Indie (INDI) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Date

May 7, 2026

Call participants

• Chief Executive Officer — Donald McClymont
• Chief Financial Officer — Naixi Wu
• Moderator — Ashish Gupta

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Takeaways

• Total revenue -- $55.5 million, a 3% increase year over year and $0.5 million above the midpoint of prior guidance.
• Core business revenue -- $34.1 million, reflecting sequential growth of over 20% from the prior quarter.
• Wuxi revenue -- $21.4 million, consistent with management's expectations.
• Non-GAAP operating expenses -- $37.3 million, in line with company outlook.
• Non-GAAP operating loss -- $11.1 million, improved from a $15.1 million loss in the prior-year period.
• Net interest expense -- $2.8 million for the quarter, as detailed by management.
• Net loss -- $13.9 million, or $0.06 per share on 223 million shares, consistent with the firm's guidance.
• Convertible senior notes issuance -- $170.5 million aggregate issued, $165 million net after fees, used principally to repurchase $108 million of 2027 notes, extending debt maturity by 4 years.
• Cash position -- $184.7 million, an increase of $29 million from the previous quarter, reflecting cash flows from refinancing and operating activities.
• Committed radar order -- A Tier 1 customer placed a $25 million production order for Gen 8 radar based on indie's 77 GHz technology, validating multi-OEM adoption and driving operational ramp.
• Second source foundry strategy -- Management advanced plans to ensure "no China, no Taiwan" supply chain flexibility, in response to customer demand.
• iND880 vision processor -- Entered production for eMirror functionality at NIO with a six-month design-to-production cycle; now entering volume production at additional Chinese OEMs.
• DRAMless architecture -- The DRAMless iND880 processor is enabling customers to avoid memory shortages and high prices, expanding demand globally beyond China.
• Pipeline for vision portfolio -- Tens of millions of annual revenue dollars in current pipeline opportunities for iND880 and related products, with the potential to exceed radar revenue in 2026.
• Photonics & quantum -- Introduced the world's first commercially available UV DFB laser at 399 nm and expanded the DFB family to cover atomic species for quantum computing; capturing next-gen design engagements as quantum adoption accelerates.
• LiDAR portfolio -- iND83301 SoC is facilitating an 80% reduction in power consumption and a 40% decrease in solution size for FMCW LiDAR, now adopted beyond automotive in autonomous robotics and embodied AI applications.
• OMS/DMS software suite -- Strategic partnership announced with Mahindra for perception software in the Origin electric SUV, marking new customer wins in India.
• Fiscal Q2 2026 outlook (period ending June 30, 2026) -- Revenue guidance of $59 million to $65 million ($62 million midpoint), with $25 million expected from Wuxi and $37 million from core business; midpoint implies 8% sequential and 20% year-over-year growth in core segments.
• Non-GAAP operating expense guide -- $38 million forecast for the next quarter, roughly flat with fiscal Q1 2026.
• Expected net loss per share next quarter -- $0.05 based on 227 million shares outstanding and revenue at midpoint guidance.
• Wuxi divestiture progress -- Regulatory approval in China is ongoing, with closing targeted for later in 2026; $135 million in net cash proceeds anticipated post-closure.

Summary

indie Semiconductor (NASDAQ:INDI) reported top-line growth and highlighted strategic momentum led by expansion of its radar, vision, and photonics portfolios. The company secured a $25 million Tier 1 radar order across European and Asian OEMs, confirmed production for the iND880 vision processor at leading electric vehicle manufacturers, and launched specialized lasers for quantum computing. Management executed a large convertible note refinancing, enhancing liquidity and lengthening the debt profile by four years. Guidance points to sequential and year-over-year core business growth in the next quarter, supported by ongoing customer diversification and progress toward closing the Wuxi divestiture.

• Management said, "the impending reality of what we're doing here with this huge project is coming to fruition," referencing large-scale radar order execution and customer visibility.
• The iND880 vision processor's global adoption is accelerating as OEMs value its ability to bypass DRAM sourcing issues; the company cites "pipeline of tens of millions of dollars per year in annual revenue," suggesting material future contributions.
• Photonics advances extend indie's reach into quantum computing, where recent products target all four cold atom species, broadening participation in next-generation computing ecosystems.
• Company leadership reported, "we are expecting a good bit of a bounce back in the next quarter" for Wuxi, after prior Chinese EV market headwinds related to subsidy policy changes.

