Although revenues were soft, iRobot announced adjusted earnings that beat a Wall Street estimate as CEO Gary Cohen said changes made in the company’s turnaround effort have achieving positive results.
iRobot beat an analyst consensus estimate posted by Zacks Investment Research for a loss per adjusted diluted share of five cents, but it fell short of a revenue estimate by 11.2%.
Revenue was $193.4 million versus $186.2 million in the year-previous quarter. Operating income was $7.3 million versus an operating loss of $59.5 million in the period a year before, the company stated, while adjusted operating income was $15.1 million versus an adjusted operating loss of $40.6 million.
“We continue to make progress on our turnaround strategy,” Cohen said. “In the third quarter, we expanded our non-GAAP gross margin by 590 basis points year over year and improved our use of operating cash. However, our overall results did not meet the expectations we set in August, as persistent market segment and competitive headwinds impacted our sell-through performance. Although we now expect it will take more time to stabilize our revenue trend, we are on track to exceed our operating expense targets for the year, while at the same time continuing to invest in areas that are expected to drive growth. Our ongoing restructuring has fundamentally changed the way we innovate, develop and build our robots, which is central to improving our performance and generating long-term shareholder value. With the benefit of lower operating costs, we expect to enhance margins and improve profitability in 2025.”
iRobot Corp. also announced this week that Julie Zeiler, the company’s chief financial officer, and Russ Campanello, the company’s chief human resources officer, will retire December 2, 2024. Karian Wong, iRobot’s senior vice president and principal accounting officer, will succeed Zeiler, while Jules Connelly, the company’s former senior director of human resources, will succeed Campanello. Zeiler and Campanello will stay on in advisory roles through March 28, 2025.
“Karian and Jules each have an in-depth understanding and unique historical perspective of iRobot and represent our new generation of leaders,” Cohen said. “I look forward to working with them as we execute our Elevate turnaround strategy to reclaim iRobot’s position as the global innovation leader in consumer robots for the home and beyond.”
