognize some of the lasting effects of the virus and took swift action to adapt our technologies accordingly.
Last year, we released an updated version of our facial recognition offering nomi, the new version intelligently decipher between mass and unmatched images without sacrificing speed or usability and the process.
Any other fundamental changes in how we work and interact with each other aren't going away anytime soon these changes bode well for the wider market.
Industry analysts estimate that it wears addressable market will grow from $11 billion in 2000 $20 billion to $20 billion in 2025.
The growth was primarily driven by the increased adoption of biometric technology and enterprises and increased demand for touchless systems.
We still expect to see significant growth on the government side with respect to applications and border management Civil service in law enforcement, which we hope to continue capturing as a leader in the government space on a commercial side, we expect to see the most rapid growth in banking payment services and retail.
There still is emerging opportunities in new verticals that we hope to penetrate as well.
While much of the world and US included a focus on keeping everyone safe and healthy. We have also used this time to implement strategic improvements in nearly every area of our business. These improvements have centered around a multi pronged transformation for growth that has guided our executive and operational choices throughout the past year.
First we have transformed and added capabilities to our platform to create focus offerings to serve the evolving needs of our government and commercial customers.
As I mentioned earlier, we have historically relied on SDK building blocks to meet the unique needs of our customers.
More recently, we've established platform and framework offerings that provide customers with more capabilities and complete offerings that can be integrated faster better and more flexibly in customer environments. We have chosen to address customers' needs such as liveliness in matching biometric software as a service biometric.
Middleware and biometric identification systems.
I'd like to touch briefly on each of these offerings next few minutes.
No me as our Premier mobile authentication software, which enables unpracticed document verification, along with face and voice matching and liveliness detection.
Meaning that it can verify whether to use her as a live human being or if the registration system is being subjected to presentation attack.
Nobody is recognized as one of the industry's leading liveliness detection software passing independent and rigorous testing in both levels, one and two of I betas presentation attack detection conformance evaluation. These.
These rigorous test assess the software's ability to distinguish between real valid users and sophisticated attacks using artifacts like latex mass three D printed face molds and many other attack vectors.
Nobody has applications in nearly every vertical from authenticating offenders in prisons and managing parolees.
Two verifying banking transactions for retail customers and more importantly, Gnome is designed to optimally balance between security and convenience designed specifically with low friction. It enables users to use their own devices and perform identity proofing transactions without special training in it.
So their own home.
As such no me is ideal for managing mobile digital on boarding safely and conveniently.
Indigo is aware, it's cloud based biometric offering which is provisioned as an application programming interface or commonly known as Apis for turnkey services. Each provided as a subscription based software as a service or API as a service indigo provides biometric fee.
Just on voice Aliveness analysis with document validation support and face and voice in fingerprint image analysis matching and enrollment functionality.
All the granular services are provided to enhance identity systems with biometric functionality indigo cloud based offerings deliver biometric capabilities.
Accessible from a browser or a smartphone or tablet on a subscription basis and it goes provided as a subscription based offering.
Available as an enterprise base user base or transaction based model.
Moving forward indigo would be transitioned into a wider SaaS offering.
Our industry, leading middleware offering is bio S P.
Also known as biometric service platform. It's a modular open platform used to enable biometric systems with advanced biometric data processing and management functionality in a web services architecture. It provides workflow data management and formatting and other important utilities for large scale biometric.
Systems.
Additionally, aware offers a complete family of automated biometric identification system.
Our cash.
<unk> known as ABS products for any size civil or law enforcement community.
From small customized solutions to large enterprise implementation aware as avis offerings are aligned to virtually any customer need.
For large scale biometric identification aware Avis is designed to serve between one and 30 million identities are more.
And its modular architecture help security teams configure and optimize the system for civil or criminal applications for.
For small scale biometric identification a fixed tracker is designed to serve between 15000 and $2 million identities and is ideal for crime scene investigation applications and low to moderate sized community populations.
For plug in biometric identification aware as Astro provides the speed and accuracy of aware Avis is a plug in for existing business processes and workflows.
These transformed offerings, which are still as customer controlled managed configurable and integration ready as our legacy SD case, where deliver a robust proven set of solutions that more clearly articulate the biometric applications on aware can offer.
The second component of our transformational offerings strategy is the shift towards biometric identity management as a service.
S offerings, which provide customer configurable.
Usage base use what you need and buy what you need services. We expect these offerings to drive sustained growth across multiple verticals and transitioning towards SaaS offerings. We believe that we will produce recurring revenue that grows as our customers grow.
In the past we've operated on a business model governed by perpetual license maintenance and service revenues.
This model has resulted in less predictable revenues fluctuate not and are not consistently repeatable quarter over quarter or year over year.
With a subscription or renewing term SaaS model, we expect to receive recurring revenue commensurate with a particular customer's usage or transaction level.
