Q4 2025 Digi International Inc Earnings Call
Speaker #1: After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone; you will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.
Speaker #1: To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jamie Locke, CFO.
Speaker #1: Please go
Speaker #1: ahead.
Speaker #2: Thank you. Good day, everyone. It's
Speaker #2: great to talk to you again, and thanks for joining us today to discuss the earnings results of DIGI INTERNATIONAL. Joining me on today's call is Ron Konezny, our president and CEO.
Speaker #2: We issued our earnings release after the market closed today. You may obtain a copy of the press release through the financial releases section of our Investor Relations website at digi.com.
Speaker #2: This afternoon, Ron will provide a comment on our performance, and then we'll take your questions. Some of the statements that we make during this call are considered forward-looking and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties.
Speaker #2: These statements reflect our expectations about future operating and financial performance and speak only as of today's date. We undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise these forward-looking statements.
Speaker #2: While we believe the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we give no assurance such expectations will be met or that any of our forward-looking statements will prove to be correct.
Speaker #2: For additional information, please refer to the forward-looking statements section in our earnings release today and the risk factor section of our most recent form 10-K and subsequent reports on file with the SEC.
Speaker #2: Finally, certain of the financial information disclosed on this call includes non-GAAP measures. The information required to be disclosed about these measures—including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures—are included in the earnings release.
Speaker #2: The earnings release is also furnished as an exhibit to Form 8-K that can be accessed through the SEC filing sections of our Investor Relations website.
Speaker #2: Now, I'll turn the call over to.
Speaker #3: Thank Ron. you, Jamie. Good afternoon, everyone. Before we take questions, I'd like to reflect on our fiscal 2025 performance and share our outlook for fiscal 2026.
Speaker #3: DIGI delivered a strong finish to the year, with record quarterly revenue of $114 million up 9% year-over-year, cementing our return to top-line growth. We reported a record $152 million of ARR, with the inclusion of JOLTS software acquired in August of this year.
Speaker #3: We represent a 31% year-over-year increase. This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit ARR growth. ARR now represents approximately 35% of total revenue. Underscoring our continued transition from transactional sales to multi-year solution subscriptions.
Speaker #3: For the full fiscal year, we generated $430 million in revenue, up 1% year-over-year, and $108 million in adjusted EBITDA, an 11% increase year-over-year. Incredible collaboration between our product lines, and supply chain teams, drove inventory down, helping our cash conversion to deliver $105 million in free cash flow for a yield of 8%.
Speaker #3: We paid off all the debt from the ventures acquisition as promised. Lastly, the integration of SmartSense and JOLTS is being embraced by the marketplace, with our first cross-selling opportunities unfolding.
Speaker #3: We have a clear vision of the combined platform, and we have integrated the teams. DIGI's broad industrial Internet of Things offerings, from embedded solutions to edge solutions, to turnkey vertical offerings appeal to a wide variety of industries and applications.
Speaker #3: This diversity fuels our resilience, durability, and relevance. DIGI's unique position in the market allows us to participate in emerging and evolving technology trends, such as artificial intelligence, edge computing, and the industrial automation.
Speaker #3: We see a broad-based opportunity in connected hundreds of billions of devices to the Internet. Our AI journey began with an internal focus, and we have seen meaningful productivity gains across the company.
Speaker #3: We are now in the process of leveraging AI for our products and solutions. Integrating AI as a search tool within our web applications, and exploring the use of tiny language models at the edge, are potential examples we are beginning to explore.
Speaker #3: These types of advancements can enhance our customer experience and unlock additional ROI. Acquisitions remain our top capital deployment priority, and we are attracting a number of opportunities in the industrial IoT space.
Speaker #3: In fiscal 2026, we expect double-digit growth for all three of our key metrics: ARR, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. We are confident in our long-term goal of reaching $200 million of ARR and $200 million in adjusted EBITDA by the end of fiscal 2028.
Speaker #3: Additional strategic acquisitions align with these metrics may accelerate this timeline. As we celebrate DIGI's 40th anniversary, I want to recognize our team's incredible dedication and laser focus on our customers' work with these outstanding success.
