Sono-Tek (NASDAQ:SOTK) released fourth-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Thursday. Read the complete transcript below.

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Summary

Sono-Tek reported fiscal 2026 revenue of $20.9 million, marking a third consecutive year of growth and 16th year of profitability, with gross margin increasing to 51% and operating income growing by 81%.

The company's strategic focus on higher value, high ASP production systems drove both revenue quality and margin expansion, with notable growth in the medical sector and continued demand in electronics.

Sono-Tek anticipates continued revenue growth and profitability in the first half of fiscal 2027, driven by the medical and microelectronics markets, despite uncertainty in clean energy sectors and timing of high ASP customer orders.

Operational highlights include a significant backlog, strong balance sheet with $14.8 million in cash and no outstanding debt, and plans for manufacturing expansion to increase capacity to $35 million.

Management highlighted their strategic shift towards more complex systems and the potential for substantial growth in the medical and microelectronics sectors, while also considering stock repurchase and potential acquisitions.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good day and welcome to the Sono-Tek Corporation fiscal year and 2026 results conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question you may press star and then one on your telephone keypad and to withdraw your question please press star and then two. Please note today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Karen Smith with Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Karen Smith (Investor Relations)

Thank you Rocco and thank you everyone for joining us today. Sono-Tek released their fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2026 results this morning. If you don't have a copy of the release, please visit the company's website at www.sono-tek.com and navigate to the Investors SECtion, the Product, Market and Geography Sales tables on the last page of the release or will be part of today's discussion. With me on the call today are Dr. Chris Cocchio, Executive Chairman, Steve Harshbarger, CEO and President and Steve Bagley, Chief Financial Officer. Before turning the call over to Management, I would like to make the following remarks concerning forward looking statements. Please note that various remarks that may be made on this conference call about future expectations, plans and prospects for the Company constitute forward looking statements for the purposes of safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform act of 1995. Actual results may vary materially from those indicated by these forward looking statements as a result of various important factors including those discussed in the Company's filings with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this conference call. As a reminder, this is our full year fiscal 2026 call for the period ended February 28, 2020 26. Our next call will be our mid year fiscal 2027 update for the SECond quarter and first half ended August 31, 2026 and will be held in October. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Cocchio, Executive Chairman of Sono-Tek. Chris, please go ahead.

Chris Cocchio (Executive Chairman)

Thank you Karen and good morning everyone. I will start with some opening remarks and then Steve Harshberger, our CEO and President, will go through a deeper business and operational review. This will be followed by Steve Bagley, our Chief Financial Officer and he will provide the financial review. Following their comments, we'll open the call for questions. As Karen mentioned, fiscal 2026 was a year of strong execution and very meaningful progress for Sono-Tek. We delivered our second consecutive year of revenue above $20 million. We reached 20.9 million while maintaining consistent quarterly performance with eight consecutive quarters above $5 million each. We're also proud to report that fiscal year 2026 marks our third consecutive year of annual revenue growth and 16th year in a row of profitability. Most importantly, we achieved significant profitability expansion. The gross margin increased to 51%, the operating income grew 81% and we delivered strong bottom line performance which was supported by operating leverage and favorable product mix. Our results reflect the continued success of our strategic shift towards higher value high ASP production systems. These are driving both revenue quality and margin expansion. From a market perspective, Medical was a standout performer. It increased 54% year over year and was driven by strong demand for balloon catheter coating systems, stent applications and other advanced medical technologies. We also saw continued growth in electronics, particularly in electrically active coatings which support diagnostic related applications. So clean energy remains a key long term opportunity. We are now experiencing a decline in electrolysis related demand during the year due to policy shifts at the government level. However, this was partially offset by solar related system shipments earlier in the fiscal year. Geographically, we saw strong performance in the US market which grew 12% and represented approximately 67% of total revenue. That benefits both revenue growth and margins due to reduced international related costs. We ended the year with a solid backlog and a strong balance sheet providing a stable foundation for our future growth. Now, looking ahead, we anticipate continued revenue growth and profitability in the first half of fiscal 2027 and that would be driven by momentum in the medical sector and sustained demand for high ASP systems for the full year of fiscal 2027. We're currently expecting relatively flat to modestly higher revenue compared to fiscal 2026. Visibility beyond the first half, however, remains limited due to continued uncertainty in certain clean energy sectors and the timing of these high ASP customer orders which can create significant shifts in quarterly revenues. This is particularly true as we continue to see a higher frequency of larger, more complex system orders that typically involve longer lead times and have less predictable shipment timing. And with that, I'll turn it over to Steve Harshberger, our CEO and President.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