This enables a more consistent stream of revenue. It also allows smaller players and new entrants who may have historically felt put off or left out by committing to a perpetual license the joined the game at their own pace.
The final part of our transformation is to expand our pipeline increase our market share by leveraging strategic industry partners. In these partnerships, we provide our software to Oems value added resellers and integrated resellers. They in term find innovative ways to integrate our products with their hardware.
Or solution and bring them to market at a rapid pace without needing to invest in biometrics or the expertise and biometrics technology.
Put these white labeling scenarios with our partners are integral and demonstrating the superiority of aware brand and winning new customers.
In addition to helping us scale on the existing verticals, we serve our partners allow us to penetrate new growth in emerging markets, even though our primary focus remains in government financial services payment processing and retail we recognize a growing list of applications that can benefit from biometric applications.
These include data and network security personal security consumer services health care and the shared economy.
As a result of our 'twenty 'twenty effort securing partners, we enter 2021 with a robust pipeline of opportunities.
Engaging partners not only helps us expand market share on existing growth markets, but also helps us penetrate emerging markets, which are becoming larger and larger components of the total addressable market.
Our transformation is far from complete but it is in full swing. We are cautiously optimistic that we've taken measurable and necessary steps to rapidly scale, the business and ultimately drive value for our shareholders.
Our acquisition of <unk>, a fixed product suite is a fundamental building block of our growth strategy. The acquisition provides technology to complement our newly launched aware avis.
And most importantly access to over 180 active law enforcement customers to augment our new product line.
Most importantly, the shared expertise and cultural fit between the teams bodes well for our future success.
We continue to assess and evaluate other strategic opportunities that will contribute to and help expedite our growth strategy.
Along with our achievements on the foundation, we built in 2020, we must recognize our decline in sales we are not immune to the impacts of the pandemic.
However, as evidenced by our strong quarterly growth exiting the year, we believe the pandemic primarily delayed major projects on award in our market and that we did not lose expected business as such we balance our investments in growth with cost containment strategies, including foregoing pay increases for 2021.
Pandemic uncertainties aside with this preparation and foundation, we head into the new year well position. We've made good progress in our ongoing business transformation through our streamlined offerings transition to SaaS and usage based subscriptions and.
An expansion of our pipeline.
Before I finish I'd like to express my thanks to the entire aware family and team who I believe are some of the most net.
Knowledgeable.
Interactive and agile biometric experts out there.
With their support we become a leader in applying biometrics to add value reduce friction and increase security and bringing biometrics to life and.
And with that we're ready to open the call for questions. Matt Please provide the appropriate instructions.
Yeah.
Thank you Bob as a reminder, you can submit a question using the built in ask a question feature in our webcast player. Please hold while we populate the question.
Our first question is the combination of apex with aware Avis and aware of the Astra enables quick turnkey deployment or customized solution to keep communities safe no matter their size.
We define the transaction in terms of personnel sales and revenue and cost of acquisition are there current examples of the scope of business opportunities, resulting post acquisition Bob.
All right. Thanks, Matt Thanks for the question.
The global law enforcement software market is over $10 billion and the acquisition of ethics provides aware with a strong customer base.
And it gives us over 100 and AG agencies to grow our market share and sell both a fixed and be aware Adas products.
So we feel by combining the two product families and leveraging the expertise of the seven members of the <unk> aware, we'll be able to serve the avis needs.
Large and small law enforcement agencies, and an addressable market estimated at about $200 million.
Yeah.
Thanks, Bob Our next question. Please differentiate the apex combination with aware its press release from January 26, 2021, we're in where states.
With launch of them aware Avis aware offers a modular avid's product design for civil and criminal application.
The acquisition of apex targeted avis applications for smaller scale law enforcement agencies.
Think of it in terms of like 15000 to 2 million subjects, where the aware a best product introduced in January 26 press release is designed for larger scale of law enforcement agencies.
From about 1% to 30 million subjects or more.
And also applications in civil identity and National Security.
We know there is some overlap but each product set is designed with a different philosophy on target customer base in mind.
Where is now the only company that can effectively address and support deployments to all segments of the global labor market from small to medium to large and even very large.
Thanks, Bob Our next question why can't aware offer its EBIT software to California, and the other 49 states at no cost and charge a monthly fee for every employee.
If a worker charged 60 cents to one dollar per month per employee to prevent unemployment fraud. It would say the save California billions of dollars and will generate millions for aware.
And where could encrypted biometric data or the biometric data on the employees in the system and for the employees filing unemployment claims it would eliminate any objection from parties, arguing they're civil rights had been violated.
Well.
Company is actively pursuing all high value opportunities to scale the business.
But we also recognize that it was.
Regulatory challenges associated with establishing new government use applications.
However that being said.
One of our objectives is to establish prime integrator partners and we've talked about some of the partners and what we're doing in the release and then.
