Canaan - Earnings Call - Q3 2025
November 18, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Canaan Inc's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session. Please note that this event is being recorded. Now, I'd like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gwyn Lauber, Investor Relations for the company. Please go ahead, Gwyn.
Gwyn Lauber (Head of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our earnings conference call. Joining us today are Chairman and CEO Nangeng Zhang and our CFO, Jin James Cheng. Leo Wang, Vice President of Capital Markets and Corporate Development, and Xi Zhang, Senior IR Manager, will also be available during the question-and-answer session. Our CEO will start the call by providing an overview of the company and performance highlights for the quarter. Our CFO will then provide details on the company's operating and financial results for the period before we open up the call for your questions. Before we begin, I would like to refer you to our Safe Harbor Statement and our earnings press release. Today's call will include forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, our outlook for the company and statements that estimate or project future operating results and the performance of the company.
These statements speak only as of today, and the company assumes no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements that may be made in today's press release, call, or webcast, except as required by law. These statements do not guarantee future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Please refer to the press release and the risk factors and documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent annual report on Form 20F, for information on risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in such statements. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss both GAAP financial measures and certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful as supplemental measures of the company's performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP results.
You can find additional disclosures regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations with comparable GAAP results, in our earnings press release, which is posted on the company's website. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Nangeng Zhang. Please go ahead.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you, Gwyn. Hello, everyone. This is Ng, CEO of Canaan. Welcome to our earnings call. Together with our CFO, James, we are calling from our Singapore headquarters to discuss our Q3 2025 business results, and let us start this with you. During the third quarter, the global macro environment remained highly uncertain. In particular, the U.S. reciprocal tariff policy increased mining costs in North America. However, we also saw the resilience of the North American market. Once there was a bit more clarity, demand started to recover clearly during this quarter. Bitcoin prices increased from approximately $107,000 at the end of June and about $114,000 at the end of September. This showed a rapid increase in total global hash rate, which rose from 846 exahash per second at the end of Q2 to 1,041 exahash per second at the end of Q3.
Accompanied by a significant rise in mining difficulty with growing energy competition globally, the mining industry is facing higher operational challenges. Despite the complex external environment, we delivered results that exceeded expectations. Total revenue for the quarter exceeded $150 million, up 50.2% quarter over quarter and 104.4% year over year, and beat our guidance range of $125 million-$145 million. Gross profit reached $16.6 million, much higher than the $9.3 million reported in Q2. This improvement in the revenue and gross profit reflects our rapid response to the market demand and ongoing optimization of global mining operations. Supported by strong sales and revenue momentum, our cash balance at the end of the quarter increased to $119 million, representing an 80.9% increase.
In mining machine sales, we delivered a record high of 10 exahash per second of computing power in Q3, up 55.6% sequential and 37.7% year over year. Our average selling price increased 33.8% year over year to $11.8 per terahash. Despite a slight rise in cost per terahash due to the changes in international trade policies during this quarter, we achieved a product gross margin of approximately 17%. We continued to serve a strong hash rate demand in Asia and also captured the recurring demand in North America. Notably, during this quarter, we secured large orders from well-known customers in the region, including Bitfury, CleanSpark, and Luxor. In early October, we signed a purchase agreement for over 50,000 A15 Pro models with a U.S.-based miner client. This highlights growing recognition of our product performance, quality, and service by North American institutional customers.
In the consumer-grade mining machine market, our Avalon Home series continued to lead in this emerging space. In addition to regular marketing and promotional activities, we have also included the Home series in our open-source code program. We are actively growing our user and developer community and expanding our brand influence. At the same time, we are exploring new applications of the Home series in smart home scenarios. Currently, we are developing software to make our products compatible with Matter, the mainstream protocol standard for smart home devices. In terms of consumer-grade product sales, we delivered 14,000 units of the Avalon Home series in Q3, generating over $12 million in revenue, a significant increase of 115.3%. The Avalon Q model was the top performer this quarter. By supporting scale sales through channel partners, the Home series achieved nearly $4 million.
in gross profit with a solid gross margin of around 33%. Overall, our total product revenue reached $118.6 million, with gross profit close to $20 million in Q3. The Avalon Home Series contributed 10.3% of total product revenue and about 20% of product gross profit. Based on what you are seeing, competition in the consumer mining market remains relatively healthy. We plan to maintain solid gross margins with launching new products and expanding channel coverage to drive scale. Turning to mining operations, despite a notable increase in mining difficulty during this quarter, our disciplined execution allowed us to steadily advance hash rate development, analyzation, and overall mining efficiency. As a result, we generated another quarterly record of $30.55 million in mining revenue while maintaining competitive power costs.
