UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

(Mark One)

Commission file number: 001-39080

POWERFLEET, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

(201) 996-9000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by checkmark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by checkmark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer”, “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒

If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☒

Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to § 240.10D-1(b). ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No ☒

The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates, computed by reference to the price at which the common stock was last sold as of June 30, 2023, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $105.8 million.

The number of shares of the registrant’s Common Stock outstanding as of May 1, 2024 was 107,349,987 shares.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

References in this document to “Powerfleet”, “the Company”, “we”, “our”, or “us” are intended to mean Powerfleet, Inc., individually, or as the context requires, collectively with its subsidiaries on a consolidated basis. This Annual Report on Form 10-K (this “Form 10-K”) contains the Company’s audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023 and restates certain financial information and related footnote disclosures in the Company’s previously issued Annual Reports on Form 10-K for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 (collectively, the “Audited Financial Statements”), Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly and year-to-date periods ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly and year-to-date periods ended June 30, 2023 and 2022 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarterly and year-to-date periods ended March 31, 2023 and 2022 (collectively, the “Interim Unaudited Financial Statements”) to make certain changes as described below.

In connection with the preparation of its audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023, the Company determined that the accounting for the redemption premium associated with its Series A convertible preferred stock (the “Series A Preferred Stock”) was understated resulting in an understatement of “net loss attributable to common stockholders” and “net loss per share attributable to common stockholders” for each period, an understatement of the value of the “convertible redeemable preferred stock” as of each balance sheet date, and an overstatement of the “additional paid-in capital” as of each balance sheet date. The required adjustments to correct the redemption value calculation of the Series A Preferred Stock and the related accretion of the value of the preferred stock in the consolidated statement of operations, include the recording of non-cash accretion resulting in an increase in the net loss attributable to common stockholders, an increase in the convertible redeemable preferred stock and a decrease in additional paid-in capital in the Company’s consolidated financial statements. Because the correction of this misstatement is material to the previously reported results of operations of the Company included in our previously issued Audited Financial Statements and Interim Unaudited Financial Statements, the audit committee of the board of directors of the Company (the “Audit Committee”) concluded that the consolidated financial statements included in the Audited Financial Statements and Interim Unaudited Financial Statements should no longer be relied upon. In connection with the restatement to correct for this error, the Company determined that it is appropriate to revise the previously filed consolidated financial statements included in this Form 10-K to correct other unrelated errors that were either unrecorded or addressed as out-of-period adjustments in previously filed consolidated financial statements that were not material, individually or in the aggregate, to such financial statements.

Due to the discovery of this error, the Company’s management identified a material weakness in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting that existed as of December 31, 2023 and prior periods, relating to the measurement and valuation of the Company’s Series A Preferred Stock. For a discussion of management’s consideration of the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures, internal control over financial reporting, and the material weaknesses identified, see Part II, Item 9A, “Controls and Procedures” of this Form 10-K.

We have not filed, and do not intend to file, any amendments to our previously filed Annual Reports on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the restated periods. Accordingly, investors should rely only on the financial information and other disclosures regarding the restated periods in this Form 10-K or in our future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), as applicable, and not on any previously issued or filed reports, earnings releases, investor presentations or other similar communications relating to the restated periods.

See Note 2 to our financial statements, included in Part II, Item 8 of this Form 10-K, for additional information on the restatement of, and the related effects on, our consolidated financial statements for the restated periods.

POWERFLEET, INC.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

In addition to historical information, this Form 10-K contains “forward-looking statements” (within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”)), which may include information concerning our beliefs, plans, objectives, goals, expectations, strategies, anticipations, assumptions, estimates, intentions, future events, future revenues or performance, capital expenditures and other information that is not historical information. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control, and which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Many of these statements appear, in particular, under the headings “Business” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in this Form 10-K. When used in this report, the words “seek,” “estimate,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “project,” “plan,” “contemplate,” “plan,” “continue,” “intend,” “believe” and variations of such words or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based upon our current expectations and various assumptions. We believe there is a reasonable basis for our expectations and beliefs, but there can be no assurance that we will realize our expectations or that our beliefs will prove to be correct.

