Ispire Technology Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the iSPIRE Technology Q3 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note that today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to James Carbonara with Hayden Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to iSpire Technologies' fiscal third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact in its announcement are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by the company in terms of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions, and expected future developments, as well as other factors that the company believes are relevant. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown uncertainties. and many factors could cause the company's actual results or performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding this and other risk factors are included in the company's filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent or current events or circumstances or changes in expectation, except as may be required by law. I will now turn the call over to Michael Wong, Co-Chief Executive Officer of iSpire Technology. Michael, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining us. This quarter marked a turning point for iSpire. Our business has stabilized. Our operating model is sharper and more disciplined. And we ended the quarter with $18 million in cash. up $468,000 sequentially. This sequential cash growth is one of the clearest signs of progress in the quarter. It demonstrates improving financial control and a more focused operating posture and reinforces our confidence in becoming cash flow positive in the second half of this calendar year, 2026. The transition we set out to make is behind us. Now we are executing against a phased growth roadmap, multiple catalysts, each tied to billion-dollar markets where we have clear competitive advantages. The first and the most immediate of these is Malaysia. Our Malaysia manufacturing platform is alive today. And we believe this is one of the most strategically important developments in the company's history. In addition, Malaysia provides us with an estimated 25% tariff advantage over China. giving us both economic and strategic leverage as we pursue opportunities in the $73 billion global vape market. This is both a manufacturing milestone and a structural advantage that we believe can support margin improvement, customer acquisition, and the long-term market relevance. Second, plans are underway to launch our Vapor ODM initiative in July. This initiative will initially serve small and mid-sized brands with larger brand opportunities targeted for 2027. We see this as another practical commercialization pathway that can convert our manufacturing, design, and the regulatory capabilities into higher value customer relationships. Beyond these near-term drivers, we continue to build long duration optionality through differentiated technology. Through IKE Tech, we believe our educating platform has the potential to help unlock the approximately $50 billion to $70 billion US flavored vape market, a market that remains effectively inaccessible today under the current framework. In parallel, Our G-Mesh glass technology is drawing interest in a $24 billion plus legal global market, including licensing discussions with major tobacco participants. These are proprietary assets that could materially expand our strategic and financial opportunities beginning in 2027 and beyond. The accomplishments we achieved during the fiscal third quarter are clear. We strengthened liquidity, improved operating discipline, and advanced a roadmap with multiple high-value catalysts. We believe that combination gives iSpire a stronger foundation for both profitability and the long-term shareholder value creation as we move forward. I will now turn the call over to Jay for a more detailed review of our financial results. Jay?

Thank you, Michael. For the fiscal third quarter ended March 31st, 2026, Aspire reported revenue of 18.7 million, compared with 26.2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, and 20.3 million in the prior quarter. The modest special decline primarily reflected seasonal factory downtime associated with Chinese New Year. and represent the most resilient second to third quarter performance pattern in our history. Growth perfect for the quarter was 2 million and growth margin was 10.7%. Importantly, growth perfect was impacted by approximately 2.2 million of one-time product returns from legacy cannabis customer with whom

we have fixed doing business.

We view those returns as part of final cleanup associated with our strategic repositioning, not a representative of the normalized earning profile of the go-forward business. In that sense, we view this quarter as one in which reported margin observed a legacy headwind, while the underlining business mix continues moving in an improved direction. On the cost side, we continued to make meaningful progress, total operating expenses excluding credit loss. were 5.9 million, down 36% year-over-year, from 9.3 million and down 3.7%, especially from 6.1 million in the December quarter. This performance reflects the impact sustained caused this plan and a more focused operating structure. It also reinforce our belief that profitability is increasingly a matter of near-term execution and skill. Credit loss in the quarter was $5.6 billion, down roughly $500,000 year-over-year. This improvement is another indication that the financial clean-up tied to legacy activity is moving in the right direction. And we are committed to continue this plan around receivables and working capital management. Net loss first quarter was 9.5 million compared with 10.9 million in the year-ago period and 6.6 million in the prior quarter. While the quarter still reflects transition related pressure, the broader trend is encouraging. We have materially reduced our cost base while positioning the company for higher quality value streams and better operating leverage over time. We ended the quarter with 18 million in cash, an increase of approximately 468,000 sequentially. This sequential cash growth is a meaningful achievement in the context of an ongoing repositioning. It strengthens our balance sheet, supports our near-term growth investments, and underpins our confidence in reaching cash flow positive performance in the second half of this calendar year, 2026. From a financial perspective, the foundation for improved profitability has been built. The company is leaner, more disciplined, and better aligned with high-value growth markets. I will now turn the call back to Michael.

Thank you. This quarter marks the beginning of a new phase for iSpire. The transition in our business reflects reduced exposure to low-quality revenue and is now about converting that reset into a stronger earnings model, a stronger cash profile, and a stronger strategic position in global nicotine and compliance technology markets.

Our priorities are clear.

First, We are focused on profitability and the path to becoming cashflow positive in the second half of this calendar year, 2026. We intend to build on the momentum we have established this quarter to operating discipline, working capital management, and the ramp of new revenue catalysts. Second, we are focused on winning from a position strategic advantage. Our licensed manufacturing presence in Malaysia gives us a highly differentiated foothold in a critical geography with regulatory exclusivity and tariff advantages that we believe can translate into both commercial and financial benefits over time. Malaysia is a platform for expansion. And finally, we are building a company with multiple avenues for value creation. Near-term scale commercialization through vapor ODM and longer-term upside through edge gating and G-Mesh. Together, these initiatives create a diversified roadmap that we believe is unusual in our industry and compelling from an investor perspective.

