Kempower Oyj (KEMPOWR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 11, 2026

HLSE FI Industrials Electrical Equipment Earnings Calls 41 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Paula Savonen

Executives
#1

Hi, everyone, and welcome to this webcast where we present Kempower's financial results for the fourth quarter 2025. My name is Paula Savonen. I am the VP of Marketing and Communications and also the host for today's webcast. And today, we're actually streaming live from one of our factories in Lahti, Finland. Today, we have two presenters. We start with our CEO, Bhasker Kaushal; and continue with our CFO, Jukka Kainulainen. [Operator Instructions] I hope you enjoy the presentations and now over to Bhasker.

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#2

Thanks, Paula, and good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be here in Lahti doing our earnings call for the fourth quarter. Look, overall, 2025 was a pivotal year for Kempower. We returned to growth with revenues up double digit. We strengthened our market position with great customer wins, and we advanced our technology leadership in DC fast charging. And a good performance in the fourth quarter helped us finish 2025 on a strong note. The main highlight is the record highest quarterly and full year order intake in company history. In Q4, order intake was EUR 95 million, up 40% versus prior year. And for the full year, it was EUR 303 million, up 39% versus prior year. This record order intake shows the growing trust and confidence customers are placing in Kempower. It also demonstrates the strength of our competitiveness in the DC fast charging market. Now regarding revenues, Q4 revenue growth was flat, largely due to comparison period effects and customer order delivery timing. And for the full year, our revenues grew by 12% versus the prior year. This shows that despite the quarterly fluctuations, our growth trajectory remains strong. Regarding operative EBIT, in Q4, operative EBIT was negative due to a combination of lower gross margins and temporary fixed cost factors that are associated with just scaling up our business. But for the full year, we improved operative EBIT by EUR 14 million versus last year. So a significant year-on-year improvement as per our guidance. We generated positive operating cash flow for the third consecutive quarter. By doing so, we have strengthened our financial position while continuing to invest in growth for the future. And another strong quarter for North America. We recorded EUR 21.3 million in order intake and EUR 8.3 million in revenues in Q4, which is up 122% and 24% versus last year. Now these results show our strengthening market share in the North American market. And finally, I'd say we're entering 2026 with a robust backlog of EUR 141 million. Now turning to some quick market updates. What we see is that the underlying demand drivers for DC fast charging infrastructure remain robust despite different market conditions across regions. In Europe, we saw very strong growth in BEV registrations and continued expansion of the DC fast charging infrastructure. Passenger car registrations were up 40% versus last year in Q4 and up 30% for the full year 2025. E-bus and e-truck registrations were up 58% in Q4 and up 56% for the full year. Now new legislation such as the new EU grids package can help fast track EV infrastructure growth, meaning shorter lead times from permit to power. It's currently in the proposal phase, and we expect that to go through. In North America, the market evolved a bit more unevenly. In Q4, new BEV registrations declined 36% in Q4 and 2% for the year, reflecting shifts in the federal incentives for EVs. However, NEVI program rules have been streamlined to help states push the projects forward faster. And as a result, public fast charging installations grew 39% versus last year. So overall, the strong growth in new BEVs and public fast charging installations, it shows that there's a clear and sustained shift towards electric mobility. Now shifting to the priorities that we are focused on and how we are doing on those. In 2025, we defined and drove focus on our 4 key priorities: first, winning with customers; second, being a technology leader with differentiated products by innovating; third, driving operational excellence; and fourth, building a winning team and culture. And these are the 4 priorities that are critical for Kempower to deliver now and to position us for long-term success. Now we've defined very clear initiatives, KPIs, targets for each of these priority areas. We track these through dashboards. We're improving our execution discipline on these. And as we deliver against these targets that we set, we're building credibility internally and also externally. And I'm very proud that our team has shown that through strong progress across all 4 priorities in the fourth quarter. Next, I'd like to share a few examples of the progress we are making. Starting with winning with customers. That's at the heart of our growth strategy. We're gaining share by acquiring new customers and winning with strategic accounts. In Q4, we acquired 19 new customers totaling 71 for the full year. In the U.S., we won business with Blink Charging, a fast-growing nationwide charging network. And this win validates our competitiveness in this key market and accelerates our expansion with a partner that is scaling coast to coast. In Europe, we secured new business with E.ON, which is one of the continent's largest energy and charging operators. And their scale and strong presence across the key EV markets makes this a high-impact partnership for us. In Asia Pacific, we added Ampol, Australia's leading fuel and convenience operator transitioning into EV charging. And this win broadens our geographic reach and positions us early in what is a fast emerging region. Second, I'd