Speaker #3: teammates. Very few companies that went public in 1989 remain independent today. For perspective, the median lifespan for all U.S. I'm so incredibly proud to companies is 78 years, for the current-day S&P 500, it's about 18 years.
Speaker #3: Our team's ability to adapt and evolve is a testament to our enduring culture and commitment to continuous improvement. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator.
Speaker #3: Thank you.
Speaker #2: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again.
Speaker #2: Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment. And our first question comes from Tommy Mall of Stevens. Your line is open.
Speaker #2: open.
Speaker #4: Good
Speaker #4: Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my
Speaker #4: questions. Thanks,
Speaker #4: Ron, I wanted to start on Tommy. The P&S recurring revenue trends show strong growth again this quarter, whether you're looking quarter over quarter or year over year. What can you share about the field-level execution here?
Speaker #4: Any tweaks you've made in the go-to-market? What's driving some of the success? And if you keep this up, how much of that segment in particular is up for grabs to sell on a recurring
Speaker #4: basis?
Speaker #3: Yeah, Tommy, good question. As you
Speaker #3: know, we've talked about it for several periods here about wanting to sell solutions and having 100% attached. And we really are getting closer to that goal.
Speaker #3: And so you're seeing that progress, and it's a testament to our teams, but also our channel partners that have embraced this as well. And it's not all about just the upfront sale.
Speaker #3: It's delivering on that promise. And of course, contract extensions, renewals, and co-termination, those kind of things. But it's been great to see the progress, and you're seeing that attached rate really increase.
Speaker #3: And we expect that to continue in FY26.
Speaker #4: I'm going to ask a multi-part question here. On your revenue guidance, just to address some issues that I think will come up in the coming quarters.
Speaker #4: So to the extent you can answer, these please do. So a few things jump out. On the trend for recurring revenue, it sits below what your reported revenue is expected to be.
Speaker #4: What's driving the spread there between those two? And then separately, how much are you assuming for JOLTS, just so we could have more of an organic view if we want to strip that out?
Speaker #4: And how much are you assuming for data centers? Is that a theme worth exploring here as a key growth driver? I'll let you answer whatever you can there.
Speaker #4: Thank you.
Speaker #3: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, we were very deliberate in the guidance. We're taking two successful teams, SmartSense and JOLTS, and we've combined them. We've got some synergies.
Speaker #3: We've captured. So I think we've been just deliberate in incorporating that into our guidance. There's incredible growth opportunities, but there's also obviously some integration we're working through with the teams, with the solutions, with the customer base as well.
Speaker #3: JOLTS has tended, Tommy, to sell a little bottoms-up, the smaller customers, reaching into the enterprise. We've tended at SmartSense to be the opposite, selling enterprise.
Speaker #3: And so we're really moving towards enterprise sales and away from the very, very small customers. And so that's really incorporated in that ARR guidance that you see in fiscal 26.
Speaker #3: Regarding revenue, we're seeing really strong contributions from a wide variety of verticals: data centers, certainly one of those. And that's really lifting that one-time revenue, which helps that incorporated with JOLTS.
Speaker #3: As you recall from our acquisition, we indicated that JOLTS contributed over $20 million in annualized recurring revenue. So, you can kind of add that into the organic growth rate, or that's embedded in 26, which, of course, the ARR is incorporated. The revenue we had was about half a quarter that we were able to enjoy in Fiscal 25.
Speaker #4: Thank you for all that, Ron. I'll turn it
Speaker #2: Thank you. And our next question comes from Scott Searle of Rough Capital. Your line is open.
Speaker #5: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. And really nice job on the quarter, guys.
Speaker #5: Jamie, maybe first just to Thanks. calibrate in the September quarter, I'm wondering if you could just break out JOLTS so we have an idea of the organic uplift in the quarter.
Speaker #5: It seems like things accelerated towards the end of the quarter, and maybe bolting onto that, I think in some of our last conversations, over the past couple of quarters, sales cycles had been getting extended, and it seemed like that was kind of contracting and starting to go in the other direction.
