Vaisala Oyj (VAIAS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to Vaisala's Fourth Quarter and 2024 Results Call. I am Kai Oistamo, CEO, and I'm joined here by Ville Voipio, who is our Chair; and Heli Lindfors, who is our CFO. Welcome to everybody. So the fourth quarter, it was an excellent finish on a very challenging year, as you may recall. We started the year with the planned ERP change and the industrial actions in Finland and a challenging environment overall in the year, challenging first quarter in terms of results, but we have been improving since the first quarter and finished really the year with an excellent fourth quarter. And excellent, I would say, in all aspects, whether we look at the net sales, if you look at that growth year-on-year 14%, order book 25%, orders received almost on par compared to the previous year, remembering that year ago fourth quarter, we got the Kuwait deal, which was historically the single biggest deal that Vaisala has ever gotten and that was booked in fourth quarter. So the comparison period was kind of extraordinary high. And even with that, we got to almost to the same level. And as a cherry on the cake, the operating result margin, EBIT margin got to be 16.7%. So I would argue that in all aspects, really an excellent finish of the year and excellent quarter as such. Before going into the actual financials more in detail, just a reminder on our strategy and a purpose. Our purpose is taking every measure for the planet. And in strategy, there are 4 strategy drivers, customer understanding and application know-how, that's where it all starts. Then to that together with the production -- product and technology leadership, that's actually the secret sauce for us. In combination then with excellence in supply chain, how do we actually find scalability in a very high mix, low-volume environment as we are in and all built on purpose-driven culture and talent with 4 strategies: growing in industrial measurements with breakthrough technologies, expanding in energy transition and building recurring revenue in data, driving profitability with being global leader in weather systems and then finding always ways how do you make that scalable and simplifying our ways of working and finding ways how we actually can really scale the complex environment that we are in. I'd like to kind of take a moment and actually reflect on this on what we actually did in -- as an example on what I just went through. I talked about the purpose that we had, taking every measure for the planet. It's good to remember that we actually did quite a bit of work the year before and crystallized and launched taking every measure for the planet in February last year. And this is something which is not a major event last year, but it's something -- a foundation. It's something that will carry us many, many, many years going forward. And we find this to be both extremely powerful and in guiding what we do. But it's also very powerful in us differentiating ourselves in multiple different ways, not the least in terms of an employee market, whether it's our own employees or future potential employees, having a real purpose where you can actually talk to your near and dear ones where your daily work really matters, I think, is a huge, huge asset. Then this is not only kind of us talking about the sustainability of our model, our purpose, but it was great to see the recognition by Time Magazine as being one of the world's best companies in kind of combining sustainability with growth. And I think getting these kind of an external objective recognitions being one of the leading companies in the world and really the leading company in Europe. It really was a great testament on who we are and how we do things. A few other things just to pick up from last year. I talked about the leader in weather systems. The fact that I think on this slide is the big deal that we got on nationwide weather radar network in Spain, 18 weather radars with the meteorological agency in Spain with a possibility on further expansion if things go in the right way, kind of major deal in scaling our weather radar business to a new level. We did 3 different acquisitions in terms of driving the growth in weather data and in energy transition. The fact that we also launched many, many new instruments, and I'll pick just one, which is the instrument meant for carbon capture usage. And knowing that the carbon capture is a small business today, but our vision and belief is that it will be a big business end of this decade or in the 2030s. And it's really, really important to be part of actually creating that ecosystem, understanding, getting the in-depth customer understanding in the early trials, in the early implementations. And it shows also the commitment that we have not only the short-term growth, but the long-term growth of the company. I talked about the operations side being the secret sauce for us. We started the investment into the new automated logistics center here in Vantaa, Finland, which is now in kind of taking shape also in a physical way, kind of roof is there, the walls are there, and then we are starting actually the implementation of the machinery inside. It will be a key way of how do we take even further the capability to find scalability in a high mix, low-volume environment. And all built on really a high purpose and engaged employee, which is shown by the employee Net Promoter Score. So overall, not just in terms of the numbers and the financial results, I think the -- so many things in year 2024, which we at Vaisala can be very, very proud of building the foundation also for the future years and the success in the future years. Now moving on to the financials. So excellent operating margin, 16.7% EBIT margin kind of really an excellent result as a result of excellent finish of the year. For those of you who have followed us a longer period of time, there's a certain pattern within the year how our EBIT margin follows the different quarters. In this year, actually, we performed extraordinary well both in the second quarter and especially in the fourth quarter, which then led into the year's kind of a great result on an annual basis, but also it's very visible on the fourth quarter EBIT margin as such. I talked about the orders received almost on the level of the record quarter that we had a year ago on the back of the Kuwait deal. Order book on a high level, up 25% compared to the end of the previous year. And then net sales increased by 14% year-on-year in fourth quarter. Net sales was driven by multiple different things, among which the large kind of -- one of the drivers was the large orders received during the earlier