thanks Dr. Cocchio and good morning everybody. We are very encouraged by our fiscal 2026 performance which reflects both consistency in revenue and meaningful improvement in profitability for the quarter. Fourth quarter revenue increased 10% to 5.6 million, gross profit increased 15% to 2.79 million, gross margin reached 50% and net income increased 70% to approximately 557,000. This performance reflects Strong execution and continued demand for our high value systems. For the full fiscal year, revenue increased to 20.9 million. Gross profit increased 8% to 10.56 million. Gross margin margin expanded to 51%, driven of course by product mix. And increased percentage of U.S. sales and operating income increased 81% to 1.82 million. You know, these results clearly demonstrate the operating leverage in our business as we scale with these high average selling price (ASP) systems. Now I'll provide a few other key highlights of the year in regards to our end markets. For fiscal year 2026, medical increased 54% and that was driven by production scale systems and the growing adoption across multiple medical device coding applications. The electronics market increased by 16% and that was supported by electronically active layers being deposited on diagnostic related devices. The clean energy market declined 19% reflecting reduced electrolysis demand. And the industrial basket declined which commonly shows variability in demand on our large glass coating orders. As for our products category for fiscal year 2026 integrated coating systems which we have renamed inline coating Systems in increased 91% and that was driven by our solar related systems. Multiaxis systems declined due to our lower clean energy demand. Influxing systems increased 53% and that was supported by strong Asia demand. Regarding our geographic trends for fiscal year 2026, the US and Canada increased 12% and that was driven by shipments of 5 high average selling price (ASP). That's at high average selling price systems totaling $3.85 million. The international markets were mixed, you know, with some softness in Asia and Latin America. We closed fiscal 2026 with a solid backlog which showcases the strength of our overall business and order activity. We attribute to increased sales and a strong backlog. The direct result of our investments in R and D with a strong focus on product expansion. And our balance sheet remains strong with still no outstanding debt. Overall, our results highlight the strength of our diversification strategy and the continued shift towards high margin and higher average selling price (ASP) high volume production system sales. We remain confident in our long term growth prospects and looking ahead. And as Chris mentioned, we expect continued revenue growth and profitability for the first half of FY 2027 driven by the medical and microelectronics market and expanding adoption of our product production scale systems. And now I'll turn it over to our CFO Steve Bagley for a deeper financial review and then we'll open it up after that for questions. Over to you, Steve.

Steve Bagley (Chief Financial Officer)

Very good. Thank you Steve. And good morning everyone. And now a review of our full fiscal year 2026 year-over-year results. Net sales were 20.9 million and that's up 2% from 20.5 million the prior year. Gross profit increased 8% to 10.56 million with margin expanding to 51% from 48% and that was driven by favorable product mix and increased US based system sales. Operating income increased 81% to 1.82 million with operating margin improving to 9% from 5%. Total operating expenses were 8.7 million, relatively flat year-over-year. Our research and development costs decreased 6% to 2.55 million and that's primarily due to lower personnel and material costs. Sales and marketing decreased 4% to 3.53 million and that reflects lower commission and personnel costs. Our G and A costs increased 14% to 2.66 million and that's driven by higher salaries, insurance and stock based compensation expense. Our interest and dividend income totaled approximately 443,000. That's slightly lower than last year and that's due to reduced interest rates. Our tax expense increased and that's due to the current year's increase. You income before income taxes and net income for the year was approximately 1.8 million and that's up 42% from 1.27 million in the prior year and that is reflecting strong operating performance and margin expansion. Regarding our balance sheet cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities total 14.8 million. That's an increase from 11.9 million in the prior year. We continue to have zero outstanding debt and our working capital increased to 16.2 million. I'm also pleased to state that our cash flows from operating activities generated 3.2 million and that is a significant increase when compared to 525,000 the prior fiscal year. The current year's cash flow was supported by profitability and favorable working capital dynamics, including higher customer deposits and inventory management. We ended fiscal year 2026 with a backlog of approximately 9.12 million and that's remaining pretty close to historically high levels and that is supporting our visibility into fiscal 2027. Overall. We are very pleased with our financial performance for the year and believe we are well positioned moving forward. And now we will open the call for any questions from the audience. And Rocco, please go ahead.

