2/18/2025

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Good day and a warm welcome to SmartEyes Q4 2024 earnings call hosted by RedEye. My name is Jacob Benon and I will be moderating the session where we will start with a company presentation followed by a Q&A. And with us today, we have SmartEyes CEO Martin Krantz and CFO Mats Benaminsson. And without further ado, I will leave the word over to Martin and Mats. Welcome.

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Thank you, Jacob. Let's get going. SmartEye, we are doing technology that understands, supports, predicts human behavior in complex environments, including cars of course. We have a good quarter behind us. For the first time we have more than 100 million SEK in quarterly revenue. 10% more than last year, but the organic growth goes all the way up to 18%, which we are very happy with. It's mainly driven by that we have 75 car models in production at the end of Q4. That's eight more than the previous quarter and it's ramping up at a good speed. One more OEM, 10 OEMs instead of nine. That all in all gives us 42% organic growth for automotive. But automotive revenue consists of two things. It consists of licenses and other stuff such as services and prototype systems and aftermarket products and so on. And the licenses are growing at a very brisk pace, 200% last quarter. So although that is very good, I'm very happy with 200% growth of license revenue, it's going to be better. 2025 the licenses will grow faster than 200%, I should also say significantly faster than 200%. We are really ramping up right now. Behavioral research had a good quarter in Q4, 7% better than last year. The same quarter last year, which was a record quarter. So this is our new best quarter ever for behavioral research. revenue is growing and if we were to sort of separate behavioral research from the rest of the company that part of the company is has a solid profitability right now so we are growing with profit we are super happy with that EBITDA is 19 million, minus 19 million in Q4. And the underlying EBITDA, we have some restructuring costs, we have some other one-time items. The underlying EBITDA or the operational EBITDA is just minus 3 million SEX. So we are close now to that target of being EBITDA positive, I should say. We have a savings program in progress. We talked about it last quarter. We continued to do savings during Q4 and we are also continuing to do it in Q1. It will be finished by the end of Q1 and it's going to give us 10 million SEK in savings per quarter on the operational expenses. The cars are increasing, we have 75 cars in production or let's say that have reached production because some of them are actually phasing out. So 75 cars reached production up until now and during 2025 we are estimating or guiding 70 to 80 car models that will go into production this year. Which is of course good, as many as has ever been going into production during all years. And that's the main driver for the increase in license revenue. This is a graph that we have shown before. It shows how the development of design wins, the orders for new car models are coming in. You can see that it starts out with humble beginnings in 2015-2016. We have just two models. Back then it was one from BMW and one from Audi. But it's slowly progressing during the 2010s and then it's standing a bit flat during Covid. Covid sort of delayed everything in the automotive industry. and then it really picks up speed from the end of 2022 and the curve is very steep from that point up on up until 359 design wins which is the current level of design wins and then we can see here we have sort of tried to mark out that how many of these cars went into production during which period that's the pink numbers on this graph so up until 2022 there was a certain let's say block of design means that went into production up until 23 another block 20 end of 24 where we are right now and that's the 75 car models of the Q4 report you can see that we were still mostly looking or getting into production those car models that were won during the 2010s. But in 2025 we are getting moving forward into that steep end of this curve, the steep slope of this curve. So when we say 70 to 80 car models this year we are getting into that really quick acceleration phase. and what i'm saying by that is of course when you look at 2026 you will go even further on that steep end so we will get during 2026 we will get much closer to towards the top of this graph But of course, this graph will not look the same in 2026 because we keep on winning more business. We have a strong standing in the industry. We have good quality, many OEMs, many cars in production. So when it looks to design wins and automotive licenses, we have a very bright future ahead of us. Here is a little bit of a recording that I thought could be interesting to show. This is what we call cabin monitoring. The driver monitoring, the thing that we've been selling since 2015, it focuses mostly on the gaze or the head, I should say, of the driver. You have a close-up image of a driver's head and you analyze as much as possible, as good as possible, from gaze behavior, eyelids and things like that. Cabin monitoring, on the other hand, you have different types of cameras. I'm actually going to run this recording one more time. You have a different type of camera. You see, in this case, the whole upper body of the driver. You can see the seat belt. You can detect how the body is moving, arms, gestures. You can also detect child seats and things like this. So this is a different technology. We currently have seven design wins where the customers have sort of moved from DMS only into DMS plus cabin monitoring. And we see this as a great upsell opportunity for our DMS, these 359 design wins, which are for DMS. Many of these customers, many of these cars and OEMs and T1s have an interest in upselling and getting more out of the cameras that are in the car and also to add more cameras into the car. There are really, let's say, three different configurations. You have a configuration where you have a close-up of the driver's head and looking at very accurately the eyes of the driver and determining with high fidelity the distraction level, the drowsiness level and things like that. Then you have these cabin monitoring features where you're looking at a much bigger image and detecting more stuff. And then you also have an intermediate solution when you put a camera in the rearview mirror and try to do everything with that camera in the rearview mirror. It's a little bit of a compromise. The best performance is, of course, if you can have a system which are measuring with at least two cameras. But also some customers choose that compromise solution. So it's a very interesting field of technology for AI in cars. And we are, I should say, right in the epicenter of this development right now. Why is the market growing so fast? I would say that the main driver, why the curve was kind of flat from 2015 up until Covid and then moves so rapidly up after that, the curve of the design wins. It's because of legislation. So there is a new European legislation kicking in in 2026 called General Safety Regulation GSR. And you're not allowed to sell a car in Europe if it doesn't have a driver monitoring. This becomes like a seatbelt or an airbag. It has to be in every car sold in Europe. and this when the law came in 2019 it felt like this is forever before this law actually kicks in now we're in 2025 it's just one and a half year before this is mandatory so that's why the main that's the root cause that's the main cause why it's growing so fast But also Euro NCAP has picked up on this new technology and sort of moving the bar upwards and challenging the industry to implement even more advanced technology and put it into the cars and save even more lives. And of course we are super thankful for the support by Euro NCAP for the DMS industry and cabin monitoring industry. We see that these kind of regulations will probably come in other parts of the world but right now Europe is most progressive. and last but not least we have during this after the end of q4 i should say we we announced it in the beginning of january we have done a collaboration with fingerprint cards fingerprint cards had the leading technology for iris authentication this is something which enables a lot of cool features in the car if you can be absolutely sure who is driving i mean if you just use the key fob you can loan someone else's key fob and step into the car but if you have this technology you can start doing stuff in the car that you can do already with your iphone or with your smartphone So you can do transactions and all sorts of interesting stuff. Health wellness, for example, are also an interesting field for this new feature. So we have a lot of requests from the industry for authentication and we are super excited to be able to upsell this new technology to the market. And with that, I'm going to leave to you Mats.

