Invisio AB (publ) (IVSO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to INVISIO's presentation of the Full Year Report for 2025. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the CEO, Lars Højgård Hansen. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our 2025 Q4 and full year presentation. We chose to start by showing you a small video on INVISIO and who we are because we think that the company has developed tremendously during 2025. We are entering '26 with a brand new product portfolio. We are entering with a number of new frame order contracts and new customers in our package, and we are ready to serve many of the countries that are looking for solutions rather than products in order to be able to ramp up the military capabilities over the coming years. INVISIO is the clear market leader here, and we are definitely ready to help our customers with what is next. So many of you have already seen the numbers released about an hour ago. It is, of course, a quarter and even a year that we are very proud of. We had a tough Q3 with some delivery delays. And I think everyone in the INVISIO network has come together tremendously in Q4 to show that this was a mistake. This was a one-off and that we can do a lot better. So, I think we have performed very, very well in Q4 on all parameters. It is our strongest quarter ever, despite the fact that there was a prolonged US government shutdown and that we continue to see Swedish krona gaining momentum, especially towards the dollar. We saw a strong order intake across all key markets. Our gross margin is still stable, and our OpEx is driven by continued but controlled investments to be able to take advantage of the opportunities we see in the markets. And our high sales, as we see in our scalable business model transforms into high EBIT margins. We entered 2026 with a strong order book that promises good revenues for the first half of the year at least. Operationally, we saw several new developments. We had a new frame order agreement with the Dutch Defense Ministry that is for five, with another two years optional. In addition to that, we had an agreement with the MOD in Ireland, the Irish Defense Forces, where there is a framework agreement through a radio manufacturer, but the first firm order was for around SEK 120 million. We had an order for almost SEK 200 million for Intercom and our dismounted soldier systems from an existing European customer. And in order to take advantage and really benefit from the many opportunities we see going forward, we have made a number of changes in our senior management team that I will come back to. So on the other order intake, very strong in Q4, SEK 660 million, which is the highest ever if we take the order last year with the radios and don't count the radios, then this is the highest we've seen. And for the full year, also almost a little more than SEK 1.8 billion, also the highest as we disregard the radio order last year. So, what we see is also a clear trend, again, that our customers really want us to deliver full systems, not only individual products, but take care of a full category and therefore, deliver more products as part of the system, which also increases the average order size for us. And we, apart from the larger orders, we continue to see a solid inflow of small and medium-sized orders. So we enter 2026 with a very robust order book, SEK 850 million. There's a little bit left of the third-party radio order, but the majority of the order book is something that will positively impact our deliveries in the first half of 2026. Our revenues in Q4 were record high. It was the strongest quarter ever despite the US government shutdown and the krona. Our revenues were almost SEK 100 million higher than same quarter last year and actually a bit higher if we look in comparable currencies. And for the full year and excluding the third-party radio systems, we actually grew by almost 10% in comparable currencies. So, we are quite satisfied with 2025, also remembering that the growth between '24 and '25 was 46%. So, the gross margin continues to be stable. The gross margin is still a little bit influenced by tariffs and the impact of currency conversion. But all-in-all, it's not been too bad. So, I think the growing share of new products in our portfolio and especially also now where we go into '26 and the number of new products are on their way to hit the market, we will see a positive contribution from our new products to maintaining a healthy gross margin and gross profit. In our OpEx considerations, we have been following our investment plan based on market activities and opportunities for quite some time. And this is also the case in '25. OpEx increased 13% in Q4 and for the full year, about 16%. This is all in line with the plans we have and the investments we make in products and in sales teams to be able to address customer interest and the opportunities that we see. We have increased our team with about 40 people net in '25. So, we are around 315 people in INVISIO. And then, of course, many more with the ones that work with us with our long-term partners and suppliers, both on the sales side and on the manufacturing side. Strong sales is because of the outsourced manufacturing model, something that automatically supports a strong operating margin, which was almost 33% and for the full year, 18%. So again, this is related to some of the investments we have made throughout the year and that we will continue to do to make sure we can take advantage of all of the investments we see in defense capabilities in Europe over the next 5 to 10 years. And I think the first step for us has also been to update our operating margin target during 2025. So, our new target is to achieve an average operating margin of at least 20% per year over time, which is in line with the ambitions we have for the coming years. Our inventory is still strong. We have inventories in the vicinity of SEK 300 million. It can vary up and down. We keep significant inventory, not only finished goods, but also components, and this is a competitive advantage we see that we are able to promptly deliver larger volumes and really work with our customers in these times where it is a bit volatile and sometimes we get information about available budgets at a very late stage, and then we are able to act quite quickly on that.  Our inventory is mainly standard products and components. And I would expect this to be a competitive advantage even further. And I think the inventory might grow somewhat in '26 when we have a lot of new products coming into the market, and where we quite quickly need to establish a good inventory situation so we can deliver on the new products like the INVISIO T30 headset and the new INVISIO Wireless Link, the data hubs, and everything we have coming out to the market now.  