iQSTEL Inc 10-K

Item 1. Business Company Description iQSTEL Inc. (the “Company”) (OTC Pink: IQST) (www.iqstel.com) is a technology company offering a wide array of services to global telecommunications and technology industries with presence in 13 countries. The Company has an extensive portfolio of products and services for its clients such as: SMS, VoIP, 4G & 5G international infrastructure connectivity, Cloud-PBX, OmniChannel Marketing, IoT services, blockchain and payment solutions. These services are grouped within four business divisions: Telecom, Fintech, Electric vehicles and Metaverse The company operates its business through its wholly-owned subsidiary Etelix.com USA, LLC (“Etelix”) (www.etelix.com) ; and its majority-owned subsidiaries SwissLink Carrier AG (www.swisslink-carrier.com), QGlobal SMS (https://www.qglobalsms.com/), Smart Gas (http://iotsmartgas.com/) and ItsBChain (http://itsbchain.com/), Whisl Telecom LLC (www.whisl.com), and Smartbiz Telecom LLC (www.smartbiztel.com). The information contained on our websites is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report, and such information should not be considered to be part of this Annual Report. History iQSTEL, formerly known as PureSnax International, Inc., was incorporated under the laws of the State of Nevada on June 24, 2011. PureSnax was previously a wellness brand focused on bringing healthy snacks and foods to consumers. On March 8, 2017, PureSnax exited a previous License Agreement with a Canadian snack food Licensor. From March of 2017 until its acquisition of Etelix.com USA, LLC, PureSnax was working to develop its own brand and its own products for manufacture, distribution, sales and marketing of various products within the health foods and snacks industry and to pursue related business opportunities. PureSnax acquired Etelix.com USA, LLC on June 25, 2018. The company left the healthy snacks and foods business to focus on the Telecommunications Business. On August 30, 2018, PureSnax changed its name to “iQSTEL Inc.” and received a new CUSIP number: 46265G107, as well as a new trading symbol “IQST” in order to better resemble its new name. iQSTEL also changed the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC Code) to 4813, Telephone Communications, Except Radiotelephone. On April 1, 2019, the Company entered into a Company Purchase Agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”) by and between the Company and the Ralf Kohler (the “Seller”), which agreement provides for the purchase of 51% of the equity and certain assets of SwissLink Carrier AG (“SwissLink”) (www.swisslink-carrier.com), a Swiss corporation, by the Company. 3 Table of Contents On February 10, 2020, the Company entered into a Company Acquisition Agreement (the “Agreement”) with Jesus Vega regarding the acquisition of 51% of the shares in QGlobal, LLC (“QGlobal”). QGlobal is a company with the capacity to provide Short Messages (SMS), A2P and P2P messaging services. On February 21, 2020, the Company entered into a Company Acquisition Agreement (the “Agreement”) with Miguel Scavo regarding the acquisition of 75% of the shares in ItsBchain, LLC (“ItsBchain”) a company specialized in the development of Blockchain applications for telecommunications. On April 15, 2020, the Company entered into a Company Acquisition Agreement (the “Agreement”) with Francisco Bunt regarding the acquisition of 51% of the shares in loT Labs, LLC (“loT Labs”). The loT Labs’ principal business activity is the sale of SMS between USA and Mexico. On November 12, 2020, the Company entered into partnership Agreement (the “Agreement”) with PAYMENT VIRTUAL MOBILE SOLUTIONS, LLC (PayVMS), a Delaware Corporation regarding the incorporation of Global Money One Inc, in which iQSTEL owns 75% of the shares and PayVMS owns the remaining 25%. Global Money One is a Fintech company with a complete infrastructure to provide top-up services, international remittances and prepaid debit cards. On October 1, 2021, the Company entered into an agreement with Jesus Vega regarding the acquisition of the remaining 49% of the shares in QGlobal, LLC (“QGlobal”). By means of this transaction iQSTEL increased its ownership in QGlobal to 100%. On May 13, 2022, the Company entered into a Company Acquisition Agreement regarding the acquisition of 51% of the shares in Whisl telecom LLC (“Whisl”) . On June 1, 2022, the Company entered into a Company Acquisition Agreement regarding the acquisition of 51% of the shares in Smartbiz Telecom LLC (“Smartbiz”). Operating Subsidiaries iQSTEL's mission is to serve basic human needs in today's modern world by making the necessary tools accessible regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, or identity. iQSTEL recognizes that in today’s modern world, the pursuit of the human hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, relationship, esteem, and self-actualization) is marginalized without access to ubiquitous communications, the freedom of virtual banking, clean affordable mobility and information and content. iQSTEL has 4 Business Divisions delivering accessibly to the necessary tools in today's pursuit of basic human needs: 1) Telecommunications (communications). 2) Fintech (financial freedom). 3) Electric Vehicles (mobility). 