Karooooo (NASDAQ:KARO) reported first-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company's first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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The full earnings call is available at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86950143303#success

Summary

Karooooo reported a strong start to FY27 with Cartrack subscription revenue growth of 19% in Q1, translating to 21% in constant currency, despite foreign exchange headwinds due to a strengthening ZAR.

The company saw record net subscriber additions of 142,472, with South Africa contributing significantly with 113,913 additions, reflecting a 92% increase.

Operating profit reached a record 410 million ZAR, driven by strategic investments in sales capacity and the successful introduction of products like Cartrack Tag and video solutions.

Karooooo Logistics showed robust growth with a 46% increase in delivery-as-a-service revenue, supporting high customer retention and contributing to a strong financial performance.

The company maintains a healthy balance sheet with net cash and cash equivalents of 756 million ZAR and has declared a 1.5 US dollar dividend per share, marking a 20% increase from the prior year.

Management reiterated the FY27 outlook, focusing on optimizing sales capacity investments and expanding distribution more moderately, with an emphasis on AI integration to enhance operational efficiency.

Full Transcript

Paul Bieber, VP of Investor Relations and Strategic Finance

Hello and welcome to Karooooo's Q1 FY 2027 financial results presentation. On behalf of Karooooo, we would like to thank you for joining us today. I'm Paul Bieber, VP of Investor Relations and Strategic Finance. We are joined today by Zak Calisto, Founder and Group CEO; Hu Xin Goi, Chief Financial Officer; and Carmen Calisto, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements that we make today regarding our business operations and financial performance may be considered forward-looking.

Such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions. They are subject to several risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially. Please refer to the safe harbor statement in our Form 20-F, including the risk factors, and the 6-K that we filed yesterday. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. During this call we will present both IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures. A reconciliation of non-IFRS to IFRS measures is included in the 6-K that we filed with the SEC yesterday.

Our comments may refer to year-over-year comparisons unless we state otherwise. I will now pass the call over to Carmen.

Zak Calisto, CEO

Thanks, Paul. Welcome to Karooooo's Q1 FY27 Financial Results Presentation. FY27 is off to a strong start, highlighted by Cartrack subscription revenue growth accelerating to 19% in Q1 despite foreign exchange headwinds associated with the strengthening ZAR. In constant currency, Cartrack subscription revenue growth accelerated to 21%, and despite the strengthening ZAR, ARR growth also accelerated to 19% in ZAR and 22% in constant currency. ARR growth increased 32% in US dollars.

We continue to cement our leadership position in South Africa, our most mature market, with subscription revenue growth accelerating to 24% in South Africa. The strong performance in South Africa demonstrates that our recent investments in sales capacity are driving tangible results. The acceleration of subscriber growth to 18% from 16% in Q4 FY26 underpinned our strong performance as we delivered record net subscriber additions of 142,472. South Africa's net subscriber additions increased 92% to 113,913 as we realize the benefits of recent investments in sales capacity and capitalize on sales momentum with video solutions and especially with Cartrack Tag as a standalone product. Our strong execution also translated into record Karooooo operating profit of 410 million ZAR despite foreign exchange headwinds, reflecting our ability to accelerate revenue growth and profitability at scale. As we look forward to the rest of the fiscal year, we reiterate our FY27 outlook. Our focus remains on optimizing the investment we made in sales capacity during FY26 whilst growing our distribution footprint at a more moderate pace in FY27.

Before diving into the details, we would like to provide a quick introduction to Karooooo. We provide an operational intelligence platform for connected vehicles and mobile assets. Our platform enhances operational efficiency, reduces costs, mitigates risk, improves safety and customer service, ensures compliance, and empowers service delivery. We help businesses simplify decision making to optimize their physical operations. We serve a large, underpenetrated market with strong sustained demand driven by digital transformation, a constant need to improve operational efficiency, and an increasing focus on safety and compliance.