say our growth is now more global and broad-based beyond the Nordics, which has historically been our strongest market. If you look at in 2025, almost 70% of our sales are now from regions outside the Nordics. This shows our growing global reach and impact. And specifically, we have strong momentum in Continental Europe and North America. In 2025, our order intake in Europe outside Nordics is up 58%, and it's up 137% in North America. Now in the Nordics, order intake declined 17% year-on-year as the CPO market has slowed a bit, but we're already starting to see a clear transition underway. Truck and depot charging is now picking up fast, and we expect this segment to drive the next wave of demand in the Nordics just as [indiscernible]. In addition to building strong customer relationships around the globe, we're driving electrification across all key segments. This spans from retail sites like Circle K's fully electric forecourt to major public networks like GET Charged in New York. And we're also doing this at scale with some of the largest bus and fleet charging hubs in Europe, including sites such as Australia's largest bus charging hub that has 50-plus DC charging points and room to expand further. We're doing this at airports like Amsterdam Schiphol, where we have a large hub with 28 DC charging points that keeps critical transport moving in a key location. Next, I'll talk about technology, which is the lifeblood of our business and innovation is rooted in Kempower's DNA. We're constantly striving to lead the industry. And during this quarter, the megawatt charging system moved from validation into scaled real-world use. You can actually see the MCS product right behind me in our showroom here at Lahti. And more than 350 successful MCS charging sessions were completed in Q4 across several locations. A few other highlights. And Kempower has now delivered MCS charging units across most Nordic countries and all these charging sites, like the one in -- with Circle K in Sweden have distributed charging system using both CCS and MCS. Now this gives flexibility to the operators to use it for trucks or for passenger vehicles. We've also installed the first Mega Satellite unit in France. With DP World, we have one of the world's largest port-based MCS deployments at the London Gateway Port, where there's 12 Kempower MCS units that are powering Kalmar electric straddle carriers. So all of these examples demonstrate that we are very well positioned to lead in the e-truck and megawatt charging technology. Next, I'll talk about operational excellence, which is the foundation of our business. We're embedding cost excellence in everything we do across the end-to-end value chain. Now in the second half of 2025, we launched a comprehensive product cost reduction program. This program is aimed at improving our unit cost economics, it's going to help us defend and eventually grow our margins. Our approach is to stay price cost neutral or positive. And it's a broad-based effort that covers the end-to-end value chain. It includes optimizing our supply chain, our assembly operations and product design. We saw initial results already and savings starting in Q4 at a small scale, and we expect these benefits to ramp up through the course of 2026. Now we pride ourselves on being a green and a sustainable company, and I'm pleased to share that Kempower received the EcoVadis Gold sustainability rating in Q4. This places us amongst the top 5% of 130,000-plus companies that are assessed globally. We also successfully renewed our ISO 27001 certification, which confirms and shows our focus on cybersecurity and data protection. Now all of these things and milestones, they reflect our commitment for responsible growth and also are positioned as a trusted partner for our customers. And finally, I want to take a moment to talk about the impact we are delivering. In 2025, we doubled the electricity delivered through our chargers versus 2024. Now this reflects the growing impact that Kempower is having on the electrification transition across the globe. Next, looking ahead as we turn the page into 2026 and our outlook. We're actively monitoring the market, and we see that market dynamics are a little bit different across regions, but the long-term electrification trend is clear and sustained. For 2026, we expect to grow revenues between 10% to 30% versus 2025 and improve operative EBIT significantly versus the negative EUR 12.4 million that we ended in 2025. We are very focused on continuing to build Kempower into a very strong platform for sustained profitable growth, growth not just in 1 or 2 quarters, but sustained quarter after quarter, year after year. And we'll continue to invest selectively in areas that are aligned to our strategic priorities, technology, sales and services. And we strongly believe that these investments are required for our long-term success while we, in the near term, navigate market variability with discipline. Now to summarize, I want to highlight 3 points. First, we're building momentum going into 2026. We returned to growth in '25, and we've delivered record order intake to go into '26 with a solid backlog. Second, we're strengthening our strategic position. We have a stronger market position in all the key markets through continued customer wins. And we're doing this while continuing to invest for the future. And third, we're doing this while being financially disciplined. We significantly improved our operative EBIT in 2025, and we're driving cost excellence across everything we do. So we enter 2026 with building momentum, clear priorities and a sharp focus on execution. Kempower is well positioned for the next phase of growth. And I really want to thank our teams and our customers all around the world for their efforts, commitment and trust. Now with that, I will hand it over to Jukka for the financials. Thank you.

