Good evening. Welcome to Plover Bay's annual results call for financial year 2025. I'm Christopher Tse, CFO of Plover Bay, and I will be hosting this call. Alex Chan, founder of the company, is also with us today. We have announced our latest annual results. The announcement can be found on HKEX website and our own website at ploverbay.com. The PowerPoint presentation that I'm currently sharing on the screen can also be found on our website. As usual, I shall begin with the financial highlights, and then Alex will go through our recent business updates, and then we can go into Q&A. Let us begin. Our sales in 2025 reached $130 million, increasing by 11% year-on-year.
Our gross profit was $74 million, a year-on-year growth of about 15.5%, and our gross margin was 57%, an increase of 2.1 percentage points. Our overall operating expenses and finance costs increased 5.1% year-on-year. As we continue to benefit from operating leverage, our net profit reached $45.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%. Net profit margin improved to 34.9%, an increase of 2.3 percentage points. Finally, our diluted EPS came to be $0.0411 per share, which increased 19.1% year-on-year. Let's drill down to our segments.
In 2025, our Fixed First Connectivity segment revenue increased mildly by 3.5% year-on-year to about $18 million. Mobile First Connectivity segment increased 10.4% year-on-year to $73 million. Overall, we are seeing strong growth in high-end Mobile First routers and new supporting products. Sales of Starlink equipment is included in the Mobile First segment, this year we are seeing quite strong volume growth. Because most of our channel partners pair our products with Starlink into a solution, this strong volume growth has also directly benefit the sales of our own products.
Driven by our continued growth in subscriptions, our warranty and support services segment reached $28 million, up 12.3% year-on-year, and software licenses segment reached about $11 million, up 34% year-on-year. The recurring revenues in these two segments add up to about $38 million, an increase of 17% year-on-year. Recurring revenue now accounts for close to 29% of our total sales. Our take-up rate has increased up to 38.6% from 34.2% a year ago, and the number of devices with a subscription increased 25% year-on-year. These numbers continue to show that our recurring revenues are healthily growing.
Next, in terms of geographic segmentation, North America increased 2.1% year-on-year to $76 million, accounting for about 59% of our sales. The mild growth of North America market is largely due to tariff uncertainties back in April, where we had to halt product shipments to the U.S. for about two months in the first half. Shipments have since resumed normal in the second half. Sales to EMEA increased about 28% year-on-year to $37 million, as our partners continue to deliver their multi-year large projects and now account for about 29% of our total sales. Sales to Asia increased to $12 million, growing 36% year-on-year. Again, our growth here is because of some large multi-year projects delivered by our partners, plus some remarkable growth in new markets, such as Japan.
In others, mostly Australia, our sales increased 14% year-on-year, making up about 4% of our total sales. Moving on to gross margin. Our gross profit margin increased to 57% from 54.9% last year. Our gross margin improvement is attributed to a favorable product mix towards high-end mobile routers and economies of scale among our high volume products. Overall, our hardware gross margin is now 41%, while recurring revenue margin is over 90%, both contributing roughly half of our gross profit. Next, our operating expenses. Total operating expenses, a percentage of revenue, was 17% of sales during the year, which is 0.6 percentage point lower than last year. Due to our strong operating leverage, our sales continued to grow faster than expenses, which contributed to our net profit growth this year.
Finally, our financial positions continue to be very strong, with no debts and strong operating cash flows. Trade receivables turnover days remained at 67 days. Inventory turnover days slightly decreased to 112 days, while trade payable days increased to 50 days. This wraps up the financial highlights. Next, I will let Alex present the business updates.
Thank you, Chris. To begin with, I want to give everybody a quick recap. Basically, we are in the connectivity market, and we serve a very long tail market. We have thousands of customers in multiple verticals, from maritime, transportation, public safety, constructions, and so on. There is no single customer or vertical dominates our business.
We have also gone through multiple technology cycles, from fixed to wireless, from 3G to 4G to 5G, and now is that we are seeing is satellite communications as a very promising way of connectivity. We were in this market for 20 years, and every time is when there is a new technology coming up, a new technology application coming up, usually we are ready for that market. For example, recently we have seen the autonomous systems, the teleoperation, and all these applications are having more and more sizable deployments. In the past, a couple of years back, we were seeing autonomous driving companies were using our products for their product development.
