Tobii Dynavox AB (publ)

Okay. Good morning everyone and welcome to this earnings call. We will cover the first quarter 2024, summarizing our business in January, February, and March. I'm Fredrik Ruben, I'm the CEO of Tobii Dinerbox.

Hello, I'm Linda Thyring, the CFO of Tobii Dinerbox and I will cover the financials.

For those of you who have participated in these calls before, you will be familiar that we will start by quick recap about what Tobii Dinerbox does. Then we will summarize the main takeaways from the quarter. We will dive deeper into the financials and thereafter, we will open up for a Q&A session. You can submit your questions during the live session in the chat function here in Teams. But we of course always welcome offline questions sent by email to Linda's email address, linda.thyring at tobidinerbox.com. Okey-dokey. A brief overview of Tobii Dinerbox, the company. First and foremost, it's super important to reiterate our mission and vision, which I know is very dear not to only our 700 plus colleagues around the world, but also to our ecosystems of partners and investors. Our vision is a world where everyone can communicate. We contribute to this via focusing on our mission, which reads to empower people with disabilities to do what they once did, or never thought possible. This also summarizes two of our main user stories. The first one is the do what you once did. That may refer to the person who led a normal life until diagnosed with something such as ALS which rendered her then unable to control the body or communicate like before. The other, the never thought possible, can refer to the child that's diagnosed at an early age with a condition such as autism or cerebral palsy where thanks to our solutions, he can do much more than the world around him ever thought possible. On the picture here you see Brock. He's from Louisiana, USA. He's one of those amazing young users and he's diagnosed with non-verbal autism, and he's a great example of exactly this. The market that Tobii Dinerbox serves is hugely underserved. Some 50 million people have a condition so grave, they simply cannot communicate unless they have a solution such as ours. Every year about two million people are being diagnosed and yet we estimate that only 2 percent of those are actually being helped, and the rest, they remain silent. The main reason for this spells lack of awareness also among the professionals and the prescribers task to assist these users combined with a poor healthcare reimbursement system. Tobii Dinerbox, we operate with a global footprint. Some three-quarters of our business today stems out of the US and that's largely because a reasonably well-functioning funding system which was established some 20, 30 years ago. Our products are sold in about 65 markets around the world, of which the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are markets where we sell directly, while the others are served by a network of some 100 plus reseller partners. Our staff is distributed in a similar way as the revenue, meaning that some 70 plus percent of our staff are based in North America with our US headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our second largest office is our headquarter here in Stockholm, but we have branch offices in several European countries as well as in Soju, China. And as of today, we are a little bit north of 700 employees in total. In September of last year, we added a new division to our team via the acquisition of Re-Adapt, which also means that we welcomed some 50 new colleagues mainly based in Re-Adapt's headquarters in Kastle in Germany. With prior acquisitions, we have also then established or increased our presence specifically in Belgium, France, Ireland and Denmark. We provide a comprehensive portfolio of solutions and that ranges from the content such as the world's leading symbol library, its symbol communication symbols called PCS, and a solution for the off the shelf or custom made voices that are the highest quality in diversity of languages, ages, ethnicities. We have highly sophisticated communication software tailored to the type of user, which can greatly, which of course can vary greatly based on the needs. We develop and design devices with cutting edge technology and medically certified durability, including communication aids controlled via eye tracking and accessories such as the Re-Adapt mounts. We have a services portfolio to help our users through the complexity of obtaining and getting funding for solutions. And then last but not least, we're there to help our users, the therapists and the caregivers through our global teams of support resources. And we operate this model globally. Hence, it's important to note that each piece of the picture here is critically important, but also a significant differentiator for us, making us absolutely unique. Our go to market model is predominantly as prescribed aids. Handsome 90% of our revenue comes from either public or private insurance providers. But this also means that we have solid paying customers. We have always historically been resilient towards changes in the overall economic climate. Great. So now we'll come back to the main topic of today, focusing on the earnings report for the first quarter of 2024. And if I summarize and look at the highlights, we had another very solid quarter when it comes to revenue growth. The growth compared to the same quarter previous year sums up to 28%, both before and after adjusting for currency effects. This basically continues the trend that we've seen for the past eight quarters. The first quarter is normally also our seasonally weakest quarter. During the first quarter, we continue to report good growth across the board, meaning in all geographies, across all products and user groups. We benefit from a market leading an up to date product portfolio, which we continuously improve with new products and features. Our work to improve awareness and competence continues specifically among prescribers and professionals. The North American market continues to show strong growth. It is by far the largest and most influential market, both for us and for our industry. But we continue to have equally good growth rates also in Europe and other countries. The strong momentum among the younger user base continues, and that includes children with autism, for example, that rely on our symbol communication solutions and in particular a software called TD Snap. Our OPEC levels increase, but we are a consequence of investments to secure the future growth and building the foundation for a much bigger company in the future. Hence, we continue to invest in our staff, mainly within sales and marketing, but also in backend systems and tools. We also continue to improve our profitability at an even faster pace. So our operating profits increased by more than 50% in the quarter and our earnings per share increased by some 45% compared to the same quarter 2023. But over to you, Linda, to dig a little bit deeper into the financials.

