Trio-Tech's Fiscal 2026 in Four Reports: Revenue Up 72%, Gross Margin Down From 25% to 17%, Operating Profit Gone, and a $24.2 Million Backlog of Which $9.1 Million Is Labelled 'Soft'

by Margaret Ashworth · September 25, 2026

Senior Analyst, Frontier Tech Wire

Trio-Tech International (Nasdaq: TRT) closed its fiscal year on June 30, 2026 with revenue of $62.6 million, up 72 percent from $36.5 million, and a net loss attributable to common shareholders of $34,000, according to the results release it filed on Sept. 24. Its Semiconductor Back-End Solutions segment, which tests and burns in chips for customers in Southeast Asia, nearly doubled to $49.0 million. Its backlog at year end was $24.2 million against $11.0 million a year earlier. Set beside the three quarterly releases that preceded it and the annual report filed the same day, the year looks different from the inside.

Start with revenue by quarter, from the company's own releases of Nov. 14, 2025, Feb. 13, 2026, May 14, 2026 and Sept. 24, 2026. First quarter: $15.5 million. Second: $15.6 million. Third: $16.5 million. Fourth: $14.9 million. The fourth quarter was the smallest of the year and about 10 percent below the third, our arithmetic from those two figures. The headlined year-on-year growth rates of 58, 82, 124 and 40 percent owe as much to prior-year comparatives of $9.8 million, $8.6 million, $7.4 million and $10.7 million as to the current year's level.

The segment split follows the same shape. Semiconductor Back-End Solutions revenue was $11.4 million, $12.4 million, $13.1 million and $12.1 million across the four quarters. Industrial Electronics, the distribution and equipment business, went $4.0 million, $3.3 million, $3.4 million and $2.8 million, finishing below its fourth-quarter comparative of $4.1 million, the one segment-level decline the release reports.

Gross margin is where the growth story changes character. As a percentage of revenue, it was 17 percent in the first quarter, 16 percent in the second, 16 percent in the third and 19 percent in the fourth; for the year, 17 percent, against 25 percent in fiscal 2025. Each quarterly release gives the same cause: "higher-volume, lower-margin AI chip testing services" in November, "a higher mix of lower-margin, high-volume testing services" in May. In dollars, gross profit for the year was $10.4 million on $62.6 million of revenue, up from $9.1 million on $36.5 million. The company added $26.1 million of revenue and $1.3 million of gross profit; the 10-K states those increases as $26,132,000 and $1,273,000.

Operating expenses absorbed that and more. General and administrative expense rose 19 percent to $9,377,000, which the 10-K attributes to "elevated corporate activities, including the stock split, investor relations and communication efforts, together with higher stock-based compensation expense attributable to the appreciation in the Company's share price," plus headcount and incentive pay. The result by quarter: operating income of $46,000, then $97,000, then an operating loss of $81,000, then an operating loss of $266,000. For the year, an operating loss of $204,000 against operating income of $254,000 in fiscal 2025. Net income attributable to common shareholders went $77,000, $126,000, a loss of $38,000, a loss of $199,000; the annual figure of a $34,000 loss compares with a $41,000 loss the year before.

The backlog figure deserves the closest reading, since it is the number framing fiscal 2027. The 10-K's table puts Semiconductor Back-End Solutions backlog at $19,773,000 as of June 30, 2026, up from $6,695,000, and Industrial Electronics backlog at $4,399,000, up from $4,335,000, for a total of $24,172,000. It then adds a qualification that the press release does not carry: "For testing services in the SBS segment, purchase orders are generally received during the course of delivery. Accordingly, testing services backlog of approximately $9,054 represents a soft backlog based on management's estimate of customer demand for the next three months, using customer forecasts and other demand indications rather than firm purchase orders. As such, the backlog is not a binding commitment and may not be indicative of future revenue ultimately recognized." The figures are in thousands. Subtracting the soft component leaves $15,118,000 of backlog backed by purchase orders, our arithmetic from the 10-K's two figures; the company does not publish that split itself.

The company's other forward indicators are order-based and more specific. The release says that of $14.2 million of previously announced burn-in board orders, about $6.3 million was delivered in fiscal 2026 and about $7.9 million remains, and that a further purchase order of about $1.5 million arrived in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. A three-year production burn-in contract with what it calls its "second European EV semiconductor customer" carries "minimum billings of approximately $4.7 million over the term and potential to scale to $6 million." Industrial Electronics first-quarter bookings "to date" were about $4.6 million. None is a revenue forecast; the company gave no guidance.

Customer concentration is the other number that moved sharply. The 10-K states that "one major U.S.-based customer, served through our SBS segment, accounted for $24,222 (38.7%) and $1,285 (3.5%)" of revenue, in thousands, for fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2025 respectively, an increase the filing attributes to "new service business associated with the customer's geographic sourcing realignment." The three largest customers were 57.6 percent of revenue, up from 41.0 percent. The November release described the new business as "final testing services for next-generation high-performance AI devices for a leading AI chip manufacturer"; the customer is not named in any of the four releases or the 10-K. On the 10-K's figures, that one account added about $22.9 million of revenue in a year when total revenue rose $26.1 million, our arithmetic from the customer and annual totals.

Trio-Tech is a small company. Founded in 1958 and incorporated in California, it lists a principal executive office in Singapore and operates in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and China. Its 10-K reports 10,384,698 shares outstanding as of Sept. 1, 2026, after a two-for-one split on Jan. 5, 2026 and a registered direct offering of 1,052,632 shares at $9.50 that closed April 27 for gross proceeds of about $10.0 million. Net cash from operations was $3.4 million, up from $0.4 million. On Sept. 16 the stock moved from NYSE American to the Nasdaq Global Market under the same ticker.

A note on the cash line: its definition changed across the four releases, from "cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash" ($20.1 million, then $19.2 million) to a version including short-term deposits ($18.3 million) and finally one including restricted term deposits (about $28.5 million, after the April offering). The four figures are not a like-for-like series.

What the company has said about fiscal 2027 is mostly about capacity. The additional 104,000 square feet in Perai, Penang, first announced in the May release, is described in September as providing "significant additional capacity to meet growing demand from its North American customer," with "a progressive increase in production volumes beginning in the second quarter of fiscal 2027" as system-level and electrical test equipment is installed in phases. The release does not say whether that is the 38.7 percent customer, though the 10-K describes only one major U.S.-based account. Whether the added capacity comes with better pricing than the past year's 16 to 19 percent gross margins is not addressed in any filing.

The arithmetic for fiscal 2027 is simple to state and, on current disclosure, impossible to resolve. At the year's 17 percent gross margin, growth has not covered overhead: a 72 percent revenue increase produced a $458,000 swing from operating profit to operating loss, our arithmetic from the two years' operating results. Filling Perai at the margins earned before the AI business arrived would change that. The 10-K itself notes the industry "has experienced periods of rapid growth, but has also experienced downturns."

What is not yet known: the identity and contract terms of the U.S. customer; how much of the $9.1 million soft backlog converted into orders in the quarter now ending; and whether the company will report backlog quarterly rather than annually now that it is the headline number. The first fiscal 2027 quarterly report, covering the three months to Sept. 30, would ordinarily be filed in mid-November.