Micro Systemation AB (publ) (MSABB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning, and welcome to MSAB's presentation of the interim report for Q2. We would really appreciate if you could just put in the chat that you can hear us loud and clear. If you have any questions, put those also in the chat and we will have a question and answer at the end of the session. So, without further ado, I am going to hand over to our CEO, Peter Gille.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Q2 report. So, this quarter has been a good quarter for us. We have achieved some good results. We are at sales at around SEK 122 million, which is 50% up compared to this quarter last year. That said, we had one big deal that was transferred into Q3 last year. So it might look even better than it is, but it's still a significant growth in the quarter. We keep to have a good margin on the business according to the plans we have. So our gross margin is still high at 94%, but we think we will keep it at those levels throughout the year. We are also profitable, which is not common at this time of the year. Usually, we get all the profits in the second half of the year, but we are already profit for the first half year and significant profit this quarter with SEK 12.6 million compared to minus SEK 17 million last year. Our yield measurement, the ACV, or the annual contract value grew with 35% compared to this quarter last year, which is also a good sign that the business is really growing significantly. If you look over the regions, we have had a solid quarter in EMEA basically, we are growing across the region. The growth is really fueled by the XRY Pro adoption that is getting more and more all over the region. We also have a very big UNIFY implementation, our new product that released to the market, where we have a big organization in U.K. that is really implementing this in a big way. And that project is going well. And we think that will be something that we can show off to other customers and repeat in other markets. The Defense segment, we haven't seen any revenue contribution from that yet, but we have a really positive development in the EMEA market. We think we will see some significant deals coming later in the year from that. APAC had a very, very strong second quarter, a little bit weak first quarter, but a fantastic second quarter. The growth continues in APAC in many of the countries we are operating there. And the good thing with this market is that it's more open than the mature markets and the labs are being created, and we are being a big part of that business. So we think that this will continue during the year. And we also had a good win this quarter in Australia with a big organization that took a 3-year contract, which is super interesting for us. In the U.S., we had a solid quarter. We are growing, but it's still cumbersome with the administration. It's not really working 100% yet, but it's getting better and better for each quarter. So we think next quarter will be fairly interesting in the U.S. It's also their closing quarter for the year. What we also see is that in Latin and Canada, business is picking up significantly. In Canada this year, we closed a lot of contracts, both new and renewals. But we also see that Latin America is taking off, and we will invest more in sales capacity in Latin America going further into the year. The growth is driven, as in many regions, by mainly new sales in Latin, for instance, and the XRY Pro upgrade and upsell. This market is continue to grow based on the structural drivers that we see in the market. So we -- people are using more and more mobile devices and keeping more and more data in it. And almost in all investigations today, criminal investigations or others, digital evidence is an important piece. I think it's up to 80%, 90% of the investigations that use digital evidence. So this -- the need for that type of solutions that we can provide, which makes it possible for law enforcement, for instance, to access that information from the mobile devices continue to be super important. There's just a few companies in the world that can do this, and we are one of them. So that makes the demand for this kind of solution continuously being strong. Also, the criminality and the bad guys in the world, the physical money is getting more and more difficult to get to and is also decreasing in importance. And that means that they are going over to digital crimes instead, and that also fuels this market even more, unfortunately. So the market drivers is strong for us and -- as we see it, continue to be strong. Our strategy, we have the -- since I joined MSAB as a CEO, we have created a strategy, and we have adapted that strategy, and we have executed that strategy, and it seems to be working really well. And that means basically the strategy is centered around that we do investment in our products and that we professionalize the whole company when it comes to processes, people and how we go to market and so forth. And also that we're focusing on more emerging markets where we have growth opportunities and where the market is not so set because in the mature markets, a lot of agencies, labs and so on, they have based their solutions on the process they have, and it's difficult to get them to change the processes. Even though we are also increasing our market share in those markets, it's a longer run than in the newer -- in the emerging markets where they are more open to other solutions and other products basically. We're also looking at different verticals like the defense and others where we think that it might be an opportunity going forward in the future. We are also the only European vendor. It hasn't shown in the revenues yet. But I think going forward, it will be more and more important to be a European vendor when you are selling to Europe. I think we will see that in the next coming quarters. Also, AI continues to be both an opportunity, but also a threat for us. We are really adapting AI within the company and also in the products. So we are adapting it basically in every part of the company, and we're getting big benefits of it, for instance, in development or adding some product features that will come in the products later in the year. But we're also adapting it in other processes. So we see the positive things, but it's, of course, something that also can be used against us for when the Apple and the others are using it to close the exploits that we are using to access the information. We also have today a really, really good organization. We have a new management team in place overall since about 6 months, and we have a really good tech organization that keeps delivering the things that the customer wants. So we are really executing on a really good level. That's my view at least. And we are -- it's working with marketing, with sales and the products and the tech organization. So basically all good, I would say, which shows in the numbers this quarter. I'll leave it over to Tony, our CFO.

