Symbotic Inc.

Symbotic Inc.

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 6, 2026

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Symbotic second quarter 2026 financial results conference call.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session.

To ask a question during the session, you will need to press *11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand has been raised.

To withdraw your question, press *11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Charlie Anderson, Vice President of Symbotic Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Charlie Anderson

Hello, and welcome to Symbotic's second quarter of fiscal year 2026 financial results webcast. I'm Charlie Anderson, Symbotic's Vice President of Investor Relations.

Some of the statements that we make today regarding our business operations and financial performance may be considered forward-looking. Such statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.

Actual results could differ materially. Please refer to our Form 10-K, including the risk factors.

We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, during this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures.

A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's earnings press release, which is distributed and available to the public through our investor relations website located at ir.symbotic.com. On today's call, we're joined by Rick Cohen, Symbotic's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Izzy Martins, Symbotic's Chief Financial Officer.

These executives will discuss our second quarter of fiscal year 2026 results and our outlook, followed by Q&A. With that, I'll turn it over to Rick to begin.

Rick?

Rick Cohen

Thank you, Charlie. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to review our most recent results.

In the second quarter, we continued to demonstrate strong execution against our objectives. We posted higher revenue growth than forecast with expanding margins, both on a sequential and year-over-year basis.

Once again, this led to continued GAAP profitability and a strengthening balance sheet as we exited the second quarter with over $2 billion in cash and cash equivalents and no debt. Our momentum with customers continues to build.

During the second quarter, we began our first system deployment with Associated Wholesale Grocers, or AWG, the nation's largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets. We're excited about the potential at AWG, which operates over 9 million square feet of warehouse space and distributes to over 3,500 retail locations.

To build upon this momentum, our teams met with many existing and prospective customers last month at the MODEX trade show in Atlanta. A clear theme emerged with our existing customers in that they would like us to do more for them as our system performance and product portfolio have improved since we originally established these relationships.

Our goal is to take our core system architecture and layer on capabilities that allow customers to automate their supply chain fully end-to-end. The analogy I often use that it's like an operating system, and we add apps.

Examples of this include our expansion into e-commerce and dock management. Having this total solution is also driving strong interest from prospective customers.

These customers span new geographies and new verticals such as consumer packaged goods, food service, and apparel, in addition to our existing verticals such as grocery, general merchandise, beverage, and healthcare. Within several of these verticals, a capability that is drawing strong interest is our systems' ability to sequence goods for route optimization.

On the technology front, we continued to make progress on our SymMicro product for e-commerce order fulfillment, and remained on track to install our first prototypes this calendar year. We also continued to invest in technologies meant to generate greater performance from our system, notably next-generation battery technology with Nyobolt to enhance the operability and efficiency of our bot fleet.

We are also now deploying a larger version of our SymBot to handle a larger variety of SKUs or retrieve multiple cases at once. We believe our continued investment in new bot technologies and enhancements will be a key enabler to handle a larger amount of goods across multiple new verticals and use cases.

In summary, we are focused on execution and delivering braggingly happy customers, sustainable growth, and expanded profitability. As always, I want to thank our team for all their hard work, along with our customers and our investors for their continued support.

I'll now turn it over to Izzy, who will discuss our financial results and outlook. Izzy?

Izzy Martins

Thanks, Rick. Fiscal second quarter revenue reached $676 million, which was above the high end of our forecasted range.

We again achieved GAAP profitability with $9 million in net income. Our adjusted EBITDA of $78 million was also above the top end of our forecasted range due to higher revenue and strong gross margin performance.

Our revenue growth was driven by the continued expansion in the number of systems in deployment and the growth of operational systems that generate recurring revenue. We started 14 new system deployments in the second quarter, bringing us to a total of 70 systems in deployment at the end of the quarter.

This expansion in the number of deployments drove systems revenue growth of 24% year-over-year and 8% sequentially to $634 million. We had one system go operational during the quarter, which is the Atlanta area site for Symbotic.

Notably, this project's install start to acceptance was accomplished in under 10 months, ahead of our historical performance for installation timelines. As our base of operational systems continues to expand, software revenue grew 93% year-over-year to $13 million in the fiscal second quarter, including approximately of a $1 million from a non-recurring adjustment.

