Earnings call transcript: Tecnotree Q3 2025 misses forecasts, stock dips

Tecnotree Oyj’s Q3 2025 earnings report revealed a miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts, leading to a slight dip in stock price. The company reported an EPS of €0.35, which fell short of the forecasted €0.2755, and revenue of €52.8 million, below the expected €20.41 million. Following the announcement, Tecnotree’s stock price decreased by 0.53%, trading at €4.69.

Key Takeaways

• Tecnotree’s Q3 2025 earnings and revenue missed forecasts.
• Stock price declined by 0.53% post-announcement.
• Positive free cash flow achieved for six consecutive quarters.
• Strategic focus on AI and cloud transformation.
• Strong order backlog of €105.5 million.

Company Performance

Tecnotree’s overall performance in Q3 2025 showed a slight decline in net sales compared to the previous year, dropping from €54 million to €52.8 million. Despite this, the company achieved a constant currency revenue growth of 4.8%. The EBIT improved slightly to €13.2 million from €13 million, while net income decreased to €6 million from €7.8 million. The company also reported a positive free cash flow of €3.2 million, a significant improvement from the negative €2.2 million recorded last year.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €52.8 million (down from €54 million YoY)
• Earnings per share: €0.35 (down from €0.2755 forecast)
• EBIT: €13.2 million (up from €13 million YoY)
• Net Income: €6 million (down from €7.8 million YoY)
• Positive Free Cash Flow: €3.2 million (up from negative €2.2 million YoY)

Earnings vs. Forecast

Tecnotree’s actual EPS of €0.35 was below the forecasted €0.2755, representing a negative surprise of 27.4%. Revenue also fell short of the €20.41 million forecast by 8.87%. This miss contrasts with previous quarters where the company met or exceeded expectations, indicating a challenging quarter.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Tecnotree’s stock price decreased by 0.53%, trading at €4.69. This movement places the stock closer to its 52-week low of €2.3215, reflecting investor concerns over the earnings miss. The broader market and sector trends remained relatively stable, suggesting Tecnotree’s performance was a key driver of the stock movement.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Tecnotree is targeting over €4 million in free cash flow and expects a strong performance in Q4. The company continues to focus on converting its substantial order backlog into billings and cash. Strategic initiatives include expanding AI and cloud capabilities and attracting global high-skilled talent.

Executive Commentary

CEO Padma Ravichander highlighted the company’s transition from a cash-burning to a cash-generating growth story. "We have crossed the chasm of being a cash-burning company to a cash-generating growth story," she stated. CFO Indiresh Vivekananda noted, "Had the euro USD parity remained the same, our cash flow would have looked like $8 million in USD terms."

Risks and Challenges

• Forex volatility impacting financial performance.
• Execution risks in converting backlog to billings.
• Competitive pressures in mature markets.
• Dependence on AI and cloud transformation success.
• Market saturation in key regions.

Q&A

During the Q&A session, analysts questioned the lower license sales, which the company attributed to the normal business cycle. Forex volatility was also addressed, with management expressing confidence in meeting annual guidance despite these challenges. Emphasis was placed on execution as a primary focus to overcome current hurdles.

Full transcript - Tecnotree Oyj (TEM1V) Q3 2025:

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: With me today presenting are our CEO, Padma Ravichander, and CFO, Indiresh Vivekananda. We will be having the webcast here on Zoom, and we are opening the questions down below, which will be presented at the end of the call in the Q&A sections. Without further ado, CEO, Padma Ravichander, please go ahead.

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Good morning and welcome to our Q3 2025 results. I’m pleased to share our findings and update you on Tecnotree, along with Indiresh Vivekananda, our CFO, today. Q3 results continue to demonstrate our commitment to getting our long-term fundamentals as a company right. As a headline, I would say we have crossed the chasm of being a cash-burning company to a cash-generating growth story. I’ve been a CEO in Tecnotree now for almost 10 years, and I would say Tecnotree is a rare asymmetric opportunity. We are profitable, we generate cash, our revenues grow faster than other competitors in the market, which is fast consolidating, and we are also in the fastest growing market segments, which I will explain through the course of this presentation, especially in the areas of cloud, AI. However, we seem to be trading much below PE multiples of our peer group in the market.

My commitment is to ensure, as we move forward with these structural changes we have made, that every year, year on year, the new revenue that we grow will create, going forward, and convert to faster cash. As we move to mature markets, it will accelerate our delivery capability with AI and ensure that we move more towards a steady revenue growth capability with an ARR subscription-based model in the mature markets. Now, when we look at the key metrics, as you can see, this is a sixth consecutive quarter where we have had a free positive cash flow: 2025, $3.2 million year to date. This is not just an ad hoc one-time event. I think in the history of the company, this has been a record continuous performance in terms of free cash flow.

