IC Group Holdings Inc. (ICGH) reported a robust performance in the third quarter of 2025, with significant increases in revenue and profitability. The company's stock reacted positively, rising 11.58% to reach 0.54, reflecting investor confidence in its growth trajectory and strategic initiatives.
Key Takeaways
* IC Group's Q3 revenue increased by 74% year-over-year to CAD 7.3 million.
* Gross profit rose by 61% YoY, reaching CAD 3.3 million.
* Adjusted EBITDA surged 166% from the previous quarter.
* Stock price climbed 11.58% following the earnings announcement.
* The company targets a 40% annual revenue growth and positive adjusted EBITDA by 2026.
Company Performance
IC Group demonstrated a strong performance in Q3 2025, driven by strategic expansions and innovations. The company reported significant year-over-year growth in both revenue and profit margins, underscoring its effective business model and market positioning. The launch of new products and expansion into new markets contributed to this success.
Financial Highlights
* Revenue: CAD 7.3 million, a 74% increase YoY
* Gross Profit: CAD 3.3 million, a 61% increase YoY
* Adjusted EBITDA: CAD 400,000, a 166% increase from the previous quarter
* Trailing 12-month revenue growth: 35%
* Current annual recurring revenue (ARR): 68%
Market Reaction
Following the earnings announcement, IC Group's stock saw an increase of 11.58%, closing at 0.54. This positive movement places the stock well within its 52-week range, which has seen a low of 0.35 and a high of 1.25. The market's response suggests investor optimism about the company's growth prospects and strategic direction.
Outlook & Guidance
IC Group has set ambitious targets, aiming for a 40% annual revenue growth and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 8-12%, with a long-term goal of 15-20%. The company also expects to achieve a positive adjusted EBITDA by 2026, with ARR targets set between 70-75%.
Executive Commentary
CEO Duncan highlighted the company's strong market position, stating, "68% ARR demonstrates strong product market fit for trusted solutions." He emphasized the company's partnerships, saying, "We work with some of the best brands and sports teams in the world, which only happens when you are a trusted partner."
Risks and Challenges
* Market competition: The company faces intense competition in the mobile aggregation and digital promotion sectors.
* Economic conditions: Macroeconomic factors could impact consumer spending and business investments.
* Technological advancements: Rapid changes in technology may require continuous innovation and adaptation.
IC Group's Q3 2025 results reflect a robust performance with significant growth in revenue and profitability. The company's strategic initiatives and market expansion efforts have positioned it well for future growth, as evidenced by the positive market reaction and strong forward guidance.
Full transcript - IC Group Holdings Inc (ICGH) Q3 2025:
Moderator, IC Group: Also on the call as well, our Senior Vice President of Marketing. I'd like to remind everyone today that certain projections that we may make on this call are subject to forward-looking statements. You can find more information about any non-IFRS measures that we may have or use on this call with our filings on CDAR and/or on our website. Just to give you some background on how this will run, we'll get Duncan to give us some prepared statements. Following that, we'll also turn the call over to questions and answers. You can see the link to that on the bottom of your view screen. We will try and address those at the end of the call. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Duncan. Good morning, Duncan.
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Good morning, Glenn. Good morning, everyone. Let's join the call and thank you for participating. As Glenn mentioned, we'll walk through our operating performance, review the results for the quarter, highlight progress across each of our three different business units, and then speak to our strategic priorities heading into the end of this year and 2026. This quarter marks another period of strong financial performance, both year-to-date and within Q3 itself, reflecting the trust our customers place in us, the strength of our product market fit, and the continued momentum in our annual recurring revenue. At our core, we enable brands and professional sports teams to engage consumer audiences at scale, delivering meaningful, measurable interactions that translate directly into revenue growth and richer, more actionable data.
As demand for more authentic and high-value consumer engagement continues to rise, our platform has proven as uniquely positioned to meet that need, and the results we're sharing today demonstrate the impact of that strategy. We're excited to walk you through the quarter's financial performance, the drivers behind our growth, and the opportunities ahead. John will review the financial performance with you now.
John, CFO, IC Group: Thank you, Duncan, and good morning, everyone. IC Group produced strong earnings in the third quarter, benefiting from contributions across all three of its operating segments. Consolidated revenues for the quarter were CAD 7.3 million, 74% higher than the same quarter of 2024 and 12% higher than Q2 of this year. Gross profit of CAD 3.3 million was 61% higher than the same quarter of 2024 and approximately CAD 300,000, or 12% higher than Q2 of this year. Overall, gross margin of 45% was consistent with the prior quarter. The higher gross profit fell mostly to our bottom line, resulting in adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter of CAD 400,000, CAD 250,000, or 166% higher than that of the prior quarter.