Cash flow, not much to say about that, strong cash flow both in Q4 and for the full year. The differences that we see here reflects the large increases in trade receivables that we had in December '24, and then that was paid in the beginning of 2025. And our cash and cash equivalents at the close of the period was about SEK 400 million. So, strong cash flow position.  Our Board of Directors proposes a dividend of SEK 3 per share, up from SEK 2.3 from last year. And the financial objective that we have is to pay between 25% and 50% of our profit after tax as a dividend. And this is in line with that proposal of SEK 3 per share.  Now operationally, in Q4, as I said, we received a framework agreement with the Minister of Defense in the Netherlands. And the agreement is initially for 5 years with an option for two 1-year extensions, and it could be worth up to SEK 365 million. It covers the majority of our product solution, headsets, control units, and cables, but also the possibility to serve them with other products. And again, we think this is a way for us to position our entire system thinking with the Netherlands for many years to come.  We expect this contract to generate significant collaboration and revenues with this customer for many years. And like the same in Ireland with the Irish Defense Forces, where the first order we received through a radio manufacturer was for SEK 120 million INVISIO headsets, multiple control units, and cables. And then our deliveries started already now in the last quarter of '25 and continue into '26. And we expect also here that this is a long-term relationship with the Irish and that we will see further order from this customer over time.  The SEK 119 million order from a European customer is a customer we've had for some time. So, this is a follow-up order with dismounted soldier systems, Intercom systems and so on for the user. And we have delivered most of this in 2025, a little bit less in the first quarter of '26.  As we reported in the previous quarter, we achieved a large framework agreement with the US Coast Guard (USCG) worth up to SEK 930 million. This is for the new INVISIO Link with Intercom systems, headsets, control units, and cables. And we did receive the first small order that we are delivering on now. Due to the government shutdown, there has not been further order activity yet, but we, of course, expect this contract to be a major revenue contributor for us in the years to come. But we also think that this is going to provide us with many new customers in maritime environments and Coast Guard. We already have a second country that has bought units for their Coast Guard as test, and we have several more countries that are very interested in seeing the solution we are providing to the US Coast Guard. And I'm sure this will be a very important category and revenue provider for INVISIO in the years to come.  Now with strong growth and many more employees, we also, of course, need to make sure that our management team and our organizational structure is up to speed. And therefore, I'm pleased to announce that we have done a couple of changes in Q4. We have a new position in management where Joakim Birgersson, former Head of Operations, is now taking on the role of looking into our strategy and what we call new growth initiatives.  Joakim has been with us for a long time. And Roger Kristiansson Skaaby, who has also been with us for even longer, will take over very seamless from Joakim and run operations from now on. Mathias, also a long term with INVISIO, is our new Head of Sales and Marketing in Rest of World. And he is now going to head the sales organization and marketing organization in this region. So, we are all set for a strong 2026 with an updated management team. In summary, for the full year, there's been a lot of highlights where we have continued to invest in the organization in new product development, in more sales team members. We started out the year by acquiring UltraLynx, we have, during the year, announced a number of new products like the market-leading INVISIO T30 headset, the INVISIO Wireless Link, and many other smaller product solutions as well. We have seen a number of new customers and major orders, and framework agreements like with the Dutch, with the Irish, with the US Coast Guard.  But more importantly, we see continued high market activity going forward. It has for quarters now, of course, been a little bit uncertain when are we going to see the effect of all the investments in defense in NATO. And it is coming. I think some of these contracts are the first examples of that now it is starting to hit our area as well. And we believe that we are very well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities over time.  We also, during the year, updated our estimate of the addressable market size, which you can find on our website. This market size does not take into account any of the forward-looking investments. It only looks at where the market is right now, where we believe right now, the addressable market sizes are.  Last but not least, INVISIO has been moved to the Large Cap list on Nasdaq Stockholm, which is, of course, something we are proud of after 20 years of very diligent and hard work. Many of the employees here are those that have been here for this period of time and have taken us, yes, anywhere from a start-up to now a company on Stockholm Nasdaq Large Cap.  So, in closing, market outlook, as we said many times, there is a very uncertain geopolitical landscape still that continues to keep defense and security issues very high on the agenda, which means there will be lots of investments into defense and security over the coming many years, and there is a fundamental need for modern communications equipment in very many countries. And all of these factors together lead us to expect continued high demand for INVISIO in '26 and for many years to come.  So, with this, I conclude the presentation for Q4 and the full year. And operator, we are open for questions, please.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Jakob Marken from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Hello, thank you for taking my question. First of all, I need to congratulate you on a fantastic end to 2025 and a very solid report across all lines. If we start on the US shutdown that you mentioned a bit, I mean, can you give us a bit more color on that? How much did that affect you I mean we can see, of course, in the report quite a big drop in sales year-on-year here in Q4. But I also wonder how much of the effect did you have also on order intake. So, I mean, did the orders come through as expected and it was just the top line affected? Or was it both top line and orders being affected here this quarter?