It’s actually a very structured process that we have created to generate cash from our operations. I’m proud to see our performance per guidance. In terms of revenue, we have certainly done well in constant currency. We grew by 4.8%. We will have to strip away the forex noise, as we are definitely growing faster than the flat BSS market when it comes to revenue growth in U.S. currency. Most of the markets that we sell are in U.S. dollars, and hence the forex devaluation has certainly had an impact on us, and hence the revenue in the quarter, of course, and for the year in euro terms, is a negative 2%. From my own personal perspective, I would like to see this to be a positive number, and I have an aspirational goal before the end of the year to make way to make this number positive as well.

When it comes to EBIT in constant currency terms, again, we have done exceedingly well compared to 2024 at $13 million. We are at 14.9% or 15% growth. This demonstrates our underlying profitability. I will double-click on this along with Indiresh Vivekananda further in the presentation. Looking at these numbers, you can see that our fundamentals are right, and we are a growth story. The next set of metrics are equally important, and we are as per guidance in most cases. If you look at the ARR, it’s up by 8%. This is definitely creating stickiness with our customers. This is a recurring revenue engine, which is predictable, which has high margin, and has a compounding effect as we deliver more projects and more managed operations for our customers year on year.

The real story here is definitely the order backlog: 40% up to $105.5 million, the strongest that the company has ever seen in its history so far. This is not just pipeline. This is actual orders booked that will convert in the next 12 to 36 months into revenue, along with more ARR. On the CapEx-to-sales, I think that we are doing well in terms of guiding that towards 12%, as we have said in the market, from the 19% of 2024. We are getting far more capital efficient as we use and adopt more AI in terms of improving our productivity and engineering velocity. While the DSO days are tracking a little under the guidance, we are certainly moving in the right direction in terms of the DSO days.

The bottom line on the numbers year to date would sum it up as the metrics are right, ARR is up, CapEx is down, order backlog, and collections are improving. This is definitely creating long-term shareholder value. Now, let’s look at the detailed performance of Q3. We got three new deals in this quarter, creating multiple geography expansions from a market perspective. What is really important this quarter is definitely the five goal IVs. The goal IV of a tier-one telco in the U.S. is extremely important to unlock and upsell more capability of our product stack into this particular operator in the U.S., but it also creates enough capability for us to go after other tier-one telcos in the U.S. market. Ooredoo Oman billing goal IV and modernization in a growth market gave them a 3x performance improvement on their billing systems.

The eSIM goal IV in a European market is a hot product for MVNO/MVNX capability and will create business expansion for Tecnotree globally. Finally, the tier one telcos that went live are not just pilot projects in MTN Group or in the Asia-Pac region. They are real production deployments in tier one operations. As you can see, our key contributors for ARR growth continue to grow, and our stickiness with these customers in terms of expanding our footprint, giving them greater support to monetize revenue on the platform continues. What is really compelling this quarter is the industry recognitions, and I would say two are exceedingly important. The first one is the Gartner recognition, where Gartner recognizes our AI capability to move from a niche player to a visionary. For Tecnotree, this is a feather on our cap, mainly because these are important validations in three ways.

First of all, many tier one telcos in mature markets look to Gartner for references. Secondly, it also helps us to address more cloud and more AI capabilities for tier two markets and MVNO/MVNX players globally. Finally, the AI capability that we have brought in attracts system integrators to work closer with us, increasing our market share and also expanding our footprint into newer markets. This quarter, we have continued to also grow the product features. Today, we stand out of the box with more than 4,500 features in our stack. We definitely continue to deliver a lot of large-scale AI transformation capabilities to tier one telcos, and the billing improvement definitely is opening doors for new opportunities in brownfield operators. Now, let’s look at the details in terms of the revenue guidance. Let me unpack this a bit more.

In constant currency, our revenue actually is right on the guidance, up 5.4%, but in real euro terms, it’s down by 2%, mainly because of the dollar headwinds that we have faced over the course of the whole year. I’m sure Indiresh will talk a little bit more about the U.S. dollar fluctuations, which was, while it appears temporary, seems to have continued across the first half especially. What is really critical to understand is the mix of the revenue. If you look at quarter three, while the license revenues are down, and we had predicted because we won several new orders and delivered the licenses in the first half of this year, in the second half of the year, the deliveries for these customers have commenced, and therefore the delivery revenues have increased.

We have also shown a very good positive increase on ARR revenue, which is exactly what we need in terms of front-loading delivery, and services revenue will convert into higher ARR margins in 6 to 12 months. To me, the key takeaway is the fact that the revenue diversification to ARR and the subscription-based models are working for the company. There are definitely improvements in collecting revenue because of AI. Finally, as you can see, we are winning in mature markets, both in terms of revenue in the regions of Europe and Americas, but also in terms of order backlog within these regions. These markets are definitely lower risk, higher payment growth, and higher margin markets. When I look a little bit deeper into the revenue mix, I’d like to go backward and look at the last five years of performance. It’s historical data, but it does tell a story.

