Blink Charging Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Blink Charging (NASDAQ:BLNK) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Blink Charging reported its first-ever positive adjusted EBITDA of approximately $200,000, marking a significant transformation from a $7.3 million loss in the same quarter last year.

The company announced a strategic shift to ‘Blink Energy’, expanding beyond EV charging to include energy management and battery storage, with the launch of the AI-driven Energy Connect platform.

Revenue for Q3 2026 was $18.4 million, down from $27.1 million in Q3 2025, primarily due to the divestiture of the Envoy car sharing business and a focus on more profitable contracts.

Non-GAAP gross margins improved to 55%, driven by disciplined deal selection and exit from low-margin contracts, despite a one-time inventory charge impacting GAAP margins.

The company revised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $78-81 million, citing timing of customer projects, while maintaining a positive outlook for sustained profitability and future growth.

Blink Charging plans to focus on expanding its Energy Connect platform and battery storage solutions, aiming for a more integrated energy management system that combines charging, software, and storage.

CEO Mike Battaglia was appointed Chairman of the Board, succeeding Ritzart van Monfrans, who will continue as Lead Independent Director.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to the Blink Charging third quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and we will open the floor for your questions after the presentation. If you wish to join the queue to ask a question at any time, you can press star 1. Should you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star 2. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Vitaly Stella. The floor is yours.

Vitaly Stella (Investor Relations)

Thank you, John, and welcome everyone to Blink’s third quarter 2026 earnings call. With us today we have Mike Battaglia, CEO; Ritzart van Monfrans, member of the Board of Directors; and Michael Bercovich, Chief Financial Officer. Today’s discussions will include references to non-GAAP measures. These are reconciled to the most comparable U.S. GAAP numbers in the appendix of our earnings deck. You may find the deck, along with the rest of our earnings materials and other important content, on Blink’s investor relations website. Today’s discussions may also include forward-looking statements about Blink’s expectations. Actual results may differ from those stated, and the most significant factors that could cause results to be different are included on page 2 of the third quarter 2026 earnings deck.

Unless otherwise noted, all comparisons are year over year. Now, regarding our calendar, we will be participating in the 29th Annual Needham Growth Conference in New York City on January 14 and 15. For additional company events, please follow our announcements as well as the investor relations website. And right now I will turn the call over to Mike Battaglia, the CEO of Blink Charging. Mike, please go ahead.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Great. Thanks, Vitaly. Good afternoon everyone and thanks for joining us today. Michael Bercovich will take you through the financials in detail in a few minutes. But before he does, there’s one thing I would like to highlight because it marks a monumental moment for Blink. For the first time in the company’s history, we delivered positive adjusted EBITDA, one quarter ahead of the target we established at the beginning of the year. Just one year ago, in the third quarter of 2025, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of more than $7 million.

The move from a greater than $7 million loss to positive adjusted EBITDA demonstrates the magnitude of the transformation we have executed. From the day I became CEO, achieving profitability has been our number one priority. We said what we intended to do, established a clear timetable, and delivered ahead of that timetable. Blink is now one of the very few publicly traded EV charging companies to reach positive adjusted EBITDA, and the entire team is proud of the result of hard work over the last 18 months and a lot of tough decisions. None of them were easy. All of them were deliberate.

And together they are why the company you are looking at today is lean, focused, and profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis and on track towards sustainable profitability. Before I talk about where Blink is headed and our evolution to Blink Energy, I want to share some news about our Board of Directors. Effective immediately, the Board has elected me Chairman of the Board in addition to my role as CEO. I am honored to take on this additional responsibility and I want to thank my fellow directors for their vote of confidence. I also want to thank Ritzart van Monfrans, who has served on our board since 2019 and as our chairman since 2023.

Ritzart guided the board through one of the most challenging and transformative periods in Blink’s history, and his counsel, his support, and his deep experience in EV charging have been invaluable to me and to the entire leadership team. I am pleased that Ritzart will continue to serve on our board as Lead Independent Director. And Ritzart, congratulations on your new role. Ritzart is joining us on the call today and I’d like to turn it over to him for a few words.

