Aviat Networks, Inc. 2026 Q4 Earnings Call

You may begin. Thank you, and welcome to Aviat Networks' fourth quarter fiscal 2026 results conference call and webcast.

You can find our press release and updated investor presentation in the IR section of our website at www.aviatnetworks.com, along with a replay of today's call. With me today are Pete Smith, Aviat's President and CEO, who will begin with the opening remarks on the company's fiscal quarter, followed by Andy Schmidt, CFO, to review financial results for the quarter. Pete will then provide closing remarks on Aviat's strategy and outlook. As a reminder, during today's call and webcast, management may make forward-looking statements regarding Aviat's business, including but not limited to statements relating to fiscal guidance, financial projections, business drivers, new products and expansions, the economic activity in different regions.

These and other forward-looking statements reflect the company's opinions only as of the date of this call and webcast, and involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. Additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements expressed or implied on this call can be found in our most recent filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or make public any revision of these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. Additionally, during today's call and webcast, management will reference both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our press release, which is available in the IR section of our website at www.aviatnetworks.com, and financial tables therein, which include a GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation and other supplemental financial information.

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Aviat's President and CEO, Pete Smith.

Pete? Thanks, Andrew. Let's review the highlights from the fourth quarter.

Quarterly revenues of $121 million, up 4.8% versus the year ago period. Adjusted EBITDA of $11.9 million. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.64. Year-end backlog of $367 million, up 14% versus the end of fiscal year 2025. This marks a strong end to Aviat's fiscal 2026. Full-year revenue was $440 million, up 1.2% versus the prior fiscal year. This represents our sixth consecutive year of revenue growth. Aviat is the only microwave company to achieve this growth during the last six years. I would also like to note that this was the first time in over a decade that Aviat has had all four quarters in the fiscal year with at least $100 million in revenue. This is a tremendous achievement, and I would like to thank all of our customers, supplier partners, and employees in making this possible.

Since FY 2023, we have been expanding outside of our core microwave business with a focus on mission-critical access. In FY 2026, sales of non-microwave, i.e., mission-critical access products grew significantly versus FY 2025 and is the result of Aviat's strategic decisions and execution years prior, allowing us to diversify our business and gain access to larger, faster-growing segments. We are glad to see this strategy coming to fruition. Now, I'd like to talk more about recent developments in our end markets. In the U.S., strong quarterly sales and bookings set the stage for an exciting year ahead. We see several growth vectors aligning for Aviat. First, we believe our multi-dwelling unit, MDU opportunity will deliver meaningful revenues to Aviat this year. We announced an order received from an existing customer in the range of $25 million-$30 million. We expect all of this revenue in fiscal 2027.

The Aviat team continues to work to win additional markets and adjacent opportunities to increase our capture rate in fiscal 2027 and beyond. Secondly, we see private networks continuing to be a core foundation for Aviat's growth. In state and local public safety networks, Aviat remains the leader and continues to pursue opportunities for more share of demand. According to industry research, city and state government budgets are expected to grow 6.4% and 4.2%, respectively. Video-intensive applications like drones and body cameras, as well as other data-intensive tools, drive increased bandwidth demand within private networks, which necessitates more or upgraded microwave links. As highlighted in our last earnings call, utility private networks are poised for growth. Power infrastructure and grid connectivity are emerging as key bottlenecks to AI infrastructure deployment. This build-out requires secure, highly reliable communication networks to connect and manage grid assets. Aviat participates here. Thanks to our portfolio of industry-leading solutions geared towards utilities.

Our microwave radio portfolio, Aprisa, SCADA radios, and LTE 5G routers, combined with our network management software and our Health Assurance and Frequency Assurance offerings, provides utilities a one-stop shop for its network connectivity build-out and management needs. With the SpaceX IPO and the announcement of a potential fourth cellular network in the U.S., there is a significant amount of investor interest in low Earth orbit, or LEO networks. We believe that there is a valuable niche to fill in the communication space, specifically around nomadic or very remote locations. Therefore, we see the technology as being complementary and not necessarily competitive with Aviat. We see the following for LEO and Aviat. One, Aviat's core business is largely unthreatened. Two, there is an idea of SpaceX building out a terrestrial network.

While the architecture of that conceptual network is not fully formed, should this materialize, Aviat is well-positioned if and when the architecture requires terrestrial backhaul. Three, most exciting is the new functionality that LEO brings. LEO offers redundant communications. This is most valued by private network customers, and we are seeing opportunities for Aviat through integration with microwave and cellular router solutions. For microwave networks, satellite provides a low-cost, easy-to-deploy backup path for critical remote sites. For cellular routers in public safety and fleet applications, satellite fills LTE and 5G coverage gaps with automatic failover. In both cases, Aviat's opportunity is to deliver an integrated solution that improves resilience while simplifying deployment, management, and operations for our customers. Aviat's customers are engaged in trials to demonstrate the value proposition of this redundancy.

Please see slide 11 in our investor presentation to get a picture of the ongoing trials and connectivity solution we bring. Moving on to international. Aviat's business has seen particular traction in the EMEA region, where revenues were up 53% in the fourth quarter and up 33% for all of fiscal 2026. This growth has been driven in part by recent international private network wins, including with defense customers, including blackned, as well as energy firms. As we pursue more such private network business, we see this segment as a growing portion of our international business in the future. Moving on to supply chain. Like others in the technology hardware space, Aviat has not been immune from component shortages and cost inflation. Specifically, we are most focused on securing supply for memory, printed circuit boards or PCBs, capacitors, and FPGAs.

We will be opening the playbook we used during COVID supply chain crisis to secure favorable placement and allocations among our suppliers. Although Aviat has been able to manage through these current allocations and shortages with our inventory and safety stock, we have also had some headwinds to our gross margins from component cost inflation. We plan to pass along these price increases to our customers to help offset these rising costs. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andy to go through the financial results.

Thanks, Pete. I will review some of the key fiscal year 2026 and fourth quarter results. Please note that our detailed financials can be found in our press release, and all comparisons discussed are between fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 and fourth quarter fiscal year 2025, unless otherwise noted. For the fourth quarter, we reported total revenue of $120.9 million as compared to $115.3 million for the same period last year, an increase of 4.8%. Revenues for the 12-month period were $439.7 million versus $434.6 million the year ago 12-month period. North America, which comprised 65.5% of our total revenues for the quarter, was $68.3 million. This was up $10.3 million or 17.8% versus the year ago period. These results were complemented by a limited set of deployments for a North American-based MDU project in the quarter.