There are a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this report. Important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed as forward-looking statements herein include, but are not limited, to:

There may be other factors of which we are currently unaware or which we currently deem immaterial that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf apply only as of the date they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements included in this report. Except as may be required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date they were made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, or otherwise.

Note Regarding Trademarks

We have, or have applied for, U.S. and/or foreign trademark protection for I.D. SYSTEMS^® and Design, the I.D. SYSTEMS Logo^®, VEHICLE ASSET COMMUNICATOR^®, POWERFLEET^®, POWERFLEET VISION^®, POWERFLEET IQ^®, POWERFLEET YARD^®, VERIWISE IQ^®, didBOX^®, FREIGHTCAM, KEYTROLLER^®, REEFERMATE^®, POWERFLEET and DESIGN^®, CAMERA Design^®, Mix Telematics, Mix Telematics – Logo, Matrix Vehicle Tracking Logo, Datatrak, Tracking. Simply Sorted, Beame Character Device, Beame Logo 2012, Beame Logo 2010, Mix-Drive, FM-WEB, Matrix – right by your side (2013 logo), Mix Vision, Mix Safedrive, FM Communicator, MIX ROVI, Beame Logo, Our Customers Are People, Not Vehicles, Tripmaster, Life Takes You Places, Matrix Brings you Home, MiX Intuition, Recovery. Simply Sorted, Geoloc Advanced Alert, MiX Now, Mix Recovery Protect, Mix Fleet Manager, Connected and Protected Fleet.

Item 1. Business.

Overview

Powerfleet is a global leader of Internet-of-Things (“IoT”) solutions providing valuable business intelligence for managing high-value enterprise assets that improve operational efficiencies.

We are headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, with offices located around the globe.

On April 2, 2024, we consummated the transactions contemplated by the Implementation Agreement, dated as of October 10, 2023 (the “Implementation Agreement”), that we entered into with Main Street 2000 Proprietary Limited, a private company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa and our wholly owned subsidiary (“Powerfleet Sub”), and MiX Telematics, a public company incorporated under the laws of the Republic of South Africa (the “MiX Combination”). On such closing date, Powerfleet Sub acquired all the issued ordinary shares of MiX Telematics (including those represented by MiX Telematics’ American Depositary Shares) through the implementation of a scheme of arrangement (the “Scheme”) in accordance with Sections 114 and 115 of the South African Companies Act, No. 71 of 2008, as amended (the “Companies Act”), in exchange for shares of our common stock. As a result, MiX Telematics became our indirect, wholly owned subsidiary.

Our Powerfleet for Warehouse solutions are designed to provide on-premise or in-facility asset and operator management, monitoring, and visibility for warehouse trucks such as forklifts, man-lifts, tuggers and ground support equipment at airports. These solutions utilize a variety of communications capabilities such as Bluetooth^®, WiFi, and proprietary radio frequency.

Our Powerfleet for Logistics solutions are designed to provide bumper-to-bumper asset management, monitoring, and visibility for over-the-road based assets such as heavy trucks, dry-van trailers, refrigerated trailers and shipping containers and their associated cargo. These systems provide mobile-asset tracking and condition-monitoring solutions to meet the transportation market’s desire for greater visibility, safety, security, and productivity throughout global supply chains.

Our Powerfleet for Vehicles solutions are designed both to enhance the vehicle fleet management process, whether it’s a rental car, a private fleet, or automotive original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) partners. We achieve this by providing critical information that can be used to increase revenues, reduce costs and improve customer service.

Our patented technologies are a proven solution for organizations that must monitor and analyze their assets to improve safety, increase efficiency, reduce costs, and drive profitability. Our offerings are sold under the global brands Powerfleet, Pointer, and Cellocator.

