Hello, and welcome to the Alfen Half Year 2022 Results. My name is Ben, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, Mr. Marco Roeleveld, CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Ben. Good morning and welcome to this webcast regarding the 2022 half year results of Alfen. We appreciate the fact that you've taken the effort to participate. This webcast and the questions that may come forward are handled by the Alfen management board, consisting of Jeroen van Rossen, CFO, Michelle Lesh, CCO, and myself, Marco Roeleveld, CEO. We are very satisfied how the first half year of 2022 has evolved. A very strong revenue growth, mainly driven by EV charging equipment and a good EBITDA development. In this webcast, I will start with the highlights of the first half year of 2022, followed by a short review per business line and some comments on the adjusted EBITDA developments. Then Michelle will continue with revenue growth aspects, and Jeroen will go in more detail regarding supply chain financials and outlook.
I now continue on slide three with the highlights of the first half year of 2022. We realized EUR 205.5 million in revenue. This represents a growth of 78% compared to the same period of last year. As a percentage of revenue, the adjusted EBITDA improved from 14.7% in the first half year of last year to 18.1% in the same period this year. We've been able to manage the supply chain challenges and to safeguard future revenue. To ensure a smooth production, we increased stock levels and made strategic down payments to secure the future supply of components.
We are positive about all drivers for future growth and in combination with the order intake and revenue development in the first six months of this year, we decided to increase our full-year revenue outlook to the range of EUR 410 million-EUR 470 million. On sheet four, you can see the revenue split between our three production lines. The EV charging equipment revenue more than tripled compared to the same period last year. This revenue growth is driven by increased volumes under existing framework agreements, new client wins, and further internationalization. We continue our internationalization strategy by continuously strengthening our international organization. In the first half year of 2022, more than 69% of our revenue was generated outside of the Netherlands. It's our ambition to outperform the market growth.
Yet year-on-year revenue growth figures in the first half of 2022 were exceptionally high due to a peak in demand after COVID measures were released and some of our customers have been building inventory before the summer season. In the second part of this year, we expect a year-on-year growth rate that's more in line with the year-on-year growth rate in the previous years for this production line. In the Smart Grid Solutions business line, the revenue was 14% higher than in the same period last year. Grid operators continued to expand and reinforce the distribution grid for electrical energy, resulting in further growth in the number of substations needed. We continued to benefit from existing framework agreements with the grid operators.
The private network business did not show much growth in the first half of 2022 because project execution takes longer under current supply chain conditions. In the energy storage market, the momentum continues to develop favorably, mostly driven by the growth of renewables and the need to balance electricity demand and supply. The pipeline of qualified leads and order intake continues to develop in a healthy manner, but project execution can be delayed for certain projects due to, for instance, the permitting processes or obtaining a grid connection. As communicated in the Q1 trading update, energy storage revenue will be backloaded toward the second half of 2022 and is supported by our strong order book. On sheet five, we continue with the adjusted EBITDA growth. The adjusted EBITDA margin improved.
Improvement is a result of strong revenue growth in combination with the operational leverage strategy. Going forward, we will continue to pursue this strategy on profitable growth. Now our CCO, Michelle Lesh, will continue this webcast on sheet six with the international revenue growth.
Thanks, Marco. Now I'd like to talk through how we're executing our profitable growth strategy for 2022 and beyond. First, on slide six, we continue to deliver strong international revenue growth, achieving 50% international revenue at the group level for the first time. The growth is primarily driven by our EV charging business line, and there are two key factors. First, we continue to invest and strengthen our sales and service organization across Europe to support our international growth. Second, we continue to see our customers internationalize using our solutions to support their own international growth ambitions. As we move to slide seven, I'd like to share some examples of our commercial wins across the business. In EV charging, we have three examples of customers that are helping us internationalize. With E.ON, we have new projects in Central and Eastern Europe.
We have also secured a supplier contract with TotalEnergies to be one of their suppliers across all of Europe through 2025. In addition, we have signed a framework agreement with Stromnetz Hamburg to support the city of Hamburg in Germany. In smart grids, we continue to see strong growth in solar. We secured 23 substations with our longer-term customer, Pulsar, 10 substations with a newer customer, Beuningen, where we are supporting their first solar park in the Netherlands, and a microgrid project supporting a solar installation in Almere with another long-term customer, HVC. In energy storage, we continue to secure wins across Europe, including a 12-megawatt project with EPV, the third-largest battery facility in Finland, a contract with Nybro in Sweden for a 5-megawatt system, and a contract with Nimble Energy in the Czech Republic for two 5-megawatt systems.
