uCloudlink Group - Earnings Call - Q3 2025
November 12, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Hello and welcome to the uCloudlink Group Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star and then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Daniel Gao in Investor Relations of uCloudlink. Thank you, and over to you.
Daniel Gao (Director of Investor Relations)
Hello everyone. I'd like to thank you for joining us on uCloudlink's Third Quarter 2024, sorry, 2025 earnings call. The earnings release and our earnings presentation are now available on our IR website at ir.ucloudlink.com. Joining me on today's call are Mr. Chu Jingpeng, co-founder and chairman of the board of directors; Mr. Chaohui Chen, co-founder, director, and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Yimeng Shi, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Chen will begin with an overview of our recent business highlights. Mr. Shi will then discuss our financial and operational highlights for the quarter. They will all be available to take your questions in the Q&A section that follows. Before we proceed, please note that this call may contain forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These forward-looking statements are based on measurements, current expectations, and observations that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors not under company control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from the results, performance, or expectations projected or included by these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by their cautionary risk statements, risk factors, and details of the company's filings with the SEC. The company does not assume any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, changes in market conditions, or otherwise except as required by law. Please also note that uCloudlink's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of unaudited GAAP financial information and unaudited non-GAAP financial measures.
uCloudlink's press release contents are reconciliation of the unaudited and non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable unaudited GAAP measures. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Chen. Please go ahead.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Thank you, Daniel. Good morning or evening, everyone. Amid a complex macroeconomic and trade environment, we remain disciplined in our execution while maintaining operational profitability. This balanced approach allows us to successfully navigate these external challenges and reinforce the resilience of our business. While also laying the foundation for long-term value creation, we remain profitable and continue to generate stable margins, with total revenue of $21.1 million and net income of $9.3 million during the quarter. Our global ecosystem is gaining momentum as it grows in scale and global user adoption. Likewise, our 1.0 international data connectivity services business continues to grow, with full-speed 5G network coverage across 91 countries and regions. As we continue to gain market shares and reinforce our leadership position in the global GlocalMe sector, we remain focused on overcoming the world's three fundamental digital dividers through transformative connectivity solutions.
Firstly, we are eliminating the global connectivity divide by breaking down the international roaming barrier and providing seamless network access worldwide. Secondly, through our patent cloud sync and HyperConn technologies, we tackle the single multi-network divide by enabling intelligent and optimized connectivity across multiple networks. Lastly, most innovatively, we are bridging the emotional digital divide with our AI-powered technology, creating entirely new and meaningful connections between humans and their pets. Building on this mission, our strategy invests in R&D and marketing to accelerate innovation, enhance users' experience, and speed up commercialization of our three new growth engines, yielding strong results. Our three new product lines, GlocalMe LINE, GlocalMe SIM, and GlocalMe IoT, saw remarkable year-over-year MAU growth during the quarter, increasing 382.3%, 188.2%, and 593.3%, respectively. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, reflecting how our solution directly addresses market demand and validates our investment strategy.
I will now reveal the highlights for each of our key business lines. I will start with our GlocalMe LINE business line. In the third quarter of the year 2025, the average monthly active terminal reached 3,903, representing an increase of 408.2% year-over-year. Within our broader GlocalMe LINE portfolio, which includes our industry-first Unicore Plus, Unicore Pro, and Roam Plus, MAT grew by 369.3%, excluding platform, year-over-year, reflecting strong user adoption across these innovative lines. Building on this solid foundation of product excellence, I will now highlight the significant progress we made with our flagship product, Headphone, designed to bridge the digital divide between humans and their pets. Headphone is already gaining momentum after its initial commercial launch in September 2025 in Hong Kong and across the Middle East, where it has already generated orders for approximately 40,000 units.
As we continue to expand our distribution channels and partners at the IFA 2025 in Berlin, Headphone was recognized as an honoree in the Communications and Connectivity Catalog of the inaugural IFA Innovation Awards. It also received the Best of IFA 2025 distinctions from Yanko Design, Home Clockers, and Marcellus Reviews. Following the showcase of our solutions at the IFA Berlin 2025, we are now in advanced discussions with several major retail channels, including one key partner. Furthermore, we successfully entered into a partnership with a leading online pet retail platform in North America, where initial product shipment has already begun. With the strategy foothold being established across Hong Kong, the Middle East, North America, and Europe, we plan to establish a new operational structure and raise additional capital to accelerate the global expansion of our pet tech business.
