Kitron ASA (KIT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Kitron's 2024 Capital Markets Presentation. We'll start the day by giving you our view on the global environment and how it shapes our business. After that, we'll hear from each of our leaders on sales strategies, defense and aerospace markets, capacity growth and expectations into 2025. Finally, we will wrap up with a summary and take your questions. But before diving into the global factors, let me introduce Kitron. We're a leading EMS company or electronics manufacturing services. We trace our heritage back to 1962, where we were delivering sonar buoys to the U.S. Navy. Today, we're listed on the Oslo Euronext Exchange. Our role is to help customers bring their products to life. From initial design and industrialization to manufacturing logistics and eventual redesign and repair, we offer a full range of services. Our strength comes from our complete value chain approach, starting with the development and industrialization. Then we handle sourcing and procurement and carefully select the right components at the right cost. We then combine top-tier manufacturing with logistics and distribution. Finally, we support repair and redesign, helping customers extend their product life cycle and implement new market demands. Our market sectors are Connectivity, Electrification, Industry, Medical Devices and Defense/Aerospace. Each of these benefit from this end-to-end service solution. Our goal is to give customers the flexibility, cost efficiency that they require and allow them to focus on product innovation, marketing and sales. One of our key advantages is our global footprint. With sites across the Nordics, Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia, we can serve customers in multiple time zones and markets. It also helps us secure stable, cost-effective supply chains and respond quickly to changes. This global presence also connects us with diverse engineering talent and advanced technology. With over 2,500 employees, 60 years of experience, operations in 11 countries, we have the scale and the skill to handle complex and sensitive projects. We also have a proven track record of growth and improved profitability. Over a typical business cycle, excluding acquisitions, we've achieved around 10% annual growth, largely by expanding our customer base and moving from 4 factories to 10. We've also grown through strategic acquisitions in new locations in Denmark, Czech, and the U.S. At the same time, we've launched greenfield expansions in Poland and Malaysia. Our investments have strengthened our margins and improved our performance. Overall, our track record shows that Kitron can grow, adapt and prosper no matter how the global environment shifts. So taking a look at that broader landscape that shapes our business. We expect the past year's strong performance in both the Nordic region and the U.S. to continue into 2025, '26 and beyond. We anticipate that the European markets will see a meaningful recovery by 2026, driven by a return in consumer confidence as inflation and interest rates come down. Shifting geopolitical priorities, tariffs and the increased push for localized capabilities and production, sovereign protection of those capabilities changed the rules of the game. This also opens up new opportunities for us. We're engaging with new customers looking for ever more localized production. As a result, we're better positioned to serve all of our customers, adapting to these changing conditions and continuing to deliver growth across multiple geographies. For the next 5 years, we expect continued growth through expanding markets and new customer wins. We're also planning for increased M&A activity that will help strengthen our foothold in key markets. Now let's look more closely at the sectors in which we operate. Starting with Connectivity, where we see signs of growth for 2025, driven by the growth of sensors and tracking equipment. We anticipate growth of over 10% next year, and by 2026, as the market more broadly recovers, up to 20% growth. This growth is supported by the need for seamless real-time data. Moving on to Electrification. We expect this sector to grow significantly, though not all at once. After a slight reduction in 2025, we forecast a strong rebound with 25% growth in 2026. This will be fueled by the sustained investment in electricity transmission networks and maritime electrification, which makes up half of our 2025 sales, and that grows next year with 15%. By 2026, we believe the entire electrification market will gain renewed strength as energy efficiency initiatives expand. In our Industrial segment, we see a period of flat growth for 2025, followed by a healthier 15% growth in '26. We anticipate more production facilities moving closer to end markets, including the U.S., India and Europe and China. This is because companies are continuing to invest in localized manufacturing to improve resilience and reduce supply chain risks. Many of these markets also are driven by public investment that requires localized production. On Medical Devices, we see that 2025 is affected by an end-of-life phase on a major product line, so we come down a little bit. But here, we're focused on new acquisitions to tap into emerging technologies and new product areas. This approach will help us spark fresh new growth and meet evolving market demands. Now turning to Defense/Aerospace. Here, we're in the start of a new investment cycle. NATO countries are moving from historically low defense budgets, often below 1% of GDP towards spending levels near or above 3% by 2026. This surge in investments presents significant opportunities, especially since roughly 80% of European equipment needs were previously sourced outside the EU. Now European defense manufacturers are set to outpace U.S. competitors in growth, boosting demand for local suppliers. We expect to see large platform orders over the next few years, ranging from surveillance systems to advanced air defense and air superiority platforms. Our presence across multiple sites and regions positions us well to support these investments. We foresee more than 20% growth in 2025 in this area. In summary, the landscape is changing rapidly across markets and sectors. Political shifts, trade restrictions, a push for greater sovereign capabilities and rising security concerns all shape how these markets evolve. By maintaining an agile approach to supply chain and operations, Kitron will secure strong and sustainable growth well into the future. Now let's move on to new sales opportunities with Hasse.