You can see over the last five years, we have added more than 14 new customers. The requirement at the time was that tier one legacy customers, Claro and MTN, wanted a better mix and a better portfolio of customers who use Tecnotree products. We took this really seriously into our journey, and we added 14 new customers, all of which have today more potential to cross-sell and upsell. If you look at the ARR revenue, revenue was up in 2020, and then it took a slight dip and then moved back up again. That’s mainly because of changing the customer profile and adding new customers, which meant unlocking new licensed revenue and then moving up these customers into more DevOps and ARR subscription-based models over the course of 2023 and 2024. We also did certain other strategic things in the last five years.

In order to enter mature markets, we had to conform to certain regulatory requirements. We retired some very long-standing customers that were giving us a lot of ARR revenue in the 2021-2022 timeframe. That also reflects in terms of the dip that we took in ARR. We have sufficiently worked hard to replace those customers with new opportunities with our current portfolio of customers. It’s also important to note that we added seven new customers already this year. I wanted to take a little bit of time to really talk about the market positioning map and the five-year trends that we are seeing in the market and why the Tecnotree long-term strategy is a growth strategy, and we are extremely well positioned in the market.

If you look at the first graph, you can see that the opportunities for greenfield and brownfield, and the highest amount of greenfield opportunities are definitely in Africa and MIA. Tecnotree’s presence in these markets is long-term. We have a long-term engagement model. We have a lot of reference operators who are tier one, and therefore our ability to take on more digital transformations for greenfield definitely exists. We also see that there are new brownfield opportunities in North America and Europe. These are large transformation opportunities that will create new ARR capability for us and new revenue growth opportunities, the first one of which we unlocked in the U.S. market last year. In terms of the MVNO, MVNX business, we entered the European market to take market share in the MVNO business.

As you can see, in terms of market maps, Europe and North America are the fastest growing MVNO, MVNX markets, and Tecnotree is well positioned in terms of its product stack to take market share in these markets. In terms of CapEx and OpEx, again, Europe is more tuned towards an OpEx model, more an OpEx model, along with the U.S. This subscription-based model definitely means better margin, higher ARR revenue opportunities for Tecnotree. In terms of the BSS product stack itself, the highest call for action is in the transformation of the billing and the customer experience capabilities. If you look at the IDC recognition as a major player, recognizing Tecnotree as a major player in customer experience definitely ensures a sweet spot for us in terms of growing in the customer experience segment right across the globe.

Finally, in terms of our own maturity in AI, we are seeing opportunities come up in the MIA market for AI, and we are also seeing opportunities in Europe and U.S., mainly with SI partners partnering with us for faster growth. Basically, this market map tells us that we are placing our bets strategically perfectly. We have done the right types of product investments. All today we need to do is to execute, and the market will lift us to better growth. This is a very important slide for Q3, and I would request the help of Indiresh to unpack this a bit more. We did not make the Q3 expected numbers in terms of EBIT. The Q3 number for EBIT was $3.6 million, compared to $4.3 million in Q3 of 2024. Sorry, $5 million of 2024.

Obviously, the expectation in the market was a better EBIT, but there are reasons why we believe that it was prudent on our part to take the proper provisions that were necessary from a financial perspective. I will have Indiresh Vivekananda talk to it a little bit more on this slide. To me, what is really important is none of our customers have ever not paid us. I don’t believe, even today, I think we are collecting receivables that are due from 2021 and 2022. Some customers, long-standing customers, have, you know, we have realized the revenue so late into the game. I don’t believe that the revenues or the overdue receivables are not recognizable, but I will allow Indiresh to take this forward and explain a little bit more on the EBIT.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Thank you, Padma. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining this investor call. As Padma mentioned, I’ll explain a little bit on the EBIT front. As you can see, in real terms, our EBITs are lower compared to the last year. Do we measure ourselves on a quarterly basis, or do we look at a longer period of YTD? When we look at the YTD numbers, we are given a guidance that we will be up by 2%, and this is on the real numbers, not on a constant currency. As you can see, compared to the last year’s first nine months and the current year’s first nine months, we are above what we had achieved in the last year, which means that we are in line to achieve what we have given a guidance.

Now we’ll look at what has impacted our EBIT in this year, and especially in this quarter, if you see. There are two trends I want to highlight. One is we have made certain provisions. As you know, provisions are not write-offs. Basically, it’s a prudent, conservative way of accruing for any future haphazard. We have made a provision based on the geography in which my receivables are due and also the period for which it is outstanding. That calls for making prudent provisions, which we conservatively do, and also these provisions get reversed when we get paid for such outstandings. As Padma called out, we never had any bad debt so far in many years, but these are all accounting provisions which we need to make. Also, what is the other thing that is impacting our EBIT?

If you look at it, the CapEx-to-sales trend, as you can see, last year, at this point, we were capitalizing about 18% as a percentage of sales to our CapEx. This year, consciously, we have brought it down to about 12%, which is the guidance we had given. If we had continued the same trend of last year, my EBIT for this whole year would have been higher by another $4 million if we had captured it. All these things also, we need to understand that there are certain things which are external, like foreign currency raising. If we had a constant euro USD, probably our results would have been completely different. Probably I’d like to take it at a later slide. EBIT at this point, I would like to say that the provisions have impacted this. The lesser CapEx has impacted this, and currency fluctuations have impacted this.