Just a call a few moments ago, where we provide the technology for them to pursue and to use these and large government opportunities.
There's a lot of opportunities there is a lot of.
Proposal on extra work that goes into it and we feel that the prime integrators are.
Better position, but we have the technology that will support these initiatives.
Thanks, Bob aware has a block chain patent issued in 2020, we're making any marketing efforts in the blockchain sector to advantage.
Of the patents and take advantage of that excuse me.
At any given time, we're actively evaluating multiple innovations and market verticals.
Where we can apply and use biometric technology.
So that's why I spent time and we have built over the years.
Prior to me a team with some of the best and brightest biometric research and applied engineering.
Talent out there.
And so when an innovation rises to this level of unique differentiation.
It causes us to believe we can be a leader in the technology or the application.
Now we go when we file a patent we have an active patent.
Program here.
From their commonplace not to disclose on either progress on our technical advances.
And the market offerings until we bring them to market.
So yeah.
We still have the patent in question, but I am unable to discuss the current activities that may leverage that specific piece of IP.
Thanks, Bob Our next question is Lifelock as a billion dollar company direct to the public protecting People's identities. In addition to aware marketing business and government aware should consider operating biometric identity protection to the public could call. This awareness and offer at a lower price than Lifelock company.
Could then use this customer base to market the banks retailers credit card companies et cetera.
Hum.
So I'm just trying to think of.
I kind of answered some of the question we're actively pursuing these high value opportunities to.
Scale our business.
And as you know our current focus on government and business commercial sectors.
However, we're monitoring and we're evaluating some of these other opportunities.
But we're also weighing the challenges associated with establishing new applications direct to consumers, it's very different than.
B to G and B to B.
But we are committed to our transformational growth strategy and to providing shareholder value regardless of the specific market segments. So I do like the question and.
Obviously, where we will look at that we just want to understand the risks and the.
Vs opportunities.
Thanks, Bob next question. The last time the company had a conference call was in 2014 at that point. The company said they were going to split into two one company handling all of its patents and related licensing.
What has become on this.
Well, while it's difficult to know the details of the initiatives that you are referring to it predates me and most of the current executive team.
We do have a strong IP portfolio and we are committed to leveraging our IP.
As we work to accomplishing the goals on the transformation, we set forward in the call.
Have any.
Further discussion around splitting things into two or any of that at this time.
Yeah.
Our next question can you explain the recent activity around aware stock over the last couple of days, specifically with respect to volume.
Yes.
We're not able to understand why theres been an increase in stock price and trading volume over the past few days.
I just don't want to speculate at all.
Okay.
Thanks, Bob Our next question, you mentioned, taking measurable and necessary steps in relation to rapidly scaling the business and driving value for shareholders.
Elaborate on this <unk> provide examples of steps.
Yeah as I stated earlier, we took the necessary steps to invest in management.
On the team.
Management systems, and some of the systems that I inherited where over a decade old.
Adopt new standard processes too.
Eight and speed and scalability, we converted the agile development methodologies, we've added a program office to embrace larger programs and delivery more efficiently and faster and.
Then provide.
Quicker responses back to a customer on our standard value project products and programs.
Also we were investing in our employees and growing our front end of the business.
And the staffing levels as we planned so right now we're staffed at a level that we anticipate but we are at the right level. We're always looking for a couple are good.
People relative to business development and sales engineering and research, but I believe we're at the right level to grow what we need to.
Next question. This one's for you, Dave you mentioned 5 million.
Million nomi transactions in the quarter, how do you recognize revenue from those transactions and whereas in the income statement.
Yeah. Thanks, Matt Yeah, so the $5 million not only transactions are a part of just in general we're disclosing more and more information on our subscription revenue on our earnings announcements.
But our financial statements, we disclosed revenue there based on materiality and we continue evaluating that regularly with our advisors.
So right now the subscription revenue relates to those transactions all sits within our licensing revenue segment.
Thanks, David sticking with you here for a minute can you elaborate on the dynamics for consumption based SaaS revenues are you charging customers on a per transaction basis, and how our customers charge for their use of the platform.
Okay.
Yeah. So it's.
It's per transaction and per user for example are known the offering.
We allow customers to consume both per user and per transaction basis.
In addition to what was previously offered which was the more standard enterprise license.
This is a model that has some tiered pricing.
Customers choose various volume tiers of either the transactions or the users are.
And then they consume that throughout the year and we reset the counter on each anniversary.
Thanks, Dave what are your capital allocation priorities, how do you determine whether an investment has a sufficient return.
Yeah, we're fortunate to have a nice strong balance sheet here, particularly on our cash balance and so now that we've completed our first season.
Of investments that Bob talked about and we've positioned the company to scale and grow.
We now look to invest in our long term growth opportunities.
Things that are more aligned with our long term growth strategy.