In the third quarter, we added approximately 1 exahash per second of newly deployed capacity in North America, bringing our total deployed hash rate to 9.3 exahash per second by the end of the quarter and approximately 7.8 exahash per second analyzed. We mined 267 BTC during this quarter, which further contributed to our crypto asset balance. Our Bitcoin holding reached an all-time high of 1,582 BTC by the end of the quarter, providing solid support for our balance sheet. We are also actively exploring innovative mining projects. This quarter, we partnered with Soluna to deploy the machines at a 20-MW wind-powered mining facility in Texas. In Canada, we worked with a local energy infrastructure partner on a pilot project that converts stranded natural gas into computing power. We also supplied mining equipment for a project designed to support local grid stability.
These projects mark our first step into the energy infrastructure space. Bringing with the utilization of stranded energy, our long-term vision is to integrate high-density interruptible Bitcoin mining loads with the energy-intensive AI and HPC workloads, building a future where computing and energy infrastructure grow together. We are entering an era in which AI software and data centers will profoundly shape daily life. At the same time, we believe that public awareness and the demand for sustainable energy will continue to grow. Throughout Canaan's history, we have held a consistent belief: technology should make society more efficient. Today, we are seeing that vision become materialized. We have unique advantages in this transformation. With more than a decade of developing technologies that make chips and systems more energy efficient, we are now extending these capabilities to both home use and the traditional energy sector.
Energy operators can use our computing system to balance the grid, improve transmission efficiency, and generate new revenue. On the consumer side, utilizing excess heat from home mining is only the beginning. Over time, we envision this concept expanding into broader home computing applications. For R&D, we continue to innovate and upgrade our products. At the end of October, we officially launched our next generation Avalon A16 Series. The air-cooled Avalon A16 XP model delivers 300 terahash per second of hash rate per unit, with an industry-leading power efficiency of 12.8 joules per terahash. This marks the first time our air-cooled miner has reached the 300 terahash level, clearly showcasing our strong leadership in Bitcoin ASIC design. With improvements to production and supply chain, our global delivery system is now more flexible and resilient.
Today, we have manufacturing capabilities layouts in mainland China, Malaysia, and the U.S., working seamlessly together to support delivery and after-sales service for consumers worldwide. While enhancing our product and supply chain capabilities, we have also sharpened our focus on core operations. Starting this quarter, we realigned our R&D team and team around the projects that offer clear revenue visibility and strategic value. We have also streamlined headcount to support this focus. In addition to organizational and cost optimizations, we are also allocating additional resources to expand our business footprint. We have established a dedicated consumer product team to optimize product quality and accelerate product integration. Additionally, we are also allocating more resources to our hash rate finance and energy infrastructure in interactives. We see new power-related opportunities in many regions, from home users and small businesses to power utilities.
In Europe and Asia, customers are exploring ASIC-based grid balancing applications. In North America, stranded energy opportunities continue to grow, with similar projects emerging globally, including the Middle East. In our digital asset treasury management, we continue to execute our flexible strategy. At the end of the third quarter, we held 1,582 Bitcoin and 2,830 Ethereum. In early November, during a market pullback, we strategically acquired an additional 100 Bitcoin as a part of crypto asset management strategy, further enhancing our asset allocation and the potential liquidity. To sum up, Q3 was a highly strategic quarter in Canaan's development journey. We achieved strong revenue growth and improved gross profit, while also optimizing our business structure and organization. At the same time, we made encouraging progress in several new areas.