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. My name is Hasse Faxe. I'm Head of Sales in the Kitron Group. So what differentiates Kitron in the EMS industry? Kitron's financial strength, both on top line and bottom line, plus the fact that we are committed to reinvesting 2% to 3% of our yearly sales into modern sites and manufacturing equipment, ensures that our customers can rely on Kitron as a long-term partner with stable competitive cost levels. Our global footprint, yes, as Peter said, as general, the market is moving very much from global to local. And Kitron needs to stay -- continue to stay relevant in these main markets to serve our customers' needs. This is maybe more important than ever before. And with footprints in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Asia and U.S., we are well positioned to do so. Kitron operates in market sectors, which are often highly specialized with need for specific technical and commercial know-how. By pulling on competencies between our 10 sites and Kitron global functions, we can ensure that our customers get the valuable support in regards to both products and needed services. Operating in specialized markets like Kitron do, the sectors are in high need of relevant certifications, especially the high regulatory ones. We at Kitron are very committed to both acquiring and maintaining these certificates to support our customers' needs. Kitron have been in the EMS industry for many years and has been a reliable partner to many of our customers, which means that we benefit from very positive references from key decision-makers in the market. Key people who share their positive perception with their network, potentially with new employers when they move on in their career. Before we enter into a new business relationship with a customer, we spend the needed time and resources to ensure that we have a good tactical and strategical fit between the parties. This, of course, increases the success and the mutual satisfaction during onboarding and ramp-up. Speed, the pace of which Kitron has adjusted to the market needs in the last couple of years where the market situation has been critical is vital to our success, both short-term and long-term. The last years where we have been able to grow profitable in a challenging market, we believe that we have shown our success going through a crisis of component availability, costs, increase in demand, drop in demand. Sustainability. Sustainability and ESG is becoming a more and more important decision criteria for our customers. Kitron have years of experience on reporting on sustainability, whereas some of our customers -- some of our competitors are just getting started. Our customers appreciate our services in this field, which enables them to live up to the increasing demand and regulatory needs. The EMS industry continues to show a stable growth and is expected to reach around EUR 70 billion in 2028. And we at Kitron don't see any systemic barriers of growing in this market in the coming years. Kitron will go through building on existing long-term relationships with customers, but also by attracting and onboarding new customers, customers who are often the top tiers in their industries. So where do we play? We see our field in Kitron in the area where the local players no longer are able to provide the needed footprint, scalability, competencies and synergies. And then, of course, between the larger players who are competing in the high-volume sectors like automotive and consumer. Kitron's core markets are in products and services, which ranges from mid-range to high-range complexity and with high-quality requirements across the 5 sectors that we showed. Electrification. There's no doubt that we have witnessed a challenging year. But even though we still see this market sector being driven forward by innovation, both in regards to products, but also business models, a drive for new and different energy storage solutions, investments in infrastructure products -- projects and market demand for green energy. Industry might start flat as we move into 2025, but I expect it to pick up towards the end of the year as our customers' inventory bottoms out and the appetite for investment are likely to grow. A market segment which, amongst others, covers applications like waste management, recycling, robotics and even equipment for semiconductor industry. Medical Devices, a market sector, which at Kitron is defined by complete products or as we call high-level assemblies, a business with high regulatory requirements and approvals, which on one hand, means that it's slower in the onboarding, but also long-lasting business, a sector with a modest growth in the coming year, mainly due to public spending being channelized into other areas like defense. Defense and Aerospace. Kitron have been present in this industry for a long time, have a solid track record and also a lot of competence spillover from all of the market sectors, and this shapes a strong foundation for our future high growth in this area. So Kitron's midterm sales ambition of EUR 1 billion. Through our focus on developing existing customers and new customer relationships in the 4 market sectors that we have showed you and through our well-managed manufacturing sites, we will reach our ambition. The bounce back of the market and our plans in M&A will, of course, impact the timing in this. That being said, I will hand over to our VP of Nordics Region, Hans Petter.