Rocco

Yes, sir. Thank you. Once again, we will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you can press Star then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using the speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you'd like to withdraw your question. Please press star then two. We'll pause for just a moment to assemble our roster and it looks like our first question today comes from Dick Ryan at Colliers. Please go ahead.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Good morning, Dick. Are you there? Oh, am I on mute? Sorry, I think I was on mute. Thanks for the question. Hey, you know, a solid end to the year. You know, we're one quarter into fiscal 27. Can you talk on the. The order activity, what you're seeing kind of the segments? I mean, I think he indicated in the past that the backlog had, you know, had shipped all the alternative energy or clean energy. So the backlog was pretty much, you know, medical and other. Can you give us a sense of your order pipeline to date here with the, you know, like I said, with first quarter already in the bag? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Good question, Dick. You know, as you have indicated, our backlog, you know, historically for the last few years has been very heavily clean energy related. I can tell you this current fiscal year, it's very light clean energy related. It's really transitioned and shifted drastically over towards the medical sectors and the microelectronic sectors. That's most definitely where we're seeing our fastest growth coming from. But I should note that it's really a result of a lot of the machine integration development we did for the clean energy sector prior that was directly transferable those capabilities over to these other marketplaces. So our diversification really worked to our advantage here. But that's where it's really coming from. And that also goes how it's looking going forward. If I look at our quotes and forecasts going out, it continues to be these high ASP, high average selling price, larger production systems that are being quoted and presented. So it's customers that, you know, maybe were buying machines that were, you know, four or five, $600,000 a piece, but now they are making these transitions over to machines that are maybe 1, 2 or 3 million dollars as part of the transition to our capabilities to provide these high ASP complex platforms. Okay, thank you. Then the last call, you know, mid year you talked about coming out of a major semiconductor show showing a lot of interest and kind of renewed confidence in entering that market longer term as they move from 200 to 300 fab photoresist business. Can you update us on the progress you've seen over the last six months, Steve? Sure. That's been a very serious focus for us over the last year. You know, as we talked about in prior discussions you know, we had what I would describe a very solid end product that was well received for the 200 millimeter lab market. Well, we've put a lot of effort into the development of 300-millimeter wafers with the goal of ultimately directing those more towards the fab marketplace. And that's coming along quite nicely with, as said, maybe a little bit longer than we expected it to be, but it is coming along nicely. We're going to be participating in bringing that 300-millimeter machine is planned for the end of this calendar year to be doing a semiconductor show Semicon Europe, which is actually the first time we've ever participated in that show for Sonneltech. You know, we think it's a significant enough introduction that we want to make the world aware of its availability and capability at these upcoming shows. So I think we'll start to see that begin to contribute to the revenue stream more so in the coming fiscal year. Maybe will find in FY 2027, maybe we'll see some orders, but actual deliveries will likely be more likely to fall in the following fiscal year. In FY 2028, I should say it would be at FY 2028 would be actual deliveries of machines that are focused on that. But we're anxious to get it out there for the market to see it and to really gauge the acceptance of it. But I think it will go fairly well. You know, it's a product that we feel like we're being fold into versus us trying to push our way into the marketplace. I believe we have customers that see need for us with that product.

