Good afternoon, and welcome to indie's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Ashish Gupta, Investor Relations. Mr. Gupta, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to indie's Third Q uarter 2026 Earnings Call. Joining me today are Donald McClymont, indie CEO and Co-Founder, Naixi Wu, indie CFO, and Mark Tyndall, EVP of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Donald will provide opening remarks and discuss business highlights. Naixi Wu will then review indie's Q3 results and business outlook. Please note that we will 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 non-GAAP financial 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 the definitions of the non-GAAP reconciling items, please see our Q3 earnings press release and the accompanying presentation, which provides more detail on our non-GAAP measures. Both were posted on our website in advance of this call at www.indie.inc. I'll now turn the call over to Donald.
Thanks, Ashish, and welcome, everyone. I'm pleased to report that indie delivered a solid third quarter. Revenue was $70.2 million, above the midpoint of our guidance, up 31% year-over-year and 10% sequentially. Our core business led the way, growing approximately 14% quarter-over-quarter. Before turning to our business achievements, let me provide some context on the market environment. The automotive environment in the third quarter was mixed. Demand was strong in Europe and the United States, but was weaker in China. In Europe, new car registrations in the EU rose 9.3% year-over-year in September and are up 5.7% year-to-date, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, with electrified vehicles continuing to gain share. In the United States, demand was resilient. September new vehicle sales rose more than 4% year-over-year, according to MarkLines, and Cox Automotive raised its full-year 2026 sales forecast to 16.1 million units.
China, the world's largest vehicle market, showed some softness. Even so, the shift towards electrified technology-rich vehicles with advanced features such as radar continues to support content growth for indie, with export from China a particular area of strength. Beyond automotive, Physical AI is also gaining rapid momentum. According to Counterpoint Research, global humanoid robot shipments rose nearly 300% year-over-year in the first half of 2026. indie's deep automotive heritage gives us a strong foundation to capitalize on this emerging opportunity. Our proven expertise in multi-camera vision processing, radar sensing, LiDAR, and sensor fusion enables us to deliver reliable perception at scale. These capabilities apply directly to humanoid robots and other Physical AI applications, including drones, collaborative robots, and autonomous mobile robots, or AMR.
We are rapidly increasing our focus on Physical AI, and a substantial percentage of our 2027 R&D budget will be redirected to customizing our next-generation SoCs for this market. As reported in prior quarters, we have already secured design wins at leading humanoid robotics customers, including AGIBOT, Unitree, and Figure AI, as well as several emerging players. AGIBOT and Unitree ranked first and second globally in humanoid robot shipments in the first half of 2026. Additionally, during the quarter, our LiDAR technology was adopted for a warehouse robot application by a major global logistics company. These early wins show that our automotive ADAS technologies transfer to humanoid robotics, with estimated content of more than $100 on some humanoid platforms. As humanoid robots move from pilot deployments to broader commercial adoption, indie is well-positioned to benefit significantly as one of the broadest sensor suppliers to the Physical AI market.
Let me now turn to our key achievements during the quarter. Starting with radar, I'm pleased to share that we have progressed into high-volume production of our automotive radar chipset, with material shipments to our Tier One partner ongoing. The chipset is fully automotive qualified, having completed the production part approval process, or PPAP. This rigorous process confirms that both the product and our manufacturing meet the stringent quality requirements of our automotive customers. The move to large-volume production is a significant inflection point for our radar business and sets the stage for our radar revenue ramp through 2027 and beyond. We also continue to broaden our radar customer engagement jointly with our Tier One partner, particularly in China. Additionally, I am happy to note that our radar technology has now been selected by one of the top three North American OEMs.