Thank you, Hasse, and good morning. My name is Hans Petter Thomassen. My role is VP of Operations for the Nordics and North America region. And in this capacity, I also coordinate our efforts in the Defense and Aerospace sector. In this brief presentation, I will talk about Kitron's positioning in the defense market, share some thoughts on the changes of the dynamics of the defense market. And last but not least, our perspectives on growth opportunities and our ambitions to leverage these opportunities. Kitron today have a strong position in the electronics manufacturing to the defense industry in our home markets. We've been serving customers in these sectors since our very beginning, 60 years ago. We know how to be a qualified bidder. We know how to deliver under defense contracting terms, originating both from Europe and from the U.S. Looking at the spend, NATO countries in Europe are significantly increasing defense hardware spend. The graph on the right-hand side here outlines the total spend increase, and you see NATO in Europe outpacing the total NATO. And if you also translate this into how much we are now spending on equipment, relative portion is growing. Last but not least, where we see the strongest growth is what we consider our home countries. Our home market in this context is defined as the European countries where Kitron have established entities. Historically, we see that our market position is strong in countries where we have manufacturing sites, combined with national OEMs serving a global market. And this position is further strengthened when there is national offset requirements added to the mix. Kitron is expanding defense production capacity in the Nordics, and we are in process to prepare Central and Eastern Europe sites for defense contracting. In the market, NATO has clearly stated what is called for to deal with the deteriorating regional and global security situation. The European governments are responding to the challenge with clear strategies and long-term funded acquisition plans to support buildup of defense capacities and long-term support for the Ukrainian war effort. There is also a clear ambition to reduce European dependency on out-of-region supply of armaments. We're looking to see a decrease from 70% to 80% downwards towards 50% of self-supported in the region. Assuming these ambitions are met, the impact to European defense industry will be profound. Kitron is scaling up production capacity and infrastructure to meet the demand. We're building infrastructure in Norway. We're transferring manufacturing of U.S. end-user products to the U.S. to free up capacity in Europe. And we are transferring defense contracting knowledge to other -- our other European sites to qualify and further enhance our capacity footprint to leverage the growth opportunities. First and foremost, we will leverage and support growth with our current customer base. We will, however, actively target opportunities with prospective contractors identified in the national defense strategies and acquisition plans. For Kitron, we believe a growth of more than 20% year-on-year is possible. Our current customer base and application portfolio will largely support our growth ambition. We will continue to focus our efforts on applications where we have application knowledge and strong customer relations; however, we will also target new tech companies. Lessons learned from the Ukrainian war will require faster fielding of less expensive mass volume capacities. Kitron will target and actively pursue opportunities with new tech scale-up companies with disruptive technology, seeking production partners for volume production. With that short briefing, I will hand it over to our COO, Kristoffer. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you very much. My name is Kristoffer Asklov. I'm the COO of Kitron Group. In this section, I will cover our main short-term priorities with focus on growth and profit improvements, our global, regional and local strategies as well as our strategic initiatives for expansion, our M&A strategy; and finally, a short update on our ongoing capacity expansions. Kitron have a growth strategy, and we have had so for quite some time. As a result of that strategy, we are structured in a way where we have a strong focus on new product and businesses from both existing as well as new customers. We have a wide existing customer base with lots of untapped business potentials. Maybe the most important thing of all is that Kitron have a strong growth culture, where we -- both our local and our global organization comes together to acquire new customers and businesses within all our market sectors. Right now we are paying special attention to businesses that can gain revenue rather quickly to mitigate some of the volume drops we have faced due to the slower market. Our strategy is profitable growth. And the direction I told you last time I was here is that how to maintain and increase the profitability remains the same, even it's a little bit more challenging when the volumes of the existing customers are dropping. But number one is to focus on economy of scale. We need to maximize the utilization of all our investments. Machine should ideally be around 24/7, but in today's little bit slower market, machines that are not being utilized enough are being relocated to sites that have better need for them. We have a strong cost-down focus on material to stay competitive, and we are chasing our indirect cost to defend our margins. In Q1, we did the restructuring and the harmonization to secure that we stay cost competitive at the same time as we build more resilient organization to support further growth. In Kitron, we have a localized setup and strategy, and we run very strong sites with their own P&L responsibility and strong independence to maintain their own businesses and support all our customer needs. At the same time, we centralize where it makes sense to benefit from the economy of scale I talked about and to gain leverage through our size as a group. IT systems and digital investments are led globally as well as a number of group functions, global sales, global sourcing. We have a central quoting. We have an automation center as well as some shared service centers in Lithuania, China and also in India. And today, we are mostly focusing on growing our capacity and capabilities in India. Now we also have -- we have a standardized equipment strategy that gives us global leverage and helps us to increase utilization and the sites can support each