We also plan to develop pet tech as a standalone application that extends beyond smart hardware and builds a comprehensive systematic platform integrating social entertainment, living stream, and a comprehensive pet ecosystem. The initial version of this new app is expected to launch in the first quarter of year 2025. Our GlocalMe IoT business maintains a strong growth trajectory, with user adoption and revenue contribution showing substantial year-over-year improvements. In the third quarter, average monthly active terminals for GlocalMe IoT recorded a year-over-year increase of 583.0%. We secure orders for in-car infotainment systems, while our initiatives in the secretary-camera sectors are now fully deployed and enter a phase of expansion, supported by broadened partnerships across several high-growth verticals. Having established an initial presence in this key sector, we plan to expand our solution into additional industries in the future.
Turning to our GlocalMe SIM business line, over the past nine months, GlocalMe SIM has surpassed 400,000 cumulative cars sold, including OTA SIM, eSIM, and eSIM Trio, a game-changing solution demonstrating clear technology leadership in the industry. The eSIM Trio was named as a Best of IFA year 2025 by Marcellus Reviews, further highlighting its innovation and market recognition. This momentum has fueled our growth, driving a 269.5% year-over-year increase in average monthly active terminal during the third quarter. The eSIM Trio solution has continued to gain strong traction following the widespread distribution of 10,000 trial units under a pilot program. It generated positive user feedback at more than 75% in user registration and more than 30% in active engagement, validating both our carrier partnership model and product-market fit. Our carrier insurance program has also made significant progress.
We have completed pilot negotiations with multiple operators and expect to commence joint testing and pilot initiatives in the coming quarters, laying the groundwork for future larger-scale carrier partnerships. Lastly, our GlocalMe mobile fixed broadband business remains stable, with growing order momentum expected to provide a stable foundation for our future growth. The launch of our MeowGo G40 Pro and the cutting-edge MeowGo G50 Max are expected to serve as growth engines for the coming quarters. The MeowGo G40 Pro is a revolutionary upgrade and a milestone product, enabling users to stay connected through one single device and one account. The product began deliveries by the end of the quarter and is the world's first device to support in-fly Wi-Fi and connects seamlessly across several usage scenarios, such as home, airports, offices, and cafes.
With the MeowGo G40 Pro, we are transforming portable connectivity from an international travel-only solution into a true multi-scenario companion. Powered by our patent AI hypercon technology, it seamlessly serves users through one single intelligent device and one account, regardless of where they are. Hypercon, our industry-leading solution, also lays the foundation for larger-scale product iterations and future upgrades. Furthermore, we will launch the MeowGo G50 Max with Sky-to-Ground 5G satellite integration and AI-driven network switching, further solidifying our innovative leadership in the mobile fixed broadband industry. This device also enhances network quality through AI-powered real-time congestion detection, delivering a faster and more reliable user experience. Looking ahead, we are entering the next phase of expansion, where we will scale our global user base, further diversify revenue streams, drive innovation across our ecosystem, and sustain a healthy financial performance.
The launch of MeowGo G40 Pro and cutting-edge MeowGo G50 Max, combined with the launch of the platform, the strong validation of the eSIM Trio pilot, and the robust expansion of our IoT solutions, provide us with several robust growth engines going forward, laying a solid foundation for future growth. Having successfully navigated external challenges, we are confident in our ability to scale our user base, expand our global partnership, and deliver growth in the coming years as we continue to innovate and bridge digital divides for users worldwide. We are confident that we have the right strategy in place to generate sustainable growth in the coming quarter. For the first quarter of year 2025, we expect total revenues to be between $22 million-$26.5 million, representing a decrease of 15.4% to an increase of 1.9% compared to the same period of year 2024.
For the full years of year 2025, we currently expect revenues to be in the range of $81.3 million-$85.8 million. The company is revising its guidance in light of the persistent macroeconomic challenges and global trend headwinds, which have had and may continue to have a broader impact across the industry. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Shi.
Yimeng Shi (CFO)
Thank you, Mr. Chen. Hello, everyone. I will go over our operational and financial highlights for the Third Quarter of 2025. Average daily active terminal (DAT) and average monthly active terminal (MAT) are important operating metrics for us. Our measures capture usage trends over the periods and are reflective of our business performance.
