AutoStore Holdings Ltd. (AUTO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to AutoStore's First Quarter 2025 Presentation. My name is Hiva Flaskjer, and I'm the Investor Relations Officer at AutoStore. I'll be moderating today's presentation. Today, I'm joined by 3 members of our executive team. Mats Hovland Vikse, our CEO; Paul Harrison, our CFO; and Parth Joshi, our Chief Product Officer. Now before we start, I'd like to remind you our disclaimer with regards to forward-looking statements. It can be read here at your own convenience. Moving on to our agenda. We'll begin with Mats who will present this quarter's operational developments, followed by Parth who will discuss our recent product innovation and how they support our growth strategy. Paul will then provide a detailed overview of our financial results. And as always, all financials are stated in U.S. dollars. After the prepared remarks, we'll open the floor for Q&A. [Operator Instructions] Additionally, similar to previous quarters, you're invited to join the webcast via Microsoft Teams to ask verbal questions directly to the management team. [Operator Instructions] The link can be found on the Investor Relations website and it was also included in the invitation that was distributed as a stock exchange release 1 week ago. After the Q&A, Mats will round off with some final remarks to conclude this presentation. With that, I'll hand over the word to Mats.

Thanks, Hiva, and good morning. With all we have going on in the world right now and the unprecedented levels of uncertainty businesses are facing, there is a lot to discuss today. Our numbers tell you that we're not immune to this uncertainty. At the same time, I want to leave you today with a clear understanding of the actions that we're taking to ensure that AutoStore emerges from this period stronger than ever, by which I mean with the best solution in our industry with an optimized go-to-market model and with the strongest financial profile. It is with this in mind that I invited Parth, our CPO, to join us. Now coming up to a year with the business, Parth is driving a transformation of our product organization and I want you to hear more about that. But first, let's take a closer look at the numbers. We closed the quarter with $86 million in revenue, $141 million in order intake. Gross margin was 74%, and our adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 25%. As highlighted during our Q4 update in February, we expected a softer start to the year, reflecting the shift towards AutoStore-as-a-Service projects and given the broader macro uncertainty impacting global commerce. If we included AutoStore-as-a-Service products we shipped in the quarter, secured revenue was $113 million. And I will come back to the importance of service revenue shortly. I think it's also fair to reiterate my words back at the Capital Markets Day. We're not satisfied with these numbers. And yes, we can talk to a challenging market at present. But even so, we're aiming for much better, and we know shareholders expect that, too. The encouraging part is that I'm starting to see clear signs that our strategy is taking hold. It's the same strategy we outlined at the Capital Markets Day, one that we believe will drive a return to highly profitable growth. And I'll speak more about that in just a few minutes. Moving on to our business development, and let's start with tariffs. You don't need me to tell you that the situation is still evolving. The timing, scope and details are all uncertain. What I can tell you is that about 25% of our revenue comes from the U.S. and it's our partners, not AutoStore, who import our products into that market. However, we're realistic. We know that we'll likely bear some of the impact. But based on what we know today, we still expect to deliver strong, best-in-class gross margins. The more significant impact of tariffs is the uncertainty they create. We're also seeing market analysts now suggesting that 2025 will be another year of market contraction. An uncertain outlook leads to hesitation. Our customers understand the strong ROI associated with an AutoStore solution, but it is understandable that many are holding off on their commitments until there is more clarity on this matter. As I said, our response to these challenges is to double down on delivering on our strategy. We know it's one that will restore growth with a better backdrop, and it will see us emerge in an even stronger position. And this is a multifaceted strategy. Parth will speak shortly about our product direction, and I'll cover progress on the go-to-market strategy on the next slide. And Paul will later outline our plans to streamline support function and deliver a meaningful reduction in our operating expenses. But while we can't control the external environment, what we remain focused on is what we can control, which is executing on our strategic priorities and positioning AutoStore for a return to higher levels of profitable growth. We are responding to the current conditions by transforming our commercial function with new leadership, accelerating growth through AutoStore-as-a-Service and implementing cost efficiency measures expected to reduce our annualized operating expenses by approximately $10 million. These actions are aimed at maintaining high profitability, strengthening our competitive position and support long-term growth and resilience. Moving on, we're happy to share that we successfully completed several AutoStore-as-a-Service projects this quarter. AutoStore-as-a-Service is our flexible subscription-based model that removes the need for a big upfront investment. It gives us predictable and recurring revenue. And for our customers, it means faster time to value, predictable costs and more flexibility in how they run and scale their operations. So this model is a win-win. And while still early days, AutoStore-as-a-Service is already providing -- proving to be a strong driver of growth and deeper customer relationships, especially in today's market. So now let's take a step back. This slide highlights our superior value proposition to customers, our long-term competitive strength and superior financial profile. It summarizes the strength of our platform and why we're uniquely positioned to lead. We have now delivered 1,700 systems with 78,500 robots in 58 countries. We have over 1,150 unique customers, and we added over 100 in just 1 year. Within the cube storage space, we are the only player with such a significant installed base, providing us with great advantages. And not only does this speak to the strength of our solutions, it also represents a big base for our land-and-expand strategy. And while our financials on this page reflect the impact of a softer Q1, we've consistently demonstrated industry-leading margins and profitable growth, which is a testament to the strength and scalability of our business model. And this is also a slide that you're familiar with, and here you can see a small selection of our over 1,150 customers. And as you can see, we have a broad customer portfolio across a diverse set of end markets. Around half of our revenue comes from existing customers, and this growing customer base represents a massive opportunity. It is also worth noting that Europe remains our largest region, representing over 65% of our business. To further expand on our reach in these key end markets, we continued to innovate and strengthen our value proposition. So I'm going to pass to Parth who will walk you through some of the product innovations from our spring announcement and how they are designed to drive our growth and continue our leadership position.

