Otovo ASA (OTOVO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

October 28, 2021

Oslo Bors NO Industrials Electrical Equipment earnings 48 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Anders Rønold

executive
#1

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Otovo's third quarter presentation. Today, we will present the quarterly highlights, the business update, financial results and the outlook for 2022. Today's presenters are Andreas Thorsheim, CEO; Lars Ekeland, CFO; and Fabio Stefanini, General Manager of Italy. We are very pleased to have Fabio here, our special guest. He joined us in February, having previously headed Uber's grocery delivery and Amazon's grocery delivery in Italy. Andreas?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#2

Thank you. The time for solar is now. Europe is facing a crunch in its energy markets, and the high electricity prices are eating into consumers' purchasing power. And I think this is a time where we see that distributed energy in the shape of solar panels and batteries have a big role to play in order to solve this difficult equation for European consumers and European electricity markets. Otovo is a marketplace for solar and battery installations. And our mission is to put solar panels on every roof in Europe and batteries in every garage in the continent and making it easy and affordable to go solar. For those who don't know us so well yet, we present a web page on the Otovo brand to consumers in 6, soon 7, countries in Europe. And the way the system works is that we create the easiest way for homeowners to go solar. They go to their local Otovo address web page, they input their address, and the software will then automatically design a system that is perfect and suited for that exact roof. Having found that project design, we will conduct immediately an auction between installer companies that can cover that address in that particular region. They have, beforehand, inputted their costs for labor, for equipment, for driving, for scaffolding, all the parameters that make up a price for a solar system. And knowing that from before, we conduct an auction within a second, and we can present the consumer with the project price instantly. The quote is instant. And they can buy or select a leasing option online, just as easy as buying a pair of shoes or a shirt in an online store. Otovo is installing every day across Europe. Our installer coverage now reaches from the north of Scandinavia to the south of Spain, from the east of Poland and to the west of France and the west of Spain. We are active on roofs. So this is a green case that is actually happening out in the field every day in every European country. So we're proud to be in activity. In terms of the energy market, we're experiencing very strong tailwinds. Electricity prices are up across Europe. That strong demand impulse varies from country to country in its speed in affecting consumer demand. In the Nordics where consumers typically are on spot contracts and there's a lot of media attention on the spot contracts, demand responds almost instantaneously. And then you have countries such as Spain or Italy, where there's maybe a month or even a quarter of delay before electricity prices really feed into demand. And France, a more regulated market, is the slowest to respond. But what is certain is that electricity price hikes eventually feed through to demand. And the electricity markets that we see now, we find that solar panels are really a remedy for consumer. This situation also leads to a lot of media attention. That drives demand, and we're capturing more than our fair share of that attention, essentially creating free traffic to the website and expanding the knowledge about our brand. We're also solving a big consumer problem. And this is something we put a lot of emphasis in, is creating a positive consumer journey where the people we sell solar panels to today will be ambassadors to their colleagues at work or the neighbors on the same street next year and the year after. So we are happy to say that we really solve consumer problems and we're creating happy homeowners with lower electricity bill. The example here is from a house owner in Poland from his winter bill without solar panels and now summer bills at high electricity prices, but with solar panels to remove the pressure on the personal economy. And then it's the highlights of the quarter in terms of numbers. This quarter has been one where we've consistently shattered records on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis and across our different geographical markets. September was particularly good coming out of summer. And with the high electricity prices, we saw demand really taking a step up. And we wanted to highlight this to show that in a month, we could do sales that are equivalent to 9,000 sales per year, really a step-up as showing that we're set up to absorb the growth that we see coming ahead. This is really an acceleration for us. The quarter is also marked by a record in installation speeds. We did almost 1,100 installations in the quarter, a quarter that had the summer holidays of Europe inside it and quite a bit of turmoil in supply chains globally. And despite that, we delivered a high number of projects. We exceed targets in all dimensions. Revenue is up 192% year-over-year to NOK 88 million. The value of the projects we sold within the quarter is up 325% year-over-year to NOK 134 million, and we sold 1,470 units in the quarter, about half of that in September. The pipeline value at the end of the quarter that we're bringing into Q4 was up 270% year-over-year to NOK 152 million, also a record. And gross profit from our sales, up 149% year-over-year to NOK 15 million. And the gross margin on projects installed in the quarter was 17.5%, up from Q2. The growth is fueled by batteries and the new countries, in addition to the older markets growing solidly from their basis. Battery attachment rates were at 48% in Italy, only the second quarter in which we're selling batteries, really strong numbers that Fabio will dive more into in an instant. We also did our first battery sale in Spain in Q3. And we're now working to roll out batteries to more markets in the months ahead. Today, we'll also highlight Holu, our associated company in Brazil to which we provide the software for selling solar panels. It's doing well in Brazil and showing promising growth ahead of us. Fabio?

