Bittium Oyj (BITTI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. And my name is Karoliina Malmi, and I'm happy to be able to welcome you all to this press conference on Bittium Corporation's financial statements 2024. I'm here today with our CEO, Johan Westermarck. And he will walk you through our topics today. At the end of the presentation, we have reserved some time for Q&A. And you should find a box to type your questions on the bottom of the screen, but without further ado, I will let Johan to start.

Thank you, Karoliina. And good morning to everybody. Let's first start with a few statements. Some of these statements made in this material relating to future circumstances, by their nature, are forward-looking statements, involve risk and uncertainty. And Bittium Corporation disclaims all obligations to update such forward-looking statements. And then let's start with the summary of 2024. First, we can see that net sales grew. Operating result and cash flow improved significantly. Net sales for the full year '24 were EUR 85.2 million, which was 13.2% year-on-year growth. Net sales in Q4 '24 were EUR 33.2 million, increase of 29.2% year-on-year. Operating profit in '24 was EUR 8.6 million, representing 10.1% of net sales. Operating profit for Q4 was EUR 6 million, representing 18% of net sales. And cash flow improved significantly in '24, and I will get back to that later in the presentation. And then on our journey from an R&D house towards a profitable growth company is proceeding as planned. And when looking to the different business segments: Defense & Security, we had a good, strong growth last year in this Defense & Security Business Segment. Medical Business Segment was still affected by extended schedules in regulatory approval process, but at the same time, we have done our homework. We have strengthened the regulatory organization to meet these new requirements better, and today, we are in much better shape than we were a year ago. Engineering Services business, affected by the challenging market situation. R&D investments decreased year-on-year. And order book grew significantly, was EUR 45.1 million, increase of 63.4% year-on-year. And we have the growth strategy in place which we are now implementing. And let's take the next slide and have a look at the growth strategy. And the 4 basic pillars in our growth strategy are strengthening sales and commercialization to enable growth; ensure the delivery capability to enable scalability; three, focusing R&D investments to -- on further increasing the competitiveness of our offerings and services; four, continue to strengthen our core competence, secure embedded technology. And this is where we want to continue to be the best in the world. And then financial review. And first, let's have a look at the group annual financial development. And last year, we were able to change. The few previous years, we have been declining in the top line. We saw growth which was 13.2% year-on-year and ending up in EUR 85.2 million. And operating result improved significantly, being EUR 8.6 million and being 10.1% of net sales. And then let's have a look at the quarterly development. Q4 last year was strong for us. We had a growth of almost 30% year-on-year. And also the operating result grew significantly, being EUR 6 million and being 18% of net sales. R&D investments decreased, being EUR 13.5 million, equaling to 15.9% of net sales. EUR 5.6 million was capitalized. Depreciations for R&D investments were EUR 5.6 million. And total R&D costs and depreciations in the P&L was EUR 13.5 million. And our focus in R&D was according to the strategy, improving our competitiveness and mainly focus on tactical communication systems and radios and medical technology products and software. Cash flow, which improved significantly compared to last year: net profit, plus/minus adjusted accrual basis items, EUR 18.9 million; change in net working capital EUR 7.1 million; interest and taxes, minus EUR 1.5 million; net cash from operating activities EUR 24.4 million; net cash from investing activities, minus EUR 6.7 million; net cash from financing activities, minus EUR 4.3 million; net cash -- net change in cash and cash equivalents EUR 13.4 million. And then asset and liabilities: assets, nonrecurring assets, EUR 82.8 million, which included property, plant and equipment for EUR 17 million, capitalized development costs EUR 50.5 million and other assets EUR 15.3 million. Current assets, EUR 82.4 million, which included inventories EUR 24.8 million, trade and other receivables EUR 35.8 million, cash and liquid assets EUR 21.8 million. Equity and liabilities: equity