Ceragon Networks Ltd. (CRNT) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Ceragon's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this call is being recorded today. I would now like to hand over the call to our first speaker today, Rob Fink, Head of Investor Relations. Rob, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Hosting the call today is Doron Arazi, Ceragon's Chief Executive Officer; and Ronen Stein, Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, please note that today's discussion includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. And the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, among other things, projected financial performance, future initiatives, business outlook, development efforts, anticipated results, time line and other matters. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, global and regional economic conditions, conditions in Israel and the region, fluctuations in exchange rate, customer concentration, ordering patterns, and supply chain challenges as further detailed in Ceragon's most annual report on Form 20-F and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are accurate only as of the date they are made, and Ceragon undertakes no obligation to update them. Ceragon's public filings are available on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at sec.gov and on Ceragon's website at ceragon.com. Also, today's call will include certain non-GAAP measures. For a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results please see the table attached to the press release issued earlier today, which is posted on the Investor Relations section of Ceragon's website. With all that, I will now turn the call over to Doron. Doron, the call is yours.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of 2026 was a solid start to the year for Ceragon highlighted by strong execution in several key markets, especially India. The results reflected healthy demand across our business and the strength of Ceragon's positioning in several important growth markets. Revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $85 million and non-GAAP EPS was $0.01. North America represented 37% of revenue in the quarter, and India represented 35% of continuing the regional concentration trends we discussed previously. Gross margin benefited from favorable geographic and product mix as well as increased software license revenue, although profitability was negatively impacted by several macro and industry-wide cost pressures that intensified during the quarter. However, demand trends across the business remain encouraging and support our view that Ceragon remains strategically well positioned in the evolving wireless connectivity market. I'll begin with India where activity levels remain strong and the conversion of opportunities into bookings accelerated during the quarter. Earlier this month, we announced approximately $86 million in bookings in India, mainly from 2 leading operators, including a substantial portion related to our new IP-50EXA platform, supporting large-scale fixed wireless access expansion projects. These wins reinforce both the scale of the market opportunity and Ceragon's competitive positioning, especially given the expected changes in the competitive landscape. Operators continue investing aggressively to support rising data consumption and broadband expansion and our E-Band solutions align well with those requirements. In particular, demand for our E-Band portfolio is accelerating across multiple applications. Customers increasingly view these solutions as a compelling alternative to FibeAir due to their ability to deliver FibeAir-like capacity with faster deployment and time lines with lower total cost of ownership. By the way, based on customer feedback, we believe this trend may be expanding beyond India into additional geographies and customer verticals. This view is also generally consistent with recent industry analysts reporting year-over-year growth of 4% in the global wireless backhaul market in 2025. Turning to North America. Execution during the first quarter was generally in line with our expectations. As we discussed previously, order volumes from one of our key Tier-1 carrier customers were particularly strong during the second half of 2025. And in Q1, this customer moderated bookings activity following the elevated period of demand. Importantly, our current expectations for 2026 with this customer remain largely unchanged. We continue to expect another strong year with this customer with revenue at levels similar to or modestly above 2025 levels with acceleration in the second half. At the same time, we are making encouraging progress with another major Tier-1 carrier in North America. Recently, we successfully completed a proof-of-concept trial involving our new