Fabio Stefanini

executive
#3

Thanks, Andreas. As local managers of the business of Otovo, one of the key priorities to ensure solid operations and good dynamics on the platform. That's the reason why we invested in the last 12 months a lot of energy actually in improving the quality of the installers we have in the platform and improving the number of installers. So if you look to the last 12 months, so versus Q3 last year, we saw an increase of 79% in the total number of installers that are in the platform. And this growth, of course, is coming mainly from the new countries that we launched, like Poland and Italy. But overall, in all the countries, we have to invest energy in order to improve the quality, specifically in some areas and improve the numbers, increase the number of installers. But why is this important for the overall business of Otovo? The first reason is the reduction of the cost for the final customers, so the homeowners, the quality improvement, but also the number is increasing the competition inside the platform. And this is leading to a final improvement for the customer and so also an increase in demand because the cost is going down. Let's take 2 examples. The first one in France that is a more mature country, but still, we see that in the last year, in the last 12 months, we were able to drive 18% of improvement in the cost per watt-peak installed. And impressively, 23% of this improvement is coming from the hardware cost despite all the well-known challenges that we have in the supply chain. But we also -- if we also look to Italy, that is a new country that we officially launched in Q2 this year, so if we observe the change in Q2 versus Q3, we see that the cost is already going down. So the platform effect is already working, and this is improving by 7%. So big improvement for the final customer. Cost is not the only element. We want to deliver with good cost, good prices but also with good quality and time to install. And diversifying and increasing the number of installers that we have in the platform is a key element in order to ensure installations, specifically moment where we see or in regions where we see very high level of demand. One point -- one example is in the north of Italy. So in Italy, we started by covering the country in order to offer the service all over the country. But we quickly realized that the demand is heavily concentrated in the north. That's why we had to go again and must recruit again installers in order to offer the capacity that is needed based on the demand that we observe. Having more installers is also a key element in order to respond to the supply chain turmoil that we see now. So if an installer is not able to find the hardware, maybe another installer is owning the hardware in the warehouse. So he's able to install on behalf of the other installer. But also here comes the other advantage of the platform Otovo, that is an international company, right? So we are now present in 7 countries with Germany. And in case we are not able to find the hardware in a specific country, we can easily pick up the phone and call France, call Spain, call Sweden in order to find the hardware that we need. And that's what we did in Q3 in Italy in order to supply the hardware that was missing in the country. Q3 and Q2 were also important quarters for the launch of new hardware. In Italy, we started testing in Q2 batteries. We started because we saw already demand coming from the market and from the customer who we're talking to. And this addition led us to very good results. So the share of contracts that we sell, including batteries in Q3, is increasing up to 48%. So basically, almost 50% of the contracts that we sign now are including batteries. And this is good, of course, for the business because the ticket size is double when we include the batteries in the sales. And of course, the impact is very, very big on the unit economics for the company. But why is this important for the final customers? So what's the value proposition of these batteries? So actually, the first big advantage is related to the energy saving and the bill savings because with the battery, the customer is able to increase the self-consumption percentage. And this self-consumption can go up to 90% versus a 40% to 50% that we can get only with the photovoltaic installation. This is because basically, with the battery, the customer is able to store the energy that he's producing during the day, and consume the energy during the evening or the night when they need it. This is super important for the energy bill, as we said. It's even more important now when we see energy bill going up very, very steep. Like in Italy, for example, we saw an increase of 30% in October versus September after an increase that we had already up 12% back in July. So it's difficult to forecast, as a homeowner, what's going to be the cost of the energy. And the battery is kind of a protection for the customer in order to comply. On top of that, we, of course, have another advantage that is the emergency power. So with the backup option, the customer is able to ensure against the power outages, and this is super important when we talk about remote areas of the countries. In terms of brands, so after listening to the customers and checking internally the technical quality of this hardware, we decided to go with 3 very well-known brands, that are Huawei, a big chunk of the pie, LG and BYD, all of them super big producer of batteries with a very high-quality hardware. And this is basically offered in different sizes, and we are able, in this way, to satisfy all the customer demand. I'm passing the word too Lars -- or to Andreas.

