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A Trimble facility in California, US. (Image: Adobe Stock)

Trimble president and CEO Rob Painter said, overall, the group’s revenue increased just more than 1% to US$871 million compared to the same period last year. Annual recuring revenue (ARR) was up 14% to $2.1 billion.

In highlighting the AECO segment, Painter highlighted a quarter of growth and product delivery.

“The AECO segment is the tip of the spear of our connect and scale strategy, and the strategy is working,” he said at the quarterly call. “We are succeeding in growing customer count with our innovative products and driving higher revenue per customer through our integrated platform offering.”

A deeper look at Trimble’s Q2 2024 results

Trimble’s AECO segment increased revenue to $300 million, up just less than 14% from Q2 2023. ARR for AECO came in at $1.2 billion, an 18% year-on-year rise.

The company highlighted subscriber growth in its architecture and design businesses (surpassing one million users in the quarter) and the success of Trimble Connect, which the firm said has initiated more than 20 million projects since launch.

“SketchUp… surpassed one-million subscribers, am amazing milestone delivered by the team,” said Painter of the firm’s flagship 3D-modelling software, which was first launched in 2000.

In its Field Systems segment, however, which includes products and services related to positioning services and products like Trimble’s R980 GNSS receiver and BX992 machine control system, Trimble reported revenue of $379 million. The company said this was an 8% loss (excluding impact of foreign currency translation, merger and acquisitions, and divestitures).

ARR in Field Systems, though, rose about 17% over 2023’s Q2 to $308 million.

Trimble reported cash flow was down about 10% to $321 million, capital expenditures up 11% to $21 million, and free cash flow down 10% to $300 million.

2024 construction segment outlook for Trimble

A survey crew in the field. (Image: Adobe Stock)

Painter said the “C” portion of the AECO segment – construction – should continue to perform well going forward.

“Our recent tuck-in acquisitions of field-and-payment solutions have shown us that we can run repeatable land and expand plays that deliver our customers fast time to value when they buy additional capabilities on top of our construction management system,” he said.

Painter noted the group hired a chief revenue officer specifically for AECO and its annual $1.16 billion recurring revenue “which we believe will help further enable and ensure our growth and success at scale,” he added.

“Investments we have made over the last several years have enabled us to grow and gain share. Our strategy resonates with customers looking for strong ROIs,” he said. “Based on our second quarter results, our pipeline, and our solid bookings performance, we see our momentum continuing.”

Trimble’s Painter planning to be ‘AI winner’

Painter also offered thoughts on the future role of artificial intelligence (AI) product offerings, calling the firm a ‘winner’ in this segment.

“I wanted to offer a perspective on why we see Trimble as an AI winner,” he said. “We now have over 2,500 engineers using GitHub Copilot and more than 5,000 Trimble colleagues using an internal version of Microsoft Azure OpenAI that we call Trimble Assistant.

“From a customer-facing perspective, we have beta and production releases of AI capabilities in a number of areas.”

Rendered concept of artificial intelligence (AI). (Image: Adobe Stock)

And the list went on for Painter and Trimble as he highlighted the group’s segments.

“In AECO, we automate the extraction of PDF data into submittal logs and into estimating engines. We also transform 3D BIM models into photorealistic renderings. In Field Systems, we focus on feature extraction from 3D point clouds. In transportation, our AI solutions include customer support, autonomous procurement, and autonomous quotation systems that match shippers with carriers,” he added.

The more boutique offerings Trimble can provide consumers in the AI-segment, Painter said, the better off the group will be.

“Our thesis on AI is that the density of domain-specific data and insight will separate the AI winners and losers,” he said.

And Painter said he sees the company delivering – via financial and time commitments – new AI products in construction, as opposed to simply adding to the chatter that has surrounded the topic the last year.

“With our unique scale that includes [more than] $1 trillion of construction capital programs, tens-of-billions of dollars of freight transactions running through our systems, millions of global customers, and hundreds of thousands of instruments and machines in the physical world, we believe we have a compelling right to win and a defensible moat to continue building around our business,” he concluded.