Aerovironment Inc (AVAV) SEC Filing 10-Q Quarterly report for the period ending Saturday, January 30, 2021

Exhibit 99.1

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AeroVironment, Inc. Announces Fiscal 2021 Third Quarter Results

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SIMI VALLEY, Calif., March 9, 2021

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“Our team delivered year-over-year increases in revenue, gross margin, diluted earnings per share and Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share in the third quarter, despite the ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment president and chief executive officer. "We continue to shape our portfolio with three transformative acquisitions that we are confident will accelerate our success and value creation. Our acquisition of Arcturus UAV extends our reach and expands our solutions portfolio with medium UAS, which addresses a more than $1 billion segment of the UAS market. Our pending acquisition of Telerob will add a suite of unmanned ground vehicles to our portfolio, expanding our offering to the ground domain for defense and non-defense customers, such as law enforcement and first responders. Through our acquisition of Progeny Systems Corporation’s Intelligent Systems Group, we will accelerate AeroVironment’s development and deployment of critical technologies, such as artificial intelligence and perceptive autonomy, which will help our customers operate more effectively in contested airspace against peer and near-peer adversaries and increase our customer-funded research and development revenue.”

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“We continue to build on our momentum and recently received United States government approval for our first export of Switchblade 300 to an allied nation. We are delivering on our commitments while working toward achieving our fiscal year 2021 objectives to produce a fourth consecutive year of profitable, double-digit topline growth.”

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FISCAL 2021 THIRD QUARTER RESULTS

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Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 was $78.8 million, an increase of 27% from the third quarter of fiscal 2020 revenue of $61.9 million. The increase in revenue was due to an increase in product sales of $21.9 million, partially offset by a decrease in service revenue of $5.0 million.

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Gross margin for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 was $28.6 million, an increase of 22% from the third quarter of fiscal 2020 gross margin of $23.5 million. The increase in gross margin was primarily due to an increase in product margin of $7.2 million, partially offset by a decrease in service margin of $2.1 million. As a percentage of revenue, gross margin decreased to 36% from 38%. The decrease in gross margin percentage was primarily due to an unfavorable product mix.

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Loss from operations for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 was $0.6 million, a decrease of $0.5 million from the third quarter of fiscal 2020 loss from operations of $1.1 million. The decrease in loss from operations was primarily a result of an increase in gross margin of $5.2 million, partially offset by an increase in selling, general and administrative (“SG&A”) expense of $2.4 million, and an increase in research and development (“R&D”) expense of $2.3 million. The increase in SG&A expense for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 includes

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