We're proud of our continued commercial wins across Europe in our EV and battery storage product lines and our continued growth in key markets for Smart Grid. Now I'd like to hand it to Jeroen to walk through an update on supply chain and financials.
Thank you, Michelle. This supply chain overview is the same as presented in the Q1 webcast. We still face supply chain challenges, but up until today, we have been able to manage those challenges. As we expect the supply chain pressure to remain in 2022 and 2023, we continue to deploy our measures, of which an extract is shown on this slide. We will continue to stay on top of this. From the supply chain, we now go to slide nine for the financials. We will start with the profit and loss account. As Marco also mentioned before, we are proud of the strong results in the first half year of 2022.
The revenue and other income increased from EUR 115.3 million last year to EUR 205.5 million in the first half year of 2022, a growth of 78%. The gross margin decreased from 36.4% last year to 35.3% this year. We have been able to leverage our growing skill and strong market position to dampen the effect of challenges in the global supply chains. Our personnel costs increased from EUR 19.6 million last year to EUR 25.8 million this year, an increase of 31% showing further operational leverage. From a people perspective, we grew the number of FTEs from 683 at year-end 2021 to 770 FTEs at 30 June 2022.
The other operating costs increased from EUR 5.8 million last year to nearly EUR 10 million this year. If we exclude one-off costs and special items, we arrive at our adjusted EBITDA, which more than doubled from EUR 16.9 million, which was 14.7% last year, to EUR 37.3 million, which was 18.1% of revenues this year. The adjusted EBITDA margin improvement is a result of our operational leverage strategy. Finally, our adjusted net profit nearly tripled from EUR 9.3 million last year to EUR 25.3 million this year. From the profit and loss account, we now go to the balance sheet on slide number 10. Let's start with the non-current assets. They increased from EUR 43.1 million at year-end 2021 to EUR 50.5 million at 30 June 2022.
Our capital expenditures amount to EUR 10.1 million, which was slightly below 5% of revenue in the first half year of 2022, compared to EUR 5.4 million, which was 4.7% of revenues in the same period last year. The investments included investments in new molds for our EV charging and smart grids business lines, followed by product line automation for EV charging, ongoing investments in our IT infrastructure and data security, as well as investments in additional solar panels for our buildings. Furthermore, we capitalized EUR 4.8 million of development costs, which demonstrates our continued efforts to invest in innovations for the future. From a working capital perspective, the working capital increased from EUR 23.8 million last year to EUR 54.8 million at 30 June 2022.
Given the supply chain challenges, we maintain higher safety stock levels, further supported by strategic stock down payments for batteries, inverters, containers, and electrical components in order to safeguard and enhance the resilience in our global supply chain. From the financials, we now go to the outlook on the next slide. We expect that our markets will continue to grow throughout 2022 as a transition to a carbon-free energy system that is not dependent on fossil fuels is building ever more momentum across Europe. As said earlier, we continue to experience supply chain challenges and expect those challenges to continue well into 2023. Therefore, we remain committed to being on top of the situation through deploying our rigid operational processes. Long term, we continue to anticipate positive market developments for all of our business lines.
As such, we will also continue to further invest in our organization, innovations, and production facilities.
Finally, based on the first half year performance and the current revenue visibility, we raise our full year 2022 revenue outlook from EUR 350 million to EUR 420 million to a new range of EUR 410 million-EUR 470 million. We are now at the end of the presentation where I will hand over to the moderator for any questions. Moderator, could you please take over?
Thank you very much indeed. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from the line of David Kerstens, calling from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, and congratulations on the strong results. I've got three, please. First of all, maybe on the inventory in the EV charging supply chain, can you please quantify that effect? Are you now back at a normal situation from previously a shortage situation that explains the expected normalizing growth in the second half of the year? Secondly, in terms of capacity for EV charging equipment, what measures are you taking to absorb the much stronger than expected growth in the first half in your assembly capacity in Almere? Maybe finally on the working capital, you talked about the strategic down payments to secure further growth impacting the operating cash flow. How do you expect that to develop in the second half of the year?