Looking ahead, we are fully focused on driving Q4 sales, fulfilling large customer orders, and converting pre-orders for our new A16 series. At the same time, we are accelerating the deployment of newly signed Innovate mining projects to further expand our mining hash rate. We are closely monitoring the impact of U.S. tariff policy, macro liquidity conditions, and the potential changes in global mining and energy regulations. Taking all of these factors together, we remain cautiously optimistic for the fourth quarter and expect total revenue to be in the range of $175 million-$205 million. This outlook is based on current market and operating conditions, and the actual results may vary with policy uncertainties and market volatility. This concludes my prepared remarks. Thank you, everyone. Now, I will hand it over to our CFO, James.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Please, sir. Thank you, NG. And good day, everyone.
This is James, CFO of Canaan. I'm very glad to share our Q3 financial results with you. Even today, we are witnessing Bitcoin price under big pressure. As Ng stated at the start of the call, the macroeconomic environment in Q3 was highly uncertain. Reciprocal tariff policies from the U.S. added mining costs in North America. Global network hash rate growth continuously outpaced Bitcoin's price appreciation. This all led to increased mining difficulty and intensified operational challenges across the industry. Despite market volatility, we delivered strong results this quarter. Our revenue exceeded our own expectations. Our gross profit showed consistent growth, with the average selling price climbing again, and our reserves of cash and digital assets increased significantly in our ending balance sheet of September. Let me give a quick summary of our financial performance.
First, we delivered a total revenue reaching $150.5 million, exceeding our guidance and representing a 104% year-over-year increase. This was primarily driven by growth in our product sales of $118.6 million, surpassing the $100 million milestone for the first time in the past three years. This growth was achieved while we set a new record of 10 exahash of quarterly computing power sold, and the average selling price continued rising to $11.8 per terahash per second, a new high for the past two years. After a very quiet Q2, our clients from the U.S. started actively placing sizable and repeating orders for the A15 series. Sales of North American customers contributed 31% of our total revenue in quarter three. We are happy to witness the strong demand recovery of the North American market.
Also, our sales of Avalon Home Series generated $12.2 million in revenue during the quarter, representing a 115% quarter-over-quarter increase. This is the first time Avalon Home products have contributed over 10% of total product revenue since the launch just over a year ago. As Ng said, we are cultivating the consumer market and establishing our leadership position in the newly defined household mining category. Second, our mining business also delivered another record result this quarter. Mining revenue reached $30.6 million, an all-time high, and a 241% year-over-year increase. We mined 267 Bitcoin during the quarter, representing 82% year-over-year growth.
During the quarter, we deployed over 8,000 mining machines across our projects in the United States and other countries, expanding our total deployed hash rate by 14% from 8.15 exahash per second at the end of quarter two to 9.3 exahash per second at the end of quarter three. Our installed computing power in the United States also grew by 20% from 3.66 exahash per second at the end of quarter two to 4.4 exahash per second at the end of quarter three. We also strategically closed our mining operations in Kazakhstan and initiated a small-scale project in Malaysia. Next, our profitability continued to improve this quarter. Gross profit reached $16.6 million, up 78.6% quarter-over-quarter, marking a significant turnaround from a gross loss of $21.5 million in the same period last year. Product gross margin reached 17% this quarter.
Both gross profit and margin continued their growth in quarter three, extending the upward trajectory and reinforcing the positive trend. Our Avalon Home Series generated nearly $4 million in gross profit, with a gross margin of approximately 33%. The Avalon Home Series accounted for around 10.3% of product revenue, and it contributed 20% of the product's gross profit. The Home Series has already become a stable revenue pillar and a recognized gross profit contributor. Last but not least, our total cryptocurrency treasury reached approximately 1,582 Bitcoin and 2,803 Ethereum, with an estimated market value of approximately $189 million at the end of Q3. Our unrealized holdover gain was approximately $87 million, reflecting the appreciation in value of the digital assets accumulated from mining and other operations. As of October 31st, our total Bitcoin treasury increased to 1,610, as previously disclosed in our monthly report.
In early November, we further strengthened our digital asset portfolio by purchasing another 100 Bitcoin. Turning to expenses, our operating expenses totaled approximately $40.5 million. We recorded $1.5 million in one-time expenses relating to the operational efficiency initiatives, including organizational optimization, travel control measures, and other related items. In addition, we recorded $1.2 million in impairments related to mining machines deployed in Kazakhstan. By the end of quarter three, the price of Bitcoin increased to around $113,000 versus around $107,000 at the end of quarter two. The price of Ethereum increased to around $4,100 at the end of quarter three versus around $2,500 at the end of quarter two. These price appreciations resulted in an aggregate unrealized fair value gain of $5.7 million on our digital asset holdings.