Industry glossary

• DFB (Distributed Feedback) laser: A semiconductor laser with an integrated grating that selects and stabilizes the output wavelength, critical for precise applications in quantum computing and optical communications.
• FMCW (Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave) LiDAR: A LiDAR technology that determines depth by measuring frequency shifts, enabling lower power consumption and improved range precision for autonomous systems.
• OMS/DMS: Driver and occupant monitoring systems; in this context, software suites for safety and control in advanced driver assistance applications.
• AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot): A robotic system capable of navigating environments without human intervention, widely used in industrial and logistics markets.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Don will provide opening remarks and discuss business highlights. Naixi will then provide a review of indie's Q1 results and business outlook. Please note that we'll be making forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representative of views as of any subsequent date. These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

For material risks and other important factors that could affect our financial results, please review our risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, as supplemented by our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q as well as other public reports filed with the SEC. Finally, the results and guidance discussed today are based on consolidated nonfinancial GAAP measures such as non-GAAP operating loss, non-GAAP net loss and non-GAAP net loss per share.

For a complete reconciliation to GAAP and definition of the non-GAAP reconciling items, please see our Q1 earnings press release in addition to a presentation summarizing our quarterly results in more details on non-GAAP measures as posted on our website in advance of this call at www.indie.inc. I'll now turn the call over to Donald.

Donald McClymont: Thanks, Ashish, and welcome, everybody. Indie delivered a solid first quarter with revenue of $55.5 million, approximately $0.5 million above the midpoint of our guidance and up 3% year-over-year. Before turning to our business achievements, let me provide some context on the market environment. Looking at the broader automotive semiconductor market, we see a measured recovery with channel inventories largely normalizing and demand environments characterized as cautious but improving. Underlying global vehicle production remains range-bound, while secular content drivers, including the continued transition to software-defined vehicles, expanding ADAS adoption, increasing exterior and in-cabin sensing requirements are fueling demand for semiconductor content per vehicle as was always our thesis.

This is a backdrop against which indie continues to advance our radar, vision and photonics portfolios, supporting growth that will consistently outpace the market. On a macro level, geopolitical tensions and shifting trade dynamics continue to impact the global supply chain affecting peers, customers and suppliers alike. These dynamics have contributed to elevated logistics costs and selective capacity constraints across the industry. However, even against this backdrop, Indie is maintaining a positive trajectory, successfully managing through these challenges. indie is experiencing tremendous growth in interest and activity in quantum and robotics.

We continue to forge new opportunities with some of the trendsetting emerging companies in these high-growth markets with our expanding photonics portfolio in Quantum and our vision processing and sensor ICs and embodied AI. As noted by the International Federation of Robotics, the broader robotics market, which spans industrial robots, mobile robots, cobots, humanoids and drones is forecast to grow from approximately $88 billion in 2026 to over $218 billion by 2031, a CAGR of nearly 20%.

Within that opportunity, the Yole Group states that the global humanoid robotic market is set to increase from $600 million in 2025 to $6 billion in 2030 at a CAGR of 56% and then accelerate to $51 billion by 2035, a CAGR of 55% between 2030 and 2035. Let me now turn to our recent business progress and key achievements during the past quarter. I'm extremely pleased to share that our Tier 1 partner, who recently launched their Gen 8 radar solution built on indie's 77 gigahertz radar technology, representing the first 4TX/8RX radar available in the industry, has committed to a new production order of $25 million, driven by support for 2 key OEMs, one European and one Asian.

This milestone is particularly rewarding as this order confirms previously communicated production expectations and multi-OEM acceptance following successful design, testing and qualification over the past many months. We are now positioned to ramp production efficiently, having secured additional back end and test capacity across multiple suppliers in preparation for the ramp ahead. In parallel, we are advancing our second source foundry strategy to support the manufacturing flexibility and in some cases, to support a no China, no Taiwan requirement demanded by certain industry players. Moving to our Vision portfolio. The iND880 vision processor has begun production, supporting eMirror camera functionality at NIO, a premium Chinese EV OEM.

