Alarm (ALRM) Risk Factors

Our ability to increase sales will depend, in large part, on our ability to enhance and improve our platforms and solutions, introduce new solutions in a timely manner, sell into new markets and further penetrate our existing markets. The success of any enhancement or new solution or service depends on several factors, including the timely completion, introduction and market acceptance of enhanced or new solutions, the ability to maintain and develop relationships with service providers, the ability to attract, retain and effectively train sales and marketing personnel and the effectiveness of our marketing programs. Any new product or service we develop or acquire may not be introduced in a timely or cost-effective manner, and may not achieve the broad market acceptance necessary to generate significant revenue. Any new markets into which we attempt to sell our platforms and solutions, including new vertical markets and new countries or regions, may not be receptive. Our ability to further penetrate our existing markets depends on the quality, availability and reliability of our platforms and solutions and our ability to design our platforms and solutions to meet consumer demand.

We believe building and maintaining market awareness, brand recognition and goodwill in a cost-effective manner is important to our overall success in achieving widespread acceptance of our existing and future solutions and is an important element in attracting new service provider partners and subscribers. An important part of our business strategy is to increase service provider and consumer awareness of our brand and to provide marketing leadership, services and support to our service provider partner network. This will depend largely on our ability to continue to provide high-quality solutions, and we may not be able to do so effectively. While we may choose to engage in a broader marketing campaign to further promote our brand, this effort may not be successful. Our efforts in developing our brand may be hindered by the marketing efforts of our competitors and our reliance on our service provider partners and strategic partners to promote our brand. If we are unable to cost-effectively maintain and increase awareness of our brand, our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations could be harmed.

As Internet commerce continues to evolve, federal, state or foreign agencies have adopted and could in the future adopt regulations covering issues such as user privacy and content. We are particularly sensitive to these risks because the Internet is a critical component of our SaaS business model. In addition, taxation of products or services provided over the Internet or other charges imposed by government agencies or by private organizations for accessing the Internet may be imposed. Any regulation imposing greater fees for Internet use or restricting information exchange over the Internet could result in a decline in the use of the Internet and the viability of Internet-based services, which could harm our business. Our platforms and solutions enable us to collect, manage and store a wide range of data related to our subscribers' interactive security, intelligent automation, video monitoring, energy management and wellness systems. A valuable component of our platforms and solutions is our ability to analyze this data to present the user with actionable business intelligence. We obtain our data from a variety of sources, including our service provider partners, our subscribers and third-party providers. We cannot assure that the data we require for our proprietary data sets will be available from these sources in the future or that the cost of such data will not increase. The United States federal government and various state governments have adopted or proposed limitations on the collection, distribution, storage and use of personal information. Several foreign jurisdictions in which we do business, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Argentina, among others, have adopted legislation (including directives or regulations) that is more rigorous governing data collection and storage than in the United States. On June 28, 2018, the State of California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, or CCPA, which took effect on January 1, 2020. The CCPA governs the collection, sale and use of California residents' personal information, and significantly impacts businesses' handling of personal information and privacy policies and procedures. The CCPA, as well as data privacy laws that have been adopted or proposed in over a dozen other states such as Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas and Utah, may limit our ability to use, process and store certain data, which may decrease adoption of our platforms and solutions, affect our relationships with service provider partners and our suppliers, increase our costs for compliance, and harm our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. Specifically, the CCPA may subject us to regulatory fines by the State of California, individual claims, class actions, and increased commercial liabilities. In addition, the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, or CPRA, was approved by California voters and became effective as of January 1, 2023. The CPRA, among other things, amended the CCPA by creating additional privacy rights for California consumers and additional obligations on businesses, which could subject us to additional compliance costs as well as potential fines, individual claims, class actions and commercial liabilities. The CPRA also extended the CCPA's scope to include employees' and business contacts' personal information, which may increase our compliance costs, legal costs and other costs of doing business. European data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, generally restrict the transfer of personal data from Europe, including the European Economic