Gorilla Technology Group Inc. Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Welcome to the Gorilla Technology Group Inc. Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. The conference is being recorded. Before we begin, we will read the forward-looking statement. Today's call includes forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements reflect management's current expectations and projections about future events and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Forward-looking statements often include terms such as expects, believes, plans, anticipates, may, should, and similar expressions. For a discussion of important factors that could affect Gorilla's results, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 20-F. Except as required by law, Gorilla undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements made on this call, whether due to new information, future events, or otherwise. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jay Chandan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Bruce Bower, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Crystal. Thanks, everyone, and thanks for joining. I will keep it quick. If you want drama, the market's already provided enough already today. So I will stick to the facts. Now let me start with the headline. We reported a record full-year revenue of $101.4 million, up 35.7% year-on-year. This is the first time in our history that we have surpassed $100 million in annualized revenue. We guided the market at $100 million to $110 million, and we delivered inside that range. That matters because credibility matters, and we intend to keep it that way. Now the more important part is how we got here. We executed a real turnaround. Our IFRS operating loss narrowed to about $13.7 million from $66.9 million last year. That was a remarkable improvement of $53.2 million or 79.6% reduction in the IFRS operating loss. Our IFRS net loss narrowed to about $11.3 million from $64.8 million last year, an 82.6% improvement. IFRS basic EPS improved to about $0.51 from negative $6.13, which is a 91.7% improvement. So yes, it was a proper swing. It was not just a cosmetic one. We did all of this while keeping the underlying profitability at scale. Adjusted EBITDA came in around $19.1 million, and adjusted net income was about $19.9 million, with our adjusted basic EPS being $0.89 and adjusted diluted EPS at $0.88. What I can tell you is that it is strong and very disciplined. Now I know what comes next because investors always ask it: how did we do versus expectations? For the fourth quarter, the market consensus was roughly around $34.75 million of revenue and adjusted EPS of $0.30. Based on our full-year results, our fourth quarter revenue was approximately $35.6 million, which is well above consensus. The implied fourth quarter adjusted earnings showed our adjusted EPS was roughly around $0.37, which is about a 22% beat versus the $0.30 consensus. For the full year, the market consensus was approximately $100.6 million of revenue with a $0.80 adjusted EPS. We delivered roughly around $101.4 million of revenue and produced about $0.89 adjusted EPS, a 6% beat versus consensus. So the message from my side is simple: we delivered record revenue, we delivered a major IFRS turnaround, and we delivered underlying profitability that exceeded expectations. Now let's just talk about the broader market because it has been volatile. The market conversation has shifted from you beating the quarter to whether AI spending will hold up. And I'm sure all of you have seen this in the last few days and weeks. That is a fair debate, but personally, it misses the bigger picture. AI is no longer a discretionary software trend. It's rapidly becoming a national capability and a core operating layer for enterprises and governments. The next phase of AI demand cannot be defined by one buyer or one deal. It will be defined by many buyers across various sectors, building permanent capacity: governments; regulated enterprises; telecom operators; logistics networks; financial services platforms. This list is long, and the spending is becoming structural. The compute is also evolving at a rapid pace. This is what the market is really missing. AI compute is actually shifting from the training cycle to an inference-led cycle. This is important because this does not reduce demand; it broadens demand. Inference pushes AI into everyday workflows and mission-critical operations, which increases the need for distributed compute across regional data centers and edge environments where latency, data residency, and resiliency requirements matter. This is where edge computing becomes a major driver, as most of you know, we were one of the leading edge companies when we went public, and we continue to invest heavily. Edge computing expands what AI can do because it moves inference closer to the decision point: closer to the sensor, closer to the customer interaction, closer to regulated data. It becomes a force multiplier for adoption in public safety, transportation, logistics, financial services, telecom networks, industrial setups, and smart cities. Now, let us talk about the scale of the infrastructure market in our region. We're not relying on slogans. We're tracking that data very, very closely. We have an internal team and a research team that is doing that, and we use external data at the same time. We see Asia Pacific data center investment growing from roughly $30 billion in the mid-2026, to about $90 billion by 2031. We see installed capacity broadly doubling from about 29,000 megawatts today to about 63,000 megawatts by the end of the decade. Southeast Asia follows the same trajectory, going from the low teens of billions towards roughly $30 billion by 2030 as more capacity is being built in the market rather than exported offshore. India is another example. It's scaling very rapidly. From a little over 1 gigawatt of installed IT load today, they're moving towards about 1.8 gigawatts by 2027 and to multiple gigawatts by 2030. We see the same trend in the Middle East, observing the sovereign build-out dynamic with market growth from low single-digit billions to high single-digit billions by early 2030 as governments and national champions scale local compute and secure infrastructure. This is the structural build cycle we are positioning Gorilla for. So what are we doing in 2026? We are advancing our AI infrastructure and data center build strategy well across Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and other regions, including Taiwan and so on. We're expanding our evaluation work in India. We're progressing our strategy in the Middle East, which includes Saudi Arabia, where an MOU has already been signed, and we are actively exploring data center development opportunities in that region. We're also exploring opportunities to buy and/or build our own data center