FR2 solution for the 28 gigahertz spectrum band. Following the positive outcome of the trial, we are now advancing development discussions and commercial engagement efforts with this customer. We are hopeful that this could potentially translate into meaningful orders starting in the third quarter. More broadly, the North American market remains active. We continue to generate strong engagement levels from both traditional CSP and ISP customers, particularly around higher capacity network architectures. E-band as FibeAir redundancy and E-band as a next-generation wireless transport solution that can accelerate deployment and increase capacity while improving economics. We are also advancing more opportunities in private networks in North America. But as I've mentioned before, sales cycles in this segment remain longer and are more project oriented. At a higher level, changes in the competitive landscape are driving more interest from many customers globally. Most notably CSP customers and most particularly among service providers in Europe. Discussions with these customers are at different stages of engagement, and we believe that we may start seeing initial orders from some of them in the remainder of 2026. In private networks, momentum continues to build, although deployment activity remains project-driven and gradual in nature. Last month, we announced approximately $10 million in private network contracts across multiple customers and use cases. Such projects, many of which are end-to-end in scope are often anchored in advanced wireless transport combined with 5G or LTE to enable edge IoT connectivity and support operational automation for private networks. Ceragon's capabilities align well with the expanding industry demand and use cases, giving us a durable competitive advantage when bidding on projects. When I step back and look at the full picture, our Q1 results came in largely where we anticipated. And my view on the outlook today remains largely unchanged from what we communicated in January and February. The investment thesis that underpins that outlook, specifically growing demand for our solutions, a strengthening competitive position and an expanding addressable market, all remain intact. That said, our line of sight to get there is certainly evolving and I want to walk you through what we see. As we have shared, India is already delivering at the level we needed to support our annual guidance. We had hoped the demand we were seeing would convert to bookings and revenue, and it is. North America also remains fundamentally strong. We have new customers, new orders and a healthy backlog of opportunity. However, we are navigating a supply chain situation with one of our large Tier-1 carriers that will shift some revenue we expected in Q2 into Q3. The supply chain situation is isolated to one specific component and is a timing issue, not a demand issue and not a relationship issue. We are working closely with the customer and relevant component vendors on a catch-up plan. This expected shift does not lead us to modify or our previous revenue guidance for 2026 of $355 million to $385 million. Our operating model has some built-in flexibility to absorb the unexpected. Carrier shifts are a known dynamic in our business, and we plan for it. What makes Q2 uniquely challenging is that the timing of the expected North America revenue shortfall coincides with a surge in India revenue that while welcome, naturally carries lower margins. The result is that our second quarter revenue mix will likely be more heavily weighted towards India than we would normally see and that mix shift alone is expected to create pressure on gross margins. Looking into the back half of the year, based on what we see today, we expect North America to rebound strongly in the third quarter as the supply stream improves, the mix normalizes and margins recover sequentially. Taken across both quarters, our current visibility suggests these dynamics should largely offset one another. As a public company that reports quarterly, we don't have the luxury of investors simply waiting for the natural offset to play out. So I wanted to walk through the moving pieces now while we still have time to frame them properly. Looking deeper into the near term. In addition to the revenue mix dynamics I described, there are broader industry-wide cost headwinds that are not unique to Ceragon. As well as some negative foreign exchange trends that may put higher pressure on our profitability. Ronen will describe these issues in more detail in a bit. Nevertheless, the demand environment is strong, and our competitive position is improving. The full year revenue range of $355 million to $385 million we provided in January remains our target and we are executing against it. With that I will turn over to Ronen.