A non-cash change in fair value of preferred shares impacted our Q3 bottom line by $9.5 million. This included $5.4 million from the Series A minus one preferred shares, which were fully converted during the quarter, and another $4.0 million from Series A preferred shares, which were fully converted in early October. To provide a clearer view of our underlying operational performance, we have excluded the impact of this accounting treatment from our non-GAAP measures. With all preferred shares now fully converted, we expect Q4 to include a final impact related to the change in fair value of these instruments. Benefiting from strong top-line growth, improved margins, and firm cost discipline, we delivered a positive adjusted EBITDA of $2.8 million in quarter three. Our net loss per ADS narrowed to just $0.05 U.S. versus
$0.27 in the same period last year, demonstrating continued momentum toward profitability. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow, we generated a net cash inflow of $53 million in Q3. This was driven by $189 million in sales collections, the highest quarterly level in the past two years, and supplemented by approximately $10 million in export VAT refunds. These inflows fully converted the quarter's major cash outflows, including $56 million in waiver prepayments and $90 million for production and operations. As a result, our cash balance increased to $119 million at quarter end. Now, moving to our contract liability, the balance of contract advances reached nearly $87 million as of this quarter end, over 85% contributed by North American clients.
As of the end of quarter three, we recorded account receivables of $7 million, all from the customers using Bitcoin as collateral for installment payments. We will continuously evaluate market demand and adopt corresponding credit policies with caution. Now, turning to our recent fundraising. In early November, we closed a strategic investment totaling $72 million with three top-tier institutional investors: Brevan Howard, Galaxy Digital, and Ways Asset Management. The proceeds are intended to fund the acquisition and deployment of North American data center sites, as well as the expansion of our Bitcoin mining machine production capacity. In late October, we renewed the ATM program to broaden banking relationships and enhance our financial flexibility for future growth initiatives. Following the renewal, we sold approximately 4.8 million ADSs, raising gross proceeds of about $7.8 million, as previously reported in the monthly report.
We have selected to pause further sales under the ATM for the remainder of 2025. As of the date of the earnings, we have cumulatively repurchased approximately 5.1 million ADSs for approximately $3.4 million under our share repurchase program. In the future, we plan to execute on our repurchase plan as market conditions allow us. Moving forward, as our CEO just mentioned, strategically, we will continue our technology-driven efforts with the goal of improving the efficiency of society. These efforts include the development of energy-efficient chips and systems similar to what we did in the past decade. This includes an extension of our energy operations, which leverages computing technologies. Also, on the consumer side, these efforts include Bitcoin computing and heat reuse. To better utilize our resources, we set up additional internal controls to oversee the operation of our business.
These priorities of the strategic importance and will help to provide us with additional revenue visibility. We will increase the expansion of our consumer products and energy operation, but at the same time, streamline existing R&D and administration cost structure. In cash flow management, we will continue to invest in R&D on new products and waivers in the supply chain, and we will also seek opportunities that will increase our energy operations around the world, as well as help our digital asset treasury to accumulate more digital assets on our balance sheet. All this will happen in a very dynamic environment. We remain cautiously optimistic as we execute on our strategy while focusing on protecting and increasing our shareholder value. We expect revenue for the fourth quarter to be in the range of $175 million-$205 million. This forecast reflects current market conditions.
Actual results may vary given policy uncertainties and market volatility. This concludes our prepared remarks. We are now open for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a courtesy to other investors and analysts who may wish to ask a question, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you have any additional questions after the Q&A session, the investor relations team will be available after the call. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your questions in English. To ask a question, please press star one one and wait for a name to be announced. One moment for the first question. Your first question comes from the line of Mike Grondahl from Northland. Please go ahead.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equity Research and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, guys.
The 50,000 machine order on the A15 Pros, can you talk a little bit about delivery timing there and gross margin on those sales?