other better. This year, we have finalized the integration of our previous acquisition, including an organization change in Q1, where we divided all our sites into regions. We established a new corporate management team with clear Vice President structure as well as appointed new managing directors for some of our sites. During the year, we have integrated all our sites into Kitron's ERP system as well, and the final site went live on 1st of December. Now we are ready for new acquisitions. An important milestone this year is also the launch of our global leadership program, where we strengthened our management, gives our management a cross-site network from -- with colleagues from other sites with similar challenges that they have. And this is one of many initiatives that we have in what we call the One Kitron strategy. This aims to build a strong and long-lasting management culture to carry on the legacy that we have built up for the last 10 years. We're also making continuous progress in our digitalization journey, where we aim to build an even stronger digital toolbox supporting our continued profitable growth going forward. When it comes to the different regional strategies, the Nordics are leveraging through the growing defense sector. We are targeting complex products with high regulatory demands and we're providing proximity and best-in-class services. In Europe, on the other hand, we are looking for a better market sector diversification and we have had -- as we have had a little bit too heavy on electrification, especially in Poland. Here, we are focusing on best-in-class operational excellence as well as cost competitiveness and more focus on volume manufacturing rather than complexity. For North America, we are leveraging through the increase of Made in America and our competence and experience in the defense sector as well as focusing on market sector diversification, so we can have a stronger foundation for future demand fluctuation in the different sectors. And finally, in Asia, we are developing 2 different offerings with a new global footprint: one, China-for-China focus to customers that are in -- that have the market in China and one Asian-non-China offer for customers looking for cost-competitive manufacturing with good export possibilities. We have built our Asia setup to be very self-sufficient, and it's not -- they don't have need for European support. We have a strong operational excellence, best-in-class engineering services to support all our customer needs in Asia. Looking at our footprint. Kitron is currently in operation in 11 countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Czech, India, Malaysia, China, and U.S. And we have 10 manufacturing plants in 9 of these countries. In these factories, we can find more than 35 fully automated production lines for electronics, multiple lines for high-level assembly and end-of-customer products. And today, we are around 2,500 skilled and highly motivated employees. Previous years, we have invested heavily in increasing both our capacity and our capabilities. But this year, as I said before, we have focused in reallocating those investments into the site that need the capacity the best, making sure that we increase the utilization of our investments. This is one of the clear benefits with having a standardized equipment strategy. Circling back to our expansions through greenfields, we aim to fit those in our CapEx budget of 2% to 3% of our yearly sales. The most important factor when we decide where to make our new investments is the customer needs, but also access to a competent and competitive labor pool that we can retain over time. We're investing in new regions to enter -- investigating for new regions to enter, and we plan to do so in the coming years. The growth strategy for a new facility is to introduce existing growing customers and then we do a carbon copy setup on the transferring site. We did that in Poland, where with transfer -- with transfers and copy from Lithuania, and we have done the same now in Malaysia with a copy of the setup we have in China. Kitron has a proven method of scaling up business in a greenfield investment as well as successful acquisition integration. And when it comes to acquisition, we are interested in helping our growth by adding capabilities, regional presence, new customers and new capacity. When we're evaluating potential acquisitions, there are a number of criteria that we are interested in, such as their customer portfolio. Do we have overlapping customers or not? What geographies are they in as we are trying to risk mitigate also by geography. Can we leverage with our purchasing power? Are they in the low-cost country, et cetera, et cetera? We have, at the moment, a running project where we actively are out and looking in the market searching for potential acquisition candidates. We are in this project focusing on 2 main regions, the DACH region and the North America, and we are specifically target companies that have part of their business in one or both of our high regulatory market sectors, Defense and Medical. And then finally, a short update on our 2 biggest and ongoing expansion projects. In the beginning of this year, we opened our manufacturing site in Malaysia. And this year, we have been starting the production and transferring products from existing customers as well as bringing new customers in. Our site in Malaysia are located in Johor Bahru, that is just north of Singapore. It's a good industrial location, but with an excellent infrastructure that can support our existing and future growth even beyond the manufacturing site that we are in today. We opened our site in Malaysia to meet our existing customer needs. But today, we're also seeing a very strong interest from new customers. Our Malaysia site is a really strong addition to our global footprint, being able to support customers in all our geographical regions. Our latest announcement is that we are going to build a new site here in Longum in Norway. This is a new site. The new site is going to be fully focused on what we call high-level assembly and system integration, also meaning that our current operation in Kilsund will focus purely on PCBA operation. This investment is an important step in securing the capacity for the increasing demand in the defense industry as well as the growing industries in grid electrification. We will open our new site for business in Q1 2026. And by that, I will hand over to our CFO, Cathrin, to talk more about our financials and outlook for 2025.

