Taser Me Bro: Taser International Reports Decent Quarter

It is hard to believe that it has been nearly two years since the infamous web video of the, “Don’t taze me bro,” incident occurred during a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida. The incident has received a lot of attention in that time, and has even spawned T-shirts and other various fanfare mostly in support of the rebellious student. Taser International (TASR), the company whose product was at the center of that “exchange,” reported second quarter earnings on Wednesday morning that showed the company fell just short of profitability. EPS came in at a loss of one penny versus estimates that had pegged Taser to lose four cents based on the handful of Wall Street analysts that cover the small cap company.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the results was the resiliency of sales over the last quarter. Revenue was 3.5% better than the same period a year ago, coming in at $21.8 million, even though analysts were predicting sales to fall by about 10% in the quarter. The gross margin on those better sales slipped from 64.5% all the way to 62.9%. This is a significant slip in margins, but at around 63% a little bit of margin squeezing is not a huge concern.