Company: LASR
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001124796-25-000021
Chunk: 5

Company: NLIGHT, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 5
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 Operations, and Notes 2 and 18 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Backlog

Backlog represents firm orders that have been received for products, the remaining funded value of research and development contracts, and other services for which a contractual agreement is in place and delivery or performance is expected to occur. Backlog totaled $167.0 million and $108.4 million as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. All of the backlog as of December 31, 2024 is expected to be filled within the next 24 months. Our backlog is not necessarily indicative of revenues for any specific future period due to possible order cancellations or deferrals, and shipping or acceptance delays. Delays in delivery schedules or a reduction in backlog during any period could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Backlog excludes the unfunded portion of our government contracts because these contracts are typically only partially funded at any point during their term, and all or some of the work to be performed under these contracts may remain unfunded unless and until the contract is modified and additional funding is allocated to the contract. As of December 31, 2024, the unfunded value of our government contracts totaled $231.5 million.

Seasonality

Our quarterly revenues can fluctuate with general economic trends, holidays in foreign countries such as Chinese New Year in the first quarter of our fiscal year, the U.S. government fiscal year end, the timing of capital expenditures by our customers, and general economic trends. In addition, as is typical in our industry, we tend to recognize a larger percentage of our quarterly revenues in the last month of the quarter, which may impact our working capital trends.

Competition

The industries in which we operate have significant price and technological competition. We compete with companies that offer semiconductor lasers, fiber lasers, fiber amplifiers and other laser products such as IPG Photonics Corporation, Coherent, BWT Ltd., II-VI Incorporated, Raycus Fiber Laser Technologies, and Trumpf GmbH + Co. KG. We also compete with prime defense contractors and subcontractors in the Aerospace and Defense market, and with companies in the Industrial market that offer widely used non-laser production methods, such as plasma cutting, water-jet cutting and resistance welding. 

Some of our competitors are larger and have substantially greater financial, research and development, managerial, sales, service and marketing resources than we do