Thank you, Kristoffer. I am Cathrin Nylander, and I'm the CFO of Kitron. I will talk about finance and outlook for 2025. Growth is key. When we set our 10% strategic growth target, we set the target that is reasonable for growth over time where we can grow in a controlled manner. For 2022 and 2023, we've grown more than that. We've grown a lot more than that actually due to the fact that of the acquisition, the increased market demand and the material allocation. In 2024, we have had less growth. But if we adjust for the acquisition, the growth rate between 2021 and 2024 is just below 10% organic growth. Profitability. We have managed to expand our EBIT margin over time up to 9% while leveraging on efficiency and growth. In 2024, our sites in Asia and CEE has had a decline, whereas we had a growth in Nordics and North America. To protect our profitability, we have had to adjust the workforce, and we have adjusted with 850 people net. Our outlook for 2024 is a profit margin of 7.2%, but if you adjust for the one-off provision that we made in Q1, the EBIT margin is around 8%. Then we want to have return on our capital. And we measure that by ROOC. Operating capital in this example is we take the fixed assets, inventories, receivables minus the trade payables and have that as a return of EBIT. In this year, we're looking at -- in 2024, we're looking at around 20%, but we expect to be above the strategic level in the coming years. We think it's -- the target for cash flow should be 80% of EBITDA, and we think that's a sustainable and reachable level. And in 2024, we will be close to that around 75%, 76%. We've also set the target for interest -- net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA to be 2.5, and we're currently at 1.5, so a good level. Our balance sheet shows financial strength. We have had -- where we have a net interest-bearing debt currently of EUR 118 million. After the acquisition, our highest level was EUR 60 million above that. So that's what we have decreased during the last 2 years. Our interest-bearing debt over EBITDA is 1.5. We have a covenant of 3.5, so we have ample of space to increase our financing to do organic growth or M&A or to build capabilities going forward. And our equity is about 35% and increasing, which is a good foundation. We think we now have a very strong balance sheet to go forward. So free cash flow development and outlook. As you can see on the left-hand side here, we have a sort of a lumpy free cash flow. So we have some opportunities to improve the periodization of that one. For 2024, we see a free cash flow in line with the numbers for 2023, basically because we are reducing the investments and the operating cash flow is therefore slightly lower. And we see an improvement going forward in 2025, mainly because of improved profits, reduced working capital and also a low level of investments. We think that our investment level in 2025 will be at 1.5% of revenue, and we are at 1% in 2024, basically, and we were at 2% in 2023. We also plan to reduce the working capital between 10% and 15% into 2025. So to sum up a little bit, we reiterate our outlook and guidance for 2024 with a revenue of EUR 635 million to EUR 660 million and profit from EUR 44 million to EUR 50 million. And to summarize for the guiding for 2025, we are setting it to EUR 600 million to EUR 700 million and profits from EUR 42 million to EUR 63 million. The profits on the low level, they correspond to 7% and on the high level on 9%, and the mid-level on 8%, which is the going rate we're having currently. So how are things looking? Currently, we see sort of flattish demand coming into 2025. The visibility is not much larger than it has been. We have an R6 demand of EUR 326 million, which is just a tad above the EUR 323 million. It's been for the last 2 quarters. We have an order backlog, which is about EUR 450 million, which is in line with Q3 and Q2 levels for earlier this year. And to mention a little bit on the different sectors. So we see the Defense sector will contribute with about 20% of EUR 30 million. Connectivity expected growth of about EUR 15 million or 10%. And the Other sectors, a decline of around EUR 20 million or 5%. In these numbers, we have included new customers. And by new customers, we mean customers that had little or no revenue in 2023 of about 10% or EUR 75 million, which is quite a strong bit, I would say. Our business is changing a little bit. For 2025, we expect the Nordics and North America to be 59% of our revenue, CEE to be 29% and Asia to be 40%. In 2023, it was a 40-40-20 split. So it's quite a different company in that sense coming forward. And now I would like to hand over to you again, Peter, to summarize. Welcome.