assets. Ownership changes the model. It gives us more control over our delivery and a stronger long-term positioning and the potential to build recurring infrastructure-led revenue streams rather than relying on project cycles. At the same time, we are also strengthening our product edge for its next stage of adoption. Our first quantum cryptography is targeted to be ready in April 2026. Our local interception product suites remain in continued research and development as we expand sovereign-grade capabilities across security, intelligence, and compliance-led deployments. By 2027, we are also now putting a team together that will be investing heavily into local interception as well. Currently, we have about 300 full-time employees today, with a little over 200 contractors working on all the projects we have signed. Based on the projects we have recently signed, we anticipate growing to about 1,200 to 1,500 full-time employees by mid-June next year, which would be an additional roughly 700 to 800 contractors. We will have roughly between 2,000 to 2,500 employees for the company at any given point in time. Investors want proof. They want execution, not a narrative. So I will speak directly about the signal that matters: delivery and collections, more about the cash conversion. Our top customers are progressing very strongly, and our customer satisfaction is reflected in our payment behavior. In the first two months of 2026, we have collected more than $22 million from our largest customers for solutions delivered and invoiced in 2025. We also expect meaningful collections in the coming weeks. We finished the year 2025 with a total cash balance of $104.8 million. What was very important is that we did all this by reducing the total debt load to about $13.8 million, which is a 35.6% decrease from the $21.4 million in the prior year. Through the refinancing of certain lending agreements and the repayment of others, we also reduced our debt, freeing up more than $5.3 million of deposits previously held as collateral against some of these loan obligations. This kind of balance sheet gives us very meaningful flexibility to execute existing programs, fund working capital delivery cycles, and scale our infrastructure strategy with discipline. We've also spent more than $11 million on buybacks to date, as we believe the market continues to undervalue Gorilla relative to our performance and our strategy. Personally, I think you could call this confidence, but I call it arithmetic, right? Why? Because that leads me to my next point. We're aiming to be cash flow positive in 2026. That's not just a slogan for me; it's an operating objective that comes with very disciplined delivery, disciplined overhead control, and disciplined cash collection. Finally, a lot of people have asked me about Gorilla Technology Capital. Personally, it's a game-changing catalyst for our next phase. It's designed to expand our ability to execute larger infrastructure programs by structuring capital efficiently, aligning long-duration funding with long-duration assets, as well as enabling our customers to move faster with clear financing pathways. Some people say, 'hey, maybe they're buying a bank.' No, we're not buying a bank. I mean, you have to understand that what Gorilla Technology Capital does strengthens our ability to scale data center builds and accelerate GPU infrastructure deployment. More importantly, it allows us to participate materially in larger mandates with institutional-grade structures and governance. To summarize 2025 in one line: we delivered a historic revenue milestone, executed a major profitability turnaround, strengthened the balance sheet and positioned Gorilla for the next stage of AI infrastructure, which is sovereign and regional—more importantly, distributed, and becoming increasingly edge-enabled. In 2026, we shift from proving we can build the work to scaling what we can deliver: converting execution into cash, expanding our data center footprint across India, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, the Middle East, and utilizing Gorilla technology to unlock materially larger programs without compromising. All this while accelerating our product roadmap, meaning we are investing heavily into R&D. Thank you for your time. I will hand over to Bruce, who knows the numbers well enough to recite them without blinking. Bruce, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jay. I think you covered the main points in terms of the financials. I wanted to hit on a few things. First of all, we mentioned that the cash balance at the end of the year was $104.8 million. I'd just like to emphasize that due to the collections so far this year, the cash balance actually increased. As of the 26th of February, it was $108 million of unrestricted cash and $116.6 million of total cash. That is in spite of spending $3 million this calendar year, in the last two months on share buybacks. So we've been able to increase cash and also buy back shares this year. It's a strong start to the year. The other thing I would point out is when we talked about freeing up the debt load—reducing the debt load and freeing up cash deposits—some people asked, why didn't you pay off all of the debt? Well, the debt that we have remaining, the $13.8 million is at an average interest rate of 3%. To be blunt, it makes sense to keep it as flexible capital instead of repaying it and borrowing at higher rates. The last thing I would talk about is we issued guidance last year of $137 million to $200 million as the revenue guidance range for this year. We are maintaining that. We are not prepared to issue gross margin or EBITDA guidance yet, but stay tuned in the coming months. We announced that basically the wide range of $137 million to $200 million depends on the delivery schedule of certain data center projects we’re pursuing with Freyr and others. We'll have a very good update in the next month to month and a half about the timing of those projects, about delivery schedules from NVIDIA, and that should help to firm up the guidance and give you better visibility. With that, I'd like to reinforce what we mentioned in the press release and what Jay said: we believe that the balance sheet has improved to the point where we're able to fund growth initiatives and also buy back shares that we feel are undervalued, and that we can take on a lot of the growth projects that we've discussed—not just the increase in revenue this year, projected to be in the middle of the range, which would be almost a 70% increase, but also the contracts we have in the pipeline, indicating a $7 billion revenue opportunity. We believe we can fund substantially through access to debt facilities, mostly through project finance, and through the cash we have on the balance sheet at the moment. With that, I'd like to turn it back to Jay, and if he wants to open up to questions, we can do that.