Was this a one-off step up, and do you expect a normalization in the second half? Thank you very much.
Okay. Jeroen, can you take, say, elements one and three, then I will try to handle the production capacity.
I can. Well, if you look at the stock levels for EV charging, we build up a safety stock there. We will continue doing so because we said it before, we favor a continuous delivery to our customers. That's the most important element to support them in running their business models. We are in the financial position to do so, and that's why we increase safety stock levels as well as do prepayments on certain components to safeguard that. It's very difficult to precisely predict when the supply chain will normalize again. That's also why we said, for example, in the energy storage market area, there we see also a different supply chain development, yeah.
Before you could buy lower amounts of batteries, and you could spread them more over the years. Now you buy higher amounts of batteries at once, and you cannot spread them fully over the years. That's why we also warned after the Q1 that we would need to put more working capital into the Energy Storage segment. That's what we also foresee. Working capital is there to put it all to work. That's why we also put a higher working capital in that area. It is directly related to inventory. We will stay on top of it and we will monitor it, but we don't expect that pressure in the supply chain will be released and will also continue in 2023.
I think that's the first element. It's more or less also, to some extent related to, the working capital question. I think I also addressed that one. Yes, we do put prepayments in at certain areas and certain components to make sure that we safeguard our supply chain. As you can imagine, we're not planning a supply chain for the next month. We are already planning way into 2023. From a working capital perspective, we said that we felt that the working capital would increase. You see that signal, and we don't expect a large decrease in the supply chain pressure in 2022 yet.
Okay. Thanks, Jeroen. I will take then the question on production capacity. As stated already, say, several times before, is that for especially this production of the charging stations, it is an asset-light approach where we can increase our production capacity quite fast. On the other hand, we also, of course, try to anticipate on, say, the growth levels and try to be on the one hand, not expand the production capacity too much and then have, say, spare room too much. On the other hand, we try to time it also in such a way that it more or less fits with the growth in the production.
If you look to the coming years, more or less to say, we are convinced that the market outlook is positive and that we then still have to increase our production capacity. It also gives us the opportunity that we're now coming in a situation where the numbers are such that we also start, say, to do, say, automating elements within our production area. For example, the second half of this year, we'll introduce an automated packaging machine also to accommodate the growth and also to be able to leverage on our fixed cost base by not only increasing personnel in a direct relationship to our revenue growth but also optimize our production.
It's also the reason why we already announced last year that we would be building in Almere a new facility to cope with the revenue growth, not only within ACE but also in the two other business units. We will use all the existing buildings to allocate more or less to the right production line in order to have an optimal production approach for the coming years, and we can facilitate the growth also in the coming years.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from, Emmanuel Carlier , calling from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I will do this one by one. The first is on EV charging as well. You guide that the second half of the year will be more in line with the previous growth rate, which is around 100%. But if you look at the volumes of the market, and so the market growth is rather 30%, so you continue to gain market share. How do you look into 2023? Is that something that you believe will continue? Or do you believe that from 2023 onwards, your growth rate might move maybe a little bit more in line just with the market growth rates? That's the first one.
Okay, thank you, Emmanuel. Related to this question, let's say in general terms, we are agreeing on the fact that, say, our pace of revenue growth is indeed bigger than the growth of electric cars coming to the market. We can maybe say that, yes, we might translate it to that we grow our market share. On the other hand, it is not always quite clear whether the number of cars is directly related to the number of charging stations required at the moment, because we not only supply more, so to say, to the end markets for private persons, but we especially also have a revenue for our projects in, say, the public area or the semi-public area, and those are not always directly related to the number of cars coming to the market.
That's also what we saw in the first half of this year that, say, when many companies realized, okay, or we're assuming that COVID would be mainly overcome, that they released projects that they had already had in the planning to increase the number of charging stations at offices, in grocery stores, to be able to have to cope with the growing number of cars which were in the market.
