Let's go back. In the first quarter, we've seen a gradual recovery in the market. It's really related to the rollout of vaccines. As you have read in the press, the U.S. has come furthest. That's also where we see the strongest performance in the quarter. We actually see it reaching the same level as we did in the first quarter of 2020 there. Instrument order intake is good. Sales are up quarter-on-quarter since the second quarter of last year. That's a global trend. Asia is still very slow due to the outbreak of COVID, where the pandemic is still prevailing. Overall, positive signals from the market, positive that we see increasing sales. We also see a strong order intake. Currently we actually have a demand that exceeds our supply. We have struggled a bit with managing the incoming material and component supply during the first quarter, and that's still prevailing in the second quarter. In the last quarter, we talked about the important strategic initiative to establish local production in Russia. That was due to start right now, but it's been delayed due to one of our suppliers were forced to take on some deliveries to the Russian government for COVID-related equipment. That project is now on good traction, and we expect to start local production this summer. In the first quarter, we have also established a number of new suppliers in EMEA, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, which is a region where we want to grow going forward. We have signed no less than six distribution agreements that we're now starting up. Another important work, which is mainly internal, has been our preparations for IVDR, which is the new regulatory framework that we need to adhere to starting in May 2022. That work is going according to plan, and that's very nice to see. A big investment in our new product platform has progressed also very well, and we have passed the milestones and keeping the pace in the product as expected and we want to see. That's very positive. Also in the quarter, we launched a new website. Part of that is also a partner portal where we can give service to our many distributors. Part of that, we have also updated the Boule graphical profile. We have also started the trainings in the Boule Academy set up where we train both distributors and also later we will also train end users. Lot of very good traction there and very pleased with the progress. What does the numbers show then? We're still in the pandemic, and we're not back to the levels where we were in 2019. If you look, we are now seeing growth compared to the last quarter last year. We're up 12%, so we see this recovery. In constant currency, we're still 6% below our sales last year, and our net sales was SEK 100 million in this first quarter. Gross margin is down by 2.2 percentage points to a year ago, and that's explained by the low capacity utilization in our production plants. OPEX is down SEK 3 million versus last year, and most of that saving is related to marketing and sales. We also generated a positive operating cash flow of SEK 12.6 million in quarter, and that money was used to invest in our new platform. The investment there was SEK 13 million in the first quarter, slightly up from the last quarter last year. This is according to plan, where we now intensify the work on the industrialization and start going into the preparing production, et cetera, for these new products. The result is an EBIT margin of 6.8%, and this is below our ambitions and below our capabilities. We are very hopeful now when the market normalize that we will continue to improve our profitability. If you look at how the revenue developed, we have seen a recovery in instrument sales, and the biggest loss in revenue versus last year is still in the consumables. There are many of our markets, and particularly in markets in Asia where we have a large installed base, there are still significant restrictions. That's really where we see the lowest sales and where we've not yet have recovered from the pandemic. As you can see that basically across all regions, with exceptions of the U.S., we still have a sales which is behind last year. If you look in constant currency, U.S. is actually up 6% versus last year. Clearly, there are very positive signals from that market. Let's then see what is the EBIT that we generate and what explain it, what has happened. The biggest impact on the EBIT is really the lower sales. The volume effect is a big thing. The other is the gross margin that I mentioned, where we have a lower utilization of our manufacturing capacity. Also we have a product mix which is unfavorable, where we have more instruments, which is lower margin than our consumables, which really generates the high margin. We also have a cost saving that improves our profitability slightly in the quarter. Through this pandemic and during all of last year, we have kept an eye on our cash flow. We have managed to have resources, both manpower, but also been able to finance our important growth initiatives. We have continued to do so during the first quarter. We had an operating cash flow, which is okay, I would say, in the first quarter. We have used that to invest in these new growth initiatives, where the investment in the new platform is the biggest. If you look at available liquidity, we are at the end of the quarter and at the same level as we were when we entered the quarter. Our financial position is preserved. What can we then expect going forward? Well, we see this sequential market recovery, and we see a positive momentum in most markets outside Asia. As you have read probably in the press, this is very much related to how the rollout of vaccine is done in the various markets. However, there are continued uncertainty going forward and due to the virus spread mainly in Asia. We hope that the markets will recover there also, but it will probably take also the second quarter. As I mentioned a quarter ago, transport and logistic has been very challenging throughout 2020 and has continued to be so now in the initial part of the first quarter. We have also experienced, like many other industries, that there are shortages for the component supplies. We have been very busy in managing our supply chain, making sure that we can have all the material needed. As I said, currently our sales is really limited by our production capacity, and the production capacity is limited by material supply. Overall, I think we have things under good control and with continued order intake and the strong order book that we entered this second quarter with is very promising. We also expect as restrictions are loosened