iQSTEL (IQST) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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Date

Thursday, May 21, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer — Leandro Iglesias
• Chief Financial Officer — Alvaro Quintana
• Head of Investor Relations — Ethan Walfish

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Takeaways

• Revenue -- $97.9 million, up 70% year over year, driven by both organic growth and the integration of GlobeTopper.
• Organic revenue share -- 87% of revenue derived from core subsidiaries including Etelix, IoT Labs, QXTEL, Smartbiz, SwissLink, QGlobal, and Whisl.
• Gross profit -- over $2 million, increasing 7.8% year over year, reflecting current business mix.
• Business segment mix -- Telecom divisions contributed 87% of total revenue, with fintech (GlobeTopper) accounting for 13% and almost $13 million.
• Gross profit contribution -- GlobeTopper generated $829,000, representing 42% of consolidated gross profit.
• Commercial network scale -- Maintains relationships with over 600 global telecom operators and operational presence in 21 countries spanning four continents.
• Digital services rollout -- Launched IQSTEL Digital Services subsidiary and appointed Jorge Enrique Becerra to accelerate commercialization of high-margin digital offerings.
• Gross margin profile -- Digital services such as artificial intelligence expected to deliver gross margins near 40%, with other digital segments exceeding 25%.
• Company valuation -- Book equity per share stated as nearly $3, while priced at about $1.30, with management emphasizing a priority to "Closing that valuation gap."
• Capital structure -- Reported zero convertible debt or earnouts outstanding. Management indicates this provides flexibility for growth-focused execution.
• Technology investment -- Increased technology expenses at operating subsidiary level tied to AI-driven offerings and combined switching platform development.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- Operating subsidiaries remained positive; consolidated adjusted EBITDA was nearly breakeven, approaching positive territory.
• Revenue target -- Maintains 2026 revenue target of $430 million and a long-term vision to achieve $1 billion in annual revenue with higher-margin digital mix.
• Strategic partnerships -- Early commercial traction noted in partnership with Alhambra IT, supporting the digital service expansion strategy.

Summary

iQSTEL (NASDAQ:IQST) emphasized a strategic transformation from a traditional telecom provider toward a global distribution platform for advanced digital services. Management noted that investments in AI-driven and high-margin digital products are expected to accelerate profitability as these offerings are commercialized. The clean capital structure, paired with strong organic and acquisitive growth, positions the company for potential revaluation in public markets.

• Gross revenue before eliminations reached $98.6 million, reflecting the scale of commercial activity beyond net reported numbers.
• Management referenced participation in International Telecoms Week and reported direct interest from large telecommunications carriers in recent digital service launches, including cybersecurity and digital health.
• Alvaro Quintana stated, "Those services has margins over 25%. For example, in artificial intelligence, we are expecting gross margin close to 40%," explicitly connecting new offerings to margin expansion.
• The company reiterated that execution success relies on leveraging established global commercial distribution rather than solely product innovation.

Industry glossary

• Gross revenue before eliminations: Total sales prior to removing inter-company transactions and consolidation adjustments, used to gauge the company's aggregate commercial activity.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Ethan Walfish

Good morning, and thank you for joining IQSTEL's first quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me today, I'm pleased to have Leandro Iglesias and Alvaro Quintana. The recording of today's call will be archived and available in the investor relations portion of our website for a minimum of 30 days. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements such as dialogue regarding our revenue expectations or forecasts for remaining quarters and the full fiscal year of 2026 and 2027. These statements are based on our current expectation and information available as of today and are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions.

Actual results may differ materially as a result of various risk factors that have been described in our periodic filings with the SEC. As a result, we caution you against placing undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We assume no obligations to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events, except as required by law. In addition, other risks are more fully described in IQSTEL's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be reviewed at www.sec.gov. Yesterday, May 20th, 2026, the company filed with the SEC its Form 10-Q for Q1 2026, and afterwards, issued a press release announcing those financial results.

Participants of this call who may not have already done so may wish to look at those documents as we provide a summary of the results on this call. With that, I will now turn the call over to Leandro Iglesias.