quarters and now being implemented and delivered to the customers, but also the things like growth in the subscription sales, and also the pickup of the pace in the Industrial Measurement side, which I'll talk next. And as a back of the kind of higher net sales, the gross margin also improved clearly compared to the previous year. And cash conversion, I'll talk about that as well a little bit later, continues to be very strong in the fourth quarter and throughout the year. So now into Industrial Measurements, and I'm very happy to report the strong net sales growth in the fourth quarter. The orders received increased by 6% year-on-year, resulting in order book up 5% compared to the same time previous year. Net sales up by 12% compared to year-on-year. This on the back of maybe a couple of things I want to highlight. In these calls, I have said, I think, 2 times in a row that very early signs of recovery have been visible in the North America. Now I guess it's time to call it early signs of recovery. So recognizing that now we have a third quarter in a row where we are seeing recovery. It's still kind of early on the recovery to the full potential, but we are now having like a good kind of traction on that. And then China was also a bright spot now on the fourth quarter and clearly, great to see that being back on kind of clearly a growth number after multiple challenging quarters in a row in Chinese market. And then as a result of increased net sales and the gross margin improved as well, leading into EBIT margin improving significantly to 21.2%. Then moving on to Weather and Environment. We kind of run out of the adjectives now on Weather and Environment. The strong performance continued. I think this is now a fourth quarter in -- at least fourth quarter in a row with the same headline, but that's what it is, strong performance continued. Slight decrease on orders received and the reason really was the extremely strong comparison period of the year before. But order book, if you look at where the order book stands at the end of the year, we are 30% up compared to the same time previous year. Net sales, really, really happy to report net sales increased by 15% when comparing to the same quarter previous year, driven by, again, the large orders in the previous quarters now being delivered organic growth in subscription sales now being 18%, which is a bit higher than what the average for the year was. And this all resulted in gross margin improving as well following the growth and a good mix in sales as well. Leading into what I would say, as long as we have had a Weather and Environment business area, the highest ever EBIT margin of finishing with 13.8% EBIT margin, which is really fantastic. Then moving on to other financial metrics on cash flow. We continued on a good level. The cash conversion from operating items was continued to be 1.0. And some decrease on cash flow from operating activities, mainly due to the increase in net working capital driven by the higher net sales or the net sales growth actually. But like I said, a strong cash flow continued on a good level when we look at the full year operating result, great to see that we finished the year at 15% operating margin. The orders received grew by 7% and net sales grew by 4%. Gross margin improved, EBIT margin improved and leading into EPS of EUR 1.76, which is a significant uptake also from the previous year. I want to take a moment also here just to recognize as well that in 2021, we launched a new strategy and the metrics for the new strategy for the strategy period of 3 years where we said we would target to grow 7% on average growth and end up with the operating margin of 15% by the end of the strategy period. And it really -- happy to report that we actually met the promises that we made 3 years ago. This is a fantastic slide to show -- continue to show that now over 10 years in a row, increasing dividend, if you take the additional dividend out kind of -- but I think it's a fair to take out. And this is not something that many, many other companies can show. It is something to be really, really proud of as a continuum of and shows how the company has been for a long period of time, performing with a good momentum and improving metrics. So the proposal for the Annual Shareholder Meeting is that the dividend would be -- for the 2024 would be EUR 0.85, which is EUR 0.10 up from the previous year, driven by the higher profitability as I spoke. We continue to be on a very strong financial position. We are very -- we have a very low leverage on our balance sheet. The business model that we have is very asset-light. We have a few investments and we did both started investments and did investments during last year. I spoke about the automated logistics center here in Vantaa, Finland, which is progressing according to the plan. And just to remind you, we expect that to be operational during the second half of this year. And then we announced and closed the acquisitions of Nevis, Speedwell and WeatherDesk, both for the renewable energy and then for the data sales. A few words on market and business outlook. So when we look at the market outlook for this year, we see growth in industrial instruments, in life science and in power. In power, this is a continuation of the trend that has been there for some time. And then on stable side, we see meteorology, aviation, roads and renewable energy. Many of these are actually by nature, a stable industries with some fluctuations between the years and such as the meteorology and aviation and roads. By nature as the markets are stable, and we see that to continue throughout this year as well. This then leading into business outlook for 2025, and we estimate that our full year 2025 net sales will be in the range of EUR 590 million to EUR 620 million. The comparison we ended last year was EUR 565 million. And then on operating results side, and now we are guiding in terms of EBITA. And we -- just as a reminder, we estimate that our full year result in EBITA terms for this year 2025 will be in the range between EUR 90 million to EUR 105 million. The comparison number here for last year was EUR 90 million. So with this, I just want to kind of one more time recognize the excellent quarter, excellent finish for the year. A lot of hard work throughout the organization and lots of kudos to our colleagues across the company from sales to operations to logistics, to finance, to actually get the orders, manufacture everything, deliver it to our customer and recognize the revenues, a fantastic finish of the year. With that, I want to finish and open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Nikko Ruokangas from SEB.