in the major markets that also the consumable sales will come back. What are we focusing on now going forward? The priorities remain from a quarter ago. We are working intensely with our digital marketing and enhance our support to our distributors. I think being there in the omnichannels, making sure that we are visible, available through digital media is extremely important as we now want to help our distributors get back in business. Of course, we will work with these new distributors, make sure that they get a good start. A key priority is to make sure that the local production in Russia now starts. We are also ramping up the production of the new OEM reagents that we have talked about, that we have a new OEM supply agreement, long-term supply agreement, where deliveries is now starting and ramping up in the second quarter. Of course, a lot of our focus is going into our development of our new product platform, and that's work that will continue for the coming year. We are very excited about the progress that we're doing in this project and what that will bring to Boule in the future. With that, I think I will end here today and open up for question, and I thank you very much for your attention. Hi, Jesper, can you hear me? Victor here from ABG. Victor, you look like you're... I'm ready to go at least. Can you hear me? Victor [inaudible]... Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you now. Okay, that's great. Thanks a lot for taking the questions. Perhaps I missed it by the beginning of this call, but I'll ask it anyway. Just on the order intake side, it looks to have been quite good, at least in Q1, and indicates that it's a quite decent start to Q2 as well. Just if I understood it correctly, that it's not only that you managed to deliver a good part of that order intake in Q1, but it's also that the order book looks quite good for Q2. Is that how we should read it? That's correct. We're basically entering the second quarter with an order book, which is bigger than it usually is at the beginning of a quarter. That's positive. Okay. That's good to hear. Just on the supply chain constraints, given that you should have had some headwinds, at least in this quarter as well from transportation and so forth. Is it fair to assume that from these, let's say, 900 or so systems that the risk is rather that you will not be able to deliver those numbers? Is that a fair baseline to assume if everything remains the same as it is at the moment? For just Q2, very short term. Very short term, I think there is always slight risk, but I think we have things under control. I think what I wanted to mention is that there are extra resources, and we see that transportation cost is going up. We're adding some additional cost that we wouldn't maybe have in a normal market situation. It's more the effort that is needed to deliver than the actual delivery. On the component side then, just curious if your current sort of inventory allows for deliveries similar to what we saw in Q1 or if that's going to be pushed forward. Absolutely, we can manage the level that we are at in Q1 and even beyond that. I think we see that there are some uncertainties and there is really quite a lot of effort. You can read about it in basically for every company, and we experience that as well. Yeah. All right. [crosstalk] It's some additional efforts to manage. Sure. Just finally, I think I saw that you actually grew sales in Latin America, which perhaps is a bit surprising given the circumstances. Could you just shed some light on that performance in the Q1 result? We received some bigger orders that will be delivered in the quarter. I think it's related to a few important contracts. Otherwise, in that region, would you say that it's more similar to what you experience now in Asia, or how would you describe that region? I would say that at least in the markets we are, it is not as bad as in Asia, but clearly, I think they are still in the middle of the pandemic, I would say so. Okay. That was all from me for now. Thanks, Jesper. Thank you very much, Victor. Christian? Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. I think Victor covered many of my questions already. Since you have the challenges with the reduced supply of materials, are you considering some kind of expansion of your sourcing to meet the demand? Clearly, we're working a lot with sourcing to get material. Expanding, no, not really. I think we are working on when we have our suppliers, and I think we have a good collaboration and it's just a bit challenging. There's also some uncertainty given the logistics and get things on time, et cetera. It's just a difficult period, but I think we have a good collaboration with our suppliers, and I think we have attention to the bottlenecks that we see. Okay. You have very good order intake in beginning of the year. Could you please give some color on in which markets you see the strongest demand? Clearly, I think the U.S. was the market that stuck out in this quarter. I think, it's basically across all markets, except Asia. Clearly, India is a big market for us, which is now very much impacted by the pandemic. There, the order intake is lower than normal. Yeah, sure. [crosstalk] Apart from U.S. sticks out, and then the other markets. Given that the demand is so strong from the U.S. and vaccination program has progressed very well in the U.S., do you see the demand for the consumables coming back in the U.S. as well, in the short term? Yes. Straightforward answer, yes. Okay. Loud and clear. Thank you. My final question is regarding the new distributors in EMEA. Considering that you have already around 200 distributors worldwide, how many are based in EMEA? What markets will the new distributors cover? I think I need to ask Christina if she can tell us the number of distributors in EMEA. I could tell you, the areas that we're looking for growth now is in the Middle East, where we don't have such a strong presence. Also, Africa will be a future growth market, and we think it's important to establish ourselves there. We have a couple of distributors in sub-Saharan Africa that we are now opening up. This is not so important, maybe short term, but we think that long term, that this is a region where we want to be a strong player. Excellent. Thank you very much. Anyone else? No more questions? I would say thank you very much for attending today, and you're always welcome to reach out to myself and Christina Rubenhag if you have any additional questions. Thank you very much, and have a nice evening. Take care. Bye-bye.
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