This program moved from design to production in approximately 6 months, a testament to our team's technical readiness, execution discipline and close collaboration with customers and partners. And further reinforces our commitment to reducing time to market and accelerating deployment. In addition, the camera mirror system when we referenced last quarter with the largest Chinese OEM is now entering volume production. Additionally, at the prestigious Beijing Auto Show, several exciting new models featured indie technology, including the Buick GL8, the AITO M9, the NIO ES9 and the Cadillac LYRIQ to name a few. These models are now entering the production phase in 2026.

A defining advantage of the iND880 and increasingly a focal point in our customer engagements is a DRAMless architecture. By eliminating the need for external memory, the iND880 helps customers navigate any DRAM supply constraints. In many cases, our customers are unable to source memory at all and using the 880 allows them to alleviate line-down situations. If DRAM can be sourced, it comes at a price premium measured in multiples rather than percentages. 880, therefore, massively reduces overall bill of materials in addition to lowering system resource demands on downstream AI processors and improving image signal processing throughput and real-time latency. What was originally an attractive design point for China OEMs has rapidly broadened into a global value proposition.

We are now seeing accelerating engagement and likely commitments from U.S. customers often on compressed time lines as the architectural benefits of going memory less are recognized across the industry. We expect this to remain a meaningful growth driver for our vision portfolio through 2026 and beyond. By way of update on our perception software portfolio, following the integration of emotion 3D, we recently announced a strategic partnership with Mahindra, a leading Indian OEM to supply our OMS/DMS perception suite for the electric Origin SUV series. Additionally, we expect commitments from U.S.-based customers in the near future to add to our momentum. Our photonics portfolio continues to gain meaningful traction in the rapidly expanding quantum technology market.

During the quarter, we announced the world's first commercially available ultraviolet distributed feedback or DFB laser at 399 nanometers, a wavelength precisely matched to atomic cooling transition of ytterbium, the element used in the neutral atom quantum computing architecture that leads the industry today in physical qubit count. Our broader visible DFB laser family now spans wavelengths from the near ultraviolet to green, addressing the cooling, trapping and excitation requirements across the four atomic species that account for the substantial majority of cold atom quantum computing development.

We are actively engaged with several of the leading quantum computing companies on next-generation laser source requirements, and we believe our differentiated photonics platform positions indie as a key enabling supplier to the quantum ecosystem as it scales over the coming decade. In the LiDAR space, we are finally beginning to see the adoption of FMCW technology into multiple markets. Our integration partners are completing designs, which incorporate indie's iND83301 SoC into their products, replacing FPGA-based processing and delivering an 80% reduction in power consumption, a 40% reduction in solution size and a market-making cost position. We are seeing traction not only from the automotive industry, but from multiple areas in embodied AI.

A key producer of AMR or autonomous mobile robots for warehouse management is engaged. Generally speaking, the embodied AI market is generating demand for many of our sensing products centered around vision, but including LiDAR and radar with applications also ranging from AMR through humanoids to drones. Our sensing technologies allow robots to better understand and navigate unpredictable environments. And enable the transition from more traditional industrial robot implementations to more advanced truly autonomous units. The pace of engagement is electrifying. We expect that it will begin to lead the automotive market in driving new technology as opposed to leveraging existing technologies. With that, I will turn the call over to Naixi to walk through our financial results.

Naixi Wu: Thank you, Donald, and good afternoon, everyone. Indie's first quarter revenue was $55.5 million, exceeding the midpoint of our outlook by $0.5 million, representing an increase of approximately 3% compared to the prior year period. Revenue from our core business was approximately $34.1 million, a sequential growth of over 20%, reflecting the continued momentum in our core ADAS portfolio. Revenue from WuXi was approximately $21.4 million, consistent with our expectations. Non-GAAP operating expenses during the quarter totaled $37.3 million, consistent with our outlook. As a result, our first quarter non-GAAP operating loss was $11.1 million compared to $15.1 million in the comparable period in 2025, demonstrating our continued progress towards achieving profitability.

With net interest expense of $2.8 million, our net loss was $13.9 million and loss per share was $0.06 on a base of 223 million shares, consistent with our guidance last quarter. Please refer to the presentation located on our website for a more detailed breakdown of our non-GAAP measures. Turning to the balance sheet. During the quarter, we issued a 4% convertible senior notes due 2031 with an aggregate principal amount of $170.5 million or a net proceeds of approximately $165 million after fees and operating costs. We used these net proceeds to repurchase a significant portion of our 2027 notes for a total of approximately $108 million.

