PowerFleet Inc (AIOT) 2026 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Greetings. Welcome to PowerFleet's third-quarter 2026 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Carolyn Capaccio of Alliance Advisors IR. You may begin.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone. This presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include statements with respect to PowerFleet's beliefs, plans, goals, objectives, expectations, anticipations, assumptions, estimates, intentions, and future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which may be beyond PowerFleet's control, and which may cause its actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

All statements other than statements of historical facts are statements that could be forward-looking statements. For example, forward-looking statements including statements regarding prospects for additional customers, potential contract values, market forecasts, projections of earnings, revenues, synergies, accretion or other financial information emerging new products and plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations, including growing revenue, controlling operating costs, increasing production volumes, and expanding business with core customers.

The risks and uncertainties referred to above are not limited to risks detailed from time to time in PowerFleet's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including PowerFleet's Annual Report on Form 10-K for year ended March 31, 2025.

These risks could also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of PowerFleet. Unless otherwise required by applicable laws PowerFleet assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this presentation and expressly declaims any obligation to do so, whether a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Now I'll turn the call over to PowerFleet's CEO, Steve Towe. Steve?

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. From an execution standpoint, Q3 was another strong quarter, an important one in demonstrating the consistency of delivery we're now seeing across the total combined business.

We continue to make progress in the areas that matter most, accelerating high-margin recurring revenue growth, expanding profitability, and strengthening our balance sheet, all while maintaining disciplined execution. This quarter clearly shows the operating model we're building, focused, disciplined, and designed to deliver profitable, accelerated growth at scale.

As we previously articulated, the heavy lifting of integration is fundamentally behind us. And we've been clear in recent earnings calls about the growth milestones we've set for ourselves. For some time, we've been signaling a Q4 exit run rate for FY26 of 10% total revenue growth and north of 10% growth in recurring revenue. And based on our performance exiting Q3, we feel confident in achieving those milestones, which gives us the desired momentum to press our foot on the growth accelerator in FY27.

Next slide, please. It's important to note that it's the first quarter in which our year-over-year results reflect the combined businesses. Stepping back and looking at the quarter, the key themes are increasing ARR growth, consistency, and balance to our performance.

Service revenue grew 11% year over year and now represents 80% of total revenue. Total revenue increased 7% year over year, reflecting solid underlying organic performance with the prior year comp benefiting from $2 million in accelerated product revenue as for the US GAAP change communicated on the Q4 FY25 earnings call. This means on an apples-for-apples basis, total revenue growth was 9% year over year.

At the same time, adjusted EBITDA increased 26% year over year driven by top-line growth with adjusted EBITDA margins to expanding by 4% to 23%. Moving to the balance sheet, where net debt to adjusted EBITDA continues to strengthen as we exited the quarter at 2.7 times.

This combination of growth, margin expansion, and balance sheet improvement reflects a business that is scaling responsibly and executing against clear priorities and it reinforces the strength of our Unity strategy and the scalability of our Unity platform, giving us clear line of sight to accelerating growth in FY27.

Next slide. In Q3, we secured a truly landmark win for the business, a highly meaningful South African public sector contract to deliver AI video and visibility services to government fleets, collectively operating more than 100,000 total assets.

The agreement is anticipated to represent one of the largest deployments in our history and is expected to generate meaningful recurring SaaS and services revenue with solid margins over a multiyear term following a phased implementation.

Preliminary department enrollments are highly encouraging and ahead of our initial internal expectations. This award reflects the increasing scale at which government agencies are adopting data-driven fleet technologies in partnership with Tier 1 providers.

Programs of this size typically anchor long duration customer relationships and create a foundation for additional software and analytics adoption over time. Under this program, we will deploy Unity, including advanced visibility in AI video capabilities to enhance safety, security, and situation awareness across a large-scale operational estate.