We are a founder-led business with a strong financial profile, a two-decade proven track record of execution excellence, and a cultural focus on disciplined capital allocation, operational efficiency, and driving healthy returns on invested capital. Our platform supports more than 2.8 million subscribers across more than 125,000 businesses spanning a diverse set of industries with no customer or industry concentration risk. Importantly, our financial model is anchored by accelerating ARR growth, high-margin subscription revenue, exceptional commercial ARR retention, and powerful unit economics.

Despite the strengthening ZAR, ARR increased 19% to 5,432 million ZAR and, on a US dollar basis, increased 32% to 335 million US dollars. In Q3, our commercial customer ARR retention rate remained at 95%, and subscription revenue accounted for 97% of Cartrack revenue. We continue to scale our proprietary data asset, now generating more than 330 billion data points monthly, which we leverage to deliver impactful innovation, insights, and value to our customers.

Finally, our LTV to CAC remains above nine times, underpinned by strong retention, disciplined capital allocation, and efficient distribution, which are embedded in our vertically integrated business model and company culture. During today's presentation we will review both of Karooooo's operating segments, Cartrack and Karooooo Logistics. Cartrack is our operational intelligence platform. Cartrack operates at scale and has a very attractive financial profile.

Cartrack's operating momentum is the primary driver of Karooooo's growth and strong financial performance. Cartrack delivered exceptional Q1 results that reflect the returns from the strategic investments we have made in expanding our sales capacity and selling video and Cartrack Tag to existing and new customers in South Africa. In Q1, Cartrack delivered approximately 1.4 billion ZAR in subscription revenue, an increase of 19%, or 32% on a US dollar basis.

The 19% growth reflects an acceleration compared to 18% in Q4 FY26 despite a strengthening ZAR that negatively impacted reported Cartrack subscription revenue. In Q1, Cartrack's constant currency subscription revenue growth was 21% in Q1. Cartrack's operating profit margin was a healthy 28% in Q1. Karooooo Logistics is our rapidly growing delivery-as-a-service offering that empowers large enterprise customers to scale and enable their Q‑commerce, or quick commerce.

Karooooo Logistics continues to demonstrate strong growth and operating momentum while delivering real value to our enterprise customers. We report Karooooo Logistics separately as its delivery-as-a-service financial profile differs from the financial profile of Cartrack's subscription model. Karooooo Logistics is strategically important to us as it empowers our customers to scale their business through a capital-light model whilst driving high Cartrack customer retention.

In Q1, Karooooo Logistics delivery-as-a-service revenue was 177 million ZAR, an increase of 46% or 63% on a US dollar basis. We are very excited about the value Karooooo Logistics is adding to our customers and its long-term growth opportunity. In Q1, Karooooo delivered strong consolidated financial results. Total revenue increased 22% to 1,564 million ZAR, subscription revenue increased 19% to 1,354 million ZAR, operating profit increased 16% to a record 410 million ZAR, and subscriber growth increased 18% to 2.8 million.

Cartrack's 19% subscription revenue growth and 28% operating profit margin were the primary drivers of Karooooo's strong financial performance in Q1. Q1 continued our track record of delivering profitable growth at scale. In Q1, we were a rule‑of‑60 company when adding our Cartrack subscription revenue growth of 19% and our Cartrack adjusted EBITDA margin of 45%. We note that our EBITDA margin does not include any stock-based compensation or stock‑based compensation add‑back, a stark contrast to our peers.

Our rare financial profile translates to healthy return on invested capital. It is important to underscore just how differentiated our financial model has become in the context of the broader software universe. We believe we are amongst a select few software companies operating at a rule of 50 based on calendar year 2026 GAAP street estimates within a universe of approximately 150 companies. Karooooo is the only small-cap company operating at this combined level of growth and profitability.

Our financial profile is incredibly rare in public markets, especially among small-cap companies. Being part of this elite group reflects our unwavering commitment to disciplined and profitable growth. In addition, with an essentially unchanged share count over the last several years and no stock-based compensation, growth in free cash flow translates directly into higher per-share value given the absence of dilution. This is a key point of differentiation relative to many peers that fund growth with material equity issuance and stock-based compensation.