This is Nik Ruokangas from SEB. I have a couple of questions and maybe starting with the order development in Q4. So as you said already, you had good order growth in Weather and Environment, excluding the big order from the comparison period. So was there something bigger also this quarter in Q4? Or was this just generally good development?

No, generally a good development. We didn't have anything extraordinary kind of recognized now in the fourth quarter. So it was just kind of lots of -- kind of smaller and midsized orders.

All right. I understand. Then on the profitability side, where you saw quite nice improvement on both business areas. You mentioned that you performed extraordinarily well in Q4. So is this something you expect to keep also going forward? Or if not, what are the gains or items you think that you might lose in '25 compared to now Q4 '24?

Yes, that's a good question. Thank you. And I think there are a couple of things that I want to recognize now in Q4. And some of them, I think, are a result of hard work that we have been -- and fruits from things that we have been doing over the kind of sometimes even a couple of past years. That one thing is that we were sometimes the accuracy on delivering everything, the whole order book, especially at the end of the year, especially in a situation where we had very few working days in the month of December when all the holidays dropped into the weekdays instead of weekends. In that environment, I think our operations and sales performed extraordinarily well where we actually were able to recognize the order book in very, very well this year. Also being able to manage the demand between the years and the year-end, especially on the Industrial Measurements side. And thirdly, I think the kind of a success also on cost control where we have bit had a negative surprises at the end of the year in terms of maybe lack of discipline in booking costs and so on, and we had none of that during this year. So there were lots of this kind of operational improvement. The last one actually is more of a shift within a year. It's a question on when do you book and normal, you should book it when the actual cost occurs, not just forgetting it to be booked in the fourth quarter, which unfortunately, we had a bad habit of. And now we've done it. And certainly, we intend to keep that going forward as well. But that's -- that was more of an in-year improvement rather than like going forward, it's we -- when we compare to different years, I don't think the last one necessarily is something that is a bit winner year's improvement.

I understand. That explains. Maybe continuing on the profitability and going into '25 and your guidance, where your guidance midpoint roughly indicates flat EBITA margin. So is this kind of explains what you just said that you don't expect similar kind of efficiency in '25? Or what is the reason for not kind of expecting margin improvement despite sales growth?

