Participants
Kevin Dean Vassily executive
Chenlong Tan executive
Call transcript
Operator

Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss iPower's financial results for its fiscal third quarter 2025 ended March 31, 2025.

Joining us today are iPower's Chairman and CEO and Mr. Lawrence Tan; and the company's CFO, Mr. Kevin Vassily. Mr. Vassily, please go ahead.

Kevin Dean Vassily

Thank you, Victor, and good afternoon, everyone. By now, everyone should have seen the release of our fiscal third quarter 2025 earnings issued earlier today at approximately 4:05 p.m. Eastern Time. The release is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at meetipower.com.

This call will also be available for webcast replay on our website.

Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions.

Before I introduce Lawrence, I'd like to remind listeners that certain comments made on this conference call and webcast are considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the state of the economy and other future conditions.

Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control.

Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are also subject to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the company's filings with the SEC including our annual report on Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC on September 20, 2024, and not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which are being made only as of the date of this call.

Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to any forward-looking statements.

With that, I'd like to now turn the call over to iPower's Chairman and CEO, Lawrence Tan. Lawrence?

Chenlong Tan

Thank you, Kevin, and good afternoon, everyone. We took important steps to strengthen our operational foundation during the quarter, even as we navigated a more cautious demand environment. In response, we have accelerated efforts to diversify our supply chain by expanding manufacturing into the U.S. onboard more U.S.-based suppliers as well as continuing to cultivate relationships with alternative suppliers in other geographies..

These actions are central to our strategy to build a more agile and durable supply chain capable of supporting long-term growth and reducing exposure to external volatility.

In our Super Suite business, we continue to see solid momentum, reflecting both the strength of our platform and the growing demand for our market-leading solutions. Super Suite now accounts for approximately 20% of our total revenue mix, a significant milestone that underscores the accelerating adoption of our integrated supply chain offerings.

As a tech-based data-driven platform, Super Suite empowers our partners with the infrastructure intelligence and executional support needed to scale effectively in today's fast-paced e-commerce environment.

During the quarter, we continued to add debt into our super suite capabilities by implementing key functions from value-added partners across logistics, merchandising and data analytics to further enhance our services.

As an example, we recently extended our national performance network through newly onboarded warehouse locations, enabling faster and more cost-efficient delivery across key region markets.

These additions are not just incremental improvements but strategic components that makes Super Suite a more sophisticated, more connected marge ecosystem. The purpose of Super Suite is simple deliver a turnkey solution that enables our partners to scale faster, operate more efficiently and stay ahead of evolving consumer expectations.

By building a seamless bridge between supply chain input and e-commerce execution, we are not only improving outcomes for our partners but also positioning Super Suite as a go-to solution for emerging brands looking to compete in a data-driven omnichannel world.

As we announced earlier this week, we further expanded the Supersuite capabilities with a main USA module.

Meeting USA is designed to facilitate the establishment and expansion of domestic manufacturing lines by offering comprehensive support in areas such as legal and regulatory compliance, facility sourcing and setup, local management and labor sourcing funding opportunities and access to both online and off-line sales channels. By providing these critical resources, we're bridging the gap for manufacturers and supply chain partners who are considering domestic production, but may lack of infrastructure or guidance to do so effectively.

The initiative serves as a cornerstone of SuperSuites broader supply chain solution and aligns with the increasing global focus on restoring as a critical lever for supply chain resilient.

As manufacturers seeks to diversify operations, reduce dependency on international logistics and respond to shifting geopolitical dynamics, the made in USA module provides a much-needed platform to bring advanced manufacturing skills and capabilities to U.S. soil.

As the first of several planned collaborations and the made USA platform, we are actively engaging with a sales partner that has an existing sales team here in the U.S. and establish the customer base. And a manufacturing partner to establish a comprehensive domestic production line. This partnership will leverage our robust support infrastructure aiming to integrate manufacturing expertise from international partners while utilizing iPower's established sales and fulfillment network to scale production effectively.

This deal represents the initial setup step in a series of strategic initiatives aimed at attracting manufacturers and supply chain partners to the United States. At the operating level, we are implementing targeted initiatives aimed at reducing expenses and streamline operations, laying the groundwork for improved margin and greater efficiency.

Our commitment to enhancing operational efficiency and building a more resilient, adaptable supply chain remains a strategic priority.

A core element of this approach is supplier diversification, which reduces reliance on any single region and enhances our agility in responding to global disruptions. Late last year, we expanded our manufacturer footprint into Southeast Asia, establishing new partnerships that are already showing early signs of promise.

More recently, we have taken the initial steps towards developing a domestic manufacturing facility here in the U.S., a step that not only aligns with our long-term cost management goals, but also positions us to respond more quickly to shifts in customer demand, improve lead times and further insulate our operations from geopolitical and logistical risk.

As our supplier base continues to broaden and we begin to scale purchasing with these new partners, we anticipate a range of operational benefits including more favorable product economics and streamlined logistics.

Additionally, a more agile and cost-efficient supply chain will enhance our ability to deliver value to both our customers and the bottom line. It's enabling more competitive pricing and stronger margin performance. We remain focused on building a diverse global supplier network that supports the continued growth of our business with the flexibility to adapt a dynamic operating environment.

Looking ahead, we are taking a disciplined approach to capital allocation as we strengthen our operational foundation and build a more robust supply chain.

While macro conditions remain uncertain, our proactive diversification across both suppliers and the sales channel positions us to effectively manage near-term volatility. We believe these initiatives, coupled with our accelerated momentum in Supersuite and ongoing efforts to broaden our sales channel will enable us to navigate the current market environment and execute our goals ahead.

I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, Kevin Vassily to take you through our financial results in more details. And Kevin?

