News: Optoelectronics
19 May 2025
POET grows non-recurring engineering revenue in Q1
For first-quarter 2025, POET Technologies Inc of Toronto, Ontario, Canada — designer and developer of the POET Optical Interposer, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and light sources for the hyperscale data-center, telecom and artificial intelligence (AI) markets — has reported non-recurring engineering (NRE) and product revenue of $166,760, up from $29,032 last quarter and just $8710 a year ago. Historically, the firm has provided NRE services to multiple customers for unique projects that are being addressed utilizing the capabilities of the POET Optical Interposer. The firm only had small product revenue in Q1/2025.
Business highlights included:
- Shipping final design samples of the POET Infinity transmit product line for 400G and 800G applications to three major technology leaders. The products include 400G FR4, 800G 2xFR4 and 800G DR8 transmit formats, all assembled at the firm’s high-volume production facility in Malaysia.
- Demonstrating its latest innovations, POET Teralight (a line of 1.6T highly integrated transmit and receive optical engines) and the new POET Blazar light source at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference & Exposition (OFC 2025) in San Francisco at the beginning of April.
- Partnering with South Korean optical solution provider Lessengers to offer a differentiated 800G DR8 transceiver.
Net income was $6.3m ($0.08 per share), compared with net losses of $30.2m ($0.50 per share) last quarter and $5.7m ($0.13 per share) a year ago. This was despite R&D costs rising from $1.9m a year ago and $3.4m last quarter to $4.3m, as the firm transitions from technology development to product development.
The largest component of income was from the non-cash gain in fair value adjustment to a derivative warrant liability of $15.4m in Q1/2025, compared with losses of $12.4m last quarter and $630,000 a year ago. This non-cash item relates to warrants issued in a foreign currency and is periodically remeasured.
Other non-cash expenses included stock-based compensation of $0.8m and depreciation & amortization of $0.7m, versus $1.4m and $0.5m respectively last quarter and $0.9m and $0.5m respectively a year ago. Non-cash finance costs have risen further, from $20,000 a year ago and $32,000 last quarter to $33,000.
Other income, including interest, rose further, from $52,000 a year ago and $511,000 last quarter to $528,000.
Cash flow from operating activities was –$8.9m, compared with –$8.7m last quarter and –$4.6m a year ago.
During fourth-quarter 2024, POET acquired the remaining 24.8% interest of China-based joint venture Super Photonics Xiamen (SPX) from Quanzhou Sanan Optical Communication Technology Co Ltd (SAIC), resulting in a non-cash loss of $6,852,687. However, there was no impact of the acquisition transaction in first-quarter 2025.
“We continued to build momentum across multiple fronts — technology innovation, commercial progress, strategic partnerships and production capacity — positioning the company for accelerated revenue growth in the second half of the year,” says chairman & CEO Dr Suresh Venkatesan.
“The transition out of SPX in China into Malaysia was a timely and energizing event for the company. Opening a 10,000ft2 cleanroom filled with wafer-level production tools at our partner, Globetronics, was the indispensable next step to accepting volume orders from AI and cloud data-center customers,” he adds.
“As we look ahead, we are building on the strong foundation of innovative products introduced at OFC, and the reaction of customers and partners, reinforces our conviction that POET is on the cusp of a meaningful revenue inflection later this year,” concludes Venkatesan.
POET broadens customer engagements following product showcase at OFC
POET teams with Lessengers to develop 800G DR8 transceivers for AI and hyperscale markets
POET to demo light source and 1.6T optical engines for AI applications at OFC
POET ships optical engine samples to three global customers for AI applications
Malaysia’s Globetronics to manufacture POET’s optical engines
