CalAmp Corp. (CAMP +0.00%) just released fiscal second-quarter 2016 results, and as usual, they're giving investors plenty of reasons to cheer. Quarterly revenue climbed 18% year over year, to $69.8 million, and translated to 30% growth in adjusted net income, to $9.8 million, or $0.27 per diluted share.
Analysts, on average, were only expecting earnings of $0.26 per share on revenue of $67.8 million. Shares of the machine-to-machine communications specialist climbed nearly 9% in Thursday's after-hours trading as a result.
CalAmp's top-line growth was driven by a 23% increase in sales from its core wireless datacom business, to $61.8 million, helped by solid demand for mobile resource management products from fleet management and asset-tracking customers, as well as strong growth in the wireless networks business. MRM solutions and wireless networks continued to comprise roughly 60% and 40% of overall wireless datacom sales, respectively. Recurring subscription revenue also rose 23% to just more than $11 million, or 15.9% of consolidated sales, up from 15.6% last quarter on continued growth in high-margin fleet subscribers.
Meanwhile, revenue was held back by an 11% decline in satellite-segment revenue, to $8 million. To CalAmp's credit, however, CEO Michael Burdiek stated, "Satellite segment revenues were in-line with expectations while a favorable product mix drover higher gross margins and strong profitability." Satellite gross margin came in at 27.6%, setting a new high mark for that segment.
On a consolidated basis, CalAmp achieved gross margin of 36.2%, up from 34.6% in last year's second quarter. CalAmp also generated operating cash flow of $12.4 million, which was up 42.5% from the same year-ago period, and achieved adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $11.8 million. That was good for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.9% compared to 16.3% last quarter, and 14.1% in the same year-ago period.
Digging deeper
During the subsequent conference call, management also offered fresh color on several current initiatives and customers. Revenue under CalAmp's landmark deal to provide telematics devices to Caterpillar (CAT +2.47%), for example, was again in line with expectations. CalAmp continues to anticipate revenue from Caterpillar to increase sequentially through the balance of this fiscal year, and into fiscal 2017. Burdiek also noted Caterpillar demonstrated a "strong endorsement of this key partnership" by awarding CalAmp a Platinum-level certification as part of its supplier quality excellence process.
Burdiek also highlighted CalAmp's recent OEM partner agreement with Toyota Industrial Equipment (TIE), under which CalAmp will provide both mobile routers and software platform services to power TIE's T-Matics MOBILE Vehicle Management System, a fleet management tool for forklifts. This niche might not sound particularly exciting, but keep in mind that TIE parent Toyota Industries sports a market cap of nearly $16 billion as of this writing, has been ranked the world's largest forklift supplier for the past 12 years, and has agreed to have CalAmp's solutions installed directly on its production line.
CalAmp also continues to make strides in the auto insurance telematics market, including ongoing crash-test validation of the technology acquired through its purchase two quarters ago of usage-based insurance software company Crashboxx. Assuming these validations are successful, it will represent a crucial step toward commercializing Crashboxx's core intellectual property, and accelerating adoption of this potentially massive market.
Looking forward
For the current quarter, CalAmp anticipates revenue of $71 million to $76 million -- the mid-point of which is slightly above expectations for $73.1 million -- driven by year-over-year and sequential growth from both wireless datacom and satellite. That should result in adjusted earnings per diluted share of $0.26 to $0.30, which is roughly in line with Wall Street's estimates.
For the full fiscal year 2016, CalAmp anticipates revenue of $281 million to $289 million -- representing a $1 million increase from both ends of its previous guidance range -- thanks to growth in wireless datacom and a "much stronger second half" from the satellite business. Analysts, for their part, were modeling fiscal 2016 revenue below the midpoint of that range, at $283.4 million.
Burdiek elaborated: "Our increasing scale, impressive roster of global enterprise customers and ongoing strategic investments position us well to sustain our momentum into fiscal 2017 and beyond."
In the end -- and similar to CalAmp's last report in June -- I can't find anything not to like about CalAmp's latest quarterly performance. Shares have fallen around 14% year to date despite its solid showing in 2015; I think it's about time the market rewards this promising tech company for its efforts.