Leandro Iglesias

Thank you, Ethan. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Q1 2026 was a very important quarter for IQSTEL, not only because we delivered strong financial growth, with revenue increasing nearly 70% year-over-year, but because this quarter clearly demonstrates the strategic evolution of IQSTEL. For years, investors have known us primarily as a telecommunication company. Today, that description is no longer complete. IQSTEL has evolved into something much, much more valuable, a global commercial platform capable of distributing advanced digital services at scale. That distinction is extremely important because many companies can build innovative products, very few companies have already built the trusted infrastructure, commercial relationships, operational footprint, and distribution access required to commercialize those products globally. That is what IQSTEL has built. I want to spend a moment on what I believe is the most important investment thesis for IQSTEL. That is, the true value of IQSTEL is not just our current telecom revenue, it's the business platform that we have built. Today, IQSTEL has commercial relationships with more than 600 telecom operators worldwide, operations in 21 countries across four continents, six strategic commercial offices globally, potential commercial reach to approximately 2.3 billion end users, a business operating nearly at $400 million annual revenue run rate. Listen, this platform took years to build. It required disciplined execution, strategic acquisitions, operational expertise, and trusted long-term commercial relationships. Replicating this would require years, significant capital, and deep industry execution capability. That is our moat. That is our competitive advantage. Historically, this infrastructure was built to support telecommunications services, but now, it serves a much larger strategic purpose. It gives IQSTEL the ability to commercialize high-margin digital services globally. This is where the transformation becomes compelling. Instead of building a new customer acquisition engine from scratch, we can leverage existing trusted relationships. That dramatically reduces the go-to-market timelines, the customer acquisition cost, execution risk, and significantly improves scalability. This is why IQSTEL is evolving from a telecom operator into a global digital services distribution powerhouse. Now, we are entering the monetization phase of this strategy. Our growth priorities include AI-powered solutions, fintech, cybersecurity, digital health, enterprise communications, advanced digital business services, too. Our advantage is not merely product innovation. Our advantage is our commercialization. we already own the hardest asset: trusted commercial distribution. That creates a very powerful economical model, and execution is already underway. We just launched IQSTEL Digital Services, a dedicated subsidiary focused exclusively on accelerated commercialization of high-margin digital offerings. We just appointed Jorge Enrique Becerra to lead this effort. We are also seeing early commercial validation through our growing partnerships with Alhambra IT, which demonstrates market demand for our enterprise digital capabilities. Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear. We remain committed to our previously announced of $430 million revenue target for 2026. Historically, the Q1 has been one of our softer seasonal quarters. Even with that seasonality, our current performance reinforces our confidence in achieving our annual objectives.

Long term, our strategic vision remains building a $1 billion annual revenue business, supported by a stronger mix of high-margin digital services. IQSTEL's competitive advantage is not simply our ability to develop innovate products. It is our ability to commercialize innovation globally through an already established distribution ecosystem that would take years of substantial investment to replicate it. To summarize, we have spent years building the platform. Now, we are monetizing. This is the transformation of IQSTEL, a company once defined primarily by telecom connectivity is now evolving into a scalable global digital services distribution business. We believe that transformation creates a compelling long-term value opportunity for shareholders. Thank you very much.

I will turn the call over to Alvaro Quintana.

Alvaro Quintana

Thank you, Leandro. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. From a financial perspective, our first quarter reflects continued momentum in the business and disciplined financial execution. Our consolidated revenue grew 70% year-over-year, reaching $97.9 million, compared to $57.6 million in the same quarter last year, driven by a strong organic expansion and the successful integration of GlobeTopper. The organic growth was 87% of the total revenue with our core subsidiaries: Etelix, IoT Labs, QXTEL, Smartbiz, SwissLink, QGlobal, and Whisl delivered the majority of the increase. Gross revenue before eliminations reached $98.6 million, highlighting the scale of commercial activity. Gross profit reached over $2 million, up 7.8% year-over-year. As we explained in our earning release, current gross profit reflects the existing business mix. Telecom divisions delivered 87% of the total revenue, while fintech, through GlobeTopper, contributed 13% of revenue, adding almost $13 million in its first full comparable quarter. GlobeTopper alone added $829,000 in gross profit, representing 42% of consolidated gross profit. These results reinforce our business diversification strategy. However, our strategy focus is not simply volume growth.

It is the expansion of high-margin digital services that we expect to progressively improve EBITDA generation, operating leverage, and profitability. Adjusted EBITDA for our operating subsidiaries remain strongly positive, confirming the division's profitability, while consolidated adjusted EBITDA was nearly breakeven, showing the company is close to turning positive. Our book equity per share is nearly $3. While the stock trades around $1.30, the market is currently valuating IQSTEL at less than half of its net asset value. That disconnect is not aligned with our fundamentals, our growth trajectory, or our balance sheet strength. Closing that valuation gap is a priority for us. We believe continued execution and improved visibility will drive a re-rating.

Equally important, IQSTEL today operates with a very clean capital structure, no convertible debts, and no earnout outstanding. That financial discipline gives us flexibility to focus entirely on execution and growth. In addition, it is important to highlight that the primary factor affecting net income at the operating subsidiaries level this quarter is increase in technology expenses. These investments are directly tied to the development of our AI-driven solutions and the finalization of our combined switching platform. While these initiatives elevate our operating cost base, they are strategic in nature and directly support the expansion of our artificial intelligence as a new high-margin revenue source for the company.

