nLIGHT, Inc. (NASDAQ:LASR) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 3, 2023 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Joe Corso - Chief Financial Officer

Scott Keeney - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ruben Roy - Stifel Nicholas

Jim Ricchiuti - Needham & Co.

Danny Eggerichs - Craig-Hallum

Operator

Hello, and welcome to the nLIGHT Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask question. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Joe Corso, nLIGHT's Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Joe Corso

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. I'm Joe Corso nLIGHT's Chief Financial Officer. With me today is Scott Keeney, nLIGHT's Chairman and CEO.

Today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, including financial projections and plans for our business, some of which are beyond our control including the risks and uncertainties described from time to time in our SEC filings. Our results may differ materially from those projected on today's call and we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements except as required by law.

During the call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. We have provided reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release, which can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website.

I will now turn the call over to Scott.

Scott Keeney

Thank you Joe. In the second quarter, we delivered results that were largely in line with guidance. Revenue of $53.3 million was above the midpoint of the guidance range. Products gross margin of approximately 29% and continued operating expense control resulted in adjusted EBITDA that was also above midpoint of the guidance range.

We also made significant progress in three areas critical to our strategic growth objectives. In aerospace and defense we kicked off the HELSI-2 program and made excellent progress in our new defense applications. In industrial, we continue to improve our position with key customers and have seen increased traction with our process monitoring solutions. And operationally we have continued to diversify and derisk our manufacturing strategy. We have established automated assembly of semiconductor lasers in the US, and in addition have begun shipping from a contract manufacturer in Thailand.

I will provide a brief update on each of these three initiatives and our revenue outlook. In aerospace and defense, revenue increased 9% year-over-year to $24.5 million, representing 46% of total revenue. Second quarter development revenue increased 8% year-over-year to $13.7 million and defense products revenue increased 9% year-over-year to approximately $10.8 million.