We have an established history of IoT device development and innovation creating devices that can withstand harsh and rugged environments. With 46 patents and patent applications and over 25 years’ experience, we believe we are well positioned to evolve our offerings for even greater value to customers through our cloud-based applications for unified operations.

We deliver advanced data solutions that connect mobile assets to increase visibility, operational efficiency and profitability. Across our spectrum of vertical markets, we differentiate ourselves by developing mobility platforms that collect data from unique sensors. Further, because we are OEM agnostic, we help organizations view and manage their mixed assets homogeneously. All of our solutions are paired with software as a service (“SaaS”) and analytics platforms to provide an even deeper level of insights and understanding of how assets are utilized and how drivers and operators operate those assets. These insights include a full set of Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) to drive operational and strategic decisions. Our customers typically get a return on their investment in less than 12 months from deployment.

Our enterprise software applications have machine learning capabilities and are built to integrate with our customers’ management systems to provide a single, integrated view of asset and operator activity across multiple locations while providing real-time enterprise-wide benchmarks and peer-industry comparisons. We look for analytics, as well as the data contained therein, to differentiate us from our competitors, adding significant value to customers’ business operations, and helping to contribute to their bottom line. Our solutions also feature open application programming interfaces (“APIs”) for additional integrations and development to boost other enterprise management systems and third-party applications.

We market and sell our connected IoT data solutions to a wide range of customers in the commercial and government sectors. Our customers operate in diverse markets, such as manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, wholesale and retail, food and grocery distribution, pharmaceutical and medical distribution, construction, mining, utilities, aerospace, vehicle rental, as well as logistics, shipping, transportation, and field services. Traditionally, these businesses have relied on manual, often paper-based, processes or on-premise legacy software to operate their high-value assets, manage workforce resources, and distributed sites; and face environmental, safety, and other regulatory requirements. In today’s landscape, it is crucial for these businesses to invest in solutions that enable easy analysis and sharing of real-time information.

Our Solutions

We provide critical actionable information that powers unified operations throughout organizations. We are solving the challenge of inefficient data collection, real-time visibility, and analysis that leads to transformative business operations. Our SaaS cloud-based applications take data from our IoT devices and ecosystem of third-party and partner applications to present actionable information for customers to increase efficiencies, improve safety and security, and increase their profitability in easy-to-understand reports, dashboards, and real-time alerts.

Key Applications of Our IoT Solutions

We provide real-time intelligence for organizations with high-value assets allowing them to make informed decisions and ultimately improve their operations, safety, and bottom line. Our applications enable organizations to capture IoT data from various types of assets with devices and sensors creating a holistic view for analysis and action.

The core applications that our IoT solutions address include:

End-to-End Visibility: Organizations with expensive assets such as vehicles, machinery, or equipment need to keep track of where the assets are located, monitor for misuse, and understand how and when assets are being used. By having complete visibility of their assets, customers can improve security, utilization and customer service. In addition, our visibility solutions help with personnel workflows and resource management, freight visibility through load status, equipment availability status, dwell and idle time, geofencing, two-way temperature control and management, multizone temperature monitoring, arrival and departure times, and supply chain allocation.

Regulatory Compliance: Businesses must comply with government regulations and provide proof of compliance, which is commonly an onerous process to enforce and maintain. Our solutions provide critical data points and reports to help customers stay within compliance, avoid fines for non-compliance, and automate the reporting process. We deliver real-time position reports, hours-of-service, temperature monitoring and control, electronic safety checklists, workflow management, controlling vehicle access to only authorized operators, inspection reports, and history logs of use.