On the other end, we are also convinced that due to our strategy with, say, pan-European customers, like Michelle mentioned several of them, that we will be able to grow our revenue on our own account in different countries by finding new customers, but also to leverage on the success of our customers, not only in one given country, but also bear with their progress to expand within the European space. We are convinced that this will contribute also in the coming years to a very strong revenue growth for Alfen. That will be different country by country, like we see now as well at the moment, the most developed countries, Norway and Netherlands.
On other end, we see now also that countries like Germany, U.K., France, are stepping up quickly and also in a pace that is not to be expected to ramp down in the coming years because they are way behind, say, the amount of charging stations needed to accommodate the introduction of electric cars. This is complicated for how many years we can expect to have those type of growth percentages. Saying from market perspective, we're not way close to the moment where the market will slow down.
If I understand well, you don't really see a reason right now to believe why the 2023 growth rate should be way different from the one you expect in the second half. Is that correct?
From market, but it's always complicated to really predict our own growth rates, due there are many elements contributing to that. If we look, say, at a general market situation, say the only market where we say where there is a consolidation of the number of charging stations, that might be Norway, because there, the number of electric cars in new sales of cars is already extremely high. In all other countries of Europe, if you more or less add them together, we will see that many countries are only at the beginning of the introduction of electric cars. So it can be therefore different country by country, and also there are consequences have a different impact on our growth capabilities. Fundamentally, within the overall scheme of Europe, there is still an enormous growth potential.
Countries such as U.K., Germany and France are stepping up, but many other countries are way behind in their process of introducing electric cars, and as a consequence, the introduction of charging stations within the overall marketplace.
Okay. Thank you. Second question on profitability for the group. I think we see that with sequential sales going higher, the EBITDA margin is also going higher. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit about how you think about the second half, 2022 EBITDA margin? I would assume that the midpoint of the sales guidance assumes a slightly higher sales versus Q2. Does that mean that you also expect profitability in the second half to be slightly above the one of the second quarter?
Well, I hope you appreciate that we don't give any profitability outlook, so we will also not do it now. What I can say is that at the time of the IPO, we said that our objective was to go to a mid- to high-teens adjusted EBITDA margin. Last year, we were slightly below the bottom point of that range, and the first half year shows that we are in that range. Our objective is definitely to be in that range that we defined up front. At that time, we also said it's a 5- to 7-year period, and I hope you appreciate that we are now in year five. That's how we look at it.
We tend to also look at it more from a year-to-year basis instead of a quarter-to-quarter, because a quarter might be slightly different. Operational leverage is not
A linear line from quarter to quarter, because sometimes we invest upfront in extra people or whatsoever, and then it can give a bit of pressure on operational leverage in a certain quarter, and then again, extra operational leverage in the quarter after. That's how we look at it, but you can expect us to strive for profitable growth. That's our mission, and that remains the mission. That's how we look at our results going forward.
Is there any reason to believe that profitability will deviate quite substantially from the H1 levels, maybe driven by, I don't know, mix effects? Because it looks like EV charging in absolute numbers might be a bit lower. Energy storage probably a bit higher. Could that have a big impact on the profitability in second half?
There can always be impact on profitability, going from product mix, because, as you know, even a transformer substation with the same type for a different customer doesn't have the same margin. There is a product mix effect. There is a supply chain challenge. There are transportation costs. There is pricing towards customers. Yes, all of the above will be taken into account and can have an impact on results. As said, we will continue to strive for profitable growth. That's what I can tell you at this point in time.
Okay. Thank you. Then my final question is on energy storage. Based on what I read in press and from peers, it looks like the demand is much stronger than previously expected. Could you give us an update on your order intake and your order book for this segment?
Yeah. We definitely continue to see our pipeline and our order book grow. The three examples I shared during the webcast are examples of order intake that we've seen that'll convert to revenue in the future. Our pipeline continues to grow across Europe. Project sizes continue to grow, so we're definitely starting to see the momentum in multiple markets.
Is there any number you could share on order intake, just to get an idea on the size?
As indicated at the start of the year that at starting of 2022, our order backlog was already higher than the revenue we have realized last year. We're not able to more or less present all the exact numbers on the order intake. It's complicated to give a precise prediction on the revenue, because we have seen in the first half year that, especially with Energy Storage, the elements of when is the grid connection available, when do the materials come on site, when are all permits available, and permits can be building permits, but also can be, say, permits to feed back into the grid for what rating. That have an impact on, say, the ability for us to present revenue in relationship to the progress of the project.