In the third quarter of 2025, average DATs were 332,674, of which 21,484 owned by the company and 311,190 not owned by the company, representing an increase of 3.8% from the third quarter of 2024. During the third quarter of 2025, 37.3% of DATs were from uCloudlink 1.0 international data connectivity service and 42.7% were from uCloudlink 2.0 local data connectivity service. In September 2025, the average daily data usage per terminal was 1.57 GB. Starting from this quarter, we are disclosing our average daily active users (DAUs) and monthly active users (MAUs), which represent the average number of unique users engaging with our GlocalMe service on a daily and monthly basis, respectively. We believe these metrics will better reflect the progress we are making in driving user engagement across our different business lines and how we are managing and monetizing our user bases as we scale up.
Growth in average DAUs and MAUs follows similar patterns with strong momentum. Average MAUs in the third quarter were 761,586, representing an increase of 11.9% from 680,609 in the third quarter of 2024. Average MAUs from GlocalMe IoT, GlocalMe SIM, and GlocalMe Life business lines saw an increase of 593.3%, 188.2%, and 382.3%, respectively, from the same period last year. Average MAUs from GlocalMe mobile and fixed broadband business decreased slightly by 0.8% year-over-year. As of September 30, 2025, the company had 201 patents with 168 approved and 33 pending approval. The pool of SIM cards was from 392 MNOs globally as of September 30, 2025. Total revenue for the third quarter of 2025 was $21.1 million, representing a decrease of 16% from $25.2 million in the same period of 2024.
Revenue from service was $17 million in the third quarter of 2025, representing a decrease of 1.4% from $17.3 million in the same period of 2024. Revenue from service contributed 80.6% of the total revenue during the third quarter of 2025, compared to 68.6% in the same period last year. Geographically speaking, during the third quarter of 2025, Japan contributed 33.2%, Mainland China contributed 35.1%, North America contributed 15.4%, and other countries and regions contributed the remaining 16.3%, compared to 46.6%, 27.8%, 12.8%, and 12.8%, respectively, in the same period of 2024. Our gross profit was $11.3 million in the third quarter of 2025, compared to $12.2 million in the same period of 2024. Overall gross margins in the third quarter of 2025 further rose to 53.6% from 48.4% in the same period of 2024.
The gross margins on service were 76.6% in the third quarter of 2025, compared to 60% in the same period of 2024. Excluding share-based conversations, total operating expenses were $11.8 million, or 52% of total revenue in the third quarter of 2025, compared to $9.7 million, or 39% of total revenue in the same period in 2024. Net income in the third quarter of 2025 was $9.3 million, compared to $3.4 million in the same period of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.4 million in the third quarter of 2025, compared to $4.4 million in the same period of 2024. For the third quarter of 2025, we recorded an operating cash outflow of $0.9 million, compared to an operating cash inflow of $2 million in the same period of 2024.
For the third quarter of 2025, our capital expenditures were $0.5 million, compared to $1.1 million in the same period of 2024. We maintained a solid balance sheet with a cash and cash equivalent of $28.5 million as of September 30, 2025, compared to $30.1 million as of December 31, 2024. With that, operators, let's open it up for Q&A.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you will press star and then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble a roster. We have the first question from the line of Vivian Zhang from Diamond Equity Research. Please go ahead.
Vivian Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)
Hello. Hello.
Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, could you share with us the sources of this $9 million in other income and how it was identified? Was it a one-time payment?
Yimeng Shi (CFO)
Yes. As we disclosed, the $80 million gain from the fair values of other investments. That is a change of fair values in the accounts. Yes.
Vivian Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. I see. Next question, second question is that, can you elaborate on the reasons for the decline in product sales?
Yimeng Shi (CFO)
Yeah. In the third quarter, the sales of product decreased $4 million in total. This is split into two parts. One part is $2.6 million sales decreasing from the product-related data, which is a very low margin product. For the third quarter, for this very low margin product, the sale amount is quite low compared with last year's.
The second part is the sales terminals decreasing $1.1 million something, which, as we mentioned, is a Japanese customer who delayed two MBB orders. One is related to the 5G portable Wi-Fi. One is related to the 4G mobile Wi-Fi hotspot. This order will be, we expect, will be coming in the fourth quarter. That is a delay, a little bit delay in terms of periods. As we disclose, the DATs and MATs, DAUs, and MAUs all increasing compared with last year. That means the number of the terminals other than mobile broadband, the volumes of the new business, our GlocalMe Life, our GlocalMe IoT, and GlocalMe SIM sold increasing dramatically compared with last year. As this operation metrics show, a couple of times increased growth compared to the same period last year. The revenue contributions in terms of proportions are small to account.