Ritzart van Monfrans (Lead Independent Director)

Yeah. Thanks, Mike. And good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of the entire board, congratulations, Mike. Since becoming CEO, Mike has led Blink through a difficult but necessary transformation, and this quarter’s results show what that work has delivered. The board’s decision is a vote of confidence in Mike’s leadership and how he has guided the company through this period, and in his vision for Blink’s future as Blink Energy. It’s been a privilege to serve as chairman and I’ll continue to serve on the board as Lead Independent Director. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Mike, the leadership team, and my fellow directors as Blink enters its next chapter. With that, back to you, Mike.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

All right, thanks, Ritzart. That brings me to another big change at Blink Energy. Last week we announced that Blink Charging is becoming Blink Energy. The transition to Blink Energy is the continuation of the work that got us to this point, and it is the next step in returning to top line growth. We will spend a good portion of today’s call on exactly what that means. Turning to slide 6, Blink Energy is about three things: electric vehicle charging, energy management, and battery energy storage. Energy Connect, our recently released AI-driven energy management platform, is what ties them together. We are not leaving charging behind. Charging is the foundation and our beachhead into these expanded markets. We are building on top of it.

Why now? Slide 7 answers that question with the demand side of the equation. U.S. electricity use is forecast to grow 29% between 2025 and 2030, from roughly 4,300 terawatt hours to nearly 5,600. Summer peak demand is forecast to grow by 166 gigawatts over that period, which is about 15 times New York City’s peak load. Data centers account for roughly 55% of forecast load growth in all large U.S. grids such as ERCOT, PJM, and MISO, and about 70% of the increase in electricity use.

Utility growth forecasts for this period are now about eight times what they were anticipating in 2022. In simple terms, we’re going to need a lot more electricity and we’re going to need it quickly. On slide 8 is the supply side, and it’s under stress. You’ll remember winter storm Uri in Texas in February of 2021 with rolling blackouts and more than four and a half million customers who lost power. And that was not a one-time event. NERC’s 2026 Long-Term Assessment rates 13 of 23 North American regions at elevated or high risk, with multiple regions in the high-risk category. And in PJM, the most recent capacity auction cleared at the price cap for a third straight year and still came up 6.8 gigawatts short of the reliability requirement.

So what does this mean for charging sites? Really two things. Utility demand charges and capacity limits raise operating costs and complicate expansion, particularly at DC fast charging locations. And customers want to add charging capacity while keeping their electricity costs under control. Blink Energy brings charging, energy management, and battery storage together to meet that need. On slide 9, we’ve laid out the three pillars of Blink Energy. The first is EV charging. This has been, is, and will be the core of our business. It is the catalyst for bringing energy management and battery storage to our customers. The second pillar is energy management. Energy Connect balances charging loads in real time, manages peak demand, and helps sites add chargers within their existing electrical capacity. It is live today at 52 Blink-owned DC fast charging sites, and in fact our CTO Harmeet Singh informed me late yesterday that more than 30 of our Blink-owned sites in Europe are also now onboarded to Energy Connect.

So we’re now 80 plus and approaching 100 sites. The third pillar is battery storage. Batteries store energy for release during periods of higher demand, reducing peak electricity drawn from the grid and complementing charging load management. Blink is planning storage at sites with high utility demand charges and where the unit economics are healthy. Moving to slide 10, again, with more than 48,000 networked chargers worldwide, EV charging remains at the core of our business. These chargers are owned, operated, or supplied by Blink. That is an established global charging business and it is the foundation for energy services. It is also opening up new customer opportunities and acts as a potential competitive differentiator. Customers no longer need to procure charging equipment, batteries, and energy management software separately.

Blink Energy now offers a single integrated solution. Slide 11 shows an example of why site owners need the other two pillars outside of EV charging. Grid challenges ultimately show up at a site in two ways: cost and capacity. More chargers can mean higher peak electricity loads and correspondingly higher utility demand charges, while limited grid capacity can prevent a site from powering the chargers it actually wants to deploy. That is where our three offerings work together. Software and battery storage reduce reliance on the grid during peak periods, helping lower operating costs while unlocking the capacity needed to deploy more charging infrastructure.

Slide 12 details the current status of Energy Connect. As I mentioned, Energy Connect is deployed at 52 Blink-owned DC fast charging sites. Forty-seven of those sites are actively using load management to control charging demand. We have initial measurable results across nine sites where electricity demand fees have been reduced by 21%. In fact, one high-capacity site has experienced a 38% reduction in demand fees. These are direct cost reductions that positively impact Blink margins and point to this technology’s potential.