Yes. So first of all, I think we had a very good finish of the year. I think that's now the comparison gets harder. That's one side. And the other thing is that it goes a little bit on the net sales guidance as well that like you saw now in the fourth quarter, our business scales very nicely when we over perform on the top line. And now given everything that is going around in the world, the uncertainties are -- I've said this before, but I would kind of use extraordinarily short visibility in many things because of all the geopolitics and tariff discussions, potential tariff discussions and so on. So it's very hard to be having -- or having a good visibility on the demand side throughout the year. One thing being like what it means to us, but especially what it means to our customers is uncertainty. And in a situation of uncertainty, it's just easy to move a little bit investments into the future. So we are kind of cautious in this given the lack of visibility.

Okay. So that you then prefer to give a kind of cautious guidance given the uncertainties.

We give the guidance in the same way as we always. These are the numbers that we believe in. But I just remind you that it is the demand side is kind of extraordinary lack of visibility at the moment in terms of when we think about the entire year.

Sure, sure. Then last one for me. I guess that you already discussed this, but could you describe a bit environment in the U.S. within your customers? And how have you seen or have you seen your clients' behavior changing during this kind of political uncertainty period?

Yes. So short term, like it's hard to compare like a month, it's too short. But if I now look at last year, I think first time I commented the very early signs of potential recovery starting in the U.S. was second quarter. And now there's 3 quarters in a row where we have seen a gradual improvement, albeit still early in vis-a-vis the full potential, as I said earlier. So at least seems like the optimism in our customer side has been kind of increasing slightly throughout the last year.

The next question comes from Atte Jortikka from Evli.

Hi, this is Atte from Evli Research. Congrats on the strong Q4. First, still on the guidance, I am trying to challenge you a bit. So, if we consider the current tailwinds you have a strong order book, you have the improving market in industrial side and also you have done the acquisitions in weather. So, in what kind of scenario is the lower end based upon?

Like I said, there's uncertainties, you can play many scenarios in how the world is going. We have not taken into kind of change in direct regime into account when given in the guidance. So -- and the reason for that is so hard to actually even speculate on that given the wide range of the commentary in the public space at the moment. And -- but it does create uncertainty. Obviously, this kind of all the speculation that is ongoing, the discussion that we are having at the moment, I mean, the kind of many companies are having the same thing and creates uncertainty and kind of in the times of uncertainty easy to push your investment decisions a bit forward with the hopes that visibility improves and that's maybe unintended consequence of all this kind of dialogue at the moment.

Yes. Got it. Thank you. Then on the weather side, you obviously aim to turn the subscription business to profitability during the current strategic period. I was just thinking that how this developed already during Q4? Was the business already in black figures, for example, in terms of EBITDA or still in red?

I don't want to go into fourth quarter. I think we still have our work cut out a little bit on it. You have to remember also we had -- we kind of -- if you look at the numbers on the subscription side, I said the organic growth was 18% when you compare to kind of comparable assets. And then on top of that, we had a bit of a tailwind in the actual reported numbers from Speedwell Climate, which was there for most of the quarter and then a bit of like the last month also from WeatherDesk. So there's a bit of a boost from both of those as well. And clearly now going into 2025, we have a bigger base to grow from and we anticipate and expect that we will grow kind of on a historic level on kind of when we look at the organic assets and with the new assets, obviously, the integration is well going on and we would expect to grow in the double digit also on that kind of when we think about the new assets.

Yes. Thank you. Then also on the weather side, you have now had stable outlook for the renewable energy for 2 quarters, yet you are growing very strongly, both net sales and orders. Is this due to you gaining market share or how do you see the market at the moment and your position in it also going forward?