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#3

Thanks a lot, Bhasker. All right. Let's go to quarter 4 2025 financials. Yes. When looking at the quarter 4 and full year financials, of course, clearly so the best highlight was our strong sales performance. So like Pascal highlighted, EUR 95 million of orders quarter 4, and we reached a great milestone as a company, EUR 300 million in orders for the full year, so EUR 304 million when routing up. That was, of course, a great achievement. And considering us being the growth company and growing orders around 40%, it's, of course, significant growth rate overall for the company. When looking at the revenue, quarter 4 revenue was growing 0.2%. So basically it was flat -- excluding the foreign exchange impact, the growth was 2%. And that was, of course, driven by really strong comparison period being the flat number for the quarter. When looking at the whole year, revenue was growing 12%. Excluding the foreign exchange impact, the growth was 14%. So we were around midpoint in our revenue guidance with these numbers. Operating EBIT was negative. And like Pascal highlighted, it was driven by lower gross margin for the quarter and temporarily higher personnel costs for the quarter 4. When looking at the cash flow, it was also positive that we generated positive operating cash flow for the quarter, EUR 3.1 million and also for the whole year, positive cash flow of EUR 3.4 million. So overall, strong sales performance for the year, significantly improved profitability. We improved the profitability by EUR 40 million for the year, and we generated positive cash flow. All right. Let's look a little bit more order intake in details, already highlighting the quarter 4 orders, full year orders, reaching the important milestone of EUR 300 million in orders. And it was great to see when looking at the orders for quarter 4, we are growing almost in all regions in quarter 4 in orders, except the APAC and Middle East and Africa, which was down 9%, even though they were up whole year 45%. At the same time, Nordics, which has been dropping in orders 70% for the year, was up in quarter 4 by 25%. Adding on top of that, we ended up the year with a record high order backlog of EUR 141 million, and that is recognized as a revenue during the years 2026 and 2027. Then looking at the revenue, just repeating around flat revenue for the quarter, 12% growth for the year. Also, we are clearly back on the growth track when looking at our revenue for the year and also highlighting different regions. Our biggest region is at the moment, Europe outside Nordics, which is more than 50% of our revenue when looking at quarter 4 numbers. Also North America's share is increasing. It was only 11% in quarter 4. And when looking the sales metrics, both orders and revenue and whole year, we actually grew in all the other regions significantly, both in orders and revenue except in the Nordics. So that is quite a good sign how broadly in different geographies, we have been able to grow during the 2025. And that is, of course, building a great basis for us to continue executing our strategy also in 2026 and going forward. Then looking a little bit gross margin. Gross margin declined in quarter 4. It was 45.6% for the quarter. But when looking at the same time whole year, it was 47.6%. So it's still quite a healthy level overall. When looking at the quarter 4 numbers, the decrease was driven by the sales price erosion. So there is still some price pressure ongoing in certain markets. And then we had some sales mix -- product mix impacts impacting on the gross margin and some temporary operational inefficiencies also which impacted on the quarter 4 results. At the same time, like we communicated in connection to quarter 3 and Bhasker also mentioned, we have started this unit cost savings program, and we target, of course, the material cost savings during the 2026, and we already saw some results in our numbers in 2025. And that's the way, of course, how we will defend in our existing healthy gross margin levels. Then about our operating cash flow and the profitability, like I highlighted, we generated after first time after year 2023, positive operating cash flow, EUR 3.4 million. So that is a good result, definitely. When looking at the operating EBIT, we also improved our operative EBIT significantly. It was EUR 14 million improvement year-on-year, even though still being negative EUR 12 million for the year. And specifically for quarter 4, when we generated negative operative EBIT by EUR 3.6 million, like I mentioned, was driven by this gross margin decline, but also we accounted a little bit higher bonus accrual of EUR 3.3 million for the quarter in connection to the great sales performance in quarter 4 and whole year overall. And as a conclusion, when looking the whole year, we are really back in the growth track strong sales results. We improved significantly our profitability like we guided to the market, and we generated positive operating cash flow. So I think this is the good way to end the year 2025. Thank you.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#4

Thank you, Jukka. Thank you, Bhasker. And now we go to the questions, and you can still type in your questions if you have some. Let's start with you, Bhasker. What drove the record fourth quarter order intake?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#5