As these platforms are completed and commercialized, we expect them to generate meaningful efficiencies, reduce operating costs, and contribute positively to profitability in the very near future. As we move through 2026, our financial priorities remain focused on improving EBITDA performance, enhancing operating leverage, supporting commercialization of high-margin digital service, and maintaining a disciplined capital allocation. We believe IQSTEL is positioned to continue strengthening both scale and profitability. Thank you. Ethan, we are ready to open the line for questions.

Ethan Walfish

Thank you, Alvaro. Operator, we are now ready to open the line for questions.

Operator

Mr. Walfish, thank you, and thank you to all of the IQSTEL leadership team. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star and the digit one on your telephone keypad. We'll hear first today from the line of Barry Sine at Litchfield Hills Research.

Barry Sine

Hey, good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations on the very, very strong revenue growth. Alvaro, you talked about strategic priorities, and one of those was increased sales of digital services. There's so many now, fintech, AI, cybersecurity, digital healthcare, I guess is the most recent one. Could management talk, please, about your progress to date starting this year? I know you have 600 global telecom carriers around the world to sell those services into on a wholesale basis. Could you talk about the progress that you've made so far this year, and what investors are likely to see for the rest of the year on that particular strategic initiative? Thank you.

Leandro Iglesias

Thank you very much for the question, Barry. This is Leandro. Well, listen. We have been working over the last months in a very strong marketing launch of our products. We are right now in Washington, D.C., attending to the International Telecoms Week. It's the largest telecom event for the wholesale carrier services, and we are here. We successfully launched the cybersecurity services as well as the digital health services and our fintech services. We have had like four and today, we are going to have the fifth meetings with the large telecommunications carriers introducing our digital services.

All of them have shown really interest to start exploring what the services are and what the potential and the differentiation of our products. More important than this, they reinforce that they feel really comfortable that we are introducing those products in our portfolio, because all of them, large telecommunications companies that we have met, we do business in very big size. All of them, seven days per year. They believe that having a partner like us, that introducing a new service is a very good starting point because they give us, they give them confidence about the quality and the service that we already have. It's a trustworthy relation that we have built over the years.

We are really excited about this process. The cybersecurity team, supported with Cycurion, have been with us in those meetings. Also, Jorge Enrique Becerra and Jose Enrique Puente, our leaders in digital services and in AI services. We are really excited about the opportunities. We are start working on that. I don't want to be super optimist, but I'm pretty sure that the results are going to come very soon, sooner than we expected initially for the reception that we got.

Barry Sine

As that occurs, as though we see those revenues grow, what is the impact on profitability? It's my understanding those services are very high, carry very high margins.

Alvaro Quintana

Yes, Barry. Yes. It's Alvaro talking right now. Those services has margins over 25%. For example, in artificial intelligence, we are expecting gross margin close to 40%. That's why the inclusion of those services is going to impact so importantly to our EBITDA, net income, and the profitability of the company. That's why we are putting so much effort in having those services on the street. Of course, with the quality that our customers expect, and it takes time. We have been developing some of these services for the last two years, investing in research and development. They are already on the street. We have done, as Leandro mentioned it before, a presentation of those services here in Washington.

People is exciting and expecting good things from this. Just taking advantage to adding couple of things. One of the things that we were drawing for the plan is to include digital services that is going to become an early winning because the introduction of the services is going to be very, very easy. In this process, you need to remember that Jorge Enrique Becerra has sold digital services over 100 million end user past year. We are taking advantage of his knowledge, his experience, to start delivering a service very compelling in order to start gaining traction.

I believe that we are going to see very good news over the next quarter, and we are really excited about the future that the company is turning into.

Barry Sine

Okay, that's great. Thank you very much.

Leandro Iglesias

Thank you, Barry.

Operator

We'll allow another moment for our audience to press star and one if you have a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you all for your questions today. We have no further signals from our audience. Mr. Iglesias, I'd like to turn the call back to you for any closing or additional remarks that you have.

Leandro Iglesias

Yes. Thank you very much. This is a final message to our shareholders. I know that on all this process to build the business platform that we have built has been taking years. Right now, in this process, it's something that we needed for this transformation into a digital powerhouse because we need to have the revenue, we need to have the relationships, we need to have the trust worth of our customers. This is the pivotal moment for the company because we are taking advantage of all the things that we already built and keeping improving our telecom services. At the same time, we'll start selling very compelling digital services to our customers.

This process arrive here, being here, has taken years, but right now is a really explosive expansion of our business digital health. Those services with the team that we have built of the resources that we have invested over the years is going to turn out in results very positive for the company, high margin services, and we are really excited about the future that we have ahead. Thank you very much for the supporting of our company, and I'm waiting for this compelling year that we are running in 2026. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference, and we thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines, and we hope that you enjoy the rest of your day.

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