Thank you, Cathrin. So some of the key takeaways for today. Looking ahead, we see several clear points shaping our direction. First, our Defense/Aerospace segment is set for strong growth. At the same time, we expect other core markets such as Connectivity, Electrification and Industry to rebound steadily through 2025 and into early 2026. Over the mid- to long-term, we aim to achieve more than 10% organic growth each year. We believe this growth will be driven by strong global trends, such as rising demand for clean energy, smarter connected devices and greater security needs. To support this growth, we will focus on making the most of our manufacturing capacity and economies of scale. By being efficient, we can stay competitive, protect our profitability and serve our customers better. Our balance sheet is strong and ready for continued growth, allowing us to invest in new opportunities. Ultimately, we're committed to delivering great results for our customers, shareholders and employees. Thank you, and let's move on to some questions.

Yes. So when -- while we get ready -- a microphone, it's there, yes. So we can start off and see if we have some questions here in the audience. We also have some online questions coming in.

On your 2025 guidance, you have a quite wide revenue range. But when I summarize the segments, I get EUR 665 million in 2025 revenue, slightly above your mid guidance between EUR 600 million and EUR 700 million. Any comments on this? And also a follow-up on the Medical. Your guidance for 2025 was a little softer than -- have you lost a customer? You mentioned end of life from major product line. Any comments around it?

I think our outlook, our full guidance of between EUR 600 million and EUR 700 million reflects what risks we see in the market and what growth opportunities we see in the market. The EUR 665 million, by summing up those different market sectors, reflects where we're at right now. That's what we think right now. That's our target right now. So -- but there is -- we have to give a range, a guidance of where things may be heading. There are opportunities out there to grow even more, obviously. It's difficult to give exact timing on that to secure and say EUR 700 million. At the same time, there are market risks on the downside and political risks on the downside. So that's why we have this sort of wider range. But the EUR 665 million is our current target. The second part of your question was the reduction of Medical.

Yes, in Medical.

Yes, yes. No, there is -- for the past 10 years, really, we've been looking at a specific customer where we were at risk in the past 10 years; every year, losing that customer moving into a new generation. And we've known about it for about 3, 4 months that, that product is phasing out now during the first quarter. And it's one product line and it affects the top line with somewhere in between EUR 10 million and EUR 11 million.

Do we have any other questions here?

I just have a couple of questions with regards to gross margins. The first question is related to when you secure new business, is there any huge difference on gross margins compared to what you have on the existing business? That's the first one in terms of gross margins or contribution margin or anything?

I think it depends a little bit on the market segment and the volume of the product. So obviously, our ultimate goal is to win the new business and not just waste our time quoting and not winning it. So for that reason, we very carefully weigh in what the volume is and what the contribution will be and what our actual direct cost is to run that program. So with a higher volume, with the higher revenue program, obviously, some of the contribution margin can be a little bit more competitive to say. So in general, that's how we look at it. In total, when we look at the wins we're coming in at, there's not much really difference also because we've taken steps to adjust our cost earlier this year. We're taking continuous steps to adjust our cost forward even now into Q4 and into Q1.

And secondly, how much of the EUR 75 million that you expect to come from new customers have you secured today?

Those products are in production now, right? So they were like EUR 2 million, EUR 3 million last year. They were maybe EUR 8 million, EUR 9 million this year, obviously higher now in Q4, but ramping to that level for next year. So those are secured. On top of that, there are contracts out there that we have won that Hasse is negotiating the terms and agreements on and we haven't started to deliver on yet. But those programs are not in that number because if they start in Q1 or Q2 or Q3, it's difficult to say. It will be when the negotiations are done and everybody is happy.

And finally, with regards to Defense. When you have the facility up and running from the first quarter of 2026, do you then have the capacity to deliver on the figures that you showed on Defense? Or do you need more capacity to be able to deliver on those?

I'll kick that over to Hans Petter.

Well, with the actions we're taking on qualifying further sites for defense manufacturing and with the expansion in Norway, we have the capacity, and we don't have any true capacity constraints until that facility is completed either. So we should be in good shape.

Okay. I suggest we do a couple of online questions there. First one, could you give some color on achieved ROI between greenfield operations and M&A?

I will let Cathrin answer that.