Hi, everyone. I'm Parth Joshi, Chief Product Officer at AutoStore, responsible for all things product and technology. As Mats mentioned earlier, I joined the company in the summer of 2024 and I'm currently in the midst of driving a transformation of our product organization. It's been an exciting time to come on board as we work to shape the future of warehouse automation and strengthen our leadership in this space. During my time at AutoStore, I focused on 3 key areas as I've done in previous industries: driving scale and growth through product innovation, building high-quality recurring revenue streams and combining best-in-class hardware with truly disruptive software. As Mats mentioned, we have over 1,700 systems in operation and more than 78,500 robots deployed in the industry, leading customers across a broad range of end markets. But for us, it's not just about scale. It's about being trusted partners for our customers, leveraging our product and technology to deliver sustainable growth across varying CapEx cycles and business models. We remain focused on solving increasingly complex challenges for our customers. That's how we continue to create value and unlock new growth opportunities for us and for them. Today, I want to show how far we've come and why it matters. Innovation has always been core to AutoStore. We focus on solving complex customer problems with the reliability, scalability and standardization at the center. As our customers grow, we grow with them. Just look at the shift. From a few hundred robots to over 78,500 now, from 50 robots per site to up to 2,000 with a 99.7% uptime. This kind of progress drives real impact for us and our customers. We're doubling down on 4 strategic priorities that keeps us future-ready. First, optimize the cube. We're increasing speed, density and efficiency, reducing total cost of ownership and time to deploy. We still see massive opportunities to continue to optimize our cube with data from a majority of our 78,000 robots, keeping us as an industry leader. Second, expand our core capabilities. We are continuing to build on the platform we've developed with seamless integration between software and hardware as a key differentiator. Doing so enables us to solve new applications. As an example, increasing our throughput capabilities has helped us to expand into the high throughput segment, which alone represents over 1/3 of the total light ASRS market, making it a significant opportunity for us. In addition, we have opened chilled and frozen applications through our multi-temperature solution and addressed small-scale fulfillment through our PO turnkey offering. Third, add on new capabilities. We are also going beyond the cube to add new capabilities. By expanding into adjacent use cases, we're growing our serviceable addressable market and increasing share of wallet. Solutions like our CarouselAI, something I'll speak about more shortly, demonstrate how we can extend the value of our platform in new, powerful ways. And fourth, AutoStore software platform. Software drives efficiency of the hardware. It's the barrier to entry and what truly sets AutoStore apart. This system-led approach with software as a brain is what enables long-term customer value, high-quality recurring revenues and sustainable growth. We're building a unified ecosystem that enhances interoperability, accelerates innovation and unlocks new opportunities in AI and analytics. As outlined in our Capital Markets Day last fall, our biannual product announcements are designed to deliver value throughout the system life cycle. And that strategy remains unchanged. This spring, we launched 5 new products aimed at boosting productivity, lowering operational costs and enabling faster and more scalable expansion. Each product is built to drive continuous value and strengthen our profitable recurring revenue model. A standout in this launch is CarouselAI, our first AI-powered robotic piece-picking solution and a clear step beyond the cube. It addresses a key industry bottleneck, which is manual picking outside the system, and automates the next logical step in the process. This directly addresses key challenges that customers are facing such as rising labor cost and warehouse staffing challenges. CarouselAI is a proof point of our strategy to expand beyond the cube, creating value through having a fully integrated, standardized offering. Early traction has been strong and is already a key topic in our customer conversations. More to come on AI-related impacts to our products and future updates. We're also launching the Essentials Software Package, a powerful all-in-one solution designed to enhance performance across the customer journey. It delivers industry-leading robot routing, real-time system analytics and intelligent reporting tools for ongoing optimization, which will help drive growth in ARR. By aligning with evolving customer needs, the Essentials Package strengthens our value proposition while also laying the foundation for what's next in our software journey. Finally, we're expanding Pio, our plug-and-play standardized solution that brings cube storage to smaller businesses and compact spaces. Built on the same high-performance robots as our larger systems, Pio is intuitive, fast to deploy, live in as little as 4 days and available via subscription through our partner network. With our spring 2025 release, Pio is now available to numerous partners worldwide in a range of sizes, making it easier than ever to offer automation in new markets. We also see a strong pull from partners on smaller use cases within the enterprise segment. It's a true turnkey solution that generates recurring monthly revenue. As Mats said earlier today, my objective is to leave you with a clear understanding that even in these challenging markets, we are innovating at pace. Our reinvigorated products team will continue to deliver solutions that will position AutoStore more strongly than ever to win in this market. Thank you. Paul will now take us through the financials of this quarter.