On a constant currency, we are higher than last year. On a guidance for the first nine months, we are higher than the last year. Back to you, Padma.

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Indiresh. What is also important is that our overall fundamental strategy, I keep talking about the long-term profitable growth strategy of Tecnotree. If you look at the OpEx reductions that we commenced in 2024, they are still on. They are definitely giving us a good capability in terms of lowering the overall OpEx from the 2024 €51.2 million to the projected less than €46 million that we have projected for 2025. Our headcount is also carefully managed, and it’s lower than what it was in 2024. It’s not just pure accounting, but it’s also certain operational considerations that we are making in the business. The use of AI to boost engineering velocity certainly is continuing to help us. Free cash flow. Cash is king.

Consistent performance of delivering positive free cash flow for 18 consecutive months, I think, is a record performance for the company. This is clearly not a temporary phenomenon. This is structural, and I would have to say we have actually crossed the chasm to becoming a cash-generative compounder. Now we are in a mode where our operations generate cash enough for us to invest and grow and ensure we pay higher dividends on an annual basis. There are five long-term structural efficiencies, I think, in the business process that we brought forward over the last 18 months that have created this compelling story for Tecnotree. I already mentioned the OpEx reductions that we have benefited more than €5 million in permanent savings. As Indiresh mentioned, the streamlining of our CapEx spend in line with the revenue growth.

The cash collection, the ThinkCash Blue Cash initiative of ensuring that we are able to target and invoice and collect cash periodically and in right intervals, notify our customers who do not pay with proper dunning capabilities. The predictable ARR revenue and the subscription revenue that is improving the revenue collection capability and therefore the cash collection capability, the revenue recognition capability, and therefore the cash collection capability. Finally, we’ve brought in pricing discipline in terms of the deals that we go to market with. We are ensuring that we move away from non-profitable deals and do the right pricing especially in mature markets. That strategy definitely will improve our free cash flow going forward. We had a negative cash flow trend in 2022 of negative €4.8 million. It went to negative €7.7 million to a negative €1.8 million in year to date. We are tracking at €3.2 million.

I honestly believe we are on target to deliver a greater than €4 million free cash flow. If we were to look at this in constant currency, what would it be? I mean, this would be a very different story, won’t it be?

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Yes, if the dollar had remained equal to what it was at the end of last year, my free cash flow up to now would have been something like $8 million. That’s what we were expecting, or more than what some of the analysts also had expected last year that we’ll do $8 million in this year. We would have done it by nine months itself. That is something which is not in our control.

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Excellent. Okay, so this is my final slide. I think Tecnotree, I’ve laid out the story. We are poised for growth. The bottom line is we are playing in markets that amplify our growth, and we are growing. We have made the necessary foundational changes that we needed to make to create a moat and to take market share from our competitors. If you look at the BSS market, it’s performing at 2.2%. We are growing at 4.8% in constant currency. We’re taking market share away in mature markets from tier one competitors. You look at the cloud BSS business, we are partnering with hyperscalers and bundling our offerings with them to reduce the overall TCO. While the market is growing at 12% to 14%, the majority of our deals are now cloud-based, and we are taking a good amount of market share at 62%.

You look at the MVNO/MVNX spread, especially in mature markets of North America and the U.S., our order book is definitely clocking in a good amount of MVNO/MVNX opportunities at 35% when the market is moving below 10%. All of these key metrics tell us that we have made the right product choices. Our investment in TM Forum compliance has helped us definitely create a moat in the market and create attractiveness to our products in terms of its ease and speed of implementation. We have the right product mix. We have the right market. I shared with you all the market dynamics in the market map, and you can see that our ability to take market share in multiple areas across multiple geographies with multiple types of customers, enterprise customers, tier one operators, tier two telcos, etc., is a winning strategy.

Our partner mix, whether it is partnering with HCL or Accenture, Tata Communications Limited, these definitely accelerate our growth. They bundle our products along with the services that they are able to add on, which increases scalability for us. They often take us to the Fortune 500, especially in mature markets of the Americas and Europe, which we would have otherwise never been able to enter. The business model of ARR and subscription is far more profitable, far more predictable, and we have the right team to execute this capability for Tecnotree. I honestly believe this is the right investment thesis for growth of this company. Thank you.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Thank you. Thank you, Padma. I will take over from now. Yes, it’s been a mixed quarter for us. We have done pretty well in some of the areas, especially on the cash. We are able to continue our free cash flow for the sixth consecutive quarter. The revenue, we had given a guidance of low to high single-digit growth, which I believe we are in pace to achieve that. EBIT margin, we had said that we’ll be higher by 200 basis points. That’s 2% as a percentage. That is also we are in line compared to the last year nine months we have done it. Cash, free cash flow, we are greater than $4 million. So far in the first nine months, we have achieved $3.2 million. Receivable days, we have 100 to 140.

