Airgain Q4 Earnings Call Highlights

Key Points

• Management described 2025 as a transition year toward platform commercialization, advancing AirgainConnect and Lighthouse and growing the AirgainConnect pipeline to about 100 active opportunities (roughly 40 Tier‑1/2) with conversion expected to ramp in 2026.
• Financially, Q4 non‑GAAP revenue was $12.1 million (at the low end of guidance) and full‑year revenue fell 15% to $51.8 million, though consumer revenue rose 20% to $26.1 million and non‑GAAP gross margin improved to 44.6%; year‑end cash was $7.4 million and Q1 2026 revenue is guided to $10.5–12.5 million.
• On enterprise/IoT, the company improved Skywire profitability and secured Cat 1 bis design wins in industrial and robotics applications, and completed a strategic acquisition of Nextivity’s HPUE product line (≈$2M revenue last year) to expand its FirstNet/MegaFi 2 offerings.

Airgain NASDAQ: AIRG executives used the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call to highlight margin improvements and strategic progress in its connectivity platform initiatives, while acknowledging that fourth-quarter revenue landed at the low end of guidance due to timing and supply factors in its enterprise embedded modem business.

Management frames 2025 as a transition year toward platform commercialization

President and CEO Jacob Suen described 2025 as “pivotal,” saying the company strengthened the resilience of its existing business, improved margins, and reinforced its financial foundation. He said Airgain expanded its design win pipeline with Tier-1 service providers and advanced two strategic platform efforts: the AirgainConnect vehicle gateway platform and the Lighthouse infrastructure platform.

Suen said the company’s focus heading into 2026 is shifting toward “commercial execution,” aiming to convert a growing pipeline into deployments and scale platform solutions. He also emphasized cost discipline, noting management lowered the company’s break-even point by optimizing the cost structure and concentrating investment on higher-return opportunities.

Consumer growth and Tier-1 carrier design wins highlighted

Airgain’s consumer business remained a central theme of the call. Suen reported consumer revenue of $26.1 million for 2025, a 20% increase from 2024, and characterized the segment as a “critical foundation” that provides durable revenue and cash generation. Management attributed performance to the transition to Wi‑Fi 7 and Airgain’s relationships with Tier‑1 cable operators and mobile network operators (MNOs).

Suen also pointed to new and prior design wins:

• A “multi-year, multi-million dollar” embedded antenna design win for a next-generation 5G home connectivity platform with a Tier‑1 North American MNO, covering both a fixed wireless access router and an in-home Wi‑Fi extender; mass production is expected later in 2026.
• A previously announced Wi‑Fi 7 design win for a next-generation fiber broadband gateway with another Tier‑1 North American MNO.
• A program secured with a large European operator two years ago that is now ramping into production.

While Suen said consumer growth is expected to be “modest” in 2026, he argued that expanding design wins and deeper integration with Tier‑1 providers should support future growth as programs scale into 2027.

Enterprise: IoT profitability improvements and Cat 1 bis momentum

In enterprise, Suen said IoT represented most of the segment’s 2025 revenue, but revenue declined year-over-year because of excess inventory at a large customer. He said the company improved profitability by focusing on its Skywire embedded modem portfolio, improving mix and gross margin while optimizing operating expenses.

Suen highlighted progress on the Cat 1 bis embedded modem (ROMA) within the Skywire portfolio, describing Cat 1 bis as an emerging standard optimized for IoT use cases with lower cost and power consumption and longer life cycles.

He also cited design win activity, including a late-2025 selection by a large industrial infrastructure customer for Cat 1 bis Skywire modules, and a design win with an “emerging robotics customer” developing autonomous systems. Management said these wins underscore demand for pre-certified, integrated connectivity modules and expand Skywire’s presence in robotics and automation.

Management expects “modest growth” in 2026 as customer inventory normalizes and new design wins scale in the second half of the year. Separately, Suen said the aftermarket antenna business continues to be affected by excess channel inventory, creating short-term variability.

AirgainConnect pipeline grows; Nextivity HPUE product line acquired

Suen positioned AirgainConnect as a core pillar of the company’s move toward integrated system-level solutions, describing the AC Fleet product as an all-in-one vehicle gateway that combines antennas, embedded cellular modems, and cloud-based management in a ruggedized system.