Improve Safety: Our applications are designed to provide asset and operator management, monitoring, and visibility for safer environments. Our solutions allow our customers to monitor their fleet of vehicles on various parameters, including but not limited to, vehicle location, speed, engine fault codes, driver behavior, eco-driving, and ancillary sensors and can receive reports and alerts, either automatically or upon request wirelessly via the internet, email, mobile phone or an SMS. In addition, our dash camera provides critical video capture that can be used to help exonerate drivers when in accidents or help bolster training and coaching programs of employees. We also offer preventative solutions such as safety warning products to alert vehicle operators of objects or pedestrians in their pathway to prevent accidents, injuries, and damage. Our analytics platform features dashboards with KPIs and can help managers identify patterns, trends and outliers that can be used as flags for interventions.

Drive Operational Efficiency & Productivity: To increase utilization of mobile assets, our solutions enable the identification of a change in status, real-time location, geo-fencing alerts when an asset is approaching or leaving its destination, cargo status, and on-board intelligence utilizing a motion sensor and proprietary logic that identifies the beginning of a drive and the end of a drive. Having this information enables customers to increase capacity, speed of service, right-size their fleets, and improve communication internally and with customers. In addition, customers can increase revenue per mile, reduce claims and claims processing times, and reduce the number of assets needed. This is achieved through proving such things as two-way integrated workflows for drivers, control assignments and work change, Electronic Driver Logging and automated record keeping for regulatory compliance, monitoring of asset pools and geofence violations, and various reporting insights that flag under-utilized assets, the closest assets, and alerts on dwell time and exceeding the allotted time for loading and unloading.

We help customers to automate processes and increase productivity of their employees. Our applications enable customers to determine where operators are assigned and can temporarily reassign them based on peak needs, evaluate any disparity in the amount employees are paid compared to the time they actually spend operating a vehicle. Our applications help answer the question of why does it take some employees longer than others to do specific tasks, where to focus labor resources, and how to forecast vehicles and operators needed for future workflow.

In addition, for our rental car vertical, our applications automatically upload vehicle identification number, mileage and fuel data as a vehicle enters and exits the rental lot, which can significantly expedite the rental and return processes for travelers, and provide the rental company with more timely inventory status, more accurate billing data that can generate higher fuel-related revenue, and an opportunity to utilize customer service personnel for more productive activities, such as inspecting vehicles for damage and helping customers with luggage.

Our solution for “car sharing” permits a rental car company to remotely control, track and monitor their rental vehicles wherever they are parked. Whether for traditional “pod-based” rental or for the emerging rent-anywhere model, the system, through APIs integrated into any rental company’s fleet management system, (i) manages member reservations by smart phone or Internet, and (ii) charges members for vehicle use by the hour.

For our customers with a variety of make-model-years in their fleet, we have developed an unmatched library of certified vehicle code interfaces through our second-generation On-Board Diagnostics, industry standard. Our patented fleet management system helps fleet owners improve asset utilization, reduce capital costs, and cut operating expenses, such as vehicle maintenance or service and support.

Increase Security: Our solutions allow our customers to reduce theft and improve inventory management. Customers can lockdown their assets with automated e-mail or text message alerts, emergency tracking of assets (higher frequency of reports) if theft is expected, geo-fencing alerts when an asset enters a prohibited geography or location, and near real-time sensors that alert based on changes in temperature and shock, among other things. We also provide stolen vehicle retrieval (“SVR”) services. Most of the SVR products used to provide our SVR services are mainly sold to (i) local car dealers and importers that in turn sell the products equipped in the vehicle to the end users who purchase the SVR services directly from us, or (ii) leasing companies which purchase our SVR services in order to secure their own vehicles.

Reduce Costs

We enable our customers to improve asset utilization, reduce capital costs, and cut operating expenses, such as vehicle maintenance or service and support. Our solutions provide engine performance, machine diagnostics, fuel consumption, and battery life to improve preventative maintenance scheduling, increase uptime, and gain a longer service life of equipment. Through our software applications, customers can optimize capacity, analyze resource allocation, and improve utilization of assets to reduce capital expenses such as purchasing new or leasing additional equipment. Our applications provide root cause analysis for any cargo claims and help with exoneration of drivers in accidents via dash camera visibility.