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

Thank you. So, yes, look, let's look into the financial result for the quarter. We had, as Martin said, a very good net sales development reporting over 100 million SEK in net sales with a growth of 10%. As we have said before, we have a stable gross margin, so it's around 90%. And we have also reported improved profitability both on EBITDA operational result and earnings before tax. But then we have two one-time items that we need to explain a little bit more about and that is the automotive NRE revenue distribution. We have gone through this one of the NRE projects and we have recalculated the distribution over the project life cycle. So this is amounted to 6.2 million and 1.1 million refers to Q4 2023. The other part is that we working with our cost savings activities. So in the quarter we have restructuring costs amounted to 9.8 million. We continue with the cost savings activities in Q1 2025 here and we expect from Q2 2025 that we will have less OPEX from these cost savings activities. So around 10 million per quarter we expect to have the effect of the cost savings activities. So with that said, the adjusted organic growth amounts to 80% and the gross profit adjusted plus 16 million and the underlying EBITDA amounts to minus 2.7 compared to 19.5 last year. So a good improvement of the profitability with 16.8 million. The automotive business reports a growth of 60% year on year. Adjusted growth amounts to 42% and adjusted rolling 12 amounts to plus 55%. And of course, this is driven by the good growth in license revenue that in the quarter amounts to 200%. If you take out the adjustment for the net NRE revenue, also we have a good development in the project revenue for the quarter. Behavioral research also a very strong development in Q4. All time high. It's amounted 62 million for the quarter. The highest we have reported for the business area. And this has been a strong order intake and sales development for iMotion. Media analytics also have a strong development in net sales for the quarter. And research instruments improve their net sales compared to Q3. So good closing for the year. We have cost control working very hard with our spending and in the quarter the OPEX is 4.4 higher. But if you compare the underlying, if you take out the one time out items, we're actually having quite slightly lower OPEX compared to last quarter. Sorry, compared to the same quarter last year. And of course, this improves the profitability. And of course, this is driven by the higher sales. Finally, the cash flow development. We have available cash ending balance amounted to 229.7 million. And this includes all the facilities that we have. Per the end of December we have utilized 25 million and the cash flow net is minus 23.1 million. The operating cash flow is 9.8 million and the one-time payments that we have had in the quarter and this refers both to the restructuring that we have done and also the financing part and this amounts to 8.9 million. And finally the investments in the activities are a little bit higher in Q4 compared to previous quarters and that is due to that we invest in more in our new coming features. Going forward we expect it usually is around 23 to 25 million and we expect it to be a little bit higher in the coming quarters. So I think that was the final from the presentation.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, great. Thank you very much for that presentation. We have a lot of questions today, both from my end and from our viewers. So if we maybe can just start with some quarterly specific questions. Starting with license revenue, you state that it's growing roughly 200% year over year. Can you talk about that kind of development? Is it any specific OEM that is driving it or is it more on a broader level?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

