On Monday, TASER International (TASR 5.50%) announced "multiple new deployments" of its premium AXON flex police camera, headlined by a 525-camera deployment by the Albuquerque Police Department with an accompanying five-year subscription to EVIDENCE.com. As TASER confirmed, this makes Albuquerque its largest AXON customer in the country. According to TASER, the Albuquerque (N.M.) Police Department deployed 75 AXON flex cameras earlier in 2013 and is now adding to that.
EVIDENCE.com President Jason Droege said in a company press release that there are "powerful benefits" to police officers wearing on-body cameras: "Research shows that having video can reduce police complaints by 90% and use of force incidents by 60%. ... Now all officers can afford the protection they deserve."
In addition to the Albuquerque sale, TASER announced that it has sold:
- 220 AXON flex cameras, plus three years of EVIDENCE.com, to the Spokane Police Department in Washington State.
- 63 AXON flex cameras, plus five years of EVIDENCE.com, to the Brookfield Police Department in Wisconsin.
- An unspecified number of AXON flex cameras and/or EVIDENCE.com subscriptions to police departments in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
- An unspecified number of AXON body cameras and/or EVIDENCE.com subscriptions to police departments in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.
Monday's announcement comes four days after TASER announced a plan to cut prices on its family of AXON police cameras and their related EVIDENCE.com recording service..
All of the above sales were booked in Q3 2013, and are expected to ship either this quarter or the next. TASER's Vice President of Communications, Steve Tuttle, confirmed by phone today that "most" of these sales were made under the company's previous (and higher) pricing regime, which suggests they could be worth well in excess of $700,000 for the hardware alone, with the EVIDENCE.com service subscriptions bringing in perhaps as much as $430,000 more -- more than $1.1 million in all.
Going forward, TASER CEO Rick Smith is on record predicting that both his company's AXON cameras and its EVIDENCE.com service "will become standard equipment [with police forces] within the next 5-10 years." Regarding these latest sales, he said in a press release that TASER believes "we are approaching a tipping point where the deployment of both body-worn video and cloud computing are fast moving beyond early adopters into the mainstream of policing," and the company now aims to "further accelerate market adoption and to build a universal platform for EVIDENCE.com across the public safety space as rapidly as possible" by "offering the best products at the best prices."