Excluding this adjustment, software growth remained above 75% year-over-year. Operations services revenue of $29 million was slightly down year-over-year due to a tough comparable in training revenue, but up slightly sequentially due to the increase in operational systems.

Turning to margins in the fiscal second quarter, gross margin expanded both sequentially and year-over-year due to strong project execution, cost discipline, and scale benefits. Operating expenses on a GAAP basis were $144 million in the fiscal second quarter, and adjusted operating expenses totaled $88 million, both up sequentially in support of our growth initiatives.

Net income for the fiscal second quarter was $9 million, an improvement from a net loss of $10 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, thanks to expanding margins and operating leverage. Adjusted EBITDA of $78 million was more than double the $35 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Our backlog of 20 20 $22.7 billion continued to remain strong. The increase from $22.3 billion last quarter primarily reflects final pricing adjustments on projects started in the quarter and the addition of one system for AWG, offset by revenue recognized in the quarter.

We finished the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $2 billion, up from $1.8 billion in the fiscal first quarter, driven by $218 million of free cash flow. Now turning to the outlook for the third quarter of fiscal 2026, we expect revenue between $700 and $720 million, and adjusted EBITDA between $80 million and $85 million.

With that, we now welcome your questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again.

Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Our first question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz of Citigroup. Your line is now open.

Andrew Kaplowitz

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Rick or Izzy, obviously backlog is up a bit sequentially and you did mention the first deployment with AWG.

Would you say the new storage structure that you have is starting to pay dividends with these kinds of new customers, and maybe, what's the potential that you see with AWG?

Izzy Martins

Andy, I heard that a little bit, broken up, but I think what your question was, first of all, thank you for your question, is what do we see coming forward from AWG. I think every customer, the start is always with one system, and so, the potential there is, really to build one system successfully, it'll take us a couple of years for that, and then do one system at a time.

The importance there is, unlike a larger customer that adds to our backlog, this backlog will come at one system at a time. We said, it's a monumental first step, and also having another new customer earlier in our fiscal year whereas the last new customer that we announced was at the tail end of fiscal year 2025.

Hopefully, that answered your question.

Andrew Kaplowitz

No, it's good, Izzy. Maybe I just, it's great to hear about the new Excel site coming live.

Of course, I have to ask, I know you've been talking about customers visiting the site. Now that it's live, would you expect to see more movement there, in terms of getting these customers on board?

Rick Cohen

We do. We, Andy, we do expect to get more movement.

We've had a lot of interest at MODEX, where basically everybody goes. Excel was there, we're starting to give tours now in the Atlanta site, we would expect pretty quickly to announce our first customers there.

Andrew Kaplowitz

Awesome. Thanks, guys.

Izzy Martins

Thank you, Andy.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Giordano.

Your line is now open.

Joe Giordano

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. The remaining performance obligation in the Q does it suggests, upside over the forward 12 months versus Street, revenue assumptions.

I know you don't like to guide to give color more than one quarter forward, but just curious how you is there any update to the thought process of the ramp in the rest of the fiscal year? I think, the midpoint of your guidance is 5% sequential 2Q to 3Q, I think consensus is something 9% from 3Q to 4Q.

Just curious if there's any changes into the cadence that you see as the year goes.

Izzy Martins

Hi, Joe. Thanks for the question.

I think as we guide one quarter at a time. You are spot on what we're guiding for the third quarter.

I'm not going to get ahead and talk too much about the fourth, but here's what you can expect, right? As I'll say that the fourth quarter should be, on a sequential and a year-over-year, show that growth.

The other thing that I would point out, as you mentioned, the RPO, in our 10-Q, you will see that disclosure of what we expect over the next 12 months. You can back into what that fourth quarter is.

As I said in the past, there would be maybe a little bit less of a sequential growth quarter-over-quarter. We did overexceed just slightly in this second quarter.

