Hello, welcome to the Doro AB Q2 2021 results call. Throughout the call, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Just to remind you, this conference call is being recorded. Today, I am pleased to present CEO Carl-Johan Zetterberg Boudrie. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Doro's presentation of the second quarter report. I will start by giving you a highlight of the quarter, followed by financial and business updates, and then ending with some concluding remarks and opening up for a question and answer session. We can jump directly to Slide 4, and I will give you some of the key highlights of the quarter. Next slide as well, please. Perfect. Key highlights in the second quarter for Doro Group. We saw good sales growth in the quarter in both business areas compared to the second quarter last year, but also compared to the first quarter of this year. It was also definitely a step in the right direction regarding the organic growth in Doro Care in the quarter. Margins improved significantly. Strong gross margins where we see the effects of our implemented restructuring program, especially in Doro Phones. Operating margins also at a good level, also supported by good cost control from our implemented cost program that was part of the restructuring program. Our ambition and preparations for the planned separate listing, creating two strong and focused companies, continues as planned, aiming for a separate listing towards the end of this year. We can go two slides ahead, and I will give you some more details on the business and financial per business area in the second quarter. Next slide, please, then one slide more. Perfect. We start with highlights in the quarter for business area Doro Care. We have seen continued increase in market activity during the quarter in all markets. Tender activity and tender preparations have increased. We're seeing customers starting to engage in more activity. In Sweden, we have continued to win new tenders, gaining market share during the second quarter and continued on a good trend from the first quarter. In the U.K., we finally started to see an increasing interest in starting a digital shift and engaging in those dialogues. In revenue, we have managed to limit the effects from the global component shortage, although we have had to make certain prioritizations in the business during the quarter. Gross margin was, let's say, one of few disappointments in the quarter in Doro Care and in the group, as gross margin was lower than expected and planned for. There are a few effects that have impacted this negatively in the quarter that we don't plan to see in the future. Still, this is an important area to give additional focus while maintaining our strong service delivery. Looking ahead for the separate listing and the strategy for Doro Care, we will continue to focus on organic growth, driving service delivery excellence, broadening our offering, developing new technology-enabled solutions, and continue with value-adding acquisitions. This with the ambition to become European market leader in technology-enabled care. Next slide, please. Sales and financial highlights in Doro Care. Sales in Doro Care increased to SEK 147 million in the quarter, which is an increase of 17.4% compared to the same period last year. It's also a good improvement from the first quarter this year. The organic growth, adjusting for currency effects, was 9% in the quarter. Also a clear improvement from recent quarters and definitely a step in the right direction. Both service sales and product sales increased in the quarter compared to last year and compared to the first quarter. Gross margin of 41.4% was on par with first quarter, not fully up to expectations, as I mentioned in the previous slide. Lower efficiency, partly due to connectivity issues in the Nordics and transition costs between systems in the U.K., have impacted negatively. Also higher component and freight costs from post-pandemic effects have had certain negative effects on the gross margin in the quarter. As I mentioned in the previous slide, this is still a little bit less than what we expected and what we planned for, and an important area to give extra focus. The lower gross margin impacted operating profit negatively, resulting in an EBIT of SEK 8.1 million in the quarter. As mentioned, we did have certain costs that were more of specific cost for the second quarter that impacted negatively and that we do not plan for going forward. The total connections at the end of the quarter was 368,000, which is, of course, a clear improvement from the second quarter last year, driven by acquisitions completed during the second half of 2020. It is a slight decrease from the first quarter, primarily from small contracts that we have not retained in the U.K. Next slide, please. We look a little bit more in detail on business per market in Doro Care. Sales in the Nordics increased to SEK 670 million, which is an 8% increase compared to last year, and also a good increase compared to the first quarter. The tender activity in the Nordic markets have continued to increase in the quarter, and we have gained market share in Sweden through new contract wins. We have seen a few opportunities in Norway that have continued to be delayed during the quarter as a consequence of COVID-19. In U.K. and Ireland, sales increased with SEK 66.4 million, which is a 13% growth compared to last year. The increase is primarily acquisition-driven, but we did see a slight improvement in sales in the second quarter compared to the first quarter of this year. Also in the U.K., market activity have picked up during the quarter, and we expect more tender activity in the second half of the year. We also see an increasing interest in the market to engage in the digital changeover planning. In our export-oriented markets, we have continued in the quarter to strengthen our position with a few key customers, which significantly increased sales in the quarter to SEK 13 million. We can take the next slide, and then we go into business area Doro Phones, and start with a few highlights in the quarter for Doro Phones. For Doro Phones, we saw a strong performance in all aspects in the quarter. With sales growth in most markets, both compared to last year, but also to the first quarter. Our restructuring program, focusing on phasing out less profitable markets such as North America and significantly reducing our cost base, have given the planned effects. We are now a more focused business with an improved customer mix, resulting in a positive gross margin and operating margin improvement. In the quarter, we continued our restructuring that we initiated towards the end of the first