Juho Sarvikas
Analyst · ROTH Capital
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Q3 played out largely as we described on our last call. Revenue was $33.3 million and adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $1 million, both within our guidance ranges. Mobile revenue increased sequentially, while FWA revenue declined, reflecting the customer dynamics we discussed last quarter, a delayed recovery at our largest FWA customer and lower orders from our newest U.S. Tier 1 customer following its large Q2 purchase. While these results were in line with our expectations, I'm not satisfied with our overall performance. These challenges in our legacy business, which we're now going to refer to as Inseego North America with the October 1 closing of our acquisition of Nokia's FWA business are impacting our current quarter, where the later timing of our new FWA launch and higher carrier inventory levels are affecting our outlook for Q4. I have taken steps to address the engineering and product delivery issues that I highlighted last quarter, including bringing in a new CTO and beginning to restructure the engineering function. We have also reduced our cost and spend in response to lower revenue, putting us on a path back towards profitability and positioning the business to execute better in 2027. At the same time, as I just mentioned, we're pleased to have completed the acquisition of Nokia's FastMile FWA business on October 1. This addition meaningfully expands Inseego's product portfolio and customer relationship and added world-class engineering. I'll discuss each of these developments today, starting with a closer look at Q3. With that context, let me share my key takeaways from Q3 before turning to dynamics we're seeing now in Q4 and the actions we're taking to strengthen the business as we close out 2026 and position ourselves for 2027. In mobile, carrier purchases ahead of anticipated component price increases and supply uncertainty supported the quarter's performance. That purchasing behavior has also contributed to an uneven ordering pattern. FWA remained below the level we needed to be. The recovery at our largest FWA customer did not materialize in Q3, and our next-generation product remains central to rebuilding that business. Our newest U.S. Tier 1 customer also continued working through its large Q2 inventory purchase, limiting new orders as expected. Channel activity was solid with new deployments and repeat orders across enterprise and public sector customers. Several included Inseego Connect subscriptions, reinforcing the value of combining our devices with cloud-based management. We also secured a new premium-tier MiFi award with our newest U.S. Tier 1 carrier customer for the first responder market. This adds a new slot and represents a market share gain for our mobile business. We expect revenue contribution around mid next year, providing a new growth opportunity for 2027. Overall, Q3 played out broadly as expected, with mobile growth and solid channel activity offset by weakness in FWA. While we made progress on our mobile portfolio, restoring FWA performance remains a priority. Let me now turn to the dynamics affecting our Q4 outlook and path forward. Two developments have lowered our expectations for our North America business in Q4, the timing of our next-generation FWA launch and carrier customer inventory levels in mobile. As I mentioned, our next-generation FWA product is an important part of restoring go-to-market alignment with our largest FWA customer. We had expected to launch the product in Q4, but extended PCB or Printed Circuit Board lead times have pushed supply availability beyond our 2026 launch window. We are now planning to launch in Q1, shifting the anticipated recovery with this customer into 2027. On the go-to-market side, our customer has realigned its sales organization and go-to-market approach around this Q1 new product introduction. Together, we believe these steps give us a path back to the historical quarterly revenue levels we have generated with this customer. In mobile, our U.S. carrier customers are working down their inventory levels as they manage their year-end. We're seeing them selling units already purchased and placing smaller replenishing orders. That dynamic lowers our Q4 sales expectation, but should leave customers with leaner inventory position entering 2027 versus the current quarter. The FWA launch and lower aggregate carrier mobile inventory levels at year-end compared to Q3 should provide a path to improved revenue performance in North America as we enter 2027. Moving on. In order to address the engineering execution issues that have had a material impact on 2026 performance, we have begun overhauling the engineering function and operations. Going into 2026, we have won a record amount of new business across all three Tier 1 carriers. As we accelerated new product introductions, our engineering capability was not up to the task. I have brought in Nick Lambourne as our new Chief Technology Officer. Nick is now leading the restructuring of the engineering function, and I'm pleased with the immediate impact Nick has already had. Nick came to Inseego from Digi International. He previously served as CTO of Particle, which was acquired by Digi and brings experience across server hardware, embedded software and cloud services. His mandate is clear: improve product quality, strengthen program execution and deliver reliably for our customers. In Nick's first month, we brought our cloud engineering teams together around a unified platform and introduced a common framework to