ADTRAN Holdings, Inc. Q3 2025 earnings call

Thank you, Carly. Welcome, and thank you for joining us today, and welcome to all those joining by webcast. During the conference call, ADTRAN representatives will make forward-looking statements that reflect management's best judgment based on factors currently known. However, these statements involve risk and uncertainties, including those detailed in our earnings release, our annual report on Form 10-K, as amended, and other filings with the SEC. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements, which may be made during the call. We undertake no obligation to update any statements to reflect events that occur after this call. During today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures and certain additional information are included in our investor presentation and our earnings release.

We have not provided reconciliations of our fourth quarter 2025 outlook with regard to non-GAAP operating margins because we cannot predict and quantify without unreasonable effort all of the adjustments that may occur during the period. The investor presentation has been updated and is available for download on the ADTRAN Investor Relations website. Turning to the agenda, Tom Stanton, ADTRAN Holdings' CEO and Chairman of the Board, will provide key highlights of the Third Quarter of 2025. Tim Santo, our Senior Vice President and CFO, will review the quarterly financial performance in detail and provide our Fourth Quarter 2025 outlook, and then we will take any questions you may have. I'd like to now turn the call over to Tom Stanton.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. ADTRAN delivered solid third quarter results with revenue near the upper end of our guidance and higher operating margins. All three business categories achieved double-digit year-over-year growth, reflecting disciplined execution, new customer wins, and healthy demand for fiber networking solutions. Operating profit exceeded the midpoint of our outlook, underscoring the solid execution and our focus on leveraging financial performance as a driver of longer-term value creation. The quarter was led by strong results in optical networking and subscriber solutions, while access and aggregation reflected anticipated buying patterns of two large European customers. We expect those customers to come back online late in the fourth quarter, early next year. We remain confident on the overall market for the remainder of this year, however. During the quarter, we closed on a $201 million financing transaction that lowered our borrowing costs and increased financial flexibility.

Important steps that strengthen our capital structure and position us to execute confidently on longer-term strategic objectives. Turning to the quarter results, ADTRAN reported $279.4 million, reflecting strong year-over-year growth across all three revenue categories. This marks the fifth consecutive quarter of sequential growth and fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement, proof points that our portfolio strategy and market positioning are driving sustainable momentum. This consistency underscores the health of our business, continued improvement in market conditions, and the progress we are making in strengthening our foundation for the longer-term growth. From our customer's perspective, engagement across our portfolio continues to strengthen as we broaden our technology reach. We're making it easier to choose ADTRAN, not just because of what we build, but because of how seamlessly our solutions work together.

Our integrated portfolio means fewer handoffs, faster time to value, and one accountable partner across optical, access, subscriber, and software. Our technology is the enabler, but the outcome is what matters: simpler operations, greater efficiency, and a trusted relationship that continues to open new opportunities for collaboration. Our optical networking solutions grew 47% year-over-year and 15% sequentially, driven by strong momentum in Europe, including deployments with a new large service provider. We added 15 new optical customers in the quarter, reflecting continued share gains and the expanding reach of our portfolio. Demand remains robust and geographically diverse, supporting a wide-range array of applications. These include national networks throughout Europe, secure connectivity for major enterprises, and government clients worldwide, with high-capacity interconnects for large-scale content providers. Access and aggregation revenue grew 12% year-over-year, supported by ongoing fiber access investments among regional operators in the U.S. and Europe.

While revenues from our small and medium service providers in the US were substantially up, this increase was offset by the seasonal buying pattern of two major European customers. We added 14 new customers for our fiber access and Ethernet aggregation platforms, demonstrating continued traction across both new and existing markets. In subscriber solutions, revenue grew 12% year-over-year and 21% sequentially, driven by demand for both residential and wholesale applications. We added 18 new customers during the quarter as service providers continued expanding fiber reach and upgrading Wi-Fi capabilities. This quarter, we introduced Mosaic One Clarity, a new application built on our carrier-grade Agentic AI platform that enables predictive maintenance, guided issue resolution, and proactive network optimization. Early results from customer pilots are promising, demonstrating a reduction of up to 75% in network-related trouble tickets.

This is a strong validation of our AI-driven approach to network intelligence and a clear example of how innovation within Mosaic One is helping operators improve performance and efficiency. Structural shifts across our industry from core to edge computing and the advent of intelligent networks are reshaping connectivity worldwide. AI isn't just transforming data centers; it's redefining the entire network. The rise of distributed computing and edge processing is driving new requirements for bandwidth, latency, and reliability, fueling demand for high-capacity optical solutions, next-generation access platforms, and intelligent software to automate operations. ADTRAN is uniquely positioned at the intersection with our differentiated portfolio and our Mosaic One operating platform. As investment accelerates in AI and cloud computing, upgrades will follow. Across the network through metro transport, access, and aggregation, and ultimately the subscriber edge.