Thank you, Parth. Good morning. Okay, let's move to the financial highlights on the next slide. As Mats discussed earlier, this quarter reflects both clear strategic progress and the ongoing impact of geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility. As you can see, the slide summarizes our Q1 performance. Revenue came in at $86 million. But as Mats mentioned, including shipped AutoStore-as-a-Service projects in this quarter, we're looking at $113 million of revenue. Our gross margin landed north of 70% for the fifth consecutive quarter, while our adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 25%, impacted by that lower revenue. Order intake came in at $141 million, taking the order backlog to $513 million. So on the next slide, I'll go into more details on the key financials. As I mentioned, Q1 revenue came in at $86 million. We expected a slow start to the year. At the Q4 results, I'll remind you that we spoke to the impact of our strong close to 2024 and the successful capture of as-a-Service revenues. We noted that both will suppress Q1 revenue. Looking at the geographic split, Europe remains our stronghold and it is also where we ship the AutoStore-as-a-Service deals. As I mentioned, order intake totaled $141 million, roughly on par quarter-over-quarter. Given the current macro environment, this is a solid result. Over 70% of this quarter's order intake came from existing customers, underscoring the strength of our value proposition and the benefit of a large installed customer base. We ended the quarter with a backlog of $513 million. We're confident in the quality of our order backlog and have not seen any cancellations, but we are seeing a more cautious approach to capital investments in warehouse automation, driven by the volatility in global trade flows and broader economic conditions. But I want to say that this caution is not a reflection of the attractiveness of our solution. Rather, it is a consequence of the broader uncertainties our customers face at this time. Okay. Let's move on to margins. The highly standardized nature of our product continued to support strong gross margins. In fact, as I mentioned, this is the fifth consecutive quarter with gross margins exceeding 70%. Now Mats touched on the tariff topic earlier. Without a doubt, the real impact of tariffs is to create further hesitancy to commit in an already challenging environment for our customers. As we said, it is our partners and not AutoStore that import our product to the U.S. However, we recognize the risk that we will share some of the pain here. But keep in mind that the U.S. is around 25% of our business. So even if we choose to share in some of the cost of tariffs, based on what we know today, we will continue to report strong gross margins. Further down the P&L, lower revenues saw adjusted EBITDA coming in at 25%. Given the current volatile market environment, we are taking measures to protect profitability. These will generate annualized cost savings of approximately $10 million whilst we will continue to invest in long-term growth. Moving to cash flow. Operating cash flow for the quarter was impacted by the $30 million in settlement payments, as you see here. The good news is that we're now in the final quarter of these payments. We ended the quarter with a strong cash position of $282 million, which supports our growth strategy. And we have total liquidity of $432 million, consisting of that cash of $282 million and a $150 million headroom on our revolving credit facility. So with that, I'll now pass back to Hiva, who is going to open the Q&A.