So hello, everyone. I'm Tony Forsgren, the CFO of the company. So let's have a look at the sales to begin with. We did a record Q2 with a growth -- net growth of 52%, small adjustments in FX. As mentioned before, we are exposed. 95% of our sales are in foreign currencies. But this quarter, there were small effects due to the FX and then the Swedish krona versus the other FX then. So rolling 12, we are pacing SEK 511 million. That is to be compared with SEK 462 million last year. Also looking back on a quarterly isolated Q2 '25, we grew 25.6%. And where did we grow? We have a really, really strong momentum in APAC. Looking at the numbers versus last year, we grew 173% in APAC region. We also have a strong momentum in the EMEA region, and that is mainly driven by the MEA, Middle East, Africa. In total, EMEA region grew 44% versus the same period last year. Peter mentioned it's cautious in Americas, even though we grew 0.4% versus last year as we have higher expectations and expectation going forward looking at Q3 when they close their books. New sales share is improved versus last year. We are up at 50% now compared with 36% last year. And new sales is really important to us due to the recognition of revenues. So we're glad to increase that portion of new sales and adding to our contract base. Next slide, please. We really have a business model that enables scalability, and that we proved in Q2 then. So even though we are increasing revenues, we are stable in OpEx and gross margin. For the first time ever, we had a positive half year 1 in this company and the contribution in the second quarter added to that. We did a profit of SEK 12.6 million in the quarter. Personnel costs-contains approximately 77% of the OpEx. Net-wise, we have increased the staff by 20 people. So we keep on investing in this company and it is addressed to sales and marketing personnel and research and development. And on top of that, investments in our products. So gross margin-wise, we are stable. We have been stable now for 3 years, and we are cruising around 93%, 94% in gross margin. 2026 is still an investment year. So we keep on having focus on our products to be in the top. Balance sheet-wise, nothing much has happened since before. We still have a debt-free balance sheet. We did a small purchase in intangible to add up some features in our frontline business. The tangible assets is driven by the office move mainly in Stockholm, the head office. We signed a new contract office lease 7 years. So we also added that to the balance sheet according to IFRS 16, as you can see. The big changes actually is on the cash line. We added cash of SEK 55 million since -- versus the same period last year and that is really connected to our way of doing the business with a lot of cash upfront. So equity still improving, and we keep on giving dividend. So a strong balance sheet going forward and clean. So some repetition here. Since we introduced a new KPI last quarter, active contract value. We did a 35% growth in active contract value if you compare the June numbers '26 versus the June numbers '25, going back then. So some repetition. When we do a license deal, we recognize revenue 84% day 1, and we distribute 16% over the contract length. That is what is showing up in the profit loss to the market. But when doing the ACV, as we call it, we take the contract and split it into even parts over the contract length and bring the revenues on lines. And then we cut a month as illustrated in the table in the red and take all the active contracts and all the parts distributed to that month and multiply it by 12, then we get an annual value, which we compare with the previous year, the same month, and then we get the ACV. So still strong momentum. But keep in mind, investments started investments kicking off and contributing to the revenue. So we're going for lower levels when coming into Q3, Q4, where we started to improve our revenue, and we will have a tougher base to beat then, but still very positive and still according to plan. Thank you.

Okay. So to really conclude, it is -- we will continue to invest. We have invested this year, but we will continue to invest and it will be, as Tony said, it's tougher quarters to be compared to going forward. But I have good faith in that we will achieve our targets for the year. We will continue to build on the momentum that we created in the market around our products, and we will continue to focus on new verticals and the emerging regions for creating the growth. And also the portfolio we currently have and that we are also developing new functionality is really a portfolio that now can be used for expanding within the customers. So we have a full solution where it can cover everything from the investigators to the forensic analysts then. And that is something that we think will be possible to do more upsell on now. That is basically selling UNIFY to more customers and also adapting more customer from our XRY Logical and Physical to the XRY Pro portfolio now. So with that, a good quarter with really good growth. And I look very positive also for the future. So we have a momentum in the market, and we are going to take care of that momentum basically. And we have some questions also. So some good questions, I would say, also. So I can read them out loud if you don't see it in the chat.