Turning to our individual operating segments, IC Engage, our digital promotion segment, produced revenues of CAD 3.4 million in the quarter, 54% higher than the same quarter of 2024 and CAD 400,000, or 13% higher than Q2 of this year. Further, the segment carries CAD 3.7 million of deferred revenue into the fourth quarter, CAD 2.5 million more than that at June 30 of this year. Gross profit of CAD 2.2 million was almost CAD 1 million, or 72% higher than the same quarter a year ago, and CAD 130,000 higher than the prior quarter at a fairly consistent margin of 65%. Segment operating income in the third quarter was CAD 542,000, CAD 325,000, or 150% higher than the prior quarter. IC Mobile, our mobile messaging operating segment, had another strong quarter, reporting revenues of CAD 3.2 million, 116% higher than the same quarter of 2024.
Versus the prior quarter of this year, revenues were approximately the same, while gross margin dipped slightly from 22% to 20% due to changes in messaging traffic mix. The segment reported a small operating loss of CAD 100,000 in the quarter due to slightly higher operating expenses from investments we are making and growing the business profitably. IC Insurance, our insurance solutions operating segment, had a strong quarter, posting revenues of CAD 700,000, 35% higher than the same quarter of the prior year and double that of the prior quarter of the current year. Segment gross profit of CAD 472,000 was approximately CAD 100,000 higher than the same quarter of the prior year and CAD 200,000 higher than that of the prior quarter of this year.
Gross margin of 65% in this segment is fairly consistent with prior periods, and higher gross profit in the quarter allowed the segment to swing its prior quarter operating loss of CAD 145,000 to a positive operating income of CAD 55,000. With that, I'll turn it back over to you, Duncan.
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Great. Thanks very much, John. The first three quarters of 2025 really extended the momentum we built the last year with strong growth across all our divisions and a continued increase in annual recurring revenue, which really reflects a strong product market fit and the trust of our customers. With strong growth through Q3, solid enterprise renewals, rising ARR, we remain well-positioned to meet our 2025 targets and carry momentum into 2026. Looking at our revenue trends, we continue to deliver consistent quarter-over-quarter expansion. Trailing 12-month revenue growth is 35%. Margins remain resilient at 46% as we scale volumes and expand ARR, which is currently 68%. Our target operating metrics remain unchanged. Annual revenue growth at around 40%, adjusted EBITDA targets of 8-12%, and ARR between 70-75%.
Our company operates across three complementary lines of business: digital promotions, messaging, and insurance, each designed to grow and scale independently while also generating synergies that amplify overall growth. Digital promotions drive consumer engagement through scalable campaigns and offers to drive commerce and valuable data for brands. Messaging provides reliable communication solutions that strengthen customer interactions and drive commerce. Insurance focuses on live events and brand promotions, delivering protection products that enable brands to reach large audiences, which perfectly complements our existing customer mix in digital promotions and messaging. While each line has a distinct market opportunity and growth strategy, together, they reinforce one another: shared insights, cross-selling potential, and integrated experiences that enable faster growth, improved retention, and stronger profitability. As we look at the drivers behind our continued growth, our digital promotions business across both enterprise customers and live event partners has become increasingly strategic.
Enterprise brands rely on us to deliver scalable, high-performing promotions that fuel data capture, loyalty, and revenue across their always-on digital ecosystems. At the same time, in the live event space, we act uniquely high-intent moments where fans are most willing to engage, transforming those interactions into measurable value for teams, leagues, and sponsors. We've earned our position as a trusted partner in both segments, strengthened by our ISO-certified operations, our deep integration into customer workflows, and our ability to support clients across global jurisdictions. This business is not just contributing to our current momentum. It's becoming a foundational pillar of long-term recurring revenue and deeper customer reliance on our platform. Our near-term priorities in digital promotion businesses are anchored around three strategic initiatives: commercializing the data generated across our ecosystem, commercializing brand activations more effectively, and expanding the number of live event operators on our platform.
