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Eltek Ltd (ELTK) reported its third-quarter earnings for 2025, revealing a decline in revenue and a net loss, which fell short of market expectations. The company’s stock reacted negatively, dropping 15.91% in pre-market trading. Eltek’s revenue for the quarter was $13.3 million, slightly below last year’s $13.5 million, while the net loss stood at $0.03 per share. The company’s earnings call highlighted operational challenges and currency impacts affecting its financial performance.
Key Takeaways
- Eltek reported a net loss of $0.03 per share for Q3 2025.
- Revenue decreased to $13.3 million from $13.5 million in Q3 2024.
- Stock price fell by 15.91% in pre-market trading following the earnings release.
- Operational instability and currency depreciation impacted results.
- The company anticipates improved production efficiency by mid-2026.
Company Performance
Eltek’s performance in the third quarter of 2025 was marked by a slight decline in revenue and a net loss, reflecting challenges in operational stability and currency fluctuations. The company faced a depreciation of the US dollar against the Israeli shekel, which eroded revenue by approximately $800,000. Despite these challenges, Eltek maintained a positive operating cash flow of $2 million.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $13.3 million, down from $13.5 million in Q3 2024.
- Gross Profit: $1.6 million, decreased from $3.5 million in the prior year.
- Net Loss: $0.2 million or $0.03 per share.
- EBITDA: $0.6 million, down from $2.3 million a year ago.
- Cash Balances: $11.6 million.
Earnings vs. Forecast
Eltek’s Q3 2025 earnings missed market expectations, with a net loss of $0.03 per share. The revenue also fell short, coming in at $13.3 million. The company’s performance reflected ongoing operational challenges and currency headwinds, which were not fully anticipated in the forecasts.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings announcement, Eltek’s stock price dropped by 15.91% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor concerns over the company’s financial performance and future outlook. The stock’s decline was significant, considering its 52-week high of $12.19 and low of $7.65.
Outlook & Guidance
Looking forward, Eltek expects gradual stabilization of its new production lines and aims for a gross margin of 26-27% in the medium term. The company plans to complete the integration of a new coating line by mid-2026 and continues to focus on improving production efficiency.
Executive Commentary
Ron Freund, CFO, stated, "Each additional dollar of revenue contributes meaningfully to our gross profit," highlighting the importance of revenue growth in improving profitability. CEO Eli Yaffe remarked on competitive pressures, noting, "The new entry is going to stay. The question is, what’s going to be the price level?" This underscores the challenges posed by new competitors in the market.
Risks and Challenges
- Currency Fluctuations: Continued pressure from currency depreciation could impact financial results.
- Operational Instability: New equipment and staff integration may lead to further production challenges.
- Competitive Pressure: New foreign competitors entering the market could affect Eltek’s market position.
- Raw Material Costs: Increased raw material consumption and energy costs remain a concern.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the timeline for resolving operational challenges, which the company expects to improve by mid-2026. Questions also focused on the impact of USD depreciation, with executives noting that price adjustments typically take 6-9 months to materialize. Additionally, the presence of new Asian competitors and their potential impact on pricing was discussed.
Full transcript - Eltek Ltd (ELTK) Q3 2025:
Conference Call Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Eltek Ltd 2025 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are at present in a listen-only mode. Following management’s formal presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, and Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, I’d like to remind you that we’ll be referring to forward-looking information in today’s presentation and in the Q&A. By its nature, information contains forecast assumptions and expectations about future outcomes, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, outlined here and discussed more fully in Eltek’s public disclosure filings. These forward-looking statements are projections and reflect the current beliefs and expectations of the company. Actual events or results may differ materially.
We’ll also be referring to non-GAAP measures. Eltek undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring subsequent to this date. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Eli Yaffe. Mr. Yaffe, please go ahead.
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for joining us for the Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 earning call. With me is Ron Freund, our Chief Financial Officer. We will begin by providing you with an overview of our business and a summary of the principal factors that affected our results during the Third Quarter, followed by the details of our financial results. After our prepared remarks, we will be happy to answer any of your questions. By now, everyone should have access to our press release, which was released earlier today. The release will be also available on our website. We ended the Third Quarter with sales of $13.3 million, and sales for the first nine months is total $38.6 million. Gross profit for the quarter was $1.6 million, with break-even, operating income, and net loss of $0.2 million.
