Logo of jester cap with thought bubble.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Alarm.com Holdings Inc (ALRM -0.29%)
Q1 2021 Earnings Call
May 4, 2021, 4:30 p.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks
  • Questions and Answers
  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Yes. Thank you for your patience. Please continue to hold, your conference call will begin momentarily.

Good day and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Alarm.com First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today to Mr. David Trone, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

10 stocks we like better than Alarm.com Holdings
When investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* 

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Alarm.com Holdings wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

See the 10 stocks

*Stock Advisor returns as of February 24, 2021

David Trone -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to Alarm.com's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Joining us today from Alarm.com are Steve Trundle, President and CEO; and Steve Valenzuela, CFO. Before we begin, a quick reminder to our listeners. Management's discussion during the call today will include forward-looking statements, which include projected financial performance for the second quarter and full year 2021, the impact of emerging market dynamics and trends on our business and on anticipated market demand for our offerings, including new product offerings. The impact of the COVID pandemic on our global supply chain and the global economy, our business strategies, plans and objectives for future operations, and integration of recent acquisitions, continued enhancements to our platform and offerings, opportunities for growth in our current markets, and our plans to expand into new markets, and other forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and beliefs and on information currently available to us. Statements containing words such as began believe, continue, estimate, expect, forecast, may, project, trend, will, and other similar words are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including those contained in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 25, 2021. And in subsequent reports that we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q that we intend to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission shortly after this call, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

Please note that the forward-looking statements made during this conference call speak only as of today's date and Alarm.com undertakes no obligation to update these statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances except to the extent required by law. Also during this call, management's commentary will include non-GAAP financial measures and provide non-GAAP guidance. Management believes that the use of these non-GAAP financial measures provides an additional tool for investors to use in understanding the company's performance and trends but notes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial information is not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for our reported results can be found in the financial statement tables of our earnings press release, which we have posted to our Investor Relations website at investors.alarm.com. This conference call is being webcast and is also available on our Investor Relations website. The webcast of this call will be archived and a telephone replay will also be available on our website.

With these formalities out of the way, I'd now like to turn the call over to Steve Trundle. You may begin.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, David. Good afternoon and welcome to everyone. We are pleased to report solid Q1 results to begin the year. Our SaaS and license revenue in the first quarter was $107.4 million, up 16.8% over last year. Our adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was $35.6 million. I want to thank our service provider partners and the Alarm.com team for their contributions to our results, and for their ongoing performance during these challenging times. The favorable conditions that we saw in the US and Canadian residential markets in late 2020, carried into the first quarter of 2021. This momentum was driven by new account creation and the growing adoption of advanced services such as video and video analytics. Commercial sales opportunities in the large-scale enterprise segment also improved, but remained somewhat below pre-pandemic levels. Our international business remains more impacted by the pandemic than our US and Canadian business. As we monitor conditions in our international markets, our team continues to add new service providers to better position for the growth we expect. Once more robust recoveries are under way in these markets.

During the quarter, we continued to build on our growth initiatives and invest in new product development programs. I want to update you on some of the technology we released and other key developments over this period. I'll begin with our residential services. I discussed the launch of the Alarm.com touchless video doorbell last quarter and we saw encouraging adoption during its initial rollout. In the first quarter, nearly 1200 service providers installed the new product. This shows the level of confidence that our service providers have in our ability to deploy innovative market-leading products, but also meet the dependability and performance expectations associated with life-safety solutions. To expand our on our success in the video doorbell category, we are establishing a diverse product lineup with a range of price points. We continue to offer our traditional doorbell products and we saw strong sales across the value spectrum of our line up in the US and Canadian residential markets.