What comes next is the expansion across our customer base. We’re making Energy Connect available to customers in the United States and Europe, acquiring software subscription revenue while helping to optimize their charging footprint and their available electrical capacity. Slide 13 covers battery storage, which is the next step for us. We’ve identified several locations, including DC fast charging sites with high utility demand charges, where we plan to deploy battery storage integrated with charging through Energy Connect. From there, energy management and storage will extend to additional sites where local conditions and electricity rates support a strong business case, again in the form of unit economics.

Slide 14 is why all of this matters financially. Blink Energy expands our recurring revenue model beyond just charging. It allows us to deepen relationships with existing charging customers while serving new customers seeking greater control over electricity demand, capacity, and cost. At the same time, we create long-term recurring revenue through software subscriptions and related energy services in a large and expanding market. All of these are accretive to our profitability.

So with that, I’ll turn it over to Michael Bercovich, our Chief Financial Officer, to review the financials in more detail, and then I’ll circle back at the end of the call with some concluding remarks. So, Michael.

Michael Bercovich (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon everyone. I’m incredibly proud to be here today as we announce our first ever positive adjusted EBITDA results. It’s been a long but also a very focused journey, and this Q3 is the quarter the plan has delivered. Adjusted EBITDA was positive at approximately $200,000, the first positive quarter in Blink Charging’s history, one quarter ahead of target and a $7.5 million improvement year over year. Non-GAAP operating expenses were down 46% year over year and non-GAAP gross margin expanded to 55%, and we ended the quarter with approximately $30.5 million in cash and no debt.

Let me walk you through the details, beginning with the highlights on slide 16 and slide 18. Q3 2026 total revenue was $18.4 million compared to $27.1 million in Q3 of 2025. Let me provide some context. This is the first full quarter without car sharing revenue following the Envoy divestiture on June 5, as the prior-year quarter included $1.2 million of car sharing revenues. It was also the first quarter without several European contracts that we decided not to renew due to unfavorable economics. With every renewal we evaluate the profitability expectations, and if it doesn’t fit, we walk away.

Beyond that, revenue in Q3 came in below our internal projections, primarily reflecting the timing of certain customer projects that were not completed during the quarter. Those projects are not lost, and we expect them to be delivered in the fourth quarter, subject to customer schedules and project execution. Product revenues were $6.4 million compared to $13 million in the third quarter of last year and represent approximately 35% of total revenue.

This reflects deliberate deal selection and the project timing I just described. Service revenue, which includes repeatable charging revenues and recurring network fees, was $10.0 million compared to $10.8 million in Q3 of 2025. Within that network fee revenue, the recurring component grew 6.3% year over year to approximately $2.9 million, while charging service revenue decreased 11.5%. The decrease was entirely due to our deliberate exit of less profitable contracts.

Repeat and recurring revenue represented approximately 55% of total revenue in the quarter, and we continue toward our long-term objective of approximately 80%. Other revenues, which consist of warranty fees, grants and rebates, and other revenue items, were $1.9 million, essentially flat with $2 million in the prior-year period. Car sharing revenues were zero in the third quarter following the divestiture of Envoy Technologies, compared to $1.2 million in the prior-year period.

As a reminder, starting with fiscal year 2026, we have redefined our non-GAAP metrics to align with peers and industry practices. You can see the definitions of these metrics in our earnings press release as well as in the appendix section of this presentation. The main difference is that we exclude non-cash share-based compensation, other non-recurring items, as well as depreciation and amortization, to better present the fundamental direction of our business.

So let’s get to it. GAAP gross profit in Q3 was $4.8 million, or 26.3% of revenues, compared to gross profit of $9.3 million, or 34.5% of revenues, in Q3 of 2025. I want to be direct about the GAAP margin because there is a one-time item in it. As you know, we completed the transition to contract manufacturing in January 2026. Throughout the year we have been working through the remaining legacy manufacturing inventory, repurposing components through our contract manufacturing partners and monetizing inventory through third-party sales, with meaningful success in both.

In the third quarter we substantially completed that assessment and identified remaining inventory that could not be economically utilized or recovered. That resulted in approximately a $3 million non-cash inventory charge. Excluding that charge, the gross margin would have been approximately 41.7%, ahead of the second quarter at 38.9%, and significantly better than 34.5% a year ago. In Q3 2026, our non-GAAP gross margin was 55% compared to 40.9% in Q3 of last year, an improvement of about 1,400 basis points and up from 47.9% in the second quarter.