Our results were affected by the sharp depreciation of the US dollar against the Israeli shekel, which increased our reported NIS-dominated expenses and reduced gross profits. The total impact of the currency erosion on operation profit was approximately $800,000 compared to the third quarter of 2024. At the end of the second quarter, we updated our pricing model to reflect the currency trends. We expect to see the positive impact of the revised pricing beginning in the coming quarters as a new quotation issued after the end of Q2 2025 takes effect. Our bottom line was further impacted by approximately $0.0 million in financial expenses, primarily reflecting the continued depreciation of the US dollar against the shekels. This effect was mainly related to the US dollar-dominated assets, including cash and cash equivalents, short-term deposits, and trade receivables, net of trade payables.
On the operational front, we continue to experience some instability in our production processes. This is primarily related to the ramp-up of new equipment installed over the past year, as well as the integration of the newly recruited engineers and production staff who are still gaining experience with these systems. As we have mentioned in previous calls, we are in a mindset of transition period as we absorb significant additional capacity and technology upgrades. In addition to the foreign exchange impact, the key contributors to the operational results in this quarter were: higher depreciation expenses resulting from the purchase of new machines that became operational during this year, increased raw material consumption driven by fluctuations of process instability during the ramp-up phase, and higher energy costs reflecting peak summer rates.
We expect these effects to gradually be modest as the new lines stabilize, processes mature, and the expense team reaches full proficiency. From the market perspective, demand for the products remains strong, led by the defense sector, which represents 63% of the quarterly sales, alongside 9% for the industrial and 6% for the medical customers. RigidFlex products account for 66% of the quarterly sales and 65% of the first nine months of this year. We are seeing the entry of several new foreign competitors into our market. While this trend may limit price increases in certain segments, Eltek’s technological leadership, long-standing customer relationship, and specialization in high-end complex PCB solutions position us well to maintain and, in some cases, expand our competitive advantage. Delivery time across the industry remains extended, reflecting strong global demand and constrained manufacturing capacity. Pricing dynamics are also affected by segments.
In low-volume, high-complexity production, competition remains limited, allowing for greater pricing flexibility. In mid to high-volume production, we are seeing increased competition from new entrants. We are also facing pressure from several large Israeli customers to extend credit terms, which has increased working capital requirements and financial expenses. Recent improvement in the regional security has positively affected logistics. Shorter raw material delivery times now allow us to gradually reduce inventory levels and partially offset the higher working capital requirements. Our production capacity expansion program is progressing well. We are finishing the construction and the preparation of the new production hall, which will be housed in the new coating line. Finally, our RP project continues to progress according to plan. We are preparing to go live during 2026.
The system will replace and integrate all company platforms, including the production satellite system, providing a modern data-driven work environment with greater operational visibility, control, and efficiency across business functions. I will now turn the call over to Ron Freund, our CFO, to discuss our financial results.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Thank you, Eli. I would like to draw your attention to the financial statements for the Third Quarter of 2025. During this call, I will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Eltek uses EBITDA as a non-GAAP financial performance measurement. Please see our earnings release for the definition and the reasons for its use. I will now go over the highlights of the 2025 Third Quarter. All numbers mentioned are in US dollars. Revenues for the Third Quarter of 2025 were $13.3 million compared to $13.5 million in the Third Quarter of 2024. Gross profit for Q3 2025 totaled $1.6 million compared to $3.5 million in 2024. Operating profit for the Third Quarter of 2025 was $50,000 compared to $1.9 million in the same period last year.
We recorded financial expenses of $0.3 million in Q3 2025 compared to financial income of $0.3 million in Q3 2024, mainly driven by changes in the exchange rate relative to the US dollar, net of interest earnings on our cash reserves. Net loss for Q3 2025 was $0.2 million, or $0.03 per share, compared to net income of $1.7 million, or $0.25 per share in Q3 2024. EBITDA amounted to $0.6 million in Q3 2025 compared to $2.3 million in the prior year period. In the third quarter of 2025, we generated positive cash flow for operating activities of $2 million compared to $1.6 million in Q3 2024. As of September 30, 2025, our cash balances totaled $11.6 million. We are now ready to answer your questions.
Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Please stand by. The first question is for Mark Sergustanski of Kappler. Please go ahead.
Analyst/Questioner: Hello, guys. It’s a pretty low quarter for you. I want to understand because last quarter you said that your operational issues were almost behind you. How, again, you speak about the operating issues? When will we see the improvements of your pricing lift due to USD depreciation?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: Thank you, Mark. What we reported last quarter was about the end of the construction and the dust and the erosion and the wall break and everything that is already behind that, as we reported. Now, the instability is due to engineering and manpower, the operator itself of the machine. So it’s two different issues. Regarding what was your second question?