Currently, we are tracking around 154, and we should be able to achieve between 100 to 140 what we have given the guidance. CapEx to sales, 10 to 12%. Last year, we were at 18%. From there, we are bringing it down to between 10 to 12%. Dividend payout is something which we decided at the end of the year. Depending on the free cash flow, 10% of that is the aim to pay out as dividend and reduce the forex exposure to frontier countries by 10 to 15% in three years. We are able to achieve it in a shorter time. Currently, I think we are at around 15 to 16% in our thing. Now, I’ll go a little bit deeper into the numbers in a deeper way. Net sales, as we already said, is at $52.8 million compared to $54 million. This is part of YTD.

That’s from January to September current year versus last year. In 2023, we were at $56.2 million, and in 2022, we were at $51.5 million. A small decrease in terms of the real currency, but in constant currency, there is an increase by about 4.8%. What we see as $52.8 million would have been $56.6 million if the currencies had remained static as it was at the beginning of the year. The EBIT is at $13.2 million compared to $13 million in the last year and $16 million in 2023 and $12.2 million in 2022. Current year, we are at an operating margin of 26% compared to 24% in 2024. Again, reiterating, the guidance is 2% margin enhancement. On the financial items, which mainly comprises of my exchange losses, current year we have lost $4.8 million on exchange losses against $3.2 million in 2024.

In 2023, again, we had a huge loss in one of the geographies at $4.8 million. In 2022, we were at a smaller amount at $0.3 million. Exchange rate losses in financial this year is what is included in the financial items is $3.9 million, whereas last year it was $2.2 million. Based on the lower EBIT and the higher financial items and taxes, current year in the first nine months, we have clocked a net income of €6 million compared to €7.8 million, €8.8 million, and €8.3 million in the earlier years. The positive free cash flow, we have reiterating that again for the first nine months, is at €3.2 million, whereas last year it was negative €2.2 million.

The other highlight what we have spoken in this year has been the orders what we received is at €90.5 million, which is one of the highest against €54.2 million, €62 million, and €74 million in the earlier years. Because of the higher orders what we have received, the order backlog is at an all-time high of €105 million compared to €75 million, €78 million, and €76 million. The earnings per share is at €0.35. Last year it was €0.46. In 2023 and 2022, at a much, much lower one, but that is before the reverse split happened at €0.03 and €0.03. Now let’s move into the next slide. This is purely only the quarterly numbers I’m going to speak about. Current quarter, as we have already seen, we clocked €18.6 million compared to €19 million in the last year, same quarter.

Revenue removed at the constant level compared to the last year in a real currency. In constant currency, we were higher compared to the last year. The EBIT, again, €3.6 million. As we already explained, we took certain additional provisioning, and we also made provisions for the third-party contracts at €3.6 million. Last year it was €5 million and €6.2 million. Financial items, which is also an indication of how the currencies are moving, had more a stable time this year at €0.4 million, which is a positive compared to minus €0.1 million in the previous year. Taxes are at €6.6 million this time compared to €0.8 million and €1 million in the earlier years. Net income is at €3.4 million compared to €4.1 million and €3.2 million in the earlier years. Cash flow, again, is slightly lower compared to the last year at €12.4 million.

Order received is also slightly lower because we had a lot of orders coming in the earlier period at €16.5 million. Order backlog, as we explained at the end of the quarter, is €105 million, and EPS is at €0.2. One more point here is financial items positive due to forex movements. We had provided certain excess interest in the earlier period. After negotiation, we have brought it down, and we have taken that into our accounts this time. Next, I will go to the breakup of AR, which is one of the major asset items in the company. Currently, my AR stands at €35.8 million. Out of that, we are already provided for €5.7 million. Basically, as we said, the company has a policy based on the aging of the receivable plus the country in which these receivables are due.

We do have a risk index, and based on that, these provisions are made. As a prudent accounting one, we would like to ensure that our receivables are adequately provided for. The other highlight I want to bring to the attention of the audience here is the DSO days. Our aim, again, is between 100 to 140 by end of the year. As you could see, in Q2 of this year, it was clocking at 175 days. It is highly oscillating given the cyclical nature of our collections. On the breakup of these receivables, as you can see, nearly 25% are more than 270 days. That is where our major concentration will be to ensure that we bring that down. The rest of the ones are more in line with our industry standards, where normal credit terms are 90 plus days.

Next, I move into the US euro trend, 2024 and 2025, what we have understood from the experts. As you can see, euro has strengthened against USD substantially in the current year, more than 13% since the beginning of the year. Most of our contracts are in dollars. That has hit us. Probably, I don’t think any one of us had estimated or guessed that the dollar would weaken so badly and in such a short time. We are slightly recovering from the forex impact of weakening the dollar against euro in hedge funds. Exposure to frontier countries, we have brought it down substantially, and growth in mature markets is expected to reduce the impact of currency risk over a period of time. As you can see, our volatile currency was about 27% in last year, and that is about 16% in the current year.