I would stick to the guidance in the third, and then give us a little bit of time, but you can back into where the RPO is that in the next 12 months, and we expect a strong fourth quarter with both sequential growth a little bit higher and year-over-year growth as well. Then,

Joe Giordano

just as a follow-up, I noticed there's a fairly big jump in CapEx in capitalized software in the quarter. It's up double versus last year.

Just if you can talk to that and the outlook there. Rick, you've talked about memory a bunch and input costs in the past.

I know it has not been an issue with, they continue to skyrocket, just curious if there's any updates there. Thank you.

Izzy Martins

Okay. Joe, I'll take the first half on the CapEx, and then I'll leave it for Rick to answer on the memory side of things.

On the CapEx front, I maybe what I should have made a little bit clearer in the last quarter where we only had a $2 million spend. What I mentioned the last quarter was that there was a little bit of a delayed in payment, but really that we would catch up in the second quarter.

The best way to think of it is that we are going to spend on average $20 to $25 million a quarter. We just had that delay in the first.

I think also what's more important is what are we spending it on. When we announced the next-gen structure, we also mentioned and we started in the fourth quarter that we would be investing in our suppliers for them to increase their capacity.

That's where the bulk of the CapEx spend is. I think your next question was about potentially was it you're referring to sort of memory shortages or things of that nature.

From in short, I would say we don't have any impact on memory. any member memory shortages.

We don't consume, a ton of memory on bots. If we have any, consummation of memory, that would be more on the back-end IT infrastructure that stores the data, and that's really an immaterial amount.

Not sure if that's what you were asking about.

Joe Giordano

That covers it. Thanks, Izzy.

Izzy Martins

All right. Thanks, Joe.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Nicole DeBlase of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Nicole DeBlase

Thanks. Good afternoon and thank you for the question.

Maybe just starting with system completions stepped down to one this quarter, I think it was three last quarter. Is the expectation that the number of system completions picks up as we move into the back half?

I know this isn't a metric that you necessarily guide to, but just with the step-down in completions that's happening this year relative to last, it would be good to get some color around that. Thanks.

Izzy Martins

Hi, Nicole. Thank you for the question, and you're right, that's not a metric we guide to.

Let me give you a little bit of insights. What you see, this quarter or really this year, we're really experiencing the impact from the low number of system starts about two years ago, right?

Really when you go back to '24, kind of in line, maybe just a tad under. I think what's important is that we continue to execute well on the items within our control, which is really the installation periods.

I think what really the way to think about it is that yes, we expect completes or call it system completes to grow sequentially from here, with probably Q4 being the highest for the year, but I wouldn't expect them to be significantly higher. There's just maybe a little bit of movement between the second and third quarter.

I can say today that there's always a little bit of timing in the quarter. We're still early on into the next quarter, and we've already achieved a couple of those system completes.

Nicole DeBlase

Understood. That's helpful.

Thanks, Izzy. Then, just I think you highlighted in the prepared remarks that you achieved less than 10 months of deployment time on a system, which is impressive.

Was there anything special about that system that allowed you to do that, and could this potentially be a new norm moving forward? Thank you.

Izzy Martins

I will let Rick answer if there's anything specific on the Atlanta installation timeline. I don't believe so.

I think as for the new norm, I think we've been talking about it quite a bit. What we're in control, which is post month 12 to, say, month 24, we continue to see improvements, which is really what's also driving some of the efficiencies that you already see.

I think what we've also asked for is give us a little bit more time as to as the mix of the next-gen storage systems really becomes larger for us to truly have a good sense of what is driving that. Today, everything we're seeing, including the one in Atlanta, that we continue to shrink what I'll call the installation time period, which is the second tranche of, call it month 13 to 24.

In this particular one, you're going only month, 13 to 22. We've set the new standard, and the key is to stay there if not beat it.

Rick, anything further on the Atlanta site and installation?

Rick Cohen

No, the Atlanta site was an easier site because it was a greenfield. Some of the sites have been a little more complicated early on because we've been going into existing facilities.

There's two things, and I'll say is that was partly what was responsible with Atlanta, but we've also, in another we have two sites now where we're installing the new structure, and that will be fast.

Nicole DeBlase

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Matt Summerville of D.A. Davidson.

Your line is now open.

