GCT Semiconductor Holding (GCTS) Q1 2026 earnings call transcript

Thank you, and thanks to everyone for joining us today for our first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'll start by discussing the operational progress we've made during the first quarter as we drive commercial expansion of our 5G products. Following my remarks, our CFO, Edmund Cheng, will walk through the financial results for the first quarter in more detail. Building on the groundwork we laid at the end of 2025, our first quarter results reflect the advancements we've made on our 5G acceleration, which is reflected by growing 5G chipset shipments, expanding engagement, and continued early adoption across leading customers. In the first quarter, we delivered 3,000 5G chipsets, a sequential increase of 58% versus Q4. This growth is an important indicator that customers are continuing to move through the final stages of testing and into initial deployments.

While 5G product shipment volume today remains modest relative to the long-term opportunity ahead, we are in an early but critical step of the product cycle. Customer confidence in the performance, reliability, and integration of our 5G chipset is building, and we expect 5G chipset shipments to continue trending upward as customers advance their programs. We are also broadening the scope and depth of our customer relationships and chipset use cases. We continue to support a growing number of programs across multiple verticals, FWA, IoT, and NTN, And we are working closely with our lead customers as they move through integration, certification, and deployment planning.

These engagements often push beyond traditional licensing into deeper platform-level collaboration, where our technology serves as the foundation for next-generation systems and user equipment development. Early design wins and platform integrations remain critical in establishing the framework for future volume shipments and long-term adoption. Notably, we expanded our previously announced engagement with one of the world's largest satellite communication providers to fast-track global 5G deployment through a reference platform agreement.

Under this framework, we will provide a reference design based on our 4G and 5G chipsets to help accelerate the development of our partner's next-generation user equipment, enabling high-bandwidth and high-speed communications across satellite and terrestrial networks. This agreement reinforces GCT's role in enabling seamless connectivity across both terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks and broadens the deployment scope of our technology. It also highlights the growing importance of GCT's technology in enabling converged connectivity solutions that span multiple network environments. We view this as a multi-phase opportunity that can drive incremental adoption of our solution over time as next-generation user equipment platforms are introduced. As these platforms are developed and deployed, we expect our technology to play an increasingly important role in supporting global connectivity use cases.

Initial 5G chipset shipments to this partner remain on track to begin in the second half of 2026. Our focus continues to revolve around driving 5G chipset commercial traction by strengthening our supply chain and operational infrastructure to support higher 5G chipset volumes as customer demand accelerates. Supported by increasing activity from our lead customers, we continue to expect sequential growth in 5G chipset shipments as commercialization continues to scale throughout the year. Further, the headway achieved thus far reinforces our expectation and aligns with our previous product launches, such as our 4G chipsets. We believe the work we are doing now will ensure that we are positioned to scale it efficiently. At the same time, we remain mindful that the timing and pace of deployments can vary as customers finalize their rollout plans.

As a result, we are maintaining a disciplined approach with a focus on execution and operational readiness moving through this next phase. Overall, we believe the first quarter represents meaningful progress in our transition from development to commercialization of our 5G chipset. We are encouraged by the momentum we are seeing and believe we are building a strong base for continued growth throughout 2026.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Edmund to discuss our first quarter results. Edmund.

Thank you John But over the past several quarters we have noted that our path to 5G commercialization would not be defined by a single event but rather consistent strikes forward like customer sampling inaugural commercial shipments, real-world customer deployments, and production scaling, all of which will ultimately culminate in significant revenue contributions. In the first quarter, we deliver meaningful improvements across both the top and bottom line results, driven by increased 5G chipset shipments and diligent capital deployment. As John mentioned, there is still work to be done, and these financial results are modest in comparison to the opportunity ahead. But we are progressing as expected, and we remain focused on discipline execution. Also, in supporting the expanding of the addressable term to include NTN, we are considering at the appropriate time to break down our product revenue into these three verticals, FWA, IoT, and NTN.

With that context, I will now review our first quarter 2026 financial results. Further details can be found in the 10-Q that will be on file with the SEC. Inc. Net revenues increased by 1.4 million or 287% from 0.5 million for the three months end March 31st, 2025 to 1.9 million for the three months end March 31st, 2026. The change was due to an increase of 0.4 million in product sales and an increase of 1 million in service revenues. The growth in product sales was led by both 4G and 5G product sales, while the increase in service revenue was driven by 5G operations, partially offset by lower LTE service revenue as we shift our portfolio to 5G.

Cost of net revenue increased by 0.6 million or 138 percent from 0.4 million for the three months end March 31st, 2025 to 1 million for the three months end March 31st, 2026. Primarily due to higher costs driven by increased unit volume. Our growth margin increased to 49% for the three months end March 31st, 2026, from 18% for the three months end March 31st, 2025.