Dick Ryan

Okay, thank you.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

One last one for me. We have a nice buildup of cash. I don't think you've done any stock repurchases down here. What's the status of the repurchase program? And you know, I think your investments have been kind of for organic growth. What's your thoughts on potential M and A? Yeah, you're correct in the fact that, you know, we do have a stock repurchase program, of which we've exercised some, but it's been very, very minimal amount that we've purchased back so far. You know, I think it's, you know, maybe several hundred thousand dollars or something along those lines, but so it's not a significant amount at this time. We certainly do continue to have active, both inbound and outbound discussions as part of our normal daily routine. In practice at Sanotech, you know, we like everybody, you know, we're out there looking for the correct valuations and the correct Synergies. And we most certainly we're highly selective. There's no doubt about that, that we're very highly selective. But I think we're fortunate that we have the ability to be highly selective because if something doesn't happen immediately for us, we feel like we have a long Runway of growth for organically within the company. But we continue to be relatively active considering both inbound and outbound activity. Okay, great. Thanks, Steve.

Dick Ryan

And congratulations on another strong performance year. I'll get back in line for questions. Thank you.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Thanks, Dick. Always good catching up.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And our next question today comes from Ted Jackson at Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Ted Jackson

Thanks very much. Good morning.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Hey, morning, Ted.

Ted Jackson

So, Steve, let's start with a little bit on backlog and bookings and things like that. So, you know, backlog at 9.1, I mean, it's down sequentially, but up year over year, it's a solid number. But if I kind of back through it, you know, the book-to-bill is, you know, 0.44. And your bookings number is around two and a half million dollars. You can correct me if I'm wrong on that. You know, my data only goes back through 2022, but that's actually the, the lowest, you know, kind of bookings number I've seen. I have in terms of,, you know, the stuff I've been, you know, following and tracking. And I guess the question with that is, is, is has there been a, you know, like beyond like the alt energy, you know, has there been somewhat of a slowdown in terms of, business coming in the door. Could you, you know, or is there just opportunity out there that hasn't manifested itself in, you know, any kind of bookings, growth. And if there is maybe a discussion about what are the opportunities that are out there that would, that could come into play to strengthen up your view with regards to the second half? I mean, it's a whole bunch of stuff around there, but you get kind of where I'm going with it. That's my first question.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. And it's been a common question over the past, you know, year, year and a half now since the new administration has come into play. I think because we participate in that clean energy sector, I think our investor base may have thought, oh, sonotech is going to get punished for that. And there is no doubt in the electrolyzer area, our business did slow down. But I think what a lot of our investors didn't recognize is our ability to switch to other marketplaces very quickly. With the same technology, but just refocus our front end of the organization to other markets that were thriving. And right now, you know, it is more lumpy, our backlog than what it's been historically, you know, and that's just because of these high ASP platforms that come in. You know, we get More frequently these 3 million, 4 million, $5 million orders that come and drop in and it makes your backlog go up and then it works through it and disappears. And you know, we certainly have to work towards making sure those are coming in not just, you know, once a quarter, but, you know, our goal here is to make sure those sort of orders are becoming in once a month and ultimately a couple times a month, you know, going forward in addition to our normal flow business. So although we'll see it's lumpy as I think, you know, right now, year over year, I think we're either flat or just slightly up, maybe backlog. And I think it's so it's right near our year end high backlog number, which we've ever had. But you know, when you compare to the prior quarter, it did dip back down. But I think again you're going to start to see it go back up again and continue to see that kind of lumpiness going through it. Most definitely though, the big shift which is going to drive the backlog moving forward is the ability to drive higher asp, more complex platforms into the portfolio. And I should say that every time we get an order, you know, we almost kind of think, oh, wow, it couldn't get any bigger than this. And then all of a sudden you go back and ask just two simple questions, two simple words to your customer base. We typically now will just say, what next? What, what else do you need from us? What would make your process, your life, your manufacturing realm easier if Sonotech