Thank you for your time and continued support. Operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw it, please press star then two. We will now pause momentarily to assemble our. And today's first question comes from Nick Anderson with Roth Capital Partners. Please proceed.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions, and congrats on the quarter. First for me, just on the vague news and the recent flavored approval, there was discussion around the digital lease software, which maybe was a reason the FDA viewed that application favorably. I guess two questions off that. Do you believe proximity-based restrictions will be the path the FDA takes? And if so, do you have the capability to incorporate that tech into your tech if you don't have it already? Thank you.

Nick, thank you. The first part of the question, actually I will go straight to the second part. Yes, we do have that built into our solution. And from day one, that was the key differentiation between our technology and other solutions out there. So more importantly, our platform is now moving out of the old app model more into a platform model. So this again reinforced the continuous authentication capabilities. And more importantly, because it's a platform, we would allow for brands to customize and set their own, I guess, performance parameter, you can say. Really, from brand to brand, we provide that capability because we also want to make sure brands, in dealing with the different regulations across the world, they can set the parameters differently, country by country, depending on regulations too. So simple answer is yes, we have the continuous authentication capability and it's in our solution. And the advantage really is so many solutions out there, especially solutions developed years ago tend to be either having the device turned on after initial age verification and then stay on forever which is of course highly undesirable from regulatory point of view, or they would have a periodic re-authentication or verification. that also creates gaps where potential misuse of the device could happen. So that's why from day one, our solution was continuous authentication. And that proved to be very important to regulators, not only with FDA, but outside the U.S. as well. Nick, I hope I answered your question.

Yeah, that's perfect and very encouraging. Second for me, just on partnerships, this PMTA announcement also validated age-gating positioning and getting flavors to market. I know this is maybe too early, but what have you seen with discussions with potential partners in terms of potentially accelerating off of this approval? What has changed in the last few days in terms of the clients you're talking to?

You're right. Indeed, in the last 48 hours, up to 72 hours, the ground was moving per se. So that's really encouraging to us. President Trump's pressure on the FDA obviously went a long way for the industry. And the immediate approval of the four additional SKUs for glass sent a strong signal to the industry. I think all the key players in the industry are familiar with the pros and cons of different solutions. Collectively, we have the shared consensus that our solution is most advanced versus other technologies. So with the news of the last couple of days, certainly we got accelerated existing conversations with brands. In a couple of situations, we actually have even moved one step further discussing using our technology in some of their existing PMPAs through a so-called supplemental PMPA to accelerate the approval of their flavored products. So it's clear the industry recognize that flood gate is opening and age gating is the only way to get a flavored approval. And lastly, with everybody's understanding for solution being far ahead of competition. So we are absolutely getting, I would say, Yesterday, put it this way, I worked 17 hours. That's much longer than my typical day of 12 hours. So it says a lot about the effort we put into entertaining those conversations.

That's great to hear. If I could squeeze just one more in on the state-by-state structures, with regulators becoming more constructive around VAPE, How do you anticipate states will respond? Several markets still have banned flavors. Some have banned foreign imports. How do you see the state landscape changing as potentially more flavors come to market in the legal market? Thank you.

I think from a flavor ban point of view, those, I think, five, six states literally are aligned with FDA's flavor ban. So they are just reinforcing these bans accordingly. So from that point of view, there is a consistency. I certainly hope with FDA feeling comfortable with educating technology and start approving flavors, those states would align as well, would support approved flavors. But of course, we all know the general flavor ban in place right now is really trying to minimize the impact of a black market from selling devices to underage users. So that was a real goal by those states. So I think from that point of view, there is a perfect alignment with the FDA. I certainly hope the state would follow FDA's lead in terms of supporting approved flavors. But regarding other state-by-state situation, Texas, for example, is driving toward banning China-made vaping devices. So that is absolutely supporting our strategy of producing our product in Malaysia. So I think that's a plus for us. But some other state-by-state restrictions I think involve in probably banning disposables. We all know disposables are not environmentally friendly approach to vaping. So I think the industry is moving further and further into pod systems versus disposable. And California, as we know, banned online sales to further protect consumers. So I don't think that is going to change. That is the right policy. because online sales is so hard to regulate and verify, certify. But ultimately, the true solution in protecting underage consumers or people and to protect adult consumers from using risky, dangerous products is by FDA approving flavored devices with age-gating built-in. So I think I'm happy for the industry knowing glass devices were approved and this is a new beginning for the industry. I'm happy for consumers and certainly this is a major win for the regulators as well. Instead of doing nothing for flavored products, finally this is the right thing using technology here to solve the problem. Nick, that's my answer.

Great. That's it for me. Congrats, and I'll pass it on.

And this concludes today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Michael Wong for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Obviously, this quarter is a low quarter in terms of revenue for us, but it's not a surprise. Q3 has always been a low quarter due to the Chinese New Year shutdown of the factories. But generally, from Q2 to Q3, we saw over 30% drop in business. For this time, it's only 8% drop. That's really, as Jay indicated, it's the lowest drop in history. But I do believe from top line and bottom line point of view, Q3 was a low point. And we feel very strongly, as Jay stated, Our foundation is set solidly. We have a lot of work to do certainly to prove to investors that we were over the hump and we are now on an upward trajectory. So I look forward to sharing more performance and developments with investors in the coming month. Certainly we are here to show what we can accomplish this current quarter and the September quarter. I hope there will be a trend to regain some of the investors' trust and confidence, and we'll never look back again. So thanks again to everybody on today's call.

This concludes it all. Thank you. Thank you. The conference has now concluded.

Thank you for attending today's presentation and you may now disconnect.