Yes. So, I think there is a pause, I would describe it this way, especially on the offshore wind, but also wind investments overall, partly driven by the uncertainties that we talked about. And there, it's partly a demand question as well that many of the energy hungry investments have been postponed. Therefore, the need for further investments in renewable energy has been a little bit postponed. And the other thing is that in the U.S. clearly the environment is changing and there probably I think it's fair to assume a pause in especially on the wind side, less so in the solar side, but on the wind side. It's not a stop, but there's clearly a slowdown on the growth side especially in the U.S. and -- but nothing has changed in our view kind of when we look at a little bit like longer-term view. I mean we are still just in the beginning of transition from carbohydrates to renewable energies.

Got it. Then my last question is a bit technical and for Heli. So how large share of the total intangible assets consisted of goodwill at the end of the year?

I think we even gave it as a figures in the release. So, let me check. I think if you have other questions, I can check in the meantime and get back to you.

I suggest that if there are any other questions, then Heli will get back to you after.

Yes. No problem. I have no further questions. So that's all from me.

The next question comes from Matti Riikonen from Carnegie.

It's Matti Riikonen, Carnegie. A couple of small questions and then some questions for the future modeling. I will start with the simple one. In Industrial Measurement, you had the growing line in services and you have basically said that it's because you are now putting more emphasis into that and it's more predictable. Now that the base number has increased in '24, do you think that the growth can continue in IM services at the same level or should we expect that it will drop to a more normalized level which it was before?

Yes. So very good question, Matti. And thank you for that. So we have had actually throughout the year kind of a higher than historical number kind of growth rates on the services side on the Industrial Measurement side. And that's as I said and we discussed in the previous quarters, that's partly on the back of the high growth that we experienced in the years '21, '22, where kind of a very strong net sales growth. And now we know the embedded base is bigger. And now we are benefiting from the embedded base that we built during those years. So that's part of it. And part of it is the hard work we have been doing in developing this business. So it's kind of a combination of the 2. The kind of eventually, I would say, not kind of hard to model exactly a quarter or a year, like the impact on a higher embedded base growth that we had during those years that slowly dilutes. But the intent is that we intend to grow it faster on the top line of -- depending obviously on the top line of the Industrial Measurements, but kind of continue to grow it as such and see it as an important part of the value that we create.

All right. That's helpful. Then a question related to the large weather orders that you have received and they are now in the order backlog. And now I'm mainly talking about the period of '25 to '27. So what kind of revenue distribution should we expect for those orders? I mainly mean that is it going to be kind of evenly split per time? Or is it more back-end loaded? Because when the orders land at different years, it makes quite a big difference in how you assume the revenue recognition during that period. So could you discuss that a bit and help us understand how we should be modeling it?

It partly depends on the case. So first of all, if you take 2 examples, the Kuwait and Spain, the Kuwait is a longer period of actually the delivery of the system. It is a more complicated system consisting of multiple different kinds of sets of equipment and systems compared to Spain, which is where the weather radar network is complicated by itself, but it is a weather radar network. And Spain is a shorter period also in terms of delivery, where it's going to be a bit last year, this year, and going into the year after when the deliveries are going to be on the Spain side, barring further purchases that were optional in that contract. So some of these things, we kind of recognize as a level of completion, the revenue. And some of the projects on a more complicated side may have a little bit of a shape as you indicated that's a little bit more back-end loaded. But some of the other ones, like I would say the Spanish case, not so much. It depends on what projects we are talking about. There's always a little bit more in the back-end, but not much.

Okay. Fair enough. That's good. And then related to the Indonesian order, which is not yet in the order backlog, is any of that embedded in your guidance for 2025? Or should we assume that it will not even begin before 2026?

It's not going to be, even if it begins this year, it's not going to be a meaningful revenue recognized this year, even in the best case. So no is the answer. It's kind of '26 and onwards. And first, we got to close the deal.

Yes, of course. Then another technical question. Now with the WeatherDesk acquisition and the others, you mentioned in the Q3 report and commentary that because it's software, there will be a large share of deferred revenue. And I was just wondering, again, for modeling purposes, how much of the kind of annual revenue that WeatherDesk normally makes would be deferred revenue in your accounts so that the actual new revenue that you would book in your group net sales would be lower? So could you give us some indication of the split, how much is in the balance sheet and not affecting the top line? And how much is actually then affecting the top line positively during '25? Also, I'm assuming that this would be a maximum 12-month impact so that in 2026, you would have a kind of full revenue contribution from WeatherDesk.