The drivers are the same ones we’ve been describing all year: discipline, portfolio optimization, the exit from low-margin contracts, contract manufacturing efficiencies, and a richer mix of repeat, recurring, and higher-margin revenues. These are structural improvements. Turning to operating expenses, GAAP total operating expenses in Q3 were $11.8 million compared to $9.8 million in Q3 of last year. That comparison needs context. The prior-year quarter included an $11.7 million non-cash gain from the change in fair value of consideration payable related to the Envoy deal. Excluding that item, total operating expenses decreased 45% year over year. On a non-GAAP basis, operating expenses were down 46% year over year from $18.4 million to $10 million this quarter.

We have rightsized the organization, streamlined our cost structure, and instilled discipline across G&A and compensation spending, and we continue targeting more as we move forward. We call it right capital allocation. Compensation expenses were down 42% year over year from $11.7 million in Q3 2025 to $6.8 million this quarter. G&A expenses were $1.2 million, down from $3.7 million in the prior-year quarter, and other operating expenses declined to $2.8 million from $4.8 million.

GAAP net loss for Q3 was $6.7 million, or $0.05 loss per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $300,000, or flat per diluted share, in Q3 of last year, significantly impacted by the non-cash gain from the Envoy consideration payable adjustment in the amount of $11.7 million. As I described before, for the nine months, net loss was $24.3 million compared to $50.7 million in the same period of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2026 was positive at approximately $200,000, compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $7.3 million in Q3 of last year, a $7.5 million improvement.

For the nine months, the adjusted EBITDA loss has improved 76% to a $7.0 million loss from a $29.4 million loss. You can clearly see the trend on slide 19. It was a deliberate journey to get to positive EBITDA one quarter at a time. Turning to our balance sheet and cash position, we ended Q3 with cash and cash equivalents of approximately $30.5 million compared to $34 million at the end of June. The $3.5 million decrease in the quarter includes capital expenditures supporting the expansion of our DC fast charging network. We have no debt. Accounts receivable have come down to $13.3 million from $19.5 million at the year end, and inventory to $7.1 million from $14.2 million, both reflecting the working capital discipline we have put in place as we scale our DC fast charging infrastructure and begin deploying battery storage solutions.

We expect cash investments to continue in support of future repeatable cash flows from those assets, and we keep a close eye on cash usage. Regarding our business outlook, I’d like to provide an update across three key areas. Number one, revenue: we are updating our full-year 2026 revenue guidance to between $78 million and $81 million from $83 to $90 million previously. The revision reflects the timing of completion of certain customer projects and our continued focus on revenue quality. This is a timing and discipline story, not a change in our confidence or in the long-term opportunity.

Number two, gross margins: we continue to expect full-year 2026 gross margin of approximately 38%, and that is excluding any non-cash inventory charges. Our strong gross margins reflect a structurally improved operating model driven by a higher-quality revenue mix, manufacturing efficiencies, disciplined commercial execution, and improving utilization of our own charging assets. And number three, sustained profitability: we achieved positive adjusted EBITDA one quarter ahead of target, and our goal is to maintain positive adjusted EBITDA through the fourth quarter of 2026.

Our focus has shifted from reaching breakeven to sustaining it, supported by our streamlined cost structure and continued operational discipline. But the next step in the evolution to Blink Charging is to return to growth—a disciplined and profitable growth. Across our industry, revenue growth has too often been prioritized over profitability, sometimes at the expense of sustainable business economics. At Blink Charging, we recognized early that long-term success requires more than simply growing the top line. It requires a disciplined operating model capable of delivering sustainable profitability and creating long-term shareholder value.

Over the last 18 months, we have deliberately chosen a different path, making the difficult but necessary decisions to exit economically unattractive revenue streams, fundamentally realign our cost structure, and establish a stronger financial and operational foundation. Those decisions were not always the easiest, but they were essential to stabilizing the business and positioning Blink for its next phase of growth. Our first quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA represents an important validation of that strategy and the discipline behind its execution.