Thank you, Paul. Can Mats and Parth and Paul join me, and we can open the questions from the webcast player? Let's see. [Operator Instructions] And I think, Luke, if you unmute yourself, you're the first in line.

Yes. Can you hear me at all or not?

Yes, yes.

I see that. And my first question is just on the top line trends through Q1. And it seems like you had halving of demand Q-on-Q, and I'm just interested to see is that effectively by March almost no demand for the quarter? Just how does that fare through the quarter and then into Q2? And then my second question is just on the recurring revenues. Can you just be clear on what does that do to phasing into Q2, Q3, given the impact we saw in Q1?

So the first question, I think the Q1 order intake that we reported reflects the strength of our business and particularly the strength of our existing customer base and our stronghold in Europe. But however, as you allude to, the situation has gotten worse throughout the quarter and more uncertainty has presented itself. But it is important to note, though, that the caution that we're seeing from customers is about the timing. The conviction of the value that we can bring to them with the AutoStore system is still as strong as ever. And we're not seeing customers going to alternative solutions, but this is really a consequence of the uncertainty businesses are facing in this environment.

And Luke to your second question, for AutoStore as-a-Service revenues, we start to recognize those revenues when those systems go live. So contrasted with traditional AutoStore business where we recognize revenues as we ship product, we started to recognize when they go live. And over the contracts we're referring to, they're going live in the next couple of quarters. So we'll start to recognize revenue under those contracts then and do so straight line over the life of the contracts.

Can I just press you a little bit more on the trends through Q1? Did it weaken significantly between February and then into March? I just wanted to be clear on that and what the trends are doing into April?

Yes. No, as I said, the situation has continued to be more uncertain. But given the strength within existing customers and also some of the stronger end markets and regions, we were able to deliver the results that we delivered.

I think, Tore, you're the next one in line.

Yes. Also 2 from my side. To start with, first of all, would be on the accounting for the AutoStore-as-a-Service Solution. So I understood now that you will start accounting for the revenues once the product is really in use and then over the length of the contract. So could you maybe let us know on average or how long will these contracts usually last? Is that a 3 years topic? Is it 5 years topic? Basically, what I'm trying to figure out is how long does it take you to recoup from an accounting perspective the revenues you're currently losing here? And then just a second question would be also regarding tariffs. I understood your partners are importing the product. But still, could you let us know into the U.S., are you mainly shipping in from Thailand or are you mainly shipping in from Poland?

Thank you. So the accounting for the contracts and their length, the contracts they're going to vary in length, but they are typically longer than that for their initial term. The typical initial term ranging from a sort of 7- to 10-year period. But keep in mind the observation we've made many times in the past that once a customer has an AutoStore solution, we have instances of customers that have had that solution for in excess of a couple of decades. So from a contractual point of view, the contracts tend to, thus far, trend into that 7- to 10-year period. So -- and what I will say to you is under the economics, therefore, we move into the black as it were in those contracts well before the end of the minimum contracted terms. So as well as bringing predictable recurring revenues, the economics of these contracts are also attractive to AutoStore. As to the tariffs in the main, today, our product has been shipped into the U.S. from Poland, although we do hold some finished goods inventory in the U.S. as well as a consequence of wanting to respond quickly to opportunities there.

I think important to note on the first one, what we do provide customers here with is flexibility and whether that can be a 3-year contract, a 5-year contract or a longer-term contract can vary across those different deals. But important to note that when you first start using an AutoStore system, the value of that is multiyear. Even the first systems that we installed in the early 2000s is still operating today.