We are also extending both our radar and LiDAR technology into Physical AI. Autonomous machines such as robots and drones need robust all-weather perception to sense and safely navigate the world around them. In robotics, radar complements cameras by providing reliable detection in low light, dust, and poor visibility, whilst LiDAR can map a scene with sub-millimeter precision. In vision, given the escalating issues with DRAM availability and pricing, our differentiated DRAM-less solution, particularly for eMirror application, is proving to be the perfect fit. For example, we have secured new eMirror and side view mirror design wins with two OEMs, one Korean and the other Indian. These wins extend our camera-based mirror replacement business in two of the world's fastest-growing automotive markets. Our iND880 vision processor also continues to expand beyond automotive.
During the quarter, we secured two new design wins, one in a drone application and the other in a humanoid robot. The iND880's DRAM-less architecture reduces system latency and compute load for faster, more efficient perception. This makes the iND880 ideal for the robotics ecosystem. In commercial vehicles, the iND880 was featured at the IAA in a demonstration of Stoneridge's next-generation ECU architecture. This showcase reinforces our partnership with a leading commercial vehicle supplier and our position in centralized vision architectures. It also builds momentum towards further production engagements with truck and bus OEMs. Our in-cabin perception software from the emotion3D acquisition continues to gain traction, both as a standalone offering and as part of our pre-integrated hardware plus software platform. We were awarded an OEM production program on a vehicle model for the Australian market, with production starting in 2027.
Additionally, our combined SoC and perception software solution for advanced driver and occupant monitoring was named In-Cabin Solution of the Year by AutoTech Breakthrough, recognizing the strength of our integrated approach. Turning to photonics, our quantum business delivered record revenue and record bookings in the third quarter, with bookings up 17% sequentially. Highlights include our largest product order to date for continuous variable quantum key distribution, or CV-QKD. We also secured two new NRE contracts for the first phase of development of an integrated laser source for quantum computing. These programs demonstrate the differentiation of our photonic light source platform as quantum applications progress toward commercialization. We are also expanding our photonics business into high-reliability markets beyond automotive. During the quarter, our SLED photonics products completed final qualification and were selected for the CHIME space satellite program, validating the strength of our portfolio and supporting our diversification strategy.
We also advanced our LXM laser program for a space communications application and secured a $2 million supply contract. Together, these milestones demonstrate growing traction for our photonics technologies across multiple attractive end markets. Earlier this week, we received the final FDI regulatory approval for our acquisition of ams OSRAM's CMOS image sensor business. We now expect the transaction to close at the end of the year, subject to the satisfaction of the remaining customary closing conditions. Before we move to our financials, I want to say a word about how we report our forward visibility in the form of our strategic backlog, which we report in November each year. Over the past year, our strategic backlog trended slightly up to $6.2 billion, excluding our China Wuxi business. Importantly, this figure does not include our recent Physical AI design wins.
In Physical AI, from drones to humanoid robots, our vision portfolio alone has secured more than 40 design wins in 2026. These are exciting, fast-moving markets and could be expected to contribute considerably to our strategic backlog and future revenue as these markets mature. However, today is just too early to predict with the precision, the size, the initial ramp, and the winners for this market. We have therefore taken a conservative approach and excluded them from our strategic backlog this year. Let me be clear, the underlying momentum in our business is strong and continues to build with major discussions ongoing, which potentially will result in significant increase in our strategic backlog when it is next reviewed, and these discussions have in turn transitioned into design win commitments. As Naixi Wu will detail, our fourth quarter outlook implies approximately 33% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.
We will continue to report design wins and growth metrics that reflect how the business is performing quarter by quarter. I also want to note that based on our current visibility, our 2027 revenue outlook is in line with current analyst estimates. With that, I will turn the call over to Naixi to review our financial results and our outlook in more detail.