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#4

Great. In this quarter, sales are up 2.5x from 2020. And it's driven by really significant increases in all markets and strongest growth in both in absolute terms and in percent in Italy. So well done there, Fabio. We're coming out with really strong sales numbers in the quarter, up from 584 in Q2 to 1,470 in the quarter behind us. And that's in Europe alone. In addition, during the quarter, we did 165 sales on the Brazilian platform, bringing the total up to 1,635, that 2.8x if you include that. And that's a bit of a teaser into the Brazilian market that we signed really promising, and it represents a huge opportunity for Otovo. So what is the Brazilian residential solar market? Well, first of all, it's an enormous market. So far this year, and we're counting October, the Brazilians have installed 200,000 systems in the overall market. The market is growing by 50%, driven by same kind of energy crisis that we're seeing in Europe with dry hydro dams and a crunch on the supply side. Brazil is a large country with a rather big middle and upper class that represents a big price and new Germany in a way. How are we competing in this market? We set up an associated company that is a partnership between us and our technology and Gera Energia, a Brazilian solar and distributed energy developer with local knowledge, expertise, a very strong team. We own 34% of the combined entity. And the way this works is that Gera has helped set up the team, the local -- adding local knowledge and expertise on how the electricity markets work in the Brazilian states. And the platform is running on Otovo technology in which we, of course, are exposed in terms of our ownership stake and a fee per project. The key stats for this business is that we did 165 sales in Q3. That's 200% growth from Q2 of this year. So it's looking promising and is maturing quite fast. On the team side, we've recruited Rodrigo as our General Manager and is another good recruitment at the level we see our European GMs. He has background from Uber Eats where he was GM. And prior to that, he's been in Brazilian private equity. A co-investor is also Svein Harald Oygard through his energy investment company. And for those who don't know him so well, he's former Chairman of the Central Bank of Iceland, sits on several large company Boards in Norway, and ran McKinsey's South American energy business for several years. And then finally, the main partner is Gera Energia, a developer in Brazil. They were recently acquired by Raizen. Raizen is a joint venture between Shell and Cosan. So I think all together here, we have the expertise, we have the technology, we have the capital, and we have the local knowledge to make Brazil a success. And this is an exciting opportunity for us going forward. I'll leave the financial highlights now to Lars.