Thank you. So revenue for the first quarter came in at 428 million SEC, a 28% year on year growth, both before and after currency effects. M&A contributed with 7% and hence organic growth was a solid 21%. Continue the transaction for two years quarters, I would say. As Fredrik mentioned, North America continues to be a strong growth, but remains the same case for Europe and the rest of the world. And as we have talked about prior, both in prior quarters and today, we continue to see growth across regions, products and user groups. The gross margin ended up at 68%. The main factors behind the improvement or of just above one percentage points were economic of scale, increased sales price, as well as price adjustment implemented last year, but partly offset by the negatively impact on increased purchase price. EBIT for the quarter was 32 million SEC or .6% versus .3% last year. Our OPEC increased by 26% organically. The OPEC increase mainly relates to staff increase with about more than 100 additional FTs, including acquisitions. A majority of these were added in sales and marketing organization. In addition to that, the salaries increased and was into force in April 1st, 2023. We have invested in system and tools of around three million SEC to manage a growing business and setting up us to be able to handle a much bigger company in the future. This contributed to the cost increase and is something we need to continue to invest in to be able to manage the growth we see. The cost for our existing long-term incentive programs was affected by the increase in the Tobidinox share price during the quarter. The associated cost for this increase with about 7 million SEC. Net R&D cost increased by 5 million SEC. And if we look at the earnings per share, it increased by 45% versus last year from 0.7 SEC per share to 0.1 SEC per share. So this quarter. If we then talk about the cash flow, cash flow after continuous investment was positive 10 million SEC. Cash at hand by the end of the quarter was 120 million SEC. Net debt was 603 million SEC. And we amortized our credit facility with 43 million SEC in the quarter. The total used credit facility and term loan at the end of the quarter was 635 million SEC. And net debt over last 12 months EBITDA was 1.8 times net debt EBITDA. Fredrik, let's conclude the meeting.

Yeah, short and sweet. Thank you, Linda. So before we open up on this call for questions, I'd like to reiterate some of the main takeaways from the first quarter 2024. So first of all, we continue to show solid growth, a trend that was started in Q2 2022, meaning almost two years ago. We grew the revenue in the quarter by 28% and it should be noted that the first quarter is our seasonality-wise weakest quarter every year. We continue to see revenue growth across all geographies and all product segments. And our profitability continues to move upwards with the price adjustments in effect and an organization that scales better day by day. And that renders an increase in earnings per share of 45%. Previously acquired companies contribute well and are developing favorably. Given the unprecedented growth, we continue our investments in systems and tools, preparing us for being a much, much larger and successfully managed company also in the future. During the quarter, we updated our long-term financial goals, which reads that, and we revised these targets, I should say, on February 21st this year in a capital markets day. And they are expressed with a time horizon of roughly three to four years. So the first metric we're looking at is the average. On average, we grow our revenue by 20% per year, adjusted for currency effects, but including contributions from acquisitions. And we have for the past eight quarters proven that a growth of 20% in local currencies is possible, which means that we have found a revenue growth momentum to build on. The market that we serve remains hugely underserved. And with the examples of the growth levers we have spoken about today, the sales expansion, meaning adding local presence and operational excellence, and for example, M&A will continue to build on our growth journey. If you then look at profitability, the target reads that we will deliver an EBIT margin that reaches and exceeds 15%. We have proven to build strong growth with incremental improvements in profitability. We need to continue to invest in future growth with improvements in scale. For example, of continued to grow through better educated prescribers that become more self-sufficient and more satisfied customers that leads to a higher degree of replacement sales. Hence, the recipe is rather simple. We continued revenue growth, high and stable gross margin, and a total operating expense that increases at a lower pace than our revenue. As a consequence, we see good opportunity to further leverage how revenue growth translates to reaching and exceeding an EBIT margin of 15%. Last but not least, we did update our dividends policy, which is then looking a little bit into the future where Tobii Danovox, I mean, we do have a very attractive cash flow profile, given the growth opportunities we need to maintain a capital structure to enable strategic flexibility, for example, to do acquisitions. But still, we are expected to generate excess cash, and our policy is therefore to distribute at least 40% of the available net profits to shareholders via dividends, share repurchases or similar programs. All right, with that, we are handing an inviting to the studio, Christian Hall, who is tasked with taking questions from the audience. Fire away, Christian.

