AeroVironment posted record second-quarter revenue of $480.5 million, and the stock rose 10.4% in the afternoon session. Revenue was up 5.7% on the year and 5% above the $457.6 million analysts had expected, according to a company press release.
Demand did the heavy lifting. Bookings came in at $0.7 billion, a book-to-bill ratio of 1.4, which lifted funded backlog to a record $1.5 billion. That is 37% higher than a year earlier.
Profit beat the Street by a wider margin. Adjusted EBITDA was $53.4 million, an 11.1% margin, nearly 37% above estimates. Adjusted earnings hit $0.59 a share against a $0.25 consensus. GAAP operating margin stayed slightly negative at -2.3%, though that compares with -15.2% a year ago.
Cash burn shrank too. Free cash flow was negative $35.95 million, against negative $146.5 million in the same period last year.
Management held its full-year guidance: revenue of $2.18 billion and adjusted EPS of $3.18 at the midpoints. One number fell short. The EBITDA midpoint of $315 million sits below the $318.2 million consensus. The quarterly beat and the swelling backlog won out, and sentiment turned positive.
The stock is a jumpy one. It has made 63 moves of more than 5% over the past year, and it moved again days later, rising 5.7% after Nominal announced a collaboration to supply a test and operations data platform for AeroVironment’s defense hardware production. Under the deal, the company adopted Nominal’s platform for engineering test capture, cross-team reviews and manufacturing traceability across its uncrewed aircraft and counter-UAS work. The outlet that covered both moves is Yahoo Finance’s StockStory feed; it described the market as treating the Nominal news as meaningful but not business-changing.