Kevin Dean Vassily

Thanks, Lawrence. Unless referenced otherwise, all variance commentary is in comparison to the year ago quarter.

So let me dive right into the fiscal Q3 results. Total revenue in the fiscal third quarter of 2025 was $16.6 million compared to $23.3 million prior year. Decrease was driven primarily by lower product sales to our largest channel partner partially offset by growth in our supersuite supply chain offerings. Gross profit in the fiscal third quarter of 2025 was $7.2 million compared to $10.3 million in the same quarter fiscal 2024.

As a percentage of revenue, gross margin was 43.3% compared to roughly 47% in the year ago period. The decrease in gross margin was primarily driven by an increase in services income in the quarter. Total operating expenses in fiscal Q3 improved 15% to $7.4 million compared to $8.8 million for the same period in fiscal 2024.

Decrease in operating expenses was driven primarily by lower general and administrative costs from our optimization initiatives as well as lower selling and fulfillment expenses related to our largest channel partner. Net loss attributable to iPower in the fiscal third quarter was $340,000 or a loss of $0.01 per share compared to net income attributable to iPower of $1 million or a profit of $0.03 per share for the same period in fiscal 2024.

Moving to the balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents were $2.2 million at March 31, 2025 compared to $7.4 million at June 30, 2024.

As a result of our consistent debt pay down, total debt was reduced by 43% to $3.6 million compared to $6.3 million as of June 30, 2024. Summarize our financial performance. We're up against a fairly difficult comp year-over-year this quarter due to elevated purchasing volumes from our largest channel partner in the year-ago period. Despite this, we continue to realize meaningful benefits from the optimization initiatives we've been putting in place over the last fiscal year, resulting in a 15% reduction in operating expenses for fiscal Q3.

Additionally, we further reduced our debt obligations by nearly 20% during the fiscal third quarter alone, reinforcing our commitment to strengthening the balance sheet. With our ongoing efforts to diversify our supply chain, accelerating momentum in Super suite and an optimized operating structure. We believe we're well positioned to deliver long-term value to our customers and shareholders and like.

This concludes our prepared remarks, and we'll now open up for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question will come from the line of [indiscernible] Water Tower Research.

Unknown Analyst

A couple if I could. One would be to understand now that you have diversified your supply chain and manufacturing, what was the what is the respective exposure to the different geographies based on the sales that you did in the fiscal third quarter, how much was that was coming from different countries? And where is the exposure?

Chenlong Tan

Okay. It's the Southeast Asia are growing. But right now, still most like a majority of the supplies coming from China.

We have U.S.-based suppliers now onboarded.

So it's still the most of the from China. The 20% of the services are mostly delivered here for us to sell but the imported ones most of the manufacturers are from China still.

We are on our way to diversify that further.

Unknown Analyst

Got it. And then you've been trying to reduce your inventory, but you're still probably sitting on a large amount of inventory. How does that place you and that inventory is already in the U.S.

So how does that place you competitively as far as your largest channel partner is concerned in terms of when it decides to reorder your inventory may be the closest and the cheapest to reorder from.

Chenlong Tan

The our U.S. inventories is a critical part to composite any products that in that other channel partners do not have enough inventory.

So it's very important to keep adequate inventories in U.S. to balance the overall demand. The my take to navigate across the robust macro environment is that we should not overstock or try to bet on any political influence events. Instead, we keep operating with a very reasonable efficient inventory levels usually 2 to 3 months. That's my goal.

Betting or prepare for 1 way or the other in today's environment may result unexpected results as they change from day to day and week to week. .

Unknown Analyst

No, totally understand that.

In fact, they changed from hour to hour.

So predicting that is a tough one.

Now the other I'm sorry, and this is the last one. This is on the made in U.S.A so there are a number of things that you're doing, number of initiatives within this in terms of helping setting up manufacturing facilities, maybe citing land and even with labor trying to help other companies with labor.

Now one of the key questions that people would potentially have is like what is your level of expertise in the U.S. that you can help support a consulting business where you're helping other people kind of navigate the tough manufacturing environment in the U.S.

Chenlong Tan

Right. We not only just provide consulting services, we heavily involved into this made in U.S.A efforts.

First of all, we have sales channels, established sales channels online, and we have established business partner relationships with off-line big-box retailers. And now we have like B2B sales partners on board already.

So that's number one, we have in the sales channel. Number two, we have product capabilities, market research, analytical data-driven approach that we have been during 4 years.

And thirdly, compared to the international manufacturers, we understand the local policies and laws, and we have access to resources and communication channels for a variety of different tasks that are very essential for setting up made in the USA.

So overall, from a sales perspective, from a product perspective from setting up a local relate perspective. These are critical ones that to successfully launch a manufacturing plant here. And I have a pretty I'm pretty excited.

And I'm with a supersuite, that's already bring us a lot of like U.S. ready products for sales, which Supersuite contributed 20% of our sales as of today and our soon to be launched like maybe USA production line in the pipeline and the expansion of our Southeast Asia manufacturing, I think I'm pretty excited to have this diversified supply chains going on that become like majority of our mix.

And by saying that, we also have other manufacturers who have established the locations here and are working with us on the sales side only, like they don't need help on the manufacturing setup parts.

So they are much, much bigger and more sophisticated. But yes, with all these works in place, we'll become a true global sourcing platform and sales primarily for the U.S. market. bring the best values from all different parts of the world.

Operator

Now not showing any further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn it back over to Kevin for closing remarks.

Kevin Dean Vassily

Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining, and we look forward to speaking again with everyone in September when we report our fiscal Q4 and full year results. Thanks again for joining. Goodbye.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program.

You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.