Thanks, Bruce. I'd love to open up the questions to all standing by. Thank you.

Your first question comes from Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners.

Yes. Close enough. You've come certainly a very long way over the last 2 years. Congratulations on that. Has anything changed in your best guess on timing for the first three phases of the Freyr partnership? I think the plan was project financing to help you start in April for Phase 1, September for Phase 2, and December for Phase 3? And then outside of financing these projects, are there any gating factors to starting these projects? If so, what needs to happen in those timeframes?

Brian, good to hear from you, and thank you for your kind comments. We are on track with where we are. Obviously, considering the market forces today, we have experienced some slight delays in terms of the delivery. That said, let me walk you through what has happened. Some programs have moved in terms of timing; for example, the Freyr contract is on schedule. We are currently in the final stages of getting our first set of GPUs coming through over the next few days and will be deploying them as we speak. We have also accelerated the timing on some of the data center discussions. Previously, we were looking at about 12.5 megawatts of data center. Instead of commissioning them all on a single day, we're slowly putting them in place. Power cooling network zones are all commissioned. Revenue ramps are going to be energized as we speak. As the racks go live, we will drop in the clusters through our partner ecosystem, which also drives what I call GPU as a service usage line. What is very exciting for us is that we have realized the need to deploy a lot of capital in the data center space ourselves because we have been inundated with significant requirements. We are currently looking at more than 600 megawatts of capacity rather than just the 12 megawatts alone. This gives us control over our destiny over time, projecting several hundred million dollars per year once all these racks and GPUs are operational. In terms of delays, there are no significant issues so far. The Thailand MOU, for example, has been delayed because of the political transition, some departmental organization changes—waiting for the post-election leadership to settle as we speak. But we are proceeding with all of the approvals, permitting, site readiness, and customer prerequisites. I hope that answers your question, Brian.

It does. My second question is about your large pipeline of other data center opportunities. Not to say that your business development has been slow—it's been very fast—but do you think those customers are waiting to see how execution is on the first Freyr contract? Is that going to hold back agreements in the near term? Or do you think those will be able to move forward without delivery on those three projects?