The remaining proceeds are retained for working capital and general corporate purposes. This refinancing extends our debt maturity profile by approximately 4 years, lowers our coupon and enhances our financial flexibility to support our growth strategy. As a result of the debt issuance and repayment activity I just discussed, along with routine operating activities, we exited the quarter with total cash and cash equivalents, including restricted cash of $184.7 million, a net increase of $29 million from the fourth quarter of 2025. Turning to the previously announced potential divestiture of our equity interest in Wuxi indie Micro.

As you may recall, we entered into the definitive agreement in October 2025 to sell our entire interest in Wuxi to UFA for approximately $135 million, payable net of taxes and fees in cash at closing. Following UFA's shareholder approval in November 2025, the transaction commenced its required regulatory approval process in China, including review by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the CSRC, and has continued to advance since then. While the exact timing of closing remains subject to the completion of that regulatory process, the transaction is progressing well, and we remain optimistic that the transaction will close later this year, consistent with our prior updates. Moving to our outlook for the second quarter of 2026.

We expect to deliver total revenue between $59 million to $65 million with $62 million at the midpoint. We anticipate a revenue contribution from Wuxi in the second quarter of $25 million with our core business contributing approximately $37 million at the midpoint, representing approximately an 8% growth sequentially or about 20% year-over-year growth in our core ADAS, photonics and adjacent business. We expect our non-GAAP operating expenses to be $38 million for Q2, relatively flat compared to Q1. Below the line, we expect net interest expense of approximately $3.1 million with no tax expenses.

Assuming the midpoint of the revenue range and with a base of 227 million shares, we expect to improve our net loss per share to $0.05. From a financial perspective, our strong focus on managing operating expenses and our solid balance sheet, including anticipated proceeds from the sale of Wuxi, indeed is financially well positioned to support our path to strong and profitable growth as design wins ramp through 2026. With that, I'll turn the call back to Donald for closing remarks.

Donald McClymont: Thank you, Naixi. indie's business remains very solid as evidenced by strong first quarter results and positive outlook for the second quarter. Radar and vision programs remain firmly on track, highlighted by success of multiple OEMs. With the addition of Quantum and embodied AI, indie's technology leadership and expanding product portfolio positions us extremely well to drive growth. We believe no other semiconductor company offers a product portfolio as well suited as indie's to meet the diverse needs of these emerging markets. We are confident in our business as our radar and vision design wins continue to ramp. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from Cody Acree with Benchmark StoneX.

Cody Grant Acree: Congrats on the progress. Donald, maybe we can start with your $25 million order. Can you maybe just walk us through your expected delivery schedule? How does that pace through the rest of the year?

Donald McClymont: Well, I mean, first of all, we are super excited to receive the order, especially as it came in sort of one big discrete chunk, and it underlines the commitment of our Tier 1 customer to the end customers that they have committed to them at this point. So we're super excited about that. I mean, obviously, we knew about the situation ahead of time, but the fact that we were allowed to publicly discuss this and highlight this fact was super exciting for us. And hopefully, that gives an indication to the market that the impending reality of what we're doing here with this huge project is coming to fruition.

In terms of how we schedule it out, I mean, it's not the only order we have, and it's not the only order that we'll get. And it is sort of, let's say, tied to a couple of key customers to make sure the thinking behind it is really to make sure that we can secure capacity and all that stuff and having the orders on the books is hugely advantageous and helpful in that respect. And we talked about that in the prepared remarks that it was one of the tools that we used to go do that. So we don't expect that we'll give details of when this particular order is running out.

But it's going to be the first of many as we drive towards maximizing the revenue that we get out of this project.

Cody Grant Acree: Are those wafers already in the path of the work in process? And can you just talk about delivery schedules for revenue ramp?

Donald McClymont: I mean we have a bunch of wafers in the line, of course. We've talked about that in the past as well, and we have secured capacity for those guys too. We do expect that it will contribute meaningfully in this year. And obviously, we're just reconfirming that really.

Cody Grant Acree: And you talked about wafer packaging, I mean, back-end packaging test and substrate availability and then your diversification of your foundry strategy. Can you just update us on the progress, what's left to be done? And is that now substantially behind you?