Thank you, Donald, and good afternoon, everyone. indie's third quarter revenue was $70.2 million, $0.2 million above the midpoint of our outlook. Revenue increased 10% quarter-over-quarter and 31% year-over-year. Core business revenue was approximately $40.7 million, ahead of the midpoint of our outlook and up approximately 14% sequentially, reflecting continued momentum in our ADAS portfolio. Revenue from our Wuxi subsidiary increased approximately 5% sequentially to $29.5 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses for the quarter were $36.4 million, approximately $0.6 million below our outlook of $37 million. As a result, while leveraging our top-line growth, our non-GAAP operating loss narrowed significantly to $7.2 million from $11.3 million in the third quarter of 2025, a reduction of more than a third and a clear demonstration of our continued progress towards profitability. Including net interest expense of $3.1 million, our non-GAAP net loss was $10.3 million.
After excluding the non-controlling interest in Wuxi, the non-GAAP net loss attributable to indie was $11.6 million, or $0.05 per share on a base of 233 million shares, an improvement of $0.02 from the third quarter of 2025. Please refer to the presentation on our website for a more detailed breakdown of our non-GAAP measures. Turning to the Wuxi divestiture, which still remains under review by the regulators in China. As a reminder, in the fourth quarter of 2025, we entered into a definitive agreement with United Faith Auto-Engineering Co., Ltd., or UFA, a publicly listed company in China. Under the agreement, we will sell our entire equity interest in Wuxi indie Micro for gross proceeds of approximately $135 million, payable in cash at closing before applicable taxes and fees. The discussions with the regulators in UFA are constructive.
We are optimistic that a transaction can still close by the end of the year. Upon closing, we expect to use the net proceeds to further strengthen our balance sheet and optimize our capital structure, including addressing our convertible debt. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with total cash and cash equivalents, including restricted cash of $144.3 million, a decrease of $4.7 million from the prior quarter. We expect to reach non-GAAP profitability in the second quarter of 2027 and to turn cash flow positive the following quarter. After funding the closing consideration for the ams OSRAM acquisition, and independent of any proceeds from the Wuxi divestiture, we believe our existing cash provides ample liquidity to fund our operations through that path to profitability. Moving to our outlook.
For the fourth quarter of 2026, we expect total revenue of between $73 million and $81 million, or $77 million at the midpoint. We expect our core business to contribute approximately $47 million and our Wuxi subsidiary at approximately $30 million at the midpoint. We expect non-GAAP operating expense of $37.5 million in the fourth quarter, up slightly from $36.4 million in the third quarter. With a net interest expense of approximately $3.4 million and no tax expense, we expect net loss per share to decrease to approximately $0.04, assuming the midpoint of revenue range and a base of 240 million shares. To summarize, the third quarter was another quarter of solid execution. Revenue grew 10% sequentially and 31% year-over-year, led by approximately 14% sequential growth in our core business as our ADAS portfolio continues to ramp.
We reduced our non-GAAP operating loss by approximately $4 million from the prior year period, and our loss per share improved by $0.02. Our balance sheet remains solid with over $144 million in cash, and we expect approximately $135 million in gross proceeds from the Wuxi divestiture to strengthen it further. Looking ahead, our fourth quarter outlook implies 33% year-over-year growth and full-year revenue growth of more than 20%. With radar now in volume production, we remain focused on disciplined spending and continue the progress towards profitability. With that, I will turn the call back to Donald for closing remarks.
In closing, Q3 was a strong quarter for indie. We delivered double-digit revenue growth both sequentially and year-over-year, and we are on track for a full-year revenue growth of more than 20% in a mixed automotive market. Just as importantly, we are executing on the milestones that will drive our next phase of growth. Our automotive radar chipset is in high-volume production, setting the stage for our continued radar revenue ramp. Our vision portfolio has secured more than 40 design wins so far this year, and our technology is moving rapidly into Physical AI across humanoid robots, drones, and other autonomous machines. Our photonics business delivered record quantum revenue and bookings while expanding into new high-margin markets. With a growing design win pipeline and a broadening customer base, we believe indie is exceptionally well-positioned to deliver sustained growth and long-term value for our shareholders. That concludes our prepared remarks.