A key differentiator in winning this contract with our partnership with MTN which provides the scale, connectivity, and platform support required for deployment of this magnitude. This award underscores our ability to meet the demanding requirements of Tier 1 customers and highlights the strength of our partner ecosystem in delivering reliable, scalable solutions.

With that, I'll hand over to Jeff to walk through our commercial momentum and customer execution.

Thanks, Steve. Great to be here. Turning to customer momentum. What stands out most to me is the impetus we're building due to our key differentiators. We're seeing continued acceleration across closed wind, pipeline growth, and our selection by some of the world's leading enterprise brands.

This momentum is being driven by the unique end-to-end capabilities of the Unity platform and a much more focused enterprise sales motion. And I believe we're still in the early stages of what's coming next.

During the quarter, we secured multiple enterprise wins with total contract values ranging from $500,000 to more than $5 million. These include statement wins with national services, logistics, and infrastructure leaders as well as multimillion dollar contracts with Fortune 500, manufacturing, and food and beverage companies. These are meaningful enterprise deployments, and they reinforce the great brands -- or choosing PowerFleet to solve real complex operational and safety challenges at scale.

Increasingly, customers are engaging with us around AI-based safety and compliance solutions, on-site with AI pedestrian proximity, and on road with our advanced Safety-as-a-Service AI video portfolio. Our unique ability to offer connected AI video intelligence both on road and on-site through a single unified platform is a true differentiator and increasingly is winning us big deals. Customers are looking for enterprise-grade outcomes across their enterprise end-to-end estates, and we're uniquely positioned to deliver safety and compliance across the full operational environment.

That momentum is also clearly shown up in our pipeline. Our AI video pipe build increased 71% sequentially, driven by strong demand for advanced safety, compliance, and visibility solutions across global accounts. We recorded our third consecutive quarter of in0warehouse pipeline growth in North America, reflecting sustained demand for on-site safety and AI pedestrian protection use cases.

In addition, our ARR pipeline increased 13% sequentially, which gives me even more confidence in the durability and quality of our subscription-led growth profile. PowerFleet is exceptionally well positioned to capture this momentum and carry it forward into FY27 and beyond.

Next slide, please. This slide really captures the scale and quality of our global key account momentum. Today, Unity is deployed across a wide range of industries, including energy, mining, industrial, humanitarian, security, and construction, supporting multinational, multi-continental Fortune 500 organizations around the world.

These customers are operating some of the most complex and demanding on-site plus on-road environments anywhere and are using to Unity to mimic tens of thousands of assets and billions of miles driven annually across both on-road and on-site operations.

What's most compelling to me is what we're seeing inside these global accounts. We're delivering measurable improvements in safety outcomes, operational efficiency, and enterprise-wide standardization. And that success is driving deeper multiproduct adoption across region and use cases.

In particular, customers are increasingly expanding their use of our highly differentiated AI video SaaS solutions, leveraging our unique ability to deliver video intelligence on-road and on-site within a single platform.

This is a core strength of PowerFleet. We are mission critical to some of the world's largest and most sophisticated enterprise as these customers expand globally and consolidate their vendors increasingly into Unity's ecosystem. We see a clear path to continued growth, deeper penetration, and long-term, strategic relationships.

Next slide, please. Before we dive into the specifics of this slide, I want to frame it in the context of our data highway strategy, and share with you some great examples of how that strategy is coming to life in the real world.

At its core, the data highway is about connecting fragmented data across the enterprise, harmonizing it, and then enabling it to be consumed, acted on, and monetized in multiple ways. Our customers depend on us to deliver unified, real-time connected intelligence that transforms data into operational decisions, safety outcomes, and measurable business value. Unity is that connective tissue.

What you're seeing on this slide is how that connected intelligence is serviced through one of Unity's key consumption methods, unified operations, where people, assets, vehicles, and business processes are brought together into a single, connected, operational layer across fleets, warehouses, and end-to-end operational environments.