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Hi. Good morning. Yeah. This order for more than 50,000 A15 Pro units is one of our most important deals this year. Under the contract, we expect to complete all deliveries by the end of 2025. So far, we have shipped a part of the orders and progressing in the remaining production and logistics upfront. Yeah. Given the size and the tight timeline of this order and the fact that Q4 is generally a peak period for supply chain and logistics constraints, our production and operations team are working at full strength to ensure on-time delivery while maintaining product quality. Also, at the same time, we are expecting deliveries for other customers in parallel to avoid any impact on our other long-term partners.
This is a key task of our delivery management capabilities. It's a really hard job. Yeah. For the gross margin, yes, we have a, I think we have a positive gross margin. Yeah. Maybe I cannot tell the exact numbers. Yes, we have gross margins. Yeah.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equity Research and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Just maybe a follow-up. Your home mining sales have done really well lately. What are the margins on that business line versus the industrial mining equipment?
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
I think for our home mining series, in quarter three, we get 33% of gross margin. By the end of this year, I think we should maintain about 30% gross margin. It is significantly higher than industrial miners. Yeah. I think the competition. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I think for the home miners roadmap, we plan to launch several new products over the next 12 months.
Further, about 2C, the 2C product portfolio, always consumer products need a refresh every year. We need to refresh almost all existing models in the coming year. Still, for 2026, our most important KPI for the home series is still go mainstream and break out of the crypto niche. Please give us some more time. Yeah. Thank you.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equity Research and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Thank you, Mike.
Operator (participant)
Thank you for the questions. One moment for the next question. Next question comes from the line on Nick Giles from B. Riley. Please go ahead.
Henry Hearle (Research Analyst)
Thank you, operator. Good morning or good evening, everyone. This is Henry Hearle on for Nick Giles. For my first question, when is the earliest you guys could ship your new A16 models and at what scale? What are your expectations on price and margin, respectively? Thanks.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah.
The A16 series was officially launched at the end of October. We are at the first batch sample production. Yeah. We finished the testing stage. According to our plan, we will start shipping samples to selected customers by the end of this month for their testing and evaluation. Yeah. This is consistent with our Euro large strategy. We expect to begin our volume shipments in the first quarter of 2026. Yeah. We will adjust production and delivery pace dynamically based on the presale and customer feedback. For pricing, we will adhere to market-driven principles, taking into supply demand account and the competitive demand dynamics and the customer mix. At first, I think as a new flagship product, A16 delivers major performance. The air-cooled A16 XP can offer over 300 terahash at 12.8 joules per terahash, which is really industry-leading.
I think it will provide higher returns per unit. Also, we can share these benefits with our customers. Yeah. I think our margins, based on the current wafer material and the manufacturing cost, the per terahash cost for A16 is under control and lives in our expectations. Also, the yield is acceptable. I think the product's pricing power will help us to offset some cost pressures. Sure. The A16 cost per hash is higher than A15. Yeah. Let's see. Thank you.
Henry Hearle (Research Analyst)
Yeah. For my follow-up, I wanted to get your guys' thoughts on the fact that several public Bitcoin miners have been very vocal about winding down their mining operations in the medium term. At the same time, supply of ASICs appears to be increasing. What do you guys think the market impact will be?
How is Canaan responding to this trend?
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. I think for this question, yes, we observe that some listed miners, maybe they are facing balance sheet pressure, share price performance issues, and a desire to pivot towards AI HPC, have publicly started their intention to reduce Bitcoin mining over the medium term. Yeah. From my perspective, firstly, I think the slowdown, I do not think the global hash rate will slow down in the near term. Also, the AI HPC deployment still needs some time. By our investigation into the energy market in the U.S., the AI HPC applications need high-quality energy, electricity, which is the high quality always means higher cost. I think fundamentally, in the next one or two years, the power that is suitable for mining is not. The competition with the energy used for AI HPC is not the same electricity.
I know our customer, including ourselves, is thinking about how can build AI-ready mining facilities for the future. In this stage, deploying more Bitcoin miners is still the best way to allocate energy today and generate revenues from this date, not waiting for another one or two or three years. I think still the things is hard to be foresee for long term. We focus on, yeah. Because there is no answer for three or five years later, now we are focused on cooperating with our partners to fulfill their requirements. Also, we are trying to find more energy resources in the U.S. and building our own mining sites today. Maybe we should have potential possibilities to transfer to the AI infrastructure in the future. This is what I personally observed in the past maybe six months. Thank you.