Yes. Thank you, Paula. Look, our fourth quarter order intake of $95 million, first of all, we had a target of $300 million order intake for the full year, and the team achieved it. We beat that, and we achieved $303 million courtesy with $95 million order intake in Q4. So great achievement by the team and really proud of their efforts. What drove it? First, look, we see customer confidence and there's customers that are investing. It's supported by the BEV new registration growth, especially in Europe that you see that and up 30% for the full year, up 40% for Q4. So I think that translates into continued investments. Second, I'd say our strategy of new customer acquisitions. We acquired 19 new customers, 71 for the full year. So that's really helping us continue our growth. And then third, you look at our growth, I mean, we -- you and I talked about how much more broad-based our growth is. And we are growing across the world and especially in regions outside the Nordics. So you look at our growth in Europe outside Nordics was very strong also in North America. So that -- those are the things that really fueled the order intake growth and helped us get over the line of that EUR 300 million target.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#6

Thank you, Bhasker. And then there's a question about the guidance, the growth guidance. So what is Kempower's 2026 growth guidance based on?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#7

Yes. Another great question. Look, I'd say 3 things. One is we obviously -- market conditions. Second is the backlog that we are entering the market with. And third, what we see in terms of the pipeline and our continued share gains. So starting with the market, look, a bit of a balanced outlook of the market. There are some real positives, the BEV growth in Europe, the continued public fast charging installation numbers that we shared, that gives us confidence. There are some watch items as well. North America, you look at the pullback a little bit in the BEV adoption rates. So that's a watch item. I think we expect that to bounce back and also Nordics. I think that's a watch item for us. We did show strong growth in Q4 in order intake in the Nordics, but that's still -- that market has led in the BEV adoption of passenger cars. We're just taking a pause to see how that evolves. But we see that the truck market will evolve the earliest in Nordics. So on the balance, we're cautiously optimistic about the market, but the top end of our range is absolutely something that we can achieve should market conditions hold. And then backlog, yes, I mean, we're entering with roughly $140 million in backlog. About 2/3 of that is for this year delivery. We're starting to see customers commit to more longer-term orders as well. So that's good, but a part of that backlog is for 2027. And then I think the third is, yes, we've got a very strong pipeline, and we expect to be able to convert that, continue on our new customer acquisition spree. We're growing across segments. We -- so that gives us the confidence that -- and by the way, the growth in ports, the growth in other segments such as trucks, those are the things that have informed our guidance, the 10% to 30% -- and, yes.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#8

Thank you, Bhasker. Then over to the gross margin, Jukka. How is the gross margin evolving? And what are the main factors?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#9

Of course, 45.6% for the quarter 4 and around 47% for the whole year. So whole year still quite on a healthy level. But we have taken quite a lot of actions now to improve the level and defend the existing healthy level what we have. So like we mentioned, this cost savings program, unit cost saving program. So we focus quite a lot on that, that the healthy level overall. So factors impacting what like we have communicated earlier. So there is the existing price pressure ongoing in the certain markets, especially in Europe, that's impacting. And there's some work to do also internally. We had some production inefficiencies impacting on the margin. And on top of that, some geographical mix, product mix also impacted in quarter 4. So there's lots of ways to improve it as well. But luckily, we are in a good position with that at the moment.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#10

Thank you, Jukka. Then about the profitability. What are the main causes of declining profitability? And how are we addressing them?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#11

Yes. Good question. When looking whole year, we actually improved our EBIT by EUR 14 million. So it's a significant improvement, but maybe the question was more related to the quarter 4. Yes, it was down by EUR 3.6 million. So like we communicated, the gross margin drop impacted negatively on our EBIT. And also, we accounted higher bonus accruals. Remember the great sales performance, which is, of course, benefiting us a great way in 2026, especially. So those were the drivers.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#12

Thank you, Jukka. The next question is about the BEV registrations in Europe. The BEV new registrations grew 30% in Europe. So does this signal growing CPO investment activity? What would you say?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#13