Analytics and Machine Learning

Our analytics platforms provide our customers with a holistic view of their asset activity across their enterprise. For example, our image machine learning system allows us to process images from our freight camera and other sources and identify key aspects of operations and geospatial information such as location, work being accomplished, type of cargo, how cargo is loaded and if there are any visible issues such as damage.

Key Performance Indicators & Benchmarks

Our cloud-based software applications provide a single, integrated view of asset activity across multiple locations, generating enterprise-wide benchmarks, peer-industry comparisons, and deeper insights into asset operations. In addition, our customers can set real-time alerts for exception-based reporting or critical activity that needs immediate attention. This enables management teams to make more informed, effective decisions, raise asset performance standards, increase productivity, reduce costs, and enhance safety.

Specifically, our analytics platforms allow users to quantify best-practice enterprise benchmarks for asset utilization and safety, reveal variations and inefficiencies in asset activity across both sites and geographic regions, or identify opportunities to eliminate or reallocate assets, to reduce capital and operating costs. We provide an extensive set of decision-making tools and a variety of standard and customized reports to help businesses improve overall operations.

We look for analytics and machine learning to make a growing contribution to drive platform and SaaS revenue, further differentiate our offerings and add value to our solutions. We also use our analytics platform for our own internal platform quality control.

Services

Hosting Services: We provide the use of our systems as a remotely hosted service, with the system server and application software residing in our colocation center or on a cloud platform provider’s infrastructure (e.g., Azure, AWS). This approach helps us reduce support costs and improve quality control. It separates the system from the restrictions of the customers’ local IT networks, which helps reduce their system support efforts and makes it easier for them to receive the benefits of system enhancements and upgrades. Our hosting services are typically offered with extended maintenance and support services over a multi-year term of service, with automatic renewals following the end of the initial term.

Software as a Service: We provide system monitoring, help desk technical support, escalation procedure development, routine diagnostic data analysis and software updates services as part of the ongoing contract term. These services ensure deployed systems remain in optimal performance condition throughout the contract term and provide access to newly developed features and functions on an annual basis.

Maintenance Services: We provide a warranty on the hardware components of our system. During the warranty period, we either replace or repair defective hardware. We also make extended maintenance contracts available to customers and offer ongoing maintenance and support on a time and materials basis.

Customer Support and Consulting Services for Ease of Use, Adoption, and Added Value: We have developed a framework for the various phases of system training and support that offer our customers both structure and flexibility. Major training phases include hardware installation and troubleshooting, software installation and troubleshooting, “train-the-trainer” training on asset hardware operation, preliminary software user training, system administrator training, information technology issue training, ad hoc training during system launch and advanced software user training.

Increasingly, training services are provided through scalable online interactive training tools. Support and consulting services are priced based on the extent of training that the customer requests. To help our customers derive the most benefit from our system, we supply a broad range of documentation and support including videos, interactive online tools, hardware user guides, software manuals, vehicle installation overviews, troubleshooting guides, and issue escalation procedures.

We provide our consulting services both as a standalone service to study the potential benefits of implementing an IoT business intelligence solution and as part of the system implementation itself. In some instances, customers prepay us for extended maintenance, support and consulting services. In those instances, the payment amount is recorded as deferred revenue and revenue is recognized over the service period.

Growth Strategy

Our objective is to become a leading global provider of IoT SaaS solutions for high-value enterprise assets to drive optimized operations and create safer environments. In 2023, we consolidated and augmented many of our existing capabilities on a single customer software platform branded as “Unity.” We have designed our Unity platform to enable rapid and deep integration with IoT devices and third-party business systems to a highly scalable data pipeline that powers artificial intelligence-driven insights to help companies save lives, time, and money. Unity is an increasingly important initiative to meet our objective of becoming a leading global provider of IoT SaaS solutions for high-value enterprise assets to drive optimized operations and create safer environments. To achieve this goal, we intend to prove value, retain and grow business with existing customers and pursue opportunities with new customers by:

We also plan to expand into new applications and markets by:

Sales and Marketing

Our sales and marketing objectives are to achieve broad market awareness and penetration, with an emphasis both on expanding business opportunities with existing customers and on securing new customers.