Thanks, Fredrik. Hello, everyone. So we have a question, first of all, from Daniel Juerberg at Handelsbanken. He asks regarding the financial nets and so on, and he regarding the main factors affecting the net financial items during the quarter. And if you can guide us regarding the underlying run rate of the financial nets going forward.

Yeah, if we look at the interest rate, it's stable and has been so for the past quarters. The main factor in the financial net is actually FX impact that we have on assets that are in different currencies. So that's a negative impact in the quarter. So it's non cash effective.

Can you say something about the run rate going forward?

It should be pretty stable going forward when it comes to our interest rates. So historically, I mean, we are amortizing our loan, so it will slightly go down, but the interest rate is market levels.

Okay, thanks. Okay, and then we have another question from Daniel. So, you're above teen growth level started in Q2 2023, hence you meet tougher comps from Q2 and onwards. I guess the plus 20% level organic growth should fall back some mid-teen coming quarter, also given the lower positive impact from pricing. Any view on the bits and pieces would be great regarding the organic growth going forward? Sure,

I can probably. First of all, the new trend started in 2022, not 2023. So we actually have two consecutive years and hence the tougher comps is something that we already have in our pockets for a year. We stand by our projections when it comes to the long-term financial targets where we believe that we will have a sustainable -on-year growth of 20%. Hence, that's as close as we come to kind of giving any type of forecasting and that's expressed on a three to four year horizon, but we feel quite confident in the continued growth rate and the tougher comps is again, that's something that we now live with for two years, in fact.

And that's also why we continue to invest in sales and marketing, is to continue to build the growth.

Okay, and then the question from Oskar, Rundqvist at ABG. Good morning. Were there any skewing factors impacting the organic growth negatively, such as delivery bottlenecks or less working days due to Easter, for instance? Anything to get a good sense of the organic growth run rate would be helpful.

Sure. So the access to products and inventory was not the hindering factor. We feel quite well equipped in terms of having enough security stock of products. So we were not limited by any means during the quarter. The seasonality effects with Easter and everything this year was a leap year. So we gained a day and Easter came early. So we lost a day, but there are no material impacts from seasonality effects. But I want to stress again that the first quarter is our weakest quarter. Typically, specifically in our biggest market, the reimbursement system almost resets on January 1, which means that it does take some time before the machinery start rolling. On the other hand, that's something we have seen for the long time. We have equally good confidence in the underlying business in both what we deliver and how we stand today.

OK, and another question from Oscar at ABG. Gross margin was a bit impacted by higher components, you mentioned. Anything effects driven or has the prices in US dollars risen over the last quarter? And can you elaborate on the expected price increases facing during 2024?

It's norm. I would say that the price increases normally in, I would say, inflation that we see some cost impacts on the prices on our devices. But over time, as we grow, we will continue to be able to negotiate this down.

I think it's important to note we will have fluctuation from one quarter to the other. There are certain quarters when we need to buy more inventory, maybe where we need to ship more hastily, which typically happens at the higher cost. And then there will be quarters going forward where that will be the contrary. So don't read too much on our long-term performance when it comes to individual quarters. Again, we reiterate confidence both when it comes to our long-term opportunity when it comes to growth, but also when it comes to EBIT margins. And whatever happens in between there is time will tell.

And Daniel Newberry asks also regarding your view on the possible growth hurdles ahead. Focusing on various reimbursement systems and efficiency of this, what is in your hands and what are the structural limitations to growth, if any?

Yeah, when it comes to reimbursement, we don't have any hurdles for the very simple reason that the share of spend for a reimbursement system or a medical insurance system in a country that when it comes to communication aids is a tiny, fraction. Hence, we're not worried that by any means there are politicians or policymakers that will kind of try to limit this. In fact, since they are politicians and policymakers, making sure that inclusion, accessibility and spending money on people with disabilities, that typically something you get re-elected on, not the contrary. So we don't see that type of hurdles. The hurdles we experience are largely bureaucratic, that the systems are slow, even though the law is favorable to the type of business that we deliver, maybe the bureaucracy is complicated. With that said, that's one of our strong points as a company, because not only do we have the products and the people on the field, we are some sort of expert on finding ways through the complexities of funding and regulatory. So we do the analogy from time to time about Sobit Anubis being a super tanker, which means that we are in a good speed forward. It doesn't accelerate fast, but it also doesn't slow down fast. It doesn't turn very fast, but it's a very, very predictable path that we're on. Okay.