It's still mainly driven by increases from Korea and North America, just like last quarter. But also other regions are growing, but they are not contributing as much yet as North America and Korea.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

You said that you expect this 200% to be even higher in 2025, is that a correct assumption? Yes, by a rather wide margin higher. Seems encouraging. Also, you had some slides on this, Mats, regarding the cost development during the quarter. So is this something you are doing to ensure that you're optimized for reaching profitable EBITDA in 2025, I guess? Or how should we view this?

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

Yeah, we're working with the cost and cost saving activities and of course this is to secure that we will come EBITDA positive in 2025.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And just a quick one on the adjustment in the automotive revenue. So is it then correct to assume that like the underlying revenue for automotive in Q4 is 42 million SEK and not like the reported 36?

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

That is correct. This 6.2 million is referring to Q4 2023 to Q3 2024. Okay, perfect.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Great. And if we're moving on a bit then to some news that you announced during the quarter or even after the quarter, you have recently announced two design wins for interior sensing, which you also mentioned in the presentation. And you stated in the press release that it's logical to source the same supplier since there are synergies in connecting both cameras to the same processing platform to achieve better performance and lower costs. Firstly, is there like any way to quantify how much an OEM can save by like using interior sensing features from you instead of like maybe procuring it from another supplier?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

That's a really good question. I don't know exactly the sort of quantified answer to that question. But seeing from an OEM perspective to manage two suppliers One for example who would do the cabin monitoring and another supplier would do the driver monitoring. It adds complexity for the OEM. I mean it takes more resources for the OEM to manage this. So you have like the handling cost of handling one supplier instead of two is lower. But what I'm mostly referring to when I talk about synergies is the synergies of hosting both software stacks or in SmartEye's case one software stack on the same ECU. If you have the cabin monitoring And the driver monitoring running in the same software stack, it's on one ECU. It gives you advantages in terms of how much processing power is needed to comply with or to reach the feature maturity or to get the features to work really well.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, and so would you say that because you have already won a lot of design wins with DMS, would you say that your position to upsell interior sensing features to the same car models is way better than competitors?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Yeah, if you talk about a competitor that comes from the side and want to sell cabin monitoring to the same OEM in a software defined vehicle where everything is supposed to work on one ECU. I mean, definitely SmartEye is in pole position for those deals. I'm not saying that we would win every single one of them, but we have a good There is a logic to sourcing SmartEye again.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Perfect. And also on that, you have stated previously that SmartEye's average selling price for DMS varies somewhere between 5 to 10 euros. How much is this compared to the cost for an OEM to actually get the hardware in the car such as the camera with the full DMS package? How much of the total cost are you representing?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Let's say like a total DMS package. which would consist of camera, illumination, optics, cable, connectors and an ECU. Loosely speaking, 100 euros. And driver monitoring, let's say 5 euros as an average sales price. Depends on the feature set of course, there is more or less features depending on what OEM wants. But let's say 100 euros and 5 euros on the software. Now, if you have a software-defined vehicle, you can take out the ECU cost. You just need the camera and the cable and the connectors and the software. And the ECU, the electronic control unit, that's the most expensive part of a complete ECU system. So I would say that you probably could sort of get rid of a cost which is 50 euros or more for the ECU. But of course, Software Defined Vehicles is working with a very advanced processing platform. So the processing platform is not very cheap. If you buy something from Qualcomm or Texas Instruments or NVIDIA, it's going to be a costly processor, but you will gain from the more sensors and actuators you can connect to this ECU, the more you save.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay perfect and like lastly regarding this you have previously stated that like integrating interior sensing into a vehicle has the possibility of like doubling SmartEyes ASP compared to like only supplying And with the design wins that you released so far with interior sensing, it seems like it's even maybe more than that when you crunch the numbers a bit. But would you say that these are one-offs and they are very high feature sets that you have sold in now? Or would you consider that doubling the ASP is more reasonable than what we have seen now?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Now, I think if you're an investor and you want to model the upsell potential, I still think that doubling the license fee is a good approximation. There are going to be certain examples when we sell much more and when we sell less. Just like with DMS, it can be above five euros per car, but it can also be held below five euros per car. So I think doubling is a good approximation. I don't want to go beyond that so to say.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