Lars Ekeland

executive
#5

Thank you, Andreas. So looking closer at the financial highlights, we continue to grow both in terms of revenue and gross profit. We have -- we ended the quarter at NOK 88 million in revenue, up by 192% since last year and also up from NOK 64 million last quarter. We exceed the targets for the quarter despite certain supply chain issues and also summer holidays in Europe. Looking at the gross profit. We ended at NOK 15.4 million, up 149% from last year. We are up from NOK 10.3 million last quarter. In terms of margin, the percentage, we ended at 17.5%, up from 16.1% last quarter. The last year third quarter, we were at 20.6%, but that was inflated by broker revenue in France and not really comparable. We are, on the margin side, on track for our year-end target of 18%. And on the EBITDA, we're at negative 32.8% (sic) [ NOK 32.8 million ], trending upwards since last quarter compared with last year. It's down from NOK 22.3 million. If I said percent before, it was Norwegian kroner. On the cash side, we are at NOK 207 million, still comfortable cash position. Looking at the pipeline. Out to the quarter, we have NOK 152 million [ various ] projects in the pipeline. That's more than 3.5x higher than last year same time. It's also up from NOK 103 million last quarter. Going into Q4, we expect to install between NOK 95 million and NOK 105 million of this pipeline. The reason why we're not -- and the remainder will flow into Q1. The reason why we're not installing more is winter season in Scandinavia. We don't know when the snow will come. And there's also still some supply chain issues that may create local bottlenecks in certain markets. There is still -- having said that, there's no real risk related to this pipeline. It will be installed sooner or later, and there's also no price risk really with regards to these projects. The way the platform works is that we -- prices or the cost hikes are pushed over to the consumer in the way it works. Finally, looking at our ESG metrics. We will continue to decarbonize the European electricity grid. We had the full year last year, we installed 10.8 megawatt peak. And this year, year-to-date, we were at 13 megawatts peak. This will obviously continue to grow during Q4. In addition, the energy output of these installations is higher this year than compared to last year, mainly because we grow in countries that are more sunny than where we were before, Spain, France, Italy. The total effect of our current installations this year over the lifetime will be a reduction of CO2 emissions of 141,000 tonnes, and this was also increased during the rest of the year compared with 98,000 for the full year last year. So then I'll leave the word to Andreas. Thank you.

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#6

Thank you, Lars. Now for the outlook looking forward. This has been a record quarter. We're a growth business, and we have more records to break next quarter and the quarters ahead. Our pipeline and the sales we've done in the quarter are sufficient to reach our full year revenue guidance of EUR 29 million. We expect our gross margin on sales to be above 18% and increasing as an exit speed from 2021. We are strengthening our confidence in our ability to take market share in European markets. We're growing in all the existing markets. We're entering new markets successfully, and Christian Rahn and his team are on track for launching on time in Germany in this quarter. With that said, thank you for listening in on the presentation. We'll now go to the question-and-answer section.

Anders Rønold

executive
#7

Yes. Starting with -- if there are any questions in the audience?

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#8

I can take one. [ Alan Weigan ], equity analyst from Arctic Securities. So you mentioned Brazil here. How different is the profitability in this segment, the past segment, especially with regards to the gross profit contribution from this part? Can you say a little bit about that? And secondly, do you see other markets similar to Brazil where you can enter with a pass model? If so, what kind of geographies would that be?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#9

So with regards to the take rate or gross margins on projects in Brazil, we believe that will, for direct sales, be similar to what we're experiencing in Europe. We, of course, see that the Brazilian markets are in early stage. So I think there's some uncertainty around how far it can go. It's still early days. But so far, the unit economics of what we're seeing in Brazil don't look so exotic. They look like the things we've seen in European markets. And then a question about further geographies. In the short to medium term, we're happy with what we're doing in Brazil. But of course, success would take us -- you sort of ask the question whether we should do this in more places. But that's not something that's on the agenda in Q4 or Q1.