We continue to build momentum, adding eight new live event operators in Q3, three in Canada, three in the U.S., and two in Europe, further increasing our reach and deepening our network effects that drive both engagement, revenue, and margin. A major enabler of these priorities is the recent launch of our merchant portal, a self-serve solution that allows live event operators to seamlessly sell brand engagement inventory to local, regional, and national advertisers. This capability not only streamlines how activations are bought and sold but also broadens the universe of brands that can participate. The portal will continue to evolve throughout 2025 and 2026, enhancing monetization, improving accessibility, and further embedding our platform within the live event ecosystem. Our mobile messaging business delivers strong revenue growth during this period, supported by rising enterprise demand and our position as a tier-one aggregator with direct carrier connectivity and broad network reach.
These advantages continue to drive customer acquisition and volume expansion. While margins remain below our long-term targets, we have a clear path to improvement. Our near-term focus is to continue to leverage our tier-one infrastructure to capture greater market share from high-volume customers and to strategically convert traffic to higher-margin messaging channels and service layers over time. Adoption of rich communication services is underway in North America and is increasing as enterprises pursue more interactive and branded consumer engagement, positioning RCS to play a meaningful role in future revenue and margin enhancements. We also continue to advance other messaging channels like Apple Business, MMS, and toll-free messaging, along with other value-added services that diversify our revenue base towards channels with stronger economics. In parallel, investments in platform automation, routing optimization, and channel mix improvements are expected to support incremental efficiency gains over time.
Our specialty insurance division delivered solid performance this period, supported by a more focused product mix, the continued expansion of live sports and entertainment markets, and the strategic growth of offerings with annual recurring revenue. We specialize in providing event cancellation, event liability, and other tailored products that address the unique risks associated with live events, brand sponsorship, venue productions, and sports organizations. By deepening our expertise in these niche categories, we have strengthened our position as a trusted insurance partner for the live event ecosystem and have expanded our participation in a growing market. A major strategic priority continues to be increasing share of wallet with existing clients. Through enhanced cross-sell opportunities and more comprehensive coverage programs, we are expanding long-term customer value and improving revenue durability. Products with recurring annual renewals are becoming a larger portion of our portfolio, supporting more predictable and sustainable ARR growth.
With a strengthened specialty product suite, deeper penetration in live sports and entertainment, and growing adoption of ARR-oriented offerings, this division is well-positioned to broaden its customer base and achieve sustainable growth, improved revenue visibility, and long-term profitability. Earlier this month, our insured creativity division, our insurance division, acquired the assets of Players Health Cover Canada. This expands our presence in the live sports insurance market and accelerates our ability to serve athletes, performers, volunteers, and live event operators. This adds to new recurring policy opportunities and strengthens IC Group's strategy in sports entertainment to support broader product lines for our customers to improve share of wallet. Why invest? We work with some of the best brands and sports teams in the world, which only happens when you are a trusted partner and deliver solutions that drive return on investment.
We've consistently grown our revenue through organic growth and are opening new opportunities to expand revenue and margins, driving long-term scalable and sustainable business. 68% ARR demonstrates strong product market fit for trusted solutions. This gives us better visibility into future performance. Our business lines are diversified. They scale independently and together, offering differentiated solutions to our customers. At the end of the day, we have great momentum and believe the current valuation represents an attractive entry point. If you're an investor, thank you for your continued support. If you're just learning about IC Group, I hope we piqued your interest and we look forward to you becoming part of our journey. Thanks again for your time. Please let us know if you have any questions.
John, CFO, IC Group: Thank you, Duncan. That was great. Right now, we will open up the floor to questions. If you have a question, you feel free to use the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen there, and we will address them in order. I'll give everyone a minute, and then we will jump right into it. Okay. First question, how do you guys see firm-level EBIT margins over the next one, three, and five years? What about over the long term?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Great question. Our target in the near term is 8-12%. In the longer term, we think we're 15-20% target. John, do you have anything to add to that?
John, CFO, IC Group: No, I think I would agree with that. Fairly consistent. We need to achieve a little bit more scale in our mobile business, which we believe is coming in the near term. That will allow us to lift our EBITDA margin into that 8-12% range, as Duncan mentioned. Over the longer term, we'd aim for something north of 15%.
Okay, perfect. This one kind of ties into that. How should we model long-term contribution margins from each segment?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: I'm sorry, I didn't hear the beginning of that question.
John, CFO, IC Group: Sorry. Yeah. How should we model long-term contribution margins from each segment?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: John, do you want to tackle that one?