I see. And speaking of design wins then, there has been like quite a few design wins awarded compared to like in the past years in December and January which is usually like a very heavy nomination heavy like period for not only you but for everyone and the nominations have been quite absent both from you except for this interior sensing design win and also from competitors. Is there any like shifting dynamic here or how should we view this?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

I would say that there is no shifting dynamic. The purchasing departments of huge OEMs, they are not exactly gazelles. They are moving slowly but surely. And it takes time to extract these purchase orders and get all the contracts signed. These are large sums of money in some instances, so they need to be... Yeah, it takes time, so to say, to get through the machinery. But nothing unusual there, I should say. I don't expect there to be fewer nominations or design wins in 2025 than in 2024. On the contrary, I expect the speed to increase.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, interesting. And like now we're actually starting to see a lot of vehicles like in real life rolling out with the DMS software and like yeah there's many cars hitting road DMS both from SmartEye and competitors of course. And if you read around about DMS in these new cars, it's quite common actually that many drivers complain about these systems. For example, they think it's way too sensitive or makes irritating noises if you just look away for maybe a second. And I've actually heard some stories about people maybe not even buying the car if the DMS is very annoying or not good enough. So firstly, what is your thoughts on this critique against DMS?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

no i i think in in in some cases uh the critique has been too harsh and in some cases cases this critique is justified and i see it as the like this that the dms technology is quite new there are still some like early bugs or whatever you want to call it in the in the user interface which needs to be overcome There is also, I should say, some example tier ones and OEMs that have maybe gone for the cheapest camera, cheapest ECU, cheapest software and found out the hard way that this does not actually work very well. There are also examples where let's say the DMS function was perfectly well functioning but the let's say the UX, the user interface, the thing that you program into the infotainment system of the car was not properly implemented. So we have seen a few examples where the OEM actually needed to fix some bugs in the UX software to make it work perfectly. So I think this is, let's say, the kind of errors that you can see in the early phase of the adoption curve of a new technology, and I don't expect it to be common in the future.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay. And just to be clear, is it the supplier of the DMS, like for example SmartEye, that decide how the DMS will work and when it will react and when it will sound an alarm?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

No, no, no. That belongs to the OEM. Very few OEMs would even allow like a traditional big tier one to be responsible for that. The OEMs themselves own the user interface between the car and the driver.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, that answers many of my questions. And if we move forward, you mentioned the fingerprint deal here in the presentation. I just wanted to ask you some questions regarding capital allocation. I mean, there's obviously an enormous amount of reinvestment opportunities into this exciting area with interior sensing and all of these increasing feature sets that the OEMs want. And like my question therefore is like how do you evaluate what projects to allocate resources into as there are so many and maybe you can talk about like your process that and like what kind of returns on your investments are you aiming to achieve?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Yeah I mean the IRIS authentication technology that we license is a good example we've been asked for for several years by both tier ones and oems if we cannot solve this problem because it's a sought after feature in the car so for us that was almost a no-brainer to when when we had the opportunity to do it but of course there are other things that we are working on as well new cabin monitoring features or or things like that And of course we are let's say more focused on being able to reach EBDA as soon as possible than what we are focusing on developing like a whole array of brand new features right now. Because we think that with the current uncertainties geopolitically in the automotive industry with where is the market going to go and things like that. We see that as soon as we are profitable and generating our own cash flow we stand on our own legs and we are the masters of our own destiny. So that's why we are so focused on reaching that first of all. But of course that doesn't mean that we are cancelling all our development projects. Not at all. I mean we also need to keep pace with the rest of the market. So this right now it's a balancing act. And I hope that we will soon be able to turn on the faucet a little bit more when it comes to investing in the new and exciting features. So I don't know if that answers your question but it's a balancing act and of course what happens in the world around us will affect us and what the competitors are doing and what the market is requesting and so on.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Yeah, but so like regarding this specific deal that you made with Fingerprint, it was like you saw a clear demand from your customers, I guess. And you saw that you had something to bring to the table here with your like established relationships and isn't that kind of... Exactly, so that if we take this technology, integrate it into our software stack,