We are fully convinced of, say, that the revenue this year will be backloaded, as what we said. The most of the revenue will be in the second half of the year. also we are very positive about, say, future developments of which, because of the fact we see our qualified pipeline grow strongly, not only in number of projects but also in size. Therefore, we also convinced of this, the positive outlook, not only for this year but also for the coming years.
Would it be fair to say that you have become more positive on this segment, today versus six months ago?
That's a correct conclusion. We try to find also the proper words to make that substantiate that. And so on one hand, our order book is quite strong at the moment, and we also see our qualified pipeline grow strongly. Therefore, the qualified pipeline will have limited effect on the revenue this year, but of course, especially in next year or the year after, because also here we see that due to the size of the project, also the time spent in which project realization can be executed is also prolonging. Therefore, we already have line of sight for what will happen in 2023, and we are confident due to, say, the discussion with customers that also the market capabilities are positive.
Okay. Very clear. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from the line of Bhawin Thakker calling from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. My first question relates to, again, your second half operating margins, if you can provide any visibility in addition to what you have already said. I was just thinking in terms of the mix elements for the second half. Your Energy Storage revenues are implied to kind of step up in second half. Your automation related project is also expected to kind of start showing effects in second half. How shall we think about overall margins, especially in terms of mix, and what kind of impact this automation related project might have on your margins? Does it start incurring costs from second half, or you have already booked some costs with regards to that in the first half itself?
Well, I appreciate the question and, but we never give, let's say, a profitability per business line, so we will also not do it now. What we can say is that we strive for operational leverage, and we said before that the fastest-growing business lines have the most opportunity for operational leverage. That's where we are focusing on. That's how we look at it. And we feel we have not reached the end of operational leverage yet. Having said so, product mix has effects, but also global supply chains have effect on the overall margins and profitability of the business as such.
I think I said before, we will continue to strive for profitable growth.
Okay. That's helpful. With regards to the operating leverage, like as you mentioned that, the year-on-year growth in your EV charging business, which has been exceptionally high, more than 200% year-on-year. As it kind of slows down slightly, despite remaining at quite high levels, more than 100%, of course, as you said, you have seen over the last few years. Does that have any impact on the operating leverage for the second half?
Well, we also have a flexible workforce, so we are able to increase and decrease compared to production levels that we see. That's how we balance our operational leverage, also.
Thanks. Lastly, just wanted to know if you could provide some more details about the impairment charge that you've booked about half a million EUR in the first half. What does it relate to?
That's the expected credit loss that you refer to. That's the accounting treatment of what you initially called a provision for doubtful debts, which is now based on an overall calculation model and even outstanding amounts which have not yet been overdue. You need to take into account a certain percentage of risk. That's fully based on IFRS, and that's why you see that on that line. Yeah, it is called an impairment loss in accounting terminology, but it's more or less a kind of step-up in provision.
Okay. It's not with regards to any repayments that you were already due?
No.
Okay. Thanks so much. That's it from me.
The next question comes from Paul de Froment, calling from Bryan, Garnier & Co. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. Two questions for me on EV charging. The first is, do you plan to release new products or updates this year in EV charging? My second question is, could you give us more color on the contract with TotalEnergies for Europe until 2025? Thank you.
With regard to new products, I think we are constantly working on improving our products and also in defining features and we add them to our products. At this moment, I think it's not a time more or less to disclose those elements because some of them have not been finished completely, and some of them will be there in due time. At the moment, they are available. Of course, we will try to inform the market as soon as possible so that they can anticipate what would the possible impact of such elements. We are convinced that, say, within our development department, that we are trying to focus on those elements where we think we can help our customers to differentiate in the overall market area.
Also, we are convinced that those will contribute to, say, the elements why we think we can outpace the growth of the market by gaining market share in different countries.
In regard to the TotalEnergies contract, that's a framework agreement where we are one supplier for their various entities, so they're able to order our equipment to support various projects in specific countries or cities as they roll out their infrastructure.
Excellent. The next question comes from the line of Thijs Berkelder, calling from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you. It's correct that the line was lost for a minute or so.
It was lost, yeah.
It was not my problem.
Yeah.