Now is, we are seeing is, teleoperate, remote operations, teleoperated cabs. They are massively deploying our products with their vehicles. I would say is, the importance of connectivity is actually way beyond a lot of people's imagination, and we are in the business of making this connectivity reliable. And also is, you probably will ask is, one question is about is, the increased memory cost and the components cost. Just like every other hardware company, we are not immune to this. We are also facing is, the increased cost of in building the hardware. Our business model is, actually helping us to mitigate this.
Because every time when a customer is buying a Peplink devices, we have the opportunity of selling multiple years subscription services. Also, with this blended model, we are able to absorb some of the hardware costs. At the same time, our customers are buying our products not because of the cost of the components or the cost of the product. They're basically buying our product because of the value, because of the value creation they can have with our product, or they can use, or because the reliability of our product is helping them to minimize the downtime. This is the foundation of our business.
I guess is today is probably is many of us will have a question about is why do we announce our plan to spin off our North America business through a distribution in specie? We are seeing that is the U.S. market and other parts of the world, the market has very different requirements. For example is now is we need to meet the TAA approval, NDAA approval, and all this kind of compliance thing. We are limited to certain supply chain, we are limited to produce the product in certain locations. Also is also is we are also is restricted to use certain technologies. It will be difficult for us...
We are seeing that is, our business in the whole world is growing, but then it's difficult to run that in under one platform. We are seeing that is, if we are able to separate the two operations, one to be really focused in the North American market, and the other market, which is, the global market, then is, we are able to produce more competitive products. At the same time, is that we are able to expand our supply chain and including our contract manufacturers and the choice of components. This is actually the foundation, fundamental reason why we are doing this. Then is also is moving forward.
Is, maybe is our investors might have a concern that is. Are we able to remain our lean operation just like the last 10, 20 years? I think is, we are, we should be able to do so because is now, with a lot of AI tools, you do not need a lot of people to do many things. We are seeing that this is a great opportunity for us to grow further and to keep our lean operation models. I think that this is the current update, and I'm sure that today we'll have lots of questions. Maybe we just reserve the time for the Q&A.
Sure. We already have a few questions from the chat. First question comes from Lucas Lu. Question on marine certifications for cybersecurity compliance. Why not apply for these kinds of certifications, and what are the main difficulties?
Okay. Lucas, I guess is, you probably are referring to the discussion at the forum. Yes, we are aware of that too. I would say is, when people bring that up, yes, this is a legitimate concern. At the same time, is, we are very clear about our position, because is our business is to make connectivity reliable. Is all these cybersecurity concerns, cybersecurity requirements can be addressed by putting a UTM or cybersecurity products there. There are plenty of cybersecurity products available in the market. Some people choose to integrate that into one box. We feel like, as the cybersecurity product is more like a preference. Some people might prefer cybersecurity vendor A, and some people might prefer cybersecurity vendor B.
We feel like we are still in that market by offering unbreakable connectivity, by putting multiple Starlink, multiple satellite connections, multiple 5G connections together and make it super reliable. There's also for these cybersecurity requirements or compliance, the people can easily apply or people can easily put a third-party cybersecurity product there and to meet the requirements. That's why I would say, do we really need to integrate that into our products? Yes, it's a nice to have, but it's not a must. That is our view on that. Again, we are very practical and we are very practical on all these kind of things.
You will see we will be also partnering with some of the leading cloud provider to provide certain cybersecurity features. Again, those in the coming months, you will see we have a products like that. The short answer is, we are not taking the approach where people expect us to be taking it to solve that concern. There are multiple ways emitting the same requirements.
All right. Another question from Lucas, is about WireGuard support. The company has many distributors and clients who need this support. Why not provide it? What are the main difficulties?
Okay, many people can provide WireGuard support. I don't think this is a deal breaker. Yes, of course, we hear the feedback, and we will provide that. Again, our fundamental business is not to become a me-too company. Our fundamental is not just to catch every single Wi-Fi standard being the latest one, or we are not here to be the most feature-rich product. Our business is just to make connectivity reliable and be the best company in doing reliable connectivity. Yes, WireGuard support, we will support that. Is that our first priority? I don't think so.