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

we will have lots of upsells potential for that. Not like in the far future, already this year.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, so you expect to maybe have some design win with Iris technology during 2025 or?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

I'm very optimistic that we could have it already in 2025.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Perfect. And just a question about AIS that is also part of automotive. How is this business era progressing specifically during Q4? We know that you don't separate revenue streams. Can you give us any flavor on how it's developing?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

So we have several development programs that are progressing well. And we expect the revenue stream to increase rapidly by the end of this year. So when GSR kicks in and there will be a lot of buses and trucks and also some sports cars that will have to comply to GSR and put in these systems. So the volumes and the revenue will pick up.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, by the end of 2025 then? And this quarter specifically you didn't see like any major increased activity?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

We had increased let's say NRE revenue but it was still on a small level compared to the rest of automotive.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Okay, I see. And how's it looking with procurements for AIS at the moment? Is it much ongoing or is much decided already?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Yeah, we are doing especially well when it comes to bus manufacturers. We talked a little bit about it last quarter, but we still haven't seen a huge pickup in production volumes. Still, the production volumes are small, but of course, GSR applies also to buses. So if you want to sell your bus in Europe after July next year, you better have the system. Okay, I see.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And behavioral research, also like here. Firstly, why do you think there was a sudden drop in Q3 and you seem to have bounced back very quickly now during Q4?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Yeah, that's a very good question. It was a struggle in the market. It's been... delays could have been the American election that caused some of the research funding delays, especially on the North American market. It's been tough out there, a lot of hard competition for the deals. But in Q4, in spite of that, we did very well. I had high expectations, but this exceeded my expectations for Q4. And it continues to look really good for 2025. But I don't expect us to repeat, let's say, the big Q4 level of revenue in Q1, because the end of year effect is a real thing.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

It's a seasonally strong quarter. It's a seasonally effect, yeah. I see. And a more like overall broader questions maybe this is a question for Mats or both of you to answer. Like Smarte is really approaching profitability here on EBITDA level at least and you state that you are expecting to reach it during 2025 and I think like many investors are wondering like What kind of company will SmartEye be in like 2027 or 2026 when the legislations in Europe are kicking in? So correct me if I'm wrong but to deliver your contracts for 2026 and 2027 you wouldn't like necessarily need to raise your cost base as much I guess. So can you say something about like, how will your profitability profile be in these kind of years? What kind of company is SmartEye gonna be? Are you gonna reinvest lots of money into like new features or yeah, talk maybe like broadly about how you consider SmartEye to be in the next three years?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Well, as an entrepreneur, I see a lot of possibilities in reinvesting the profit. and sort of increase the average sales price by adding new features to the existing customers to have upsell like we're having with cabin monitoring today. There are other such possibilities that we haven't talked very much about yet. But of course, I'm like a small owner, I'm an entrepreneur. the shareholders decide if it's going to be dividend or if it's going to be reinvestments into the company. So that's for the shareholders meeting to decide. Not the CEO.

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

Do you have something to add, Mats, regarding like... No, I think the most important is that we focus on the EBITDA development and the cash flow to become cash flow positive. And then, of course, we will see that this DMS will drive the license revenue for a long time going forward. Since it's so long cycles in the automotive industry. And then, of course, as Martin said, there are opportunities, but the question is what to do and how it will be developed over time. So I think that is, as you say, up to the board.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

So a broad answer, but we will see, I guess, going forward.

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

We are more busy in just reaching EBITDA positive and then cash flow positive. That keeps us busy and sort of the strategy for capital allocation after we have done that, it's still something to be determined. But that's going to be sort of a dialogue between the management team and the owners, I think.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And we have got a lot of questions online, so I will read some up here and hopefully we'll get some answers. So first question is regarding competition from China. How do you see competitors from China in the DMS space and maybe also CMS?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

That's a good question. That's a really good question because what China has done is that they have declared that being really far advanced in AI is a matter of national priority. I mean, it's a priority for the Chinese people and the Chinese state to have really great companies that do AI. So, I mean, this means that I expect there to be super great Chinese competitors that do both DMS and CMS but on the other hand right now with the current rules and regulations they are not allowed to sell to the US and whether or not they will sell or sell a lot to Europe it remains to be seen. But I would not be surprised if there is going to be like a division between China and the rest of the world when it comes to a lot of AI stuff, not only driver monitoring, but also for large language models or whatever. So it remains to be seen, but we are going to stay vigilant and see how it develops. Yeah.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And another question here is, what's your thoughts regarding the gross margin in a longer perspective? In many cases, it is very high in the beginning for a successful innovation to later decrease rapidly. How will you maintain your gross margin long term?