Thomas Naess

analyst
#10

Thomas Dowling Naess from SpareBank 1 Markets. First of all, congratulations with a great quarter. Can you say anything about -- or can you say how status is on sales speed in October? And do you expect a quarter-over-quarter increase in Q4 versus Q3?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#11

It's -- we're doing well in October. And when we said we were sort of leveling up, that is true. But -- and it's something we need to do in order to be able to consistently be at our 100% growth, which is sort of the rhythm we want to be at in this company and that we have, we believe, good visibility on going forward. So we're selling sufficiently. Now with -- it's a darker season. We're getting into holiday seasons for December. That's historically -- December is our worst month in sales in terms of the seasonality. So Q2 and Q3 are seasonally the best quarters. And I think we can have country records, et cetera. But I don't want to be more precise on how Q4 will be compared to Q3 than that.

Thomas Naess

analyst
#12

Okay. And you installed, yes, close to 1,100 units this quarter. How is the capability of those 460 installers, which you have online today? What's kind of the maximum capacity they can install during the quarter?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#13

Well, this means that they're at -- this is in solar companies. So they're doing a bit more than 2 each in a quarter. So obviously, we're just utilizing a small portion of their theoretical capacity. We need to be ahead on this because we're growing quite fast. You saw the pipeline is up 3.8x compared to last year. So installer recruitment is important to us going forward. In the guidance we have for Q4, we're forecasting to grow quarter-over-quarter, and that's -- I think that the math of their is quite -- of that is quite straightforward. So we're definitely going to beat the installation records in this quarter, too. And we need to keep doing that in Q1 and Q2 and Q3 going forward, right? So internally, we're stressing getting quality installers with good HSEQ thinking, good quality, you don't make mistakes that will come back to haunt them. And it's often the best quality guys are the best priced guys. So I can say that it's a focus of ours going into 2022 to keep recruiting and to increase the usage we have of the installers that we do. We operate a bit in the same way as [ foodora ], right a restaurant works and not every burger that they make goes to home delivery necessarily, right? And -- but we want to sort of increase our market share of the installers. So there's room to grow in the existing installer base. But with our growth ambition, we need to grow the installer base in addition.

Thomas Naess

analyst
#14

Okay. And just one last question. Very positive to see that you reiterated your guidance on gross margins going out of 2021, sorry. But will those margins be diluted when you enter Germany?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#15

Germany will have a dilutive effect?

Thomas Naess

analyst
#16

Yes. When do you expect that dilutive effect to hit the P&L?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#17

As soon as we start installations in Germany, so that will start in Q1 and come more markedly into effect in Q2. And then it's a question on whether the counterbalancing effect of continued margin expansion in the 2021 launches and the older markets will contribute on that. But I think you sense that we're on a good momentum on gross margin development. And it's -- we're confident that coming out at 18% in Q4 and with an exit speed in sales that we're sort of committing gross margins into Q1 and Q2. As we exit the year, that makes us able to sustain those levels.

Anders Rønold

executive
#18

Some questions from the people that listen in. Can you comment on the development of leasing sale during the quarter and the lease percentage of total sales?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#19

Yes. So the value of leasing installation -- leasing installations in the quarter compared to the value of total sales was 19%. So that is a pretty constant leasing share of business inside the company. There are, of course, differences between markets here with Italy, where we still haven't started leasing at 0%. And then, of course, markets that are quite a bit above 20%. That brings the total to 19%. So that's the situation on the leasing deployment. IDEA published separate numbers on this on the NOTC Messaging Board this morning so you can dive into more details there.

Anders Rønold

executive
#20

Is the batteries leased or bought by the customers.

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#21

The battery business is 100% direct sales now in Q2 and Q3. But this is obviously something we want to include into the leasing offering. In the U.S., you typically see batteries being offered on 10-year leases with the solar pound on 20-year leases, and that's a setup that we will emulate in our market. So batteries will be added to the leasing -- to the leasing product menu shortly.