Absolutely not. Our pipeline is exploding. We have not been slow in our sales; we have been inundated with interest. At the start of the year, we were looking at proofs of concepts (POCs) and MOUs, and since then, we have moved into late-stage commercial structuring or improved contracting, which increases the scale and certainty of our pipeline. The $1.4 billion Southeast Asia contract was only a catalyst. Once governments and telcos saw what we were able to deliver with the first 12.5 megawatts, it triggered a rush for sovereign-grade AI infrastructure requirements and generated a huge surge in interest for us. There are many opportunities beyond Freyr itself. Furthermore, governments are not contemplating this as an ambition but rather an urgency to build strategic infrastructure. We are now targeting over 600 megawatts of power, and I believe the opportunity ahead is substantial and only growing.

Great. My last question: you highlighted recruitment needs. How would you characterize the recruiting market in the geographies you're hiring? Are there significant AI HPC senior executives available to give you leadership in strategy and expertise at a high level?

That's a really good question. We are hiring at a rapid pace. In Thailand, we're going strong with hires of about 80-plus people. In Taiwan, we have deployed a significant data center team along with an R&D team for our cybersecurity products. We have done this through what is called a hub-and-spoke model that accelerates our product and services capabilities. Satish has been driving client impact and technical capabilities since joining us mid-last year. On the R&D side, we've been bolstering our teams in SD-WAN, post-quantum cryptography, local interception capabilities, and video analytics. By April, we will launch what we believe is the world's first fully-ready post-quantum crypto SD-WAN, and we're also working on massive proof of concepts with customers. Every single region we work in is asking how we are building stronger ground capacity. For instance, by the end of this year, our team in Thailand will be about 1,000 people, around 200 to 300 in India, and the Taiwan team will exceed 200-plus people. We're also hiring senior executives, including Thomas as our CTO of Infrastructure and Jackie from the hardware side as GM for Asia. We're expanding at a rapid pace across all facets of the business.

Your next question comes from the line of Bharath Nagaraj with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Thanks for the presentation. Just a few questions from me. To start off with on the gross margin—I'm just wondering about the mix that resulted in a slightly different gross margin than what I was expecting; I wanted to understand what the revenue mix is. My second question is regarding your latest compute deployments for data centers in Southeast Asia—what level of revenue are you modeling per megawatt there? What sort of use cases are you thinking about?

Bruce, do you want to take the first part of the question? I'll take the second part.

Sure. A better way to think about it is that in 2024, we had an abnormally high service mix in the revenue composition, being predominantly service, while there was higher hardware percentage for 2025, at around 40%. That's why the gross margins appeared slightly lower than expected. Additionally, we signed two major law enforcement customers in Asia, which each had lower margins than the norm. The good news is that, moving forward, we are able to be more selective regarding projects. If the margin terms or credit profile of the customer aren’t right, we can afford to move on to the next project. A key point is that our GPU as a service has a significantly high gross margin—70% or higher. While we will account for depreciation, we will be targeting a 25% operating margin at scale. I believe 2025 was an unusual dip in gross margins, and we expect them to improve over time.

To add to that, Bharath, we are investing heavily to build the business for sustainable long-term growth and gross margins. For pricing in Asia, we structure it either by capacity per server per month or usage per kilowatt hour based on the customer and the program. For sovereign enterprise deployments, we're targeting multiyear take-or-pay contracts, ensuring predictable pricing and sustainable margins. We typically refrained from quoting a fixed rate because it can vary based on GPU class, term length, utilization profiles, power and cooling specs, location, land values, service levels, etc. We prefer to ensure structured programs focus on solid unit economics with significant protections on collections and payments.

Does the Astrikos acquisition align with your strategy? Do you have pricing or margin contributions from new contracts, or is it bundled to strengthen your competitive edge?