Across Fortune 500 automotive, retail, logistics, mining, energy, and construction customers, we are integrating Unity with core enterprise systems, ERP platforms like SAP and Oracle, HR systems, learning and trading platforms, maintenance systems, and IoT infrastructure.

The objective is to automate compliance, improve asset utilization, enhance safety, and fundamentally digitally transform how work gets done at scale. Let me give you a couple of examples of how this plays out. In one common use case, customers are focused on operator, safety, and compliance in warehouse and industrial environments.

Operator training and certification data typically lives in learning systems, employment status and role information sits in HR platforms, and physical access to equipment is enforced through badges, gateways, and IoT-enabled machinery.

Historically, these systems operate independently creating manual processes, compliance gaps, and real risk. Unity sits in the middle as the data highway. We ingest operator level data from HR and training systems, harmonize it into a single, real-time compliance record, and connect it directly to the operational access point.

Every access request becomes an automated policy-driven. Instant approval or denial based on certification status, role, and location with a complete audit trip. This result is safer operations, faster workflows, and approvable compliance in real time.

In another example, customers are using Unity to unify mission-critical transportation and logistic processes. Shipment planning lives in ERP systems, execution lives in TMS platforms, and safety and visibility data is scattered across telematics and IoT systems. Without a unifying layer, no single system has a complete view of the shipment life cycle or performance per job.

Here, again, Unity access the data highway. We ingest shipment demand from ERP, orchestrate execution through TMS integrations, and layer in real-time vehicle, driver, and IoT data. That unified data screen enables real-time shipment management, automated milestone events, and direct correlation of safety and performance metrics to individual shipments and jobs, all in one connected operational workflow.

Unity is becoming embedded at the heartbeat of our customer operations across people, assets, and processes. That makes us increasingly strategic for the customer, highly sticky, and difficult to displace. And as customers expand globally or add new use cases, the value of the data highway compounds.

The unified operation capability is a key monetization engine for us. By enabling multiple consumption paths safety, compliance, operations, sustainability, analytics into a suite of customer business systems for a wide array of C-suite and operational stakeholders, all from the same integrated data foundation, we drive broader deployments, higher ARR per customer, and long-term enterprise partnerships. This is a powerful example of how the data highway strategy translates into real operational outcomes and sustained growth.

Next slide, please. This slide illustrates a long-standing customer relationship with Origin Energy, a 14-year customer, operating 2,000 vehicles. Through a phased, multiproduct deployment from compliance through to advanced AI video, Origin has delivered consistent reductions in risky driving events and has enhanced in public reputation as a direct result of the safety improvements powerfully has driven for them.

Today, the relationship has evolved into a unified data ecosystem, enabling more predictive and proactive safety management. This is a strong example of how Unity allows customers to expand value over time through a single platform.

As I step back and look across the business, what gives me the most confidence is how all of these elements are coming together, accelerated customer momentum, deeper enterprise engagement, and a data highway strategy that is translating into real operational outcomes and expanding monetization opportunities.

We're seeing this play out across global accounts with Unity becoming increasingly embedded in the day-to-day operations of our customers. This is an exciting moment for PowerFleet. We're building on strong foundation, winning with great brands and landmark Tier 1 deals, and position the company for sustained, profitable growth.

With that, I'll turn it over to David to walk through the financials.

Thanks, Jeff. Before I dive into the details for the quarter, a quick recap of the key pro forma adjustments, One-time expenses. This quarter's expenses include $2.3 million in one-time charges for restructuring, integrations, and transaction costs, excluded from adjusted EBITDA and EPS for ongoing run rates.

Amortization impact. Results include $5.7 million in noncash amortization related to the MiX and Fleet Complete acquisitions impacting Services gross margins by over 6%.