Shifting to our Commercial Solutions, we recently launched Smarter Business temperature monitoring for restaurants, grocery stores, pharmacies, and other commercial verticals with temperature sensitive inventory or areas. The solution uses temperature sensors, which are integrated with our supported security control panels. It provides a comprehensive monitoring, real time alerts, historical reporting and multi-location awareness to ensure health, safety and inspection compliance. Customized alerts can inform the subscriber if the temperature in a refrigerator or freezer is outside pre-defined thresholds, or if the doors left open for a predetermined length of time. The Alarm.com reporting engine provides an audit of out of range temperature incidents that includes the incident's total time.

We also launched a new enterprise dashboard to provide a single interface for monitoring storage temperatures and travel conditions across multiple business locations and refrigeration units. We integrated this new temperature monitoring solution into our higher value commercial plus service plan. This is part of our ongoing effort to develop unique capabilities that are available only through our commercial plus offering where ARPU is more favorable. As a result of the portion of new commercial subscribers taking the commercial plus plan has increased by 35% since 2018. With a strong ROI based value proposition, we expect temperature monitoring to contribute further to these results and generate additional RMR for our service providers. We also enhanced the Enterprise dashboard that we designed to make it easier for multi-location businesses to monitor and manage their properties. For businesses with multiple cameras, installed across multiple sites, monitoring the high volume of activity and ensuring that all of the cameras are performing reliably, with the traditional video solution, is cumbersome at best. We believe our enterprise video dashboard offers a smarter and more efficient solution.

The new enhancements include a single screen for viewing video clips of important activity captured by any camera from any location. We also automated the process of monitoring the operational status of video cameras. On demand video health reports summarized the status and trouble conditions discovered on all video cameras that the business has deployed. New trouble condition filters can also pinpoint specific issues at specific sites. We also strengthened the Enterprise dashboard to enable multi-site security administrators to manage enterprise credentials across locations more easily. For example, administrators can assign a single user codes to provide employees with customized access to any business location or region. Streamlining these workflows and permissions simplifies the process for administrators and employees while enhancing security and control at every location. Before I hand things over to Steve Valenzuela, I want to update you on new developments with EnergyHub. EnergyHub orchestrates and manages distributed energy resources, including thermostats, batteries, commercial and industrial resources, solar inverters, and electric vehicle chargers, EnergyHub's steady expansion of its industry leading ecosystem and associated services has opened new opportunities in growth areas. A critical strategic challenge that EnergyHub's utility customers are actively planning for is how to manage the substantial increase in demand on the grid that electric vehicle charging will create. EnergyHub is investing in comprehensive solutions to help address this.

This past quarter EnergyHub added another EV charging program to its platform through a partnership with Potomac Edison. Potomac Edison will use EnergyHub's platform to administer a dynamic pricing program for electric vehicle charging. By managing data from electric vehicle chargers, the EnergyHub platform will encourage charging during off peak hours and support customer adoption of connected charging infrastructure. EnergyHub also announced the launch of Mercury Edge Connect. This is a standardized framework for integrating distributed energy resources, such as connected EV chargers and batteries with EnergyHub's platform. We believe streamlining the integration process for providers of these devices will strengthen EnergyHub's position as the single platform for utilities to manage a broad range of customer owned distributed energy resources.

To conclude, I'm pleased with our Q1 results and the progress we made to expand our platform during the quarter. I want to thank our service provider partners and our team for their hard work and our investors for their continued trust in our business. And with that, let me turn things over to Steve Valenzuela. Steve?

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Steve. I will begin with a review of our strong first quarter 2021 financial results and then discuss guidance before opening the call for questions. SaaS and license revenue in the first quarter grew 16.8% from the same quarter last year to $107.4 million. This includes Connect software license revenue of approximately $8.7 million for the first quarter, down as expected from $9.7 million in the year ago quarter. SaaS and license revenue for our Alarm.com segment grew 15.8% year-over-year and our other segment grew 34.9% over the same period. Our SaaS and license revenue visibility remains high with a revenue renewal rate of 95% in the first quarter which is above our historical range of 92% to 94%. This slightly higher revenue renewal rate, we believe is likely the result of fewer people moving homes at the start of the pandemic, and we could see a return to the historic range in the next quarter or two.