And we have a question from Michael Lassen at Carnegie. Can you break down the organic growth in volume price and mix effects and also the gross margin Q1 compared to Q4? What is your view on the gross margin outlook for 24?

I can start, but maybe you can fill in. The gross margin is to some degree effect on the total volume, and hence Q4 is our strongest quarter where we sell more, and the Q1 is our weakest quarter. The component of our COGS that is fixed, of course, kind of makes the gross margin decline in the weaker quarter. So that's more mathematics. Isn't that your view as well? Yep.

I think you covered it.

When it comes to revenue per product, etc., that's not something that we elaborate on further, but what we can see as the product mix over the past, I don't know how many quarters, is largely unchanged. So it's a like for like sale, but the only difference then is that we sell more products and ship more products in Q4 than we do in Q4. Okay.

And then we have a question from Oscar at APG again. He had a question regarding price increases and the facing. Now he's right. Sorry, the price increase facing question was on your own expected price increases. Understood. The Medicare support was .6% in 24. Can you assume that you have already started to implement that? Yeah.

And as soon as normal calendar year, it will take time to implement. It takes some six to nine months until we see the full effect. But we already started to implement it in the beginning of the quarter.

If you really want to make it simple, think about it as linear. So if we have a certain percentage increase that happens on January 1, the implementation of that price increase will happen linearly over the year and will be fully implemented on New Year's Eve. And hence last year, the price in 2023, the price increases in the US was 9%. So that's kind of in the works of being implemented. And this year it was a little bit above 2.5%. And similar there. Think about it as a linear implementation over the year.

Okay. And we also have a question regarding price increases from an anonymous asker. Within the organic growth of 21%, how much was price increases?

Smaller part. Yeah. Very small part.

And then we have a question from Matsyuttinget Redeye. Could you elaborate on the incentive program costs dependent on the share price, of course, and limits to costs?

It's actually so. The majority of the long-term incentive program is related to the social cost that we will have when we invest those program. And that is the benefit that you as an employee then need to, or we as an employer need to pay for. So when the share price goes up, the value for the incentive program goes up and we have a higher cost.

And then a question from Johan. Why Q1 is typically the weakest? Who is actually the gatekeeper or customer? Because it's not always the consumer that decides to buying service.

Yeah, I can explain this is nullity effect. So first of all, this is nullity effect is largely a US phenomenon, but since the US represents three quarter of our business, it becomes a Tobit Anabox phenomenon. And the health and it's just like you have says, it's not the consumer or the end user that decides on the product. These products are prescribed. With that said, since the products are paid for by a medical insurance system in the US, the system works in a way that there is such a thing as a deductible or copay so that every year if you reach your deductible limit, the rest of your products are paid for entirely by the insurance system. These systems reset on New Year's Eve. And basically you start fresh on January 1. Hence, everybody has a big incentive to get their device, not just prescribed, actually delivered before New Year's Eve. Because on January 1, you need to start to pay and those could be substantial amounts, maybe one, two or three thousand US dollars for each individual. So there is a incentive for the payer to have everything happening before New Year's Eve. There are similar trends in other markets, but that's more based on budgets that the budget can be used up. But it's a smaller faction. It's not as mathematically correct as we see in the US. So it's a consequence of the reimbursement system. And this has been the case for over a decade. So it's very, very predictable.

Okay. And right now the final question from Michaela Seen at Carnegie. Can you talk to us about the reimbursement submittal trends in the US and how this works as a leading indicator of sales growth and demand in Q2 and the second half of this year?

That's not something that we disclose to the market. We have in certain markets a better insight into the future, but we refrain from communicating that publicly.

Okay. And then we have another question from an anonymous asker. There was a large negative change in working capital in Q1. What caused this and what movement should we expect for the working capital cash flow for the financial year of 2024?

This was more of a timing effect, partly driven that we increased inventory because we saw a lot of increased demand at the end of the quarter. Also that we pushed a lot of sales. March is the stronger month. It gradually improves over the year. So we saw an improvement of sales in March, which will then render a bigger receivable impact. And then we paid more suppliers. And so we will continue to see improvement of that over the year.

And again, to summarize, the second half of the quarter was stronger than the first half of the quarter. Hence receivables like Ina said, they basically pops over into the second quarter, but that's also the normal trend that we see. There's nothing new into it. Okay.

So that concludes the questions.

All right. With that said, thank you very much for dialing into this earnings call. We will come back obviously in our Q2 report in July. And until then, don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you for dialing in.