Velodyne Lidar Announces Fourth Quarter and Annual 2020 Preliminary Snapshot - Seite 2

Largely as a result of these COVID-19 related disruptions, management now estimates fourth quarter revenue 2020 in a range of $15.5 million to $16.0 million and full-year 2020 revenue of approximately $94 million versus $101 million as previously provided as guidance for the full year. Without these unexpected end-of-year disruptions, Velodyne believes it would have met prior revenue guidance for 2020. Demonstrating the company’s efficient business model, the company expects to meet or exceed guidance on other important financial metrics provided for the year, including non-GAAP gross margin percentage and operating loss.

Velodyne is leading in the rapidly-growing lidar market, and as the company enters 2021, it is confident it will continue to expand its market opportunity, innovation, and leadership in broadly diversified lidar sectors. Velodyne is adding new products and manufacturing lines to meet customer product delivery demand in future quarters, including the first commercial shipments of the award-winning Velabit in the first half of 2021. In addition, Velodyne continues to expand its engagement with customers and prospective customers for long-term projects, including the development and integration of software and broader solutions.

The company’s active engagement with its diverse customer base reinforces its positive future outlook. Given the uncertainty around COVID-19 worldwide and its downstream impacts, and customer implementation timelines that are outside the company’s control, the company has less visibility on the timing of expected purchase orders and other projects in the pipeline. Velodyne is monitoring the situation daily to understand COVID-19’s impact on signed and awarded business, and other developments in customer plans affecting the new business funnel, bookings, the company’s manufacturing capacity, and ultimately, revenue. With this reduced visibility and out of an abundance of caution, the company withdraws any previous financial guidance for 2021 at this time.

New projects in the fourth quarter drove Velodyne’s pipeline to 183 projects from 175 reported for the third quarter of 2020. The new multi-year agreements, spanning all industry segments, are in the U.S., EMEA, and Asia. Also, during the fourth quarter, Velodyne advanced discussions for eight software projects to complement existing sensor projects in its pipeline.