As we look forward to 2027, our priority shifts to accelerating revenue growth, applying the same focus and discipline and accountability that brought us to this milestone. Our objective is clear. It is not growth at any cost, but profitable, sustainable growth that delivers lasting value to our shareholders. I will now turn back over to Mike to wrap it up. Go ahead, Mike.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

All right, great. Thanks, Michael. I’ll close by putting this quarter into perspective. So the third quarter was not simply the quarter in which Blink reported positive adjusted EBITDA. It was the quarter in which we demonstrated that the transformation of this company is working. We delivered positive adjusted EBITDA of approximately $200,000 compared with a loss of $7.3 million a year ago. That represents a seven-and-a-half-million-dollar year-over-year improvement and the first positive adjusted EBITDA quarter in Blink’s history.

And I don’t think I’m going to get tired of saying that. And that was achieved one quarter ahead of the target we established at the beginning of the year. We also expanded our non-GAAP gross margins to 55%, reduced non-GAAP operating expenses by 46%, and ended the quarter with approximately $30.5 million in cash and no debt. So Slide 22 captures our recent journey in three stages: transformation, stabilization and growth. In 2025, we transformed the company. We launched Blink Forward, we streamlined the organization, lowered our operating breakeven, strengthened capital allocation practices and began transitioning to contract manufacturing. At that point, Blink was primarily a charging network. In 2026, we stabilized the company.

We completed the transition to contract manufacturing, exited contracts that did not meet our economic standards, divested the Envoy car sharing business which was non-core, reduced our structural cost base and delivered our first positive adjusted EBITDA quarter on a revenue base approximately one-third smaller than a year ago. That is an important point. Profitability didn’t come from chasing volume or accepting unprofitable revenue, it came from improving the quality of our revenue, expanding margins and operating the business responsibly.

Today, Blink is no longer only a charging network. We are becoming a managed energy platform, combining EV charging, energy management software and battery storage into a more integrated customer solution. Energy Connect is already deployed at 52 Blink-owned DC fast charging sites in the U.S. and 30-plus in Europe and providing a tangible foundation from which to expand our energy management capabilities and recurring software revenue. So as we enter 2027 our focus moves from stabilization to top-line growth. We intend to scale Energy Connect across our network and customer base, deploy battery storage where the economics support attractive returns and expand from managing chargers to managing the broader energy needs of sites, buildings and campuses. Over time we see chargers, batteries and buildings operating as one connected system with Blink providing the intelligence that manages demand, capacity and cost.

The market need is also becoming more urgent. Electricity demand is increasing, grid capacity is constrained and commercial customers are confronting higher costs and greater complexity as they add charging infrastructure. Those challenges create a meaningful opportunity for a company that can bring together charging, software and storage in one integrated solution, and we believe Blink is increasingly positioned to be that company. When I became CEO I said our priorities were clear: establish fundamentally sound financials, operate with discipline and build a company capable of scaling profitably. This quarter we delivered clear evidence of progress against each of those priorities. We still have significant work ahead of us. One positive quarter is a milestone, it’s not the destination. Our immediate focus is to sustain positive adjusted EBITDA, tightly manage capital, execute on our customer commitments and convert the Blink Energy strategy into profitable growth.

Blink entering 2027 is a fundamentally different company from the one that entered 2025. So in closing, I want to thank the entire Blink team for their focus, their resilience and the accountability that made this quarter possible. And I also want to thank our customers, our partners and our shareholders for their continued confidence in Blink. So with that, let’s open the call for questions. So operator, go ahead.

OPERATOR

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you wish to ask a question, please press Star one. We do ask if listening on speakerphone today, please pick up your handset while asking your question to provide optimal sound quality. Once again, please press Star one on your phone at this time to join the queue to ask a question. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Craig Irwin from Roth Capital Partners.

Please go ahead.

Andrew (Analyst at Roth Capital Partners)

Hey guys, it’s Andrew on for Craig. I want to say congrats for reaching adjusted EBITDA profitability before your target. That’s a great achievement. My first question, so like as you guys kind of try and execute on the new Blink Energy strategy and, you know, drive growth through the core charging business in 2027, is the current cost base of around 10 million quarterly in non-cash opex enough to support the growth or will there be, you know, some incremental investments as you see as you kind of build out the new strategy?