Spent some time theyre outlining on the call.
What our growth strategy is so therefore investments will align with that and we will judge ROI based off of how well it aligns to our strategy. So for instance building on our biometric expertise with our focused offerings transforming to SaaS to address some of the consumption base customers and then of course <unk>.
Into adjacent markets.
Thanks, David Bob This one's for you will you be providing quarterly or shorter term guidance.
Well I think everybody that.
I've been with aware or looking to invest where the where our objective is long term growth.
So growing the topline taking advantage of the growth in the biometrics market.
We don't plan to currently issue quarterly or yearly guidance. However, we're going to keep our investors apprised of our transformational progress.
Through our retained Investor relations.
Which we have with Matt here and team at Gateway and these quarterly conference calls.
Thanks, Bob as someone else pointed out the last time the company had a quarterly conference call was in 2014 why did you decide to start doing it again now is there any significance behind the timing.
Okay.
As I mentioned earlier I joined aware as the CEO just over a year ago.
And I've dedicated my early tenure to enhance awareness market profile and address.
The opportunities that are presented to it.
Along with building a team. So I spent a lot of time doing that part of the enhancement to our market profile was the introduction of a formalized investor relations program with the support of Gateway.
Thank you, Matt and team.
As we shared in our September 28, 2020 press release.
In that release, we share together.
Sure that together, we're going to be focusing on developing and deploying a comprehensive outreach communications program.
Engagement that we just started launching in late September with Gateway.
I felt in gateway. It felt this was the really the first opportunity for quarterly earnings call on.
Other than that timing alignment theres no significance behind starting the calls now.
But we do look forward to maintaining the quarterly cadence in the future.
Yes.
Thanks, Bob how do you see yourselves competing or working with larger corporations like Apple and Amazon, who are getting more involved with biometric hardware and software.
Well, we see companies like Apple and Amazon serving different needs in the market.
We focus on lightness in complex workflows optimize beats.
Between security and low friction.
Additionally, we're not limited authentication, we've got a portfolio of biometric assets that play together.
Serve the entire biometrics value chain that includes authentication and proofing and verification.
And identification for both civil and criminal applications.
Our understanding is that's not the focus of the apples and the Amazons of the world.
Thanks, Bob can you shed some more light on when we'll see the transformation pick up speed what are some indicators that we've been through the bulk of the transformation should we expect to be seeing subscription revenue overtake license revenue in few quarters few years.
Okay.
Well.
While we have been aggressively pursue on our subscription revenue and build on our backlog of recurring revenue.
Again, I'll say, our objective is long term growth growing the topline.
Taken advantage of the growth on the biometrics market.
And so as such we're not prescriptive about the mix of the revenue lines. I mentioned, we started and set up a program office to address programs and projects that add value to a bigger customers, so but to keep our investors apprised of the transformation.
We've highlighted the growth in the number of subscription transactions that Dave just talked about.
And we'll continue to do so as we continue transforming to make you aware of the adoption rates. The best we can and what we're seeing out there.
Thanks, Bob Our next question I'm wondering what your team thinks about the impact of associated with processing units or a P use on the facial recognition market does this hardware increased the tam by making it easier to do facial recognition.
At scale.
Uh huh.
The simple answer is no.
While there may be a positive correlation between the total addressable market and increased use of AP use.
On handling facial recognition quarries.
We don't believe this to be a casual relationship in other words, there are relatively few applications that would require hardware acceleration.
That the Apu's would provide and aware.
Best case, we've assessed our customers need and they determined that hardware acceleration does not necessarily.
To best serve them at this time I mean, we've got high speed systems for aliveness, and matching and the others and depending on the use cases.
It's been good we're always working on speed of course, but remember.
A lot of it's become moved out to the edge devices, and we're very cognizant of that.
But as all technological trends happened and we're continually monitoring and we're always listening to our customers. So we can implement these advancements if and when they become necessary.
Thanks, Bob at this time. This concludes our question and answer session. We recognize there is still some questions outstanding but we're out of time for quadrant question wasn't answered. Please email aware as the IR team at AWS E. At Gateway IR Dot Com I will now turn the call back over to Bob for closing remarks, Bob.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Matt and I'd like to thank everyone for joining us on today's call. We're looking forward to maintaining our quarterly call cadence we're excited about <unk>.
Announcing that a new investor presentation.
It's gonna be soon made available on the investors section of our website. So we've been working on that for a while.
That would give you some insight into.
Further where we're going.
And I, especially want to thank our employees are aware all of our partners that we've been signing up and work with.
Of course, the investors for your continued support and we look forward to updating you further on our next call.
Now turn it over to you.
Thanks, Bob I would like to remind everyone that a recording of today's call will be available for replay via link available in the Investor section of the company's website. Thank you for joining us today for aware its fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings Conference call you may now disconnect.