quarter of our German entity. In the latter half of the quarter, we started to see a positive sales trend in the region as well. Towards a separate listing and from a strategy point of view, Doro Phones will continue to manifest its position as market leader in senior mobile phones. We will also leverage our market experience, strong customer relations, and significant senior knowledge to broaden our offering, continuing to make technology usable and accessible for seniors. We can jump into next slide, and I will give you some more details on sales and financials in the quarter for Doro Phones. In the quarter, we saw good sales growth in Doro Phones, a growth of 26% up to sales of SEK 260 million. This is a clear improvement also from the first quarter, as we see restrictions have been lifted and vaccination rates increases. Sales developed positively in most of our markets, with increasing activity from both customers and consumers. Gross margin increased significantly to 35.2%, maintaining the high level from the first quarter. A positive product and customer mix as a result of our strategic restructuring program, as well as favorable exchange rates contributed to the strong gross margin. The strong gross margin is also despite that we also, for business area Doro Phones, have suffered from increasing component costs and freight costs in the quarter. Operating profit increased to SEK 25 million, with strong gross margins and good cost control as a consequence of the structuring program, which resulted in a very good operating margin level in the quarter for Doro Phones. We can take next slide, please. I will give you a little bit of details on business per market for Doro Phones. In the Nordics, there was a strong quarter with sales of SEK 71 million. A general good demand in all markets in the region as restrictions was removed. Sales in the quarter was also clearly above the same quarter of 2019, so pre-pandemic levels. In the quarter and in the region, we conducted a major campaign with one of our larger operator customers, from where we experienced great success, and that impacted sales of feature phones positively. In region West, South Europe and Africa, sales increased with 89% compared to last year, up to SEK 96 million. This is also an increase compared to the second quarter of 2019. Demand was good in all countries in the region, with restrictions being eased. Especially, we saw a very strong demand and very strong success in the French market, where the second quarter 2021 was the best quarter ever for us in the French market. Also U.K. and Ireland bounced back significantly in the quarter, reaching pre-pandemic levels of sales. Central and Eastern Europe continued to be soft in the quarter. Our restructuring of the region, we have continued with during the quarter, and we did start to see positive sales development in the last month of the quarter, both as restrictions were lifted and as our restructuring effort starts to pay off. We can move to next slide, please. To give you an update on the restructuring program that I mentioned a few times in previous slides in my presentation, and where we are close to being able to deliver on our program and sort of put this behind us. As we mentioned a few times, we initiated a restructuring program about a year ago. We have, during the last year, successfully restructured our business, creating a solid foundation to manifest our market-leading position and develop new offerings. In the second quarter, we continue with the restructuring of region DACH, as I mentioned, which having resulted in restructuring costs of SEK 9 million in total, with the restructuring of DACH being the major element. During the second half of the year, we will finalize the last steps of the program. We have to date implemented SEK 105 million in lower operating expenses compared to 2019 levels. In the second half, we will finalize the remaining steps, reaching the communicated and committed savings in operating expenses of SEK 110 million-SEK 130 million, as I said, compared to 2019 levels. In total, restructuring cost for the program is today SEK 24 million, we are confident that we will stay within our communicated target of SEK 20 million-SEK 30 million in the restructuring cost for the program. I must say that the team have made a great effort in executing the restructuring program, we have now in this quarter started to see the effects of the restructuring we've made, we are today a more focused and more profitable business as a consequence. Next slide, please. We look into profitability for Doro as a group for the second quarter. Adjusted for currency effects, sales increased with 26.4%, up to sales of SEK 407 million with, as we've mentioned in previous slides, a good growth in both business areas and in most markets. Gross margin increased to 37.4% in the quarter. Excluding restructuring costs and cost for the separate listing of Doro Care, operating profit was close to SEK 31 million. Which is a strong operating profit and a strong operating margin, both compared to second quarter of last year, but also comparing to other previous quarters. Including the restructuring costs and cost for the separate listing of this Doro Care, the operating profit totaled SEK 21.5 million. EBITDA was SEK 51.6 million in the quarter. Positively is that both EBIT and EBITDA have increased more than sales increase in the quarter. We have for every extra sales we've had, more have came all the way down to operating profit, which is positive. Next slide, please. Looking into cash flow for the group. The free cash flow before acquisition was SEK 4.9 million. The lower cash flow compared to the second quarter last year, is mainly a result of negative change in working capital. In the quarter, we have also settled a pension liability from one of the acquisitions in the U.K., which impacted cash flow from investment activities with close to SEK 42 million. Of course, to a large extent, this was part of the acquisition, and this means that we've settled the pension liability, and we don't have any further uncertain pension liabilities left in the group. Net debt in the quarter was SEK 73 million at the end of the quarter, and equity asset ratio of 56.2%. We can move two slides ahead, and into concluding remarks. Positive aspects in the quarter. I think as I said, there was a lot of good things in the second quarter for Doro. We saw an increased activity in most markets with positive sales growth and good margins. We have successfully handled the challenges that we've seen as a result of COVID-19 in the last 15 to 18 months. We now hope that we can start to look forward and leave the pandemic behind us. Good