Hardware and other revenue in the first quarter was $65.1 million, up 8.5% over Q1 2020. We continue to see strong sales of our video cameras, driven by increased adoption of our industry-leading video solutions and video analytics capabilities. Total revenue of $172.5 million for the first quarter, grew 13.5% year-over-year. SaaS and license gross margin for the first quarter was 85.9%, down approximately 70 basis points from Q1 2020 gross margin, mainly due to product mix. Hardware gross margin was 22.3% for the first quarter, compared to 23.9% for the same quarter last year, mainly due to product mix and also somewhat due to increased supply chain costs, as the global supply chain has been more challenging recently. Total gross margin was 61.9% for the first quarter, up slightly from the same quarter last year.

Turning to operating expenses. R&D expenses in the first quarter were $42.5 million compared to $39.7 million for the first quarter of 2020. We ended the first quarter with 797 employees in R&D, up from 650 employees in the same quarter last year. Total head count increased 1414 employees in the first quarter, compared to 1227 employees a year ago. Sales and marketing expenses in the first quarter were $19 million or 11% of total revenue, compared to $17.1 million or 11.2% of revenue in the same quarter last year.

Our G&A expenses in the first quarter were $22.9 million, up from $20.9 million in the same quarter last year. G&A expense in the first quarter includes non-ordinary course litigation expense of $5.3 million compared to $2.5 million for Q1 2020. Non-ordinary course litigation expenses are part of our adjusted measures and are excluded from our measurement of our non-GAAP financial performance. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $35.6 million, up from $29.2 million in Q1 2020. In the first quarter, GAAP net income was $14.8 million, compared to GAAP net income of $8.8 million for Q1 2020. Non-GAAP adjusted net income increased to $25.8 million or $0.50 per diluted share in the first quarter compared to $20.9 million or $0.42 per share for the first quarter of 2020.

Turning to our balance sheet. We ended the first quarter with $642.2 million of cash and cash equivalents. This includes net proceeds of approximately $484.3 million from the issuance of our 0% convertible bonds we closed in January of this year and reflects the concurrent payoff our senior revolving debt facility, which had an outstanding principal balance of $110 million. In the first quarter, we generated approximately $21.2 million in cash flow from operations compared to $12.9 million for the first quarter of 2020. Our free cash flow for the first quarter was $17.2 million, up from $9.2 million for the same quarter last year. In the first quarter, our capital equipment purchases were about $4.1 million, up slightly from $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2020.

Turning to our financial outlook. For the second quarter of 2021, we expect SaaS and license revenue of $108.9 million to 109.1 million. For the full year of 2021, we expect SaaS and license revenue to be between $445.5 million to $446 million, up from our prior guidance of $440.5 million to $441.5 million. We are projecting total revenue for 2021 of $680.5 million to $691 million, increase from our prior guidance of $660.5 million to $671.5 million, which includes estimated hardware and other revenue $235 million to $245 million. We continue to monitor issues around the global chip shortage, which did not impact our revenue in this quarter, but could impact our revenue this year depending on how the supply shortages work out.

We estimate that non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA for 2021 will be between $124 million to $130 million compared to our prior guidance of $120 million to $130 million. We have factored in more travel and trade show expenses in the back half of 2021 as these expenses have been curtailed with the pandemic. We also anticipate that the bulk of our 2021 head count additions will be in the third quarter of this year. Non-GAAP net income for 2021 is projected to be $85.6 million to $90 million or $1.63 to $1.72 per diluted share, up from our prior guidance of $84 million to $90 million or $1.61 to $1.72 per diluted share. We currently project our non-GAAP tax rate for 2021 to remain at 21% under current tax rules. EPS is based on an estimate of $52.4 million, weighted average diluted shares outstanding. We expect full-year 2021 stock-based compensation expense of $40 million to $43 million.

In summary, we are pleased how well our service providers and internal teams continue to perform during these challenging times. We are focused on executing on our business strategy and investing in our growth opportunities while continuing to deliver profitable growth.

