Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the MTI Wireless Edge Limited investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted any time via the Q&A tab that's just situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all of the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I would like to submit the following poll, and if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. I'd now like to hand you over to CEO, Moni Borovitz. Good morning, sir.
Good morning, Jake. Thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. I'll start giving a presentation on the results of the company for this third quarter of the year. As a quick reminder, we are working with wireless and RF communication solution, operating in three vertical markets, the antennas, the wireless water control and management, and the distribution and special consulting services. Overall, 2022 seems to be a very good year to MTI. If we look at the nine months result, you can see that revenue grew 8% year-on-year. The EBIT grew 5% year-on-year, and here we include within the G&A about $200,000, one-off cost relating to the acquisition of PSK. The EBITDA grew 14% year-on-year, which we are very happy with, exceeding the revenue growth.
We remain with a very strong balance sheet with over $5 million in cash, net cash. I remind you that this is after the payment of dividend, the acquisition of PSK, and the disposition of our Russian operation earlier this year. The disposition of the Russian operation also shows some changes in our working capital requirements, as in Russia, we always used to work with no credit. It means that the revenue were immediately translated into cash because only when we got the cash, we record the revenue. This is not the case in most other areas of the world, where we usually give somewhere between 60 and 100 days, depends on the customer and the market of credit. This slows a little bit the cash generation.
As you can see, the trade receivables are much higher and will translate into cash later on. Overall, the business, if you look at the split of revenue, did not change a lot between this year and the last year, we remain with very loyal customer base. We sell globally, again, quite similar to previous quarters, with Israel having about 25% out of it going as indirect export. If we focus on the third quarter, the results are satisfactory for us. We had a double-digit growth in revenue and profits all the way down to the earnings per share. Again, I'd like to emphasize the EBITDA as it's showing stronger growth in revenue, this is where we aim to go to extend the margin as we go forward.
A little bit about each of the segments. As a quick reminder, in the wireless control and management of water, we use the Motorola hardware, and our IP is the software and the ability to integrate sensors. It is becoming much more critical to integrate more sensor as everybody is looking to manage their water smarter and based on real-time data. Here, we have 20% recurring revenue, mostly from the municipalities we service. As you can see, we're able to grow the revenue, but profits were a little hit because the prices with those municipalities are fixed. However, we were able to negotiate those prices, and in the beginning of 2023, prices are going up, and it's gonna be scaling up year-over-year for the next several years.
A little bit in 2023, a little more in 2024, and so on. We are fairly optimistic that profit will grow in the water business. In the antenna business, we focus today mainly on 5G backhaul antenna solution and military. We see revenue growth this year. After reporting a small loss in the first quarter of the year, already in the second and the third quarter, we return to profitability, and we are fairly optimistic about the direction of this business. In the distribution and professional services, I remind you that we have what we call the legacy part of the business, representing about 40 companies from the international market into Israel. We did a lot of more new design wins, and the business grew year-over-year, of course, with higher profitability.
The addition of PSK is very successful, and it contributed to both the revenue and the profits. On a macro level, I think that the last summer showed everybody what global warming is all about. We see a lot of interest coming from Europe for water management. Unfortunately, we know that governments are spending a lot of money on defense budget. It still did not fell into real projects, but no doubt that both our antenna division and the distribution business will enjoy for those increased budgets. The requirement for cellular backhaul and 5G is starting to happen. We see some progress in India and elsewhere. If I'll discuss the achievement we had in the water management business.
First of all, we renewed the key service agreement with the municipalities, and as I explained, it is with increased pricing that we will see the benefit starting in 2023. I remind you that we announced earlier this year about the management of fountains control. It's a very interesting project. It is still ongoing. We expect to finish the project probably by the end of the first quarter in 23, and then the idea is to duplicate it to other areas of the world, offering such solutions. In Italy, we announced a very large order that was submitted already in the third quarter. The Italian government, as part of its water distribution solution, announced that they are gonna spend a lot of money in the next several years.
We already put some bids into the Italian customers of ours, and we hope that we will receive more exciting orders from Italy for the coming years. The autopilot, which I remind you, is the sensor that helps to measure the moisture at the root level, is being very well accepted. You can see how intuitive it's on the right-hand side in the picture, that the farmer can immediately see in each area of the field, if it's green, it's red, and you know how to operate. We sold quite a lot of first installation units to let them try it, and we are quite certain that from what we hear, that we will see a favorable business coming out of it. Going into the antenna division, I'll start with the 5G backhaul updates.
First of all, we continue to keep our market position within the key OEMs, which is very important because we are waiting for the trials to move into deployment, and then we will see higher revenues. On our Automatic Beam Steering Antenna solution, we made a great achievement, and actually, about two weeks ago, we completed the first real prototype trial in a live field together with the customers. The results are excellent, and the customer is very happy with it. As a matter of fact, today, we already have four customers that we do customization work for. I remind you that this antenna includes software, so we need to customize it to each customer, and customers are paying for this customization.
Here we also gained a new tier one customer that did not work with us before, so we see it as a big achievement. In August, the Indian government released the frequencies to operate the 5G backhaul, and the operators, the cellular operators are starting to utilize system. We received a very nice order from one of our customers in India, immediately after to be supplied in the first quarter. We are talking about a huge number of towers that are forecasted to be installed. There is a big advantage to have a manufacturing facility in India, because the antennas are quite heavy and big. MTI is out out of three companies that has such facilities to manufacture those antennas in India. We see it as a big advantage.
I think that the size and the impact of the requirement will allow all three company to join and enjoy part of the explosion in India that we expect to have, probably starting sometime next year. In the military antenna business, revenues were a little slow this year. I think that it's still part of the effect of the pandemic, that people are still afraid to meet face-to-face in some areas of the world. With the strengthened technology capability and the marketing effort that we did, we were able to penetrate to new customer and have bids with new potential customer. Overall, today, we have some quite interesting number of large bids with both existing and new potential customer, and we are fairly optimistic about where this market can go.