Donald McClymont: I mean the market is very tight right now because of the demand from AI. It's not going to be something that we can just leave to run automatically. It's going to be something that we're going to have to have a watchful eye over for the foreseeable future. But I think we're comfortable now with the diversification of the supplier base that we have and with our ability to, therefore, deliver to that.

Operator: We'll take our next question from Suji Desilva with ROTH Capital.

Sujeeva De Silva: Congratulations on the initial PO, Donald. Can you maybe give us some sense of the initial customer -- end customers of your customer and what the auto models they're using this for? Is it premium mainstream, L2+ or advanced L3, L4? Any color that you'd have about where this is landing would be helpful.

Donald McClymont: Well, I mean, it's largely mainstream. We're supplying a number of radars per vehicle in most cases. The kind of vehicles that we're supplying to range from low to mid-tier through high tier or even commercial vehicles. And we'll see our products adoption being really deep and large in the penetration of it being very widespread. We -- we're not certainly married to Level 3, Level 4 or anything really higher end. These are products that will -- you'll find on something like a Volkswagen Golf or Toyota Corolla. So it will be deeply penetrated.

Sujeeva De Silva: That's very helpful. And can you help us understand how this Tier 1 layers in beyond the initial 2 customers to this PO? Is there -- are there more customers behind it? Or will these 2 customers first ramp initially? How will that progress in your pipeline?

Donald McClymont: No. I mean there are a bunch of customers expected to ramp at varying times through all jurisdictions in the field, ranging from China through Europe, through U.S. So this is just specifically that this purchase order really was driven to provide a commitment to the 2 OEMs that we talked about in the script. It's not -- by far -- it's far from limited to those two.

Operator: We'll take our next question from Anthony Stoss with Craig-Hallum.

Anthony Stoss: Pretty close on the pronunciation. Donald, I wanted to hone in on the iND880. Can you maybe share a range of the pipeline or the opportunity, the design wins you have? And then I'd love to hear if you think the iND880 solution might generate more revenue for you than Radar in 2026?

Donald McClymont: It's -- yes, I mean, we've been super surprised and excited by the resonance of this. I mean we knew the commercial value of it, but actually seeing it and feeling it took a little longer to get to some of the customers who are a little more conservative and maybe believe that they would be able to source what they needed in memory and of course, turned out not to be the case. I mean we're seeing pipeline of tens of millions of dollars per year in annual revenue. And it is moving very, very fast indeed because of just the needs must. I mean the memories are hard to source.

And if you can get them, they're going for 2, 3, 4x the normal price. So yes, it is maybe even possible that it might exceed radar in this year.

Anthony Stoss: Got it. And then in your prepared remarks and in the press release, you talked about drones. Would the same iND880 be going into that? Or what kind of solutions from indie would be going into a lot of these drones that you're talking about?

Donald McClymont: I mean we have a bunch of activities ongoing. 880 is one of the products that are being looked at right now. There's a derivative of it, which is also able to have some other functionality, including an AI processor, which we've talked about briefly in the past that may also get used. They are beginning to look at LiDAR processor and even through our automotive Tier 1 customer, we're seeing demand for the radars going on these things, too. So there's a very high level of content. The market is moving extremely quickly and the dollar value of ASPs are good.

Operator: We'll take our next question from Jon Tanwanteng with CJS Securities.

Unknown Analyst: This is Will on for John. Last quarter, you had some headwinds in the Wuxi business. Can you just talk more about the underlying trends there and how they're developing?

Donald McClymont: Yes. I mean there were some headwinds in the China market, particularly at the lower end of the e-vehicle market, really driven by a change in the subsidy policy of the Chinese government, which we saw hit through Q1. And as we highlighted in last quarter's earnings and we reiterated here, we are expecting a good bit of a bounce back in the next quarter. So we believe that those issues are resolving. Generally speaking, in the China market, we see some unit headwinds but the content per vehicle is increasing significantly and so we believe that's offsetting and we are seeing that in the strength, particularly of our vision portfolio in China at the moment.

Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions on the line at this time. I'll turn the meeting back over to Donald.

Donald McClymont: Well thanks everybody. Thanks for your time and looking forward to seeing you at the investor conferences over the course of the quarter.

Operator: Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.

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