Okay. Well, first, congratulations with, again, a beautiful performance. Let's start my question list with EV charging to get a bit more clarity on what to expect. Last year in EV charging, let's say Q3 was roughly flat in production versus Q2, and again, a boost in Q4 seems logical when looking at the summer quarter, where also your people will be on holiday. Is it logical to expect a similar pattern this year? Secondly, the unit's growth rate is particular. Can you roughly explain how these growth rates compare in home chargers versus public chargers? Third question on EV charging. Well, in Q2, I calculated already 74% of sales is international. Can you confirm that this, again, is primarily driven by U.K. and Germany? Fourth question.
In EV charging, the Netherlands, Q2 revenues were lower than Q1. Is this a normal seasonal effect or something special happening here?
Jeroen, can we maybe start with the pattern of revenue?
I think it's fair to assume, although seasonality patterns are not that obvious in EV charging, there is to some extent some pattern to be expected there. For now we don't see that that will be totally different than last year. It can flatten out to some extent also. That's difficult to precisely predict. I think looking more at the second half of the year as such, there we feel that the growth in the second half year compared to the previous half year is more in line with historical patterns. That's how we look at it from that perspective.
In regard to the growth rates within specific segments, we've got three different segments that we focus on, the public, the semi-public, the home. We're seeing growth in all three of those segments. Some of what we saw in first half is some of the public and semi-public projects being released post-COVID, but we're still seeing growth in the home segment as well. The 69% revenue rounded up to 70% is primarily being driven by our key markets, U.K., Germany, and France. The effects in the Netherlands is essentially a mix and a timing lag. We still see growth in the Netherlands as well long term.
Okay. Second segment, smart grids. Three questions there. A lot of utility companies, and by the way, the greenhouse sector as well, are suffering from the high gas prices right now. Do you already see or do you expect to see negative impact on your smart grids business because of these gas prices, especially in utility companies? Secondly, looking at your smart grid operations in Finland, are you seeing there, or do you expect there to see any impact from, let's say, the threat of Russia or, let's say a vice versa effect that Finland much better understands that they need to speed up? Finally, in smart grids, the second quarter was not as strong as the first quarter.
Can we expect a further slowdown in units in the second half, probably because of the supply chain situation as well as the gas price situation?
I think to start with the high gas prices, I think what we're actually seeing is projects continue driven by renewables, and even in the greenhouse segment, you're seeing a conversion from gas boilers to electrification, which drives a need for additional grid connections. It's obviously not in our revenue yet, but we are seeing projects continue to move forward. From a Finland-Russia perspective, we're not really seeing any impact from that right now. In regard to the growth in second quarter for smart grids, what we saw in first quarter was a higher than normal growth rate due to some catch up and compared to Q1 of 2021. Q2 was more normalized, and we expect that to continue into second half.
Okay. Clear. Thanks.
Next question comes from, Bhawin Thakker calling from Barclays again. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question again. Just wanted to get some details with regards to your end market exposures for EV charging business. With regards to home segment, do you have any visibility about what part of your home segment might be residential, which is like new construction and which is like installations within the existing homes. Just wanted to get some clarity around that if you have any visibility. Thank you.
With our go-to market, we support CPOs, resellers, wholesalers, and across our customer base, we see them supporting projects for all of those types of installations. We don't see the visibility of exactly where our chargers are going with the end users, but we do know they're going into each of those different spaces, both new construction as well as existing home installations.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Maarten Verbeek, calling from the IDEA!. Please go ahead.
Good morning. It's Maarten Verbeek of the IDEA!. Firstly, because it has been mentioned a couple of times, I'm just looking for some kind of confirmation concerning the year-on-year second half growth.
In line with my colleagues, I also do calculate a growth rate of about 100%. That's more or less what you try to say in your comment about this EV charging growth for second half.
Yes, because it doubled in the past couple of years, which is 100% growth.
Okay, thanks.
That can be a little bit less, it can be a little bit more. That is also depending on all kind of different circumstances. I can appreciate that, say, doubling is easy to calculate. But there has to be a bandwidth also for us to be able to predict what's going to happen in the market. Also, therefore, we have to be a little bit careful in giving straightforward numbers and that they will be also in real life, be that straightforward and exact.
