SAN DIEGO – Airgain, Inc. (Nasdaq: AIRG), the San Diego provider of wireless solutions, is expanding in the Middle East following a new partnership with Waseela, a leading master systems Integrator.
“The timing is great, but their 5G deployment coverage is an issue,” said Airgain CEO Jacob Suen. “How do you do it cost effectively?”
CEO
Airgain, Inc.
Suen said the Middle East is more advanced than the United States in 5G, the fifth-generation technology standard for cellular networks, and Airgain’s Lighthouse smart repeaters will be the solution.
“In the middle of the desert, it’s almost impossible or really expensive to do fiber, to do a base station in small cell deployment,” he said.
Suen said the Lighthouse smart repeater will be able to provide the connectivity Waseela needed to serve a vast amount of customers.
Waseela has a portfolio of over 325 clients in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, including government to semi-government and private enterprises.
Without predicting specifics, Suen said the new partnership will be lucrative for Airgain.
“One thing we like about the Middle East is they do have the money,” he said. “Money is not an issue.”
Worldwide Expansion
The new venture into the Middle East follows other moves the company has made since Suen came onboard in 2019.
Airgain already had seven locations across the United States, the U.K., Taiwan and China, and last year it expanded into Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands with a new distribution agreement with Logic Wireless, a part of Singapore-based technology company CSE Global.
In March, Airgain announced a global distribution agreement with Sweden-based Techship, Inc., resulting in Techship distributing Airgain’s NimbeLink family of plug-in cellular modems globally.
“The vision was going to new markets,” Suen said. “The vision was to transform the company from what used to be component-focused to a solutions company. So not only are we changing the trajectory of the market, we’re getting into the enterprise, the other market sector.”
The geographic expanse and growing product line are part of a five-year plan for the company, Suen said, and this year has been particularly busy.
In March, the company announced it had won a competitive process to secure a multi-year, multi-million-dollar deal with a North American Tier 1 MSO to upgrade its customer premise equipment for Wi-Fi 7 using Airgain’s antenna solution.
Next month, Suen said the company will release AirgainConnect Fleet, a fully integrated gateway with a 5G modem, Wi-Fi 6 router, gigabit ethernet and high-performance antenna that will be mounted on the roof of vehicles for first responders, buses and enterprise fleet vehicles, Suen said.
Second Quarter Earnings Up
Airgain’s second quarter financial report released Aug. 8 showed the company had $15.2 million in sales during that time, a 7% or $1 million increase from the prior quarter with growth driven by increased sales of embedded antennas to mobile network operator and mobile service operator customers, including the delivery of the company’s first Wi-Fi 7 router antenna systems to a tier-one mobile service operator partner.
Compared to the same quarter from 2023, however, sales revenue was down 4.1%. The decrease was attributed to lower sales of $1.4 million from the consumer market and $0.5 million from the automotive market, partially offset by higher sales of $1.2 million from the enterprise market.
Suen said an excessive inventory issue also contributed to the decline.
“Following a robust Q1 driven by a substantial shipment to a strategic partner in our custom products, we anticipated an inventory adjustment in Q2 affecting older volume,” he said during the Aug. 6 call about the quarterly report.
That expected softness in custom products, however, was counterbalanced by sequential sales increases of several products, he said.
“Despite the relatively flat year-over-year effects, our G and A (general and administrative expenses) and marketing communication expenses declined by approximately 25% year-over-year as we drove process and system efficiencies,” he said. “Our engineering and sales expenses increased by approximately 20% year-over-year as we focused on the development and launch of our strategic product initiatives.”
Suen said sales for the 2024 third quarter are expected to be up again, reaching $15.25 million to $16.75 million. Sequential sales grow are expected to be up 5% at the midpoint of the guidance range driven by continued growth in the consumer market, he said.
Airgain, Inc.
FOUNDED: 1995
CEO: Jacob Suen
HEADQUARTERS: Carmel Valley
BUSINESS: wireless systems & components provider
STOCK: AIRG (Nasdaq)
REVENUE: $56 million (FY2023)
EMPLOYEES: 125
WEBSITE: airgain.com
NOTABLE: In February 2022, Airgain was awarded the Andrew Seybold Award for Technology Innovation by the Public Safety Broadband Technology Association.
[Editor’s note: This story has been updated to fix an error: Airgain’s Lighthouse product was previously referred to as Lifehouse. SDBJ regrets the error.]