Matt Summerville

Thanks. I was wondering if you could give any sort of update on where you're at with development on frozen/perishable, as well as if there's an update on the APD and how you're feeling about hitting benchmarks you need to hit to trigger that additional backlog, and then I have a follow-up.

Rick Cohen

In the APD, we have we're working to get our first two prototypes up and running in the next 6 months. If you were to visit us in the ITC, you could see a pretty small prototype that is actually working now.

We're very excited. The hardware is pretty much done.

We've got some software updates we're doing. We feel very good about the APDs, and there's a lot of interest at MODEX, a lot of interest in that particular product.

What was the second part of your question? We've now, as part of the APD expansion, when we took over Walmart robotics, there were 19 sites that we had to upgrade, and we've done that.

We actually now have a bot working in a freezer. We have another test series of boards that we're testing that are also working in a freezer with no showstoppers.

Perishables is actually simpler, not a lot of changes. We've made some substantial upgrades in wiring harnesses and stuff like that coming from some of the car guys that we've brought in to handle moisture.

I would say we would expect to begin thinking about a frozen and perishable prototype sometime certainly within the next year.

Matt Summerville

Thanks. Then as a follow-up, can you maybe update us on your progress with respect to international expansion, particularly with respect to Europe, and what the new buffering structure how that ultimately could accelerate some of that opportunity for you?

Thank you.

Rick Cohen

We have our first site in Mexico. It's we're installing rack, and so that's our I guess our first international site with Walmart.

We had a early on site with Giant Tiger in Canada, but we're also looking at other applications in Canada, I guess you call that international. We just came back from Europe, met with a bunch of retailers there just a couple weeks ago.

We're getting a lot more notoriety because Europe is very, very interested in brownfields. Most of the automation that's been built in Europe over the last 5 years is mostly greenfields.

It's 70 to 90-foot to 100 actually 110-foot-high buildings, very strict permitting processes. Europe is still a ways off, a lot of interest, but a lot of turmoil in Europe right now with Ukraine and the Middle East.

Very good reception, and we'll continue to work on developing our first sites in Europe.

Matt Summerville

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Ken Newman of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Ken Newman

Hey, good evening, guys. Izzy, maybe for the first question, just wanted to go back on the initiations.

I know you don't really guide to it, but I'm just trying to make sure that we think about, I think last quarter you had mentioned maybe one of your larger customers with the advent of the new storage structure maybe transferring some of those deployments into two-in-ones. Is it just safe to assume that the number of initiations probably stepped down a significant amount starting in the third quarter, or just any help on how to think about that numerically relative to the ASPs?

Izzy Martins

As we had the 14 starts in the quarter, coming off of 10 starts in the first quarter. Just as for the 14, it's a mix, right?

It's a mix of those next fight phases and yes, there's some larger systems, but there's still also, BreakPack plus the one system for AWG. I think how I would think about it is no different than what I mentioned in the last call.

I think the middle will be pretty meaty as to the number of starts, and they will trail off in the fourth quarter. I'm being consistent to what we said last quarter.

Ken Newman

Got it, that's very helpful. Then, Rick, can you tell us a little bit more about the investment you made in Nyobolt, and, as you think about the R&D pipeline for future product releases, where do you see the opportunities for maybe some incremental investments?

Where do you think you can build organically versus having to go out and maybe do some modest acquisitions?

Rick Cohen

Nyobolt was found Nyobolt very early on, and we invested in them very early on. I think, I don't know, maybe be on right after their seed round, but and so Nyobolt has a unique chemistry.

We're I don't know, we're one of the larger owners of the company right now, and we believe that the battery technology is very applicable. Our bots use ultracapacitors.

Nyobolt is more of a ultracapacitor battery, and so the energy that we can get out of a single charge is 5 times as long as what we get from a charge today on a regular bots. What does that mean?

It means our bots are going to be able to do longer trips, much more reliable, and not be affected by brownouts and other things that are affecting sites today. Nyobolt, we're very excited about that investment, and we're using that technology in all our new bots.

As an example, for investments, we have our regular SymBot, but we also have a MiniBot, we'll have a APD bot, and we'll have a StretchBot. One of the things that makes us I think special is that we can use the same software in four or five different bots.