Next slide, please. Now on to the detailed results, where for the first time, the prior year comparison numbers fully reflect the impact of the MiX and Fleet Complete transactions. I'll start with Services revenue. PowerFleet future is anchored in high-margin recurring SaaS revenue and Services grew 11% year over year, even as we continue to intentionally exit noncore revenue streams in line with our strategic focus. This progress is evident in our revenue mix, with Services now accounting for 80% of total revenue, up from 77% in the prior year.

Next slide. Turning to the full P&L. We continue to deliver strong top and bottom-line momentum. While headline total revenue grew 7% year over year, the prior year comparison included approximately $2 million in accelerated product revenue from contract and bundling of Fleet Complete, which ceased effective April 1, 2025.

Normalizing for this, total revenue grew by 9% on an adjusted basis, underscoring solid underlying organic performance. Adjusted EBITDA increased 26% year over year to $25.7 million, driven by strong operating leverage and continued execution on integration and cost synergy initiatives. These results underscore the strategic rationale of M&A actions, supported by disciplined and consistent execution.

Next slide. Adjusted EBITDA gross margins were stable at 67%, with a stronger Services mix offset by higher Services margin in the prior period. Product margins remained steady in the low 30% range.

Turning to operating expenses. Discipline remains a priority alongside continued investment to support growth. G&A as a percentage of revenue declined 4 percentage points, reflecting ongoing synergy realization and operating leverage.

Sales and marketing expense increased as planned to support growth initiatives, while R&D remained stable at approximately 8% of revenue or 4% net of capitalized development costs, as investment continues in AI-enabled safety, compliance, and analytics.

Looking at FY26 as a whole, we expect the award of the large Tier 1 public sector tender that Steve discussed earlier to have a material positive impact on future revenue growth over time. Accordingly, we are maintaining operating expense investments to support the continued build-out of the business, which results in updated adjusted EBITDA guidance of annual growth of approximately 45% versus our prior guidance of 45% to 50%.

Next slide. Closing on leverage, we exited Q3 with net debt to EBITDA of approximately 2.7 times. Based on current trends, we now expect leverage to decline to around 2.4 times by year-end compared to our prior expectation of approximately 2.25 times, with investments to support the landmark Tier 1 public sector win and working capital dynamics, key drivers.

Last slide, please. To close, Q3 reinforces the progress PowerFleet is making as a focused, integrated AIoT company that provides investors with a solid set of proof points that the accelerated growth trajectory planned for the business is coming into view.

We are delivering consistent and improving high-value recurring revenue growth, expanding EBITDA margins, improving leverage, and deepening relationships with large, sophisticated customers. Importantly, we are doing so with discipline and operational consistency.

Operator, please open the line for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Scott Searle, ROTH Capital.

Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Nice job on the quarter. It's nice to continue to see that double-digit SaaS growth. Maybe to dive right in, could you provide a little bit more color in terms of the growth mix and contribution of new logos versus upsell and penetration of things like AI, camera, and warehouse? You gave some metrics, I think, in terms of the pipeline, but could you give a little bit more color in terms of the mix of the revenue stream, who's contributing?

Also as part of that, I don't know if I heard a number related to some of the [M&O] relationships, what that's contributing now? How that's progressing across some of the different geographies?

And maybe early thoughts on fiscal '27 SaaS growth. I know the target is 15%, but how are you seeing that now as we're going into or getting close to going into fiscal '27 particularly with this large contract win in South Africa? And then I had one follow-up.

Okay. Thanks, Scott. I'll try and work through those as we go. So in terms of mix, no real change. So 65%, 70% of our business from existing customers, 30% from new.

The new logo pipeline is developing nicely. I think Jeff showed you a lot of the wins that we've had from existing accounts, but we're bringing over some new accounts, obviously, most notably and the South African government, which I will talk about as we go.

And if we talk about strength within the [M&Os], then -- if you look at the profile of our revenue, and where we get strong recurring revenue growth, that is through those channels. There's a lot of that comes through those channels, which is super positive.