So first, did Q2 include any deals pushed into it from H -- the second half year? Did it include any deals which had previously been described as delayed? And the question -- the answer to that is basically very simple, no. So there has not been any deals pushed in from H2. And there's some of the deals that has been delayed has not been executed in this quarter. This quarter has been a quarter where we have performed as a business and we have had momentum in the market, and we have had the growth that we should have. And this quarter is on the level it should have been last year as well, I would say. Does the strong Q2 gross margin change your expectation for the full year gross margin versus what you said in Q1? And the answer to that is no, we expect the gross margin to be in the levels -- in the high 90s, but not the high 90s, above 90s that I would say. And that is our expectation for the full year as well. And then number three, how to mitigate potential risks to margins or delivery capacity related to component constraints pricing. As you know, the AI has made it difficult to get components as computers or things that you need for it when we deliver with hardware. However, we are suffering from this. We are -- have longer delivery times from the suppliers that we use for hardware, but it's also a very small part of our business today. We don't think it will affect our margin. It might, in some cases, delay deals because we cannot take the revenue until we have delivered also the hardware. So far, we have managed, but it can happen in the future. But still, the number of deals today that include hardware is limited. So it's not a big part of our business today. So we don't see a big effect on that. We have more questions here. Why does not AVC (sic) [ ACV ] increase more due to increase in revenue? We have a question here from Nils Ake. It's because the model we have where we take upfront revenue, we take 84% of the revenue upfront, while the ACV model models this out more based on the contract length. So ACV gives a better view of the business, while the revenue model that we currently have can give more variations in the business. So I think the ACV reflects more how the business is really going, and it's 35% growth. So I'm okay with that, and I hope you are as well, while it's 50% in the recognized revenue. So it means there's been some contracts, maybe one big contract is over 3 years, we take all the revenue now, it affects this quarter more while the ACV doesn't reflect that. The U.S. market was affected by the government shutdown in the second half of last year. How do you view the market today? I would say it still has effects not from the shutdown, but the big changes that's been done in the administration makes it more difficult, for instance, to locate budgets to find people that can take decisions and so forth. So we are still experience effects from more the current administration that affects us than the shutdown. Is there any specific customer segments or niches that are currently performing particularly well? I would say no. It is growth -- sorry. The growth are driven by XRY Pro, and it's in all markets, all verticals everywhere. Then, of course, there are different markets like emerging markets are different from the mature markets. But there is -- we don't see any specific segments or different. We see big opportunities going forward, for instance, in defense. But in this quarter, it has -- it's all over the place, I would say, the growth. Was the strong sales in the performance in the quarter mainly driven by new customers or by existing customers purchasing new products as XRY Pro and UNIFY. It is a mix. It's not -- it's driven mainly by XRY Pro, the revenue growth, and it can be both upgrades with existing customers, which, in our case, is defined as a new sale, but it can also be renewals of XRY Pro or other products. So it's not clear. We have more new sales now than we have had previous years, but it's defined mostly by the XRY Pro. UNIFY doesn't give a big impact on the revenues this quarter. So it's more of an add-on product that I think we will see more revenues in the coming quarters. Looking at the competitive environment, is it broadly similar across your geographies? Or are there any markets that stand out as either more or less competitive? Yes. As I mentioned, the mature markets, it's more -- much more competitive. All the labs, they usually have competing solutions from Cellebrite and Magnet and our solution, where they might have least licenses from us, a little bit more of licenses from Magnet and maybe Cellebrite is the leader. And that means that their processes normally starts with that they take Cellebrite, test that. If that doesn't work, they take either Magnet or our solution. And what we are working with that is to show that XRY Pro should be the first choice for these organizations based on that we are better -- we have better capabilities today than many of our competitor in it always depends on the phones or the mobile devices. That said, it's difficult to compete against the existing people and the processes. So it takes time. But we are seeing now that it gives more and more results in the market. So we are growing in the existing market. And that means that we are -- they are buying more from us than they used to do. In other markets, it can be more of tendering for a new lab and so forth, and then it's much more an open race. And it's a different competitive race where it really means that you need to show what the product can do and then win the tender and then it can be a significant deal for you. And that's what we see in the emerging markets that it's more that kind of processes. Yes. Everything is competitive, but it's competition on different terms, I would say. You mentioned that you continue to invest in your product. Should expect this to come through as higher OpEx or increased CapEx going forward? If OpEx, how to think about cost increase. I wouldn't go into if this will be an increase of CapEx or OpEx. I would just say we will continue to invest in our products that's key to this market, and you should have that in your in the thinking when you think about the company that it will increase the cost. But we are also planning to increase the revenues. So we think we will still have a good results out of this. Can you open the latest Apple phone? If no, when? We cannot open the latest Apple phone and no one else can do it either. And I'm doubtful that it will be possible going forward. Then then I'm talking about the locked iPhone, an open iPhone, we can definitely access the information out and that can others -- others can do that as well. This might seem as a very big problem, but it is not such a big problem. The number of cases that involved locked iPhones are not a lot in numbers. But when they do, it's, of course, maybe an important case. And there are other ways of convincing the people that they should open the phone for you. So normally, the suspect or the person opens the phone because otherwise, they might go to prison for not opening the phone anyway. So it's less of a problem than you think. But it is clear that we cannot open the latest Apple phone. And to my knowledge, no one else can either. And I have no forecast if we can do it later on. I think that was all the questions we have. All good questions, I think. So if no more questions, thank you all for listening. Again, a good solid Q2 quarter, and we look forward to the rest of the year. Thank you.