Thank you, Doron, and good morning, everyone. Q1 2026 was another profitable quarter on a non-GAAP basis, with positive free cash flow of $2.8 million. To help you understand the results, I will be referring primarily to non-GAAP financials. For more information regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations of these measures, we refer investors to today's press release. Let me now review the first quarter results. Revenues for the first quarter were $85 million, down 4.1% from $88.7 million in Q1 2025. Our strongest regions in terms of revenue for the quarter were North America and India at $31.3 million and $30 million, respectively. We had 3 customers in the first quarter that contributed more than 10% of our revenues. Gross profit for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $30.6 million an increase of 3.1% compared to $29.7 million in Q1 2025. Our non-GAAP gross margin was 36% compared to non-GAAP gross margin of 33.5% in Q1 2025. Gross margin was positively impacted by geographical and product mixtures offset partially by some cost pressures, as mentioned previously by Doron. Turning to operating expenses. Research and development expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $7.8 million, down from $8.1 million in Q1 2025. As a percentage of revenue, our non-GAAP R&D expenses were 9.1% in the first quarter the same as it was in the first quarter last year. Sales and marketing expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $13.4 million, up from $11.8 million in Q1 2025, reflecting an increased investment in private networks. As a percentage of revenue, sales and marketing expenses on a non-GAAP basis were 15.8% in the first quarter compared to 13.3% in the first quarter last year. General and administrative expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $5.3 million compared to $5.4 million in Q1 2025. As a percentage of revenues, non-GAAP G&A expenses were 6.2% in the first quarter compared to 6% in the first quarter last year. Operating income for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $4.2 million compared to $4.5 million for Q1 2025. As a percentage of revenues, non-GAAP operating income was 4.9% in the first quarter compared to 5.1% in the first quarter last year. The reduction in operating income was also impacted by continued appreciation of the Israeli shekel versus the U.S. dollar. Financial and other expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $2.9 million as compared to $1 million in the first quarter last year. This quarter was negatively impacted by currency fluctuations, mainly from the Indian rupee. Our tax expenses for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis were $0.6 million. Net income for the first quarter on a non-GAAP basis was $0.7 million or $0.01 per diluted share compared to $2.6 million or $0.03 per diluted share for Q1 2025. As for our balance sheet, our cash position at the end of the first quarter was $39.2 million compared to $38.4 million at the end of 2025. Short-term loans at the end of Q1 2026 were $17.1 million compared to $19 million at the end of 2025. Thus, at the end of the first quarter, we had a net positive cash position of $22.1 million. as compared to a net cash position of $19.4 million at the end of 2025. We believe we have cash and facilities that are sufficient for operations and working capital needs. Our inventory at the end of the first quarter was $56.5 million, down from $61.6 million at the end of 2025. Our trade receivables at the end of the first quarter were $94.4 million, down from $99.7 million at the end of 2025. Our DSO now stands at 103 days. With respect to our cash flow. Net cash flow generated by operations and investing activities was $2.8 million in the first quarter and negative $1.4 million in Q1 2025, excluding the cost of acquisition of E2E. Turning to our 2026 guidance. As Doron mentioned, we reiterate our 2026 revenue guidance of $355 million to $385 million. On the margins and the profitability side, there are some moving parts, as mentioned previously by Doron. I would now like to provide more insights into these challenges. Generally speaking, there are a number of factors that affect our gross margin. The first factor is geographical and product mixture. The second is cost headwinds and the third is foreign exchange impact. Regarding mixture, as Doron mentioned, India will be an abnormally higher percentage of revenue in Q2 versus North America, due to the component issue for the North American carrier, temporarily depressing gross margin percentage for that quarter. In Q3, we expect this revenue trend to reverse itself and gross margins to rebound accordingly, offsetting the depressed gross margin in Q2. Several cost headwinds are affecting the overall industry and not specific to just Ceragon. Memory pricing continues to rise across the technology landscape. Copper and metals costs are elevated and freight costs remain high, in part due to the ongoing situation in the Strait of Hormuz. These are real headwinds, and we are actively working to mitigate them. We expect our initiatives addressing these cost pressures to begin taking effect in Q3. Exchange rate fluctuations related to the Israeli shekel and Indian rupee versus the U.S. dollars have recently negatively impacted our profitability. Regarding the strength of the Israeli shekel, when we provided guidance in January, we were transparent that foreign exchange is an area we would monitor closely throughout the year. The dynamics since then have not moved in our favor. The Israeli shekel has continued to strengthen against the dollar. However, due to our hedging policy, we are able to partially mitigate the exposure and reduce the negative foreign exchange impact. The Indian rupee weakness is predominantly impacting our accounts receivable and increases our financial expenses on our income statement, also creating some incremental currency exposure in our receivables. That said, we are still early in the year. Currencies can and do move in both directions, and we continue to take steps to reduce our exposure. We are not prepared to draw conclusions on the full year impact from here. but we wanted investors to have a clear picture of where things stand today. Given all these moving parts and the underlying business strength we anticipate, it is hard to predict the net impact on our profitability. And therefore, we are reiterating our margin targets for 2026, namely a 1 percentage point improvement in non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP operating margin of 6.5% to 7.5%, both at the midpoint of our provided revenue range for 2026. That concludes my prepared remarks, and I'd like now to turn the call back over to Doron for any remaining comments. Doron?