As we, in terms of the pricing of terminals, the Life series product pricing is quite small proportions compared with 5G portable Wi-Fi. That is quite a much difference. Even if we see more volumes of a new product terminal to the market, when converted to the revenue, the revenue is smaller, but our user numbers grow as we disclosed. Overall, we saw more than 10% of the user number in terms of the MAU increasing compared with last year. We believe this will contribute to our future growth in terms of service next year for this growth of user basis. Thank you.
Vivian Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Sorry, I had some more comments because the hardware, because of tax and I think the trading headwind. The customer, I think, is more hesitant about the macroeconomic, and the decision will be—the decision criteria will be longer than normal.
Normally, about 30 days. Now go to maybe two months. That is why it caused the delay by the orders either coming. That is first. Second, hardware, I think, is because the high-value hardware like 5G, our ship volume is delayed. That caused the impact of the total revenue number. Fortunately, we have more user numbers like for SIM, eSIM, and these live products. We are generally—even the hardware cost is lower. It is smaller. I think the contribution for the data, so we increase in the future because monthly and yearly, they have to pay the same usage for the data.
Vivian Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Got it. Thank you. That makes sense. My—hello? Can you hear me? Okay. My next question is that Mainland China, the revenue from Mainland China has increased a lot and become the largest market. What are the main drivers behind that?
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Yes.
Yimeng Shi (CFO)
As we disclosed, the uCloudlink 1.0 revenue in the national data connected service always increasing over these years. The main driven is from the Chinese outbound traveler contribute to use our Roaming Man branding service. That's the main driven for our uCloudlink 1.0 business growth in these years. Since the pandemic, COVID-19, the Chinese outbound travel business is in recovery over the past couple of years. Our revenue-related this part is on the recovery trend. We believe this growth from this traveling sector we have is on the growth track in the futures as well.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Yeah. I have more comments. About the Chinese revenue increase, there are three reasons. The first is our 5G much higher. And 5G, our revenue, including the total revenue in China, our percentage is much higher than last year.
That means our 5G quality and leadership was recognized by the users. Here increased because in China, 5G is more popular. Once the people use the 5G, they do not want to use the 4G. We are leading. We cover 91 countries, and it is far more advanced than the other carrier. On the speed side, also, we are far more fast, and the coverage is much better. That is much higher for 5G. We are higher growth fast. First, we have more product available in China. We are first to launch our traditional 5G. We are in the leading to get more market share and more good technology for 5G. We have more product like live and like our SIM card and our eSIM Trio, this new product. We can cover more business. In the history, we have not entered this part.
For the roaming market, we only occupy the Wi-Fi. Currently, we have eSIM. We have OTA SIM. We have eSIM Trio. This part, I think we are now we have more product and more convenient product, not only just high quality, but also more convenient product available. We enter this new segment. Here is 80% of the new market we never touched before. We believe in the future, I think our market share in China will keep increasing. Our SIM card and eSIM Trio, we again more market share in the one-person or two-person outbound travel market. Finally, I think the last point is about in China, I think we should be more market share and more revenue in the quartz street.
If without, I think our the total, I think the Chinese people travel outside in this summer, see a sample from like in the Japan, like earthquake rumor and also like some unstable economic situation. During the September, during the July and the June is the most difficult period. I know the trade war with the U.S. All this impact. I think once this economic situation becomes more stable, I think we will get more market share in this part.
Vivian Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. That answers my last question because I want to ask about the trade tensions that appear to have eased recently. What other potential impacts do you anticipate on the market and the company? Is it likely to contribute to a recovery in sales?
Yimeng Shi (CFO)
Yeah.
If we look at this trade war, I think it will, I believe there is some limited impact for our business, especially for our new business. They paid for a new launch. We have a new launch in U.S. market, cooperation with a leading pet online retailer. The name we know is a big name, Chewy. Our new product solutions have entered into U.S. big channel, say Walmart and other famous channels as well. When we move more to the tier one channels, have our product on the shelf, I believe the U.S. market's market shares, we sold more product into U.S. market. The U.S. market's revenues contribution will gain and growth in the future. That's our belief U.S. markets will be growth in the future.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Yeah. More comment about these questions. First, our traditional mobile broadband business.