Anders Rønold

executive
#22

Are you planning to open markets outside of Europe?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#23

We have room to grow in the 7 markets we're present. When we listed on Euronext growth this winter, we said that the use of proceeds would be to enter 3 markets. Germany is one of those. So that's what we've promised and communicated so far. We're happy with the GMs we have. We're happy to be present in these markets. We think we can have inexpensive growth in these markets. And Brazil represents, I'd say, very interesting low-cost optionality for us to be exposed towards a 200,000-plus market with sensible risk-reward profile. And I think we want to take learnings from that before we look at other non-European markets. But I think we're -- one of our strong abilities is to enter markets inexpensively and grow inside them. And with the Germany launch, we will have launched 3 markets in 12 months. So this is, of course, a strong capability of ours.

Anders Rønold

executive
#24

Can you give us some more flavor on the bottlenecks in supply chain? And what you are doing to mitigate this? How could this impact installation time line the next 12 months? That's the first part of the question.

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#25

Yes. Okay. Thanks for making it easy, Anders. So the supply chain globally, I think for lots of goods on others, a rush of reports out on the stock exchanges this week where you see people being -- companies being impacted in all sorts of crazy ways. I want to say the following. First, the supply chain issues have been present in the solar supply chain since January of 2020. When China first was hit by the COVID virus, that impacted production, and you had sort of ear bubbles in the production and supply chain of solar panels. Then you had the lockdowns in Europe impacting also transport and warehouses. So we've been living with this for many quarters now. And we've been absorbing these shifts, I'd say, surprisingly well. And the reason for that is how the platform works. The platform is a portfolio of installer companies with different ForEx situations, with different warehouse situations, with different equipment, all on our white list, but still different OEMs, different wholesalers bringing this equipment in. So there is not concentrated risk on 1 panel brand, on 1 wholesaler, on 1 project that we need to deliver at 1 specific time. So this portfolio approach is very resilient in this situation and has been for the whole COVID situation and now into post COVID. Where are we seeing the problems now? Well, as I think everyone knows, container shipment, the port situation creates local bottlenecks. And as Fabio said, you can be short panels or inverters in northern Italy for a while, and that could impact several installers there. And then it's in Sweden, 1 panel type is short and then the installer who's been so winning projects with that as a basis, starts getting delays. We've taken that into account when we say that out of a pipeline of NOK 152 million, NOK 95 million to NOK 105 million will be installed in Q4. So we've tried to do our best in terms of forecasting how projects will flow. Of course, with the knowledge of what has happened now in October and with our outlook on the dates that are set in the system and the projecting we see inside our software now for November and December. How the platform works in order to mitigate this going forward? Well, first of all, the resilience of the platform works in a way where cost reductions in equipment pass through to the consumers through our platform because the winner, who's the first to reduce the cost will, of course, sort of set the price on the platform. If there's price increases, those feed through to the consumer slower than the average in the market because it's the guy who's slowest to increase his prices who will set the winning price on the platform. So we respond downwards fast and upwards slow. The way we set our profitability is to take a markup on top of the winning price. So the installer is free to cover his cost and to organize his business in a way that's sustainable for him. We add a price on top. That means when there's variation on the incoming cost to us, that does not affect our ability to take margins, but it can affect, of course, demand. But in the current electricity price environment, a price hike on equipment and on installers is not very difficult to pass on to the consumer because the price increases in grid electricity are so much higher. And we will let the platform work, marketplaces work when they're mostly left to their own dynamics, sort of the Darwinism model platform leaving the guys getting more business and the poor guys incentivized to create efficiencies. So that's the main thing. But of course, we have an x-ray view of the whole electricity and the whole installer market. And as Fabio said, we're not afraid of picking up the phone and saying to our installers, yes, I see your bottleneck. There's free capacity here. This is how you can solve it. We're happy to do that sort of free consultancy to deblock these systems. So how will this impact installation times? Well, I think there's a risk we can be sort of seeing the average times increase by a week or 2 doesn't really impact our ability to grow in -- growing the markets we are, doesn't impact us in any major -- in any major way. Except that if we did installations on 2.5 months, you'd know that you'd put them in the box in the next quarter. If they're 3 months and 10 days, well, then it's a bit harder to forecast, right? But does that really matter to the growth? No, it doesn't.