Speaker #5: I'm wondering if you could comment in terms of the general pace of business right now and maybe by vertical how you're seeing that demand and those decisions getting made now.
Speaker #5: Is there an acceleration? And maybe as well, if you could address any sort of government headwinds on that
Speaker #5: front as well. Yeah,
Speaker #3: thanks, Scott. I think relative to the first question on the JOLTS side, back to Ron's sort of comment on it, at the time of the acquisition, we had indicated JOLTS had done over $20 million of ARR, the JOLTS deal was closed midway through August.
Speaker #3: So you could sort of envision, based on that ARR with a month and a half, what the revenue contribution would have been like based on what we had disclosed at the time of acquisition.
Speaker #3: So that would kind of give you a guide there in terms of how that impacted both Q4 as well as what the impact would be on 26 going back to that press release?
Speaker #3: I would say in terms of more broader macro kind of conditions, I do think that we're seeing a certain verticals are maybe accelerating some of their decision-making.
Speaker #3: I think others are still taking their time. I think the current shutdown in the government adds to just uncertainty. I would say we're less impacted by, say, pure government shutdown and more just by the continued uncertainty that it drives out the marketplace.
Speaker #3: And so I think, again, you kind of we've seen over the last several years, we're bouncing from issue to issue, whether that's from COVID into supply chain challenges into macro headwinds.
Speaker #3: And to tariff questions, and now into the shutdown. And so that uncertainty, I think, causes delays I don't think it's as much because of specific end users or, say, programs that we're working with government entities as much as it just kind of drags it out.
Speaker #3: Undoubtedly, though, there are certain verticals where you can see a lot of movement, and decision-making is having to ramp up in order for those customers to be able to meet their critical objectives.
Speaker #3: So I would say on the whole, things are accelerating. But for sure, the current geopolitical conditions are creating some uncertainty that keeps things a little bit suppressed in terms of normalcy.
Speaker #5: Gotcha. And Ron, maybe if I could, your comments in terms of processing at the edge, and I think tiny language models. I'm wondering if you could expand on that in terms of what you're seeing from a customer input desire, I guess, and design activity, where you guys are going on that front, what kind of opportunities that represents.
Speaker #5: And maybe kind of couple that with some thoughts on M&A you folded in JOLTS in the last quarter. But it sounds like you guys have got some more deck capacity now, in effect, to go out and start to be a little bit more aggressive.
Speaker #5: I wonder if you could give us your latest thoughts on that front.
Speaker #3: Yeah, on the first one, and I'll provide some context to my comments that I think AI in the industrial IoT world will be a very long fuse.
Speaker #3: It will have different durations depending upon industries because the very first part of AI is you got to get your data collected and normalized and ready to be used by AI.
Speaker #3: So whether you're a manufacturer of generators, elevators, solar farms, all those different industries and all the different market participants have their own journeys. They're going on to get their data ready to be leveraged by AI.
Speaker #3: But to give you sort of a crude example, today most IoT applications there's a device at the edge that's interfacing with some piece of equipment.
Speaker #3: It's typically talking to the computer board inside that device. It's gathering information. It's then transmitting that data to a customer or an application that then is using that data to make some kind of decision.
Speaker #3: Do I change configuration? Do I update software? Worst case, do I send a person out there to provide some kind of fix in the field, which is sort of the worst case, right?
Speaker #3: If you think about fast forwarding to a day where these edge devices are AI-enabled, the tiny language if you're attached to an elevator, that's all you care about is elevators, right?
Speaker #3: In fact, you only care about your providers' elevators. And that data set is very small. And a lot of that decision that is waiting to be transmitted to a centralized decision-maker could be made at the edge.
Speaker #3: So those decisions could be made much more autonomously with changing configurations, potentially implementing or even requesting a software update to deal with an issue.
Speaker #3: Without any human interaction. That edge device could at some day, getting a little far out, even dispatch a human robot to fix it. So I think that's the future we have unfolding.