I think foremost, you have seen the acquisition of BB. It's been a very good acquisition for us, but the number is difficult to say currently. But we also -- when we do greenfields, we have to remember that we start very low volumes to make sure that we are almost immediately profitable and then we build that over time. So you need to have a full cycle before you can actually measure the complete ROI. But we are very careful to make sure that our monies are spent sensibly when we do greenfield.

And then there's one sort of specific to one country. How do you see the Swedish market moving forward?

You want to say something?

Yes, go ahead.

Yes, sure. The Swedish market, I would say, the Swedish market -- if you compare, the Swedish market is quite mature when it comes to outsourcing. So I think it's going to be the same as it has been for quite some years if you're comparing it to, let's say, the German market, which is way behind, more protectionistic. There are more opportunities there, but it's a different business culture also. So it's a little bit different. But I would say the Swedish market are -- it's not big changes today as before. So it's the defense business is heading strong. That's, of course, the main change that I would say.

I think maybe also if we look at where they are, where the market is in the terms of a turning point in the economy and growth, I think, the Swedish market is earlier than the rest of Europe, right? It's already turned. It's already growing. Even if some are still of the Electrification subsegments on energy efficiency, there's more to desire on volume there. But it's -- we have -- we get the feeling that it's turned around, and we're seeing more orders coming on that market.

And then there's one on the operational side. Could you confirm that all the plants are now on the Kitron ERP system, including the MES and QMS systems? And would you anticipate that this could introduce organizational changes like shared services centers?

Well, very specific, but yes, we are in the same system, yes. And what was the next question?

It was, do you anticipate that this could introduce organizational changes like shared services centers?

We don't have any organizational changes based on that one. So shared service centers we already have. So that's -- we're strengthening that. And as I said, we are improving and increasing what we have in India because we are -- it's a little bit changed. Before we have been a little bit more dependent on China. We're scaling -- we have already scaled that down. So it's no changes planned at this moment. We did that in Q1 already.

But on a regional level, for example, in CEE, we are looking at having a higher degree of regionalization of some of the services to get more bang for the buck there.

But when it comes to IT, that's already been centralized and handled by the Kitron central organization from the acquisition actually, mostly.

And I would comment, my usual reservation is that we have the same digital toolbox, but we're very aware of what we can and cannot share among entities in the group. So there are limitations to that, and we are well aware of them, and we're able to safeguard what we need to safeguard.

Okay. So regarding the growth assumptions you have, except for Defense and Aerospace, you're saying other market sectors to recover over '25 and then you had some quite strong growth forecast for '26 that you presented earlier. Could you give some granularity to what you base those forecasts or assumptions on? Is this data customer discussions? Or is it more like hoping for macro rebound? Or where -- what's the basis of these forecasts?

I mean, the basis is, if we look at Connectivity, we've already seen a turnaround in that market. About midpoint this year, we started to see growth -- quarter-on-quarter growth for Connectivity. And we also have an order backlog from those customers for next year, which is very, very strong. Not all of them, right? And that's why we only see a 10% growth on Connectivity. The other part of those customers are still those customers that deliver network gateways and products that go into automation and into new factories and into new capabilities and capacities, in new manufacturing capacity in China, in Germany, in Europe, right? Those customers have yet to rebound. Those customers are still maybe depleting a little bit of stock from last year. So those customers, we have indications that they will turn around somewhere in Q2, right? We're expecting it to come back maybe in Q3, but to some degree, but then really come back into 2026. Because by then, that market will turn around. Already now we know that investments are -- and the market is driven by customer -- consumer confidence, interest rates. And Industry is the same thing, even if it may become 6 months later.

But it's also fair to say that we have very detailed discussions and more details than maybe ever before with our customers regarding their stock levels, both their own and their supply chain stock levels, their forecasting and so on. So those discussions are very detailed.

Yes. So I interpret it as revenue-wise, first year of the half will be relatively weak, whereas it will pick up in the second half, if you can confirm that. And my second question is about the visibility -- I mean, you had very detailed estimates in the defense down to the subsegments. What's the visibility in those segments -- in that segment?

So starting with you -- I'll take your first part of your question, and then I'll kick it over to Hans Petter for the second part. The first part of your question was, do we see a weak first half of the year? I don't think it's weak. I think it's at the level we're running now, which is not a weak level, right? It's what we're sized for. So it's also what we're delivering our margins on. And I expect first half of the year will reflect what we've seen in the fourth quarter and into -- and that probably we have maybe a little bit more strength even in the first quarter. So -- but after that we expect that it's going to strengthen in the second half of the year. Our visibility isn't that strong when you start looking into the second half of the year on actual orders from customers. But that's not unusual, right? The lead time tends to be horizoned for us, so maybe 16 weeks or so.