EUR 112.8 million; liabilities EUR 52.3 million, which included trade and other receivables EUR 25.6 million, interest-bearing debt EUR 20.9 million, other liabilities EUR 5.8 million. And we had net gearing of minus 0.7%, which is on a really good level; and equity ratio, 69.9%. Next, we will go through the development of business segments. And we will start with the Defense & Security Business Segment. The whole year, there was a really -- good development with the Defense & Security. Growth was 42.3% year-on-year. And if we look at the quarterly development last quarter: Q4 last year was strong for us -- which was 47.3% higher than -- year-on-year. Several product deliveries were made in the last quarter. This business, the geopolitical uncertainty is something that has led the states [ to increase, to monetize ] the defense forces, which is good for our business. Partnership agreement with Finnish Defence Forces was signed last year. Finnish defense and -- Finnish Defence Forces started the serial procurements of Bittium Tough SDR radios. Internationalization strategy is proceeding as planned. Demand for our ultra secure phone Bittium Tough Mobile increased. And then our software solution Bittium SafeMove Mobile VPN is now quantum safe. And then let's move to the next business segment, Medical Business Segment. Here we see the top line. It was a decrease compared to last year, 12.6%. And quarterly results: Quarterly turnover, we can see that there was a growth in Q4, which was signal. And that was 2.3% year-on-year. And what was impacting our Medical Business Segment was the stricter requirements in regulatory approvals, and this is something that is really going forward. And these approval requirements are tightening significantly and has been tightening, but we have done our homework. We have strengthened our regulatory affairs organization. And we are today, as I mentioned earlier, in a much better situation to get these done as fast as possible. Cooperation with Boston Scientific Cardiac Diagnostics continued well. Respiro sales: We have clearly focused and get it out on the European market first. And then we have a new version of EMG device developed. And this is based on another -- on a device that we have modified to meet the -- for these EMG requirements. Engineering service business segment. Here we see the tough market. We had a decline, 15.6%, year-on-year. Last quarter was a bit better. It was still lower than last year, but we saw a little bit more positive sign in the last quarter last year. So net sales decreased. However, operating result remained positive. And I think that is an really good work from the business segment. Customers are cautious to start new development projects, due to the challenging market situation. And we expect this challenging market situation to continue the first half of this year. Part of the engineering -- engineers in these engineering services were allocated to Defense & Security Business Segment to support the strong growth in the defense business segment. Despite the current challenging market situation, we see the 5G implementation, IoT solutions, is there. And it will grow, so we -- the underlying market should be there. We won new customers in telecom and industrial markets. Then the outlook for 2025. We are on track towards profitable growth. We have the growth strategy in place and the implementation is in full speed. We have a strong customer base, satisfied customers; and these work as a strong reference supporting our growth. We have world-class solutions, and we will focus on further improving their competitiveness. We have committed, high-skilled people. And we will continue to strengthen the organization to make sure we are the best in the world in secure embedded technology. And then we have the mega trends supporting the growth: in defense, the geopolitical uncertainty, which I mentioned earlier; in Medical business, the aging population, remote diagnostics opportunities. So this is what we see as an -- underlying trends that support our business. And then we have the 5G and IoT development supporting the Engineering Services, so we are on track towards profitable growth. And our financial outlook for 2025 is net sales between EUR 95 and EUR 105 million and operating results between EUR 10 million and EUR 13 million. And more information about it can be read on the company's Internet pages. And the investor calendar. We will come out with the annual report 15th of April. We will have Q1 results coming out 29th of April; AMG (sic) [ AGM ], 7th of May; Q2, August 8; Q3, October 24. And now it's a time for questions and answers. Karoliina?