Speaker #3: It will, again, it will take many stages. There'll be some bumps along the roads. But that's the vision that I think a lot of our customers want to be able to realize.
Speaker #3: And it's an exciting one. Regarding the acquisition piece, the industrial IoT world is massive. And it's incredibly fragmented. They perfect environment for DIGI, and our acquisition strategy.
Speaker #3: So there are a number of opportunities out there. As you know, we have very specific criteria we're looking for. We're looking for right-to-own them strategically.
Speaker #3: We're looking for ARR to be a big part of their genetic DNA as well as their business model. We're looking for them to have some degree of scale within our terms.
Speaker #3: So although there's a ton of opportunities, just like as their life out in the universe, we have to be very selective on what teams we want to partner with.
Speaker #3: So we do think that there's tons of opportunity. As you mentioned, we are generating cash. We're paying down our debt. We've got a bit of a flywheel model as we're getting bigger and generating more profitability, more cash.
Speaker #3: We're able to pursue larger opportunities. Or smaller ones, but in multiple frequencies. So we're excited about our playbook and our ability to execute.
Speaker #5: I think one last one, if I could. In terms of the long-term guidance for ARR and adjusted EBITDA margins, you're well on the path from an ARR perspective, particularly with JOLT now folded in.
Speaker #5: But I think just from a numerical perspective, adjusted EBITDA was probably trailing that goal and a little more work to be done. But it sounds like you guys are still very comfortable with those fiscal 28 timeline to double the adjusted EBITDA.
Speaker #5: I wonder if you could just provide some expanded thoughts on what gives you the comfort there if you're seeing some other synergies and just a general operating leverage now you're expecting to get going forward.
Speaker #5: Thanks.
Speaker #3: Yeah, the ARR, that's an easy one, I think, to envision. Starting fiscal '26 with 152 million, literally 10% growth annually gets us to our goal by the end of '28.
Speaker #3: So that's not much of a stretch, I think, for DIGI to accomplish. Adjusted EBITDA, clearly a bigger goal. We've guided 15 to 20. We're going to need 20% plus growth rates in '27, '28 to hit that number.
Speaker #3: So there's more work to be done on there. But I will say, as we start growing the top line, as the addition to ARR and our margins, as you know, and you've seen our margins gradually improve, you can really start to visualize those productivity enhancements we talked about earlier, really allow us to get more scale and more leverage out of that growth that we start to bring into the company.
Speaker #3: So we're still optimistic on our 200 million dollar goals by the end of fiscal '28.
Speaker #5: Great. Thanks so much. Great job on the quarter.
Speaker #3: Thanks, Scott.
Speaker #1: Thank you. And our next question comes from James Fish of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.
Speaker #6: Hi, this is Kadenon for Fish. I was just wondering, what kind of tailwinds are you guys seeing on the AI infrastructure side with some of your larger customers?
Speaker #6: And then any way to parse out what's going into an AI data center or use case? Thank you.
Speaker #3: Yeah, good question. The data center has been the most applicable to our open gear console server business. We provide a pretty key piece of technology to allow an IT professional to access the equipment that is inside of that data center and to be able to use command line or other interfaces to change configurations, update software, to orchestrate that equipment without being there physically.
Speaker #3: And we do so with smart automatic connections so that you don't have to use the network to troubleshoot the network. And that's really where we're seeing the most presence within our product line in data centers.
Speaker #3: And I think we're all talking about how big, how long will the AI investment last? And we're hopeful for longer and larger for open gear's sake.
Speaker #3: But it's unclear because there's a lot of work. You hear some of the major providers over the last week and a half talk about power being a critical issue or access to additional data center space.
Speaker #3: Not as much on access to NVIDIA technology. But there'll be some pacing to this. And then there's the broader question of, are we over-investing in AI?
Speaker #3: And will there be a correction? Which I think none of us quite know. But in the meantime, open gear really is the primary beneficiary within our product lines of the data center expansion.