Thanks, Jacob. I think it has been both. I would say that we have not done a specific calculation, and I don't think that we have sort of thinking that we have lost something. I think also if you look back in time, a government shutdown is not unusual in the US It happens every second year at least. So, it was only unusual this time that it was longer than normal. So, it did affect us a bit longer and especially now in the end of the year. So, but we have always seen that the money is not lost. So, it will come back once the new budget is approved. And I think also what is clear is that the, both the current and the new budget in the US, but also the ambitions for the US administration is to increase military spending quite significantly. So, I'm not concerned about, again, this is part of the volatility that we have always. But I'm absolutely sure that this will bounce back once we get into '26 at some point in time.

Okay. Perfect. So, then it's fair to assume that the absolute majority of order intake in this quarter was Europe related? Or how should we view that?

Yes, the majority was Europe and Rest of World. Yes, there were some orders from the US, absolutely, but not as much as we could have expected. And it's speculation. We could have, of course, speculated that could we have received a follow-up order on the US Coast Guard contract, maybe, but we don't have any indication on the size or anything. So that's just speculation and for the customers as well. So, but we will see a bounce back, I'm quite sure once we get a little further into '26.

Okay. That's very clear. And my other question was related to Q4 last year being a very, very good quarter and then maybe the market and as analysts overestimated how much that would continue into Q1. Would you say that there's any sort of sign of over deliveries here in Q4 that we should expect sort of a setback in Q1? Or how should we view that do you think?

It depends, of course, how you define setback. But I would say we have SEK 850 million in the order book. And as always, a majority of that will be delivered in the first two quarters plus some more of new orders that we get. So, this is, but I think it has been a pattern over some time that Q1 is a little weaker, Q2 is a little better. Q3 is a little weaker, Q4 is much better. So, a type of S curve, I wouldn't say that the market is like that, but it has been like that for quite some years.

Okay. Yes, I understand, but not maybe the sort of drop in the magnitude that we had last year.

No.

No. Okay. Thank you. And then a question on OpEx. It seems that OpEx growth year-on-year is slowing down a bit here. Is it sort of the pace around 15% we should expect also going forward? Or how do you view the OpEx growth as you talked about adding 40 people net. Is that sort of a stable growth rate on the number of personnel or where do you think you are in '26, '27?