With that, operator, please open the call for Q&A.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you, sir. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Sterling Auty from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Sterling Auty -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Yes, thanks. Hi, guys. So, you mentioned that on the international side, the continuing pandemic. I'm just kind of curious with UK set to open up more fully, what's the visibility that you have, an improvement that we might see out of the international region in the June and then September quarters?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

This is Steve Trundle speaking. So, I don't expect to see a lot of movement between now and June, meaning we are running at sort of the level we probably ran at, maybe a little better than Q1. As we get it -- I mean, England, obviously is a little ahead of other parts of Europe and certainly ahead of Latin America right now. And I would also say, we're seeing a little bit more of a supply chain stress globally or internationally, in some of the more esoteric parts than what we see here in North America. And so, I think when we get probably into the third quarter, maybe even the fourth, we start to see that clear, would be my guess. And then, what we're trying to do right now is really work with service providers and position for those markets to be more robust next year and we're thankful that North America has remained pretty strong.

Sterling Auty -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

That makes sense. And then, maybe one quick follow-up. You talked about the renewal rates, perhaps returning to historical norms. Just what have you baked into the guidance for the rest of the year?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think our -- people basically stopped moving this time last year. So, you didn't have, we didn't -- we had a higher than expected revenue renewal rate. I think it came in at 95%. I think what we've baked in for the remainder of the year is the midpoint of our traditional range, which is 92% to 94%.

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

That's right.

Sterling Auty -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

All right. That's fair. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

David Trone -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Tindle from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Adam Tyler Tindle -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Okay, thanks, good afternoon. I wanted to start on the SaaS and license revenue guidance for the full year 2021, it was raised by a few million more than the Q1 beat. And I'm wondering what you're seeing to imply that continued strength in the outer quarters versus just raising by the $2.5 million or so that you beat by. And just give the context, I know it's splitting hairs a little bit, but we typically view you as conservative on guidance, I am less focused on the numbers, more on the qualitative statement you're making. So, maybe just unpack the areas you're seeing momentum, what got you comfortable to carry through some additional upside, given as you just mentioned retention rate is expected to come down. I'm not sure what the offsets were.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

All right. No. Good question. The things that give us confidence are; a good chunk of the Q1 beat came from an accelerated creation rate and those subscribers we don't anticipate, not all of it, but a good chunk. We don't anticipate them going anywhere. So, that's a positive. We don't want to get out of control though and extrapolate for the entire year that the current creation rates and kind of a sort of slightly above-expectation performance will continue forever. We do have some headwinds with regards to activities, which thus far we've managed effectively. But in the supply chain, global markets are still somewhat uncertain. We are seeing, as I said in my prepared remarks, commercial beginning to pick back up. So that could give us a nice potential tailwind. So, those are -- and then the EnergyHub business is also strong right now as I noted in my prepared remarks.

So, there are plenty of things that look solid at this juncture in the year. If you have experience with us, you know that we're not going to go crazy on raising guidance, that the guide we provide is the foundation for our operating budget. So, we absorb some of it, some of the Q1, and then push some of that into the rest of the year. And those are some of the things that we're seeing what I just commented on.

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

I would say too. We are seeing good video, video analytics [Overlapping Speech] helps interrupt the ARPU a little bit as well. Of course, most of it is really coming from new subscribers being added, but it's nice to see the strong video and video analytics continued attachment rates increasing.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

You got it.

Adam Tyler Tindle -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Yes, that makes sense. And then just as a follow-up. I mean, cash continues to increase. Your business is so predictable and durable, particularly on the SaaS and license side. So, Steve, maybe you could touch on your view of optimal capital structure and timing to get to that level. And Steve T, if you could follow up with priorities for use of cash as you move to that optimal capital structure.