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah, so, so we feel comfortable about our current opex run rate and we think we have capacity to expand from where we are in terms of productivity, in terms of the team being able to take on more and to, you know, to enter these markets successfully. Part of it is just the productivity of our employee base and the talent level just continues to increase. Where we are investing more is in the sales organization. So we feel like now is the appropriate time where we have reached a couple key milestones in our business and we’re putting more emphasis on the sales organization.

Andrew (Analyst at Roth Capital Partners)

It’s great to hear and appreciate the color. And second from me, on the last call you guys kind of mentioned you were seeing increased utilization on recently installed chargers. So just kind of wondering if that trend has continued and, you know, how quickly are these new sites ramping towards your targeted utilization rates?

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah, so we’re seeing encouraging utilization throughout our network, but certainly our better performing sites are growing stronger as time goes on. That’s number one. Number two is, you know, back in December when we did a follow-on and raised 20 million, we had talked about the fact that the majority of that was going to go towards capex for new sites. So this year we have 33 sites under construction as a result of using those proceeds. We have several sites that have already been delivered and we have the majority of sites that will go live between now and the end of first quarter 2027.

So we’re on pace.

Andrew (Analyst at Roth Capital Partners)

Great. Appreciate the—yeah, appreciate the details there. And congrats again on the fiscal quarter.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Thank you.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Finks from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Ryan Finks (Analyst at B. Riley Securities)

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the progress here with positive EBITDA. Thinking about 2027, was curious if you could break down the expected revenue growth that you see between charging services, product sales and Energy Connect and, or storage.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah, so we will—we’ll provide more color on 2027, you know, early next year during the quarterly release and the annual release.

Ryan Finks (Analyst at B. Riley Securities)

Understood. I mean, I guess maybe to phrase it another way and maybe not focusing it directly on 27, but just as you make this kind of transformation into Blink Energy with the three-pronged approach, how are you thinking about those different segments ultimately comprising the total business going forward?

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah, I’ll answer it this way. And I’m sure Michael can provide some color as well. So there’s these kind of three core elements of Blink Energy. It’s charging, it’s Energy Connect software platform and it’s storage. So we’re going to continue doing what we’ve been doing on the charging side. Number two, when we think about Energy Connect and battery energy storage, this opens up a meaningful opportunity for us in really two ways. One, it is going to serve us very nicely, as we’re already seeing, on enhancing Blink’s margins on the owner-operator side.

And then the second opportunity is—and that’s a margin expansion, that’s a cost reduction margin expansion opportunity. And then secondly, there’s a market opportunity for our customer base that has purchased chargers from us, and there’s tens of thousands of those. And the opportunity is for us not only to sell software subscriptions to Energy Connect, but where it makes sense for the customer and where they’re being significantly impacted by demand fees is that we can then implement battery energy storage there.

Then finally, as time goes on, we’ll start looking at things like grid services, electricity offtakes, things like that. So, you know, like anything, we’re just beginning this phase of our business. So it’s going to be, you know, relatively small in 2027. Second half of 2027, it’ll grow and then it’ll take off from there. But, Michael, you want to add anything?

Michael Bercovich (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, Mike, I think this is perfect. One thing I will add is, as a charging services, we expect this continue to grow, not only from deployments, because obviously we covered that as we go live as the new sites, but also from utilization. And we start seeing that across the network. And this is where, again, usage of different tools and really changing the way that we operate start bringing a lot of value.

Ryan Finks (Analyst at B. Riley Securities)

Great. I appreciate all that detail. And then maybe thinking about the balance sheet and capital allocation, can you just talk about, at a high level, the capital needs that might be required for the battery storage opportunity?

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. Michael, you want to take that?

Michael Bercovich (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, absolutely. We feel that we are well capitalized. We finished the quarter with $38.5 million in cash. We have no debt. We always talked about acquiring debt being a smart debt for assets that will produce significant returns in the future. And we feel now moving to the adjusted EBITDA this quarter, it will help us to open additional doors, and we will continue reevaluating those opportunities as we move forward. We feel positive about the direction and where we’re going.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah. And I would add one thing, Ryan. Unlike our charging business, where we’ve invested our own equity into establishing these sites, our plan is not to buy these—you know, for instance, buy a battery and install it. Our plan is absolutely to finance that transaction and to have those projects wrapped in a larger financing opportunity. So we are not planning on going out and buying a bunch of batteries and installing them. So it’s a little bit of a shift in how we’ve been managing capital.