Okay. Just one follow-up then on this first question. If you have these contracts running for 7 to 10 years, is the cumulated revenue higher than in the old CapEx model? Or is it basically from an accounting perspective just taking you 7 to 10 years to recognize revenue that you would usually have recognized within 1 quarter?

No. The accumulated revenue over the life of the contract would be higher than the old CapEx model.

Any detail you could give on this? Or will we just remain with higher for now?

I refer back to my comment that our sort of break-even position, to your question, is well before the end of those contracts. That's the way we structured them.

Thank you. Moving on to Hakon.

Could you provide some color on how you assess the quality of the remaining backlog, specifically how much of the current backlog do you consider to be firm versus at risk given the current macro and customer uncertainty?

I'll start with that one. Look, we continue to see a high-quality backlog. And as we commented, the conviction that our customers express to undertake warehouse automation using the AutoStore solution remains very strong. And as I noted in my words earlier, we have not seen any cancellations from that backlog. But we're cautious, of course. I mean, in this environment, we would understand customers saying, yes, we have that high conviction, but we're going to hold off on making that commitment. So it is a very credible hypothesis that we'll see opportunities in the backlog shift to the right. But what we are not seeing is customers lose conviction and/or canceling their contracts.

I think Eirik, you're next one up.

I've got 3. I'll do them one by one, if that's okay. If we start on the backlog now of $512 million, could you share how much of that is AutoStore-as-a-Service? And based on what you know today, what's the kind of time on execution for that backlog in terms of turning that into revenue? That's my first question.

Okay. So the AutoStore-as-a-Service deals, the ones we've talked about this quarter are the first sort of principal deals that we've announced. And therefore, that full sort of $27.5 million, Eirik, is in the backlog and represents the vast majority of those as-a-Service deals. And sorry, you had a second -- on the timing it -- on timing of release, Eirik, and as I say, the contracts will start to see revenue released on go live in sort of 1 or 2 quarters' time.

Okay. So then fair to assume that around $27 million of the $512 million is related to as-a-Service revenues in the backlog as of today?

Yes, that is the major part. Of course, keep in mind more broadly that we've got significantly more recurring revenues in that when you consider software, for example, and indeed, the reoccurring nature of spare part revenues. So we're building up quite a significant sort of recurring and reoccurring revenue base implicit in the backlog. But as it applies to these AutoStore-as-a-Service contracts, that number is directionally correct.

Okay. And then also just for my own understanding, of the $141 million in the order intake in Q1, would $27 million of those be as-a-Service? And also technically, how do you kind of recognize the value of those orders in the order intake number? Like is it the full value of the order, the initial payment? Just trying to understand how you're going to recognize that value in the order intake, yes.

Yes. So you are right, the $27.5 million is in the order intake of $141 million. And therefore, in terms of how we record order intake, we've remained faithful to the approach we've always adopted, which is to take in those revenues, we expect ultimately to release to revenue on a one-to-one basis. So there isn't, Eirik, implicit in your question, there isn't a sort of discounting or an NPV type effect that we've built into order intake.

Okay. That's fair. And just 2 more quick ones. You also called out the unprecedented geopolitical and macroeconomic volatility as an influence on revenue. And kind of if we adjust out the as-a-Service offering, does that mean that somewhere $10 million to $30 million-ish in revenue has been postponed in the quarter as well since you called out the uncertainty?

Yes. So I got 2 things. One is, as we said, as we reported in Q4, we did expect a soft start to the year for the reasons that we've just talked about. But secondly, yes, given the heightened uncertainty, we have seen backlog being pushed to the right.

Okay. And just one final question for me. Can you just briefly share your thoughts around why you didn't decide to profit warn when the numbers were so far off expectations?

Yes, Eirik, some time ago, we withdrew -- stopped our approach of giving formal guidance given the lack of -- or the challenged visibility into the market. And therefore, for us, it was more appropriate to talk to you today and be able to add more color based on what we're seeing as of today than talk to you sort of earlier in the quarter when the situation was still very, very much sort of evolving. So thought it was sensible to wait for today and be able to have a fuller dialogue with you.