Yes. Look, overall, we do see growing investment activity. If you look at the data around DC fast charging installations or the number of charge points, they grew 9% for the full year in 2025. And that's good that, that recovery is there after a tough 2024. So we see that. But when you compare that to the BEV adoption rates, BEV adoption rates, as you pointed out, were 30% -- up 30% versus prior year. So there's a bit of a gap there. And there's many factors. So we see that, look, CPOs are -- the utilization levels are improving for -- especially for the larger at-scale CPOs that helps their business model become more self-funding -- where funding is needed to scale up, we see CPOs being able to raise funds. I mean great examples of Osprey and Electra having raised substantial funding. So there's still funding available in the market for CPOs to expand. So that's a really good positive sign. And look, on the watch item, I would say the -- when you look at the permitting to power time, that is a constraint. That is a bit of a bottleneck. It is a long time. But the good news is the EU is coming up with a new grids package, which streamlines that process and reduces that time from permitting to power. So we hope that, that will help accelerate, which is holding back some of the CPO rollouts of the installation. So as that comes online, I think that's going to help accelerate. So overall, look, we're positive and bullish that, yes, there is continued investment, but there are offsetting factors as well.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#14

Thank you. Then we have a question from Paul de Froment. Actually, 2 questions. And the first one is about the component costs. Do you see any decline of component costs that could improve Kempower's gross margin? What would you say?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#15

Yes. Of course, that's part of our cost savings program. So we definitely have a high focus on that in our [indiscernible] team and their negotiation. So definitely, that's something with what we foresee impacting positively in our gross margins in '26.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#16

And then Paul is also asking about the U.S. and Canada demand. So how do you see U.S. and Canada demand in 2026?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#17

Yes. Paul, thanks for the question. Yes, it looks a little bit of gazing into the crystal ball there. But look, U.S., the subsidies that were available, the incentives that were available were pulled back in -- at the end of Q3. So we did see an impact of that in Q4 with lower BEV registrations and sales. So that is a bit of a watch item, how that progresses next year. But I mean, we see that automakers are already offsetting that with price reductions. There's a lot more number of models that are available, so more affordable EVs that are available. So again, we're cautiously optimistic on the U.S. market. I think Canada could actually accelerate. If you look at some of the announcements more recently with Canada opening up for EV investments, and more affordable vehicles, including from China. So I think there is more bullishness there in Canada, and we could see an acceleration of BEV adoption in Canada here in the near term.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#18

Thanks, Bhasker. And then we have [indiscernible] we have a couple of...

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#19

By the way, sorry, I missed that. For North America, I think sorry. For us, what is very important for North America and for the U.S. in particular, we were a late entrant into that market. And for us, it's a share gain story. Whatever the market is doing in terms of growth, we will outpace that growth by a fair bit because we started operations in North America in late 2023. So for us, I mean, you look at our order intake in North America, very strong, up 137% we expect strong continued growth there in that market because of our share gain story. So I just wanted to mention that, that's our outlook, and we feel bullish about the North American market, a little bit disconnected to what might the market might by itself to.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#20

Yes, very valuable insight. Thank you, Bhasker. Then Nikko Ruokangas has also sent a couple of very good questions. The next one is about order backlog. So your order intake -- order intake improved clearly in Q4, and the backlog is up almost 50%. Why are you not expecting stronger sales growth in 2026?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#21

Okay. So revenue growth between 10% up to 30%, of course, midpoint being the 20%. So that's debatable that what is strong growth, what is not. But good to remember that like we have always communicated, our order backlog is quite short. And this order backlog is even split between the years '26 and '27. So I mean, it's -- that's good to remember when looking our backlog overall. Of course, it's a good situation now to start the year, customer acquisition where we have been really successful overall. We have been -- make a breakthrough in North America as well, which is really great. But then at the same time, how we see the Europe, it's not yet the full market. It's getting better. Overall, our existing customers continue to start to now invest step by step, which is great, great, but there's still some room to improvement in the market conditions overall. And then considering overall, it's a new industry, volatile industry also. So based on all these facts, we came out with the guidance we submitted this morning.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#22

Thank you, Jukka. Then Nikko has also a question about the Nordics. We talked about the Nordics compared to Europe. So Nikko's question is that you said in the report that activity in Nordics remains moderate. On the other hand, your orders in Nordics increased 25% year-on-year in Q4. So does the comment on the market mean that the order growth in Nordics should not be extrapolated?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#23

Yes. Thanks for the question. Look, I think, yes, Q4 did give us confidence that the market recovery may be there. Look, the truck charging, that gives us confidence in the Nordics market. But when we look at some of the BEV to charger ratios, Nordics seems pretty healthy. So I think it's a watch item. As we -- as they say, I think in Britain, one swan doesn't make a summer, we have to look at a few more data points of how that evolves and the next few months will be critical. So we'll keep an eye out on the Nordics market. But yes, Q4 gave us confidence, and we're looking forward to how Q1 is shaping up. And again, we see very strong activity, especially on the truck charging side. So we'll see after Q1.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#24