Lastly, due to changes in the revenue mix, especially higher margins from our service offering, an increased share of 5G and product sales during the quarter. Research and development expenses decreased by 0.9 million or 23% from 4.1 million for the three months end March 31st, 2025 to 3.2 million for the three months end March 31st, 2026. The decrease was largely driven by a $0.5 million reduction in project-specific intellectual property expenses and a $0.4 million reduction in professional services provided by Alpha for the completion of a 5G chipset designed last year. Sales and marketing expenses remain consistent year-over-year, totaling $1.1 million for the three months end March 31st, 2025, compared to $1.2 million for the three months end March 31st, 2026.

General and administrative expenses were relatively flat year-over-year, totaling $2.6 million for the three months end March 31st, 2025, comparing to $2.7 million for the three months end March 31st, 2026.

Turning to liquidity, we finished the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of 7.2 million. We also had net receivables, accounting receivables of 2.4 million and net inventory of 1.6 million. We have access to our at the market equity program of up to 75 million and ample capacity on the remaining 125 million of our 200 million S3 self statement which has been effective since April 1st 2025 These resources equip us with financial flexibility to support working capital requirements commercial readiness and broader production efforts Moving further into 2026, our priorities remain consistent. We are focused on maintaining financial flexibility and disciplined capital allocation to support 5G chipset commercial traction and volume production readiness, ensuring that we are well positioned to capitalize on the expanding 5G opportunity.

With this, I will turn it back to John.

Thank you, Edmund. The first quarter reflects sustained execution in driving commercialization. We are seeing increasing 5G chipset shipments activity, continued expansion in our customer engagements, and steady progression as customer programs move toward deployment. While still in the early stages, we are building a sustainable launchpad to position the company for long-term success across both existing and new 5G opportunities as adoption continues to grow.

We believe the framework we've established across our technology, partnerships, and operations positions us well for this next phase of growth, and we look forward to building on this momentum throughout the year. I would like to thank our employees, partners, and shareholders for their continued support, and we will update you on our progress in the coming quarters. I will now turn the call back over to the operator who will assist us in taking your questions.

Yeah, that's a good question. So the service revenues tend to be aligned with various contracts that we engage in and is recognized as we make actual progress against those contracts. So, and right now that's a larger portion of the quarterly sales. As the chipset sales increase, the chipset sales and product revenue will far outpace that service revenue. So, it will become a much more meaningful part and a substantial part of the overall revenue, you know, quarter to quarter as we grow. That is our growth. We're not in the service business. Thank you.

Yes, so that's a good observation. So the margins for the quarter were higher than usual, and they're higher than what we would expect when the products dominate. So we've often said that the gross margin coming from the products as we move forward would be in the 35 and growing into the low 40s, and we still believe that. And because the service revenue was more substantial this quarter, that's the result of – that actually resulted in higher gross margin. So in the future, because service revenue will be a much smaller portion of overall revenue, it will contribute less to the gross margin and we'll see the margin stabling out in the 35 and then actually growing into the 40s.

The low 40 range.

Yeah, Rebecca, in other words, our gross margin, once the chipset sales grows significantly, it will normalize to the high 30s to low 40s.

Yeah, Liz, on the service side, we have a licensing revenue that we have recognized in Q1, and that will be considered as a one-time recognition from that sense. But going forward, we are also expecting to have our service contracts as when the milestone is achieved and we will recognize the revenue accordingly.

Well, so it's – we do, and it won't be as high as it was in Q1, but, I mean, we are considering other service contracts and other engagements where that could add into the future, but these tend to be – you know, in advance, they tend to be a little bit unpredictable as to when When they're going to start, and as we've said, we recognize revenue as the milestones are achieved, and it's hard to predict that in advance.

Yeah, let me comment on that. So, yeah, this quarter for products, there was at least five customers, and that was between five and seven. So some of this stuff actually goes through distribution and can actually be multiple customers. At least five and five and seven.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, we see continued distribution, and what ends up happening when our product revenue is relatively small is it can be bursty. I mean, you can see one customer come in and have a larger portion of the quarter, and then they may slow down in the next quarter and someone else picks up. But over time, I think we're going to have a good distribution. We're seeing that build out now, and once we hit a steady state, I think we'll have a good distribution. And the spread of revenue across them.

Goyang Holding, CEO, Goyang Holding, Well, this is a good run rate level from that sense, but we expect in the second half of this year to ramp up our D-A expenses to match our product roadmap. So we expect quarterly operating expenses to be running at about $8 million per quarter level.

That will be starting in Q3.

Thank you, Lisa.