Now let's discuss our Q1 financial and operational highlights. In Q1, we accelerated our ARR growth despite foreign exchange headwinds. ARR growth accelerated to 19%, and ARR growth in US dollars increased 32%, reaching $335 million. Constant currency ARR growth accelerated to 22%. Cartrack's subscription revenue growth accelerated to 19%, underpinned by accelerating growth of 24% in South Africa. Cartrack's subscription revenue growth increased 32% in US dollars and 21% in constant currency.

Cartrack's total subscribers accelerated to 18%, surpassing 2.8 million, driven primarily by exceptionally strong performance in South Africa. Notably, Cartrack delivered record subscriber net additions of 142,000, with South Africa's subscriber net additions increasing 92% to 113,913. Despite foreign exchange headwinds, Karooooo delivered record operating profit of 410 million ZAR as growth-oriented investments moderated. Consolidated sales and marketing expenses increased 9% quarter on quarter compared to a 12% increase quarter on quarter in the equivalent quarters of the previous fiscal year.

We were a rule‑of‑60 company in Q1 with subscription revenue growth of 19% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 45%. Our balance sheet remains strong and unleveraged, and we ended the quarter with net cash and cash equivalents of 756 million ZAR. It's important to note that we keep our excess cash in US dollars and, given the stronger ZAR, the net cash and cash equivalents translates into fewer ZAR. We declared a 1.5 US dollar dividend per share payable later this month, an increase of 20% compared to the prior year.

Our healthy subscription gross margin, efficient customer acquisition, and attractive commercial customer ARR retention rates continue to drive our healthy unit economics. In Q1, our subscription gross margin was 73%, our LTV to CAC ratio remained above nine times, and our commercial customer ARR retention was 95%. Our unit economics remained healthy despite the increase in sales and marketing expenses during Q1, and we remain committed to profitable growth as we pursue the expansive growth opportunity ahead of us.

Q1 subscriber growth accelerated to 18% and reached 2.1 million subscribers in South Africa. South Africa's net subscriber additions increased 92% to 113,913 as we realized the benefits of our recent investments in sales capacity and capitalized on strong demand for the Cartrack Tag and video solutions. Importantly, South Africa's subscription revenue growth accelerated to 24%. The pace of growth reflects our deliberate strategy to cement our leadership position in South Africa through a balanced combination of subscriber additions and selling video and Cartrack Tag to our existing and new customers in South Africa.

We are optimistic about the market opportunity in South Africa and believe there is a long runway to drive strong subscriber growth. Q1 subscriber growth increased 22% and reached 353,000 subscribers in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, with most of the subscribers in Southeast Asia. Q1 subscription revenue growth was 6% and 17% on a constant currency basis. The pace of reported subscription revenue growth in the region reflects the faster growth of certain countries that generate lower ARPU and foreign exchange headwinds.

As the second-largest contributor to group revenue, Southeast Asia continues to present the most compelling growth opportunity for the group in the medium to long term. We plan to continue with a strong yet prudent drive to increase sales and marketing in Southeast Asia, and we anticipate our investments to have a positive impact on subscriber growth in the region. Southeast Asia is a vast, underpenetrated market for sophisticated fleet management and video-based solutions, and we are well positioned to capitalize on the opportunity.

Q1 subscriber growth increased 13% and reached 236,000 in Europe. Q1 subscription revenue growth was 7% and 13% on a constant currency basis. We continue to expand our customer base and drive our distribution capabilities in the region. We have partnered with leading OEMs to provide easy access to our platform, seamlessly integrating their connected vehicle data to our platform through application programming interfaces. We expect these partnerships to contribute to our results in the medium to long term.

In addition, we are experiencing encouraging demand for our proprietary compliance technology in the region as customers seek to simplify compliance with evolving legislation and enforcement. In Q1, Karooooo Logistics continued to build scale and delivered revenue of 177 million ZAR, an increase of 46% and an 8% operating profit margin. Q‑commerce, or quick commerce, orders, a type of e‑commerce focused on ultra‑fast delivery, drove the exceptional performance.