We market our systems directly to commercial and government organizations and through indirect sales channels, such as OEMs, vehicle importers, distributors, and warehouse equipment dealers.

In addition, we are actively pursuing strategic relationships with key companies in our target markets - including complementary hardware and software vendors and service providers - to further penetrate these markets by embedding our products in the assets our systems monitor and integrating our solutions with other systems.

We sell our systems to corporate-level executives, division heads and site-level management within the enterprise. Typically, our initial system deployment serves as a basis for potential expansion across the customer’s organization.

We work closely with customers to demonstrate a return on investment, which is usually less than 12 months, and help maximize the utilization and benefits of our system and demonstrate the value of enterprise-wide deployments. Post-implementation, we consult with our customers to further extend and customize the benefits to the enterprise by delivering enhanced analytics capabilities.

Customers

We market and sell our wireless solutions to a wide range of customers in the commercial and government sectors. Our customers operate in diverse markets, such as automotive manufacturing, retail, food and grocery distribution, logistics, shipping, freight transportation, heavy industry, wholesale distribution, manufacturing, aerospace and vehicle rental.

We enter into master agreements with our customers in the normal course of business. These agreements define the terms of any sales of products and/or services by us to the applicable customer, including, but not limited to, terms regarding payment, support services, termination and assignment rights. These agreements generally obligate us only when products or services are actually sold to the customer thereunder.

We strive to establish long-term relationships with our customers in order to maximize opportunities for new application development and increased sales. Some of our global customers that benefit from the Company’s combined solutions to power their specific IoT and machine to machine mobility needs include Avis, Walmart, Toyota, and XPO Logistics. No individual customer generates revenue equal to or greater than 10% of the Company’s consolidated total revenue.

Competition

The market for our solutions is rapidly evolving, highly competitive and fragmented. Our target markets are also subject to quickly changing product technologies, shifting customer needs, regulatory requirements and frequent introductions of new products and services.

In each of our global markets, we encounter different competitors due to the dynamics of each market. A significant number of companies have developed or are developing and marketing software and hardware for wireless products that currently compete or will compete directly with our solutions. We compete with organizations varying in size, including many small, start-up companies as well as large, well-capitalized organizations.

While some of our competitors focus exclusively on providing wireless asset management solutions, many are involved in wireless technology as an extension of a broader business. Many of our larger competitors are able to dedicate extensive financial resources to the research and development and deployment of wireless solutions. As government and commercial entities expand the use of wireless technologies, we expect that competition will continue to increase within our target markets.

Research and Development

Our research and development team has expertise in areas such as hardware, software and firmware development and testing, database design and data analytics, wireless communications, artificial intelligence methods, mechanical and electrical engineering, and both product and project management. In addition, we utilize external contractors to supplement our team in the areas of software and firmware development, digital design, test development and product-level testing.

Generally, our research and development efforts are focused on expanding the capabilities of our products; differentiating our offerings through our Unity platform build, simplifying the implementation, support and utilization of our solutions, reducing the cost of our solutions, increasing the reliability of our solutions, expanding the functionality of our solutions to meet customer and market requirements, applying new advances in technology to enhance existing solutions, and building further competitive advantages through our intellectual property portfolio.

Intellectual Property

Patents

We attempt to protect our technology and products through a variety of intellectual property protections, including the pursuit of patent protection in the United States and certain foreign jurisdictions. Because of the differences in patent laws and laws concerning proprietary rights, the extent of protection provided by U.S. patents or proprietary rights owned by us may differ from that of their foreign counterparts. Where strategically appropriate, we will attempt to pursue suspected violators of our patents and, whenever possible, monetize our intellectual property.