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, yes, good question. So, certainly on the optimal cash, we like to have cash and we couldn't pass up the great terms, the 0% coupon bonds, we were able to raise $500 million gross. And so, we have run the company on a cash flow positive basis. If you look at this quarter, we generated a very good amount of free cash flow, more than almost double last year's cash flow. So, I think we have quite a bit of dry powder here. I feel very good about our balance sheet, our cash position. I would say that we like to run with a net cash position without getting into too many details, but I think we certainly have a very strong balance sheet. We continue to have a strong balance sheet over the years. And with this raise it gives us even more, if you will, dry powder.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, in terms of use of the proceeds. I think it -- or what we're looking to do, I think we're -- we just want to be postured for when the right opportunity comes along to act upon it. And we have an active corporate development team that sourcing various opportunities. As we also have at least two initiatives internally that we may decide to deploy capital into. We haven't made that decision yet. But we're watching the market right now. We're watching as everyone's evaluations pretty carefully and trying to sort of -- in a way, I think, hoping some of the stock activity diminishes. But when we see the right thing come along, we're well positioned. We're well position for the next two or three years to be smart and judicious about continuing to build the business through the occasional acquisition.

Adam Tyler Tindle -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

If you had to rank consolidating more core residential opportunities versus expanding in these growth areas like EnergyHub, would one rank higher than the other?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I think that our internal engine is really strong on the residential side already. We are scaling R&D there at a level that no one else is. So I would expect us to consolidate residential activity organically [Technical Issues] through time. And so, I think when we look at -- we're not going to say no to any single category. The category is only one part of the equation, management is a big part of the equation, the health of the business and other attributes. But I'd say, generally, our bias is probably to look at opportunities that are in areas where we may not be as strong organically.

Adam Tyler Tindle -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Makes sense. Thank you, both.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Pfau from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Matthew Pfau -- William Blair -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and nice job on the results. Wanted to ask about the better than expected creation rate that you guys have seen over the past several quarters. How do you expect that to be impacted as US economies continue to reopen. And I guess what I'm wondering is, is that sort of -- is creation rate a factor of people being stuck at home and thus doing home improvement projects or are there some other dynamics there that's creating that creation rate?

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Matt, I don't know that if we have a crystal ball on that to be honest with you. We have seen ongoing momentum in the last couple of quarters. We think some of that is actually a positive contribution from COVID; people being at home, able to take appointments, doing projects, the shift to the suburbs, some of those trends are going to be ongoing. I know that when we model things though, we don't -- at the moment, we're not modeling in that trajectory as a permanent kind of -- a permanent trajectory or permanent level of momentum. So, we're looking at where we were sort of pre-COVID trajectories at that point in terms of sales velocity in North America and anticipating some regression to that, what we call more normal trajectory. So, that's kind of the way we view it. But we could be wrong and it may be that we are on that -- that we are -- I wouldn't say that's our belief, That's just how we model it. It could be that the shift to a more home ownership and some shift out of urban centers is going to be an ongoing trend for the next five, six years and we're early days in it. We just don't know for sure. Okay, got it. That makes sense. And just a follow-up on the retention rate, was just sort of wondering how increased uptake of video and video analytics and I guess smart home feature as well, impact the retention rate, is there any impact there from customers perhaps making more investment in their security system, going to be more engaged?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, it's a very good question. So, I think there definitely is. We've been at the high side of our anticipated range for some time. A range that we established, 92% to 94% retention. That's been pretty strong for some period of time. I think particularly video analytics. I mean in the first quarter, the attach rate of analytics on new video installations was over 70%. So, customers are getting a much better experience when they are getting that type of intelligence in their video alerts and what they're viewing. If you're having a good experience, if you are impressed with the technology, if it's making your life easier, I'd like to believe that you're more durable as a customer. And then, I do think you're point as well, which is as customers see more areas of benefit from the smart home and as they deploy more types of technology, whether it'd be video or the Smart Water Valve or some of the energy management attributes. I think there becomes a bit more of dependency and the likelihood of that customer not being satisfied with their experience and therefore potentially a trade in is diminished. And so, I do think there is an ongoing sort of slight positive trend there that will help us.