Now I’ll also go to the summary of our assets and liabilities. The intangible assets that are basically the products which are developed in-house, there is a slight increase in that. Our trade receivables are lower compared to last year’s number, and also as at the end of December, by a slight amount. Other receivables are also trending at the same level of December, even though slightly lower than last year’s September number. Because we are able to have more free cash flow and aggressive cash collections, my cash balance, which was about $17 million last year at this time, has gone up to $20.7 million in the current year. The shareholders’ equity, because of the increase in our profit, has been added. It’s at $96.3 million at this point of time compared to $89.5 million at the same time last year.

There’s no change in the compulsory convertible dividends, which still stands at $23.1 million. Other non-current liabilities, basically for the employees’ retirement plans, the liability accounted is $4.2 million. Current interest-bearing liabilities, there is a slight increase compared to last year at $6.2 million. Trade payables have substantially come down from $15 million to about $10 million. Now, from our takeaway, I want to call out the following. One, as Padma pointed out, six quarters of free cash flow and on track to meet the FI guidance. Just at this point, in 2023, we had a negative $7 million free cash flow. The last time we had a negative free cash flow was in Q1 2024. After that, six quarters, we are able to achieve a free cash flow positive. Increase in provisions in Q3 resulted in lower EBIT.

Operating margin is comparatively lower, but again, we are on track to meet the guidance. Healthy underlying performance on all parameters, the guidance is on target. Order book at multi-year high and pipeline is stronger than ever. These are some of the takeaways from my side on the current financials.

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Thank you, Indiresh. I think we can move to a Q&A session.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you so much, Indiresh and Padma. Yes, I can confirm that we do have questions in the live chat, and we also had questions arriving just before the live event started that a few investors would not be able to join the webcast, but they will be watching the recording, and they submitted some questions. I’ll start with those questions. I apologize if the questions’ fonts will be too small for you, Padma and Indiresh, so I’m just going to read them out loud from the chat. You reported a 19% EBIT margin in Q3 2025, well below expectations. Your guidance of 200 basis points for 2025 would imply a very strong Q4, almost like the 61% EBIT margin from last year. That looks to be influenced by other items or timing effects. Would that be a correct assumption, and what exactly are those items?

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Okay, Padma, may I take?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Yeah, I think it’s best.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Thomas, for asking this question. Thanks to the investor who asked this. Yes, if you look at the guidance, the guidance is normally given for the whole year, and the guidance given is 2% or 200 basis points above the last year’s margin. Last year, we had an EBIT margin of 24%, and current year, for the first three months, and current year, we have achieved 25% in the first three months, which means that we are on track with the guidance. This quarter was affected by a higher provisioning and accruing for third-party contracts for delivering large transformation deals, which we got, and also certain mobilization costs for ramping up the delivery in mature markets we need to incur this quarter. The margins can fluctuate based on the business seasonality and project lifecycle.

Structurally, the company is focused on optimizing OpEx, improving CapEx-to-sales, and building long-term predictable ARR. Again, just to bring it to the point that normally last year also our Q4 EBIT was the highest in the whole year. Given that historical data and looking at the current year trend, we are confident of meeting the guidance what we are given.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Indiresh. The second question, you announced a surprise receivables provision in Q3. Can you please give more information on which region this relates to and why it was booked under other operating expenses rather than financial items if it’s linked to trade receivables?

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Probably I’ll take it again. Thanks. This is a great question. Thank you for asking this. I want to call out one thing. What we have made is a provision and not a write-off. That’s the first point I want to call out. The provision is a standard thing which we make prudently based on a set accounting principles and a policy what we have. It depends on the country, it depends on the aging, and the country risk assessment, which we take it from the global websites. We have a matrix through which we arrive at what is the provision that is to be needed, and we take it. Again, as I repeated earlier, provision does not mean a write-off, and also it does not mean that the provisions will not be reversed. When we collect the money, automatically that gets reversed.

Also, a write-off could be a financial item, but as far as the IFRS 9 is concerned, any of these provisions we make is an operating expense and not a financial expense, and that is how we prefer to disclose it, and that is how we show it as an impact on my EBIT.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: You talked about mobilization costs from new contracts in the U.S. and Europe. How big were they, and will they continue to weigh on margins? Do these costs currently contribute to revenue, or are they more like investments at this stage?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Right now, the mobilization costs in Q3 are not really significant, so we have not calculated it separately. Typically, it’s for onboarding teams in newer markets where we have digital transformation deliveries like U.S., Europe, MIA, South Africa, etc. These investments definitely support the project execution and then gradually generate ARR revenue in future quarters and years. It’s really a strategic long-cycle contracts that require this kind of investments typically, and not quick revenue hits like in the past years. The payback will come with higher ARR over time because of the local delivery capability that we will be creating close to the customers that we serve in the markets that we serve. At a company level, I really believe that the significantly reduced OpEx compared to the last year will efficiently manage the resourcing requirements of these local geographies.