We built a portfolio of patents and patent applications relating to various aspects of our technology and products, including our wireless asset management systems, connected car products, and vehicle management systems. As of February 29, 2024, our patent portfolio includes 39 U.S. patents, 3 pending U.S. patent applications, 2 pending foreign patent applications, and 2 foreign patents. With the timely payment of all maintenance fees, the U.S. patents have expiration dates falling between 2024 and 2040. No single patent or patent family is considered material to our business.

Trademarks

We have, or have applied for, U.S. and/or foreign trademark protection for I.D. SYSTEMS^® and Design, the I.D. SYSTEMS Logo^®, VEHICLE ASSET COMMUNICATOR^®, POWERFLEET^®, POWERFLEET VISION^®, POWERFLEET IQ^®, POWERFLEET YARD^®, VERIWISE IQ^®, didBOX^®, FREIGHTCAM, KEYTROLLER^®, REEFERMATE^®, POWERFLEET and DESIGN^® and CAMERA Design^®. Following the MiX Combination, we have additional trademarks for Mix Telematics, Mix Telematics – Logo, Matrix Vehicle Tracking Logo, Datatrak, Tracking. Simply Sorted, Beame Character Device, Beame Logo 2012, Beame Logo 2010, Mix-Drive, FM-WEB, Matrix – right by your side (2013 logo), Mix Vision, Mix Safedrive, FM Communicator, MIX ROVI, Beame Logo, Our Customers Are People, Not Vehicles, Tripmaster, Life Takes You Places, Matrix Brings you Home, MiX Intuition, Recovery. Simply Sorted, Geoloc Advanced Alert, MiX Now, Mix Recovery Protect, Mix Fleet Manager, Connected and Protected Fleet.

We attempt to avoid infringing known proprietary rights of third parties in our product development and sales efforts. However, it is difficult to proceed with certainty in a rapidly evolving technological environment in which there may be numerous patent applications pending, many of which are confidential at the time of the application filing, with regard to similar technologies. If we were to discover that our products violate third-party proprietary rights, we may not be able to:

Any claims against us relating to the infringement of third-party proprietary rights, even if without merit, could result in the expenditure of significant financial and managerial resources or in injunctions preventing us from distributing certain products. Such claims could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our software products are susceptible to unauthorized copying and uses that may go undetected, and policing such unauthorized use is difficult. In general, our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights through patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws and contractual safeguards may not be effective to prevent misappropriation of our technology, or to prevent the development and design by others of products or technologies similar to, or competitive with, those developed by us. Our failure or inability to protect our proprietary rights could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Manufacturing

We outsource our hardware manufacturing operations to contract manufacturers. This strategy enables us to focus on our core competencies - designing hardware and software systems and delivering solutions to customers - and avoid investing in capital-intensive electronics manufacturing infrastructure. Outsourcing also provides us with the ability to ramp up deliveries to meet increases in demand without increasing fixed expenses.

Our manufacturers are responsible for obtaining the necessary components and supplies to manufacture our products. While components and supplies are generally available from a variety of sources, manufacturers generally depend on a limited number of suppliers. In the past, unexpected demand for communication products has caused worldwide shortages of certain electronic parts and allocation of such parts by suppliers that had an adverse impact on the ability of manufacturers to deliver products as well as on the cost of producing such products.

Due to the general availability of manufacturers for our products, we do not believe that the loss of any of our manufacturers would have a long-term material adverse effect on our business, although there could be a short-term adverse effect on our business.

We generally attempt to maintain sufficient inventory to meet customer demand for products, as well as to meet anticipated sales levels. If our product mix changes in unanticipated ways, or if sales for particular products do not materialize as anticipated, we may have excess inventory or inventory that becomes obsolete. In such cases, our operating results could be negatively affected.

Government Regulations

The use of radio emissions is subject to regulation in the United States by various federal agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission (the “FCC”) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Various state agencies also have promulgated regulations which concern the use of lasers and radio/electromagnetic emissions standards.