Speaker #3: I think to a lesser extent, we get beneficiary impacts in our cellular router and dentist solution businesses because utilities are spending a lot of money on their infrastructure.
Speaker #3: And that's a big vertical for our cellular router. Product line.
Speaker #6: Thanks. And then just my last one. Is your still a wildcard at this point? And if so, what do you need to work through there?
Speaker #3: I'm sorry, can you repeat that question,
Speaker #3: please?
Speaker #6: Yep. Is
Speaker #6: Europe still a wildcard at this point? And if so, what do you need to work through there? Yep, Europe.
Speaker #3: Europe? Yeah, Europe. I'd say most of our revenue is still in North American-centric. We're 70% plus North America. Let's say 15 to 20 percent Europe and the rest is other geographies.
Speaker #3: Europe is a country-by-country opportunity. And we have product lines that play better in certain countries than others. So we still think Europe will be a meaningful contributor.
Speaker #3: North America will probably grow faster.
Speaker #1: Thank you. And our next question comes from Josh Nichols of BRiley. Your line is open.
Speaker #4: Yeah, thanks. Great to see just another sequential quarter of pretty significant margin improvement. I know we have half a quarter benefit from JOLT. But when looking at the revenue and then the sharper increase that you're expecting for EBITDA guidance in fiscal year '26, is the expectation that you're going to continue to see some potential improvement on the gross margin line from the quarter you just did for a little bit of context?
Speaker #3: Yeah, Josh, it's Jamie. I think we've moved our segment of reporting of profitability to operating income coming out of the JOLT acquisition. So, if we rewind the tapes, we've said as ARR continues to expand, we've seen historically that there's that pretty consistent movement in gross margins in that 10 to 20 basis points sequentially.
Speaker #3: And I would say the story continues to hold the same, right? ARR will continue to grow as that continues to grow and adds into the mix.
Speaker #3: You'll continue to see similar type of expansion. So I don't think there's anything really there. We don't guide to gross margins per se. So I really wouldn't be able to get more specific than that.
Speaker #3: But I would say history suggests and based on the guidance that we've provided, we would see a similar pattern.
Speaker #4: Thanks. And then looking here, you've talked a lot about previously how these attach rates have kind of been trending up. That seems to be evident in the results.
Speaker #4: Any update on what you're seeing today in terms of attach rates or where you think that could be going over the next couple of years as you get to those fiscal year '28 targets for top line and
Speaker #4: EBITDA? Yeah, Josh, a great
Speaker #3: question. In certain product lines, we're at 100%. In certain product lines, we're kind of in that 50 to 75 percent range. But we do expect it to go 100%.
Speaker #3: There are some products, especially in our embedded division, where we don't have those levels of attach rates. They're sold to engineers that are designing our products into a broader solution.
Speaker #3: But for most of our devices, we do expect to reach 100% by the end of our fiscal '28
Speaker #3: period. Great.
Speaker #4: And the last question for me, I think it was touched on earlier, but just to drill down a little bit further. Is there any context that you could provide in terms of in terms of sales revenue?
Speaker #4: How much of that is actually going into data center? Have you tried to break that out? I know open gear has been one of the beneficiaries with all the increased spend in data centers.
Speaker #4: But I'm just curious if you could give us a little bit more
Speaker #4: color on that. Yeah.
Speaker #3: I mean, we think it's a positive, but we're incredibly diverse. So while data center is a meaningful contributor, it's not like a dominant theme across the company's business.
Speaker #3: We do a lot of work in utilities, medical devices, smart sense does work in healthcare and food. So it's an important vertical for us.
Speaker #3: But I wouldn't say any more important than those other verticals as well. But it is certainly one that OpenGear's business is about half data center, half edge.
Speaker #4: Got it. Thanks for the detail there. I appreciate it. Have a good one.
Speaker #3: Thanks,
Speaker #3: Josh. Thank
Speaker #1: you. And our next question comes from Anthony Stoss of Craig Hallam. Your line is open.