Thank you, Eirik. Moving on to Timothy.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Cool, yes. So 2 questions from my side. So first one is also on the AutoStore-as-a-Service. So the $27.5 million was the order intake for the quarter, as you mentioned. Was that only referring to 1 project or several projects? And also, what do you expect for the proportion of the AutoStore-as-a-Service in the upcoming quarter's revenue? Any expectation on the proportion in the future would be helpful.

So as we have noted, there are several individual contracts underpinning the $27.5 million. And as to future quarters, we say today that we think that this is a model that not only is a win for us, but resonates strongly with customers, particularly in this environment. And so there's a number of other conversations that we're having around this model with other customers. But what I can't comment on is the timing of sort of bringing those to a conclusion, but it's certainly generating good interest with both our partners and our customers.

All right. Understood. The second question is about your R&D full-time employee. I saw the number of the R&D staff dropped from 296 by the end of fourth quarter to around 251 by the end of this quarter. May I know what's going on with that? Are you trimming your R&D team? Or it's part of the cost-saving measures that you mentioned?

We've looked at our R&D numbers, and we've given a pure number of what's considered R&D. So it's a definitional change of what we consider within R&D. If we look at the baseline and using the same definition, we're flat in terms of R&D head count using the new definition.

If I can add and Parth may come in as well. One real discipline that Parth has introduced is a very strong focus on a core set of products. And we discontinued, indeed, a number of projects that we were working on. And part and parcel of the savings that we've talked about today, the $10 million, is a consequence of that greater focus on core products that Parth has talked about.

Martin, I think you're next.

It's Martin from Citi. Just to come back to the as-a-Service model. When we think of the software world, oftentimes the margins are more negative in the initial phases, a lot of costs are booked upfront. If we're going to see more revenue booked from this as of next quarter, can you just talk a little bit about how you allocate the costs? So are they linear as well and so we don't see -- whether it's in COGS or whether it's in customer acquisition costs, things like that, we don't see any sort of upfront loading of those costs? Or do we think it's sort of margin neutral in terms of how we think about the phasing of that as-a-Service?

It's a good question. And I think it's important to bear in mind the continued involvement of our channel partners on these transactions. These are not deals we're doing directly. They're deals we're doing through our channel. So those things that our channel partners do today in terms of upfront sort of support and installation, they continue to do an as-a-Service contract. So the way to think about it from our point of view is we will have fixed assets on our balance sheet that represent the AutoStore solutions that are in use by those end customers and subject to sort of some relatively sort of small levels of support by AutoStore pretty much from the day we start. You've got revenue in the P&L and depreciation, therefore, going through against operating profit. That's the way it works given the partner involvement.

And strategically, there's value from a few different sources here. One is the value from our ongoing focus of standardization. There are no customized assets going into these models. We can ship standardized products out there. The second thing is, as Paul mentioned, the partner channel will continue to provide services, which is not on our cost base to realize these contracts. But thirdly, this also enables us to deliver on our strategic priority to get even closer to the end customers out there because with that flexibility, they have to scale the system based on the needs that they have. And the fact that we're sitting there shoulder by shoulder helps us build those deep strategic relationships, which will be hugely valuable for us.

That's really helpful. And another question, just coming back to tariffs. And obviously, you've commented that you think the cost increase of potential tariffs could be manageable for your partners. Have you thought about opening facilities in the U.S.? Is it too early to talk about that? And presumably there's a break-even level that it makes sense if tariffs are above a certain level and not if it's below a certain level. But just to give us some sort of sense as to how you are thinking about that.

So we do constantly assess what's the most efficient way to assembly and manufacture our products. That includes where in the world we do so. And of course, we have continued to do those sets of analytics also throughout this period. And our assessment is that with the setup we have today in Poland, in Thailand with also having strategic warehouses out there is still the most cost-efficient and customer-efficient setup we can have.

Thank you, Martin. Moving on to Petter.

A couple of questions from me, I'll take one at a time. You mentioned now and in Q4 that revenues were pushed forward in Q4. When you now see Q4 and Q1 combined, is it possible to say something about how big this impact was?

If you recall, Petter, we -- at the Capital Markets Day back in September, we guided to a range for FY '24 revenues of $575 million to $600 million, and we came in at $601 million. So we came in slightly above the top end of that range. And a lot of the success in landing the business that enabled that to be the case was a consequence of going out to our principally existing customers and landing -- persuading them to commit to deals like extension deals and the like. So a good proportion of that beat was a consequence of going to the installed base, looking for opportunities that might otherwise have come in, for example, in Q1 and securing that business in Q4, which was a very sort of positive thing to be able to do.