The last question from Lucas: The number of companies, retailers, and distributors has dropped a little bit since last year. As a result, is this why our revenue growth rate also slowed down? Let me answer this. I think, you know, the number of distributors or retailers that I don't know where you found that number from, it's way more than 300. I think our revenue growth this year, as I said, there were a few reasons that they were 11%. The US tariffs was one of the major factors. It caused us to halt our shipments for 1.5 months.
That did affect our sales quite a bit.
Lucas, let me remind one thing, we are in a very long-tail market. I guess your focus is more on the retail or the prosumer market. Yeah, that is one of the long-tail market that we address, but that is not the only one.
Okay, next is from Jonathan Tan. On this proposed separation, should we think about this as a valuation unlock or recognition that North America and the rest of the group now have fundamentally different capital allocation, growth, investment, and operating models? As a long-term shareholders, what specific metrics would you point to in three years' time to judge whether the separation has truly created value?
I guess as we are looking into all these things is, not really coming from a financial angle. Most of the time is, we are looking into how can we be the predominantly market leader or the de facto standard in that segment. For example, is in tele operations, we want to be the market leader and the de facto standard there. In the maritime is, we want to be is, the most welcomed product in all these, from superyachts to container boats. Yeah. We want to be the market leader in all these areas. Then is also, is, when we look into that, is I would say is, we would love to...
In the next couple of years is that we would love to see we have more and more vertical markets that people are using our products, being the de facto devices for reliable connectivity. I think is that our primary goal. Again, the concern is mostly related to North America. They have different expectations and requirements, just like what I mentioned earlier on. Let's say you say if this is a similar product, it needs to be AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile certified. Then, if we are going to different market in Europe or in a different market in Africa, we might not need those certifications.
By separating these two markets, we are able to expand our choice of contract manufacturers, technology providers, components, semiconductor choices. We'll have wide more choices for addressing different markets.
Next is from Brian Chung. What is the number of InControl 2 registered users in the year end? If I recall, the number has exceeded 800,000 by year end. What is the likely impact on the gross margin given current shortage of RAM and storage, or will the cost be passed down to customers?
Some of our high-end models, we do not have any intention in adjusting the price yet. At the same time, if we need to increase the price, I think is that the market will have no problem in accepting that for the higher-end models. For the entry-level products or for the higher volume products, we also do not want to or intend to increase the price at this point yet. Again, just like we explained earlier, our business model is there is usually a subscription goes along with the devices. We would love to see the take-up rate, we would love to see the expansion of those subscription business. The hardware devices is just an entry point.
I think is, we. Okay, again, is, the memory price, we just don't know how crazy it can become, but then is, we have a lot of flexibilities in dealing with that. In the meantime, is for the time being, that we are not increasing any price yet.
The next is, regarding to recent AI development. Is Peplink currently or will soon be using AI on, traffic decision and, or identify cybersecurity risk? What are the threats and opportunities of AI?
We are using, we are already using a lot of AI internally, and we are very excited about all these applications. At the same time, yes, we are definitely working on something which is AI-based, we believe that kind of product will be able to help us to visualize the value that we bring in with our with our bonding technology and together with our existing product services. Yes, we're working on that, and we are very excited about what we have seen.
Okay. Next, regarding the spin-off, which company will own the intellectual properties?
Okay. Hi, this is Cherry. I am a member of the board as well. In regard this question, is unfortunately, that there's little of the specific that we can disclose at this point. I think it's safe to say that, like, in our plan, we're definitely making plans to ensure that both groups will have the necessary resources, including the IP they need to continue to thrive. As and when the times come, to a stage where we are in a position to discuss more, we believe we will be sharing the details with you, like in our later announcement.
Will the SpinCo become a pure U.S. company so that it can avoid all the consequences of the geopolitical frictions?
The SpinCo is the ultimate goal is to address all these concerns. I would say is that is definitely the direction.
Do we see more growth in 2026 in the U.S. market?
Oh, absolutely. Yes, U.S. is a very. I would say is that U.S. and Europe are two very interesting major growth market for us.
Another question on spin-off. With regards to the proposed spin-off, how can shareholders expect future dividend payouts to be in terms of the SpinCo and retained group? Can you provide some color on the different growth trajectories for SpinCo and retained group in the mid to long term?