Thanks, Ronen. We are encouraged by the underlying demand across many of our core markets. Combined with our expanding product portfolio and new customer interest, we believe Ceragon is positioned to continue executing on our strategy and creating value. If we focus on the elements, initiatives and factors we control and our operations, in general, our competitive position is stronger today than it has been in the past. We strongly believe that the challenges we face in terms of geographic mix and the impact on margins and foreign currency headwinds are largely nonoperational and temporary in nature. With that, I'll now open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Scott Searle from ROTH Capital.

Doron, really nice job in a difficult operating environment in the first quarter. Maybe to dive in quickly in the second quarter outlook, it sounds like certainly you're going to see some margin pressure from mix. I'm wondering if you could provide a little bit more color after the 36% that you reported in the first quarter. And then also from a revenue standpoint, it sounds like you'll have another strong quarter in India. I'm just wondering sequentially how you're seeing the cadence and progression of revenue from the first quarter to the second quarter? And then I had a follow-up.

So first of all, I would generally speaking, say that the level of confidence we have in the revenue is obviously increasing as we get the orders predominantly for -- from India. As we mentioned on the call, in Q2, we expect a very strong quarter in terms of revenue from India because of the pace of the rollout that they are expecting. And this would be, I would say, significantly higher in terms of ratio between India and North America because of this small temporary issue of the component for the products that are being sold in India. Generally speaking, I think that the numbers we believe we will see are not that different in terms of our projection, it will only kind of be a shift of mix between Q2 and Q3. Ronen, do you want to add to that, please?

Yes. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, there are a few factors that impact the profitability. We have done $85 million in Q1, and our guidance on average for the next 3 quarters is above that. So first of all, the level of revenues that is expected to increase is supporting increased incrementally increasing the gross margins. On the other hand, there is the mixture. Geographical mixture will -- is expected to hit us in Q2, as we mentioned, because of the challenge that we have in the temporary challenge that we have in North America. So if there is a mixture that is not favorable, it can take a few points from our gross margin. And this is the second factor. The third factor is, as I mentioned, the cost pressure in different areas. We are doing a lot to mitigate that. Some of it will not yet take full impact in Q2, some of it will take more impact in the next quarters. But therefore, there is going to be a kind of a reduction in the gross margin -- expected reduction in the gross margin in Q2 which is going to be compensated, we expect it to be compensated in Q3. Summarizing everything, I think that the overall year is expected still to be within the targets that we set.

Scott, just to a lot of words, but the bottom line is very simple. In terms of revenue trajectory, we feel comfortable with a model that will continue to see growth in revenue quarter-over-quarter. In terms of gross margin, we expect higher pressure in Q2 is significantly in Q3. So if you look at both quarters, Q2 and Q3 together, they will basically even out versus the gross margins we are projecting.

Great. Very helpful. And if I could just follow up on the cost front. I know shekel has been posing some headwinds. You guys have been making some significant investment in new products. I'm wondering does that change how you approach that? And then second, certainly, with Nokia's intention to divest their wireless transmission business, it's created some dislocation in the marketplace. I'm wondering what you guys are seeing on the positive front for that, both in India and Europe? And then I'll get back in the queue.

So on the first question, yes, the Israeli shekel is having a negative impact. It's not dramatic, especially as there are movements in various areas, but still, it has an impact. Hopefully, it can go up and down. So we already provided some guidance on that at the beginning of the year. it's not really impacting dramatically our plans.