And just finally, in Defense and Aerospace, you had very detailed estimates done on subsegments. Are those mainly based on not firm contracts, but on frame agreements? So we feel we have quite good visibility.

Well, it varies a little bit country by country. But on average, I would say that we probably have about 1 year of order backlog for the defense industry. And based on that, we can also outline what applications, and we are -- we have then defined an expected growth rate based on what Hasse was saying, we were in detailed discussions with our customers on what they expect going forward because building capacity for these type of applications is not done in a day. And there are certainly also some supply chain constraints that might have to be taken into consideration.

Yes. Just a question on the product and program transfers between sites. I think you've previously mentioned some slight issues with moving some customers from, for instance, the Nordics into the Central European sites. How are those processes moving along? And are there any upside potential to your estimates into '25, if those sort of like disruptions are sort of like eased during the year?

Go ahead, Hans Petter.

Well, let's start. The, what you say, constraints are not on the receiving end. It's on the transferring site. It's a bit on bandwidth and more than anything, it's about for the end customer to feel assured that quality is controlled in the transfer process. So the customer is actively involved in the process and have their requirements that we need to satisfy. So now I would say the transfer projects are on track, and we will see them fully materialize during first half of next year.

These products that we're talking about were introduced into Arendal factory in Norway about, what, 6, 7, 8 years ago or so. And it took until last year before they were really on track and into high volume. That's how complicated the manufacturing processes are and the level of quality control required. So yes, the customer is a bit nervous to start up somewhere else, and that also has pushed out the transfer from where we wanted it to take place initially.

You can compare them to putting parts on an aircraft.

Okay. Let's do a couple more online. There's one sort of high level on the market. Can you say something about the competitive situation and what you are seeing in terms of margins on new contracts and business?

Repeating a little bit what Peter said before, we, of course, have a very high focus on ensuring that we win the business that we are quoting for. That is key to grow our business. And then, of course, we -- as soon as we win and start implementing businesses, then we work on continuous improvement, both in the sourcing side, but also on the manufacturing side to ensure that we meet our strategic targets for profitability on our customers. So I would say, yes, the market is maybe tougher than it was 2 years ago, but our ability to win new business is still very strong.

It's really about a more tougher environment to work in because you have to get it right the first time, right? Previous years, you had to get it almost sort of right and you were in. But here, we have to do the work right from the beginning and get all of the costs right, get all of the component pricing correct because that's how competitive it is.

And then there's one focusing specifically on one market sector, the Industry. Can you say something about the different subsegments within Industry? What is the current mix and the outlook across different subsegments?

If I can answer that one, then I think it is actually our widest segment, and it covers a lot of different type of customers. So they are very different in nature. And some of them, as Peter was saying, we expect that lower interest rates will grow the appetite in those fields. And then we, of course, also have customers there who are, you can say, in, for instance, critical infrastructure type of industries where interest rates are maybe not the driving force of starting up new projects. So it varies a lot. So going into the subsegment will be, I would say, somehow a longer analysis to go into and especially in that segment.

But strong growth on semiconductor automation, strong growth also with the oil and gas. And then industrial automation, weaker growth.

If I may add a comment on oil and gas, we see a technology renewal in the oil and gas sector that really drives the market there for us.

Yes. Just a couple of questions more. The first one, you said on Medical, was that NOK 10 million to NOK 11 million or EUR 10 million to EUR 11 million?

Euro. Like a NOK 120 million or so.

And the second question is to Cathrin. You mentioned that the order backlog was EUR 450 million-ish. Is it possible to get a split on Defense and non-Defense?

Defense is still growing, I can say that.

And finally, or maybe two questions. The first one is who are the main customers on sensors and tracking equipment within Connectivity?

Well, sensors, there's at least half a dozen customers varying from very, very large multinationals to smaller entities in Northern Europe. I hate to divulge any customer names really. But -- and the same thing on tracking equipment. There are 2 large contracts that we have. And possibly once we have a customer approval on those, we can release some of that information.

Okay. And is that the same for electricity as well or Electrification segment? Is that also spread between a lot of names?

Well, the growing ones is Hitachi Energy continues to grow. On top of that, there's the maritime electrification. Corvus has done pretty well this year.

Okay. Are there any more questions in the room? If not, then I think we'll wrap it up.

Okay. Very good. Thank you so much for attending.