4) Metaverse. (Information and content). The company continues to grow and expand its suite of products and services both organically and through mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Our telecommunication business currently represents 100% of our revenues, while our other business lines are in a pre-revenue stage. Telecom Subsidiaries for voice services: Etelix.com USA LLC , a wholly owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc., is US based international telecom carrier founded in 2008 that provides telecom and technology solutions worldwide, with commercial presence in North America, Latin America, and Europe. Etelix provides International Long-Distance voice services for Telecommunications Operators (ILD Wholesale), and Submarine Fiber Optic Network capacity for internet (4G and 5G). Etelix is interconnected to the most important players in the industry, with a very strong focus on Asian and Latin-American markets, among which it is worth mentioning: China Telecom, PCCW, Hutchinson Telecom, Vodafone India, KDDI, Airtel, Reliance, Viettel, TATA Communications, Flow Jamaica (Cable and Wireless Caribbean), Cable and Wireless Panama, Millicom (TIGO), Telefonica de España (Movistar), Telecom Italia (TIM), Portugal Telecom (MEU), Optimus (NOS), Belgacom (BICS), Deutsche Telekom, iBasis, Orbitel and Entel. 4 Table of Contents An important milestone in the evolution of Etelix was in 2013, when the company become part of a consortium of major carriers for the upgrade of the Maya-1 submarine cable systems that runs from Hollywood, Florida to the city of Tolu in Colombia. This consortium is led by Orange Telecom and Orbitel, where Etelix participates with 10 Gbps of capacity. The bulk of this contract was sold to Millicom (Tigo Costa Rica). This capacity considerably enhanced Tigo’s ability to deploy world-class 4G services to its customers in Costa Rica. SwissLink Carrier AG is a 51% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc. SwissLink Carrier AG is a Switzerland based international Telecommunications Carrier founded in 2015 providing international VoIP connectivity worldwide, with commercial presence in Europe, CIS and Latin America. SwissLink Carrier AG is a Swiss licensed Operator. The acquisition of Swisslink strengthened the Company’s presence in Europe putting us in a very competitive position to capture traffic to Asian and African countries. Africa continues to be the market with the higher contribution to margin and Asia concentrate one third of the termination traffic in the industry. Estimations show that more than 50% of the traffic terminating in Africa is originated from customers in Europe; while the corresponding percentage of traffic terminated in Asia is close to 40%. Based on these numbers the goal to expand the participation in the Asian and African traffic goes through establishing a strong presence in Europe. Whisl Telecom LLC . Is a 51% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc., acquired in May 2022. Whisl Telecom is an US based Company that provides high quality services and “out of the box” solutions to its customers. Whisl predominantly serves the Carrier-to-Carrier Global industry but also has network infrastructure to provide services to the retail end users (endpoints). Whisl Telecom is one of the few US carriers to have a significant Tier1 capacity (true capacity with high calls per second, CPS) to terminate calls with the highest quality. With the acquisition of Whisl Telecom, iQSTEL incorporated to its telecom portfolio the following services: (1) US/Canada Inbound/Origination. (2) US/Canada DIDs. (3) US/Canada Toll Free Numbers. (4) Global DIDs and (5) Global Toll-Free Numbers. Smartbiz Telecom LLC . Is a 51% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc. acquired in June 2022. Smartbiz is an US based Company that provides international voice termination to niche markets. With this acquisition iQSTEL is expanding its telecommunication services offer to markets the company was not serving before. With the combination of the technology capabilities of these four subsidiaries, iQSTEL has put together a complete portfolio of services for carriers and end user. These services include: • International Voice Termination for carriers. • US/Canada Inbound / Origination. • Global DIDs. • Global Toll-Free Numbers. • PBX (Private Branch Exchange) for small businesses. • SIP Trunking. The voice services represented in year 2022 42.50% of the total revenue of the company ($39,614,081 out of the total $93,203,532) while in year 2021 voice services represented 31.11% of the total revenue ($20,127,139 out from a total of $64,702,018). Gross Margin in the voice services increased from 4.72% in year 2021 to 5.81% in year 2022. This is the result of the incorporation to our portfolio of product with higher gross margins. We expect this gross margin to increase in year 2023. All our subsidiaries carried 2.7 billion minutes of voice during year 2022, compared to 670 million in year 2021. This represents an increase of 268% year over year. 5 Table of Contents Telecom Subsidiaries for SMS services : QGlobal SMS LLC is a 100% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc. QGlobal SMS is a USA based company founded in 2020 specialized in international and domestic SMS termination. QGlobal SMS has commercial presence in Europe, USA and Latin America, with robust international interconnection with Tier-1 SMS Aggregators, guarantying to its customers high quality and low termination rates, in over more than 100 countries. IoT Labs LLC is a 51% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc. IoT Labs is a SMS service provider based in Austin, TX. Specialized in the SMS traffic exchange between US and Mexico. The Company has entered into the SMS business in 2020 through the acquisition of QGlobal and IoT Labs. Both companies specialize in international and domestic SMS termination, with emphasis on the Applications to Person (A2P), Person to Person (P2P) and OmniChannel Marketing Services for several markets: Wholesale Carrier, Government, Corporate, Enterprise, Small and Medium Companies. The Global A2P SMS Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.1% to account for US$ 101 billion in 2030, according to Transparency Market Research. This market has experienced significant growth and adoption rate in the past few years and is expected to experience notable growth and adoption in years to come. Our SMS services represented in year 2022 57.50% of the total revenue, while it was 68.89% in year 2021. Gross margin in the SMS business decreases in 2022 to 0.40% from 0.54% in year 2021. But it is important to remark that the gross margin of the products deployed by QGlobal SMS was 21%, being the main objective in the SMS segment to increase the sales of those services due to its huge gross margins. Both companies, IoT Labs and QGlobal carried 8.5 billion SMS and short codes in year 2022 compared to 7.1 billion in year 2021. This represents an increment of 1.4 billion SMS year over year or 19.72%. IoT Labs is also responsible for the development of our award-winning Internet of Things devices SmartGas and SmartTank. The SmartGas device is perfectly focused on retail households using traditional LP gas tanks, while the SmartTank device is more oriented for industrial purposes. The Company’s product is a sensor and control chip that can be mounted on gas tanks in less than one minute, that converts the gas tank into an IoT connected device through the Company’s proprietary web portal and phone apps, allowing for constant monitoring, alerting, and refilling through the Company’s gas partners. An important milestone to highlight is that the company has received the patent for the invention and development of these devices. We continue working closely with BASF Corporation to adapt the SmartTank device to their specifications. project that has suffered some delays due to limited inventories and the slowness of the global distribution chains of microchips. However, since the end of 2022 we have expanded the list of certified suppliers and at this time we have a minimum inventory of parts, pieces and finished products to start the marketing process of both devices. New businesses subsidiaries: ItsBchain LLC is a 75% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc. ItsBchain is a blockchain technology developer and solution provider, with a strong focus on the telecom sector. The company has focused on the development of solutions aimed at using the blockchain ledger and smart contracts to enable more efficiency, quickness in execution and fraud-prevention in the telco industry. Specifically, the company has developed a solution that will enable users and carriers to transfer mobile phone numbers with just a few clicks, allowing users and carriers the ability to transfer retail users from one mobile carrier to another instantly. The Company has done research covering 35 countries where number portability is mandatory by law. Those 35 countries have a total of 3.3 billion population and 4.0 billion of phone lines that can be ported from one carrier to another. It is estimated that an average of 5% of the total phone lines are ported every year. Number portability is executed and supervised by a third independent party, who act as a data-base administrator and has the responsibility to guarantee all transactions requested by the customers will be completed and his/her phone number will be ported from Carrier A to Carrier B. In the countries under our analysis there are 11 different data-base administrators. 6 Table of Contents In terms of dollar value, the number portability market in the countries under our analysis is estimated over $86 million per year. This is based in the actual cost carriers and/or customers have to pay to get the lines ported. Revenues of the Data Base Administrators comes from a monthly fee charged to all participant carriers, plus a fee for every transaction completed over the platform. The monthly fee and the transactions fee vary from country to country. Our objective is to offer the market conformed by data-based administrators a solution a much more cost effective solution; which will not only reduce the operating cost, but that will also make the transactions to complete faster without any additional CAPEX. Our mobile number portability solution is now being tested prior to its commercial release in June 2023. Global Money One Inc . Is a 75% owned subsidiary of iQSTEL Inc. The company offers a complete Fintech ecosystem including a MasterCard Debit Card, US Bank Account (No SSN Needed), and a Mobile App/Wallet to manage Remittances and Mobile Top Up. Our focus is to provide immigrants access to reliable financial services that make it easier to manage their money and stay connected with their families back home. All available services can be managed through our mobile App “GlobalMoneyOne” available for IOS and Android. A first non-commercial release of the Fintech suite was done in June 2022. Since that date all services have been tested including the known-your-customer (KYC) process for the issuance of debits cards, the settlement process with the issuer bank, the intermediary entities handling the remittances, and the intermediaries and cellular operators for the Top Up, as well as the proper training of our customer care agents. According to a World Bank Migration and Development brief, remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached $626 billion in 2022. The brief also stated the remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean are estimated to