I think we can see it is suffering from the microeconomic and also the trade war. I think now getting stable. We see the customer now is, I think, our customer in Japan, in China. For the mobile broadband business, now the order is coming in the fourth quarter. We can see now the best period is over. From the current situation, we believe it will go better. That is from our traditional mobile business. For the new business, it is going very well. Most of our new product launch in Q3. For example, our platform launched in September. Our G40, our one-account, one-device, hyper-account, I think, multipurpose and multi-scenario device also. The new function we launched also end of the third quarter. Majorly in the third quarter, our new product, new solution launched in this quarter.
I think the feedback from the end user and from channel is quite positive as I mentioned in this quarter in the information. We get a big order for platform. The fourth order is 40,000 units. It is much bigger than our expectation. That is first. Our SIM card gets feedback from the end user that is very positive. I just mentioned we have about 10,000 pilot. We get very good feedback for the quality and the convenience. In technology, we prove we are in the leading position with its innovation super SIM for the people for a permanent second SIM. We prove this concept. Also, we get very positive operation data. The registry is about more than 75. The active rate is about more than 30%.
That means this very high percentage of the user in our we will increase in our future DAT and MAU. We will add more value to our business. I think also IoT, you can see we have faster growth. Even the smaller, the foundation is smaller, by every month, we have more than 30% increase every month. It's not less. Now for the CarPlay market and the camera market, we almost cover all the big tier one players. We believe we will get more fast growth in the coming months. I think more for the platform, for the SIM, and for our live product and IoT, this new three new product line get a very good potential. I believe in the coming quarter, we will get a better revenue than the Q3 and the Q2.
This year, we believe because we have an investment in the marketing and R&D, we spend, and that's why you can see this year compared with last year, we spend more than $3 million more than last year in the marketing campaign and R&D. This will generate, I think, the good increase in the future. Thank you.
Vivian Zhang (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Okay. I see. Okay. Thank you for the detailed information. That's all my questions.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Okay.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Theodore O'Neill from Litchfield Hills Research. Please go ahead.
Theodore O'Neill (CEO)
Thank you. Thank you very much. I just want to follow up on the PetPhone. The 40,000 unit order, is that going to the U.S.?
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
No.
As we close in, the TR amount scales. One Middle East tier one channel ordered 30,000 units of PetPhone into the Middle East market. That accounts for 70% something of the 40,000 units. Yeah. The remaining will sell to the U.S. market. I believe more PetPhone units will be sold to the U.S. market when we co-launch campaigns with Chewy and Walmart, these tier one channels, in the near future.
Theodore O'Neill (CEO)
Do you think that?
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
We believe that, sorry, yeah, we believe the U.S. is the biggest pet market. We also believe that, I think, we're bridging the digital gap between the people and the pets. This concept, I think, is far more than just a tracker, just a CCTV, just a single direction to monitor and manage the pet.
We are providing a mutual call, a mutual communication between the people and pets. The problem is we need to, I think, more education for this opportunity like iPhone many years ago. We believe iPhone changed the mobile internet in the world. Now people have to convince people and let people know the dog and pet can use the phone and the social like people. We are very confident about that. We need to get more campaign and more marketing spending in the U.S. and the rest of the world. That is why we try to circulate this business to try to continue. Because the initial data for just more than one month, get about 40,000 orders. I think 30,000 is come from the Middle East and another 10,000 come from the U.S. All this data, I think, gives us confidence.
We want to more and heavily invest in the R&D side and also in the marketing campaign in the U.S. and worldwide.
Theodore O'Neill (CEO)
Thank you. My next question is about the in-car infotainment system. In your press release, you say you've secured orders for that. I was wondering if you could give us any more detail on those orders and what the future might hold for your business there.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Yes. In-car infotainment, so majorly, I think for traditional, I think all your car, this in-car infotainment, majorly comes from the Chinese providers. We almost cover all these providers. That means their new generation all use our solution. We already integrated our solution into this provider. They majorly provide in the North American, Latin American, and also the Middle East and the Europe market.
I think we almost cover all the providers from the number one, number two, almost number 17. We already finished this initial presence and embedded with them. We can see the fast growth for in-car, like CarPlay, like the in-car infotainment. I think this will give us a huge increase and huge revenue in the future.
Theodore O'Neill (CEO)
Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This concludes our question-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back to Daniel Gao for any closing remarks.
Daniel Gao (Director of Investor Relations)
Okay. Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact your colleagues in investor relations through the contact information provided on our website or speak to our Investor relations firm, Cristensen Advisory. We look forward to speaking with you or giving our next quarterly call. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The conference has now concluded.
Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
Chaohui Chen (CEO)
Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.