John, CFO, IC Group: I think there are opportunities. Right now, we're producing a contribution margin of 20% in the mobile business. That has opportunities in the near term to grow a little bit. We've got some work underway in our operations from which we'll derive some positive operating leverage. As Duncan also mentioned, there are product mix shifts that we believe in the future. Migration from SMS messaging to higher-margin RCS messaging, where there's more value-add in the traffic, will offer opportunities for us to increase margin. Would it get to 30-40-50%? I don't think so, but I could see us getting the 20% lifted up to 25%. The margins in the other two businesses are about 65%.
They're different businesses, the insurance and the digital, but for now, I think 65% margin is, if I was modeling over the long term, I think that's something that's good to use for now.
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: I think the piece just to add to that, John, the piece in our other digital segment is we continue to expand our platform solutions, which typically drive higher margins. You will see the benefit of that over the mid to long term.
John, CFO, IC Group: Fantastic. Another question. What are the major differentiators which are allowing IC Group to win versus some of its competition?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Great question. In each of the different segments, there's some really unique IP. In the mobile segment, we obviously are a tier-one aggregator. There's only three of us in Canada. As a Canadian-owned aggregator, we process and hold all our data in Canada and process all the message traffic in Canada, which significantly provides a difference against the other two, particularly in an environment we're operating in today. For regulated industries that want to retain their data in Canada, we think we offer a really good opportunity for those businesses. In our promotions business, we're deeply embedded into the ecosystems of our customers. Our platforms operate at scale, are highly efficient. Particularly in the live sports and entertainment space, you don't get to operate in that space with some of the biggest brands and teams in the world if you can't prove your worth.
We have done that for the last 10 years in that space, and we are really starting to get momentum. It offers us a good upside going forward.
John, CFO, IC Group: Here's another question. How should investors think about the scope and the potential for RCS? What's the size of that opportunity for IC Group?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: That's a great question. It's a brand new -- it's not a brand new technology. It's new to North America in the sense of it's always been a Google product. It ran on Android devices last year, which means that brands only had access to a certain size of the market, sub 40% of the market. With the adoption of RCS by Apple, it's opened up basically near 100% of the consumer market in North America and now has access to RCS messaging. That means brands will adopt that technology faster to reach those audiences. It's a way more interactive and secure experience for customers. Because it's relatively new in terms of progress in North America, the numbers are evolving and changing all the time. I've heard somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-20% market share for RCS over the next 2026, 2027 period.
John, CFO, IC Group: Okay. Here's the next question. Were there any one-time projects or seasonal drivers in the third quarter, or is the pace of growth more reflective of ongoing demand?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Great question. I think for the most part, it's ongoing demand. We press released at the end of June.
John, CFO, IC Group: Correct.
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: That we had won some business from a large technology customer to SOWs valued up to CAD 10 million. They really formulated into the last two quarters and into 2026. Those are big program initiatives, but we see that continuing into future periods as well. We also had an extension of our service agreement extend for another five years from up to 2030 with this large technology enterprise customer.
John, CFO, IC Group: Great. Thank you. Next question. Team and league adoption looks like it increased to 94 professional and semi-professional teams. What drives this momentum, and what's the ceiling for this segment?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: The momentum is really driven. As you work in this environment, you earn your stripes. The teams, although they compete against each other on the field, share kind of best-of-breed solution providers. We constantly are getting inbound traffic now or calls coming in just because, as I say, it's a tight market and they're sharing best-of-breed providers. Some really positive opportunities for us. The market, we're looking at expansion beyond just sports teams into conferences and exhibitions, but also just relative to sports teams. There are 26,000 high schools in the US, somewhere in that neighborhood. They all have sports teams. NCAA, there's another -- there's a whole area of opportunity beyond just professional sports teams where our tools and our platforms can be utilized. The opportunities are endless for the toolset that we have.
John, CFO, IC Group: Great. Thank you. Next question. How do you view capital allocations overall between the three segments, I believe?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: John, do you want to take that one?
John, CFO, IC Group: Yeah. Good question. I guess I could think about it two ways: a traditional capital allocation from a CFO's perspective or capital allocation from just initiatives and growth and related to our fundraising. We're not constrained right now. Our fundraising objectives will, our plan to cover off any capital initiatives we have. We're careful across the businesses as far as capital allocations go. I would say in the mobile business, we have a core system. We don't have the opportunity to make a lot of changes to that system. It is really just about finding the optimal system that works for us. In that business, making sure we protect our margins in amongst a few really big fish is really what it is. In the insurance business, capital allocation is a topic of discussion frequently because we can hire people to do production or we can automate.
