Bittium Oyj

And welcome to this press conference on Bittium's full year 2023 financial results published today morning. My name is Karolina Malmi and I will be hosting this event for you today. Those who have been able to read our report in the morning already know last year was very challenging for us. And in this conference, our CEO, Johan Westermark, will present you the financial results and give you a business update from last year. We will also talk about our updated strategy we announced October last year and how this year will look for Bittium. And of course, if you have questions, I kindly ask you to write them in the Q&A box and we will answer them all at the end of the presentation. But now I will hand over to Johan in Helsinki.

So thank you, Carolina. Let's start with the summary of 2023 and start with with the financials and we could see that the net sales and operating results were weak and net sales in Q4 were 25.7 million euros and operating result was 1 million euro. This included non-recurring costs of 3.2 million euros. And if you look at the whole year, we can see that we had a net sales of 75.2 million euros and operating result of minus 4.3 million euros, which of course included the non-recurring costs. And let's have a look at the big picture of the year, what happened. Year 23 was a year of changes. We changed the management, the company management, and with the new group management team, we started to work on updating the strategy. and especially focus on 2024-25, where we want to change the company from an R&D house towards a company of profitable growth with more independent business segments. And the key idea with the strategy was focus. Focus on existing offerings and improving their competitiveness, focus on sales, strengthening the sales. We have a strong customer base, so let's work closely with existing customers, key account management, grow with the customers and also acquire new customers. We went through the processes and practices really to make sure we work in the most efficient way. We already took some actions last year. We streamlined the organization, and we went through change negotiations, where we can see that the change negotiations, we can get annual savings of, as a result of the change negotiations, savings of 6 million euros. We expect to see that in 24. Then business highlights. Let's start with the defense and security. A little bit look at the markets first. We see the geopolitical uncertainty has led the states to increase their defense budgets, and we can see new projects starting to modernize the defense forces. Finland joined the NATO alliance, and this clearly has a positive effect on lithium, strengthen our market position. In 2023, as we said, was a challenging year. Product delivery volumes were lower than we expected, and mainly caused by slower progress in several customers' projects during the last year. And then, regarding the cooperation with the Finnish Defence Forces, which is on a very good level. We signed a new frame agreement for bitium-tackvin systems, and TUF Comnode products. We received new order to develop software-based rotor. The deployment of the Bitium TUF SDR products, they're proceeding slower than we expected, but according to Finnish Defense Forces plans. And then on international defense markets, NATO approved the SOR waveform, as a standard for tactical communication, which is positive for Bitium. We continued deliveries and integration work of tactical communication systems with existing customers. We participated in several tenders for tactical communication systems. And discussions with international air defense and sensor systems suppliers continued. We also saw in the market the grown interest towards secure communication among authorities. Then the medical business segment. We can see remote diagnostics market continues to grow. However, insurance policies related to treatment reimbursement vary between countries, and this affects the growth pace. Entering new markets require obtaining medical device approvals in different countries, and this can take more than a year. Bithium has applied for medical device approvals in several different countries. And then the process for applying the FDA approval for our Respiro device has taken longer than estimated. On the cardiac side, last year we saw the shortage of components affecting especially the deliveries of Bithium-Pharos. and most of our product deliveries we were able to make to our customer in the US, Boston Scientific Cardiac Diagnostics. On the sleep side, new distributor agreement with ResMed was signed, and deliveries of first batches of Bithium Respiro home sleep apnea measuring devices for customer trials continued, and the feedback has been positive. On the neuro side, customer piloting of bithium brain status is proceeding as planned. And then engineering services business segment. Last year, the markets were challenging. But despite the challenging markets, our R&D services sales grew in 23. We were able to acquire new customers outside Finland, and we can see the accelerating of digitalization in various industries increased the need for design services. We also saw a trend that European companies were shifting their R&D work geographically to Europe, and this had a positive effect on Bitium's R&D services sales. We were able to broaden or expand our customer portfolio with new customers, for example, in transportation and professional tool markets, which included remote-controlled overall systems and connectivity solutions, connectivity parts and traffic control systems, measuring devices intended for professional use and their connectivity solutions. Then let's have a look at the financials. And let's start with the quarterly development of net sales and focus on Q4 23. Total net sales decreased by 7% compared to previous year, and we ended up with 25.7 million euros. Product-based net sales were 16.8 million euros, which was lower than last year. And the drop came mainly from the defence and security products, which was 11.4 compared to 15.8 last year. Service-based net sales, we saw growth. Compared to last year, we ended up with 8.9 million euros, of which the engineering services was 4.3 million euros. Then, yearly development of net sales. In 2023, the total net sales decreased by 8.8 compared to the previous year, we ended up with 75.2 million euros. Product-based net sales were 45.8 million. And we can see the biggest drop in the defense sector product sales was from previous year. And we ended up 23 in 24 million. and which was lower than the previous year. And the main reason for this lower volume was the lower volumes in Takvin sales that we expected last year. Then on the service-based net sales, we saw growth. We ended up with 29.5 million euros, of which the engineering services We could see it was 17 million euros where we had a growth compared to last year. The rest of the service-based sales came from the defense sector, where we had several projects in the software development side. Operating results development. Q4, we had an operating result of 1 million euros. The yearly operating result for 2023 was minus 4.3 million euros. The operating result was affected by the non-recurring items of 3.2 million euros, which included €0.7 million related to change negotiations and €2.5 million non-recurring write-downs in inventory. R&D investments. The level of R&D investment decreased slightly. we ended up with 20.2 million euros, capitalizations were 7.2 million, depreciations 5.6, and the total R&D costs and depreciations in the P&L was 18.6 million euros. The main focus in R&D investments in 23 was medical technology products and tactical communication systems and radios. According to our strategy, we will continue to do R&D investments in 24, but these investments will have a strong focus in improving the competitiveness of existing products and services. Cash flow. We can see the net cash from operating activities was 1.2 million euros. And net change in cash and cash equivalents was minus 10.7. The net cash from investing activities include investments made to our own product development, 7.2 million euros. The net cash from financing activities include dividend payments, 1.8, and the repurchase of own shares of 0.9, and additional leasing costs. Then let's have a look at the balance sheet. Start with the assets. Non-current assets, 84.6 million euros, which included property, plant, equipment, capitalized development and other assets. Current assets, 73.1 million, which included inventories, trade and other receivables, cash and liquid assets. Equity and liabilities. Equity was 107.6. Liabilities, 50.1 million euros, which included trade and other payables, interest bearing debt, other liabilities, and we had a net gearing of 13.2%. and an equity ratio of 69.6. And then let's have a look at this year. We see that now we have a good foundation for profitable growth. We have highly committed people in the organization, highly skilled people in the organization. We have world-class products and services. We have a strong customer base and we have mega trends supporting the growth. We have updated the strategy And we have a clear action plan how to reach the profitable growth. So we have a solid foundation for profitable growth at this stage. And regarding the updated strategy, I still want to go through the key focus areas, what we have there. First is the change. Changing the company from an R&D house to a profitable growth company. We have three business segments. We have medical, defence and security, and engineering services. Additionally, we have a fourth segment, which is the group functions, but we have three business segments. Products and services. We will have a strong focus on continue to develop the existing products and services, not developing new things or new products and services. Improving the competitiveness of the existing products and services. Then sales is something that we have strong focus on now. Strengthening the sales. We have a good customer base. And together with our existing customers and strong key account management, we want to grow with the existing customers. In addition to that, acquire new customers. Then efficiency and profitability. We have gone through the processes and practices and really streamlined the organization and cost structure to improve the efficiency and profitability. So the main target of this strategy update was to achieve an average annual sales growth of more than 10% and an operating profit level of 10%. Financial outlook for 24. What we expect for 2024 is to have a net sales between 85 and 95 million euros. Operating result we expect to be between 7 million and 9.5 million euros. And more information regarding this you can find on our internet pages bitium.com. An investor calendar for this year. We will publish the annual report. 20th of March. We will have the annual general meeting. 10th of April, Q1 results, April 26th, Q2, August 9th, and Q3, October 18th. And to highlight the segment-based reporting, we will give out then after the first quarter, so the 26th of April. And now I would like to give the word to Carolina.