Yes. I wouldn't put an exact number on it, but I think you can see the curve is quite stable. It does variate a little bit because suddenly, we are in a situation where we need three or four more people for a certain project or we find people that we say these are absolutely right for INVISIO. We need to hire them now even though we maybe only need them three months from now or so on. So, we are quite agile in the way we look at things. And there might be development projects that suddenly pop up where we say, hey, here's a customer opportunity that we need to go for right away, and then we need some more engineers. But in general, as I've said, I expect that our increase in revenues should be higher than the increase in OpEx over time.

Yes. Okay. Perfect. And the last one for me. Just wondering on the Irish contract that you say you are to a radio supplier. I'm just wondering about the gross margin profile, anything we should think about going forward there.

No. No, I think it's part of the normal profile for our customers. There is a variation. And of course, when we sell with a radio manufacturer, we have a lower gross margin than if we sell direct. But then on the other hand, they have done the sales work for us. So that's the trade-off. But in the summary of things, we have a mix of customers and a mix in the way we sell. So, I think this is part of our normal business.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you, that's all for me.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Adrian Elmlund from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good afternoon and well done. A couple of questions for me, please. I just want to have a quick follow-up from Tore. Did I hear you correctly saying that you could have seen additional orders for the US Coastal Guards? Is this within the actual framework agreement? Or is these additional orders?

Hi, Adrian, thanks. No, what I said was that we have a frame order agreement now with the US Coast Guard for SEK 900-some million, but we don't know when they, at what point in time they will turn that into actual orders. That will depend on when their boats are ready for being equipped and so forth. So, it's, that's some of the planning they will have to do themselves and see when the boats are coming into dock or into harbors to be equipped and so on. And, but because there was a lockdown in Q4, yes, many were not at work, so it didn't happen in Q4.

Right. Okay. And you kind of said that you expect the company, the number of items per order are evolving into higher numbers of orders per order, and that is, and you're evolving what into a system supplier, I think you call it. Does this really change anything in practice? Is this why perhaps you saw the disruptions in Q3? Like are you growing into a more mature kind of company? And kind of what should we expect going forward?

Yes. At least you can say that, and I think this is also what we were trying to demonstrate in, or we said in Q3 that we are sometimes now delivering systems that consist of many parts up to 90 different items in one shipment. And if only a few of these are not available, then we will have to wait a little bit or for other reasons. But I think also, if you look at the update on the total addressable markets we have done, a part of that is the fact that the average sales price per user and per boat and per vehicle has gone up quite a lot since the first time we did this assessment of the total market. So, it's very clear that we are selling more per user or per vehicle. And that is, of course, an ambition we have even going forward. And I think the system approach is really what our customers also appreciate because then they have, most countries today, most customers have so many things they need to buy. They have so many things they need to focus on. And if we can take care of a portfolio, of a category of things for them and just make sure that everything works for them, then that is a huge benefit for many of our customers.

Okay. Another question regarding the R&D costs going forward. As you grow as a company, I assume that you have to spend more in R&D as well. But I think you've said as a percentage of sales might decline. Maybe you could touch on that. And I guess another question, just a follow-up to that one is, how does the pipeline look for new products? Are you expecting anything regarding competition that you need to address as well?

I think in terms of pipeline; we follow our own plans. We look at our own portfolio. We look at our own system again. And last year, we added the data hubs as part of our system. There is no one like, no one that has a portfolio that comes close to the INVISIO total portfolio with the soldier systems, with the vehicle systems, with the Intercom and the wireless Intercom and now the data hubs. So, all of this package here is something that is really unique for us and that we will continue to expand on. We will continue to add more products and solution to this total system. That's our plan. And we also work extremely close with customers. And in many cases now, for instance, with the new contracts with Ireland or with the Netherlands or with other of our customers, there's no doubt that they will come back to us and ask us for things they would like to have done. A lot of countries are getting information back from Ukraine from what the Ukrainians are experiencing and how a war is conducted right now. So, a lot of that information is fed back not only to us but also to customers in many countries, and that will eventually lead to a demand for product solutions, and we will be very ready to help them develop that. And if suddenly there is a new product category or a new type of product or something that they need help with, then we will hire the necessary R&D people to make sure we can respond in a timely matter. So that's why I say that also the R&D side is customer-driven and activity driven. So, we are not shy of taking opportunities when we see them.