The use of AI in our engineering velocity will improve productivity and also is already showing better cost management overall for us. With all of these factors built in, this is not a significant event.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Padma. You’ve had recurring foreign exchange hits this year. What’s the remaining exposure, and can we expect the volatility to ease now?

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Okay, probably I can take it. Yeah, thank you. Thank you again, Thomas. Great question. The YTD forex loss, if you look at it, it’s about $3.9 million, mainly coming from the hedge fund impact. In Q3, we had a small gain of $0.3 million. The frontier market share now is substantially lower at about 16%, down from 27% we discussed earlier. The local delivery and currency match contracts do create a sort of a natural hedge. However insignificant it could be, but still there is a natural hedge. The euro USD outsized impact on forex loss this year. I don’t think we had factored this when we planned last year. Forex loss is not structural. Large cost and revenues sit in USD. We expect markedly lower FX swings going into 2026 based on what we have seen in Q3 of this year.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Indiresh. Next one, the order book is strong at $105 million, but cash flow is still modest. When will this backlog start turning into visible revenue and cash generation?

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Probably I’ll take, and then I can request Padma to add something.

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Absolutely.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Yeah, these are all large transformation projects. These take the timeframe anywhere between 8 to 24 months, depending on the complexity of the particular customer. Revenue recognition is cyclical, with the license coming in earlier, followed by services through the course of deployment, and followed by the support, which is in ARR mode. Cash usually follows one or two quarters later due to the milestone payments. In Q3, free cash flow is about $1.2 million, as I called out, sixth straight positive quarter. I hope 2026-2027, we should have this uplift coming in the future years. Padma, you want to add anything?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: No, I think you’ve covered it all, and I think this is a record order book for the company. It speaks highly of the product stack and the standardization that we have achieved. Therefore, I would only say the more we improve the speed of delivery, the faster you can recognize the revenue and collect the cash. That’s where our focus will be going forward.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: There are some similar questions, so I will take the first one. License sales collapsed to $0.1 million from $5.8 million year on year. What happened, and when do they come back?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: I had mentioned this even in the H1 results that the nature of our business is digital transformation, which involves three parts. It involves licenses to be dropped to the client, then modifications, integrations, testing, training, holding the hands of the customer to go through some transformations themselves, etc. happen, which we call as services revenue. That’s followed by an ARR model through which they can add more features to the product stack or also manage the operations. We manage the operations for the clients. This is a cycle of our revenue pattern. Last quarter, we heavily booked licenses. This quarter, we have started delivering the services on top of those licenses in the various geographies. Therefore, we are seeing the transformation has moved to a deployment phase.

Once the deliveries and services revenue rise and ebb, you will start seeing the ARR revenues going up as new customers come on board. This is the cyclical nature of our business and a normal pattern for most tier one telcos. We are working more and more towards a subscription-based model, especially with the smaller tier two telcos, MVNO/MVNX kind of clients, and cloud SaaS model clients. That, I believe, will be where we will bundle both the licenses and the services into an ARR to improve revenue predictability and more timely cash collection. That will be the change in the mix of revenue that we will see in the upcoming years.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Padma. The $1 million per quarter free cash flow looks small. How much of that is operational versus timing or one-off movements? What is the role of new loans that the company took in Q3?

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Okay, thank you. Interesting question. Sorry to be repeated here, but I need to bring it to everybody’s attention that for multiple years, we had a negative free cash flow culminating at about $7 million negative in 2023. In 2024, beginning also the first quarter, we had something like $4 million negative free cash flow. Thereafter, we changed the way we operate. There was an initiative last year called ThinkCash Blue Cash. All of that ensured that we started moving into the free cash flow positive region. This is the sixth quarter we are continuously on free cash flow positive. Is that a history? Is it a justification for the current performance? May not be. I want to also again bring one more parameter into this.

Had the euro USD parity remained the same, like at the beginning of the year, our cash flow for this first nine months, instead of $3.2 million, would have looked something like $8 million in USD terms. The operating cash flow YTD is about $14.8 million, which is about 15% higher than last year. There was a question on why do we take small-term loans, which is practically the way we look at it. We operate in multiple countries, and in certain geographies, we are expected to give certain performance guarantees to our customers. When we approach the banks for these guarantees, they insist that we do have a certain credit business with them, and also the same is given back to the bank as a security deposit for the guarantees they issue.