Management reported that, as of the week prior to the call, AirgainConnect’s pipeline included about 100 active opportunities, including roughly 40 Tier‑1 and Tier‑2 opportunities—about double the number from “just a few months” earlier. More than a quarter of Tier‑1 and Tier‑2 opportunities were said to be in trial or negotiation phases. Suen also noted a shift toward opportunities outside the traditional first responder market, including enterprise fleet, sanitation, and utility customers, which he said can have shorter sales cycles.

During the Q&A, management addressed conversion timing. CFO Michael Elbaz reiterated prior cycle time expectations—12 to 18 months for Tier‑1 and 6 to 12 months for Tier‑2—starting from AT&T certification, and said the company expects to close “a couple” of Tier‑2 customers by the end of the first quarter and begin ramping in the second quarter, with Tier‑1 opportunities “slated in Q4,” while noting timing could change.

Airgain also announced it acquired the high-power user equipment (HPUE) product line from Nextivity. Elbaz said it was a “small” but strategic, non-cash and non-equity acquisition that includes HPUE intellectual property and a customer base. He said the company will operate the MegaFi 2 product line supporting current FirstNet customers and aims to expand the revenue run rate by year-end. Elbaz said Nextivity is pursuing international customers and that Airgain entered a reseller agreement to support those efforts as projects ramp. He added that the product line generated close to $2 million of revenue last year, or about $500,000 per quarter, and said the acquisition would be Adjusted EBITDA-positive “on day one.”

Lighthouse trials, partnerships, and financial results

Suen said Lighthouse completed two trials during the quarter: a domestic trial with a Tier‑1 U.S. MNO demonstrating traffic offload from congested LTE to underutilized 5G spectrum using carrier aggregation and capacity offloading, and an international trial with a global tower operator at a convention center in Latin America demonstrating support for multiple carriers in a high-density environment. He also said Airgain established its first U.S. system integrator partnership and is engaging additional integrators, and that it is finalizing a co-development partnership with a global provider of intelligent cellular coverage solutions, with more details expected at Mobile World Congress.

In Q&A, management said it is not counting on the two cited Lighthouse trials for fiscal 2026 revenue, viewing them as potential fiscal 2027 opportunities. However, Suen said Airgain expects fiscal 2026 Lighthouse revenue contributions from system integrators in the U.S., and also referenced progress in the Middle East with Omantel and other partners, which management expects could become a meaningful revenue contributor in the second half of 2026.

Elbaz reported fourth-quarter non-GAAP revenue of $12.1 million, driven by timing and supply dynamics in embedded modems. Consumer sales were $7.3 million, which he said was the highest quarterly consumer revenue since the third quarter of 2022, while enterprise sales were $4.3 million and automotive sales were $0.5 million. Fourth-quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 46.3%, and Adjusted EBITDA was negative $0.2 million, with non-GAAP EPS of negative $0.03. Cash at year-end was $7.4 million.

For full-year 2025, revenue totaled $51.8 million, down 15% year-over-year, with consumer revenue up 20% to $26.1 million, enterprise revenue down 23% to $22.6 million, and automotive revenue down to $3.1 million. Non-GAAP gross margin increased to 44.6% and non-GAAP operating expenses were $25.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.5 million and non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.17.

For the first quarter of 2026, management guided revenue to $10.5 million to $12.5 million, non-GAAP gross margin to 43.5% to 46.5%, operating expenses of about $6 million, non-GAAP EPS of negative $0.07 at the midpoint, and Adjusted EBITDA of negative $0.7 million at the midpoint.

About Airgain NASDAQ: AIRG

Airgain, Inc NASDAQ: AIRG is a provider of intelligent wireless connectivity solutions designed to enhance data transmission, network performance and antenna efficiency for a range of devices. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the company develops both embedded and external antenna systems, as well as associated connectivity software, to support wireless applications across cellular, Wi-Fi, machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) markets.

The company's product portfolio includes modular smart antennas, parallel path phase-diversity antennas and advanced array antenna solutions that are optimized for environments such as smart homes, industrial automation, transportation and enterprise networking.

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