Radiant Fiscal Comparisons & Commentary; The Effects of "Incineration" Day.

As Radiant is a private company, I won't release our sales. But I will do something unusual: I will provide a sales comparison to the prior year.

Through the first four months of the 2025 fiscal year, Radiant sales far exceeded the comparable values from the prior year, with a sales ratio of 189% vs 2024 (sales are up 89%!). We already have a substantial shippable backlog for May. If the current business climate wasn't so unpredictable, I would forecast a strong close to the remainder to the end of the year. 

I can't do that.

Unit Sales per day at our distributor, Aircraft Spruce. FY2025 vs FY2024 comparison.

Our situation relative to tariffs is precarious and unpredictable. We have an incoming shipment from China via boat delivery in the value of $2,200. Depending on how the harmonized code is determined and depending on tariff law as of the moment it hits US soil, our expected tariff will be between $0 and $3,300. If it is $3,300, our ongoing business model is unsustainable. The time to pivot to cost-effective US manufacturing requires far higher volumes than what we have, and some components are sole-sourced using Chinese parts and technology. I also believe that 8 months as a reasonable lead time to get a new PCBa subcontractor on board and ship quality product to us, should we change production.

A good example of our predicament is our CO-USB carbon monoxide product. We buy the sensor manufactured to our custom specs from a Chinese vendor and assemble it onto a PCB and case here in Wichita, KS. A similar US sourced sensor is at least 4x in cost. Another example of this is our SafeTurn and SafeAlt products, which have core PCBa modules inbound in the same shipment.  As of this writing, we have current inventory to meet orders for CO-USB and SafeAlt, but will adjust our customer facing retail pricing for new orders after we finally know our tariffs. 

SafeTurn, designed and assembled in the USA

When Trump announced the tariffs on what I call "Incineration Day", we saw a plunge in end user demand as consumers considered the impact. We then saw a surge in orders as consumers decided to buy our products at currently favorable prices.  We are currently still in that surge. (And heck yeah, we are grateful for that!)

Prior to Incineration Day, I was working on a distribution deal with a new South African partner. The prospects of that deal have faded to near zero, as South Africa was directly affected by the two-way confrontation on tariffs.

I am working to move some production out of the USA so that the rest of the world can purchase our products bypassing the arcane tariffs of the USA in their entirety. That will take some time but I'm already moving down that road. (We are far too small to establish a Foreign Trade Zone, and I'm not even sure that the FTZ bypasses the Tariffs!)

Weirdly, I remain very optimistic for Radiant. The situation has forced me to think and adjust rapidly. Radiant is far more nimble than large companies, and I will use my ability to pivot as an element of our survival and growth.