Ballard Reports Q1 2024 Results

VANCOUVER, BC, May 7, 2024

"In our last earnings report, we indicated that we expected continued growth in our Order Backlog, major order announcements from customers in our Bus and Stationary verticals, and the announcement of our next manufacturing facility," said Randy MacEwen, Ballard's President and CEO. "In Q1, we delivered on each of these milestones, highlighting our continuing journey to becoming a commercial products company. We booked $64.5 million in new orders, increased our Order Backlog by 38%, announced total non-dilutive funding of $94 million for the planned build-out of our Rockwall Gigafactory, grew revenue by 9%, improved gross margin by 5 points, and reduced cash operating costs¹ slightly while continuing to invest in next generation products and product cost reduction."

"We are particularly encouraged with our progress over the past 6 months with new order intake," added Mr. MacEwen. "After booking $64.7 million of new orders 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 $129.2 million. We are seeing growth indicators across our Bus, Rail, Marine and Stationary verticals. In our Bus segment, so far in 2024, we have announced or secured repeat orders from three customers totaling approximately 1,200 fuel cell engines. We also announced an order for 15 MW of fuel cell engines from a repeat customer in our Stationary vertical. We are excited by the increasing order sizes as customers transition from demonstrations to larger scale deployments."

Mr. MacEwen continued, "Q1 revenue of $14.5 million, up 9% year-over-year, was overwhelmingly generated by Power Products revenue, which contributed 88% of revenue compared to 71% in Q1 2023. Despite the continued shift in revenue mix to Power Products and the burden of fixed production overhead costs on seasonally low revenue, gross margin of (37%) improved 5 points compared to Q1 2023. Similar to prior years, we expect 2024 revenue to be back-half weighted and expect to realize corresponding gross margin expansion. We also continued our discipline on operating expenses and balance sheet strength. Notwithstanding inflationary pressures, our cash operating costs¹  were slightly down compared to Q1 2023, and we ended the quarter with $720.7 million in cash and cash equivalents."

"During the quarter, we were pleased to announce certain non-dilutive funding awards for our proposed Gigafactory in Rockwall, Texas," stated Mr. MacEwen. "The planned 3-gigawatt facility will feature advanced manufacturing of next-generation fuel cells at scaled production volumes and significantly reduced costs. The $40 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, and an award valued up to $54 million from the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit (48C) funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), provide Ballard with a total of up to $94 million of U.S. federal funding."

Mr. MacEwen concluded, "In the context of an increasingly constructive policy environment, a growing Order Backlog, and with sustained investments in product cost reduction, advanced manufacturing, and capacity expansion, we see an exciting set-up for a strong second half of 2024 and growth in 2025. We are well positioned to enable our customers to compete in the energy transition and the adoption of hydrogen fuel cells to decarbonize heavy-duty mobility and select stationary power applications."