Okay, I would say is, if you look into our operations from day one. We always is, distribute the excessive cash back to the shareholders. Yeah, we are not going to change this approach, and we still plan to do the same thing. At the same time, is just like we said, we mentioned it some years back, is, when there are opportunities where we can grow the company faster or to dominate a market better, we are very willing to look into the M&A, and then is, we are very willing to look into opportunities to expand the company.
Is a dividend is not the primary thing, but is our approach, which is by distributing the excessive cash back to the shareholders, that's always the case. Again, it really depends on the market opportunity and our goal is always to look into sustainable growth and being a major player in the areas that we are in.
Next is from, Marvin Young. Could you please provide an update on progress of Starlink business?
The Starlink business is actually doing pretty well. First of all, we are covering is at the entire Starlink product line. We are also working on something more interesting that is related to the Starlink API. At the same time, is that you probably have seen we have some products like is Antenna MAX, which is a product that we can integrate the Starlink antenna, which is the Starlink Mini, together with our 5G routers into one integrated box. Moving forward, you will probably see is that we'll have a series of Starlink companion products, which is to make the Starlink deployments better.
Eventually, is that this will be benefit for multi-constellation deployment. Now we are seeing that just like the 5G connections, people eventually might want to have more than one Starlink connections. People might even want to have a multi-post Starlink or multi-post satellite connections in order to fail over the fiber network, or in order to provide better connectivity for their boats, for the container boats, for the cruise boats, or even is for logistic centers or data centers. We are very excited and optimistic about the Starlink-centric ecosystems.
Okay, next is back to Gerard. MNCs have operations in many countries. They usually don't spin off their businesses. Why cannot we manage different geographies?
Oh, because is we are taking a different approach. Yeah, yeah, we are we never think we are an MNC, but instead we think of we are still a small fish in the pond, but then everything, when we look into this, is entirely coming from the efficiencies point of view. Don't forget that we have a large network of channel partners, and our channel partners usually are way bigger than us. Then, so they are taking most of our channel partners are taking the traditional approach. Then, so I would say, with this approach, we should be able to expand the supply chain. We should be able to expand the choice of semiconductor chips.
We are able to expand the choice of, contract manufacturers, solar modules manufacturers, SoC suppliers, and even AI models. That's why we are seeing this is way more important than the traditional way in doing business.
Next question from Mufasa Capital: Could you update us on the development in drones and robot taxi?
Yeah, as I mentioned earlier on, we have 1 deployment in Las Vegas. This is not entirely a robotic taxi, but it's a tele-operated taxi service. The entire fleet is using our products, we were glad to partner with our customers to do this. At the same time, we are seeing this is 1 major deployment. At the same time, we also have another customer in Europe. They are using teleoperation for the mining trucks, for the mining equipments.
This is so these autonomous vehicles, these autonomous trucks, these autonomous equipments are actually very exciting because they all demand a reliable connectivity. At the same time, is with the drones, so these kind of markets, we believe is, this is going to be a multi-year opportunities for us.
Next question from Gilbert Lowe: Can you share the plan and performance of the SpeedFusion Connect app? Any business plans with SpaceX Direct to Cell technology?
The Direct to Cell technology is more related to the cell phone, and I would say is, the application of the Direct to Cell at this stage is more related to messaging. Of course, as the technology evolve, is, we won't be surprised later on, is the DTC technology will become faster. The idea of the SpeedFusion Connect on the phone is, again, is to expand to a new market. I guess is, if you look into the forum, some people are asking us is, why don't we build a travel router? I feel like is, our will in looking into the travel router market is probably is the best travel router is your phone, or maybe is, we all have, the last generation phone together with us.
Maybe is, we are running a SpeedFusion Connect app with these phones, then this is actually the best travel router. You do not need to carry extra charging batteries and this and that. At the same time, is, the SpeedFusion Connect can goes into the Android market, which is being used in a lot of kiosks or embedded systems. I would say is, the pace of the SpeedFusion Connect is encouraging, but at the same time, is, we are still learning about the possibilities of that. We're still working on that, and I will say is, you can see this is not contributing to any meaningful revenue yet, but is, the future of SpeedFusion Connect is pretty broad.
We believe that is going to be an important piece of element, which can help us to go into and expand into some new exciting consumer markets.
The 2nd question from Gilbert is, I assume shipments would have resumed in Q3 and Q4. Any particular reason for the slowing down in the revenue growth in the U.S.? As I said, in the U.S., when tariffs, there was some kind of tariff uncertainty in April, in the 2nd quarter of the year, right? We, due to this uncertainty, we stopped shipment to the U.S. for basically the entire 2nd quarter. That is why this year's U.S. sales has been affected. Next is from Jonathan Tan again. A follow-up question on the spin-off. Will 110 entity sell to Frontier going forward, or will both?
It depends on the country. It depends on the region.
Essentially, our split will be 1 based on the geographical split. For 1 transaction, obviously, they can only go to 1 of the location. It might well be the case that any 1 customer, they can be having different locations. If that's the case, then yes, it's a possibility that both can be selling to the same customer, it would definitely be for different transactions.
Will SpinCo consider retaining dividend and excess cash completely due to the inefficient dividend tax scheme in the U.S.? From Godrick Lee.
We'll definitely look into the possibilities on how to optimize this.
Um, next-
The fundamental is the same, is, yeah, the idea is, any excessive cash that we don't need, is, we'll distribute it back to the shareholders.
Steven Wong. Will you still be the chairman of both companies? Will there be any change in HQ and the makeup of senior management?
Alex will stay the chairperson of both company, but then his role in Plover Bay will transit to a non-executive role, and also Keith, our current CEO, he will also becomes the CEO of the SpinCo rather than Plover Bay. Other than that, all other three executive director will remains with Plover Bay.
When will we get details of the U.S. company? Where will those details be, and will we need to be able to invest?
For the U.S. company, essentially, we assume there will be more information coming as we make the announcement for the EGM. Those information will be disclosed alongside. Obviously, for us to disclose those details, we will also need to get our U.S. side authority, get things ready with them. As far as the investment speaking, let's say for all current shareholders, as we are doing a distribution in specie, unless there are, like, restrictions coming maybe from your holding or your fund itself, otherwise, we see that, like, all current shareholders will be able to, like, get their same shareholding in the same proportion for the new SpinCo.
Next is from Jeff Pang: How do you plan to split your time between SpinCo and RemainCo? The U.S. business is the largest, but there's are also new initiatives for the RemainCo.
Okay. I'm a long-term guy, I'm also a product guy. What I look into that is what kind of product, what kind of services that could be impactful for the future? I'm not the guy who is to really build and make that happens. We have teams on both companies, on both sides to execute that. I think the role itself does not change really that much, but on the execution side we'll have a dedicated team focusing on the products and services that could be most competitive for that market.
We have another, a question from Mr. Leung: Regarding the spin-off, is circumventing U.S. regulatory and policy risk one of the considerations?
Let's say we are not looking at this at a circumventing perspective, but definitely, complying with the U.S. regulatory and policy issue will always be an issue. It's not just about we are going to list, or we are planning to list in the U.S., but in our day-to-day business, obviously, those are also regulations and policy that we always have to observe.
U.S. business accounts for a significant portion of revenue. Following the spin-off, will this weaken the interest of Plover Bay shareholders?
Oh, not really. As I mentioned earlier, is that Europe is going very well. Yeah, Europe is going very well, and in fact, Asia is growing pretty well, too.
Will U.S. companies be bring in strategic investors before going public? This will be a distribution in specie. Basically, we will distribute the U.S. company, according to the ownership that you have in Plover Bay. At this stage, there are no strategic investors. Next, will the total fixed cost increase substantially because now we need two separate management teams?
I think we have a very good track record in making things very efficient, super efficient. Again, we are still the same day one guy, and then for those people who knows us, yeah, we're still pretty cheap and still pretty efficient. Again, with the AI tools, I think there's a lot of automation that we can do with it. Maybe initially, there are more compliance costs and this and that, but I would say that the operational cost, probably it won't change materially.
Okay, next from, Graham Rhodes: What makes the spin-off a better solution than relisting the whole company or keeping everything in one company, but creating a new subsidiary or brand? Is there a geopolitical consideration?
As I mentioned earlier, right, what we do is, we just want to be the de facto standard, to be the most preferable partner in certain markets. That is our goal, is also, we feel like is, with this approach, this is probably the most efficient way to accomplish the goal.
Second question from Graham: One customer is a very large share of revenue. What is the economic relationship, and what are the downsides if volumes, pricing, or scope change? This customer is from the US, and we have been basically working with them since the very beginning of our company.
They are a distributor.
They are a distributor.
They are just a distributor. The distributor sells to many resellers, and many resellers are selling to many, many customers.
Next question from Graham again: Second half margins jumped. How much was mix versus pricing, and how sustainable is the uplift?
Second half is. There are two reasons that margins increased. First is a mix in high-end routers. Second is because of our economies of scale in the high volume routers. Both were causing the second half margins to increase.
Where are you winning or losing versus Cradlepoint and other competitors, and what are you seeing on discounting and deal cycles?
I think it's, we don't see much competition from Cradlepoint. Again, it's, this is a very long tail market. The market is pretty big. We actually don't encounter with Cradlepoint that often. That's why is, we even can't recall the last time we encounter a competition with Cradlepoint, that was probably early in the year in Australia, and we won that. I wasn't aware of any opportunity that we have lost to them. Recently, I just Okay, this is, this was last year, but recently is that we won a major, pretty major deal in Europe. We won over Cradlepoint recently. It's a, it's a pretty major European infrastructure project.
Subscription take-up rate rose to 38.6%. What are the renewal and churn rates, and what is the next lever to push attachment higher? We do not provide renewal and churn rates right now. Next lever to push the take-up rate higher, I suppose, we keep adding new features into our software to increase the broad value proposition of our subscriptions, and that's how we increase our take-up rate.
Yeah, that is our goal, to increase the take-up rate, and at the same time is to increase the content of the subscription. Yeah, again, we see that there are lots of tremendous opportunity for us to tap into the subscription products.
Last question from Graham is, receivables and inventories increased. Is the timing loser term or slower collections, and what is inventory obsolescence risk? I think, you know, receivables and inventories rose in line of our revenue. I do not see like a sudden jump in inventory. Also in this kind of semiconductor shortage environment, I think, inventory obsolescence risk is it should be pretty low. Next question is from Asi Bharma: Right now, the same products are sold in U.S. and other markets. Going forward, will product development in two companies become independent and diverge?
absolutely, yes. Both company will become independent.
Next question, Kate. How will Alex and CEO split time between SpinCo and retained group? As Alex becomes a non-executive director of Plover Bay, does it mean he will be hands-off for decision-making of North America business?
I'm still a 60% shareholder. I will watch it out very carefully. That is also we have 2 CEOs running on separate teams, and these CEOs is, we have been working together for more than 16, 17, or even 18 years, or maybe even 20 years. Yeah, it has been too long. I can't remember how long we worked together.
Follow-up from, Mr. Leung. The previous earnings announcement, we mentioned a collaboration with Iridium. Are there any upgrades on that?
The Iridium thing is definitely one of that. We are seeing that is, there are much more... no, not much. Okay, they are starting to have a more satellite providers coming to the market. We really like that. We really love to see that 'cause, the multi-constellation thing, we are ready for that. We are ready for that, and we have a product ready for that already.
Okay. Next question from Gerard Aho: Will all the shareholders be able to vote for or against the spin-off during the EGM, or is it only for minority shareholders to vote?
It's not strictly the rules for us to do so, but yes, this is our current plan to put forward the plan for voting during the EGM. This is the current plan.
It seems to be all the questions from the chat, and I see some raised hands. Maybe we can answer-
Oh, hi, Alex. Hi, Chris. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Hi, Steven.
Hi. Hi. Congratulations for the great result. Yeah, I have a couple of questions. Maybe it's easier to ask by voice. My first question is on... Just now, someone asked about the dividend, the tax issue. I was thinking that because right now we are actually just only segregating two companies. One is the sales to U.S., the other is the sales to others. Most of the product is actually still booked in Hong Kong, if I'm not mistaken. It's only that the sales happen to be selling to U.S., the company that sells to U.S. is still based in Hong Kong. In that case, the dividend tax and all that should still be like following the Hong Kong tax rules.
Is this understanding correct?
Yeah, I believe so. I mean, if you are in Hong Kong, when you buy U.S. stocks now, you're not on the hook for U.S. tax, right? I think this will be the same for our U.S. company.
Okay. Okay. Yeah, just going back to the business. I want to know, like, so with everyone talking about adoption of AI, and just now Alex just briefly mentioned how AI can help a lot. Can you give us a little bit more details like how AI is changing the way Peplink works, or how it's adding value to your products, and what new functions that you can foresee that would bring enormous value to our customers by adopting AI to our products?
Okay, sure. When we look into this, we can look into that from two perspective. One is internally, how do we use AI to help product development? How do we use AI to make our operations way even more efficient? Or how can we use AI to support our customers better? It's on the internal side, we are doing all these things in various fronts. It's on the product side, we are seeing the opportunity to apply AI to predict the WAN connectivity in various locations. For example, is maybe when your boat is cruising in a certain area.
Is that area, is that the best to use as a satellite or a 5G or things like that? We will have some capability in doing that. At the same time, when somebody is going to deploy, like, 1,000 Peplink products or our products to the branches. Okay, this can be in Malaysia, or this can be in USA. When people start to deploy these 1,000 devices into these different remote locations. Do they really need to do a site survey? Hopefully not, because we could apply the AI to predict the connectivity and how it looks like.
is that the thing that we are working on.
Okay, okay. Next question is on verticals. I just wonder, like, we have been, like growing around 10-15% consistently. I just wonder, like, do we foresee, like there's any new potential verticals that could potentially become a very meaningful market to us? Like I don't know, like whether there's any new market that you're aware of or you already in that market.
I think it's because we operate in a very long-term market.
Yeah.
I can say is, if we look into is, putting multiple Starlink or multiple satellites connections together with multiple 5G connections, this is creating a definitely a new market. This can become is, the new fiber backup for logistics companies. This can become is, rapid deployment for many different applications. I would say is that is, the most exciting market that we are looking into. You can say is, who are the customers of this technology? It can be a logistics company, it can be a cruise boat company, or it can be a data center. Yes. Or it can be a hospital.
Yeah, it can be a government entity. Yeah, I would say that the demand, the need for reliable connectivity is just very robust and strong.
yes, I totally agree, I believe that, like, in every verticals you're seeing, they must be all growing. I just wonder, like, in the past 6 to 12 months, are you aware of any new verticals that could potentially be a very meaningful verticals?
We don't judge, Steven. We don't judge.
Okay.
We just focus on the product and let the market tells us who are using it.
Okay, okay. Then the next question is on the Peplink conference in the U.S. I think it's in November or last November. I just want to know, like, whether that you have any key takeaways from that conference, like any changes in your mindset, in your business, in the way you look at the business, after you attend that conference?
Oh, sure. Now it's just way more people than. There are way more people than in the past, at the same time, is that people really spend a couple of days there for exchanging ideas and having trainings. Yeah, because we have built a pretty interesting community, and the community is, the customers are very willing to share their deployments and share how they use the products with others. The interaction is very good in these events.
Okay. Okay. And sorry, my last question is on back to the spin-off issue. Can I mean, I know everything has not been decided yet, but can I say, like, the biggest changes that the company would see as a whole? I mean, let's assume I still continue to own the two companies. Is it only that there will be, like, two teams, that one would be very specialized in taping, in taping the U.S. market, in, like, selling to the U.S. market, and the other team is more on, like, the remaining market?
In the R&D side, in the production side, can I say that, like, there won't be, like, a material changes, or even in a headquarter? I would assume that, like, it would still be in Lai Chi Kok. Is it like that? Or, like, what would... I mean, besides sales, what would be the major differences after the spin-off?
Okay. Our goal is to dominate the market where we see we should be the de facto standard. That is the goal, and that is the rest are just tactical execution details. Yeah, and you know, we never want to chase for shiny offers because that might be able to attract talents. We never believe things like that. Yeah. And I think it's that the team is not going to change substantially because of anything like this.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Steven. Let's take the last question for tonight. A follow-up from Jonathan Tan. He said, "With regards to margins for each entity, will it resemble current existing segment margins?" The answer should be yes. Okay, that's all of the questions for tonight, and thank you very much for jumping into the call tonight, and I will see you soon, hopefully, in the EGM.
Thank you, everyone.