organic growth in business area Doro Care in the quarter of 9%, adjusted for currency effects, which is definitely a step in the right direction and a clear improvement from previous quarters. We've also seen the positive effects from the restructuring program during the quarter, impacting gross margin and gross profit in a good way. We will achieve the communicated savings of SEK 110 million-SEK 130 million compared to 2019 levels. Of course there's been a few challenges in the quarter that we need to focus on. The challenge when it comes to supply chain regarding component shortage, increased lead times, and higher freight costs have continued in the second quarter. We expect that to continue also in the third quarter. Gross margin, as I mentioned in business area Doro Care, decreased in the quarter compared to last year and was stable compared to the first quarter of 2021. It was not up to expectations. We did see slightly lower efficiency and higher cost for freight and components. Looking ahead, then, priorities ahead for us in the second quarter of this year. No, sorry, second half. Second quarter is behind us. Priorities for the second half of this year. Of course, we need to continue to work hard to limit the effects from the component shortages to ensure that we can continue to meet customer demand. We'll continue to push and drive organic growth and service delivery excellence in Doro Care. We are increasing our activities in expanding our offering in Doro Phones, leveraging our strong senior and technical knowhow. Also we continue the preparations for a separate listing of business area Doro Care, enabling both businesses to deliver on the strategy and meet customer needs. With that, I thank you very much for listening to Doro's second quarter report, and I now leave for question and answer session. We can go to next slide, please. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question at any time, you may do so by pressing 02 to cancel. There will now be a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question comes from the line of Niklas Sävås from Redeye. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi, Carl-Johan. Hi, Niklas. Hi. I was wondering if you can give us some more color around the number of subscribers within Doro Care. Considering you don't seem happy with the development, how do you aim to help to change it? Yeah, thank you, Niklas. No, of course, I think there's two aspects of it. Number of subscribers is, of course, an important metric for us, and a metric that we would like to grow. In combination, of course, that we want to have the right mix of connections. To some extent, it's important to have the right connections than to have a lot of connections, to ensure that we have sort of the right revenue and profitability in the connections that we have. Yes, we want to grow number of connections as well. I think the reason for slightly lower connections this year or this quarter compared to the first quarter was a few smaller contracts that we did not retain in the U.K. I would say maybe not the most revenue-generating and profit-generating contracts. It's been a slow market in the last four quarters, you can say, as local authorities, housing associations postponed tender activities due to the pandemic as they needed to focus elsewhere. Now we start to see a clear increase in tender activity and tender preparation activity. I think from a material aspect, Sweden was first. That's where we see the activity earliest in new tenders, and we have successfully won a number of new tenders in Sweden gaining market share. From that perspective, I think we've shown in Sweden that we can grow market share and can grow number of connections, and that's of course what we aim for and hope for that we will do, also that we see tender activity picking up in Norway and the U.K. Great. I was also interested about what you mentioned about the digital shift in U.K. starting to happen. Yeah, I think as we talked about previously, I would say it's been a long story, you can say. The U.K. needs to go through a digital shift. Most of the solutions that we and our competitors, and that our customers asked for have been analog solutions up to date. There needs to happen a digital changeover, especially since the PSTN announced that the analog network will be shut down by 2025. A shift needs to happen. Historically, I think everyone knows that, okay, this will come, but local authorities and housing associations have sort of pushed it to the future. Now we start to see that, one, there's an appetite for digital changeover because they're starting to look for new type of services that digital can enable that's not a possibility with analog. Of course, they start to see something that they thought were very far ahead in the future is suddenly coming closer and closer, and they need to start to plan for the digital changeover. Thanks a lot. Lastly, I just wonder if you can say anything around the spinoff and if there are any major obstacles left. You said that it's in progress and it's no problems at this time. I just wonder, are there any major obstacles left for the preparation? Good question. I would say it like this, Niklas. One, of course, we continue to plan and prepare for the separate listing. One of the first steps is to ensure that we create a separate entity of Doro Care that is a possibility to list. Those activities has run according to plan. We are, I would say, spot on schedule in the preparations for the separate listing. Of course, that doesn't mean that everything is complete. We still have a number of activities that we need to finalize in third quarter and in fourth quarter if we are to list as planned towards the end of the year. So far so good, but of course, we're in the right position, I would say, from where we can be right now. We feel confident about the plan, but I'm sure that we will run into obstacles that we need to overcome in the last part of the process as well. Great, Carl. Thank you very much and have a great summer. Thank you. Likewise. Thank you. Just a reminder that if you would like to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. There will now be a further pause while any further questions are being registered. We have no further questions, so I will pass back for any closing comments. Okay. Thank you very much. I think as I said before, thank you very much for listening in. I think in very many aspects, this was a good quarter for Doro, with clear improvement both in sales and in operating profit. I wish you all a fantastic summer. Hope the good weather continues. See you soon again. Thank you. Thank you for
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