Thanks. Secondly, concerning your working capital and particularly your trade and other receivables, and I do understand that it increases. How do you manage particularly your trade and other receivables that you won't be faced with clients which at the end don't pay?
Well, we manage it as always. It has not changed. We were always very strict on monitoring our working capital. I hope you appreciate if you see, if you look at trade and other receivables and look at trade and other payables, that is around a zero balance. The increase in working capital is purely related towards increasing inventory. All monitoring levels and securities and down payments from customers and whatsoever, all the measures that we take to safeguard the outstanding position are unchanged compared to what we are already doing for years.
Okay, thanks. What you also mentioned, there is an imbalance between BEVs being sold and how many EV charging equipment has been sold, obviously due to also selling it to public and semi-public. Do you have some kind of ratio which you have found out which works practically for you?
Of course, we more or less have the same questions like yourself have how to value our say growth capabilities in relationship to the say the cars coming to the market. We also have concluded that it is quite complicated for different kind of reasons. We have seen that say the registration of cars is not always the same number as the cars really being supplied to say to the end user. Sometimes car manufacturers do registrations at the end of the year or during the year for production reasons, for whatever reasons. We have all seen that the amount number of cars directly coming to the markets are different. We also see that sometimes whether there are organizational people are waiting more or less to buy charging stations until the car is really delivered.
On some moment, we see in certain markets that there is an element, say, due to government reasons, subsidies that people or companies are deciding to install charging stations way before the cars are really entering the market. Also we see the different type of reasons to come to a charging station, whether it's public or semi-public, and that all in all makes it complicated in a certain timeframe to have a direct relationship of a number of cars and the number of charging stations. On the other hand, you're also right, the number of cars are an indication of what's in the market. We can have many debates on whether there is, say, for every car in general over time, one charging station or a half one or even two.
Where, of course, you can imagine that we favor two charging stations per car. All in all, I think we cannot value the averages over time in such a timeframe as three months or half a year. There are so many individual aspects that influence that ratio, that it gives an indication, but not in a short timeframe. We consider shorter than three months or half a year.
Okay, thanks. Lastly, your cost of outsourced work has increased sharply, more than doubled. Is it related to the fact that your capacity is a little bit short and that will more or less disappear when you will enter into your new production facility?
No, it is related to our flexible workforce, because flexible workforce is in that category of outsourced work as well. It's all the costs and outsourced work. That's why it's categorized in that area of our profit and loss account.
It did increase pretty sharply compared to what we have seen in the past couple of years, then it was fairly stable.
Yes, because also our revenue increased quite heavily.
Yeah, it also did in the past. Okay, thanks.
The next question comes from Thijs Berkelder, calling from ABN AMRO ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Well, thank you. Last week or a couple of weeks ago, a kind of panic report was published in the U.S. on the low reliability of EV chargers in the U.S. Two questions there. Can you maybe indicate what kind of percentage of your chargers is signaled as no longer working or disrupted or being sent back or something like that? Two, have you already been approached by U.S. resellers to also potentially supply your reliable products in the U.S. as well?
Thijs, we are known for having a reliable product, and I think here in Europe, you know, that is part of what sets us apart, part of our differentiation. I think I saw the same article you saw with some of the reliability concerns. For any EV driver, you know, when you need to charge, you want a reliable charger to rely on. We're proud that we can deliver reliable chargers. Right now, Europe is a great market for us. We see tremendous growth opportunity. We'll always look at other markets, but right now our focus is on Europe.
Okay. Do we have some data on what percentage of your product is, let's say, going down per year or needs repair per year? You have a bit of grip on service data or something like that?
Yeah. We partner with various service providers to support our end users, and we don't have that data that we make publicly available, but we're certainly managing it and working to ensure that we've got high reliability and high uptime on the chargers.
Okay. Thank you.
We currently have no questions coming through. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one now. There are no further questions, so I will hand you back to your host to conclude today's conference.
Okay. Thank you, Ben. At this moment, I would like to thank everybody for their participation in this webcast. I would also like to remind you, if there are any questions that somebody forgot and is very important to value what's really happening with Alfen. Last further questions, please reach out to ourselves, whether it is Dico or in general to have any further questions. With this, I will request our operator more or less to close down this call. Once again, thanks everybody for participating this webcast.
Thank you.