have grown 9.3% in 2022 to $142 billion; with increments of 45% for Nicaragua, 20% for Guatemala, 15% for Mexico, and 9% for Colombia. Stronger employment of migrants from Latin America in the United States contributed to remittance flows. As a share of GDP, remittances exceed 20% in El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, and Haiti. The Electric Vehicle division (TuVolten) consist in an initiative to offer clean and affordable mobility through Electric Motorcycles, and Electric Mid Speed Cars. TuVolten is going to offer theirs EV Motorcycles and EV Cars in Spain, Portugal, USA, and some countries of Latin America. As recently announced, all previous electric motorcycle designs and tests have come together in a new electric motorcycle now rolling off the factory for the final validation tests under the European Union Standards E-Mark certification process. Once this certification is obtained, we will begin manufacturing the first units for sale to the public. The Metaverse initiative , consist in a platform to offer our telecommunication carrier clients a white label solution enabling them to interact with their customers (end users, and enterprises) through the metaverse. The iQSTEL white label metaverse solution developed in partnership with GOTMY will be tailored to provide telecom carriers with a distinctive and immersive customer experience. In line with GOTMY’s mission to offer universally accessible experiential spaces, the iQSTEL solution for telecom carriers is intended to accommodate all mobile phone users, not just those with high-end VR headsets. Regulations Telecommunications services are subject to extensive government regulation in the United States of America. Any violations of the regulations may subject us to enforcement actions, including interest and penalties. The FCC has jurisdiction over all telecommunications common carriers to the extent they provide interstate or international communications services, including the use of local networks to originate or terminate such services. Regulation of Telecom by the Federal Communications Commission Telecommunication License Anyone seeking to conduct telecommunications business where the telecommunication services will transpire between the United States of America and an international destination must obtain a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This particular license is named a Section 214 license, after the section in the Communications Act of 1934. 7 Table of Contents Etelix.com USA, LLC was authorized by the Federal Communications Commission to provide facility-based services in accordance with section 63.18(e)(1) of the Commission’s rules; and also to provide resale services in accordance with section 63.18(e)(2) under license number ITC-214-20090625-00303. Since Etelix has no other network infrastructure outside the United States of America, no other licenses are required for us to operate as an international carrier service provider. Universal Service and Other Regulatory Fees and Charges In 1997, the FCC issued an order, referred to as the Universal Service Order, which requires all telecommunications carriers providing interstate telecommunications services to contribute to universal service support programs administered by the FCC (known as the Universal Service Fund). These periodic contributions are currently assessed based on a percentage of each contributor’s interstate and international end user telecommunications revenues reported to the FCC. Etelix also contributed to several other regulatory funds and programs, most notably Telecommunications Relay Service and FCC Regulatory Fees (collectively, the Other Funds). Due to the manner in which these contributions are calculated, we cannot be assured that we fully recover from our customers all of our contributions. In addition, based on the nature of our current business, we receive certain exemptions from federal Universal Service Fund contributions. Changes in our business could eliminate our ability to qualify for some or all of these exemptions. Changes in regulation may also have an impact on the availability of some or all of these exemptions. If even some of these exemptions become unavailable, they could materially increase our federal Universal Service Fund or Other Funds’ contributions and have a material adverse effect on the cost of our operations and, therefore, on our ability to continue to operate profitably, and to develop and grow our business. We cannot be certain of the stability of the contribution factors for the Other Funds. Significant increases in the contribution factor for the Other Funds in general and the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund in particular can impact our profitability. Whether these contribution factors will be stable in the future is unknown, but it is possible that we will be subject to significant increases. Money Transmitter and Payment Instrument Laws and Regulations The consumer payment services offerings, prepaid debit cards, remittances, Top Up, are industries heavily regulated. Accordingly, we, and the products and services that we offer in consumer payment services, are subject to a variety of federal and state laws and regulations, including: • Banking laws and regulations; • Money transmitter and payment instrument laws and regulations; • Anti-money laundering laws;- • Privacy and data security laws and regulations;- • Consumer protection laws and regulations; • Unclaimed property laws; and • Card association and network organization rules. Employees iQSTEL, including all subsidiaries, has 56 employees as of December 31, 2022.