Our optical networking, access, and aggregation, subscriber solutions, and Mosaic One software are built for that cascade, delivering higher throughput, lower latency, and smarter, more efficient operations at scale. In summary, Q3 was another quarter of solid execution and strategic progress, marking a clear step forward in both performance and positioning. We delivered top-line momentum and profitability improvements while enhancing our ability to invest and operate with greater financial flexibility, all of which reflects the disciplined way our teams are executing across the business. More importantly, we are setting the foundation for sustained value creation. The actions we've taken to enhance efficiency, strengthen our balance sheet, and sharpen our focus are enabling us to operate from a position of greater agility and confidence. As Tim will discuss in more detail during the financial review, our scale efficiencies are creating meaningful operating leverage across the business.

With disciplined cost control and strengthened balance sheet, we see line of sight to continued margin expansion and earnings growth as we move through 2026. All while maintaining the same financial discipline that has guided our progress. With that, I will turn the call over to Tim to review the financial results in more detail. Tim?

Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining us this morning. We delivered solid results in the third quarter, reflecting strong discipline and consistent execution across the business. As Tom shared, we achieved broad-based revenue growth, higher margins, and improved operational efficiency as benefits from increased scale began to take hold. Demand was strong in optical networking and subscriber solutions, supported by healthy customer activity and continued broadband investment globally. Over the past quarter, we've reinforced the operational fundamentals of the business. And enhanced our financial controls and processes to support growth. These actions strengthen reliability and transparency of our published results and position us to deploy capital effectively, aligning operational execution with long-term value creation. As Tom shared, the third quarter also marked a significant step in strengthening our capital structure. The $201 million transaction that we completed has lowered borrowing costs, improved liquidity, and substantially reduced risk.

While it also unlocked significant availability under our revolving credit facility, it does not change the strategic priorities we've outlined to monetize our non-core assets. As many of you know, we recently engaged new partners to represent the sale of our Huntsville campus. Together, we have relaunched a targeted marketing process and are actively speaking with interested parties. We will remain disciplined on terms and timing and will provide updates as appropriate. Simply put, we are moving forward. The process with focus and intent. Maintaining a healthy balance sheet remains a top priority. We've made tangible progress this year, and our balance sheet today is more resilient, flexible, and better aligned to support long-term growth. Turning to the financial results for the third quarter of 2025. Revenue was $279.4 million, up 23% year-over-year and 5% sequentially, finishing at the high end of our guidance.

Growth was broad-based, led by optical networking, which increased 47% year-over-year. Geographically, non-U.S. revenue accounted for 57% of total revenue, while the U.S. represented 43%. One customer contributed more than 10% of total revenue during the third quarter. Non-GAAP gross margin improved to 42.1%, up both sequentially and year-over-year, driven by scale efficiencies, product mix, and component cost reductions. We remain focused on sustaining gross margin in the 42%-43% range over the long term. Non-GAAP operating profit rose to $15.1 million, or 5.4% of revenue, exceeding the midpoint of our outlook. On a sequential basis, operating profit increased by $7.1 million, or 89%. Compared to $14.6 million from approximately zero in the prior year. Operating income during this same period has increased to 5.4% in Q3 2025, from 3% in Q2 2025. And 0.2% in Q3 2024. Currency had a minimal impact on our earnings this quarter.

While volatility persists across both revenue and expenses, our natural hedging framework continues to mitigate risk. Building on the stronger forecasting, reporting, and treasury processes established this year, we are now expanding our FX strategies to further protect our balance sheet and working capital. Non-GAAP tax expense in Q3 2025 was $3.5 million, or an effective rate of 38.3%. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.05 compared to break-even in Q2 2025 and compared to a loss of $0.07 one year ago. We continued to strengthen our financial position, with working capital improving by $13.2 million. Accounts receivable increased by $13.9 million, resulting from increased sales, with DSO remaining relatively flat at 59 days. Inventory declined by $16.3 million, sequentially reducing days inventory outstanding by 11 days-124 days. Accounts payable totaled $188.9 million, with days payable outstanding remaining flat at 70 days.

We remain focused on maintaining a healthy balance sheet with our objective of achieving a net positive cash position. Operating cash flow was $12.2 million, and year-to-date, we've generated $38 million in free cash flow. We ended Q3 2025 with $101.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash, and importantly, a stronger liquidity position. In summary, Q3 reflects disciplined execution, profitability improvement, and continued financial progress. We entered the Fourth Quarter with confidence despite typical seasonal factors: fewer shipping days, holiday-related customer acceptances, and budget timing. While those dynamics remain, we expect solid demand and our execution to offset the usual headwinds. We expect revenue between $275 and $285 million, and anticipate a non-GAAP operating margin of 3.5%-7.5%. We expect OPEX to remain relatively flat compared to Q3.

We look forward to a strong finish to the year and remain focused on driving sustainable growth and maximizing long-term stockholder value. I now turn the call back to Tom for some concluding remarks.

Thanks, Tim. I think we'll open up to some questions first. Carly, at this point, we've opened up the question queue for any questions people may have.