GAAP operating expenses, including research and development, sales, and marketing, and general and administrative were $11.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to $8.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. GAAP operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2021 included bad debt expense of $2.3 million related to aged accounts receivables.
GAAP net loss, including bad debt expense of $2.3 million related to aged receivables in the fourth quarter of 2021, was $1.9 million, or $(0.10) per basic and diluted share, compared to GAAP net loss of $0.7 million, or $(0.05) per basic and diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2020. Excluding the expense related to aged receivables, net income of $0.4 million would have been achieved.
Management Commentary
“In 2021, we built our foundation for market leadership as the advanced RFID applications market started to take off,” said Identiv CEO Steven Humphreys. “We believe we put the technology, team, capacity, and key customer design wins in place to secure our future growth in this pervasive emerging market. We finalized our major hiring and systems capabilities, completed our technology and project management foundation, and shipped record levels of RFID units while managing a complicated supply chain environment. Our total company revenue for 2021 was up 19% year-over-year, while RFID unit shipments were up 36% for the year, demonstrating our growth trajectory. We dealt with effects from sudden volume step-ups in specific RFID projects and implemented systems to manage, since step-functions in unit volumes are core to our project-based business trajectory. We believe this trend and our actions have put us in a stronger position to deliver our expected 2022 growth while managing our financial model with the varying project mix and greater unit-volume levels we’re driving.
“In 2022, we’re focused on execution across design wins, current customer volume growth and technology partnerships to drive growth. We’ve become the go-to partner for industry-leading companies in advanced RFID and NFC, one that can incorporate all aspects of advanced solutions, including data security, temperature and capacitive sensing, tamper proofing, authenticity verification, and truly unique customer engagement experiences. So far this year we’ve announced partnerships with NXP, Wiliot, and PLM TrustLink to deliver innovative solutions that further expand our pipeline. We’re also accelerating our manufacturing capacity to meet this unit volume step-up and maintain our track record of fulfilling every major customer shipment request. Combined with a strong growth cycle in our Premises business where we continue to see robust Federal government demand for our security solutions, we anticipate 2022 will be a pivotal year for the company’s growth and market leadership.”
Identiv CFO Justin Scarpulla added, “We believe the business is prepared to deliver on its growth expectations for 2022. We expect our growth will be driven by our position as a premier provider of leading-edge NFC-enabled RFID products, increased federal government spending for security, sustainable customer retention rates, and expanded recurring revenues. We have a solid backlog of orders and have put the systems in place to be able to respond to increasing customer demand and market share. Operationally and from a balance sheet perspective, we believe we are well-positioned for strong, consistent, leveraged growth in 2022.”
Financial Outlook
Identiv provides guidance based on current market conditions and expectations. Momentum exiting the fourth quarter of 2021, combined with a strong backlog, gives management confidence in the company’s growth expectations for fiscal years 2022 and 2023. Management is reaffirming its guidance for fiscal year 2022, with expected revenues of $130 million to $135 million, reflecting year-over-year growth of 25% to 35%. Normal seasonality is expected to continue. Management also is reaffirming its guidance for 30% to 35% year-over-year revenue growth in fiscal year 2023.