Henry Hearle (Research Analyst)
Great. Thank you.
And continued best of luck.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you for the questions. Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Cassidy from Rosenblatt Securities. Please go ahead.
Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you. And congratulations on the strong results. And your guidance for $190 million for the fourth quarter is impressive. Do you have orders also scheduled out into the first quarter? I guess what kind of visibility are your customers giving you?
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Thank you, Kevin. I think quarter four is a peak quarter in terms of seasonality. We provided the guidance in a very optimistic way. Also, we have already collected some of the orders. We try our best to deliver in quarter four.
Looks to me, quarter one traditionally is the low season because there is New Year and the Chinese New Year together in the western part of the world and the eastern part of the world, both having all kinds of holidays. The global logistics supply chain is not in the normal shape. I do not personally see another peak time for quarter one. I think the revenue could go down a little bit. We will try our best to deliver quarter four first, and then we predict quarter one later when we have a clear understanding about the demand. Also, recently, the Bitcoin price is not in a good shape. It is under turbulence. Some of the customers, especially the smaller ones, they tend to be more cautious and hesitate to make up their decisions immediately.
That will also have a kind of impact on quarter one orders. We will try to make a flexible supply. Anyway, currently, I think the demand is still higher than supply. We are just focusing on quarter four delivery first. Then let's see how it goes in quarter one. Maybe we can balance between the sales and also the self-mining side. If we do have some inventory, we can allocate to self-mining in the United States. That will also be a long-term strategical goal for us. Yeah. I think that's my two cents, Kevin.
Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)
Thank you, James. That's very good detail. Thanks. Maybe you did note that there is a rebound in demand in the U.S. Is the U.S. market, would you say, less sensitive to the price of Bitcoin?
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Sorry. Can you come up again? You mean?
Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)
Oh, okay. Yeah.
You had mentioned that with the price of Bitcoin being down in just very recent times, last few days, and you'd mentioned that would be sensitive to the demand for mining machines. I was just wondering if the rebound we've seen in the U.S., I think you said it was 31% of revenue in the third quarter, whether that continues even with, I guess, is it less sensitive in North America to prices of Bitcoin versus the rest of the world?
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Yeah, Kevin. Looks to me, in my observation, North America is now the leading area for the global mining industry. The whole total hash rate in North America is some percentage between 35%-40% globally. There are around 20 listed companies in North America doing mining. They are kind of institutional players.
They are more professional building up the sites, the electricity facilities, and eventually becoming mining sites. They have their schedule. It's not easy for them to stop their own schedule even when Bitcoin price has some short-term turbulence. For them, they look at long-term goals. That's why they are not very price-sensitive in very short-term time. We observed the tariff did have a kind of impact on their cost structure. That increased their mining cost. That means some of the miners, especially the smaller ones, even if they are sitting in the United States with a consistent policy advantage, they could still withdraw from Bitcoin mining to other activities. They may want to change their miners' purchase plan in quarter four. I should say U.S. customers are most important customers for us. We observed their worries in short term, but we also respect their long-term strategic goals.
We try our best to support their strategic goals to get realized. That is something we do together with them.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
I think for looking at this year, especially for the market, initial expected is the demand will flow rapidly into North America. However, changes in tariff policy led to a significant contraction in North America demand from late Q1 to Q2. At that time, I think everyone is very nervous. HR demand revved up quickly and partly offset the weakness in North America. In Q3 and Q4, North America customers showed very strong resilience. Together, we adapted to the new trade environment, and the demand there has recovered quickly since Q3. In fact, for the potential already delivered in Q4, North America has again accounted for more than 50%. Bitcoin price volatility is constant.
Sharp moves over a few days or weeks do cost some customers, especially small customers, to pause and receive. Over multi-year time frames, I think the impact is underlying demand trend is limited. I highly disagree with running a business by counting numbers day by day. This is my personal opinion. Thank you.
Kevin Cassidy (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you very much.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you for the question.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Thank you, Kevin. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Donovan from Compass Point. Please go ahead.
