NETSOL Technologies Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the NetSol Technologies first quarter of Fiscal 2026 Earnings Conference call. On the call today, our founder and Chief Executive Officer of NetSol Technologies, Inc., Najeeb Ghori, Chief Financial Officer, Roger Allman, Senior Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Patty McLesson, and Chief Marketing Officer, Eric Wagner. I'd like to now turn the call over to Patty, who will provide the necessary disclaimers regarding the forward-looking statements made during today's call. Patty, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. After we review the company's business highlights and financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, we will open the call for questions. Before we begin, I'd like to provide the customary caution regarding forward-looking statements that may be made during today's discussion. Please note that all information presented on this call is subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our remarks may include forward-looking statements that reflect management's current expectations regarding future events and operating performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those projected. We encourage you to review the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in NETFL's press release issued earlier today. as well as in our filings with the Secretary of Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent from Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. I'd also like to note that today's discussion will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of these measures to their most direct comparable GAAP figures can be found in the press release issued earlier today. Lastly, please remember that this call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our website at netsoftech.com. as well as through a link included in today's press release. I'd like to reiterate that at this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A session. I'll now hand the call over to our founder and chief executive officer, Najeeb Ghori.

Najeeb? Thank you, Patty. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining Nestle Technologies' earnings call to review our results for the first quarter ended September 30, 2025. For the first quarter, we delivered year-over-year revenue, revenue growth of 2.8% driven by a 9.4% increase in subscription and support revenue as we continue to expand our base of recovering revenue. Our bottom line, however, reflected the impact of intentional investment and a more challenging operating environment. I'll spend a few minutes on key strategic developments and the drivers behind our results, and then I will turn it over to Roger for more detail on the financials before we open the call for questions. First, on strategic progress, we continue to strengthen our position as a trusted partner for digital automotive retail for leading dealership groups in the U.S., During the quarter, Nestle was selected by Sonic Automotive, a Fortune 500 automotive dealership group, to lead a discovery engagement focused on defining the requirements and roadmap for an omnichannel digital retail solution powered by our Transcend retail platform. The engagement will help Sonic Automotive further enhance the customer experience, and streamline dealer operations across its Echo Park automotive network. This new partnership reflects our increasing momentum in the US market and highlights the trust major industry players place in our technology and expertise. Second, our ongoing investments in artificial intelligence reflect our commitment to shaping the future of intelligent automation and asset finance and automotive retail. We recently announced the launch of Check AI, our AI-powered credit decisioning engine designed to improve the speed and consistency of the credit underwriting process. Check AI automates key workflows accelerates and supports more accurate underwriting by leveraging data-driven intelligence. The platform combines intelligent automation with human-in-the-loop oversight to help ensure fairness, transparency, and regulatory compliance. By integrating AI into a Transcend platform, we're not only enhancing decision-making and efficiency, but also creating new opportunities for innovation and long-term growth. Third, in the Asia Pacific region, we achieved important milestones that demonstrates both our market reach and our deep understanding of reasonable customer needs. National China participated in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, summit in Tianjin, where we signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tianjin Pinhai Smart Group and the Dongzhong Free Trade Port Zone Government. This partnership focuses on integrated financial services for the automotive industry and cross-border data services, services areas that align closely with China's growing emphasis on digital transformation and global expansion. We are proud to maintain a sizable market share in the Chinese auto finance market. We also become the partner of choice with Chinese OEMs and asset finance companies who are looking to expand abroad. We are one of the few vendors operating the Chinese market who have a strong global resume. This is highlighted by a recent go-live in Indonesia where a major Chinese leasing company deployed our Transcend finance platform as part of a greenfield implementations to launch its operations in that market. This deployment showcases net solubility to support Chinese companies expanding internationally while highlighting our localized expertise and readiness to deliver solutions that meet regional regulatory and operational standards. Our long standing presence in APAC region combined with our cultural fluency and proven technology continues to make NetSol a partner of choice for global OEMs and asset finance companies. Now subsequent to quarter end, we hosted a summit in Beijing that brought together leaning Indonesian and Chinese asset finance executives, reinforcing our role as a bridge between China and the broader international asset finance ecosystem. These important developments during the first quarter reflect solid strategic and operational momentum as we continue to strengthen our position in key global markets. As we move forward, we remain committed to executing our strategy with discipline, balancing investment and innovation with a continued emphasis on operational efficiency and long-term profitability. Despite these significant developments, I want to recognize that the first quarter has been a challenging one for NetSol. Total net revenue were up 2.8% year over year. Our bottom line results reflect the impact of several strategic investments and external macroeconomic headwinds. On the expense side, we saw a 36% increase in selling and marketing costs, driven primarily by our decision to expand and strengthen our global sales organization. We made key hires at the senior levels leadership building the foundation needed to support future growth across our product portfolio. The timing of these decisions reflects both the stronger demand environment we are seeing and our intention to invest ahead of that demand in a disciplined way. We are seeing a meaningful increase in qualified leads and business opportunities, and we expect this expanded sales capacity to support higher bookings and revenue over time. Our reported revenue in Q1 is seasonally lowered due to summer holidays, combined with macroeconomics uncertainty, including credit tightening and rising auto loan delinquencies, tariff impacts, and restructuring challenges among European automakers, the operating environment has been difficult. However, these dynamics also create opportunities where net sales offering can help. help clients drive efficiencies, it is also important to note that we do not always have full control over when revenue is recognized, as it depends on the timing of customer milestone and implementation schedules. In addition, we continue to transition from a license-heavy model to a predominantly SaaS-based model. This shift improves the quality and visibility of our revenue over time, but it also changes the timing of how revenue is recognized and can make quarterly growth pattern less linear, especially in the near term. As this mix shift continues, we expect a higher proportion of recurring revenue and greater long-term predictability, even if individual quarters can be uneven. For these reasons, We view the losses we experienced in the first quarter as primarily the result of front-loaded growth investments, seasonal patterns, and foreign exchange volatility, rather than a change in the fundamental earnings power of the business. Despite these short-term challenges, I want to emphasize that our business fundamentals remain solid. Our sales pipeline is stronger than it has ever been, reflecting growing global demand for our solutions that are part of our unified AI-powered Transcend platform. Compared to the same quarter last year, we are noticing stronger momentum and more qualified opportunities. We expect to achieve new milestones, and despite a slow start, we are targeting full-year revenue guidance of 5% to 7%, which is above last year's level. supported by a growing pipeline and the investments we made in our go-to-market and AI-enabled platform. Nexul has navigated many cycles of change in the past. We are executing a clear strategy for growth, innovation, and customer success, and I remain confident in our ability to deliver sustainable long-term value to our shareholders. Thank you. I will now ask Roger I'm going to discuss the financial results in more detail.