And with regards to competition, do you think that is increasing? I think you've said before that it's actually decreasing. Bose is leaving the market. Could we have any update on that?

In some areas, it is decreasing. And I think those that are competitors to us are mainly some that have only one or two products, and they are trying to compete in different parts of the business, not on a system level and so on. So, if we have a direct competition, yes, of course, we have competitors. But again, many of them are local or regional and are only focused on a part of the portfolio that we have.

And any update on Bose that you could give?

No. To my knowledge, they are out of the market, and they have delivered the last issue, sorry, the last products that they have manufactured. The manufacturing is closed. So, it's all about emptying the warehouses. And then when that is happening, hopefully, we can start delivering for those customers.

The next question comes from Yiwei Zhou from SEB.

Congrats to the good results. Two questions from my side. Firstly, a follow-up on the US government shutdown. I was wondering if you are seeing any catch-up effect or pent-up demand into Q1?

Yes. I think there will be, not that I can put any number to it or things like that because that's just the normal volatility of the business again. And it's not the first time in my 20 years soon with an issue. I've seen this so many times that there is a shutdown or delay or whatever. So, I would say it's almost a normal part of the business. So, it's not something that we spend too much time on. We know that it will come back somewhere in '26. So, we're not too worried about that.

Right. Very clear. And secondly, I also got an impression that the Racal growth has been a bit slower than the previous years in '25. I mean you already talked about Bose, I mean, Bose leaving markets, shouldn't we see an acceleration in the growth? So, what was the reason for a sluggish sales here in '25? And what is your expectation for '26?

I wouldn't call it that. I think this is again a normal part of how the business operates and the volatility we see between quarters and years and between product lines. And what has happened in '26 is also that Racal right now is a product brand. It's not a company anymore. Everything is fully integrated into INVISIO. And in the UK we are now called INVISIO Limited with our new offices in Croxley outside London. So everything is INVISIO. And actually, we don't really care whether the product is called this or the other, but there are certain applications where the Racal Acoustics brand is very well known, which is inside vehicles. But now you will see that when we sell to certain customers, it will be a mix of INVISIO headsets, Racal headsets, INVISIO Intercom and many other things in one big system. So that will drive sales for all our types of products. And specifically related to Bose, yes, of course, it is an opportunity that they have left the market, and we are quite sure that there will be many opportunities for us in the vehicle market, especially also since we can see now that many of, some of those vehicles that have been ordered in Europe are now starting to take delivery. So customers are starting to take some deliveries of vehicles, and that should pose an opportunity for us for selling the vehicle solutions.

Is it possible for you to indicate or quantify a bit about the Racal brand sales growth in '25?

No, we don't do that. We don't even do that internally because we don't consider it a separate thing. It's all mixed together. So we don't really look at it that way. At least not at a management level, it's not really important to me. It could be that we develop a product here in Copenhagen, and we call it Racal because it makes sense that it's sold to a vehicle. So we are not looking at it as separate lines or separate entities. It's all part of the group now.

The next question comes from Hjalmar Ahlberg from Redeye.

Also, a follow-up on the Coast Guard area. I mean you mentioned that you see some positive impact from other Coast Guards after this order. I mean, how big, how large could this be? And how many have you been in contact with, so to say?

I mean we have been in contact with quite a few, but I would also say there is a limit to how many customers we have been able to address yet because INVISIO Link is still a new product, and we have focused on deliveries for the US Coast Guard, of course, and then samples for some other customers. We have received the first order already from another Coast Guard. And this is something that will have our focus in 2026, where the solution and the products will now be fully ready in manufacturing, and we can get more units out for testing with customers. And I think it's not only Coast Guards, it will be maritime applications within the armies as well in the Navies as well. But it's also important to remember that the Intercom and the Wireless Intercom was actually also developed for land purposes. So we believe this will be a strong product to sell to Army customers with more land-based vehicles.