Area, or EEA, UK and Switzerland, to the United States and most other countries unless the parties to the transfer have implemented specific safeguards to protect the transferred personal data. On July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union, or CJEU, invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework, a program for transferring personal data from the EEA to the United States. The ruling also raised questions about whether one of the primary alternatives to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, namely the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, or SCCs, can lawfully be used for transfers from the EEA to the United States or most other countries. While the CJEU did not invalidate the use of SCCs as a valid mechanism for transferring personal data from the EEA to the United States, the CJEU required entities relying on SCCs to, among other things, verify on a case-by-case basis that the SCCs provide adequate protection of personal data under European Union, or EU, law by providing, where necessary, additional safeguards to those offered by the existing SCCs. For data transfers to the United States, these additional safeguards must be added to the SCCs in order for entities to use SCCs as a valid data transfer mechanism. Furthermore, the CJEU and the European Data Protection Board advised European data protection authorities that they would need to closely examine the laws and practices of countries outside of the EEA where EEA personal data is transferred, with a particular focus on the United States, so data transfers to the United States from the EEA are subject to increasing regulatory scrutiny following the CJEU decision. We have historically relied on both the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield and SCCs for transferring personal data from the EEA, and as a result of the CJEU ruling, we have transitioned our data transfers covered under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield to be covered under SCCs. In June 2021, the European Commission adopted a new version of the SCCs, which we began using on September 27, 2021. Moreover, the UK data protection regulator developed new SCCs for transferring personal data from the UK that were finalized in March 2022, and we use the new UK SCCs with our current and future customers in the UK. In July 2023, the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield was replaced by the Data Privacy Framework, or DPF, and we have been automatically enrolled in this program given our existing EU-U.S. Privacy Shield enrollment. We are also enrolled in the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. Effective October 12, 2023, organizations participating in the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF may receive personal data from the UK and Gibraltar in reliance on the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. Our work adopting, implementing and complying with the changing legal landscape governing international data transfers slows down our contracting process and increases our legal and compliance costs (including an increase in exposure to substantial fines under EEA data protection laws, increasing requests from our customers for compliance-related product changes, as well as injunctions against processing or transferring personal data from the EEA), which could adversely affect our cash flows and financial condition. SCCs with additional safeguards and obligations put in place by EEA data protection authorities or customers may impose new restrictions on our business and could affect our operations in the EEA. In September 2020, the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, or FDPIC, determined that the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework does not provide an adequate level of data protection for data transfers from Switzerland to the U.S. While the FDPIC does not have the authority to invalidate the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield, the FDPIC's announcement casts serious doubt on the viability of the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield as a valid mechanism for Swiss-U.S. data transfers. As a result of the FDPIC decision, we will need to transition any data transfers covered under the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield to be covered under SCCs or the Swiss-U.S. DPF once Switzerland adopts an adequacy decision. For data transfers from Switzerland, Alarm.com will continue to rely upon the SCCs adopted by the European Commission in August 2021 with any necessary modifications required by the regulatory authorities in Switzerland. As a result of these ongoing changes, there will continue to be significant regulatory uncertainty surrounding the validity of data transfers from the EEA, UK and Switzerland to the United States. The inability to import personal data from the EEA, UK or Switzerland may require us to increase our data processing capabilities in those jurisdictions at significant expense. Various other non-EU jurisdictions may also choose to impose data localization laws limiting the transfer of personal data out of their respective jurisdictions, or our EEA, UK or Swiss service provider partners may require similar contractual restrictions regarding data localization. Such laws or contractual restrictions may increase our costs for compliance, and harm our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, went into effect on May 25, 2018. Prior to May 25, 2018, we updated our existing privacy and data security measures to comply with GDPR. As guidance on compliance with GDPR from the EU data protection authorities evolves over time, our privacy or data security measures may be deemed or perceived to be in noncompliance with current or future laws and regulations, which may subject us to litigation, regulatory investigations or other liabilities and could limit the products and services we can offer in certain