That's an excellent question. Firstly, Astrikos is a real-time infrastructure intelligence engine that provides monitoring, prediction, and optimization capabilities for critical systems. Established in serious environments, it strengthens our ability to sell outcomes rather than just technology. It fits into three parts of our stack: first, in smart city and national infrastructure operations, allowing real-time measurement and optimization; second, in video intelligence and security, enhancing data operationalization; and third, optimizing GPU environments requiring telemetry, security, and operational automation. It serves as a strategic springboard in regions such as India and UAE to improve our footprint and bolster commercial traction on a large scale. We are a significant minority investor with an option for increased ownership, enabling us to integrate and drive traction effectively.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Latimore with Northland Capital Markets.

Congrats on a great year! I have a couple of questions. You mentioned more collections upcoming this quarter. Can you frame that a little bit more? Are we talking a few million dollars or over $10 million?

Bruce, do you want to take that?

I would estimate it's around $10 million, plus or minus a few million on either side.

Okay. That relates to the 2025 effort?

Yes, it's solutions delivered and invoiced in 2025.

It seems like there’s been no change regarding the Southeast Asian deal. Is that the case?

That's correct, though it has become a catalyst.

Can you clarify about the GPUs you mentioned recently? Are they specifically related to the Southeast Asia deal? Will there be regular deliveries?

Certainly. We’re creating a flywheel effect. We ensure we have delivery coming in every week. According to our agreements with our OEMs, starting next week, we’re getting a few deliveries happening. We’re also delivering against other contracts as well. This should create a steady flow for us, driving GPU demand and deeper national engagements.

So the GPUs will be distributed beyond just Southeast Asia?

Yes. I will provide a concrete schedule soon.

Is the first Southeast Asia data center still aiming to be operational in the second quarter?

We're pushing to make it live by the first quarter; otherwise, it will definitely be live in the second quarter. We've completed the BOM agreement, and we've sent it to our OEM partners. We also need to consider the networking equipment involved. However, demand has been exceeding our capabilities, and we've decided to build our own capacity; we are targeting about 600+ megawatts. While working closely with the Indian government, we plan to establish the required infrastructure across various demands and architectures. As you pointed out, we are in the process of signing new deals to reserve/leverage that available capacity regionally.

To clarify, we’re not in the business of building capacity and hoping customers will come. Our approach is purpose-built for AI-focused data centers or GPU as a service. We won’t invest capital until there’s clear customer demand, and we ensure upfront customer prepayments are an integral part of our financing.

Your next question comes from the line of John Roy with Water Tower Research.

With recent events over the weekend, can you provide any update on operations or outlook for the Middle East considering the Iran-U.S. situation?

Thank you for the question, Mr. Roy. I genuinely feel for all those affected by the current situation. From a business perspective, we are monitoring closely, but we are not seeing any material impact on our operations. Egypt is progressing well, and we continue to execute with caution, compliance, and operational controls. We are aware of logistics challenges and security conditions; adjustments may impact timing rather than demand. We are tracking trends favorably that accelerate our operations.

Can you take a step back and discuss the macro AI environment trends you’re observing?

Sure. I categorize three trends: first, AI is becoming a national and regulated infrastructure—governments and enterprises treat AI compute as strategic capacity tied to sovereignty and compliance. This shifts demand from optional pilots to targeted programs. Second, we’re seeing a shift in demand dynamics from training to inference, transitioning to distributed inference—training is lumpy while inference is persistent, leading to a greater need for regional data centers. Lastly, edge computing is expanding our addressable market significantly by bringing AI to decision points, thus accelerating adoption across multiple industries, multiplying the need for distributed compute. These trends very much favor us and are only accelerating, not slowing.

Your next question comes from Barrett Boone with RedChip.

Jay and Bruce, congratulations on the transformative 2025. I have a question regarding quantum safe networks and your SD-WAN product—can you share concrete milestones investors can look for?

We have developed a strong product and are confident in launching it by the end of April 2026. When we deploy AI infrastructure, we aren't just installing GPUs; we're also providing secure connectivity and compliance layers. Our SD-WAN, combined with quantum-safe encryption, enhances our overall solution value and improves margin mix. Our quantum solutions are poised to future-proof the transport layer for edge AI deployments, establishing us as a trusted operator. In summary, thank you deeply for your support. We aim to execute with discipline and build the AI infrastructure that governments and industries will rely on. We appreciate your time and trust in us. Before my tea gets cold, I will hand over—thank you, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.