In terms of the distribution, so as I said, a perfect year again, with double-digit revenue and profit growth. I think that the fact that we are continuing to do so strong with the design wins, and make the customers happy to see us as a one-stop shop is a big helper. PSK secured its and MTI largest order in July. It immediately came into effect. It's with an option for the customer to length for seven years. We consider it to be a very stable contract. On top of it, we won several contracts for shelters with PSK. The integration is continuing well, and I think that I can now say that the acquisition was a good one.
Strategically speaking, we are still very focused on increasing the revenue by innovation in order to able and expand the margins. The EBITDA shows that we are doing the right way. We continue to search for acquisition, always on a better, safe, and slow mode, always a profit-enhancing acquisition. Of course, once we will have something at hand, we will announce. We also remain very focused on generating the cash in order to continue and support both dividend and by the buyback plan. In the buyback program, we bought 200,000 shares in September. We still have enough cash in the fund to continue and buy it. On the shareholder base, there was no real change in the last several quarters. I'm very happy to say that both Milton and Herald are long-term supporters of the company.
Dividend became, I think, part of the culture of MTI, and we will continue to do so. If I may summarize, 2022 is another good year for MTI. We look with lot of excitement for the near and mid-term future as all of our business units have a very nice growth opportunity, whether it's in the water management solution due to the climate change, the 5G backhaul picking up, and of course, the defense budget that are increasing and will allow us to supply more military antenna in the distribution part of our business. I would like to thank you, and happy to take any question you may have.
Moni, that's great, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab that's situated on the right-hand corner of your screen. Just while Moni takes a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I would like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Moni, as you can see in the Q&A tab there, we have received a number of questions during your presentation today. Thank you to everyone on the call for taking the time to submit their questions.
Moni, if I could just hand back to you to respond to those where it's appropriate to do so, and then I'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. The first question was, how can the company increase its sales? I hope that the presentation answered it. We're doing a lot of work and are in a growing market. The second question is, could you please explain why tax charge is 25% higher than last year, and also why there is $350,000 finance expense if there is such a large cash pile? I'll start with the finance expenses. Most of it relates to currency translation, currency exchange. As you know, this year was a very unnormal one with the euro, pounds, and dollar playing each against the other, very dramatically also against the shekel. As we work globally, but report in dollar, most of the expenses are related to exchange rates.
The tax is really depends on where we make profit for. I remind you that we paid some tax in order to release some old profits that we had, and therefore, the withholding tax of the dividend was lower last year and will be somehow a bit lower this year. This is the main reason for the tax increase. What is the potential for further growth in fountain management mentioned in the operational highlights? As I mentioned, what we do in the fountain management, we went to one municipality that has over 30 fountains around town, and we helped them to understand how to look at it as a system and see which fountains is operating and if there is any malfunction. They really need it and like to see the solution.
We want to complete the project, understand what is the added value that they see from it, and then we can offer it to many other municipalities around the world where we work anyhow in landscape irrigation. I think it could be another niche solution that we can provide to our customer. Another question from Malcolm. In which country geography do you see the most growth potential? This is a difficult question. As I mentioned, 5G antennas right now looking very big in India, but I'm sure that it will be very big elsewhere in the world. I remind you that here we sell to the OEMs, to companies like Nokia, like Aviat, like Ceragon, and then they sell it all over the world. In India, it helps in that we have the local facilities there.
In the water distribution, as I mentioned, we work very strongly in the Gulf area, and we now see a lot of demand coming from Europe, mainly after the summer that you had here in Europe. I think that we are positioned very well to enjoy everywhere. The U.S. is a big market for Mottech as well. Mark is asking: Can you give guidance on how much of the revenue growth was due to organic growth, how much due to acquisition, and how much due to price inflation? I think that most of the growth, you can look at it nearly as organic growth. It's true that we have PSK as an add-on, which was about $3 million in revenue for the nine months.
In parallel, we lost in the comparable about $2 million from the Russian operation that we had last year. Nearly almost all of the growth you can look at is as an organic. Due to price inflation, it's very difficult to say because we increased prices in many areas where we could. As I mentioned, in some areas will come in the future. I think the important thing is that we are able to increase prices when we see the inflation cost pushing cost higher. Are you operating in China, particularly with regard to water management? Yes, we have our own company in China for the water management. Actually, it did not do too well this year because China is still going in and out of lockdown, so it's very difficult to operate there.
We do have a company, and we do support the business there. Are you concerned the global recession will affect your growth going forward? Of course I am. You cannot be resilient to that. I think that our advantage that we are so diverse, both geographically and vertically, that I do not see the recession affecting everything at the same pace and at the same time. We have some kind of an internal recession stabilization model, I think. I think that usually in time of recession, governments sometimes are trying to help economies by putting programs. This could be helpful, for instance, in Italy with the water distribution solution that they are trying to provide and of course, on the defense budget that we all know that there was a big allocation, and we expect to push forward.
Overall, we look cautiously on the recession, but I think that we can overcome it. I think that I answered all the questions.
Moni, absolutely. Thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. Of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentation has ended for you to review and then add any additional responses where it's appropriate to do so. Moni, perhaps before redirecting those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments to wrap up with, that'd be great.
Yes. First, I wanna thank everybody for joining the call today. I hope that you are enjoying as we part of the growth that we see in 2022. We look fairly optimistic, I would say, for the next coming years.
Moni, that's great. Thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you'll now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This may take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of MTI Wireless Edge Limited, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session, good morning to you all.