And in terms of that large win, then in partnership with MTN, the strength, the relationships that MTN has is really, I think, given a lot of confidence to Tier 1 customers such as the South African government to look to place an absolute landmark contract for the business in FY27 and longer.

So overall, that's -- for FY27, I think we've pegged 15% ARR growth. And that's before we think about this new contract and there's new opportunity that we have ahead of us. So we're very bullish. We're very excited both with the core business. I think you've heard Jeff talk about strong ARR growth, large enterprise expansions, global accounts.

You've heard a lot about the stickiness. So from a retention perspective, our ability to really fuel that top line. And I think what's most pleasing is we're doing that responsibly. That mid double-digit teams growth is where some of our larger competitors are pegged today, but we're doing it in a far more responsible way in terms of the ability for us to drive EBITDA at the same time. So we're very encouraged by the business as a whole.

And I think if you think about where we started this strategy for the business of expanding partnerships, expanding into large Tier 1s, expanding our account base through AI video and in-warehouse solutions, which are those key drivers, I think it's undoubtedly that those drivers are now been seen in reality in the numbers that we're producing and our future opportunity.

Great. Very helpful. And Steve, if I could, just on a high level, certainly, the narrative of AI and the impact on the world and what's that doing to the software environment. I'm wondering if at high level, you could address two things.

In terms of AI's impact, in terms of the importance of fleet management Unity-type platforms going forward, competitive threat or complementary, obviously, since you're integrating it into the platform and your capabilities, but also things like autonomous vehicles, where they fit into the equation and the long-term opportunity for PowerFleet and the industry? Thanks.

Yeah. So we see AI as an enabler for our industry. So I think one of the challenges within the industry is it's produced too much data. And then it's been hard for customers to wade through all of that data in order to understand how it can make business change.

The AI abilities we're bringing into platform allow us to do that, provide very meaningful simple data to customers that they can access in real time. Yhe accuracy of the data and being able to look at the rack of data to understand key trends in their business is only going to be helpful to what we do. So -- and we're seeing that in terms of the business impact that we're able to provide for customers. So on the whole, we see it as a net add from that perspective.

Then in terms of the world of autonomous vehicles and robotics and all of that stuff, our place remains in -- people need to understand what those vehicles are doing, where they are, how they're performing, et cetera, et cetera. So it will be an evolution, just as technology is always an evolution for us but we see that as one as a place where PowerFleet's place in the ecosystem will remain and potentially grow off the back of that.

Great. Thanks so much. I'll get back in the queue.

Anthony Stoss, Craig-Hallum.

Good morning, everbody. Steve, just from a bigger picture standpoint, is the business environment better, the same, or worse now than it was six months ago? And then I have a couple of follow-ups.

For us, it's improving. So I think that's a number of things. I think PowerFleet is improving, number one. I think six months ago, we were -- or maybe a bit longer, we were still suffering from tariffs. And I think we've been able to find our place to fight in our place to win in the marketplace.

So I think we've found out our hold in terms of where our solutions can be really effective. We're using our geographical spread in terms of being able to get growth across multiple verticals, multiple geographies, which I think is also helpful.

And I think if you look at the compounding level of enterprise business we're doing, that's because we've been -- to our earlier point about can we create business change? Can we create impact on businesses? We're really doing that.

So that is helping them with repeat business, referenceability from our account. So that -- when you get tangible ROI, when you get the results, I mean, you'll remember some of the videos we put out in November about the tangibility of what our large customers are receiving in terms of benefit from our solutions, then that brings a lot of confidence, that brings confidence in our sales teams, and we start to get that momentum. And that's really what we're seeing play out now is that momentum.

Got it. And then my last two questions. Can you maybe just provide us an update on the AT&T reps if they're fully trained and productive on all of your products now? And once it's fully ramped, how much revenue annually will the South Africa contract bring in?