Michael Donovan (Analyst)
Thank you, operator. Hi, Ng and James. How much inventory do you have left for the A15 series? For Q2 2025 guidance, what mix do you expect between A15 orders and pre-orders for A16s?
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Thank you for the question, Michael.
I think our inventory in the end of quarter three is like $200 million, including some of the raw materials like wafers, like other components. It mainly reflects the strong demand in quarter four. You have already known we got the big order around 50,000 units to the United States. We have to prepare the inventory. Other than that, if we digest the inventory in quarter four, I do not think our inventory level will be that high. In quarter one, we will see a lower inventory level for A15. That is because we are expecting the uncertainties of the market demand in quarter one. For A16, I think it is mainly like quarter three to be the mass delivery. I think the early delivery could be late quarter two. In the transition, we will continue to produce A15 and make it better and better.
I think that's the plan. Did I answer your question, Michael?
Michael Donovan (Analyst)
Yeah, you did, James. I appreciate that. I guess for my next question, can you expand a bit more on the pilot projects that you have, the 2.5 MW in Alberta, Canada, and 4.5 MW in Japan? What are the growth opportunities in those two countries?
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. I think we are running several similar pilot projects globally. I think this includes Japan, Canada, U.S., as well as some small projects ongoing in Europe and other Asia countries. Since these are pilots, our primary goal is to validate the technical approach and the business model rather than maximize the early-stage financial returns. Yes, it's thanks to the use of trans gas and energy. The power cost for these pilot projects is relatively low, and the project-level growth margins are decent.
Like most mining operations, meaningful economic benefits ultimately require scale. Yeah. Based on the current results, we believe these pilots all have the potential for scale-up. This is very important to remember that power and gas infrastructure are very, very traditional, long-cycle industries. Building trust and proving out a new model takes time and patience. Our strategy is to run the pilots in a stable way, cement the partnerships, and then look at scaling the larger megawatt levels at the right time. For example, the Canada stranded gas project, there are very high possibilities to scale up to 20 MW in the middle of next year. Also, we can do more, like I just mentioned, the AI-ready mining sites, mining farms in the U.S. with our partner Luxor. So yeah. I think still there is a pre-scale. Give us some time. Yeah. Thank you.
Michael Donovan (Analyst)
Thank you, Ng and James.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Thank you, Michael.
Operator (participant)
One moment for the last question. Our last questions come from the line of Kevin Dede of HCW. Please go ahead.
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Gentlemen, thanks very much for having me on the call. I appreciate it. Ng, I'm wondering about your self-mining objectives. Can you refresh us on where you plan to take self-mining, in particular Ethiopia, which remains the largest contributor of your exahash? We're hearing that power tariff rates have increased there, and we're wondering how you might rethink hash deployment.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Okay. Thank you. I think for our strategy now, in short term, there's some pullback in Bitcoin price. Many people are asking the question about our strategy of self-mining. Yeah.
I think in the near term, maybe over a few months, our attention will be on delivering large miner orders, and we start to slow the pace at which we add our self-mining hash rate. Please remember, there's still other customers. We cannot lose our long-term partners at this time. So because of lack of machines, at the same time, we are actively developing more power resources, including potential greenfield sites. These projects have longer construction cycles, but relatively controllable cash outlays. They offer better long-term value and operation flexibility. The gas-to-compute pilot in Canada with Aria Energy and the 20 MW data center projects in Texas with Soluna is only examples. For what we see in the market, I think this is indeed more attractively priced mining assets now. The pullback for Bitcoin price gave us benefits to get more energy resources, especially in the U.S. Yeah.
I think particularly projects with solid resources, but short-term funding pressure. This offers us better entry points. We are continuously screening such opportunities and their strict return and risk control. We aim to expand our self-mining footprint in a more prudent, value-attractive way. In short, I think we are still keeping the expansion in the U.S., and we are moving to the more fundamental sites like the sites like the energy infrastructure in the long term. I think the big order and Bitcoin pullback gave us some time to redirect our direction to find a better way to expansion in the U.S. Thank you.
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
James, I was wondering if you could offer a little more color on the $56 million wafer purchase and the $90 million in processing.