This is more for an operational reason why we need to be associated with some of these large banks. As you can see, whenever I compute my free cash flow, I do not consider these loans into that. It’s straight away from my operations as the free cash flow is computed as per the IFRS guidance.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Indiresh. If I could ask that the next question and answers, if you guys could keep answers to about 30 seconds to a minute, we could get through all the questions that are coming into the chat.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: We’ll try. We’ll try.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: It’s great that, you know, there’s a lot of interest regarding our company’s results for the Q3. Let’s keep them short in the future. Given the cost-based and provision, are you still comfortable with your guidance for growth in margin?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: I’ll try to answer, you can add. Yes, we are ready to meet the guidance for the end of the year, as far as I go. We have a healthy order backlog, which is converting and a strong pipe. We expect Q4 to be a strong ending quarter for us, as always. As long as we can manage the execution risks and we are through the use of AI and other tools and further productization, our pipe conversion visibility is very, very good.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you. What are the key priorities for the last quarter of 2025?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: I’ll answer this. I really believe it’s converting the backlog into billings and cash. Collecting cash is the most important priority and focusing on the right projects that will ensure that we will invoice in the quarter and collect within the quarter. We also are focused on attracting global high-skilled talent across the board as we expand our market footprint, both in the area of AI and cloud. This is another key focus for the company. We need to manage our timelines. We need to deliver on time to make the invoicing and the cash collections also be on time. That will continue to be a delivery pressure on all the engineers in the company and a pressure on management as well. Finally, using AI-driven efficiencies to maintain cost controls and scaling into newer markets will also be an equal focus in Q4.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Padma. As revenue contribution from North America and Europe rises over the next years, how should we model the net impact on gross margins given deferring professional services, intensity, personal compensation levels?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Very good question. This is what we deal with all the time. I really believe we have transformed Tecnotree from a solutions and projects company to a product company over the last five years. It’s taken a lot of CapEx. It’s taken a lot of effort from our teams, and the TM Forum standardization and adherence to standards has definitely helped create a moat. We have placed the right bets, as you have seen, whether it’s in cloud, whether it’s in AI. We acquired an AI company well ahead of the requirements for AI in telecoms, and we have created a moat. The productized stack and the partners today that we attract, especially the SIs, help us unlock more revenue in Fortune 500 companies in mature markets.

I think we will intensify embedding AI into our tools to manage costs, increase productivity, more automation in the process, less reliance on professional services. All of these things will help us manage the OpEx well.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you. Shortly, what’s your biggest competitive threat?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: I don’t think I have a competition because I really believe our real risk is execution. I believe the tier one competitors are consolidating and pulling back from mid-market, so they are not really a threat for us. The network and OSS vendors have very limited opportunities because they have legacy systems and are bound by certain geopolitics. Our other competitors, which are tier two vendors, but we are out innovating them in AI and cloud-native and MVNO/MVNX capabilities, so they are not really a threat. The market is truly ours to lose. The only loss could be because of pure execution. We really need to focus on delivery, delivery, delivery on time.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Thank you. How big is the share of work done by system integrators’ personnel at delivering projects? Are system integrator billings Tecnotree or the customer directly?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: They vary from project to project. It really depends on the role that the SI plays in a given project. Sometimes they come into a management role. Sometimes we train them, and then they start delivering some of the services themselves. I believe that, you know, what was the, can I just look at the question again? The role of the SI continues to change, and I believe that some of the SIs bill directly, some of the SIs bill through us. The combination also continues to evolve based on client requirements. The partnerships are always strategic.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Okay. You mentioned in the Q3 report that digital transformation projects in Europe and the Americas require you to incur mobilization costs towards hiring of local high-skilled talent to accelerate delivery. However, only two persons were added to your headcount in the other countries, from 37 persons to 39 persons. What type of costs do you mean with mobilization costs?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: There are many types of costs. In large transformation projects, there are also costs for people to travel to those locations, people who are highly skilled in the product execution, architects, product experts, managers, engineers, testers. Many of them have to travel, meet clients, work in the client environments, train clients to use our product, etc. The cost is not just a hiring mix. The cost is high-skilled labor and mobilization costs to deliver the project on time using the capabilities we already have. We also have some third-party and hardware costs, depending on what the client requires, whether a bundled cloud or an on-prem infrastructure depends on the nature of the engagement. Having a productized stack and AI-driven productivity definitely helps us reduce the overall cost spend, but there are definitely localized costs that evolve during the course of the project.

Of course, maybe Indiresh knows, in some cases, because of the security requirements, we are even having to have some costs related to financing.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Bank guarantees.

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Yes.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: Okay, thank you so much. There are questions that we’ll have to wait until an Indiresh interview or other type of session. There’s also, thankfully, questions that we have already answered in the questions earlier, so I will skip those, such as can you open up a bit more about which outstanding receivables you did take provisions for? There’s also questions on the licensing. Great job answering those, but we are unfortunately getting out of time for the Q3 earnings call. We will be gathering all the questions that you guys have pulled in the open Q&A boxes. We will also be announcing the Q4 sometime on our investor pages once we have those dates confirmed. Regarding capital market days, we are exploring, so if you have any questions or suggestions for Tecnotree to join any European capital market days, please do ahead and do so on my behalf.

If Indiresh and Padma would like to thank you for joining this Q3 call, and we hope to see and hear from you soon. Thank you, and any sign-off from Padma or Indiresh?

Padma Ravichander, CEO, Tecnotree: Thank you, Thomas, and I’m looking forward to an excellent close of 2025. Thank you.

Indiresh Vivekananda, CFO, Tecnotree: Thank you.

Thomas, Moderator/Operator: All right, thank you, everybody.

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