Regulatory changes in the United States and other countries in which we may operate in the future could require modifications to some of our products in order for us to continue manufacturing and marketing our products in those areas.

Our products intentionally transmit radio signals, including narrow band and spread spectrum signals, as part of their normal operation. We have obtained certification from the FCC for our products that require certification. Users of these products in the United States do not require any license from the FCC to use or operate our products. To market and sell our integrated wireless solutions in the European Union, we also utilize unlicensed radio spectra and have obtained the required European Norm certifications.

In addition, some of our operations use substances regulated under various federal, state and local laws governing the environment and worker health and safety, including those governing the discharge of pollutants into the ground, air and water, the management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and the cleanup of contaminated sites. Certain of our products are subject to various federal, state and local laws governing chemical substances in electronic products.

The adoption of unfavorable regulations, or unfavorable interpretations of existing regulations by courts or regulatory bodies, could require us to incur significant compliance costs, cause the development of the affected markets to become impractical or otherwise adversely affect our ability to produce or market our products.

Since 1996, our subsidiary Pointer Telocation Ltd. (“Pointer”) has held an operational license, which is renewed on a regular basis, from the Ministry of Communications in Israel to operate our wireless messaging system over 2 MHz in the 966 to 968 MHz radio spectrum band. It also obtains licenses from the Israeli Ministry of Communications in order to manufacture, import, market and sell its products in Israel.

Our subsidiary Pointer Argentina S.A. (“Pointer Argentina”) obtains domestic licenses for the deployment of our SVR operation in Argentina and local operators are required to obtain a specific license for their operations.

We are currently registered by the Federal Department of Security in Mexico to provide our services.

Certain of our South African subsidiaries, including Pointer SA (PTY) Ltd. (“Pointer South Africa”), are currently registered as security service providers under the Private Security Industry Regulation Act, 2001 in South Africa. Our products are also listed with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa.

While the use of our cellular monitoring units does not require regulatory approvals, in Israel, the use of our radio frequency products is subject to regulatory approvals from government agencies. In general, applications for regulatory approvals to date have not been problematic. However, we cannot guarantee that approvals already obtained are or will remain sufficient in the view of regulatory authorities indefinitely.

Employees

As of April 15, 2024, we had 780 total employees globally, 100% of whom are full-time employees. We believe that our relationships with our employees are good.

Recent Developments

Higher interest rates and lingering inflation, fluctuations in currency values, continued supply chain disruptions, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts, such as the wars between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas, have resulted in significant economic disruption and adversely impacted the broader global economy, including our customers and suppliers. Given the dynamic and uncertain nature of the current macroeconomic environment, we cannot reasonably estimate the impact of such developments on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows into the foreseeable future. The ultimate extent of the effects of these developments remain highly uncertain, and such effects could exist for an extended period of time.

Other Information

I.D. Systems, Inc. (“I.D. Systems”) was incorporated in the State of Delaware in 1993. Powerfleet, Inc. was incorporated in the State of Delaware in February 2019 for the purpose of effectuating the transactions pursuant to which we acquired Pointer (the “Pointer Merger”). Upon the closing of the Pointer Merger, Powerfleet became the parent entity of I.D. Systems and Pointer.

Our primary website is www.powerfleet.com. We make available on this website, free of charge, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such information to, the SEC. Reports and other information we file with the SEC may also be viewed at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. We also make available on this website, free of charge, our Code of Ethics for Senior Financial Officers, which applies to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer and principal accounting officer.

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

In addition to the other information contained in this Form 10-K, the following risk factors should be considered carefully in evaluating the Company’s business. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially and adversely affected by any of these risks. Additional risks not presently known to the Company or that the Company currently deems immaterial may also adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Risk Factor Summary

Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including those highlighted in the section titled “Risk Factors” immediately following this summary. These risks include, among others, the following: