Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Ceragon Business Update. Our presentation today will be followed by a question-and-answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to raise your hand using your mobile or desktop application, or press star nine on your telephone keypad, and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise that this call is being recorded. I now would like to hand over the call to our first speaker, Rob Fink, Head of Investor Relations. Rob, please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator . Before we begin today, please note that today's discussion includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, among other things, projected financial performance, future initiatives, business outlook, development efforts, anticipated results, timelines, and other matters. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and involved risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, among others, global and regional economic conditions, conditions in Israel and the region, customer concentration and ordering patterns, and supply chain challenges, as further detailed in Ceragon's most recent annual report on Form 20-F and other documents that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Ceragon undertakes no obligation to update them. Ceragon's public filings are available on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at sec.gov and also on Ceragon's website at ceragon.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Doron. Doron, the call is yours.
Thank you, Rob, and thank you, everyone, for joining on short notice. This morning, we disclosed preliminary Q4 revenue and outlook for 2026, and we wanted to take the opportunity to provide context on what we are currently seeing in our business and to share more details pertaining to our outlook for 2026 ahead of the upcoming Needham Conference. Before I get into our outlook for 2026, I'll start with a brief update on Q4. In the final weeks of the quarter, a single large North American customer shifted a portion of deliveries that had been scheduled to be delivered within December into 2026. This directly impacted Q4 revenue versus our prior assumption. Our current expectation is that fourth-quarter revenue will be in the range of $81-$83 million.
Although the previous guidance we shared with the capital markets already accounted for potential variability from this customer based on prior experience, the magnitude of the shift was larger than what we had embedded in our assumptions. Importantly, this was exclusively a timing matter. The underlying demand from this important customer continues to be strong. This is reinforced by the fact we received additional new orders of significant value from this customer in Q4, while orders in our backlog remained intact. In fact, the timing shift increased our backlog entering 2026, and we are actively coordinating delivery plans with the customer. We expect most of this revenue to be recognized during 2026. More broadly, bookings in North America remained strong in Q4. As a result, our North America backlog exiting 2025 almost doubled compared to the level at the end of 2024.
In general, in Q4, we continued making progress in expanding our presence with private networks, increasing our penetration within existing CSP customers, and strengthening our position with new customers globally, including opportunities beyond our historical focus areas. In fact, during 2025, we have added more than 30 new customers, of which over 75% were private network customers. The momentum we are seeing reinforces one of our ultimate goals in our strategy: to reduce customer concentration and the associated impact a small number of large projects that can have meaningful swings in our periodical results. This is a gradual transition, but the direction is clear. We are building a more diversified business with a resilient growth profile, aiming to improve visibility and stability over time. Reaching a critical mass of projects across a more diversified base will enable us to reduce the quarter-to-quarter variability of our project-oriented business.
Turning to full year 2026, we expect revenue to be in the range of $355 million-$385 million. Our revenue assumption is based on the conversion of the delayed deliveries from Q4, as well as the following conditions. In North America, we enter 2026 with a strong backlog and continue to make progress across both CSPs and private networks. Currently, we have multiple opportunities in advanced stages, and we anticipate converting them into new business in 2026. In India, we start 2026 with an annual revenue run rate of approximately $100 million, primarily driven by two main customers. We do see other opportunities to expand within these two customers, which would slightly increase our annual run rate. This incremental revenue is included in the low end of our guidance.
Since we are optimistic about winning a significant portion of other customers' RFPs that are expected to be awarded in India in the first half of 2026, we believe that India can contribute to more meaningful growth with such wins. For the rest of the world, we are assuming a measured recovery in other regions. Timing of closure and execution of multiple opportunities can work both for us as well as against us, but we remain optimistic and are becoming more confident in our strategy.
We intend to provide more details on our business model and profitability when we report our fourth-quarter results in February, but at a high level, we assume the following for 2026: additional improvement of approximately one percentage point in our gross margin at the midpoint of our revenue range for the full year, primarily driven by improved revenue mix between North America and India, as well as additional cost reduction initiatives we are working on. On the opposite side, the impact of the Israeli shekel exchange rate is expected to represent an approximate $5 million headwind should it remain similar to the average levels we have seen in recent months. In general, we continue to invest in R&D and in sales and marketing based on the momentum we see in the market.
We intend to launch four new products in 2026 and expect initial revenue from some of them this year. All of the product introductions are driven by specific demand we have recently seen in the addressable market and are critical to our future growth, as they are expected to be ahead of the competition and enable us to win evolving new use cases. On the sales and marketing front, we have increased our investment, predominantly in regions where we see more growth opportunities. A significant portion of this increase is in variable compensation and therefore will be results-driven. All in all, we expect our non-GAAP operating margin to be between 6.5% to 7.5% at midpoint of the revenue range or at 8% to 9%, excluding the assumed Israeli shekel exchange rate impact.
Generally speaking, when neutralizing the forex impact, we see a certain increase in our investments and expenses, but a large portion of this increase will be driven by shifting the budget between units and regions to focus on areas we believe will drive significantly better ROI. In this respect, we have recently recruited a very accomplished Chief Technology Officer with vast experience in radio and chip domains, working for blue-chip companies recently on 6G research to further strengthen our technology leadership. In summary, we continue to navigate through near-term revenue timing volatility while building a more resilient and diversified growth profile. The pieces of our strategy are coming together. Our differentiated offerings are resonating with customers, and we are seeing positive traction across North America and other regions, evidenced by successful POCs, award declarations, and initial orders.
While timing of closing deals, as well as delivery schedules, can still influence our revenue, we believe our outlook for 2026 reflects a stronger foundation of backlog in certain regions and continued progress in building stronger earnings profile. Finally, together with the Board and as part of the developments we see in our business environment and our performance, we also regularly discuss our capital allocation strategy. We intend to remain disciplined in our approach, prioritizing investments to accelerate the transformation I have discussed. At the same time, we continue to evaluate return on capital to shareholders and in organic growth opportunities. With that, I'd like to open the call for questions.
To ask a question, please raise your hand using your mobile or desktop application or press star nine on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Our first question will come from Scott Searle from Roth Capital. Scott, please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, good afternoon, and thanks for taking the questions and thanks for hosting the call. Doron, maybe just to start off, could you talk a little bit about immediate seasonality as we're going into the first quarter and first half of the year? It sounds like there's certainly a lot of positive elements that are going on, certainly, you know, to the upper end of the range, but when do you expect some of those to start to hit? And in terms of absolute sales, you know, are we expecting things to be sequentially down as we go into the March quarter? And as a follow-up on the OpEx front, I just want to clarify the currency headwinds on the shekel. I think you quantified at $5 million.
Is that in absolute dollars the base case of OpEx being up $5 million versus 2025, or is there going to be some other optimization that's in there that will, at the lower end of the range from a sales perspective, you know, reduce some of that OpEx? Just to give us an idea about how we're thinking about it. I know you gave, you know, an operating margin target, but that's still a lot of variability given the revenue range for the year. Thanks.
Okay, so thank you. I will start with the first question. We all know that usually Q1 tends to be seasonally lower, and I would probably think that this could be the case. I must tell you that with the large backlog we have in North America and with the other behavior of certain big customers, I don't think it will be prudent enough to give you a trend. Things might continue slipping in between quarters, and therefore, the bottom line is that I think we should account for certain seasonality, but it's very hard for me at this point to be more precise in this respect. As to the second question, first of all, the $5 million is an assumption, or not assumption, it's the analysis that is relevant to a full year as compared to 2025.
It means that obviously it goes both to the low end and also to the high end of the range. The only thing that could happen is that at a certain point of time, there will be a significant change in the forex. Based on our current policy, it could create some sort of an upside. At the same token, we see that the recent shekel is even slightly stronger. This is a very basic assumption. In terms of variability in the OpEx, generally speaking, as I said in my prepared notes, there's a big portion of variability that is associated with predominantly booking and operating profit achievements. Obviously, that will move up or down within this range according to the actual achievements.
Okay. And Doron, maybe if I could quickly just follow up, looking to the second half of this year, you know, if you start off with traditional seasonality, there's still a pretty wide range out there. And given where consensus expectations are, it implies that you're getting up to $100 million or so a quarter in the third and fourth quarter. What's the biggest swing factor to make that move? Is it India? Is it continued strength with the North American customer, or is it just a combination of items? Thanks.
The bottom line is that it's a combination. And I would even dare say that our internal plans are even more aggressive. But, you know, we're trying to be very prudent because of the fact that the nature of our business is such that just because of a blink of an eye, $4-$5 million could move from one quarter to another. And this is why we are taking a very prudent approach. I think that we are building on gradual improvement in all regions, but predominantly in North America as well as in India.
But let me add one thing. Generally, we have already communicated in previous calls that we have certain POCs and RFPs out there that we build on also in our growth. And as it takes time for them to convert, so obviously, if things go well, it should convert also to the second half.
Great. Thanks so much. I'll get back in the queue.
Our next question is from Christian Schwab from Craig-Hallum. Christian, please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. As far as the gross margin expansion that we expect on a year-over-year basis, is that, you know, suggesting 1% growth? Does that mean we exit the year with a much better mix and, you know, gross margins above the 1%, or is it pretty linear to the quarter? How should we think about that, Doron?
I think that it's the end. Thank you for the question. I think that the way to look at it is to look at the average that we had in the nine months, and I don't want to yet predict or to give any focus for Q4 at this stage, but to take the nine months and our expectations for Q4 are not expected to materially change that, and then you can add to it the 1%. This is more or less how you have to look at it.
Just adding to the point you may have raised in terms of how it's going to spread between quarters, it's really driven by, predominantly driven by two factors: the revenue level and the split between North America and India in terms of contribution to the revenue. So I don't think we have any more accurate answer than that, saying that on average, this is what we expect for the year, and it might be slightly volatile based on the mix on each and every quarter.
Great. Thank you for that clarity. And then as regarding backlog in North America, which is double versus 2024, can you quantify the dollar amount of backlog that you have in North America currently for us?
We're not giving that number, and we don't intend to start giving it, at least not in the near term. All I can say, that is, it's significant, and this obviously drives part of the optimism about 2026.
Great. Thank you. No other questions.
Our next question is from Ryan Koontz from Needham. Ryan, please go ahead. Ryan Koontz.
Great. Good morning from California. I wanted to ask about the rationale for the push-out. I assume it's not a share issue. Is this more just about project execution from your customer or inventories or anything you can share at a high level about the push-out?
Yeah, I think we said that very loud and clear on the prepared remarks. It's not anything that is associated with our very strong position in this customer. It's associated with internal decisions that were made at the last minute, and more so, to the best of my understanding, it was not only applied on us, but it was applied on many other CapEx vendors due to some internal decision made by the leadership of this customer.
Got it. Really helpful. And then on the, you know, you mentioned a shift away from project-based business. Can you maybe expand on that? Like, how do you envision that change in the kind of the business model?
So to be more accurate, and maybe I take the blame here for not being that clear, we didn't say that we shift away from project because most of the nature of the business is project. What we said is that when we expand our outreach into private network segments, the nature of the projects in this domain are such that are creating more diversity. So these are sometimes smaller projects, I would say, in the millions of dollars per project. And the process of recognizing revenue and rolling out this project is longer, and it includes a lot of service elements that are smoothing the recognition. And because of that, if we have more like that in our backlog and we are less dependent on a very large product-driven project like we have today with the CSP domain, we'll still remain a project-oriented company.
But at the same token, the diversity of customers will enable us to smooth our revenue recognition. On top of that, when we go in this direction, we are also pushing very strongly to business models like managed services and connectivity as a service. And while this may create some headwind in terms of revenue in the first part of executing on such projects, this will also help us to smoothen our revenue recognition over time and by that reduce the volatility.
Super helpful, Doron. Thank you for that. And the last one, if I could, just any update on, I know it's only been, you know, probably a month and a half or two since Nokia's announcement, but any changes in the competitive landscape or field activities you're picking up relative to the competitive landscape would be great. Thank you.
I would just say that we are seeing some initial signs. I think that it will not be right for me to disclose what these signs are. But all in all, so far, I can see more positive than negative for Ceragon.
Makes sense. All right. Great. Thanks.
Our next question is from Gunther Karger. Gunther, please go ahead. You can unmute. Gunther, your line is open. Please go ahead. Okay. Doron, we have no further questions. I'd like to hand the call back to you.
So thank you, everyone, for joining on such short notice, and hope to see many of you in the Needham Conference. Thank you so much.