provided it for us, for you? And that's much different than saying, here's what we have to offer. You know, here's what we have to offer is just the beginning of the conversation that we have with our customers. Now the bigger question is, all right, here's what do we have to offer? But what else would you like us to provide you? And that's really driving our growth significantly, you know, and I look at some of these more recent quoting activity products projects that we have. You know, it's not uncommon for us to quote a customer, say a million dollar machine, but by the end of the discussion, six months later, that million dollar machine might be 6 million or 6 million or 5 million or 4 million, but several times larger than what it started out. And that's all because of our ability both to provide and ask the question of what else, what next would you like us to provide to you and the customers? Now they have the confidence to give us those sort of additional add ons because they worked with us for so long and they know that the quality of the products we're delivering to them are good. So it's worked out really well for us with that strategy and that's something we're going to be continuing to doing. And to be honest, I don't really know how high it could go. You know that every time we hit another milestone we'll say, wow, that's a three, four or five million dollar order. It seems like the next order becomes larger. So we're just going to keep on pushing that as far as the limits will let us take us and drive these high ASP production systems larger and larger. Do you have a, do you have a pipeline of opportunity that will enable you to feel more confident in the second half of the year? And if so, at what point you know, does, you know where's kind of like the clip to where you need to have that those opportunities become orders and then you know, maybe some discussion about the markets that they're in. Yeah, yeah, we most definitely have a pipeline, you know, and that's driven by the forecast and we keep track, although we don't give guidance or publicly announce it. But we, you know, we have forecasts and marketplaces where they're coming from that most of the most recent activity is microelectronics in the medical sector, then as far as guidance, I think that the biggest challenge for us now is that with these high ASP complex production systems, it's the lead time. Because if we say, for example, get an order in the next month and keep in mind we're just finishing Our fiscal year Q1 in another couple days from now. So you know, we've got very good guidance on Q1 and pretty good guidance on Q2. But if we get any significantly high ESP orders probably in the next month, there's a very good chance they'll ship within this fiscal year. If by chance those same orders come in in two months from now, that will very likely push them into the next fiscal year, which is still good, but it just kind of is punching on the, on the current fiscal year. So that's why you'll see us be a little bit more cautious on second half numbers and we should be able to Give much clearer guidance in our next conference call. And that will be dependent upon did we get orders over this next month or two that allow us to ship these big production platforms in the current fiscal year, or will they be pushing into next fiscal year? And again, it makes the visibility a little bit tough longer term because of that. But either way, there's definitely a nice upward trend in the activity. And these quoting quotes that are going out and the level of seriousness with these quotes, and then because I'm taking up too much time. But my next question is just if you look at your geographic mix and you kind of look at it, for the past few years, you have had exceptionally solid growth out of North America. I mean, you had $4.5 million of revenue in 2020. You did almost $14 million of revenue in 2026. It's been up every year over that time frame. And what's dragged down the aggregate growth has been apac. Is there a case to be made just, you know, ignoring kind of the end markets that, you know, that the decline in apac, it's become such a small portion of revenue for Sonotech that, you know, the growth metrics on the top line might improve just because you don't have that drag? Oh, most definitely. I mean, you know, there's a lot of areas where things could, you know, because we're, in my opinion, just at the beginning phases, I mean, opinion, we're still small, you know, and there's so much potential upside here. And with our high average selling price (ASP) platforms, it only takes one or two significant orders to make a big impact on the revenue upside. And, you know, of course, we're never going to, you know, say, all right, oh, we're anticipating to get this $10 million order until it's really locked in there. But, you know, orders like that, you know, are the kind of thing where all of a sudden you could be up by 50, 80% on one significant order. And that's a big change in the company's overall trajectory, you know, and we always plan kind of conservatively, you know, because we like to stay profitable, we like to make money. Well, don't get me wrong, we continue to invest very he in our R and D to grow the company. But when we give guidance, we like to give relatively conservative guidance to make sure we achieve what we're saying we're going to do and leave some upside potential.

