GCT Semiconductor Holding (GCTS) Q3 2025 earnings call transcript

Thank you, and thanks to everyone for joining us today for our third quarter 2025 earnings call. I will focus my remarks on the operational milestones we achieved this quarter on our 2020 5G year of 5G program, while our CFO Edmund will discuss our third quarter financial disclosure in more detail. The third quarter was another important step forward for GCT as we continue to execute on our year of 5G. Most notably, we achieved a key milestone this quarter by recognizing our first 5G product revenue. While still small in dollar terms, it marks the first time our next generation technology has begun contributing to our top line, an early but important indicator. We also completed successfully sampling on our 5G chipset and modules to all our lead customers, which include AirSpan Networks and Orbic, as well as other well-known companies who are actively progressing through their evaluation processes and providing increasingly positive feedback.

This progress reflects the continued validation of our 5G platform across diverse customer applications, as well as growing confidence in the commercial readiness of our solution. One of the most meaningful developments this quarter came from GoGo, the first 5G network operator who publicly signaled full-service activation before a year-end 2025. This marks the first planned commercial deployment using GCT's 5G chipset and represents the first step in what we expect will be a broader multi-operator transition from chipset sampling to full customer activation.

GOGO has been progressing steadily through its field testing phase, which is expected to complete within a few weeks. Their system integration has validated our chipset performance in the demanding airborne environment, demonstrating the exceptional range and reliability of our 5G architecture. As part of this testing, our 5G chipset powered the first 5G air-to-ground call on Airspan's in-motion 5G platform, an industry-first achieved in collaboration with our customer Airspan and GoGo.

GoGo's deployment timeline remains aligned with our production schedule, and our program milestones are tracking to support their planned launch later this year. In parallel, we are now confidently moving forward to prepare our 5G product and production flow for the GoGo launch and subsequent launches that are expected to follow in 2026. Including the initial sample shipments to date, our 5G chipset orders have already exceeded 2,500 units. The early demand represents strong pull-through from lead customers and growing engagement from others prepared to follow GoGo's lead. We are working closely with our manufacturing partners to expedite shipments and ensure we can fulfill these orders as quickly as possible. Based on current production schedules, we remain on track to support these deliveries in late Q4 2025.

Importantly, the volumes already shipped are sufficient to support the first wave of aircraft installations, positioning us to scale as additional operators and network partners begin their own deployment cycles in 2026. To further support our efforts we also strengthened our financial position in the quarter by securing million in debt financing from our largest shareholder The net proceeds are providing additional capital to accelerate final production readiness supporting other working capital requirements and ensuring we fully prepared for the coming production ramp including the volume shipments that are expected to begin later this year Overall these milestones reflect a company that is executing steadily and methodically We are entering the later stages of commercial readiness with strong customer engagement, early production revenue, and strengthened balance sheet to support this next phase of growth.

As we look ahead to the fourth quarter and into 2026, our focus remains on scaling efficiently by ensuring our production operations, supply chain partners, and logistics are aligned to support the transition to volume production and sustained 5G sales. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Edmund to discuss our Q3 results.

Thank you, John. The third quarter represents a meaningful transition point for GCT as we record our first 5G product revenue. An important proof point in our commercialization path, while total revenue remains modest, this initial contribution from our 5G chipset underscores the tangible progress we are making toward broader adoption and accelerated production.

With that, I will now turn to our third quarter 2025 financial results. Further details can be found in the 10-Q that will be on fire with the SEC. Net revenues decreased from $2.6 million for the three months ended September 30, 2024, to $0.4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2025. The decline was largely driven by a decrease of $1.6 million in product sales. The prior year period included $1.5 million from the sales of our 5G platform to support the customer in shifting their product development priorities to our 5G products. Service revenues also decreased by $0.6 million, primarily due to the completion of existing 5G product development projects, while we are in a transitional phase in securing new projects.

Cost of net revenue increased by 0.5 million, or 50%, from 1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2024, to 1.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2035. The increase in the cost of the net revenue was primarily due to additional production overhead costs and $0.5 million incremental write-down related to slow-moving 4G LTE inventory, partially offset by lower service costs. Our gross margin for the three months ended September 30, 2025, was negative and reflects the lower product revenue that is currently not sufficient to fully absorb production overhead costs. This makes our gross margin less indicative of the underlying profitability of our products and services. We expect margins to improve substantially as 5G product sales contribute more significantly to our overall revenue beginning in Q1, 2026.

Research and development expenses decreased by 1 million or 23 percent from 4.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2024, to 3.3 million for the three months ended September 30, 2025. The reduction was largely due to a 1.2 million decrease in professional services related to the design of 5G chip products as this development project was completed in the second quarter of 2025, partially offset by a 2.2 million increase in personnel-related costs. Sales and marketing expenses were relatively flat year over year increasing 0 million from 0 million for the period ended September 30th 2024 to to management for the previous year The last year we have been talking about the last year the last year The last year we have been talking about the last year.

We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalent of $8.3 million, as well as next accounts received, In the last few months, we have a lot of money receivable of $3.7 million and net inventory of $1.9 million. As John mentioned, in September of this year, we secured $10.7 million in senior secure debt financing from our largest shareholder. These net proceeds are being used to accelerate production readiness, manage other working capital, and support volume shipments. This financing completes our existing $200 million shelf registration, providing us with the flexibility to fund the next stage of the commercialization of our 5G chip set. With this, I will turn it back over to John.

John McClure Thanks, Edmund. In summary, the third quarter reflected continued progress on all fronts, from technical validation and customer engagement to early 5G revenue and strength and liquidity. Our focus now is on completing production readiness, supporting customer launches, and ensuring we execute efficiently as we enter the next stage of 5G commercialization. I want to thank our employees, partners, and shareholders for their ongoing support and commitment. We're pleased with the steady progress we're making and look forward to building on this momentum in the quarters ahead.

I will now turn the call back over to the operator who will assist us in taking your questions.

Yeah, so I think the price release indicates that the total orders received so far is around 2,500 units. And we should be able to – I mean, that's stuff that we've already shipped as well as what's on backlog that we'll ship this quarter. So it's in that range. And that's what we're expecting right now.

Yeah, yeah. So we have started asking more wafers already that will, you know, significantly increase our supply into Q1. The backlog that we have right now is what I've indicated already. We do expect that within Q1 or certainly within Q1 and perhaps by the end of this quarter we have more backlog that we be supporting actually Q1 and it will be for continuing on with airspans demand as well as other customers that we talked about that we been sampling Got it.

Great. Thank you so much for the question. And although we have not been publishing our adjusted EBITDA, but internally we have been checking our adjusted EBITDA trend, and for the last three quarters the trend was quite stable from that perspective. And with that trend and with the anticipated scale production And sales ramp into the second half of next year. We are still anticipating that we might be able to have a break-even adjusted EBITDA in Q3 next year and starting to have a more positive cash flow in terms of operations in Q4 next year.

We're seeing prices above that. We're seeing prices below that, but I think that that still serves as a good average.

Yeah, I think those things would be the longest lead time, of course, is fab. So, having wafers start fab as early as possible to support that sort of a ramp. So that's begun. And we'll continue to do that as we move forward to support the increased demand. The other thing is to make sure that we've got our testing in place so that we can yield properly and efficiently. And then the other thing would be to actually prep our assembly house for the demands that are coming. We're starting to see a little bit of shortage in the marketplace and longer lead times for PCBs. And so as long as we are forecasting properly, that shouldn't be a big problem, and we should be able to actually manage that.

Thank you, Craig.