Kinaxis posts record profit in Q2 as tariff war fuels demand for supply-chain solutions

August 12, 2025

Already an Insider? Log in

Get Instant Access to This Article

Become an Ottawa Business Journal Insider and get immediate access to all of our Insider-only content and much more.

Kinaxis turned a record profit in the second quarter as demand for its software continues to grow and it converts prospects into paying customers at a higher rate than in the past. The Kanata-based software-maker, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported net income of $18.4 million, or 64 cents per diluted share, for the three-month period ending June 30. That’s up from a profit of $3.4 million, or 12 cents per diluted share, a year earlier. Kinaxis earned revenues of $136.4 million, a 15 per cent increase from the same quarter a year ago. The firm also set a new quarterly high for adjusted EBITDA at $33.7 million, a jump of more than 50 per cent from $21.9 million a year earlier. In a conference call with analysts last week to announce the company’s second-quarter results, Kinaxis officials attributed the record-setting results to a flood of new business fuelled by the ongoing global tariff war as more and more companies tap into its supply-chain management software. Kinaxis said the second quarter was its second-best ever in terms of landing new contracts, with those wins split equally between new customers and existing clients looking to add new offerings such as Kinaxis Tariff Response, an AI-powered product launched last month that helps manufacturers run what-if scenarios to predict the potential impact of tariffs on their bottom lines. New customers that signed on with Kinaxis in the second quarter included Lactalis, the world’s largest dairy products group, and global logistics powerhouse SEKO Worldwide. “Increasingly, the best companies recognize that supply chains are a key differentiator in their success,” interim CEO Bob Courteau said. “In general, I think people understand more and more the importance of having a strong supply chain planning and orchestration strategy.” Those blue-chip customer wins have translated into a growing stream of recurring income. Software-as-a-service revenues – a key metric for companies like Kinaxis that specialize in subscription-based products delivered in the cloud – rose 17 per cent year-over-year to $88.4 million. Kinaxis is now projecting its overall SaaS revenues to grow between 13 and 15 per cent in 2025, up from its earlier forecast of 12 to 14 per cent. Chief financial officer Blain Fitzgerald told analysts he’s “very confident” Kinaxis will hit its revised SaaS growth target, even hinting it could be adjusted upward if the company has a strong finish to 2025. “There are some nice things in front of us right now, but we don’t want to get too far in front of our skis,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ll see in the next couple of quarters if we decide to increase (SaaS guidance) some more.” Courteau said that while demand for Kinaxis’s platform has remained steady for the past few years, the company is outflanking the competition on a more regular basis since it began revamping its sales and marketing strategies under new president of commercial operations Mark Morgan, who was hired last year. Kinaxis has added more than 40 new employees on the go-to-market side of the operation since then, Courteau explained. He said the new hires are paying dividends, particularly in Asia, the U.S. and Europe, where Kinaxis is seeing a growing pipeline of new business. “We’ve really brought a lot of talent in the organization, and we’re winning in all markets,” Courteau said. “With Mark Morgan and the team that we’ve put around him, we’re a tough company to beat right now.” He cited Lactalis as an example of a “company that might have been in the past something that maybe one of our competitors would win. We’re in virtually all of the opportunities that are available in the market, and we’re winning.” Kinaxis officials also touted the company’s new partnerships with organizations such as California-based big-data analytics firm Databricks – deals they say will broaden the Kanata company’s customer base and strengthen its expertise in areas such as AI. Courteau said Kinaxis is working with Databricks to develop new AI agents and generative AI tools that will help make supply-chain management more autonomous and allow companies to respond to shifting demand for products in real time. He said Kinaxis expects to keep rolling out new products into 2026. “Overall, we’re very pleased with our momentum in the final half of 2025 and very excited about the future,” Courteau added. Meanwhile, the firm is still searching for a permanent CEO to replace John Sicard, who retired at the end of 2024. Courteau said the company has looked at “super-strong candidates” from the software sector but is still seeking the right leader – someone he described as a seasoned executive who will drive innovation in areas such as AI and forge additional partnerships with other organizations that can augment Kinaxis’s own tech stack. Courteau said he and the company’s board of directors remain “focused and patient” as they search for Sicard’s successor. “We’re still seeing great candidates,” he said. “We’re not holding (the hiring process) up. We’ll take action at a time that makes sense, but we don’t want to set a fixed timeline.” The markets appeared to give Kinaxis’s record-setting profit a tepid response. The company’s shares closed at $194.10 on the Toronto Stock Exchange after the results were announced last Wednesday, down more than six per cent from the previous day. Kinaxis stock has bounced back slightly since then, trading at $197.37 early Tuesday afternoon.