measure engineering performance. We're also establishing shared development practices and tools across our cloud device and hardware teams. These initiatives are intended to reduce fragmentation, strengthen accountability and create a more consistent foundation for delivery. As part of this work, we're expanding access to AI-enabled development tools and connecting them to shared engineering systems, including source code and task management. Together with the FastMile team, we are planning targeted pilots in automated quality assurance and rapid software and hardware prototyping. In parallel, we're developing a common software platform to support our portfolio of MiFi mobile hotspots and FWA devices, drawing on the strongest engineering practices from both the Inseego and FastMile teams. Our objective is to establish a repeatable development and delivery model that can be tailored to individual programs and operator requirements supported by automated testing and AI-assisted development. We will measure progress through product quality, test coverage, development cycle times and our ability to deliver against committed program milestones, which ultimately will result in delivering greater revenue. In addition to overhauling our engineering capability, we have taken steps to reduce our cost structure in response to lower Inseego North America revenue. In October, we executed an action to reduce operating spend, taking approximately $8 million in annual employee headcount and contractor expenses out of the business. These actions are an important step towards returning the business to profitability. Achieving that goal also requires stronger execution and focus on delivering on the opportunities we have already won. Now let me turn to the FastMile FWA business we acquired from Nokia, which closed on October 1 and will contribute a full quarter of operations in Q4. The acquisition broadens our FWA portfolio, particularly in residential applications and has established global carrier relationship and strong engineering capabilities. Combining those products within Inseego's existing enterprise FWA, mobile and cloud software portfolio gives us a broader set of solutions to bring to a much expanded global customer base. Since closing the FWA acquisition, I have continued spending time with the global team and speaking with customers. Those conversations have reinforced my confidence in the product portfolio, engineering talent and customer relationships we acquired. Our integration priorities are to maintain continuity for customers, align our product road maps and bring our engineering teams together across the combined business. This is a global integration and bringing our engineering organizations together is an important part of the opportunity. Nick is leading that work, including shared platforms, tools and development practices with the goal of improving delivery and reducing duplication across the combined business. I also want to provide some insights on the macro environment of the business we just acquired. As we see across the industry, higher memory costs are affecting customer purchasing, particularly in markets where monthly subscriber revenues are meaningfully lower and equipment price increases are harder to absorb. We have seen this with our largest FastMile customer based in India, reducing purchasing in response to those market component price increases, and that's contributing to a lower revenue baseline for the acquired business that is reflected in our Q4 2026 outlook. Importantly, that key customer recently renewed its FWA agreement through the end of 2028, including a minimum purchase commitment. This provides a foundation for the relationship, and we will share more detail on our business outlook on our February earnings call. Overall, our immediate priorities for the acquisition are customer continuity and operational integration with a clear focus on putting the underlying acquired business on a path to breakeven independent of Nokia's first year operating support. At the same time, we're pursuing growth opportunities across both existing Inseego business and the acquired FWA business, building on their respective portfolios and customer relationships. In summary, while we have a significant opportunity ahead, we have a lot of work to do. On one hand, our performance in 2026 has fallen short of our expectations. On the other hand, the FastMile FWA acquisition has created a significant opportunity for Inseego as a global wireless broadband company, and we're taking the steps needed to rebuild operating and financial momentum. We have taken action to address the engineering and product delivery issues and to reduce our cost structure. We now need to translate those actions into more consistent execution and financial performance. As we close 2026 and prepare to enter 2027, our focus is on launching the next-generation FWA product and returning to more normalized carrier inventory levels. Together with leaner cost structure, these steps provide a foundation for improving performance and working our way back to profitability. Our expanded portfolio, global customer relationships and engineering capabilities give us the opportunity to serve more customers with a wider range of wireless broadband solutions while building an operating structure that can support sustainable profitability across the combined company. I'm confident in the opportunity ahead on the new FastMile business and our growth potential. I'm also clear on where we need to improve to deliver on this opportunity. With that, I will turn the call over to Steven.