WILMINGTON, Del., May 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acorn Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq: ACFN), a provider of remote monitoring and control solutions for generators, gas pipelines and other critical infrastructure assets, announced results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2026 (Q1'26). Acorn will hold an investor call today at 11am ET (details below).

(1) All of Acorn's revenue is derived from its 99%-owned operating subsidiary, OmniMetrix™, LLC.

CEO Commentary

Jan Loeb, Acorn’s CEO, said, “Q1’26 results reflect continued growth in our installed base of monitored endpoints – the core value driver of our business––offset by a decrease in hardware revenue largely due to our material cellphone provider contract, which contributed hardware revenue of $876,000 in Q1’25 vs. $93,000 in Q1’26. Given our size, large enterprise deployments are likely to create material variability in our quarterly hardware revenue comparisons, while contributing to our growing base of high-margin, recurring, monitoring revenue.

“Reflecting the increase in monitoring revenue as a percentage of total revenue, Q1’26 gross margin improved to 80.2% from 75.1% in Q1’25.

“Turning to our growth drivers, we continue to pursue both residential and enterprise deployments of our monitoring solutions and remain optimistic regarding our growth potential as customers take action to protect their homes and businesses against sudden power outages. We are also advancing our new Infrastructure Solutions segment pursuant to our technology partnership with AIO Systems, through which we secured exclusive North American rights to a comprehensive IoT monitoring solutions suite for telecommunications towers, energy sites and data centers. This solution suite addresses a much broader range of functions and capabilities and as such we expect revenue from an average site to be 5-6x that of our current average sale. Accordingly, we see significant potential as infrastructure operators seek to modernize and harden their monitoring scope and capabilities.

“We are advancing our program to launch these products in the U.S., fine-tuning product features and alerts, and developing customer materials and sales and training collateral. We’ve also gone live with two full telecom tower sites for use in customer demonstrations. We are still working out final hardware and services pricing models so it’s still too early to project margins in this segment. Nonetheless, the AIO partnership significantly expands both our scope of capabilities as well as our addressable markets. We are confident there is no better existing suite of monitoring solutions. Therefore, we feel this segment has the potential to transform our company.

“The Infrastructure Solutions opportunity, combined with expected growth in our existing Power Generation segment, has us well-positioned with a high-margin, capital-light business model.

“We remain focused on our objective of achieving three-to-five year average revenue growth of 20% or more. In addition to our pursuit of larger commercial and industrial customer opportunities, we continue to work toward potential strategic relationships with power generator manufacturers and other OEMs. We also remain active in our pursuit of strategic M&A opportunities aligned with our business model and with the potential to be meaningfully accretive to our earnings. Q1 is typically our lowest-revenue quarter so we expect stronger performance as we progress through the year, though we do expect that hardware revenue comparisons in Q2’26 will again be below Q2’25 due to the impact of the material cell phone provider contract in Q2’25.”

Financial Review
Q1’26 revenue decreased 28.1% to $2,227,000 versus $3,098,000 in Q1’25, primarily due to a $1,019,000 (55.7%) decrease in hardware revenue, as the prior-year period included significant hardware shipments under the material cellphone provider contract. Although hardware deliveries under the contract are now largely complete, we did receive an additional $93,000 of hardware revenue and $167,000 of monitoring revenue from the contract in Q1’26. Total monitoring revenue, which is amortized over the service period (typically one year), grew 11.7% to $1,417,000 in Q1’26, reflecting continued growth in our monitored endpoints.

Q1’26 gross profit was $1,785,000, reflecting a gross margin of 80.2%, compared to gross profit of $2,326,000 and a gross margin of 75.1% in Q1’25. The gross margin improvement was driven by a higher proportion of monitoring revenue, which carries a 94% gross margin, and lower hardware revenue from the material contract.

Operating expenses increased 11.2% to $1,914,000 in Q1’26 versus $1,722,000 in Q1’25, due to a $228,000 increase in selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expense, partially offset by a $36,000 decrease in research and development (R&D) expense. The increase in SG&A was primarily driven by $136,000 in higher stock-based compensation expense due to stock option grants issued to officers and directors and $111,000 in higher OmniMetrix SG&A, including additional personnel and technology expenses, partially offset by lower commissions. Lower R&D expense reflected reduced costs following the completion of the new Omni and OmniPro product development.

Lower revenue and higher SG&A, resulted in a Q1’26 net loss attributable to Acorn stockholders of $(77,000), or $(0.03) per basic and diluted share, compared to net income of $464,000, or $0.19 per basic and diluted share, in Q1’25. The Q1’26 loss includes $197,000 of non-cash stock-based compensation expense versus $61,000 in Q1’25. The Company recognized an income tax benefit of $25,000 in Q1’26 versus income tax expense of $154,000 in Q1’25.

Liquidity and Cash Flow
Excluding deferred revenue of $2,934,000 and deferred cost of goods sold of $25,000, which have no impact on future cash flow, net working capital was $6,024,000 at March 31, 2026 versus $6,184,000 at December 31, 2025. This included cash of $4,257,000 at March 31, 2026 versus $4,454,000 at year-end 2025.

In Q1’26, Acorn generated $53,000 of cash from operating activities, used $260,000 for investing activities (including $250,000 for the acquisition of the exclusive distribution and commercialization rights under the AIO Systems technology partnership agreement and $10,000 in other capital items), and received $10,000 from the exercise of stock options, for a net decrease in cash of $197,000.

Investor Call Details

About Acorn (www.acornenergy.com) and OmniMetrix^TM (www.omnimetrix.net)
Acorn’s 99%-owned OmniMetrix subsidiary is a pioneer and leader in wireless remote monitoring and control solutions for critical infrastructure including standby generators, cell towers, gas pipelines, data centers, and utility networks. OmniMetrix serves tens of thousands of commercial and residential endpoints, including over 25 Fortune/Global 500 companies in sectors including telecom, manufacturing, healthcare, data centers, retail, public transportation, energy distribution and government facilities, as well as residential customers through generator dealers.

OmniMetrix’s industry-leading, cost-effective solutions make critical systems more reliable and also enable automated “demand response” electric grid support via enrolled backup generators.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release includes forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. There are no assurances that Acorn will be successful in growing its business, increasing its revenue, increasing profitability, or maximizing the value of its operating company and other assets. A complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may affect Acorn Energy’s business, including the business of its subsidiary, is included in “Risk Factors” in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Investor Relations Contacts
Catalyst IR
William Jones, 267-987-2082
David Collins, 212-924-9800
acfn@catalyst-ir.com