Matthew Pfau -- William Blair -- Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you taking my questions.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Darren Aftahi from ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Darren Aftahi -- ROTH Capital Partners -- Analyst

Hey, this is Dylan on for Darren. Thanks for taking the questions. You talked a little bit about commercial starting to pick back up. Could you provide any color on maybe what [Technical Issues] that is like a new inquiry versus someone who might have you spoken to maybe pre-COVID and had to pause due to just sort of the shutdown?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

[Technical Issues] I don't know that I have good data on whether the new customers are ones we had spoken to, I guess I could go up on an anecdotal belief, which is I think it's a mix of both. When I talk to our salespeople and especially in the larger enterprise segment. There are a lot of opportunities that we're brewing. And then, various entities just sort of shut down in terms of access to their facilities during COVID, at least, especially the early parts of COVID until really toward the end of the year, and now they're open back up. So, I would imagine a decent amount of the uptick is coming from, especially on the larger enterprise side, coming from places where we already knew about the opportunity. That said, the number of sites that we're adding, as an example, on the OpenEye side of the business. I believe they've added, if I remember correctly, probably 9,000 new sites in the last 12 months and that's a pretty meaningful jump, maybe much more than that. I have to look at the data point, but my recollection is we probably added 30% growth to the number of sites that are installed. So, I think that's coming not just from people that we were already in discussions with beforehand, but from some smaller enterprises that saw an opportunity while their business was potentially closed, if it's a restaurant or otherwise, to make some modifications and act a little bit more like a homeowner do that -- during COVID. I think that will -- that activity should continue.

Darren Aftahi -- ROTH Capital Partners -- Analyst

Okay, thank you. And as a follow-up, I guess this sort of similar but with the residential market and then some of the housing market trends, are you seeing a mix of more like new accounts or sort of people who already use [Technical Issues] the Alarm.com for maybe like a [Technical Issues] primary home and now are adding it to maybe a secondary home?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

No, the latter is always occurring, but it's a much smaller slice of the business than people that are moving into new homes. So, I think the majority is coming from new homes -- we're aided by new home construction and then by people who are getting a per system for their home and doing that during -- for the first time. So, a very small fraction. I would definitely say less than 10% of new customer adds are coming in the residential side from people with multiple properties. On the commercial side, if you lockdown a business that has multiple sites and you get a few sites and you do a decent job on those sites, then that can become the gift that keeps on giving and you'll probably a higher preponderance of the commercial installs being follow-on work for businesses that already have used your technology in one location. So, there would be a higher percentage, but still not over -- certainly not over half. And my guess would be not over 35%.

Darren Aftahi -- ROTH Capital Partners -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Latimore from Northland Capital. Please go ahead.

Mike Latimore -- Northland Capital -- Analyst

Hi, this is Aditya on behalf of Mike Latimore. Could you talk about how much did the other SaaS contribute in 4Q?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Do you mean in Q1? Are you saying 4Q? In Q1, the other segment --

Mike Latimore -- Northland Capital -- Analyst

4Q, yes.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

[Overlapping Speech] $6.1 million of SaaS revenue for Q1, which was up 35% year-over-year.

Mike Latimore -- Northland Capital -- Analyst

All right. All right. And do you expect it to continue at the same rate or you expect it to accelerate in 2021?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, what we talked about, really, is with the -- with energy doing very well and with the EV programs, the longer-term certainly is very positive for the other segment. We also have PointCentral and we have the Smart Water Valve Plus Meter. But if you look at the other segment, there are seasonality points there. There is timing differences. Typically, Q4 is the stronger quarter. For example, in Q4, the other segment contributed $7.8 million in SaaS revenue because in Q4 we do get a benefit from the energy saving in the summer programs. And typically Q1, that's seasonally the slower quarter. And so, but we do see positive trends here with the other segment. A lot of new programs there with EnergyHub, with the Smart Water Valve Plus Meter which is a great product. And it really is a lifesaver in some cases for homeowners and then businesses possibly as well. It can protect your home from leaks and water breaks. And so, we see quite a bit of opportunity there. And again, it is -- there's different quarters and different seasonality point there. Typically Q1, again, being the seasonally slower quarter.