We're going to continue to invest in new robots, and the Nyobolt battery allows us much more flexibility for either longer trips or bigger bots because it just provides more power in the same space. In terms of other acquisitions, we acquired Fox, and Fox is going to be a very interesting acquisition.

They're using the same lidar that we're using on our bots, we actually can buy these lidar considerably cheaper than they can. We have a lot more experience, today our bots are traveling a million miles a day.

We may have the largest autonomous fleet traveling today in the world, I'm not sure, but we're traveling a lot of autonomous miles. The bots are all being retrofitted with lidar, they're all being retrofitted with the Nyobolt battery.

I think we're distancing ourselves between whatever the competition is and where the future goes. Then there's two other acquisitions that we're looking at as part of our trip to Europe, can't really announce those, but there's what's happening is in our space is that as we become a clear winner and a sustainable business, there's a lot of startups that are approaching us now about can you help us expand, maybe take an ownership stake or maybe just buy us.

A lot of incomings, and we're very excited about that technology.

Ken Newman

Real good hear. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Mark Delaney

Yes, good afternoon and thanks very much for taking the question. I was hoping the company could give an update on BreakPack.

I think, Izzy, you said one of the system starts this quarter was BreakPack. Can you share more on how that product has been doing in the field and your outlook for additional deployments of BreakPack from here?

Rick Cohen

I'll take that one. We did the original BreakPack system in Brooksville, some of you have seen it.

There's now right next to that is the new upgraded BreakPack. These are newly designed bots.

These bots have will have Nyobolt batteries, they will have lidar. They're much faster, they can do twice as much work in the same amount of time as the old bots.

We have Walmart has given us orders for 40 of these at every site. There's a lot of interest in terms of BreakPack is an application that allows us to do smaller versions of these systems.

For instance, convenience stores, where they're doing eaches. Also, the BreakPack is an interim step between a big system and an e-commerce system.

BreakPack's very exciting. We're on track, it's going well, no showstoppers.

Software is in place, allows us to actually sequence, which is interesting for route drivers, sequence eaches and packages, and so for gig drivers who are doing multiple deliveries, BreakPack is a very interesting application.

Mark Delaney

That's helpful. Thanks, Rick.

My other question was on Excel and now that you've got Atlanta complete, I was hoping to better understand the ramp from here. Maybe you could help with how many of the 14 system starts in the quarter were associated with Excel and the trajectory going forward.

Thank you.

Izzy Martins

I'll take the front half of that. I would say in the 14, there aren't any Excel.

As we said in the past, Excel is in the build mode still. We are very strategic in the five locations that they picked throughout the country, and so we're now we have the first one completed, and we're in the process of doing the other four.

No different than the last time, and the current amount added to deployments does not include an Excel system.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of James Ricchiuti of Needham & Company. Your line is open.

James Ricchiuti

Thank you. I apologize if this was asked already, but you have a nice step-up in gross margins.

Izzy, I'm wondering is there anything you could say about looking out into the, I know you don't guide past the quarter, but how might we be thinking about gross margins over the near

Izzy Martins

I think here's where I'd start, right, starting with what we guided to in the second in the third quarter. That's really what I would say a stabilization or we've saw some really, really nice growth.

I think first we should just stop to think about where we were a year ago and where we're at now. Definitely not no small feat.

I think as you think of it going further, as I've mentioned, it's really about stabilizing where we're at for at least the next quarter. Then it's really about, not couple of quarters later, about what we've always said, is when we really have the mix of system installations being majority next-gen storage structure, that's where we really should be unlocking a path towards longer-term systems margin, and as we've said in the past, we expect those to be at 30-plus.

Recap, great improvement from where we were a year ago. I would say in the next quarter a bit of stabilization and give us a little bit of time to get through that journey of having a mix of more next-gen storage systems being installed.

James Ricchiuti

Rick, I think you alluded to StretchBots. I'm wondering, what can you say about the deployment of these?

How do you see that ramping? Maybe walk us through applications at different customers that you could envision for this.

