Taser’s decision to relaunch itself as Axon and give away thousands of body cameras could have been interpreted either as a growing company looking to expand or a desperate one scrambling for purchase. Fortunately it appears to be the former: Axon is growing and the next year may be even bigger.
We won’t go too much into the weeds, but the company’s “software and sensors” segment more than doubled its revenues, to $21.6 million — that’s the part of the company making body cameras for police and handling the reams of data those cameras produce. Net sales overall are up 43 percent, to $79.2 million.
Net income was $4.6 million, not exactly blowing the roof off, but the company has been building up inventory and preparing its systems for the big “first year free” plan it proposed to any interested police department last month. As of the end of the quarter, 36 of 68 major cities’ law enforcement agencies had bought either Axon cameras or Evidence.com service (or both). That’s a pretty good install base, and not one that easily erodes.
Going whole hog on the new generation of police gear seems to be paying off for Axon, and the tech may prove to be transformative for the law enforcement process as it becomes the standard rather than the weird new exception.
If you’re curious about the rest of Axon’s financials, the specifics are all right here.