Ted Jackson

Great. I'll let someone else ask a question or two if they want. Thanks very much, Steve.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Good talking to you, Ted.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And Our next question comes from Bill Nicklin at billwill Insights. Please go ahead.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Hey, good morning. Good morning, Bill. Nice margins. Nice margin improvement. Good job. Thanks.

Bill Nicklin

And thanks for taking questions. I got a couple here and you kind of touched on some of it and basically it's, you know, over the last four or five years or so, you've consistently delivered strong growth margins and it looks like they're getting stronger and headed higher from here. Was that. But yet your bottom line has not been stellar. Was that a specific strategy and what do you think you've accomplished from that? And where do we are we had going forward, based on what it looks like is the money that you spent building out the business?

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Yes, good question. I would say to a significant extent it was deliberate. You know, we very intentionally reinvested heavily in application engineering, you know, things like process development and maybe broader integrated system capabilities, all with the goal to position Sono-Tek for large, more sophisticated production opportunities. And I have to also say that importantly, our net margins certainly could have been higher during that period. That's had we chosen to prioritize near term profitability over some of these growth initiatives and strategic investments. And at the same time, I would say that some of the market acceptance in pricing resilience we've seen with these newer integrated system solutions definitely exceeded our original expectations as we've evolved towards more complex and higher ASP production platforms, which commonly involving outsourcing subsystems and our integration partners. I for sure initially expected some downward pressure on margins, but in practicality that really hasn't happened. You know, we've been able to maintain consistently strong gross margins through this transition and they stayed within and really I would describe as an unusually tight range. You know, they're generally in that upper 40s to low 50% area. And I think it's because our customers understand that, you know, they're not simply buying sophisticated coding equipment for Sono-Tek anymore. You know, they're buying our process expertise, our application knowledge and highly specialized integrated capabilities tailored to their specific manufacturing needs and processes. So while we're certainly a manufacturing company, you know, our customers, you know, they're increasingly viewing Sono-Tek as much more of a technology solutions and maybe a process expertise provider, I would say, you know, rather than say a traditional equipment supplier where margins typically fluctuate much more significantly. And the good news is our customers are willing to pay for our integration expertise and the ability to work with a single source for a broader turnkey solution which has allowed us to maintain these healthy margins. Thanks a Couple of years ago, there was some discussion about building out what we call Building six on your campus. And that appeared to get put on hold, probably because of the clean energy slowdown. I understand that's back under consideration. And now. And that would take your overall capacity up from somewhere 25 to 29 million now up to the 40 to 44 million dollars range, is that correct? And what is in your pipeline as you look out, that could get the revenues up to that 40 to $44 million range? Sure, yeah. Good observation. A couple years ago, as you mentioned, we did discuss larger expansion initiatives tied primarily anticipated with that green energy growth sector. And when portions of that market slowed, we took a more measured approach. I would describe it as rather than expanding too aggressively ahead of demand, however, more recently we've been increasingly proactive with the next phase of our manufacturing expansion. Expansion and going along with that is some flow optimization strategy. And this first phase that we're looking at right now takes advantage of currently underutilized vertical space. So, you know, and that's within our existing facility. And it's really by constructing a mezzanine structure and reconfiguring portions of our manufacturing floor for improved workflow efficiency and space utilization. We expect to begin implementing that phase during the current calendar year. And the investment will likely be in the area. This is early, but 500 to 600 and should increase our practical annual revenue capacities to roughly 35 million at this point is our latest guess. While also, though very importantly improving our operational efficiency throughout the facility. Now we're also actively working with New York State economic development programs and we're hopeful that they'll participate in supporting this project. You know, we believe internally here that, you know, our investments very well aligned with the state's goals around advanced manufacturing and high value domestic production jobs. So our goal is to continue expanding these capabilities here in New York rather than elsewhere. And we believe state partition can play an important role in helping support those objectives. So we're hopeful that confirmation of state participation will allow us to formally kick off this phase, the project during the current calendar year. Beyond that, we do have an additional expansion phase under consideration that would involve taking over our adjacent space that we have that's currently in a leased building on a short term lease. And assuming that moves forward, we believe it could expand our overall capacity to approximately that $45 million area of revenue, as you mentioned. And I think what's really important is what's driving this renewed interest in expansion is not just one end market, but it's the Broader evolution of the business towards larger, more sophisticated production platforms, mostly across the medical devices and microelectronics in some very selective clean energy opportunities. We're seeing these large system opportunities, these higher ASP programs, and a pipeline that increasingly supports the need for additional scalable manufacturing capacity over time. Great, thanks. Let's say you get up to the 35, then 40 to 45 million dollars revenue run rate, what is your headcount going to look like? You know, I think Steve Baggage would be exact, but I think we're currently operating with around 90 employees. And. Is 90 right, Steve? 90 is about right right now, yes. Okay. And you know, while we could certainly expect headcount to increase as revenues scale, we certainly wouldn't expect it to increase proportionally in revenue. Of course, you know, the majority of hiring of personnel would likely incur within probably the manufacturing operations as we expand production capability and throughput. But at the same time, we would expect continued growth, in particular of our FDE group, which as a reminder is our footfield deployed engineering team. That team works very closely with customers on application development, you know, the process optimization, and helping ensure successful implementation of our technology with the customer in their manufacturing environment. So we're also quite aggressive on increasing deployment, as you mentioned, of AI and automation tools across the organization to help improve scalability over time. And we are seeing opportunities to do more with less across many areas of the business. And that includes areas like programming, marketing, sales support, contract reviews, purchasing, and several other operational type of functions I would describe. And I guess I really believe that, you know, Sono-Tek, that we're ahead of the curve organizationally in our adoption of AI tools. But frankly, you know, we're still in the relatively early stages of deployment. With that said, so I think there's still some meaningful additional leverage potential over time as those systems mature internally. So overall, you know, for David, we ask your question for a scenario where revenue output, you know, let's say it approximately doubles from our current levels, I would estimate headcount to grow in the range roughly of maybe 30 to 40%, which should reflect both the operating leverage, leverage and scalability built into our general business model.