All right. Interesting. And regarding, I mean, your kind of growing systems deliveries here, if you look at, I mean, 2025, you launched a few new important products. And looking into 2026, do you think it will be more focused to generate sales from these new products? Or will it also be continued launch of new products this year?

For competitive reason, I will not disclose that, but I would say that we are, of course, having full focus on now making sure that our new products get into the market and we get good sales. I think there are many customers out there that are waiting for our new products to be available so that they can test and hopefully start placing orders.

All right. And also another question, I don't know if you have an answer, but I mean, if you look at the soldier, for example, and the products you deliver, how big kind of, how much projects can you sell in terms of communication equipment to soldier, for example, compared to what you have now? I mean, how broad can the portfolio become in terms of communication equipment?

That is a hard question. There's quite a lot of potential. And I would say that the way things are developing right now, the soldiers are getting more and more communication things and devices on their body and that personal body network of devices is only increasing. And it is, of course, some of the strategic discussions we have, how big a part of that should we try to aim for. But that is a strategy discussion that I will keep for myself for the time being.

The next question comes from Daniel Thorsson from ABG Sundal Collier.

Indeed, a very strong quarter. But I have a question on the gross margin here. Is there a risk that it was slightly better than expected in Q4 and that we should expect going into first half of '26 given that US sales were a small share of sales, and we didn't see the potential negative FX effects and also tariff effect to much extent. And also, I'm a little bit curious around your exposure to memory components and the recent price increases of 200% to 300% last 4 months in the market. Is that something that could hit on the gross margin negatively in the first half of '26?

No. I would say that immediately. No. component parts, of course, yes, there are certain components in the market where prices are going up and so on. But I think we are in full control of what we do. We are very good at forecasting. We are very good at buying well in advance and keeping inventory and so on. So I don't expect that to be more than a marginal impact on us. And your first question about gross margin and tariffs, no, because the gross margin consists of so many things. It consists of the products we sell, whether we sell them direct or through a partner, whether we sell them to law enforcement or to military and the currencies and everything else. So it's a big mix of a lot of things. So I'm not too concerned. I think we are in a good spot, especially also with many new products coming into the market. And yes, so I don't have any expectations for changes to the gross margin more than the normal volatility.

That's wonderful. And then secondly, on order intake for 2026, do you think it will be strongest part from Europe or North America?

Hard to say. I think there are lots of opportunities in both places. And as I say, the US have indicated very strong ambitions in terms of ramping up their military spending as well. So, and there's a lot going on in the US market. So I expect to see a good market in both the US and Rest of World.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Tom Guinchard from Pareto.

A question on the inventory levels amongst the US resellers. Can you give us any indication of the inventory levels here at the moment?

US resellers?

Yes.

No, we have no inventory there. All inventory is kept at INVISIO.

Yes, yes, but the resellers' inventories in your discussions, what are they saying? Because my understanding is that we've had the delays in orders from the end customer and the US resellers have been a bit cautious in stocking up on inventory as well.

We have no reseller that stocks our products. We do that ourselves. So we have our inventory in Europe and in the US there is none of our customers that has any inventory more than samples. We always ship directly to the end user. We don't keep any inventory with sales partners.

Okay. Perfect. And then a question on the sort of vehicle rollout here. I mean, we're going to, as you mentioned, we see increased volumes going into '26, '27, but we still don't really have the personnel to use the vehicles as of right now. Is it possible that we're going to see higher growth for the Racal branded products into, say, '27, '28 once we have the armed forces actually using the vehicles?

That's hard to say because that depends on planning. I don't think that planning is necessarily done in that way. I think that in certain instances, the planning will be done immediately when the vehicles reach the country. In other instances, it might be that they will first plan for personnel to be able to operate them. And there might be even a third or a fourth version. So that is country by country and sometimes related to what money they have in the budget just now or this year. And it's not necessarily something that they will share with us until it happens. So that's really hard to estimate.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the CEO, Lars Højgård Hansen, for any closing comments.

Thank you, and thank you all for calling in today and for all the great questions. I would just say that if you didn't see our fantastic movie at the beginning, we will show it now again. Enjoy, INVISIO, what's next. Thank you.