On the situation that is actually evolving as a result of Nokia's announcement I would say the following. We see a higher or stronger level of engagement with many customers that are basically potential customers to us and are not or were not customers of Ceragon in the last -- at least in the last couple of years, predominantly in Europe. And in some cases where there is some sort of overlap between Nokia and Ceragon, the easy decision in that case is to just buy more from Ceragon. And this has already manifested itself at least in 1 or 2 use cases that I am aware of. I think that the general sentiment of the market speaking with customers is some sort of a wait and see who is going to be the buyer, and that can also affect the decision. There are operators that have already decided to move forward with us. And I think this decision is kind of accelerating, given the fact that Nokia has decided to sell. So all in all, for us, it's positive. I would say that we see this phenomena in the strongest way in Europe now because in North America and in India, our position is very strong anyway. And I assume that this will also be seen in other countries, predominantly in APAC.

Our next question is from Ryan Koontz from Needham.

I want to ask you about your supply chain challenge here impacting North America in Q2. Can you give us some more color there? I assume this is a semiconductor. Is it a digital or a mixed signal type semiconductor? Anything you can share with us about that?

So first of all, it's a semiconductor. The situation is interesting to a certain degree because it's associated with the -- to a certain degree, with the geopolitical environment that all of us around the world have been facing in the last couple of months. What has happened is that in midst of 2025, we saw a spike in the demand for this particular product that we are selling. And obviously, as a result of that, we started a procurement process the way we used to do and we did many times in the past. The uniqueness of this situation is that this particular semiconductor is also being used in other industries that are very much influenced by the geopolitical situation, and it impacts in 2 ways. First of all, there was a surge in demand for this particular component that led to longer lead times than what we usually saw in the past. And second, and as importantly, in order for the vendor to sell this component in most cases, they need to get an export license. And export licenses now processes are also lingering due to the geopolitical situation. So all in all, while we were expecting a smooth delivery on our end, and we started the process very long time ago, taking into account what the regular time lines, it takes the situation has created a delay. And I think that at this point, we are much more optimistic because we basically escalated this topic to the executive levels, and we are basically working in collaboration between the executives of our customer and the executives of our vendors so that we put a lot of, lot of focus to basically advance the processes and the delivery time lines. So we are altogether trying to meet the customer rollout plan without any damage. So I think I see a better line of sight for resolution to this situation. And as we said, this is the reason why we believe that if Q2, as we said, is probably going to be a little bit weaker for North America, this will be largely compensated in Q3.

Perfect. That's really helpful and fascinating to think about. Maybe shifting gears to your emerging North America Tier-1 and the progress on maybe give some more color on the 28 gigahertz product, kind of where that product is with regards to POCs and customer trials and how you're thinking about that opportunity going forward?

So this product is actually a new product, leveraging Wi-Fi 7 technology to serve our customers in high frequencies, what I would call FR2 frequencies based on 3GPP, but with a much more compelling cost structure. The first case -- the first use case is indeed with this North American Tier-1 operator. And as we have passed the first POC, there's a lot of discussion with this carrier as well as other carriers and ISPs in both North America and in Europe about the future of this product. And one of the main use cases that is being discussed as we speak is a fixed wireless access point to multipoint solution that we can come with the initial product probably within a year or even less once we agree on the next step on the road map. So for us, it's opening a door, a bigger door in terms of fixed wireless access. And the idea behind this product is that it can do a great job on the one hand, but in terms of cost effectiveness and ROI, it's by far better than legacy 5G solutions that are by far more expensive.

That makes perfect sense. And just to reiterate, you sound pretty confident in the Tier-1 progress and seeing some revenue entering '27, do you think for that opportunity?

Yes, the current, so to speak, upcoming milestones are such that we expect to see a significant order probably in Q3. And this order will start serving as a significant revenue in 2027.

Our next question is from Tyler Burmeister from Lake Street.

Can you hear me all right?

Yes.