Bill Nicklin

Great. Thank you very much. I'll jump out at this time. At the end, I might have another question or two.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Thank you. You got it, Bill.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And our next question comes from David McGinnis, a private investor. Please go ahead.

David McGinnis (Private Investor)

Yes, it's great that every quarter there's more terrific news on Sono-Tek. I am disappointed in the lack, the minimal use of the stock buyback program that stocks go up on earnings per share beats. And when you're just trying to get a penny above expectations, one way to do that is reduce the number of shares. And for many months the stock was down at the value of in the low $4. So this would have been a great investment. What are your thoughts?

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Yeah, it's a reasonable question, Dave. You know, and it is something that we bring about the Board of Directors (BOD) level quite often about what is the right timing to do stock buybacks. I know we do have a relatively significant amount of cash on hand and we bought back a relatively small amount of stock to date. It continues to be something we look at closely. You know, most of the potential acquisition opportunities we're looking at are not cheap. So we have had the ability to look at them quite aggressively and to make short term moves if we needed to. And tell you, having that cash on hand also gives us a lot of flexibility to make strategic moves aggressively when we see the right opportunity arise. And the opportunities are more plentiful now and but higher cost I should note than what they've been historically for us. And that's just because our overall model is becoming larger by scale. So you know, we most certainly will continue to look at that. I wouldn't be surprised if that number for the buyback starts to change of where the Board of Directors (BOD) is guidance for. But it's something we're going to continue to be looking at and evaluating of what's the right timing there for sure.

David McGinnis (Private Investor)

Okay, interesting. And I'll throw in a different point is the world has had quite a few oil price shocks in the past. And my point is this one is different. We have the Ukraine war, we've now got countries with the Iran-related conflicts that are seeing they need energy independence. It's not just a matter of our alternative energy sources, good value, financially prudent. It's how do I make sure that I can still keep the electricity on. So it's interesting that in Sonatech's business that's dropped, but I'm very hopeful in that area as well.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Yeah, I appreciate that comment, David, because I also agree that, you know, long term energy independence is going to ultimately have to be a major factor and criteria for almost all governments. You know, so I've got to believe that this will at some point here become back to the prior level of activity. It was, if not significantly higher in the future. But timing certainly will be an impact with the administrations and how they're being handled from that standpoint. Great. Well, thank you. Good talking.

OPERATOR

Thank you. And that does conclude our question and answer session for today. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Steve Hartchbarger for any closing remarks.

Steve Harshbarger (CEO and President)

Excellent. Well, thank you. And in closing for fiscal 2026, you know, I believe this was a strong year for Sono-Tek marked by consistent revenue, significant margin expansion and continued strategic execution. You know, we believe our focus on high average selling price (ASP) production systems, market diversification and operational discipline is driving sustained long term value. We remain confident in our outlook for FY 2027 supported by strong momentum in the medical and microelectronic sectors. And this is supported with our strong backlog. And I thank you all for joining us this morning and we look forward to updating you in our progress in the coming months. So thanks very much everybody. Enjoy your rest of your day.

OPERATOR

Thank you sir. That concludes today's conference call and we thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

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