Rick Cohen

Most of the products that we initially designed our systems for was a product that was about 8 cubic feet, 2 feet by 2 feet by 2 feet. As we got those machines running really, really well, and we understood how to do the software for the turns, we got requests for items that were about 50% bigger.

That took us about 2 years to actually develop that, and now we have hundreds of those running around right in the same sites as the smaller bots. The customers are really excited because we've now kind of cracked the code that we could design a bot to handle pretty much anything.

The difference between what we designed our bots to handle about 94, 95% of the products, the StretchBot handles another 2 or 3%, which becomes very important to the customer. This is just a journey that we're on.

We could handle products that we could not handle 2 years ago and we couldn't sell against 2 years ago. There's some very technical details when you make a bot a little bit longer.

It's the difference between driving a little Mini and a Suburban, and then the next thing, of course, is driving a pickup truck or a 53-footer. The handling on those is where the software magic comes about, and then mixing those together, and we've cracked that code.

That's where we are right now.

James Ricchiuti

You've had success penetrating a few different sectors. How would you be willing to share with us your expectations of when you might be in some other areas?

You highlighted apparel. I think we've in the past about opportunities even in a broader manufacturing sector with automotive.

I'm just curious how you're thinking about some of these other areas of opportunity.

Rick Cohen

We've done so much development in the last couple years. Medline, for instance, is actually a version of kitting.

What Medline liked about us is that they want these 10 products or these let's say five eaches to go to the ophthalmology operating room or the surgical room or the oncology area. That's a combination between our big system and a BreakPack system.

Then that could also be an each-picking APD system. That is also applicable to auto parts.

We talked to auto parts suppliers, some of the retailers a couple years ago. Our systems were too big and too expensive, but now we're back talking to them again with a smaller, lower-cost system that actually is very catered not to them, but it actually works very well for them because what we've done is develop a system that's applicable across a lot of areas.

We've also had a number of discussions with actually auto manufacturers because they also have kitting and parts. We're just on the journey.

We're pretty busy because we're growing pretty fast, but we have a lot more salespeople out there talking to a lot more people about future projects, and I think we're very comfortable that we can adapt to most anything that these folks will throw at us.

James Ricchiuti

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Guy Hardwick of Barclays. Your line is open.

Guy Hardwick

Hi, good evening. Izzy, just a question on the backlog.

Looked like the change in the backlog in the quarter was quite considerable, that probably implies the pricing adjustment was quite a big step-up or are you willing to reveal how much of the change was the pricing adjustment versus the AWG win?

Izzy Martins

Hi Guy, it's Izzy. I think I understand.

Basically, here's how I would think about it, no different than you've seen it in the past, right? Quarter-over-quarter the backlog does have an increase.

As you mentioned, right, the first thing that happens to the backlog is it's taken down by the amount of revenue that we generated in the quarter. As you also mentioned, we also have to do the final pricing of the systems that we signed in the quarter, plus the AWG.

As we've said in the past, right, the backlog has been quite conservative. Actually, coincidentally, if you look at our backlog at the end of this quarter, it's equal to the same amount that we had last year at the same time.

It's a little bit of the fact that our systems are configurable, the fact that we do get to align pricing to the current market conditions. As we go through all that math, this quarter we end up with really, call it a billion dollars of incremental backlog when you take out the amount of revenue that we've recorded in the actual quarter.

I hope that helps.

Guy Hardwick

Thank you. Just as a follow-up, it looks like no matter how I look at it, whether it's one-year trailing basis or two-year trailing basis, that system revenue per deployment is coming down and, sort of double-digit percent.

I know you have a lot of new system starts and there's I think BreakPack would be in there as well. Should I just assume that going forward the past averages of revenue per system don't really apply anymore, that I should kind of step down my assumptions for revenue per system going forward?

Izzy Martins

I would say you're spot on the numbers, that the number does tend to vary though by quarter. Depending on what you said, the mix of systems in the installation versus the design, etc., including the mix be it a large system versus a small system, a BreakPack, it's going to vary every quarter.

Right now, what we see or where we find ourselves is that we have a very high percentage of recently signed systems, and those signed systems haven't entered the installation phase. The installation phase is really where it's going to be driving more of that revenue.