We are constantly looking at where we might be able to spend some money on our Glide platform that is an automated processor of applications for insurance coverage. In the digital promotions area, we can allocate capital certainly to the FanX core product. We get tremendous leverage out of adding functionality there. As Duncan mentioned, there is so much market to take that as good ideas come up, it is usually easy to find an ROI that makes sense. We are constantly investing in new products for our more traditional digital promotions tools that anchor a majority of our revenues today. Not sure if I exactly answered the question, but that is how I think about it.
Yeah. No, I think you did a good job there. Next question. Is the company seeing any macro-related impacts on enterprise customer timing spend, or are we seeing procurement cycles lengthen?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Great question. I think on the enterprise side, what you do see is that onboarding or getting onboarded as a partner with enterprise customers, it means that it's not just working through procurement anymore. You're working through their data security folks, their legal teams, their different levels of the enterprise organization. It does take a little longer to work through that. The benefits of that are tremendous. That's really one of the reasons why we went down the path of being ISO-certified. It really gives us a unique position when we're dealing with enterprise-level customers. It shows that we're committed, highly committed to security, privacy, strong processes, business continuity plans. Those are really important drivers for enterprise-level customers. That's why we continue to invest in that space.
Ultimately, it becomes a really powerful asset for us when we're working with enterprise-level customers because they respect the fact that we've gone down this path and we demonstrate constantly, time and again, that we're a good, trusted partner.
John, CFO, IC Group: Great. Thank you. Next question. How do you see SG&A growing over time? Do you feel like right now you have adequate staff?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: That's a good question. There are a couple of key areas that we'll continue to invest in. I mentioned previously that we're focusing in on commercializing data and activations. We'll continue to invest in that space. For the most part, our leadership team is very strong and continues to deliver. We really do not see any needs in that space. There may be other areas in the marketing and sales area that we'll continue to invest in to help accelerate our growth. That is really some of the key areas. We have a couple of positions that we're trying to fill on our technology side. Those are not new positions. It is just finding the right candidates that support that side of the business. Other than that, no.
John, CFO, IC Group: Okay. Maybe, John, this next one's for you. We'll answer a couple more, and then we may close out the call. Just a reminder to everyone, we will be posting a recording of this live on our website so you can review it after this concludes. Question. Do we expect to see positive net income in 2026? I think he's trying to gauge how soon we can hit that 8%-12% EBITDA margins.
Yeah. When I refer to EBITDA, I'm thinking about adjusted EBITDA. Our adjustments this quarter were relatively light. We have some stock options that were awarded to management right before we went public to align with a public company compensation plan. That's a non-cash item that we adjust out. We have begun making investments in the mobile messaging capability to accommodate RCS traffic. Positive EBITDA in 2026, adjusted EBITDA on a consolidated basis. We were at one point, if Q4 looks like Q3, we would finish the year at about CAD 1.2 million of adjusted EBITDA, and we would grow from there. I would forecast that we raise money in December. We make investments.
In the back part of next year, we're going to see some of those investments bear fruit, and we'll be turning cash flow positive again to help us deleverage the business a bit.
Okay. Okay. That was the back half of next year. Is that right?
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll finish off on this last question. Are there any key milestones investors should be watching for over the next couple of quarters?
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: I think in terms of revenue growth, we talked about kind of where our target is. We'll see that in kind of steps throughout 2026. We have some pretty good insight into that. We also, as mentioned, are working very hard to enable different messaging channels: RCS messaging, toll-free, and other messaging Apple Business. Those are key milestones that we'll be looking to achieve in the very near term. On the annual recurring revenue, we expect that to continue to increase in the coming year. Those would be some of the key milestones.
John, CFO, IC Group: Okay. Perfect. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As a reminder again, we will be posting this live, and you can watch a replay on our website at icgroupinc.com. With that, I will pass it back over to Duncan to conclude the call.
Duncan, CEO, IC Group: Great. Just wanted to thank everyone again for your continued support and for taking the time today to learn about our quarterly report. If you have any questions or are interested in further conversation, please reach out to myself or Glenn, and we'd be happy to spend some time with you to continue the education on IC Group. We look forward to the momentum that we continue to carry through 2025 into 2026. We think it's a really exciting time to be part of this journey. We encourage you to really take a look at IC Group and become part of the journey if you're not already. Thank you very much.
John, CFO, IC Group: Thank you.
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