Thank you, Johan, for the presentation. Yes, I will have a couple of questions here and I will start. What was the main reason for the defense product sales drop this year?

The main reason, as I mentioned earlier, was the lower volume of Takvin products, lower deliveries of Takvin products than we estimated and compared to previous year. At the same time, we came out with a new frame agreement for Finnish Defence Forces for Takvin products for the coming year, so we expect that to pick up.

Okay, thank you. Next one. What was the 2.5 million euros impairment of inventory regarding? So what products?

It was components when we have gone through now With the strategy work, we have gone through thoroughly our forecast for the future and see how our forecast for future products are. And there we saw when we went through the inventory, we see that we had some inventory that did not match our forecast. And this is what we then did the write down.

Thank you. So about the guidance, could you comment on the main assumptions that you have made regarding the net sales development? So what is required for the lower part of it and what is required for the high end in the guidance?

I think first of all, when we have done the guidance, we have gone through the strategy, we have gone through the sales plans, everything what we see, we have gone through the key account plans. So this is something we ended up when we see how we can grow with existing customers mainly. Then what it requires is, like I said in the strategy, is strengthen the sales. Really working closely with existing customers to making sure we get all the opportunities that's out there with existing customers. But it also requires additional, some new customers to reach this. But at the moment, we clearly see that this is something we can do this year.

Okay, thank you. And yes, does that include the ramp up of Bidjumpa staff at the ARR deliveries? Is it possible for you to comment on the timeline with Finnish Defence Forces?

As SDR phones, so this is something that has, it's going forward as planned. No changes there. At the same time, it has gone through extensive testings already and it will continue to do that. We have strong confidence that there is no issues regarding that. that the product is working well and so far it has shown to do that. But it's taking some time there and we hope to see the picking up of SDRs this year, latest next year, but this year already.

Hey, thank you. Excluding non-recurring items, your cost structure seems to be down a lot more than communicated 0.8 million euros from the savings program. Is there something else that explains high margins, for example, especially positive sales mix?

No, I don't follow the question.

Okay, excluding. I think it is meant that our cost structure seems to be smaller, lower than last year, and that we communicated that there was a 0.8 million euros cost savings from the programme, but compared to last year, maybe it's better, I ask, if the person who asked the question may rephrase it again in the chat, so I will read it later. I think that's a better idea. Okay, and let's go forward. Will Dictium receive royalties from countries that use ESSOR in the future?

That's something we can comment later in this. It's still something that has just been approved, rolling out, and how it will work, we can get some more information regarding that at the later stage.

Okay, thank you. There's also another question regarding the ESSOR data rate waveform. Now, NATO has accepted it as a standard, so will that bring something to Bithium cash flow, or does that affect somehow the Bithium's future outlook?

I think that has definitely an impact on Bittium. We are a partner of the Essor consortium. This means also that we will implement the Essor waveform in our products. So from that perspective, there is a good product of good waveform, excellent products, and that's something that's of high interest in the NATO countries.

Okay, thank you. I think that was it for the questions today. And I haven't received any further questions. Yeah, so I think that was for all today. So on my behalf, I would like to thank you for participating in this event. And I wish you all a good rest of the day.

On behalf of my behalf, thank you everybody for joining. Thank you and have a great day.