And we talked about this at the CMD. Accelerating conversion, exploiting our installed base is things that we focus a lot about. It helps our customers get value quicker and it helps us drive conversion, which, as we've talked about, is extremely important, especially in these conditions.

Yes, I agree. But the challenge, obviously, for us is that while this conversion was very strong then in Q4, it's not that strong now in Q1. So -- yes.

It's a fair point, Petter. And if you go back to the 20th of February and the Q4 announcement, we were so keen at that announcement to explain that we would see this effect.

Okay. And then just on tariffs, just to understand the potential effect here. And if I understood you correctly, you now ship basically from your Poland factory. What do you then on grids and bins for the U.S. markets?

So grids, we have manufacturing across the world and will, to a large extent, also import those into the U.S., whilst bins are manufactured at several sites across the U.S. and it's all sourced locally.

Okay. And then, obviously, back to the current trading environment. I think it's useful to give some development into Q2, particularly as tariffs really started to unfold from April. Does this mean that your market has become even more challenging now in Q2 on the back of lower potential demand?

As I mentioned, we have definitely seen a heightened uncertainty. And uncertainty leads to hesitation. But I think what's also fair to say is that as we stand here today, that level of uncertainty makes it incredibly hard to predict not only the short term, but predict how that demand environment is going to pan out going forward.

But as we emphasized today, that is challenging. But we are focusing, as Parth has mentioned in his section, relentlessly on our strategy and taking the measures that we've talked about to reduce the cost base of the business.

Okay. And just me then trying to wrap up. Does that mean that you're not seeing materially a change in the trade environment now versus what you saw in Q1?

It is too early to comment on that as we stand here today.

Thank you, Petter. Tore, I think you've raised your hand again.

Just a follow-up. The regional split, I was a little bit surprised by EMEA dropping so much year-on-year, while North America was mostly stable year-on-year. Could you give a bit more color on this? And is the AutoStore as a solution impact on revenues mostly a European one? Or is it also from customers in the U.S?

And that is exactly the analysis, Tore. The AutoStore-as-a-Service solutions are European deals, and hence, the impact on that segment.

Okay. And in the U.S. still stable year-on-year, but I suppose some turn-down in the later part of March?

As we've talked about already, yes, there is a heightened uncertainty out there for sure.

Thank you, Tore. I believe this concludes the questions from the webcast. I can't see any more hands raised. So I'll just quickly turn to the written questions. And I believe most of the questions have already been addressed. I'm not going to repeat those. I think there is one slight nuance to the AutoStore-as-a-Service, Paul. You mentioned revenues include AutoStore-as-a-Service was $113 million. What would be the gross profit -- what would the gross profit be including those service contracts?

Well, I think I'll go back to the earlier question and that is that with the role of the partner at the center still of the AutoStore-as-a-Service solution, then really the cost, the primary cost of AutoStore is the depreciation on the fixed asset that is located at the end customer.

So over time, this is accretive.

Very much, yes.

Thank you. I'm just going through the questions. I believe we've covered all the topics here in the written section. Just quickly going back to the live link, no hands are raised here either. So with that, I think we can conclude today's Q&A. And I'll hand over the word to you, Mats, for your final remarks.

Thank you, Hiva. So let me summarize what we've presented to you today and remind you of some key points. First, we operate in a large under-penetrated market, which is fueled by long-term megatrends. The growth opportunity here is intact, and we have a winning, proven solution. As we've already discussed, we are responding to the current market conditions by taking decisive action aimed at maintaining high profitability, strengthening our competitive position and supporting long-term growth and resilience. And we are not standing still. Innovation is embedded in our DNA, and we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible. Today, you heard directly from our CPO about the latest innovations, both within and beyond the cube, designed to meet evolving customer needs and drive long-term growth and engagement. We have multiple ways to win and a scalable solution that works across industries, system types and geographies, delivered through an efficient partner-enabled model. Taken together, these elements gives us confidence in our direction and ability to create long-term value. So I would like to thank you for dialing in today, and look forward to speaking to you again soon.