So I'll answer you a second one first. So we're not allowed at this point to provide any financial information. But what I was suggest to analysts and investors is, if you could bundle solutions, and you look at our ARPUs that we get, what I would say is this contract is within our sweet range in both to our ARPU and margin, and then you multiply that by the number of vehicles, and we have an ability to do more than 100,000 vehicles, then I think the math speaks for itself in terms of what this will mean from a recurring ARR perspective for the business over the coming years.

Five-year contracts start off and majority of these, if you do a good job, continue. So it's super exciting for the business, and it's a material contract for the business.

In terms of AT&T, then I think we mentioned last time with the government shutdown, it was taken a little time in terms of some accreditations, of some video solutions. That will all be through and the sales force will have that extra part of the portfolio in their hands for the start of April.

Great. Thanks for the color, Steve.

Dylan Becker, William Blair.

Hey, gentlemen. Appreciate it. Steve, maybe doubling clicking on the South African contract. You just hinted at this as well, too. But can you give us -- you're starting at -- or are you're going to roll out to 100,000 customers or vehicles assets over time. Can you give us sense what that expansion opportunity could look like?

Like how big of a slice or bite at the initial apple is this? And then maybe how should we think about the broader public sector opportunity within South Africa, but also expanding across geographies over time as well?

Yeah. So I mean, this will be the single large deployment that this company has done in one go at scale. I think that's undoubtedly a fact for the company. Secondly, in terms of what we'll do both with further opportunity, whether that is broader within South Africa, whether that is broader with MTN across Africa or it's broader in terms of public sector business, these types of awards are Tier 1.

This has been centrally done by a treasury department because in the past, there's been some challenges within individual departments doing individual deployments with different competitors that maybe didn't have the scale or the capability to manage Tier 1 requirements. So this could be an absolute force multiplier for us, a huge, I think, a landmark -- we call it a landmark win in terms of its ability to show the new PowerFleet, its scale, its partners. So highly encouraged about what this could mean to the broader business over time.

Perfect. Thank you. And then maybe either for you or for David as well, too, just an update on where we are on the synergy road map here? Obviously, we've recognized a significant amount that's allowing us to reinvest. And I know Jeff called out some pretty impressive pipeline statistics that's the right trade-off. But maybe how much room on the synergy front versus now deployed and scaled leverage that you would see?

And maybe a way to think about some of the trade-off dynamics you're thinking about as we maybe think about sustaining that growth acceleration into 2027? Thank you.

Yeah, Dylan. So clearly, we've made great progress. So in terms of where we were, we're targeting $18 million for the year. There was a real opportunity, I think, to do more than that. And just based on the growth is flowing through, we've decided not to rearrange the OpEx piece as aggressively as we otherwise would. So we have, in essence, a base to grow from. So that's been important.

But in terms of the $18 million guide that we gave, pretty much there in terms of where we were exit the year. In terms of where we are, if you look at OpEx as percentage of revenue, in terms of SG&A, we guided to 40% or so for next year. We're pretty much at 40% for this quarter.

So we're on track. And now it's really about how do we reengineer the cost base. So we're taking more dollars out of G&A, so we can invest in sales and marketing, but good progress and real optionality in terms of how we grow the business.

But for now, the focus is much more on how do we build a firm foundation for accelerated growth. And clearly, with the deals that we're landing, the size and the scale, very well positioned to do that.

Fantastic. Thank you, both.

(Operator Instructions) Gary Prestopino, Barrington Research.

Good morning, all. Hey, Steve, could you maybe go into some of the expenses that you're going to be or some of the investments you're going to have to make for this South African government contract? Just so we can get an idea of the magnitude of what you're spending to build the business as we go into '27.

Yes. So if you think about a deployment of that scale, which, as I said, is a major deployment for the business and supporting those types of operations. And we're doing that in a relatively short period. So as I think we noted, the enrollment has been strong, stronger than we maybe even imagined it was going to be.

These things take time. We've got to get through a lot of work in terms of coordination, but you have to ramp up in terms of people, process, and systems in order to take that extra weight into the business while at the same time, obviously, we're growing very nicely in the main portion of the business.