I do see that decline, and what I'm saying is it's going to vary quarter-by-quarter. I think it's also as you see where our growth trajectory is, that we don't see a concern in the fact that you see that averaging coming down.

Okay.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer & Co. Your line is now open.

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Colin Rusch

Thanks so much, guys. I'm curious about the evolution of the capabilities that you guys are thinking about as well as some of the increased integration with the supply chain.

We're starting to see autonomous trucks hit the road in a little bit higher volume, and I'm curious about some of the scheduling capabilities that you're thinking about and partnerships there, as well as the potential to move into the heavier objects or even into delivery into hospitals with robots that are integrating into built environment already. Given the capabilities that you guys have and visibility and opportunities, just curious with the cash balance and the selective acquisitions you've made in the past, how you'd be approaching that or whether from an acquisition or partnership perspective?

Rick Cohen

Good question. We've been we spend a lot of time talking about this internally and externally.

We want to connect the whole supply chain. We want to be able to, coming from a manufacturer going on a truck, communicate to our system in a warehouse, know what's going to show up in the yard, be able to schedule that into a door, have our robots Fox robot unload that truck, put it away, and then likewise schedule through our system integrated with somebody else's system probably.

Could be a Walmart system, could be a Manhattan system, could be our system. We're very focused on leveraging the end-to-end supply chain and having whether it's AI, some of this will be, but just knowing where everything is in the system and setting up our robots and our software to be able to handle it is really what we're focused on.

We're we will be acquisitive, that's all I can tell you. I can't tell you who, when, or where, but we're in a good space, and we're there there are a lot of people with a lot of names with a lot of high valuations that are talking about physical AI.

We're the ones that are actually have the information and actually moving the products. We're going to go both upstream and downstream, and may look at even more software acquisitions as part of how we connect our systems.

):

Colin Rusch

Excellent. The second question is really around data management.

We're seeing an escalation and kind of data transfer and management of management expenses, and I'm just curious about how you guys are thinking about that if it's even registering at this point for you from a from a cost perspective and something you need to manage on a go-forward basis. How we manage

Rick Cohen

the question is, how do we manage the data management? ):

Colin Rusch

We're just seeing data transfer becoming a more meaningful expense across the physical AI supply chain,

Rick Cohen

and

Colin Rusch

thinking about localized decisions versus coming back to centralized compute to train things.

Rick Cohen

Absolutely. We've been maniacally focused on this for 3 years, and you just have to be in our IT center here and hear me every day.

We're very focused on the data that we need. The cloud per unit is going down, but in total, it's more expensive.

It's not something that's going to become a major problem for us to disrupt it because we can control the data. There's some question about how long you store the data, how you process the data, what we do with the data, but we've been processing massive amounts of data for at least the last 5 years.

We do spend a lot of time, we are looking at all of the software packages, how to connect it, but I think we're well ahead of everybody else because we've been doing this for so long, and we've been managing so much data on the physical AI side about what how we teach the bots to handle data locally, as opposed to sending it up to the cloud and what we need to send up to the cloud. The answer to your question is, I'm personally very focused on managing this very issue.

):

Colin Rusch

Thanks so much.

Rick Cohen

Yep.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg of Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

Derek Soderberg

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.

Quick one on the AWG project. I'm curious if the deployment represents a standardized retrofit of the existing platform or will it require significant custom engineering for that customer?

Rick Cohen

No, there's no custom engineering. From day one, grocery is something that we is kind of our bread and butter.

Nothing special about this.

Derek Soderberg

Got it. Then as my follow-up, my understanding is that you have a few customers that just have a single pilot line, which they've had for a handful of years now.

What's the update on those retailers, and when might we see a larger agreement from that list of customers still in that pilot stage? Thanks.

Izzy Martins

I would give you the example of, as you see in the amount of logos, some still are at one system. We expect at least one or two to be increasing that, but it's not really information that we disclose as to where we are with it.

As you said, there are customers with, say, one system at a time, but I would continue to expect them to sign one system at a time. I think that for purposes of backlog with those logos or those customers, that's how I would think about it, but yet the potential is greater.

