NetSol Technologies Inc (NTWK) 2026 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and welcome to the NetSol Technologies first quarter of fiscal 2026 earnings conference call.

On the call today are founder and Chief Executive Officer of Netsol Technologies Inc. Najeeb U. Ghauri, Chief Financial Officer Roger K. Almond, Senior Vice President Legal and Corporate Affairs, General Counsel, and corporate secretary Patti McGlasson. And Chief Marketing Officer Erik Wagner.

I'd like to now turn the call over to Patti, who will provide the necessary disclaimers regarding the forward-looking statements made during today's call. Patti, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. After we review the company's business highlights and financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, we will open the call for questions.

Before we begin, I'd like to provide the customary caution regarding forward-looking statements that may be made during today's discussion. Please note that all information presented on this call is subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our remarks may include forward-looking statements that reflect management's current expectations regarding future events and operating performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those projected.

We encourage you to review the cautionary statements and risk factors contained intel's press release issued earlier today, as well as in our filings with the Secretary of Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent from Form 10k and quarterly reports on Form 10Q.

I'd also like to note that today's discussion will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of these measures to their most direct comparable GAAP figures can be found in the press release issued earlier today. Lastly, please remember that this call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our website at netsaltech.com, as well as through a link included in today's press release. I'd like to reiterate that at this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A session. I'll now hand the call over to our founder and Chief Executive Officer, Najeeb U. Ghauri.

Thank you, Petti. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining NetSol Technologies earnings call to review our results for the first quarter ended September 30, 2025.

For the first quarter, we delivered year over year revenue growth of 2.8%, driven by a 9.4% increase in subscription and support revenue, as we continue to expand our base of recovering revenue.

Our bottom line, however, reflected the impact of intentional investments and a more challenging operating environment.

I'll spend a few minutes on key strategic developments and the drivers behind our results, and then I will turn it over to Roger for more detail on the financials before we open the call for questions.

First, on strategic progress, we continue to strengthen our position as a trusted partner for digital automotive retail for leading dealership groups in the US.

During the quarter, Nestle was selected by Sonic Automotive, a Fortune 500 automotive dealership group, to lead a discovery engagement focused on defining the requirements and roadmap for an omni-channel digital retail retail solution powered by our Transcend retail platform.

The engagement will help Sonic Automotive further enhance the customer experience and streamline dealer operations across its ecopark automotive network.

This new partnership reflects our increasing momentum in the youth market and highlights the trust major industry players place in our technology and expertise.

Second, our ongoing investments in artificial intelligence reflect our commitment to shaping the future of intelligent automation and asset finance and automotive retail.

We recently announced the launch of Check AI, our AI powered credit decisioning engine designed to improve the speed and consistency of the credit underwriting process.

Check AI automates key workflows, accelerates decisionmaking, and supports more accurate underwriting by leveraging data-driven intelligence.

The platform combines intelligent automation with human in the loop oversight to help ensure fairness, transparency, and regulatory compliance.

By integrating AI into a transcend platform, we are not only enhancing decision making and efficiency, but also creating new opportunities for innovation and long-term growth.

Third, in the Asia Pacific region, we achieved important milestones and demonstrate that demonstrates both our market reach and our deep understanding of regional customer needs.

That China participated in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin.

Where we signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tianjin, (Inaudible), Smart Group and the Dongjoon Free Trade Zone government.

This partnership focuses on integrated financial services for the automotive industry and cross-border data services areas that align closely with China's growing emphasis on digital transformation and global expansion.

We are proud to maintain a sizable market share in the Chinese auto finance market. We also become the partner of choice with Chinese OEMs and asset finance companies who are looking to expand abroad.

We are one of the few vendors operating in the Chinese market who have a strong global resume.

This is highlighted by a recent Go Life in Indonesia, where a major Chinese leasing company deployed our Transcend finance platform as part of the Greenfield implementation to launch its operations in that market.

This deployment showcases the natural ability to support Chinese companies expanding internationally while highlighting our localized expertise and readiness to deliver solutions that meet regional regulatory and operational standards.

Our longstanding presence in APEC region combined with our cultural fluency and proven technology continues to make NetSol a partner of choice for global OEMs and asset finance companies.

Now, subsequent to the quarter end, we hosted a summit in Beijing that brought together leaning Indonesian and Chinese asset finance executives, reinforcing our role as a bridge between China and the broader international asset finance ecosystem.

These important developments during the 1st quarter reflect solid strategic and operational momentum as we continue to strengthen our position in key global markets.

As we move forward, we remain committed to executing our strategy with discipline, balancing investment and innovation with a continued emphasis on operational efficiency and long-term profitability.

Despite these significant developments, I want to recognize that the first quarter has been a challenging one for NSO. While our total net revenue was up 2.8% year over year, our bottom line results reflect the impact of several strategic investments and external macroeconomic headwinds.

On the expense side, we saw a 36% increase in selling and marketing costs driven primarily by our decision to expand and strengthen our global sales organization.

We made key hires at the senior level leadership.

Building the foundation needed to support future growth across our product portfolio, the timing of these decisions reflects both the stronger demand environment we are seeing and our intention to invest ahead of that demand in a disciplined way.

We are seeing a meaningful increase in qualified leads and business opportunities, and we expect this expanded sales capacity to support higher bookings and revenue over time.