Karooooo Logistics supports our strong financial performance by immersing our platform into large customers' operations, contributing to strong customer retention. Karooooo Logistics also enables us to learn about the operational and logistics challenges confronting our customers. In Q1, we made progress with our FY27 priorities. First, we continue to cement our leadership position in our markets through continued prudent investments in sales and marketing in South Africa.

Our results reflect our success driving the adoption of Cartrack Tag and video solutions with existing customers as well as success selling Cartrack Tag to new customers. The 24% subscription revenue and ARR growth in South Africa underscore our progress cementing our leadership position in South Africa. Second, we moderated our investments in sales and marketing in Q1 as evidenced by the 9% quarter‑on‑quarter increase in sales and marketing expenses in Q1 compared to 12% quarter‑on‑quarter growth in the previous fiscal year.

Despite this moderation and foreign exchange headwinds, subscription revenue growth accelerated in Q1. We remain committed to optimizing our recent investments in sales capacity and growing our distribution footprint at a more moderate pace in FY27. We anticipate the rate of growth of sales and marketing expenses to be lower in FY27 compared to FY26. Third, we are embracing AI across the organization to enhance our platform, improve efficiency, and accelerate the pace of execution.

With that said, I will now pass the call over to Hu Xin. Thank you, Xin. Good morning or good afternoon to everybody or good evening. I'll start off with a question from Josh Riley of Needham. How much of the strength of South African subscriber growth was due to strong cross-sell of TAG relative to customer or vehicle additions by existing customers? Josh, I'm going to phrase it this way. We did a tremendous amount of sales of TAG as a standalone only. The TAG product obviously has got a much lower ARPU than our average ARPU, and also what we did do is also sell a lot of TAG into our existing base, and we did focus a lot of our efforts into selling TAG as a standalone to certain of our existing customers, new customers, given the new opportunity and the challenges that the TAG does address that our customers do have. Second question, how do you currently feel about sales capacity and will you be making incremental investments through the course of the current fiscal year? Yes, we will increase our sales and marketing spend, but at a much lower rate than we did last year. We want to drive more efficiencies than last year, but over the long term we intend to continue to increase our ability to distribute, but this year we intend to grow it slower than the previous year.

Third question, do you plan to expand Cartrack to any additional countries beyond South Africa in the current fiscal year? One of our biggest challenges is actually growing our headcount and training our headcount and our ability to distribute. And at the moment we have our hands full and we can only do so much. So we intend to remain still very much focused on the contract TAG in South Africa for this financial year. The next question is from Ablay.

I'm not sure where Ablay is from. Cartrack's gross margin reached 73% in Q1, above the full-year guidance range of 70% to 72%. What factors do you expect to drive the margin lower over the remainder of the year? Typically, Ablay, we like to give guidance that we believe we'll meet, and if we beat it then it's, you know, it's a plus. We've typically—never in history have we actually given guidance that we've missed—and I believe given the strong ramping up in customer acquisition it would be prudent for us to remain that it will be between 70% and 72%.

Second question from Ablay: in the Asia Pacific and Middle East, subscribers increased 22% while subscription increased 7 billion in constant currency. How should we think about the evolution of regional ARPU as lower-ARPU countries become a larger part of the subscribers? And can product cross-selling potentially close the gap between the subscriber and revenue growth? Ablay, the reality is we first started in Southeast Asia in Singapore. Singapore is a very high-ARPU country, and as we move into lower-ARPU countries we believe that the ARPU in the region will resemble South Africa.

So we're expecting over time the ARPUs in Asia will come down as Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand become a much stronger part of our business. The next question is from Scott from Roth. AI camera continues to gain market traction. Can you provide some additional detail around current attach rates in different markets, particularly South Africa? Scott, despite us selling AI cameras since about 2018—a camera that obviously looks very different to our current products; current products much smaller, much cheaper, much better, much faster—we still believe we're in very early stages of the product adoption of the video and the AI video, given that we've only recently gone into the sort of broader customers, whereas before we focused very much on very specific high-end customers that, you know, that the challenge was very detrimental to the business, but today at current prices it can actually be something that can help all our customers.