I think though there's opportunities for systems two and three in a couple of those, but it's, sometimes we want to be discreet about our customer's business as well.

Derek Soderberg

Perfect. Really appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Greg Palm of Craig-Hallum. Your line is now open.

Greg Palm

Thanks for squeezing me in. Izzy, I'm curious, the operating leverage has been really impressive.

If I look at the incremental margins, they've stepped up quite a bit the last two quarters relative to what we've been accustomed to. Any reason why that shouldn't be an appropriate level, going forward, especially as you see the further boost on the next-gen storage structures, at least on the gross margin line?

Izzy Martins

I don't want to get ahead of myself too much, but I am seeing what you're seeing, right? You see not only the sequential improvement in gross margins, but even a better improvement, call it, on the EBITDA margins.

Where I said stable on gross margins, I see a little bit of an uptick on the EBITDA margins, and I think it's really how we continue to exercise that discipline around the OpEx, with one caveat. You've heard about all the things that Rick was talking about, we do want to maintain that ultimate flexibility on the R&D line.

If we see something that we should be investing in, given our cash balance and the ability to allocate cash, we would be doing it. Outside of that, it's I see what you're seeing, whereas we continue to expand that bottom line, and very proud to be profitable and plan on being profitable going forward.

Greg Palm

Is there an incremental margin, that you're managing the business to, either in the near to medium term or longer term or not necessarily?

Izzy Martins

I would say not necessarily, right? It's not as easy as you would suggest.

I think what we manage to is the things that we talked about is really the efficiencies on the execution side and the cost discipline. That's what we're managing to, and you see those results come through, in the P&L, but not per se.

I think the bigger message is we do continue to drive for that longer-term margins being in the 30-plus.

Greg Palm

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Jamieson of Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Robert Jamieson

Hey there. Thanks for taking my questions.

Just actually one really. Rick, you've made some very interesting acquisitions.

You mentioned Fox Robotics that was concluded last quarter, quite a compelling acquisition when you think about how that helps further automate different processes moving the pallets from the loading bay to the intake system, and on the other end, loading the mixed case pallets on for final delivery. Of course, there's the opportunity to sell those products to others as well.

When you look ahead, what are some of the other parts that you might look to invest in to further automate other parts of either the Symbotic system itself, BreakPack, or the micro-fulfillment systems? Should we expect ecosystem partnerships on the MFC side, adding cobot arms to or picking solutions that take another human out of the loop on the back end of those systems?

I'm just trying to understand, what types of technologies are interesting to you at this point that would help you accelerate some of those efforts as you move towards a, so-called dark warehouse with the Symbotic solution?

Rick Cohen

You mentioned a bunch of things. Obviously, robotic arms are interesting to us.

There's a couple companies out there that are doing it. It's not so we're looking at them.

There are a number of companies that are doing truck unloading. We know everybody because everybody's talking to us and everybody's interested in partnering with us.

I think we'll we're very focused on micro-fulfillment because we think that's a huge opportunity, and so that would lead us to eventually look at robotic arms. We're also very focused on connecting all of the supply chain.

There are very large import DCs that are just basic storage DCs. That was not interesting to us before, but it becomes more interesting as our customers want us to connect all of these DCs.

Fox is probably the most important one because we basically build pallets and somebody has to take them to the truck, and so they sit on the dock. Managing the dock management is very important to us, and that actually allows us to get customers introductory customers that are very low introductory price and then upsell them to, well, you could do this with the rest of our system or this part.

Everybody needs pallet jacks. Having the best automated pallet jack is something we're focused on.

We will continue to look at opportunities, and opportunities continue to present themselves to us, but I don't think we have a specific roadmap right now. We really want to get the dock management working well.

We want to understand the perishable world, and so those are the things that we're really focused on right now.

Robert Jamieson

That's great. Thank you very much for taking my question.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer session.

I would now like to turn it back to Charlie Anderson for closing remarks.

Charlie Anderson

Thanks, everybody, for joining our call tonight. We really appreciate your interest in Symbotic and look forward to seeing some of you in the coming weeks on the road.

Goodbye.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program.

You may now disconnect.