Ballard Power Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:BLDP) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 7, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Kate Igbalode - Vice President, Investor Relations
Randy MacEwen - Chief Executive Officer
Paul Dobson - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Rob Brown - Lake Street Capital Markets
Aaron MacNeil - TD Cowen
Saumya Jain - UBS
Mac Whale - Cormark Securities
Rupert Merer - National Bank
Jordan Levy - Truist Securities
Craig Shere - Tuohy Brothers
Vikram Bagri - Citi Capital

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Ballard Power Systems' First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Kate Igbalode, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Kate Igbalode

Thank you, operator and good morning. Welcome to Ballard's first quarter financial and operating results conference call. With us on today's call are Randy MacEwen, Ballard's CEO; and Paul Dobson, Chief Financial Officer.

Given that our 2023 year-end earnings call was only eight weeks ago, we are will keep scripted remarks today relatively brief. We will be making forward-looking statements that are based on management's current expectations, beliefs, and assumptions concerning future events.

Actual results could be materially different. Please refer to our most recent annual information form and other public filings for our complete disclaimer and related information.

I'll now turn the call over to Randy.

Randy MacEwen

Thank you, Kate, and welcome, everyone, to today's conference call. In our last earnings call, in addition to providing 2024 OpEx and CapEx guidance ranges, we outlined four specific milestones that investors can expect from Ballard in 2024.

We noted the following four milestones; first, continued growth in our order backlog; second, a major order announcement from a bus customer; third, a major order announcement from a stationary customer; and fourth, the announcement of our next manufacturing facility.

In Q1, we delivered against each of these four milestones, highlighting our continuing journey to a commercial products company. I would like to comment on each of them in turn.

So, first, on continued growth in our order backlog, we're encouraged with our progress over the past six months with new order intake. After booking record new order intake of $64.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, we booked another $64.5 million of new orders in Q1, bringing total new bookings over the past two quarters to almost $130 million, a Ballard record for a six-month period. Our order backlog grew by 38% since the start of the year.