Anders Rønold

executive
#26

You are guiding for an impressive 18% gross margin as exit speed in 2021. Can you give some color on the gross margin potential over time for Otovo?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#27

Yes. So we've guided -- we've communicated earlier that passing the 20 mark and climbing up in the 20s is something that we've envisaged in the planning period going into 2024, '25 and that we talked about when we listed on Euronext. And we're confident on our ability to climb the ladder up the 20s. And I think that's all I want to say about that. Reduction of cost on the platform, our ability to price smartly when there's surges or regional shortages represents a potential. And we have operations, projects internally that also can extract the 1, 2, 3 percentage points here and there over the next couple of years. So climbing the 20s, we believe, is feasible. We have visibility on that. And then if we want to go higher, I think it's really about capturing the value created from the leasing contracts between us. And if you add the value created for consumers, if you have low cost of capital and creating good 20-year contracts towards consumers, there is a case for originators getting a margin hike in years forward from that side of the business, too.

Anders Rønold

executive
#28

Two final questions. The first, could you please elaborate on the OpEx expenses in 2022?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#29

Yes. So our business is one where we have the headquarter cost as a small finance and HQ team and our developer team. So altogether, that's about 40 people. And then the GM organizations consist of a sales team, operations team and support team, alongside local marketing. And when we look at the unit economics, it's typically, we sell systems at between EUR 6,000 and EUR 12,000, EUR 13,000, EUR 14,000 up in Europe. We take that 18%, 20% margin on that ticket. And that money needs to cover the cost of marketing and the sales and operations staff. And we're net contribution positive now in all markets. And to us, it's just a volume gain in order to cover the OpEx here.

Anders Rønold

executive
#30

As you grow, do you expect to gain a competitive advantage related to purchasing power of panels, chargers, et cetera, in addition to the platform benefits?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#31

This is something we've postponed in order to gain resilience. So strategically, you have the choice of being, let's say, open to more equipment manufacturers. And then you reduce risk. If you're not concentrating the purchasing power of the platform on a smaller number of OEMs, which would be the alternative to concentrate on 1 or 2 panel brands, 1 or 2 inverter brands, 1 or 2 battery brands, and then get paid for creating that concentrated demand the same way. For example, the grocery business gets paid by -- to put certain goods at certain locations in the store, right? So -- and we were -- I think we've -- in the last 1.5 years, we've shifted to say resilience is the priority. The priority at this current stage is to get systems through the mill, get the stuff installed. That's what leads to the gross margins, this 18%. Let's not -- let's not mess that up by trying to extract 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% now on the flow-through of panels, right? So in the immediate term, the focus is delivery and throughput. But of course, if we're looking at climbing into the high 20s, this is something that we need to work on. And for sure, our vision is that this is a door that we can open and will be paid for later in the decade.

Anders Rønold

executive
#32

Just 1 short question. Do you consider online classified companies like Fin or Amazon to be potential competitors in the future?

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#33

No, we don't. And I think that's a short answer because we really don't. In -- I come from that background and several of the GMs have classified some marketplace background. And this business is, I'd say, not suited for what they're doing. I'm not seeing an overlap. The workman or handyman platforms don't sufficiently address the trust issue and specialty in this exact sort of our handyman business. And I believe that energy installations will be separate from the general work marketplaces that we see in several countries, and that's been the case for heat pump installations, where we have several successes. As we look like at Otovo, we believe that's what's going to happen also in our business. We really see them not present. The competition is big and slower utilities, small and nimble installers that are both our raw material partners and competitors. And then a very small number of digital sales companies, which we are the only marketplace. So classified is not a factor in my world.

Anders Rønold

executive
#34

Thank you. That's it. Thank you very much for coming, everyone, and have a great day.

Andreas Thorsheim

executive
#35

Thank you.

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to Otovo ASA earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.