Our reported revenue in Q1 is seasonally lower due to summer holidays, combined with macroeconomic uncertainty, including credit tightening and rising auto loan delinquencies, tariff impacts, and restructuring challenges among European automakers. The operating environment has been difficult. However, these dynamics also create opportunities where net soul's offering can help. Help clients to drive efficiencies. It is also important to note that we do not always have full control over when revenue is recognized, as it depends on the timing of customer milestones and implementation schedules.

In addition, we continue to transition from a licensed heavy model to a predominantly SAS-based model.

This shift improves the quality and visibility of our revenue over time, but it also changes the timing of how revenue is recognized and can make quarterly growth patterns less linear, especially in the near term.

As this mixed shift continues, we expect a higher proportion of recurring revenue and greater long-term predictability, even if individual quarters can be uneven.

For these reasons, we view the losses we experienced in the First quarter as primarily the result of front loaded growth, investments, seasonal patterns, and foreign exchange volatility rather than a change in the fundamental earnings power of the business.

Despite these short-term challenges, I want to emphasize that our business fundamentals remain solid. Our sales pipeline is stronger than it has ever been, reflecting growing global demand for our solutions that are part of our unified AI powered transient platform. Compared to the same quarter last year, we are. Noticing stronger momentum and more qualified opportunities, we expect to achieve new milestones and despite a slow start, we are targeting full year resident guidance from 5% to 7%, which is above last year's level, supported by a growing pipeline and the investments we made in our go to market and AI enabled platform.

NetSO has navigated many cycles of change in the past. We are executing a clear strategy for growth, innovation, and customer success, and I remain confident in our ability to deliver sustainable long-term value to our shareholders.

Thank you. I will now ask Roger to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Najeeb, and good morning everyone. Let me share the results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. Total net revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 increased 2.8% to 15 million compared with 14.6 million in the prior year period.

This was driven by a 9.4% increase in subscription and support revenues. On a constant currency basis, total net revenues were 15.1 million. Total subscription, Sass and cloud and support revenues increased 9.4% to 9 million compared with 8.2 million in the prior year period. Total subscription and support revenues on a constant currency basis were 9.1 million.

Total services revenue were $6 million compared to 6.4 million in the prior year period. Total services revenues on a constant currency basis were 5.9 million.

Gross profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 was 5.9 million, or 39.4% of net revenues compared to $6.6 million or 45% of net revenues in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

On a constant currency basis, gross profit was 5.9 million, or 39.1% of net revenues as measured on a constant currency basis.

Operating expenses for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 were 7.8 million or 51.6% of sales compared to $7.3 million or 50.2% of sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. On a constant currency basis, operating expenses were 7.8 million or 51.5% of net revenues is measured on a constant currency basis.

Loss from operations for the quarter was 1.8 million compared to a loss from operations of 760,000 in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

GAAP net loss attributable to net sold for the quarter totaled 2.4 million, or $0.20 per diluted share compared with GAAP net income of 71,4.006 cents per diluted share in the prior year period.

It's important to point out that included in our net loss for this quarter was a loss on foreign currency exchange transactions of $287,000 compared to a gain of approximately $40,543,000 in the prior year period.

Because we operate in several geographical regions, a significant portion of our business is conducted in currencies other than the US dollar.

A decrease in the value of the US dollar compared to foreign currency exchange rates generally has the effect of increasing our revenues, but it also increases our expenses denominated in currencies other than the US dollar.

Similarly, as the US dollar gains strength relative to foreign currency exchange rates, it tends to reduce our revenues, but it also reduces our expenses denominated in currencies other than the US dollar.

Moving to our non-GAAP metrics, non-GAAP EBITDA for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 was a loss of 1.8 million or $0.15 per diluted share compared with non-GAAP EBITDA of 301,000 or $0.03 per diluted share in the prior year period.

Turning to our balance sheet, our cash and cash equivalents were 22.7 million as of September 30th, 2025 compared with $17.4 million as of June 30th, 2025.

Working capital was 24.9 million as of September 30th, 2025 compared with 26.6 million as of June 30th, 2025.

Total net sold stockholders' equity at September 30, 2025 was $35.8 million or $3.03 per share.

While the first quarter reflects a higher operating expense ratio and a temporary compression in gross margins, we remain committed to balancing strategic investment with cost discipline. Our cash position of 22.7 million provides ample liquidity to support ongoing growth initiatives, and we continue to prioritize investments that enhance recurring revenue streams and scalable digital solutions.

The progress in subscription and support revenues underscores the resilience of our business model, and we are taking proactive steps to optimize operational efficiency as we navigate short-term headwinds, keep our focus squarely on long-term profitability and shareholder value creation. I'd like to now hand the call back over to Najeeb.

Thank you, Roger. Although this quarter brought some challenges, our vision and priorities remain very clear.

We are continuing to expand our global footprint via our unified AI powered transcend platform that is built to simplify and optimize every stage of the asset, retail, and commercial life cycle.

We are committed to improving operational efficiency and remaining focused on our customers' needs in the quarters ahead.

We believe these efforts will drive stronger performance and long-term value creation.

We remain deeply appreciative of our shareholders' continued trust and support as we execute our long-term strategy Alberto.

(Operator Instruction).

Sir. Yes, that's fine. So we sincerely appreciate your participation in today's call and your continued interest in us. So we look forward to keeping you informed of our progress in the quarter ahead, wishing you good health and all the best.

(Operator Instruction).

Can my team to stay on the line?