I think at the moment we're running at about a 5% adoption rate in our full base, so we do believe there's a long way to increase our penetration into the market. Second question from Scott: it remains early in the adoption of TAGs, but could you provide an update on adoption cycle in South Africa? How many TAGs are currently in operation and would you expect TAGs to be meaningful, over 5%, of the portion of the contract sales in FY28? FY28 is the next financial year.

I certainly think it will be more than 5%, and it currently is already more than 5% of our sales. And I would say that adoption is very strong. Another question from Scott. Are you seeing macroeconomic headwinds impacting tech deployment, adoption of contract services? Scott, in the 20 years that I, you know, business Cartrack—we started the business in 2004—I would say that we've been able to do well in both very difficult times and good times, and today I don't see the economic headwinds being any different to, if any, any different to historical.

There's always been economic headwinds; some are more than others. But I think fundamentally we're designed to operate in difficult times and good times—clearly not times that, you know, it's a total catastrophe. But in the countries we operate in, I would say, besides Mozambique, most countries are intact and they've got good economies and the economies are growing, and I certainly believe that shouldn't be a problem. Next question from Alex, from Raymond James: with the record net adds in the quarter, any change in where you are picking up new subscribers from in terms of other vendors in your various regions vs. Greenfield first-time buyers? Alex, a lot of the drive in the new net adds was actually the TAG, because that really has opened up a whole market for us, and we continue—we'll continue—to drive that, and in the first quarter we really went to look for Greenfield opportunities, but frankly we are going to focus probably the next three quarters more on cross-selling into our base. So we are able—we've got—we've got either to cross-sell or get new, or cross-sell or acquire new customers, and I think the next three quarters we want to actually focus again on cross-selling.

Another question from Alex. Record net subscriber growth in the quarter. Can you help reconcile the record subscriber growth and the commentary to slow down hiring plans in favor of salesforce efficiency? What are you seeing below the surface on the rep productivity side and demand environment in any regions in particular for this efficiency focus? I'm a great believer in culture, and culture is all about having systems, processes, and having the ability to execute.

And when you actually onboard so many people like we did in the last year—it was close to 2,000 people—if you're not careful the culture can fall apart. So we want to tighten up the culture, and then continue to grow. So we believe if we lose our culture that's probably our biggest risk in being able—in our long-term growth. Next question from Jackson Bogley. I'm not sure which Jackson is from. Okay, Jackson is from Dylan Baker at William Blair. Okay. Sorry, Jackson, I wasn't quite sure. Thank you. I didn't read the full question. Net subscriber additions accelerated to a record 142,000 in Q1 with particularly strong momentum in South Africa. Can you frame how sustainable these net add levels are through ’27? How the pipeline and sales productivity have evolved as the last year's sales investment matures? What are the level quarter adds in the reaffirmed guidance? So, Jackson, we don't give guidance to our subscribers because we're going through a phase where we have to expand our distribution capabilities.

But we've also got this huge opportunity to cross-sell and we want to be able to move between these two opportunities swiftly without having to be guided by—or be, if I could use the word, cornered by—what we've told the market. So we prefer not to discuss this and we prefer to, as we go, we do what's best for the business. The next question, another question from Jackson: Karooooo is increasingly the operational intelligence platform, customers with AI video intelligence and workflow automation becoming more central.

Are customers' use cases evolving beyond traditional fleet management? And what are the implications for product investment, retention, ARPU, and competitive differentiation? Jackson, there's a lot to this question. I mean I could talk about it for about 30 minutes, but to keep it simple, we have got very strong product adoption and we are very busy with developing and improving our current tech, both in hardware and in our software platform, and also in our internal systems to run the business.

So I think it really is just a question of us continuing to improve, focusing on what we have, and having total commitment to our customers to continue to evolve and develop more and give our customers more. And that will drive our differentiation. Our differentiation will be about customer service, our platform, and our product. And to be able to differentiate, it's ongoing. It's an ongoing process. It's not something that you do and then you can put it in the drawer and go to sleep.

It's continuous effort. I think those are the questions for today. Thank everybody for joining us today, and thank you. Bye-bye.

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