Yes. The 12 months is correct. So it's only for 12 months. But maybe, Heli, it's better if you comment on how the accounting treatment is.

So the accounting treatment that what we get as the deferred revenue is only around -- depends on how they invoice or have been invoicing before and what we get as assets. So we do expect to see an impact on that, but it shouldn't be more than 20% of the revenue, not even that. And it should be gone as the next year.

So basically, you would be booking roughly 80% of WeatherDesk's comparable revenue normally, and then only maybe 20% maximum would not be recognized as revenue in '24, '25?

Correct.

Exactly.

Plus obviously, all the growth that we may have on those assets.

Yes, of course. And I'm also assuming that the costs will be incurring normally so that if temporarily, you are missing the 20% of revenue and you would still have 100% of costs, then naturally, the margin contribution would be lower than it would be then in 2026 when you have kind of 100% of revenue and 100% of costs. Is it that? Or is it something different?

It is that.

All right. Good. And could you also advise us with the acquisition-related amortization in '25. Now we saw the Q4 number, but will it increase from that quarterly level going forward? I mean, to calculate your EBITA would be much easier if we knew that how much the acquisition-related amortization actually is. So any indication of that would be helpful.

Yes. Of course, we have also old acquisitions where the kind of amortizations are ending, and then we are having the new ones that are coming in. So we are expecting at the level of EUR 10 million in '25 for the amortization.

And that's in total?

Yes.

All right. Thanks. Then a couple of small ones. The rental income, it's a small line, but it increased quite a lot since the earlier quarters. Was there something unusual behind the increase? Or should we expect that, that is the normal rate going forward?

That's related to the wind lidar business. I don't think there was anything extraordinary in the quarter. There's some fluctuation between the quarters, but -- and sometimes, it's a fleet that gets rented and then partly also then refurbished and sold afterwards. So it bit fluctuates on what that size is between the different quarters.

All right. Good. Then my final question is related to the strikes in Finland or the potentially more strikes in Finland. Have you been affected so far? And do you think that you will be affected in the near future?

We have already had one 6-day strike a 3 weeks ago -- week ago. And then we will -- there's a new announcement, which will start the week of the March 3, if I'm not mistaken, where it's the entire working week is -- the strike is going to impact us as well.

So 6 days already and then 7 days...

I think it's a similar 6 days. So it's from Monday morning until Saturday night.

The next question come from Waltteri Rossi from Danske Bank.

Before you ask the question, maybe Heli will answers the Atte's question before.

Yes. Sure. Go ahead.

Thank you. So if you look from the cash flow statement, where you will see that our acquisitions, they were roughly EUR 87 million on top of the normal CapEx, and more than half of that will be goodwill. The final figure you will see in 2 weeks' time or 3 weeks' time in the annual accounts.

Okay. So, I guess I can go. Thank you, Kai for the presentation. First question regarding the Industrial Measurements. If you look at the historical development, it's been quite steady between quarters. Are you expecting it to be relatively stable also this year?

Yes, barring any kind of like speculations on what happens in the world. But barring all that, I don't see any reason why the shape of the demand would be any different than other years in the past.

Okay. That's clear. Then what about the seasonality and project timing this year in the Weather and Environment segment between quarters? Can you help us kind of model that line a bit?

That's more challenging, and it does fluctuate. As a reminder for all of you that there is -- as was part of your indication of your question that it does fluctuate between the quarters and not all the quarters are similar exactly for the reason that especially with that now the bigger projects that when certain milestones are gotten and when the revenue is recognized, it has impact between the quarters. We have not given any guidance on a quarterly level on how to think about that. But there will be, I would assume, fluctuation as there has been in the past years.

All right. Fair enough. Then about the profitability in Weather and in Environment segment, you mentioned that the good sales mix was part of the good profitability last year. Can you help me understand, is it more about the mix in terms of different segments or mix within the segments, for example, in aviation and meteorology?