jurisdictions. Further, in the event of a breach of personal information that we hold, we may be subject to governmental fines, individual claims, remediation expenses and/or harm to our reputation. Moreover, if future laws, regulations, or court rulings, such as the CJEU's decision invalidating the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, limit our ability to use and share this data or our ability to store, process and share data over the Internet, demand for our platforms and solutions could decrease, our costs could increase, and our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations could be harmed. In Canada, data privacy laws have been subject to recent amendments that have introduced stricter compliance requirements and increased potential sanctions. The Province of Quebec enacted extensive amendments to its private-sector data privacy laws in 2021, which will become fully in force as of September 2024. Key changes include mandatory breach reporting, elevated consent and transparency requirements, the introduction of individual privacy rights such as privacy by default, data portability and the right to be forgotten, privacy impact assessments, and substantial monetary penalties for non-compliance. These changes to Quebec's data privacy laws may have similar impacts on our business as the CCPA and other privacy law reforms in other jurisdictions. Furthermore, Brazil's comprehensive privacy law, the General Data Protection Law, or LGPD, took effect on September 18, 2020 and federal regulatory enforcement began on August 1, 2021. However, private and state-level enforcement of the law began in September 2020. The LGPD creates a new legal framework for the use, processing and storage of Brazilians' personal data, and it adds significant privacy and security obligations for companies processing personal data in Brazil. The LGPD may limit our and our service providers' ability to use, process and store certain data, which may decrease adoption of our platforms and solutions, affect our relationships with our service provider partners and suppliers, increase our costs for compliance, and harm our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. In addition, the LGPD may subject us to regulatory fines by the Brazilian Data Protection Authority and increased commercial liabilities. Since April 2018 we have offered a solution for certain service provider partners who may be subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, and its implementing regulations, or HIPAA, which regulates the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information, or PHI. As a result, we are subject to HIPAA when PHI is accessed, created, maintained or transmitted through our solution by these service provider partners. We have implemented additional privacy and security policies and procedures, as well as administrative, physical and technical safeguards to enable our solution to be HIPAA-compliant. Additionally, HIPAA compliance has required us to put in place certain agreements with contracting partners and to appoint a Privacy Officer and Security Officer. If our privacy and security policies or other safeguards for PHI are deemed to be in noncompliance by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, we may be subject to litigation, regulatory investigations or other liabilities. In the event of a breach of PHI that we hold, we may be subject to governmental fines, individual claims under state privacy laws governing personal health information, remediation expenses and/or harm to our reputation. The use of health-related data is coming under increasing regulatory scrutiny in other ways. Several U.S. states, such as Washington, Nevada, and Connecticut, have passed health privacy laws, which may increase the risk of regulatory actions or consumer class actions being brought against Alarm.com. These laws may also increase our costs of doing business as well as legal costs, and slow down our contracting process. Moreover, the FTC has brought a series of regulatory enforcement actions relating to companies' use of health-related data, which may increase our regulatory risk. Furthermore, if future changes to HIPAA or state privacy laws governing PHI expand the definition of PHI or put more restrictions on our ability to use, process and store PHI, then HIPAA compliance for our solutions as currently constituted may be costly both financially and in terms of administrative resources. Ongoing compliance efforts may take substantial time and require the assistance of external resources, such as attorneys, information technology, and/or other consultants and advisors. Laws and regulations relating to the use of certain video data for training and analytics purposes continue to change. Specifically, the use of facial images and other biometric data in the training of video models has been subject to increased scrutiny and in some cases regulatory review. The FTC as well as certain states and individuals have brought legal actions against companies regarding the collection and use of facial and biometric information for product development and other purposes. We account for these laws and regulations in our product development cycle, which may impact the scope and timing of the products we make available.

We believe our success has depended, and continues to depend, on the efforts and talents of senior management and key personnel, including Stephen Trundle, our Chief Executive Officer, and our senior information technology managers. Our future success depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand, and we may incur significant costs to attract them. In addition, the loss of any of our senior management or key personnel could interrupt our ability to execute our business plan, as such individuals may be difficult to replace. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining and motivating existing employees, our business and results of operations could be harmed.

