From: The Desk of the CEO
Dear friends,
I would like to start by saying that I hope all of you had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday. I do not take for granted the extraordinary shareholder base that Blink has. Your passion for our business energizes me every day, and many of you are also customers. The team and I look forward to continuing to work hard for you to drive growth and capture the significant opportunity that lays in front of us.
As you know, the stock has performed well as investors have gained increased confidence about the universal shift to electric vehicles (EV) that is beginning to occur. This is gratifying to see. There have been and always will be naysayers. When I founded the business, the naysayers questioned whether the shift to EV was real. Now, as the value of our business grows, the naysayers tend to be the short sellers. In fact, to this point, you may have heard some noise in the past few days. In my mind, their attention just proves we are on the right track. We will stay focused on driving our business and sharing the facts with our investors.
Not only do we design, produce, and sell our equipment like other EV charging providers, but we also own and operate charging stations. This distinctively unique business model generates ongoing and recurring revenues from charging station operations. This ownership model is unique from many of our competitors, such as a ChargePoint, who simply sell hardware.
Our ownership model, which represents a growing portion of our network's chargers, is an asset, not just today but also in the long-term. Our exclusive, long-term contracts provide us the opportunity to add chargers at highly utilized locations without needing new agreements.
Also, as an owner/operator, we sell the “pump” and the “fuel” rather than just the pump. In this model, we pay for the charger and installation, and then each time a car is charged, we realize a recurring revenue stream from the margin between what we pay for the electricity and what we sell it to the EV driver. The utilization of these charging stations is still in the low single digits, as it should be, as the world is still in the nascent stages of EV growth and infrastructure build-out. As this increases, our footprint will exponentially increase as we can leverage our existing locations for the rapid expansion of our network.
We are confident that our unique own/operate model represents a substantial growth opportunity. This far exceeds the value potential of solely transaction-based equipment sales, which require new sales for each parking spot rather than one contract per the entire parking facility. In order to drive future utilization, it is important that we not only grow our network, but make sure that we secure high volume locations. We have made extraordinary progress on that front so far this year. During the third quarter of 2020 we installed, sold, acquired or deployed additional 668 charging stations across 25 states, of which 200 came as part of our acquisition of BlueLA. 307 charging stations were sold or deployed commercially, with 62% of those being Blink owned and operated. 89 of these were “swaps” from first-generation chargers, in keeping with the initiative to upgrade first generation equipment to the latest technology when we have the opportunity.
Keep in mind, our business is built on partnerships, not only with property owners, but also in the development and manufacturing of our state-of-the-art chargers. This enables us to leverage our partner’s expertise while keeping our R&D and manufacturing expenses relatively low as we scale the business.
Thank you again for your continued support and belief in Blink. Stay safe and have a wonderful holiday season.
Best,
Michael D. Farkas
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Forward-Looking Statements
This C-Suite Memo contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements, and terms such as “anticipate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “will,” “should” or other comparable terms, involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of Blink Charging and members of its management, as well as the assumptions on which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including the potential benefits that we may obtain by being a member of the OpenADR organization and those described in Blink Charging’s periodic reports filed with the SEC, and that actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, Blink Charging undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed conditions.