Speaker #5: Good afternoon, Ron and Jamie. I want to offer my congrats on the really strong quarter and really good guide for fiscal 2026. Ron, I'd love to hear your view, kind of rank order maybe some of your product segments: cellular routers, Opengear, etc.
Speaker #5: IoT solutions. What do you think might be kind of the fastest-growing segment within each for 2026? Then I had a follow-up.
Speaker #3: Yeah, the fastest growing doesn't always equal the biggest. So we expect growth across all of our product lines, which is really good. I think actually our cellular router division will probably grow the fastest of those, on a percentage basis.
Speaker #3: But then our infrastructure management is our smallest product line. It's mainly legacy products with a couple of new ones. So that's typically the smallest of the four product groupings that we have inside of IoT product services.
Speaker #5: Got it. And is it fair to say that, in addition to the terrace kind of being behind, your customers are growing more confident even on the macro?
Speaker #5: Hence, that's why things are really starting to pick up for you
Speaker #5: guys? I think so.
Speaker #3: I think there's a combination of a little bit more certainty. There still But you've got Fed that's helping out is less certainty than probably everybody would like.
Speaker #3: on that side. You've got certain verticals that are really investing in utilities, data centers, medical devices, we still see a tremendous opportunity in point of sale, digital signage.
Speaker #3: There certainly are some verticals that have gotten softer, residential solar is a really good example of that. So the beauty is the diversification of Digi; we can kind of pivot towards those areas where there's a little bit more strength in demand.
Speaker #3: And de-emphasize those where there's maybe some softness.
Speaker #5: Got it. Great job, guys. Really appreciate it.
Speaker #3: Thanks, Tony. Thanks.
Speaker #4: Thanks,
Speaker #1: Thank you. And as a Tony. reminder, if you have a question, please press star 11. One moment. And our next question comes from Greg Messianeth of Kingswood Capital Partners.
Speaker #1: Your line is open.
Speaker #4: Yes, thank you. Can you reiterate whatever guidance you gave on the accretion of the acquisition of Jolt back in August? And how have you progressed towards those goals?
Speaker #4: Have you run ahead of them or what? Thanks.
Speaker #3: Yeah, thanks. It's a good question. At the time that we did the acquisition, we had indicated really two things. We had said that Jolt was coming in with over $20 million of ARR.
Speaker #3: So you can envision how the revenue was going to fold in. We had a month and a half remaining in Q4. So we adjusted our revenue guidance to account for that incremental revenue coming from that ARR.
Speaker #3: the end of calendar '26, we We had also indicated that by would be at an $11 million run rate EBITDA through the acquisition. And that was going to be through a combination of the profit that was coming in, as well as synergies both top and bottom line.
Speaker #3: I would say to date, the teams have executed well being into the acquisition now for a couple of months. We've got unified sales organizations.
Speaker #3: We've got frankly unified organizations across the board. As we've wrapped up our fiscal year-end, we've had an opportunity to integrate Jolt in with a year-end process that's a little bit different than theirs.
Speaker #3: So I would say thus far, we're tracking well. Both in terms of how we are focused on our integration with our people, as well as being able to obtain both the top and bottom line synergies that we had laid out that we would be achieving by the time we ended calendar '26.
Speaker #3: I would say to Ron's point, we're already seeing movement in our opportunity pipeline on cross-selling opportunities and where the combination is really making sense for our customers.
Speaker #3: So I think we've done a nice job. Our teams have done a nice job of coming together as one group. Jolt was a very successful company.
Speaker #3: And it's great having them be part of Digi. And it's great seeing the enthusiasm and excitement throughout Digi on bringing these two companies together.
Speaker #3: And I feel like we're executing well towards the objectives we laid out.
Speaker #4: Thank you for that.
Speaker #3: Thank you.
Speaker #1: Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn it back to Ron Konezny for closing
Speaker #1: remarks. Hey, thank
Speaker #5: you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon on the earnings call for Digi. As a reminder, we're going to be at the Stevens Investment Conference in Nashville next week.
Speaker #5: Thank you to the Digi team and happy 40th birthday, Digi International.