We anticipate our efforts to operate and continue to expand our business internationally will entail additional costs and risks as we establish our international offerings and develop relationships with service provider partners to market, sell, install, and support our platforms, solutions and brand in other countries. Revenue in countries outside of North America accounted for 5% and 4% of our total revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 and 2023, respectively. We have limited experience in selling our platforms and solutions in international markets outside of North America or in conforming to the local cultures,standards, or policies necessary to successfully compete in those markets, and we may be required to invest significant resources in order to do so. We may not succeed in these efforts or achieve our consumer acquisition, service provider expansion or other goals. In some international markets, consumer preferences and buying behaviors may be different, and we may use business or pricing models that are different from our traditional model to provide our platforms and solutions to consumers in those markets or we may be unsuccessful in implementing the appropriate business model. Our revenue from new foreign markets may not exceed the costs of establishing, marketing, and maintaining our international offerings. In addition, current global instability could have many adverse consequences on our international expansion. These could include sovereign default, liquidity and capital pressures on financial institutions in other parts of the world including the eurozone, reducing the availability of credit and increasing the risk of financial sector failures and the risk of one or more eurozone member states leaving the euro, resulting in the possibility of capital and exchange controls and uncertainty about the impact of contracts and currency exchange rates. In addition, conducting expanded international operations subjects us to additional risks that we do not generally face in our North American markets. These risks include: - localization of our solutions, including the addition of foreign languages and adaptation to new local practices, as well as certification, registration and other regulatory requirements;- lack of experience in other geographic markets;- strong local competitors;- the cost and burden of complying with, lack of familiarity with, and unexpected changes in, foreign legal and regulatory requirements, including the development of policies and procedures for different countries when requirements under privacy regulations in such countries may conflict or be inconsistent with one another;- difficulties in managing and staffing international operations;- increased costs due to new or potential tariffs, penalties, trade restrictions and other trade barriers, which may increase our cost of hardware revenue and reduce our hardware revenue margins in the future;- fluctuations in currency exchange rates or restrictions on foreign currency;- potentially adverse tax consequences, including the complexities of transfer pricing, value added or other tax systems, double taxation and restrictions and/or taxes on the repatriation of earnings;- dependence on third parties, including commercial partners with whom we do not have extensive experience;- increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities;- political, social, and economic instability, such as the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and regional adversaries, terrorist attacks, and security concerns in general; and - reduced or varied protection for intellectual property rights in some countries. Operating in international markets also requires significant management attention and financial resources. The investment and additional resources required to establish operations and manage growth in other countries may not produce desired levels of revenue or profitability. Our software contains encryption technologies, certain types of which are subject to U.S. and foreign export control regulations and, in some foreign countries, restrictions on importation and/or use. Any failure on our part to comply with encryption or other applicable export control requirements could result in financial penalties or other sanctions under the U.S. export regulations, including restrictions on future export activities, which could harm our business and operating results. Regulatory restrictions could impair our access to technologies needed to improve our platforms and solutions and may also limit or reduce the demand for our platforms and solutions outside of the United States.

A significant natural disaster, such as an earthquake, hurricane, fire, flood, pandemic, or a public health crisis, or a significant power outage could harm our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. The impact of climate change may increase these risks due to changes in weather patterns, such as increases in storm intensity and frequency, sea-level rise, melting of permafrost and temperature extremes in areas where we conduct our business. Natural disasters could affect our hardware vendors, our wireless carriers or our network operations centers. Further, if a natural disaster occurs in a region from which we derive a significant portion of our revenue, such as metropolitan areas in North America, consumers in that region may delay or forego purchases of our platforms and solutions from service providers in the region, which may harm our results of operations for a particular period. In addition, terrorist acts or acts of war could cause disruptions in our business or the business of our hardware vendors, service providers, subscribers or the economy as a whole. More generally, these and other geopolitical, social and economic conditions could result in increased volatility in worldwide financial markets and economies that could harm our sales. Given our concentration of sales during the second and third quarters, any disruption in the business of our hardware vendors, service provider partners or subscribers that impacts sales during the second or third quarter of each year could have a greater impact on our annual results. All of the aforementioned risks may be augmented if the disaster recovery plans for us, our service provider partners and our suppliers prove to be inadequate. To the extent that any of the above results in delays or cancellations of orders, or delays in the manufacture, deployment or shipment of our platforms and solutions, our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations would be harmed.