It's less between the mix in the segment. It's more products and projects are typically what it drives the products to have a higher gross margin and a higher profitability than when you recognize a lot of projects. And then some of the products per se in relative terms have a little bit of a different gross margin profiles. So there's a bit of that as well, but it's mostly between the products and projects.

All right. Fair enough. Then lastly, still on the profitability in the Weather and Environment. As said, 2024 profitability improved quite a lot, and it seems to be coming from all lines in the P&L basically. Do you expect this kind of similar improvement to continue towards the company-level target this year as well?

Yes. So obviously, like I said earlier in my comments that we had a tailwind coming from the growth on the net sales, which always kind of reflects kind of then there's a scalability impact into profitability as well. And then now given that we are on a very good level in many of the segments like meteorology and aviation and so on, we have been very successful with many of the bigger and smaller projects recently. As the market is not growing, there's kind of a limit on how far you can continue to grow, natural limits on how far you can continue to grow. Not necessarily that we are at those limits exactly yet, but it is going to be harder and harder to continue to grow on kind of a traditional side of the business and then as we talked about the meteorology -- sorry the renewable energy, a bit of -- as we have been saying now for a couple of quarters, a bit of a pause, I would say, in the market, describe it that way in terms of how the world being a little bit more challenging for new wind projects impacting also our short-term growth prospects on those.

The next question comes from Pauli Lohi from Inderes Oyj.

It's Pauli from Inderes. First I would like to talk about -- you mentioned the improvement in Industrial Measurements growth in China after a weaker period. Is it mainly due to lower comparison figures? Or do you see any fundamental improvement in China?

That's an excellent question. Part of it is obviously the lower comparison figures as always. But there was even sequentially when you look at it, it actually was an improvement. So there was a bit of an improvement in the marketplace. Now, was it just 1 quarter or will it continue in the next year? We have no evidence either way at the moment. And China has been -- there has been quite a bit of cautiousness, which I've spoken about in the previous quarterly calls overall, in terms of new investments and everything else. There are new stimulus packages, how much did that have an impact yet and how lasting impact did it have? Time will tell. But obviously, the glass half full is that we did have clearly a better quarter now in the fourth quarter, and let's see how it continues.

That was very helpful. Then discussing potential tariffs from America or USA, if they would set general import tariffs for all the European imports, how would that affect your competition dynamics in the U.S.? Do you have any significant competition in there that produces domestically something that you import from Europe?

Great question. And so in some segments, we have domestic competition, and some segments not. And how to think about it is that there are a few places, and this is clearly a minority in Industrial Measurements where we have local competition, the majority of it is kind of other European global companies who would not have manufacturing in the U.S. And then on the Weather and Environment side, likewise, we do have some competition in some segments in kind of as US-based companies. The majority of the competition would be coming from other European global companies. That being said, the other thing in maybe worthwhile saying in the Weather and Environment, good to remember that when it's a question of public customers, they have fixed budgets, and their budgets are not going to increase if there are going to be tariffs or whatever. So limits a bit on how much you can compensate by increasing prices, which was, I assume, behind your question. I know in the end, the market will decide how much can be compensated by increasing prices.

That was a very good answer. Well, then looking to the growth in Europe, and Middle East, and Africa, the growth was strong in Q4. So was there any like large project delivery boosting that number? Or how do you see that market?

Yes. So that was really driven by the Weather and Environment side and many of the impacts that we talked about, it really was all the larger orders actually are in Europe, Middle East, Africa side this year, like if you think about Kuwait, that's Middle East, Spain, Europe and so on. So there has been quite many kind of European side on that side. And then on the other hand, if you look at the industrial investments overall in Europe, they have been few and far apart, I would describe it that way, and the uncertainty that the discussion, for example, with the tariff regimes, it doesn't help.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers.

So thank you, everybody, for participating. Thanks for great questions. In case any further questions, you know where we are and how to contact us and do not hesitate to drop us an e-mail or give us a call. So thank you, and a great continuation of the week. Bye now.