All right. All right

Mike Latimore -- Northland Capital -- Analyst

All right. All right. And maybe any estimate on how much OpenEye might contribute for this year?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

So, we haven't broken out OpenEye in the past. I would say that we did talk last year that OpenEye was more impacted by COVID as you would think with commercial. We did see improvement in the fourth quarter and we saw again improvement in the first quarter. So, it's trending quite well. We're also encouraged with the growth of SaaS revenue growth, which is still fairly small, but we have a program now, since we acquired OpenEye, to really grow this out. It will take some time, but it's growing at a very good rate. It's a small number still, but we're encouraged to see the growth of OpenEye in the difficult environment with commercial and we're excited about the future for OpenEye as things open up and commercial businesses go back. So, we're seeing good positive trends there.

Mike Latimore -- Northland Capital -- Analyst

All right. All right, thank you.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Ruttenbur from Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Brian Ruttenbur -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst

Yes, thank you very much. Great quarter. So a couple of quick questions. First of all on Shooter Detection, their indoor GSL. Can you talk a little bit about what kind of traction you're seeing so far? You just acquired them recently. I know you don't break out specific acquisitions but are they on track? Are they growing with the total group? Can you talk about any trends that you're seeing in that area?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So, with Shooter Detections, I think we completed that acquisition in December, right in the midst of -- kind of some of the COVID period. I actually didn't get a chance to visit them until the last probably five to six weeks. And the trend lines there are -- we have seen that, there, I think we have been a little more exposed to some of the enterprise commercial customers that at the moment -- I mean, very, very large customers. Entities that have massive office complexes, for example, and that are trying to determine what percentage of their workforce will be coming back to work. How much of those facilities to sort of keep that sort of thing. So, that's been a bit of a soft point. But the positive has been on the institutional side. There is traction and the pipeline is very good. I think they've signed some marquee names that they've added.

So, I would say it's slightly below where I would ideally like to see it tracking in the first quarter. That's one quarter-end. But the pipeline of activity is probably at or above what I would expect. And we think that -- unfortunately, every time we have one of these quarrel [Phonetic], instances of violence in society that their pipeline just gets bigger. There are more people interested in how do I protect my employees and how do I keep my employees safe and what can I do to as much as possible mitigate workplace violence. So, we expect over time that business will be -- you have to remember, it's a pretty small business. So, we're investing in it pretty heavily, have made some -- couple of good hires in the first quarter. And we'll really be working, I think to help them turn the crank on increasing the distributor ability of the technologies they've created.

Brian Ruttenbur -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst

Hey, has there been anything at the school level from the federal agencies and all the stimulus that had gone or that you see adding to that pipeline?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

The answer there is, I don't actually -- not -- if I've been told, I don't remember what seems to have simulated that. I think we've discussed it. I am aware of my last discussion with them that, in their business, on the institutional side, a lot of the times the state approves technology for adoption by all of the schools.

Brian Ruttenbur -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst

Okay.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Or by all of the courts in a given state. So, we are seeing various states [Technical Issues] having to approve the technology for use in certain circumstances, whether that be schools, high schools, elementary, courts, et cetera. And whether there will be stimulus with that or not, I'm not positive but there is activity.

Brian Ruttenbur -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst

Great. And last question, real quick, just the timing on the commercial recovery. Just from your gut, do you see it happening in 2021 in terms of that recovery?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, from my -- my gut feel would be that we're going to continue to see commercial gain strength throughout this year. And by the end of the year, we would see, more than likely, commercial performing about where we expected it to be. That's my gut feel. Maybe even a little above if there is some pent-up demand out there.

Brian Ruttenbur -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst

All right, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jack Vander Aarde from Maxim Group. Please go ahead.