Would that include pretty much everything that you need for the 15 and 16 XP, at least as you see orders initially? How much of it, yeah, how much of it do you think translates to the Avalon Home series?
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Kevin, I do not think $56 million is all the wafer supply we can get for quarter one. It is actually some payments happen to be in the phase of payments just in quarter three. The $56 million is some prepayments and also some close payments for the previous contracts. I think in quarter four, we will pay more. It is just a kind of pacing difference. For the Home series, I think currently it is wintertime. We observed the demand from North America is actually getting stronger compared to quarter three and quarter two. It seems like we will allocate more chips to Home series.
Of course, we do not want to generate a lot of inventory. We will still produce according to the orders. To be very honest, currently, we have already noticed the Home series will occupy a higher percentage in quarter four. While the total revenue is so big, we are expecting the sales for quarter four of Home series. Actually, a lot of buyers, a lot of consumers, they posted in their social media talking about Avalon Q. They like it because it is quiet and it can generate Bitcoins. Using the same kind of energy in the past, they buy a heater can do. Actually, we can feel the passion from the consumers asking more for the supply side.
That's why when we do allocate the chips, I think internally we have some discussions and sometimes even very fierce competition between the consumer sector and the industrial sector. Of course, Ng will try his best to balance different product lines and different categories, try to satisfy most of the customers and consumers.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. Also, currently, the macro environment is indeed very complex and changing very fast, especially for the semiconductor sector. Like the DRAMs price is maybe doubled in the past few months. It only indicated how the types of the global capacity for the semiconductor industry. Currently, I think we have the demand because of the demand of advanced chip growth, especially for the AI-related applications and many other stuff. The foundry capacity today is very tight, and also the price is trending up significantly.
I think this could impact both our manufacturing costs and mining CapEx. This is influencing the whole industry, not only us. That said, we cannot share the exact figures, but we already have secured meaningful wafer allocation for next year at favorable pricing and payment terms thanks to our strong relationships with our key suppliers. The volume is built on a very cautious number, but I think this will definitely give us a good cost position heading into 2026. Yeah. This is my consent. Thank you.
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
James, you did not touch on the $90 million processing. Can you just give us a feel for that and what the implications are for future cash use?
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
$90 million.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
I think it is too much.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Yeah. I think you mean that $72 million we fundraised from the strategic investors and also $7.8 million from the ATM program.
I think putting this together is like $80 million. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Okay. No, I thought that when you were discussing cash use in the third quarter, you mentioned $90 million. I apologize. I probably have the number wrong, but.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Yeah. You mean the operational and the supply chain together, the expenses?
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Right. Okay.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Yeah. I think that yeah, that outflow is for some payments of the supply chain, like components, like all kinds of production and logistics to ship the components from here and there. A lot of things, including some of the expenses related to that. I think that's a major part of the supply chain expenses. And also, I think there is the R&D, G&A, and also sales and marketing fees inside this. I think the run rate is still like $28 million-$29 million.
Even the P&L shows it's like $40 million, but that includes a lot of non-cash items like share-related salaries. The rest goes to like $28 million-$29 million for the normal operation. Also, we have expenses related to the operation, like travel, like marketing, especially for the consumer product. We started to have some marketing try in quarter three, but not much expenses. That is something we try to do in the transition from a pure machine company to a kind of operational company with energy and also with the two consumer product. We will also increase our marketing expenses in future. I don't know if I answered your question.
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Yeah. Yeah. Just one more little nuance. I'm just wondering if those payments include prepayments for supply chains, securing supply chain components through the December quarter and into the March quarter.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
That's a wonderful question, Kevin.
Usually, we only do prepayment for wafer. Most of the components, we usually get the components first, and then we pay them a little bit later in different kind of terms. For example, like 15 days, 30 days, something like that. It's usually not advanced payment.
Kevin Dede (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Congratulations on that 50,000 unit order. Congratulations on the sharp pop in revenue and gross margin. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Jin James Cheng (CFO)
Thank you, Kevin.
Nangeng Zhang (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you for the question. As there are no further questions now, I'd like to turn the call back over to the company for any closing remarks.
Gwyn Lauber (Head of Investor Relations)
Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to us, and we look forward to speaking with you throughout the quarter. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you everyone for attending.
You may now disconnect.