So there'll be a number of investments. These will be not investments just around this one project, but also very much looking at how we can optimize the business and how we can create the business model that can take this level of scale, and not just on this particular deployment, but on others that are in our pipeline as well.

So I think David's aligned the fact that right now, we're not going to kind of operating expenses any further, and we'll talk in coming earnings calls in terms of that investment level. But it's not material in order for us to do, but important for us to do to make sure that we do this really, really well, and we can spin the place of growth that we have, plus this amazing contract ahead of us.

So -- but what I like about it is, as I said, it's going to be investment, which is going to support the future operating the model for the business, the efficiency and that, the effectiveness of that. And we're just, in the short term, need to obviously make some initial investments to make sure that goes super well, and we can match the demand and really do a nice job for the customer.

Well, I guess what I'm getting at, is it a lot of it personnel related? Is it tech platform related? Not to -- you lower your adjusted EBITDA guidance growth, and that's fine, given the contract. But I'm just -- we need to get an idea of where that investment is coming from? What do you need more -- a lot more people to do this contract? Is it a tech platform issue? Is it -- what is it?

Yeah. So I'll just handle -- so as I said, it's people, process, and systems, internal systems. So it's the advancement of our automation capabilities. It's adding for people on the ground, whether that's from a deployment perspective, a support perspective, a relationship perspective.

And it's also then looking at how we can optimize our business processes for efficiency. So all of that costs a little bit of money to do upfront. If we look at the level of investment concern versus the return, it's miniscule in terms of that investment.

But David, why don't you give your color on content?

Yeah. I think an important point to understand is, really, what we're trading is a reduction in costs. So would have been more aggressive in terms of taking more cash costs out of the business in the fourth quarter. We're now, in essence, going to repurpose that capacity. So as opposed to taking costs out, we have a great use for that cost base in terms of getting ready for faster growth than we previously guided to.

So we need to think about it through that lens as opposed to a lot of incremental investment going back into the business. There will be some, but the vast majority of this is just really taking the dollars we're spending today, because we now have a compelling use for them and putting it to use. And as we said in the November call as well, if there is an opportunity to see accelerated growth, we'll willingly sacrifice short-term EBITDA margin for accelerated growth because over time, if the accelerated growth that is the faster driver of shareholder returns.

No, that's good. That's a great explanation. And then, would it be safe to assume that this contract, once it's fully implemented will be one of your, if not your largest, single contract?

Yes.

Okay. All right. And then just lastly, I saw the adjusted gross margin on the services side was down a little bit year over year. Was there any one-time benefits last year? Because as that services revenue starts to grow, we should get a pretty much a good continual expansion in the adjusted gross margin?

Yeah. So a couple of points. In terms of bringing all these businesses together, over time, there is some harmonization in terms of where all the costs are mapped. So there's a degree of remapping that's happened, Gary, in terms of gross margin.

In terms of year over year, there are -- if you think about some of the business we pulled out in terms of some of that rationalization, it was good margin business, but it was a massive drag in terms of edge case developments, which caused a lot of friction in terms of the road map.

So there's a degree of that that's gone on as well. But remapping is certainly a driver in terms of the year-over-year comps.

Okay. Thank you.

Alex Sklar, Raymond James.

Great. Thank you. I've got one more on the South Africa government contract. Just the mechanics of it. Can you just talk about, is it an opt-in basis by municipality or department? Or is this a full commitment over time of the 100,000 vehicles? Is video safety and telematics both included? And is it a fixed price per vehicle or do you have to negotiate it by department or by municipalities? Thanks.

Yeah. So it is led by the national treasury in terms of commitment and cost and pricing and all that stuff. So that is all done. It is a directive and what people are doing now is enrolling into that, which is where we have that enrollment discussion that we had earlier. So it's not a mandate for everyone to have, it is an enrollment opportunity. The enrollment, so far, has been super strong, and therefore, that's the level of business that we feel confident to talk about.