Jack Vander Aarde -- Maxim Group LLC -- Analyst

Great. Hey, guys, nice results. Thanks for taking my questions. So, maybe a question for either Steve T or Steve V. Either of you can probably answer this, but maybe on the recent trends you're seeing in terms of recent residential subscriber installations within the United States. Are there any particular state sort or regional areas that have maybe surprised you, whether in terms of outperforming or underperforming relative to what you expected, and then also maybe relative to where those states were performing last year?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I would say generally that it's been less about probably -- any particular state, traditionally, we've always been, and our service providers in the southern parts of the United States have been bigger, typically. There's just a higher market penetration in places like Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, all of the southern markets, then there is typically up north. That's also to say you don't have penetration everywhere. What's probably more normal or what we've seen has been less about state by state, but more about tier two cities versus urban centers and the level of installs that are going into suburbs and what some might refer to as tier two cities as we've seen some of the urbanization. So, our service providers who service those markets have been particularly strong. And that's been not really unique to any given state but kind of broad. Now, I will say -- one example that just sort of pops up in terms of the state, I should say is, our service providers in Florida and here are indicating they're way, way, way too busy that -- that it's really popping and they can't keep up with demand. So, that's one that I know of where they're particularly busy. I think there is some migration to Florida right now, but generally it's been more about urban versus suburban or tier two.

Jack Vander Aarde -- Maxim Group LLC -- Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks. That's helpful. And then, maybe a question for Steve Valenzuela. Regarding the other segment, revenue growth is strong again, I think it was up nearly 35%, if I heard that correctly, year over year. Can you talk about maybe the underlying drivers of that business strength in terms of the actual specific businesses or subsidiaries that contribute to that? Maybe name a couple other than just EnergyHub.

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, certainly, EnergyHub is a big driver. And we've talked about PointCentral being impacted a little bit more by the COVID although the vacation rental has picked up a bit, but we also have the Smart Water Valve Plus Meter which is a new product. We think there's a lot of opportunity there as well. But within the other segment, EnergyHub is really a main driver, of course, of the growth, supported by the other businesses as well. But there it is the largest, I would say the fastest grower in the other segment.

Jack Vander Aarde -- Maxim Group LLC -- Analyst

Okay, cool. And then, maybe as a follow-up, just sticking to the subsidiaries, then you mentioned PointCentral. I saw recently they rolled out this new offering that caters to the short-term rental managers with under 25 properties, which is a first I believe for that business, can you maybe just talk about what that does to expand the TAM opportunity from what you guys initially anticipated? Was it always kind of part of the plan, but it was just starting with the larger property managers first and now you're working your way down the ladder?

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, just like expense to TAM, the percentage level, I'm not certain of, but it hasn't made sense economically from cost of sales standpoint to spend a lot of time up until now on property managers that are managing 10 vacation units when you have property managers out there that are managing hundreds or thousands. So, in partnership with Helm, we're going to target some of the smaller ones. In terms of the exact impact on TAM, I really -- I really don't know. I just would say that vacation -- the vacation rental market has been -- PointCentral serves multifamily and vacation rental. I'd say vacation rental has been the strongest segment of the two over the last six months and a place where we had a lot of value. So, we'll probably just dive deeper into that segment with that new partnership.

Jack Vander Aarde -- Maxim Group LLC -- Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. That's it for me, guys.

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

All right, thank you.

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Duration: 49 minutes

Call participants:

David Trone -- Vice President, Investor Relations

Stephen Trundle -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Steve Valenzuela -- Chief Financial Officer

Sterling Auty -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Adam Tyler Tindle -- Raymond James & Associates -- Analyst

Matthew Pfau -- William Blair -- Analyst

Darren Aftahi -- ROTH Capital Partners -- Analyst

Mike Latimore -- Northland Capital -- Analyst

Brian Ruttenbur -- Imperial Capital -- Analyst

Jack Vander Aarde -- Maxim Group LLC -- Analyst

More ALRM analysis

All earnings call transcripts

AlphaStreet Logo