Thank you, Johan.

There are a few questions. And the first one is about the segment-based reporting structure. "Has that have any effect on the internal decision-making or how you allocate resources?"

The answer is yes, and let me specify a bit. First of all, the segment structure that we have in place, the whole idea is to have more independent business segments, understanding customer needs, being able to provide the best possible service towards these customer needs. And this is independency. And we will have, as much as possible, resources in the business segments, the 3 business segments that we have. And we will have a really lean group organization, which is what we did the change in '23. And this is how we are structured; and keeping in mind that still we have the core competence. This secure embedded technology, wireless knowledge is the same with all. And we can see that we had the possibility to share resources; like I mentioned in the presentation, Engineering Services. When there is a tough market situation, we have a good demand in defense. We can support -- the business segments can support each other.

Yes. Thank you. How -- now you talked about the new strategy and implementation of it. How does the company plan to adapt to potential market changes or any kind of challenges there?

I think this is something that it's a really good question because, as we see, there can be some disruptions. Some changes can happen fast. And what we have done, we have strengthened our business development organizations. We have hired Erik Ahnger to be heading our business. And this is also to follow, clearly, support the business segments in understanding the market, changes in technologies, if there's something we need to -- we are on -- have the best possible information to always guide our R&D, our -- [ with investments ] where we are going to -- changes in the market or customer needs.

Yes. Thank you. How does the Ukraine hope for future peace may affect Bittium?

Well, first, of course, we all hope that there is peace in Ukraine. That's for sure. Otherwise, if we see the defense sector, the investments that we see has been taking place now for a few years. That will -- our estimate is these will continue for several years forward. So building up countries' defenses, Europe, globally, is something that -- it will not change with this, hopefully, peace in Ukraine, so my answer is that we don't see any significant changes, impacts on our business.

Yes. Thank you. "So how do you see the development in different business segments in the future?"

Defense -- let's start with the Defense & Security. I think there's a good market out there. We have really good tactical radio solutions, the architecture. And we have really good references, being, one, Finnish Defence Forces, which is a really strong references globally, so I'm really positive towards the development on this for the defense business and security business. Medical business, we have some regulatory issues, but as I said, today we are in much better situation than we were a year ago. Things are proceeding, and I'm positive towards the Medical business. And the underlying business, our products and services and the mega trends supporting it is there. Engineering Services, markets situation is challenging. And maybe back to the previous questions: If there is a peace in Ukraine, hopefully, the economy is going to pick up. And that will, for sure, have a good impact on our engineering service business. So the answer is that we expect growth in all business segments.

Okay, thank you. So the next one, "What are the most important assumptions that you have made regarding your 2025 guidance?"

Well, the assumptions is that -- we have done -- let's -- it goes a little bit backwards. When we started 2 years ago, we went through control of the business, how to get better control. Then we worked really on the profitability, having that in place. And last autumn, we -- they did the growth strategy and really went through how do we build up the growth for the coming 3 years and even further. And this the -- so there is thorough work behind our guidance for this year. So this is the summary from our growth strategy and how we see things will develop.

Thank you. "And how do you see the cooperation with Boston Scientific? Do you assume that it continues like in the past?"

We have no reason to believe -- I myself have been strongly involved with Boston Scientific, and the cooperation is on really good level. There is no reason to believe that anything will change.

Thank you. "So -- and what are the significant regulatory approvals that you are currently applying for? And when do you expect to receive them?"

Well, there are some regulatory approvals that we are pushing forward. And we will not -- we have learned, so far, that we will not give the exact date on something because it's -- the requirements might change, but I'm convinced we will get there. Hopefully, we will get this year there. And we are up and running, but we are well positioned. We have an organization that can answer, push the process forward. And again, once we're in there, other suppliers have the same road to do as we have done.

Thank you. Then a question to, "Could you comment on the tough SDR delivery volumes in Q4 as well as your expectations for the year 2025? Do you expect significant deliveries to other international customers?"

Say that -- now as I mentioned, Finnish Defence Forces have moved into serial purchases of SDR radios. We have good development, as I said, with international customers. And the amounts of SDR radios, we had a press release. I think that is what I can tell at the moment. So we are going forward as planned and it looks good.

Looks good. There's also a question about, by any chance, if you could comment on the seasonality of the product deliveries in 2024 similar than in -- '25. So similar than in '24. Or will it be more equally balanced or...

I will say that we will -- most likely. We look at the history. Q4 has always been strong. Second half has always been strong for us, first half a little bit slower. I'm not going into much detail but saying that, hopefully, we can get a little bit more even, these volumes, but the history shows how it has been. And most likely, we can see the similar trend also in the future.

Okay, thank you. And finally, there are quite many questions regarding you leaving the company. "So thank you, Johan, for these 2 years." And if you could provide any additional comments or background regarding the CEO and -- that you're stepping down, on this position.

I think, first of all, it has been a great journey. The people in the company -- I'm still amazed of the know-how in the company. So really big thanks to the whole company, the people working in the company, the management team. I think the company is really well set for the future growth. And I will not comment more on my decision.

Okay, but thank you. And thank you, everyone, for participating. So these were all my questions here online. And thank you, Johan, very much also.

Thank you.