Operator, please open the line for questions.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Cody Acree with StoneX. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks, guys, for taking my questions, and congrats on the progress. It's nice to hear, Donald, that our street models are not far off for 2027. That's definitely encouraging. We're at least on the right path. You opened the call with a talk about the auto industry, softer in China, stronger in the U.S. and Europe. Can you maybe talk about how indie is leveraged against the broader auto cycle? Obviously, you're in the early stages of radar and machine vision ramp, and I would think that would really insulate you from cyclical swings, but we are hearing better things about the overall auto cycle. Just curious on your thoughts here.
Yes. I mean, the primary thing that defines our revenue profile is our own share gain, and that's beginning to accelerate, as you can see from the numbers right now, and we expect it will continue to do such as we progress through the next weeks and months and quarters. So yes, you're 100% correct. I mean, we are somewhat insulated from the cycle. Generally speaking, it's been reasonably positive, actually, worldwide. There has been some softness domestically in China that we saw, but the China export market, models being designed, manufactured in China for export to whatever, Central Europe, and so have shown some strength. So, at this point, we don't view macro as a huge driver, at least not compared to our own share gain.
Thanks for that. You mentioned China a bit better in export. Can you maybe just talk about your DRAM-less vision engagements there? Help us frame maybe the size, the opportunity there, and the pace at contribution you expect over the next few quarters. Are those engagements starting to generate revenue?
Yes. I mean, they are, absolutely. I wouldn't single out China necessarily only. They were kind of the vanguard of the adoption of the product, but we are now beginning to see it worldwide in certain applications within the car, particularly in the U.S. We've had some very significant uptick in adoption over the course of the last quarter, and we expect that that will continue. It has been a very challenging area for supply chain, given the scarcity of memory and the pricing increase of three or 4x over the course of the last period. That has driven many significant manufacturers to adopt us, and even one or two are beginning to talk about it publicly.
Thanks for that, Donald. Lastly, and not to bring up a sore point, but your equity has obviously suffered along with the rest of the group, but you've particularly suffered. Has that prompted any supplier conversations, any partner, any OEM or Tier One partner conversations? The auto industry is particularly sensitive about their supplier health. Just if you can help us with those discussions.
Well, I think, generally speaking, the automotive industry is used to a bit of suffering. But the bottom line is, our cash position is still strong, and that's really where the rubber hits the road. Again, using an automotive analogy there for you. So, I think at this point, everybody's cool. We haven't had any explicit discussions at all, actually, around that. It's been a tough tape for the last month or so, but at this point, there's nothing structurally that's changed for us, and we're somewhat confused by the market at this point. But we'll drive through it, we'll execute through it. We run our own race, drive our products into production, and drive them into heavy growth, and I think we'll get rewarded for it in the fullness of time.
Excellent. Thank you guys for the help, and thanks for the questions.
Thanks, Cody.
Our next question is from Anthony Stoss with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question.
Morning, team, or good afternoon, team. Donald, I wanted to go through gross margin. The gross margins in the quarter ticked down sequentially to 41.6%. Why did that happen, and can you give us a sense what you expect for Q4 and maybe for 2027? Then I had a follow-up.
It is largely driven by mix, particularly in our Wuxi business. That has had some fairly severe margin pressure over the course of the last, I mean, 9-12 months or so, and that has continued, although we do see light at the end of the tunnel in that supply chain tightness may allow us to leverage prices back up as we go forward. As we have highlighted before, once Wuxi is divested, then our blended gross margin should tick up into the low 50s.
Q4, do you think it is kind of in that same 41% range, or does it move up a little bit?
I think we will see it go up a little bit as some of these measures begin to take effect.
Got it. Then your top three North American win for radar, can you discuss timing and perhaps number of models you might expect out of the gate?
We do see fairly broad adoption of that in terms of the number of models that we will see. Timing is not public yet, but it is a relatively near-term opportunity for us.
Got it. Lastly, can you talk about the ams OSRAM that you expected to close in the next month or so? What do you expect revenue-wise, gross margin-wise, et cetera, if you do not mind?