I'll just ask a few questions here. Maybe first to start with the strong bookings in India so far year-to-date, wondering if that has any positive impact on your $100 million kind of baseline outlook for that region this year? And then sticking with India, maybe 2-parter here. Just wonder if any progress update you can give with the RFP from that third Tier-1 customer in India? Any update on the view of timing of a potential award decision there?

Yes. So as we basically said in the prepared comments, obviously, the accumulation of the $86 million and actually, since then, we've continued receiving more is building the confidence that the floor, what I would call the floor in our guidance, which is around $100 million of revenue for this year, maybe even slightly higher is quite secured. We still expect to see more orders from the 2 customers in Q3 and Q4. And given the strong start and the demand to pace up the execution and the delivery gives us confidence that or higher or much higher confidence that we can meet this floor number and maybe even exceed it. As to the third player, the situation is a bit tricky because this is a government owned operator, and it's driven predominantly by government, so to speak, clerks and authorities, and it's very unclear when they will come back to discuss this RFP. And when talking to them, they are still optimistic that this will happen in the coming months. But at least at this point, with the strength coming from other customers, I feel that we don't really need this business for 2026 revenue. That's my most updated assessment. So if indeed this happens, it will be on top of. And if it's just booking because of the late or the time it will take them to issue the RFP and indeed, we win, it will be a good starting point for 2027.

That sounds great. Maybe if I can ask a question, the other regions outside your North America and India large region, just wondering any color on how demand is shaping up there versus maybe a quarter ago? Obviously, war impacts the Middle East but any other regional demand color would be great.

So if I need to kind of mention one region that I feel that we are making very nice progress. It's EMEA. It's driven predominantly by the business in Europe. As I said, we see a lot of new opportunities coming up in different stages. In some of them, I believe that we'll even be able to start seeing orders in this year, probably during the second half of the year. And generally speaking, when I'm looking top down at the numbers in EMEA and also looking at the forecast coming from EMEA for Q2 and Q3, I'm quite confident that EMEA will have a record year in 2026.

That's great. Last one for me. Just on the cost profiles here. You talked about taking cost control actions taking effect in Q3. Just wondering on the OpEx line, absent any additional ForEx movement, how we should think about OpEx in the second half? Could that be flat, maybe even down compared to the first half?

No, I don't think it will be down the OpEx. The OpEx is expected if the exchange rates are where it is, it is expected to be a little bit higher. Obviously, there are also in the sales and marketing specifically. There are some certain areas which are variable. So the more we progress in the year, you will see some variable going up. So I would say that operating expenses might be slightly higher along the year due to both things that I just mentioned. But all in all, we are looking at things, and we align our expenses based on how we see the full picture targeting to meet our targets in the operating margin.

Our next question is from Gunther Karger.

Gunther, we cannot hear you. You are probably on mute.

Yes, please unmute.

Here we go. Okay. Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Yes, Gunther.

Very good results. I bring up a non-operational question that needs to be raised. You're doing a fantastic job operationally. But what, if anything, different are you doing for the shareholders?

Gunther, this is actually an open question that I can spend an hour answering it, but let me try to be precise and concrete. First of all, in our industry, we need to deliver. People who decided to invest in the telco equipment industry, know usually, the challenges and the , so to speak, risks. I believe that with the new strategy and with the fact that the competitive landscape in my personal view is weakening probably for the first time in a very long time, the chances that the value that Ceragon can generate to its shareholders are. Will increase are much higher. And obviously, beyond the operational excellence, we are not sitting idle, looking for new opportunities in terms of mergers and acquisitions and also with the recruitment of our Chief Technology Officer, there's a list of initiatives and ideas that we intend to discuss and decide if they are part of our strategy for the future. that can even put us in a better position in this domain and maybe even take us to other markets beyond the telco. And obviously, once it's so to speak, something that we have decided and we can discuss, we will discuss with the capital markets. So there's a lot of things that are being done beyond just operation and trying to excel in this. And when the time comes, we will for sure share that with the investors community.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further questions. I'm handing the call back to you to close.

So thank you so much for participating in this call, and have a good day, everyone.