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

Since the license revenue will be the main driver in our net sales development over time. And so the automotive industry, the automotive business area will increase their net sales more. Then of course, we see that over time that it will be around 90%. So since we just are a software company for the automotive industry.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And maybe another question to you Mats. You have actually said it before but maybe it can be repeated. When do you believe SmartEye will be cash flow positive?

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

We're now starting with the cost savings activity to be in a good position for Q2 to have full effect from the cost activities from then and then to become EBITDA positive and then the EBITDA positive we say that we will be that in 2025 hopefully earlier than later. And then we also said that two to three quarters after we have become EBITDA positive, then the cash flow positive will hopefully kick in, or should be kicking in. But it's difficult to estimate the car production ramp up since we're having this big increase.

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

So behavioral research is already generating cash. So it's about getting automotive to come to the same point. And it's going to primarily come from licenses with 100% gross margins.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Yeah, perfect. I think that was pretty clear. Two to three quarters after ABTA profitability. And another question about the mirror-related contract, which we talked about earlier. Is this an informal arrangement via Gentex? And do you see this developing to an exclusive arrangement similar to Magna and SIEM machines?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

We cannot comment any... particular tier ones or OEMs unless we are released from the NDAs that we have signed so cannot comment.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

I see. And another question is, okay, I think this investor refers to like, how many years is like the lag between DMS and cabin monitoring in terms of maybe hitting an inflection point or like really starting to affect the numbers?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Yeah, that's a great question. We were expecting earlier, like two years ago, we were expecting the, of course, the inflection point for DMS to be earlier, but COVID made... made it delayed. Now we were expecting back then that the high growth phase for cabin monitoring would start 2026. Now since DMS has been delayed I believe that 2027 is more realistic for cabin monitoring. Not to get design wins, of course you can get some design wins, but when do the actual revenue kicking? That I think 27 is a good year for that.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And another question that maybe you cannot comment on, but maybe you can give some flavor. Can you say how much licenses are in percentage of total automotive revenue?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

We are not broadcasting or we're not communicating that for a purpose.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

The answer is no. Moving on. Can you expand a bit more on the CIEC 10 million in savings per quarter that you expect from 2025? Where in the P&L cost base will we see these savings?

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

Since the biggest part of OPEX is referring to employees and personal expenses. So, of course, it's about headcount. And we have done, as we said earlier, work now in Q4 and we continue that in Q1.

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Yeah, it's a little bit of an English word for it. Cheesecrater.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Yeah, we understand what you mean. And how should we think about order intake versus sales development in iMotion in terms of lag? You said something about iMotion having very strong order intake, I think.

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

Yeah, some of this order is spending over one or two or three years so then of course we have to distribute the revenue or allocate the revenue over the contract life cycle so to say. So therefore it was very strong and if it's a strong Q4 in order intake it will have effect on the net sales the coming quarters.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And that is just to be clear that's for iMotions only? Yes. Perfect. And also... There are many questions that we have already handled I guess. Here's a question like, why was the decision made to change your revenue recognition for NRE? What is the accounting principle for this change?

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

When we look into the NRE projects that we have, they have one project that have a slightly different setup in payment terms. So usually in the NRE project we can invoice during the project lifecycle and now in one particular project there is a later the invoicing is later and then we need to recognize the revenue for the project in another way and that is what have had effect here in Q4.

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

But it's still the same sum of money just distributed in a different way.

speaker
Mats Benaminsson
CFO

I think it's important to say this is not the write-down of any revenue. The revenue for the project is still the same. It's just how we allocate it over the life cycle.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

And no cash flow effect then, I guess. No. And maybe the last question, which I'm not sure if you can answer either, but has 2 million cars on the road been reached?

speaker
Martin Krantz
CEO

Oh yeah, that was reached. The question is not, I would say, when 3 million cars will be reached, the question is when does 10 million cars, when is that reached? That's the question you should ask.

speaker
Jacob Benon
Moderator

Perfect. That is actually all the questions we had today. So I will leave the floor over to you if you have something you would like to say to conclude the earnings call. The future is bright. The future is bright. Yep. Thank you very much for participating today. Thank you. Thank you.

Disclaimer

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