Yeah. I mean, this quarter is slated to close. It will not contribute significantly in either revenue or OpEx through the end of the quarter. At this point, we believe it should be commensurate with our average gross margins, maybe a little on the low side, before we are able to tune it up and get our arms around it and make sure that we optimize the manufacturing in that group.
Thank you, Donald.
Our next question is from Suji Des ilva with Roth Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, Donald. Hi, Wuxi. Donald, I appreciate all the automotive comments in your replies. The Tier One radar program, staying on that, you talked about a large OEM. How many OEMs are helping contribute to revenue today, and maybe do you expect in 12 months? You talked about it being a billion lifetime opportunity, $100 million a year at peak. How far away are we from that kind of ramp-up? Just give us some idea, maybe timeframe would be helpful.
I mean, there are multiple OEMs who are signed up to this already. We do expect a fairly broad adoption of this through our key Tier One. Our expectation is, in fact, that we will get to a point of somewhere between 50 million and 70 million units shipped per year at an ASP between $5 and $6. So, maybe a little higher than the number you just mentioned in terms of annual run rate. We do expect significant growth from it next year. It will be one of the key drivers of our growth as we go through 2027. I mean, very significant. We will get some material contribution from it from this quarter and on into 2027. The level of interest in it, just given the performance, it is simply the best in the business, the best on the market.
People who have seen radar deployments and presentations for 20 years are saying it is the most significant progress in radar technology in the last 20 years in their career time. You can expect a lot more design wins as we go forward from this.
Great. Sounds like an exciting upside opportunity, what I thought. Then switching over to the video processor, the iND880, it sounds like you have, you said 40 design wins. I am curious, what portion of those are seeing revenue today? It sounds like it is still early, and what is the linearity of some more of those 40 design wins coming online in the next several quarters? I know Korea and India are two places you mentioned, but curious how that is going to progress from here.
Yeah, I mean, we've seen some almost alarmingly quick adoption of the chip, just given the DRAM situation. People can't ship, or they can't ship economically, even down to the level of two or three months from first contact to first shipment for us. It's kind of hard to call how quickly it's going to ramp. Certainly, it's been surprising us so far and has been a material contributor to the ramp-up that we've gone through this year, and we expect it to accelerate. I mean, in terms of the number of design wins that have ramped so far, it's probably less than 20% of the total, which are, even in those guys who have begun to ship, are still at the slim end of the ramp. We have a lot of upside to come.
No, that sounds great, and the short time to implement is great. Thanks for the call, Donald.
Thanks, Suji.
Our next question is from Lannie Trieu with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, everyone. This is Lannie on for Josh today. Congratulations on the results, and great to hear about your design wins to date. I wanted to talk about your emotion3D in-cabin software win that you had mentioned. Given that it's going into production next year, how should we think about the revenue ramp through the year and the potential beyond that? I have a follow-up.
Well, just by way of reminder, it's a software business, so we generate license fees and then royalty stream as we ship, or as our customer ships product into the field. The ASP for the software royalty is somewhere between $4 and $8, depending on the feature set that we deploy into the market. You can assume that it ramps with the same sort of profile as any one of our hardware products. We also, a while ago, publicly announced our first quarter, or one of our first design wins with Mahindra, which is now beginning to generate revenue from that flow. We are expecting reasonably significant contribution to our overall revenue profile in 2027 from software.
Probably not more than 10% in the first year, but we do see it growing very quickly, and we also see it as sort of following wind for the one-stop shop product that we have, where we supply the hardware with the software also integrated. So, we are seeing a lot of great traction for that product. Again, we trade on technology as a company. Our radar technology is the best on the planet, our ISP technology is the best on the planet, and likewise, our perception software is getting the same plaudits from our customers once they see it. So, we are running into open doors.
