Amber International (NASDAQ:AMBR) reported lower first-quarter 2026 revenue as management cited a softer digital-asset market, while outlining a broader strategy to reposition the company around AI-driven financial infrastructure.
Chairman and CEO Michael Wu said the quarter reflected a continued downturn for the crypto industry following weakness in the fourth quarter of 2025. Total revenue was $10 million, down from $16.3 million in the prior quarter, according to the company’s executives. Chief Financial Officer Josephine Ngai said the year-over-year comparison was also affected by a non-recurring $2.9 million service fee recognized in the prior-year period.
Revenue Falls as Trading Activity Softens
Ngai said first-quarter performance was affected by “a materially softer digital assets market environment,” which led to more moderate transaction volumes across the industry. Within the Amber Premium segment, wealth management solutions generated $4.3 million in revenue, execution solutions contributed $0.9 million and payment solutions delivered $0.6 million. The company’s iClick marketing and enterprise solutions business contributed approximately $4.3 million.
Gross profit was $6.8 million, representing a gross margin of 67.7%, down from $12.1 million and a 74.2% margin in the fourth quarter of 2025. Ngai attributed the decline to product mix shifts as newer products represented a larger share of revenue.
Amber International recorded an operating loss of $3.2 million in the quarter. Total operating expenses fell to about $10 million from $11 million in the fourth quarter, a decrease Ngai linked to resource streamlining and early efficiency gains from internal AI initiatives. Net loss from continuing operations was $3.7 million, compared with net income of $0.8 million in the previous quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $3.2 million, compared with positive adjusted EBITDA of $50,000 in the fourth quarter.
The company ended the quarter with $36.5 million in cash and no bank debt, Ngai said.
Management Highlights Shift Toward “Agentic Fintech”
Wu used the call to emphasize what he described as Amber International’s evolution from Amber Premium, a crypto platform, into “a truly emerging agentic fintech.” He said the company is building infrastructure intended to automate and operate digital-asset financial services through AI agents.
A central part of that effort is A-Suite, which Wu described as an “agent-native operating system” designed to abstract the complexity of digital-asset financial services. He compared the concept to how Amazon Web Services abstracted server infrastructure for web applications.
“We’re moving from competing at the interface and the distribution layers to providing the rails for the agentic economy itself,” Wu said.
Wu said Amber Premium has already proven itself as a distribution layer through institutional relationships, regulatory licensing and segment profitability. The company is now seeking to build an operating core underneath that platform, he said.
A-MM Launched as First A-Suite Product
Chief Product Officer Yi Bao said the company launched A-MM, or Agentic Market Making, at the end of March as the first flagship component of A-Suite. A-MM is designed as an agent-native liquidity operating system and designated market-making infrastructure platform for token projects.
Yi said token projects can use A-MM to define requirements such as target values, service duration, spread, uptime, depth, settlement preference and capital needs. The platform supports functions including request-for-quote submission, quote review, order management, contract administration, performance monitoring and reporting.
Yi said the product is intended to complement traditional market makers rather than replace them. He said the platform is designed to provide greater efficiency, transparency and scalability, and that Amber has seen “strong early adoption and positive feedback” from token projects during the soft launch phase.
Management said A-MM is expected to begin contributing meaningful revenue in the second quarter and scale from there. Yi said potential revenue sources include recurring service and platform fees, expansion as clients add centralized or decentralized markets, market-maker participation and possible premium data and analytics over time.
During the question-and-answer session, Wu said A-MM had “already started” contributing revenue after its late-March launch. President Vicky Wang added that once token projects or market makers onboard to the platform, management expects them to be “very sticky” and supported by medium- to long-term agreements.
Core Platform Focuses on Wealth Management and Institutional Clients
Wang said the first quarter reflected softer trading activity, lower risk appetite and more selective institutional capital deployment. She said these conditions affected the company’s execution and payment solutions businesses.
At the same time, Wang said institutional demand is expanding beyond core crypto assets into tokenized financial products, on-chain yield strategies, tokenized real-world assets and other digitally native financial products. She also cited growing demand for customized structured products, including yield opportunities, defined downside protection and products aligned with specific risk-return objectives.
Wang said wealth management solutions remained the company’s primary recurring revenue engine, contributing $4.3 million and accounting for 74.8% of Amber Premium segment revenue in the quarter. She said the company also streamlined some low-engagement client accounts to better align with regulatory requirements, while asset on platform per active client remained stable at $1.2 million.
Guidance and Capital Allocation
For the second quarter of 2026, Ngai issued preliminary revenue guidance for the Amber Premium segment of $9 million to $10 million. She said that would represent a quarter-over-quarter increase of approximately 58.1% to 75.7% from first-quarter Amber Premium segment revenue of $5.7 million. The guidance excludes iClick marketing and enterprise solutions revenue.
Wu also highlighted the company’s share repurchase activity. Under a $50 million share repurchase program announced in November 2025, Amber International repurchased approximately 2 million American depositary shares during the first quarter. As of March 31, about $45.5 million remained available under the program.
On regulation, Yi said the company had been granted a VARA license in Dubai and is making progress on its virtual asset service provider application in Hong Kong. He said a stronger regulatory foundation is important as the digital-asset industry becomes more institutional.
Management also discussed the role of MIA, the company’s in-house AI agent and call moderator, in iClick’s operations. Ngai said MIA helped reduce operating costs in that segment during the quarter as the business transitions toward an AI-driven operating model. Wu said Amber plans to host its inaugural “Crypto for AI” investor day in October to share progress and showcase additional Amber agents.
About Amber International (NASDAQ:AMBR)
iClick Interactive Asia Group Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides online marketing services in the People’s Republic of China and internationally. It offers iAudience, an audience identification solution that allows marketers to search, identify, and customize their targeted audience to generate or enhance brand awareness; iAccess and iActivation, an audience engagement and activation solution tailored for brand awareness-driven and performance-driven campaigns; iExpress, the lite version of iAccess solution for small and medium-sized enterprises; iNsights, an online campaign results monitoring and measurement solution; and iExperience, a content creation solution.
