EXFO secures service assurance contracts with five new customers and strengthens focus on high-growth drivers
QUEBEC CITY, CANADA, September 1, 2020 — EXFO Inc. (NASDAQ: EXFO, TSX: EXF), the communications industry's test, monitoring and analytics experts, announced today the company has secured service assurance contracts with five new customers, including a previously announced agreement with eir in Ireland.
These multi-year, multi-million-dollar deals will contribute approximately US$5.0 million to EXFO’s bookings in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. They reflect market acceptance of EXFO Nova’s service assurance solutions and shared vision to transform communications networks with the highest degree of visibility in order to accelerate revenue-generating services and reduce downtime.
Four orders feature the extensive portfolio of EXFO Nova solutions, delivering core-to-radio access network (RAN) monitoring and optimization, including 5G capabilities, active and passive probes, subscriber experience metrics, and analytics. The fifth deal is focused on Nova Context for network inventory management use cases. This network topology software, which essentially maps network resources to related services in real time, will be used by the multi-country customer to obtain a holistic view of its next-generation network.
“We’re pleased to add five new mobile network operators within a single quarter to our established customer base benefiting from Nova service assurance solutions,” said Philippe Morin, EXFO’s Chief Executive Officer. “These contract wins, which will bolster our SASS backlog for fiscal 2021, represent strong proof points that our recently launched Nova Adaptive Service Assurance vision is resonating strongly with customers. Given heightened demand for remote, centralized monitoring solutions in this new environment, Nova Adaptive Service Assurance’s capabilities allow mobile operators to automate critical functions, thus significantly reducing time to detect and resolve network issues without the presence of staff on-site at network operations and service operations centers.”
EXFO also announced a restructuring initiative to strengthen its market focus on high-growth drivers like fiber, 5G and cloud-native deployments, while mitigating the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on its business operations.
Restructuring charges of approximately US$3.0 million will be incurred under this plan mostly in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 and are expected to generate US$5.0 million in annual cost savings.
“Although we had to make difficult decisions, it was necessary to re-align our resources toward rapidly expanding verticals, while reducing investments in lower-growth areas,” Mr. Morin added. “Profitable growth remains the cornerstone of our long-term strategy despite the pandemic.”
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we intend that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbors created thereby. Forward-looking statements are statements other than historical information or statements of current condition. Words such as may, expect, believe, plan, anticipate, intend, could, estimate, continue, or similar expressions or the negative of such expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events and circumstances are considered forward-looking statements. They are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements due to various factors including, but not limited to, macroeconomic uncertainty, namely the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our employees, customers and global operations, including the ability of our suppliers to fulfil raw material requirements and services and our ability to manufacture and deliver our products and services to our customers; the effects of emergency measures related to isolation periods for individuals in affected areas, lockdown restrictions imposed by national governments on businesses in countries where we operate and have employees, and limitations on travel to attract new customers and serve existing ones; deteriorating financial and market conditions as well as a potential recession; trade wars, and our ability to successfully integrate businesses that we acquire; capital spending and network deployment levels in the communications industry (including our ability to quickly adapt cost structures to anticipated levels of business and our ability to manage inventory levels with market demand); future economic, competitive, financial and market conditions; consolidation in the global communications test, monitoring and analytics solutions markets and increased competition among vendors; capacity to adapt our future product offering to future technological changes; limited visibility with regard to the timing and nature of customer orders; delay in revenue recognition due to longer sales cycles for complex systems involving customers’ acceptance; fluctuating exchange rates; concentration of sales; timely release and market acceptance of our new products and other upcoming products; our ability to successfully expand international operations and to conduct business internationally; and the retention of key technical and management personnel. Assumptions relating to the foregoing involve judgments and risks, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict and many of which are beyond our control. Other risk factors that may affect our future performance and operations are detailed in our Annual Report, on Form 20-F, and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities commissions. We believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable based on information currently available to us, but we cannot assure you that the expectations will prove to have been correct. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date of this document. Unless required by law or applicable regulations, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any of them to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date of this document.
About EXFO
EXFO (NASDAQ: EXFO) (TSX: EXF) develops smarter test, monitoring and analytics solutions for fixed and mobile network operators, webscale companies and equipment manufacturers in the global communications industry. Our customers count on us to deliver superior network performance, service reliability and subscriber insights. They count on our unique blend of equipment, software and services to accelerate digital transformations related to fiber, 4G/LTE and 5G deployments. They count on our expertise with automation, real-time troubleshooting and big data analytics, which are critical to their business performance. We’ve spent over 30 years earning this trust, and today 1,900 EXFO employees in over 25 countries work side by side with our customers in the lab, field, data center and beyond.
For information
Vance Oliver
Director, Investor Relations
(418) 683-0913, ext. 23733
vance.oliver@exfo.com