Great. That's great to hear. Then pivoting from the auto business, really interesting to see your SLEDs chosen for CHIME. I believe the press release had mentioned some satellites scheduled for launch in 2028 and 2030. So, focusing more on the 2028 launch, can you talk a little bit about your content opportunity? Should we see some revenue maybe end of next year and more materially in 2028, or how should we think about that layering into your P&L? Thank you.
I mean, it's relatively small compared to our core business. It's more intended to highlight the diversity of the technologies that we have now available to us. Typically, these programs generate some non-product-based revenue in terms of services or NREs or customization fees that we realize for the development of the programs. Then, as the satellites launch, of course, we get the recurring product revenue. At this point, we're not really sub-segmenting out how much revenue that is, but it's, let's say, single-digit revenue.
Thank you.
Our next question is from Rebecca Zamsky with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Hello. Thank you for taking my question. This is Rebecca on for Craig Ellis. I think your core business revenue grew about 14% sequentially, and the guide implies about $47 million. Could you provide some color of how that's split across radar, vision, and photonics, and how much of the Q4 step-up is new program ramps versus share gains on existing platforms? Thank you.
Well, I mean, firstly, it is mostly driven by new program ramps. As opposed to, let us say, share gain for our Tier One customer, we are mostly driven by our vision and radar programs. Those are the large movers. The optical group is beginning to contribute. It will become significant over time, but it is still smaller than the other two.
Thank you. On the radar selection at the top three North American OEM, when should we start to expect production, and how should we think about the shape of the ramp through 2027 and 2028?
We have not publicized that yet. It is a little early to provide specific guidance on specific programs, but it is a large rolling program for us with a high penetration in that particular customer. We do expect it to be significant, and we will provide more information as time progresses.
Thank you.
Our next question is from John Tanwanteng with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. I was wondering if you could go over the strategic backlog calculation again, and if there is any difference in how you calculate that, number one, and number two, how you expect that to layer on into revenue over the next two or three years or so?
No change in the methodology per se, other than the part that we highlighted in the script that we did not include the Physical AI wins, just as it is a little too early for us to kind of call how the long-term revenue profiles of these guys are going to roll out. We did drive a lot of additional business in our core automotive business during the last 12 months. But the way that the model works, I think as you know, John, we have a sort of a rolling 10-year window, and some of the designs which are just ramping now or have ramped in the last year or so roll off out of the window. In some cases, we have not won the follow-on designs for those yet because the cycle is just not there yet.
I mean, the sales progress in our company has been just phenomenal over the course of the last 12 months. The fact that it is relatively flat versus to last year is not indicative of how we see our momentum in the market. In terms of how we roll that into the following years, as we said in the guide, in the script, we feel extremely strong about what the perception is of our revenue ramp going out there. We do expect that we will add multiple hundred million dollars of annual run rate over the course of the next couple of years into the equation as that converts into run rate business.
Okay, great. Thank you. I was wondering if you could quantify how much contribution you might be seeing in 2027, from contracts you have won or like vision processors that have moved over the finish line because of the DRAM discussion, whether they started there or it was a deciding factor. Just help us understand how much more
What?
Where DRAM was the deciding factor in a vision processor win?
Oh, I see. DRAM, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I mean, that is
How much incremental have you seen, thanks to your versus if that DRAM discussion wasn't there?
I mean, the product was good to start with, but I think if anything, it's just speeded the adoption of it, given the DRAM issues. We do expect, given the divestiture of Wuxi impending, and that dropping off of our revenue in 2027, we do expect to be able to more than replace that revenue in 2027 from the organic growth of radar and vision through that, and the DRAM-less iND880 is a key cornerstone of that.
Okay, great. Thank you. If I could get one more in there. How big is your non-auto business today, and what's the growth expected next year?
I mean, we don't really segment that out, actually, John. But it's still, I mean, automotive is still our key business.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Donald McClymont for closing comments.
Well, thanks, everybody, for attending, and looking forward to seeing you at the investor conferences through the course of the remainder of the quarter. Thanks, everybody.
This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.