nLIGHT, Inc. (NASDAQ:LASR) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 2, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Scott Keeney - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Joe Corso - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Greg Palm - Craig-Hallum Capital Group
Jim Ricchiuti - Needham & Company
Ruben Roy - Stifel
Mark Miller - The Benchmark Company

Operator

Hello and welcome to the nLIGHT First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call to Joe Corso, CFO. 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 statement, 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. First quarter revenue of $44.5 million and overall gross margins of approximately 17% were within the guidance range. Continued careful management of operating expenses, working capital and capital expenditures enabled us to increase cash, cash equivalents and investments to $121 million with no debt. As discussed last quarter, we believe Q1 is our trough revenue quarter and expect growth in the second quarter. We also expect the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half of 2024, with increasing visibility for continued growth driven by our defense business.

Before turning to the details of the quarter, I would like to reflect upon nLIGHT’s recent history and business transition. We founded nLIGHT with the vision that laser technology would improve at a rapid rate and open up new applications for lasers in both commercial and defense markets. This past week marked the sixth anniversary of our IPO. Since then, we’ve experienced important changes in our business. Some of the changes have been beyond our control, the most significant of which was a rapid and dramatic geopolitical shift with respect to China.