Ryan Finks (Analyst at B. Riley Securities)

Got it. Makes sense. I appreciate it, guys.

OPERATOR

As a reminder, if you have any questions, please press Star one. Our next question comes from the line of Samir Joshi from HC Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Samir Joshi (Analyst at HC Wainwright)

Hey, good afternoon, Michael. Congrats on the positive EBITDA. So, a couple questions on the Energy Connect: of the 52 sites, is it a full version of the Energy Connect that is being used there, or do you expect some additional features to be added to these? And then how many of the sites where you already have chargers, DC fast chargers, are potentially convertible in the near term, say, six to nine months?

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Or potentially—did you say, Samir, convertible?

Samir Joshi (Analyst at HC Wainwright)

Convertible as in where Energy Connect can be deployed quickly?

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Good. Good question. So, first of all, if you guys recall, on the Q2 call, we announced Energy Connect for the very first time. And on that call, we announced that we had 11 sites that were live. So between the Q2 call and now we have 52 sites onboard Blink-owned sites in the US and 30 plus in Europe. So the rollout has been very rapid. If we take a look at the US again, 52 sites, we have 47 of those sites where we’ve begun actively load managing. And we talked about in the comments that we have nine sites, because we now have enough data on nine sites where we’ve seen meaningful reductions in demand charges. So 21% overall for those nine sites; one site was a 38% reduction in demand charges.

And then as we move forward, we’re going to have more data across those 52 sites, the 30 plus sites in Europe, and the additional sites that we add to Energy Connect under Blink-owned and then expanding again to host-owned sites or to customers that fall outside of Blink-owned. So the criteria here is to look for sites that are well utilized and that are in a utility jurisdiction where the demand fees are high. And when those two things come together, it becomes very economically attractive to add battery energy storage even beyond load curtailment of Energy Connect.

And then finally, to answer the second part of your question there, Samir, yes, this is the very beginning of Energy Connect. The team is going to continue to add features and functions to the platform, and there’ll be more to come on that as we grow that part of the business.

Samir Joshi (Analyst at HC Wainwright)

Yeah, actually I want, I think on slide 22 of your presentation, the bottom right is actually very exciting where you say where we are going, and that’s chargers, batteries and buildings as one system. I think that’s the potential of Energy Connect and I think it’s right for you guys to focus on that. So, yeah, so just a few questions. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Michael Battaglia (President and CEO)

I was just going to mention we think that when customers see the power of this type of platform in reducing cost and managing electricity effectively on EV charging, that it’s a natural progression into, let’s say, the rest of the campus or the building that they’re operating the chargers at.

Samir Joshi (Analyst at HC Wainwright)

Absolutely. On the cost front, Michael, did I hear properly that there is more possible reductions in OPEX going forward?

Michael Bercovich (Chief Financial Officer)

Samir, we are always looking to be more efficient. As I said, we call it capital allocation. When we’re talking about that, it’s not only the employees and compensation; it’s really about how we operate, what we pay for, and how we do that. And that’s how we got here, because eventually we have a really great, talented team. But what we can do, we can do things better and faster, and that creates a really new base for growing in the future. Some people are asking whether, you know, when you start growing again, are you going to increase your cost basis? Our cost basis is rationalized and can support significantly larger operation. Now, as Mike said, the next level of investments will be in sales and in sales only. And we continue utilizing the modern tools to help us to be more agile and more lean. So our cost basis is still going through some evaluation, as we said, because this is just the nature of our new culture—just thinking about how to make it better and how we can get more money to invest back in the business and create a stronger company.

Samir Joshi (Analyst at HC Wainwright)

Got it. And just to reiterate, on the gross margin front, I think you’re guiding for 38%. But in this quarter, excluding one-time charges, it would have been 41.7%. So I can see that there is more scope going forward. Once again, congrats on the partnership.

Michael Bercovich (Chief Financial Officer)

Absolutely. If you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

OPERATOR

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to Vitaly Celia for closing remarks.

Vitaly Stella (Investor Relations)

We thank our participants and our audience that joined us for the call today as Blink announced its first ever positive adjusted EBITDA quarter and outlined the company’s and the management’s evolution to Blink Energy. This concludes our call, and if there are any further questions, feel free to email us@irlinkcharging.com and be well. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. This does conclude today’s conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

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