Velodyne Lidar, Inc., the first pure-play public lidar company, today announced financial results for its fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020.
Dr. Anand Gopalan, CEO of Velodyne Lidar, commented, “Velodyne has continued to demonstrate its market leadership with a strong track record of consistent execution. Our fourth quarter and full year 2020 results demonstrate that we continue to innovate, expand our market opportunity, and show our leadership in broadly diversified end markets for lidar. In 2020, we achieved an industry first with the award winning Velabit lidar, our smallest sensor, which we believe will democratize lidar and lidar-based safety.
“We believe our pipeline is the most robust in the industry, as demonstrated by a 46% increase in projects across more than 25 industries from the end of 2019. We are leading the industry in providing lidar units to customers, manufacturing and shipping 11,710 units in 2020, and 4,237 units in the fourth quarter. Lidar’s status as a critical sensor in many applications gives us the opportunity to add higher value to customers by providing comprehensive solutions. There is increasing adoption of lidar across a wide variety of industries, some of which are accelerating in a post-COVID world. Our pipeline in industries such as Robotics grew 220% from 873,000 units in February of 2020 to 1.9 million units as of December 31, 2020. Agreements signed in 2020 include: Emesent for drones, Motional (a joint Hyundai-Aptiv venture) for autonomous vehicles, ThorDrive for industrial applications, and a Smart City partnership with Qualcomm.
“In summary, it is an incredibly exciting time for lidar and for Velodyne. We believe we have hit an inflection point in the lidar industry, which is evidencing itself by our record unit shipments in the fourth quarter and in our expanding pipeline. With a significantly enhanced balance sheet supporting this robust pipeline, our long-term outlook for growth remains strong.”
Business Metrics
- Units and ASPs: Velodyne shipped a record 4,237 sensor units in the fourth quarter of 2020. The company continues to build out its portfolio of sensor products at different price points designed to meet many industries’ needs, including those with lower-price application entry points.
- Agreements: 26 total active multi-year agreements as of February 19, 2021, up from 25 as of December 31, 2020.
- Pipeline Strength: Velodyne’s pipeline of projects grew to 194 projects at February 19, 2021, up from 183 projects reported at December 31, 2020, and 131 projects reported at January 1, 2020.
Fourth Quarter 2020 Financial Highlights
- Revenue: Total revenue of $17.8 million compared to $19.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Product revenue was $14.4 million compared to $18.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. The company reduced production capabilities at its manufacturing sites late in the fourth quarter of 2020 due to COVID-19, which impaired the company’s ability to fulfill certain customers’ orders in December, impacting product revenue. Velodyne continues to focus on accelerating the adoption of sensors by lowering ASPs and driving higher volumes. As such, product units sold was higher year-over-year while revenue was impacted. License and services revenue was $3.4 million, up from $0.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.
- Gross Profit: GAAP gross loss was $5.3 million and non-GAAP gross profit was $2.1 million, compared to a fourth quarter 2019 GAAP and non-GAAP gross profit of $0.2 million.
- Net Loss and EPS: GAAP net loss was $111.5 million and included $91.3 million of stock-based compensation. Non-GAAP net loss was $20.1 million. GAAP net loss per share was $0.64 and non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.12. This compared to a fourth quarter of 2019 GAAP net loss of $28.7 million and non-GAAP net loss of $26.2 million. Fourth quarter of 2019 GAAP net loss per share was $0.21 and non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.19.
- Shares Outstanding: EPS for the fourth quarter of 2020 is calculated using weighted average shares outstanding of 173.9 million. As of December 31, 2020, actual shares outstanding were 175.9 million.
- Liquidity: Velodyne had $350.3 million in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet at December 31, 2020, which included $73.7 million of proceeds from the exercise of publicly-traded warrants. Subsequent to December 31, 2020, the company received additional $89.3 million in proceeds as of February 19, 2021.
Full Year 2020 Financial Highlights
- Revenue: Total revenue of $95.4 million compared to $101.4 million in full year 2019. Product revenue was $68.4 million compared to $81.4 million in full year 2019. While for the year 2020, Velodyne sold roughly the same number of units as 2019, as part of the company’s strategy to drive widespread adoption of lidar, the ASP was lower in 2020 and this negatively impacted revenue. License and services revenue was $27.0 million, up from $20.0 million in full year 2019.
- Gross Profit: GAAP gross profit of $25.1 million and non-GAAP gross profit of $32.5 million compared to full year 2019 GAAP and non-GAAP gross profit of $29.8 million. The decrease in GAAP gross margin was primarily due to $7.4 million stock-based compensation expense.
- Net Loss and EPS: GAAP net loss was $149.9 million and included $91.5 million of stock-based compensation expense and non-GAAP net loss was $65.1 million. Accordingly, GAAP net loss per share was $1.01 and non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.44. This compared to 2019 GAAP net loss of $67.2 million and non-GAAP net loss of $64.5 million. Accordingly, 2019 GAAP net loss per share was $0.50 and non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.48.
A reconciliation between historical GAAP and non-GAAP information is provided in the tables below.
Business Outlook
As of February 19, 2021, Velodyne estimates that it could have the opportunity for over $1.0 billion of revenue from signed and awarded projects from 2021 through 2025 plus a pipeline of projects for 2021 through 2025 that are not yet signed and awarded of $4.4 billion. In addition, it continues to be Velodyne’s top priority to invest in scalable lidar architectures, advanced manufacturing technology and software solutions. This underpins the company’s long-term business outlook of total gross margin percentage ranging in the mid to high 50s and EBITDA margin of more than 20%.
SOURCE: Velodyne Lidar