Okay. Perfect. And then we talked about some of the EBITDA cost from some of the higher growth investments. David, maybe just update us on free cash flow conversion of that EBITDA. Any other cost that don't hit the EBITDA line that are below the line, just a factor for standing up some of the government contract or some of the faster growth investments posture?

Yeah, it shouldn't be anything significant, Alex, in terms of what we're doing. And so no major impact on that front.

All right. Thank you, both.

Greg Gibas, Northland Securities.

Hey. Thanks, Steve and David. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the recurring service growth. I wanted to follow up on the South African Tier 1 win. If you could maybe speak to how competitive the contracting process was considering many providers are in a position to deliver on that level of scale and maybe any other key differentiators that are worth calling how that led to that win?

Yeah. So a number of suppliers bid for this contract. It came down to a few Tier 1 providers because, as I said, this was a previously -- each individual departments were doing their own contracts. So this was the biggest single awa that had been done compared to the past. So that has to be organizations that had high levels of robustness, scale, product solution, ability to deploy.

And just from an overall, I think, not only relationship perspective but governance perspective, had the right capabilities to form at a very, very top level. I mean, across our industry, this is a major, major win for the company. So we're very proud. And as I said, our partnership with MTN was a key part of that. And to have that dual relationship, I think, was a strengthener.

So this is something in terms of the Unity capabilities, our referenceability, our local market presence, domain knowledge our abilities to really drive data harmonization and results and quality ultimately because if you think of some of these government departments that this will reach to, you have to have really, really strong quality in the data and services that you provide because a lot of them are mission-critical.

So all around, I think a true testament to the new PowerFleet that we've put together and its capabilities and its strategy in terms of working with Tier 1 providers with levels of uniqueness in our joint propositions and scale.

That's great. And to follow up on the cost side of it. You called out the initial investments associated with the deployment of the contract, relating to people, processes, I think, internal systems, saying, hey, trading down of a reduction of cost. But how much could you provide some color on how much is maybe recurring versus upfront that you expect those costs to be in Q4 versus recurring?

Yeah. A lot of it is -- it's obviously a major, major contract. And in essence, we can now use that to build a highly efficient, scalable processes. So you have this opportunity to really build a template for the business as a whole. So that's what we're focused on doing.

But a lot of it will leverage the existing systems that we have in place today. So it really is just reengineering how we do business. doing it even more optimal, more efficient, better way from both a cost standpoint, a customer experience standpoint. And having had that template built and baked, we can then use that template globally as well. So it's virtuous in many different ways in terms of driving incremental value for shareholders over time.

And I'll just add to that that there's a lot more optimization that PowerFleet can do is going to do across its operations. So we will continue over time to reduce costs across the business. It's just where our priority sits now. And we're actually, as I said, using this model and this deployment model to help scale that optimization across the business. It's just obviously, with this growth opportunity.

And the fact, I think, we should also recognize we're ahead of the curve of where we thought we'd been recurring revenue growth, right? So that's another vector. And now we're focusing very much as we should do on the South African contract. But 11% growth, which is the first time that we've put out organic growth with an apples-for-apples 9% growth. And at the start of the call, I reiterated the 10% total growth and north of 10% ARR growth for Q4.

So this is a business that is starting to flourish very nicely. And as we said all along, we need to make those really sound judgment calls of where to spend our time and where to put our dollars. And right now, with these opportunities, we think it is a better value creation for shareholders to just throttle back a little bit on that true cost saving exercise as a trade-off for the growth opportunity that we have.

That makes sense. Thanks very much.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I will now turn the call over to Steve Towe for closing remarks.

So thanks, everybody, for joining us again today. I'd like to thank our colleagues, our customers, our partners, and our shareholders. We look very much forward to our next earnings call and repeated updates as to our progress. Thank you. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.