Thank you, Bhasker. Let's stay in Europe. The next question is also about the Europe, and this is about the EV models, different car models entering the markets. The question is from [indiscernible]. How do you see upcoming smaller and cheaper EVs entering European market in H2? Are customers already accounting this in their orders?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#25

So overall, of course, there will be every year more and more affordable EVs in the Europe, which is great because it hasn't been affordable in the past. So that enables the whole population to start using the EV. So that is great. And that is, of course, overall speeding up our industry and e-mobility. So that's, of course, only the positive thing. But that's something what's seen and what is expected also on our side.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#26

Thank you, Jukka. Then there is a question about the sales. And actually, we go back a little bit to the years '24, '25. So in 2024 and 2025, the first quarter has been the smallest quarter in terms of sales. Should we expect similar seasonality in 2026?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#27

It's actually a great question. And what I can say that now we didn't guide quarter 1 separately. But yes, there is this cycle seasonality in our business between different quarters. So that's the fact. So that's something I can reply on that without guiding anything on quarter 1.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#28

Thank you, Jukka. And -- another question about the profitability. So you mentioned temporary operational inefficiencies pressuring your profitability. Could you open and quantify those?

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#29

Yes. So this relates to normal sales and operational planning. So of course, in our current business model, we don't have stable deliveries inside the quarter, might be 1 month when you have a high peak in deliveries, then the following month when those are down. So we just continue improving that, how we plan the resources and our materials, et cetera, so that it matches better to demand. So it was question -- that's actually the topic we are addressing and improving. And yes, it had some impact on the quarter 4 numbers, numbers in the margin. So I don't want to quantify the number, but it had a, let's say, material...

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#30

More generally, just to build on what Jukka said and to the previous question as well, when you look at the seasonality between the quarters and even within the quarter, kind of the loading, ideally, you want to level load as much as possible across quarters and within quarter. We don't see that demand yet. I mean I think that's tied to demand -- just inherent demand from the customers. We try to align to our customer order timing, right? I mean we are starting to see, at least historically, what I learned was customers were doing prebuys and because of component shortages. We're starting to see customers align deliveries much closer to when it is actually going to be installed. So I think because of that, we try to align our deliveries. And then when we do that, it doesn't allow us to fully level load. But with more broad-based demand, I think quarter-to-quarter seasonality should be less of -- should be lesser, I think, going forward into the future than it has been, but that's something for us to keep working both what we can control from a forecasting standpoint.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#31

There is also a question about the order backlog from '25 to be scheduled to 2026. So what is the reason for even 1/3 of the order backlog from 2025 to be scheduled post to 2026? Have the delivery or client preference times increased recently?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#32

Yes. Well, look, I mean, we are starting to see when customers are committing to the order, they have an outlay of their expenditure and their installation. Some of these installation time lines are based on getting permitting, various kinds of permitting through the electricity providers and the utilities to the cities to land grants, et cetera. So that timing is really what drives the outlay. So -- which is great -- what's great is that the customers are trusting us and putting the confidence that they are placing longer-term orders as well, which is great for our outlook as well. But yes, I mean, that's certainly a shift from what we saw, I guess, in previous years, which was much more of a shorter cycle business.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#33

We have time for one more question, and now we go to North America. And this is about the order intake. Your sales have been lagging order intake in North America. Could you open that? Why are the delivery times long in North America? How do you see this?

Bhasker Kaushal

Executives
#34

I mean, similar answer, but yes.

Jukka Kainulainen

Executives
#35

Yes. Okay. I can start. Yes. Well, when looking at North America, when look at 2025, let's say, more positive market environment overall to us. And that's usually what's also happening that you get orders a little bit earlier before the delivery time. And that's normal in the growth market when looking at the book-to-bill, it's more than 2, so indicating quite strong growth on that market. So that would be my answer on that.

Paula Savonen

Executives
#36

Thank you, Jukka, and thank you, Bhasker, and thank you for all the questions. And we'll be back soon, for example, announcing the date for the Capital Markets Day later in the spring in May, June. Before we go, we want to show you a very new video. This is actually the first time we show this. Two weeks ago, we organized MCS Live Days in Sweden, where we showcased MCS charging to our customers together with our partners. So check it out. Thank you, and bye-bye.

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