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Regarding when we will see the effect of price increases due to the low US dollar?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: Usually, it takes six to nine months until quotation is mature and translated to profits.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: I understand. When do you think you will be behind your operational difficulties?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: It’s tough to say because it depends upon the absorption rate of the employees and the absorption rate of the engineering forces, which is gained from day to day. It’s hard to say and hard to predict when it’s going to be ended. Of course, it’s our goal to reduce this period to as short as possible.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Okay. I have one more question. You guided for 26-27% gross margin in the middle term. When approximately will we be able to reach those gross margins?
Analyst/Questioner: Yes. Mark, hi. Actually, further in the past, we expect to complete the integration of the new coating line scheduled to arrive soon by the middle of 2026. This line is expected to streamline our core manufacturing processes and expand our production capacity. We hope also to stabilize our production processes by that time and improve our gross margin. As we have noted in the past, each additional dollar of revenue contributes meaningfully to our gross profit and, of course, to net income. Therefore, increasing our sales volume is expected to have a significant positive impact on this profitability.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Yeah, because this quarter was pretty okay on the revenue. Again, I don’t understand why all the time we have these operational difficulties.
Analyst/Questioner: I think that you should take a look at, first of all, the dollar influence, which is unpredicted and we cannot.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Yeah, because.
Analyst/Questioner: We cannot change it. Except for that, as Eli said before, our production processes are still not stable enough, and we suffer from increased raw material consumption. It is not that production stopped or that we have a problem with the machine. The efficiency is not as we want it to be. As we move forward, people gain more knowledge in exactly how to work with the new machines. We hope that it will take us by the middle of 2026 to solve also these problems. We are not satisfied with the result as you are, but that’s the situation now.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Okay. Okay, Eli.
Conference Call Operator: If there are any additional questions, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Please stand by while we poll for more questions. The next question is from Ron Freund. Please go ahead.
Hello, guys. I wanted to ask three questions. First of all, can you elaborate more about the negative impact, as you said, from new competition? Second, about the price pressure you said you felt this quarter. Third question is, can we assume the negative impact from currency and foreign exchange and NIS to US dollars will continue this quarter?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: Regarding your first question, the competition starts from competition not in Israel, competition from abroad from the Far East, but not China. They start to penetrate more and more to the defense sector. What was your second question?
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: About the price pressure you said you felt this quarter?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: That’s, of course, limited our possibility to increase the price to any level that we would like because they are in the entry level, and they put some pressure mainly in the high-volume production to be in the entry level and reduce the price.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Is it something you see sustainable?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: In the volume, there is less competition right now.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Is it something you see as sustainable, competition from the new entry from Asia?
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: The new entry is going to stay. It’s going to stay. The question is, what’s going to be the price level? It’s hard to forecast. Right now, the entry-level pricing is hurting us. That’s on high-volume production. On low-volume production, there is less competition. We have more flexibility in the pricing, as I said before. What was your third question?
Analyst/Questioner: Yeah. It was regarding the US dollar erosion. Hi, Ron.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Hi.
Analyst/Questioner: As I hope you understand, we are getting hit by the erosion of the US dollar in finance expenses, also in the operating income. As long as the dollar keeps to be eroded, we are going to have additional financing expenses. Also, our denominated expenses, NIS denominated expenses, are going to be in a higher level. As we said previously, we hope that the new pricing will let us cover these extra dollar expenses. I think that you asked for the next quarter, the fourth quarter. I think that as long as the dollar is the exchange rate is less than it was at the end of the third quarter, then you should expect finance expenses and also operating income to be affected by.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: As I understand, we should feel compounded pressure both from the top line because of the new entry and from the foreign exchange, at least at the fourth quarter.
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: The new entries, guys, will give us a limit to the new quotations that we can send.
Ron Freund, Chief Financial Officer, Eltek Ltd: Okay.
Conference Call Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Before I ask Mr. Yaffe to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind the participants that a replay of this call will be available tomorrow on our website.
Eli Yaffe, Chief Executive Officer, Eltek Ltd: In closing, I would like to thank the company employees and the management teams for their hard work during this time and to thank our customers and our investors for their continued support.
Conference Call Operator: This concludes the Eltek Eli Yaffe 2025 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.
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