Hello, and welcome to the Theon International Full Year 2024 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, please submit it using the Q&A text box on the webcast. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nikos Malesiotis, Head of M&A and Investor Relations. You may begin.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Theon's Full Year 2024 Results Conference call. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Nikos Malesiotis, Head of M&A and Investor Relations at Theon. Today, I am joined by our CEO, Christian Hadjiminas, our newly appointed Deputy CEO, Philippe Mennicken, and our CFO, Dimitris Parthenis. They will present in this order, walking us through the key developments and the financial results of 2024, as well as our strategic priorities for the future. Following the presentation, we will open the floor to your questions. With that, I hand over to you, Christian.
Thank you, Nikos. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining this call. We are happy to present the results of the first year as a listed company. I am particularly happy that we have over-delivered on our promises so far, starting our track record strong and as we mean to go on. This, we believe, increases the trust between our company and our shareholders, and of course, the analysts covering our stock. Let me begin by acknowledging the commitment and hard work of our people, my colleagues at all levels of the company, who do not hesitate to go the extra mile in order to overachieve our ambitious goals every year.
I will now provide an overview of Theon's exceptional results in 2024, as well as the strategic milestones achieved in 2024 and so far in 2025, before handing you over to Philippe, who will explain why we are in excellent shape to continue growing fast by capturing the increasing demand on a global scale. In 2024, we made clear progress on all fronts. We grew our top line by an impressive 61%, surpassing guidance and while maintaining profitability with an EBIT margin of 25%. Soft backlog also increased as a result of strong order intake. We have made significant progress on all fronts. To highlight a few, first, we completed the acquisition of Harder Digital, as well as signing a long-term agreement with Exosens. As a result, we have largely secured our supply chain and significantly de-risked our business.
We continue our geographic expansion in Denmark and South Korea, and we plan to expand further by creating valuable partnerships in regions critical for our business growth. As a result of this excellent performance, we are happy to announce that we will propose a dividend of approximately EUR 0.34 per share at the 2025 General Assembly, 65% higher than last year's dividend, representing a payout ratio of 35% in line always with our guidance. Adding to those I have already mentioned, there were many other significant milestones achieved in 2024. We started the year with the signing of the Second Amendment of the OCARA contract. We listed Theon International on Euronext Amsterdam. We introduced the A.R.M.E.D. ecosystem of products, which Philippe will talk to more shortly, achieving diversification of our product portfolio and looking at the future with even more optimism.
The initial signals and signs from the market are very positive, as our new products are well received by the market, and we are already experiencing increasing traction in several tender processes with strong early orders. Before the year end, Germany exercised the third option of the OCARA contract, much earlier than expected, a signal of expedited demand, but also impeccable delivery performance by Theon. I would like also to highlight some important developments that took place after the year end. In January, we announced that Theon is participating in the German Future Soldier program, where we will provide our brand new heads-up display to Germany, creating a new reference product in Europe. Secondly, and in listening to our investors, we completed a sell down in March in order to increase the free float. This was impressively well received by the market.
The increased daily turnover has attracted many new investors who saw that a major issue for them has now been addressed. This concludes my initial remarks. I will now hand over to Philippe, who is not only our Business Development Director, but he has been recently appointed to be the Deputy CEO of Theon, to provide you with an overview of the market environment and the latest development in the business.
Thank you, Christian. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to everyone. I would like to give you a brief market and business update, and I will start by giving you an overview of the current market situation by region. The world has been facing a new situation globally, which commenced following the onset of the second term of President Trump in the U.S. The world has changed, and previous values and alliances are no longer guaranteed. This has an impact on all regions in the world to a lesser or greater extent, while it provides further potential opportunities for Theon. Starting with the U.S., while defense expenses are being reviewed, we do not anticipate any overall decrease in defense spending in the coming years. This appears to be only temporary, as the global challenges will actually require increased, if not more efficient spending.
We actually expect an acceleration in the procurement of traditional but essential defense equipment, while the speed of adoption of new technologies like artificial intelligence and augmented reality is also expected to pick up. In the meantime, the anticipated program for the procurement of night vision binoculars of the U.S. Army has been launched for an initial quantity of 42,000 binoculars, with the outcome expected later during this year. Despite the threat of possible tariffs, we believe that Theon is well positioned. Our night vision binocular is the U.S. Marine Corps standard and, in fact, the most widely used state-of-the-art night vision binocular in the U.S. at the moment. Europe has just realized that there is no guaranteed support anymore from the U.S., while continued reliance on the U.S. for its own defense may expose Europe to possible vulnerabilities.
This means Europe is expected to start a defense spending supercycle for the next 10 years at least, with defense budget expected to reach up to 3.5% of GDP on average and maybe even more. Moreover, Europe will increasingly focus on buying European, also with support of the EUR 150 billion loan program of the European Union. A domino effect is being expected. As soon as the first countries start aggressively new procurements, other countries will follow so as not to be left out. We can see this already in our business segment, where several European countries are proactively looking at procuring large quantities of night vision and thermal equipment to ensure timely supply.
While procurements of market-available equipment is expected to be the focus in the short term, Europe will release large funds for defense technology developments for the medium to long term through the ReArm Europe Plan and Readiness 2030 program. In light of this, Theon's armed product family is expected to make further major entries in several European countries. In the Middle East, continued strong defense spending is expected in light of continued regional threats and global challenges, with a possible increase of reliance on European equipment. We see significant upside for Theon given the pending demand in the region. In APAC, same as in Europe, strong defense spending is expected in the coming years, with, again, possible increase of reliance on European equipment.
To name a few examples, Japan just passed a record defense budget, the Philippines increased its defense budget by 12%, and Australia announced a big defense spending increase as well. Moreover, we expect large night vision and thermal programs to launch in the near to medium term horizon in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia, just to name a few. U.S. tariffs may further divert spending to European suppliers. Theon is well positioned, having established a strong presence in the region, with sales in all major countries, a new office being opened in the Philippines, and our new facility in South Korea. Specific reference should also be made to the marine environment in the Pacific region and the fact that the Theon night vision binocular is the standard goggle of the U.S. Marine Corps, which acts as an important reference.
Now, let us spend a moment on the overall outlook for night vision goggles, and in particular on the penetration rate of night vision equipment worldwide. In the context of the new awareness of having every soldier equipped at least with a night vision goggle for nighttime operations, we can see on slide eight that the penetration rate is still low globally for the conventional night vision market, in which we are leaders, providing significant headroom for growth. The exception, of course, is the U.S., which has a very high penetration rate, but which is entering a large replacement cycle due to the fact that most of its night vision equipment is built on a legacy monocular that was designed in the 1990s and needs replacement with modern state-of-the-art night vision binoculars.
In all other regions, estimated penetration rates vary between 10% and 30%, meaning major upside for Theon, given its leading market position in light of the global trend to move closer to a one-to-one ratio of night vision goggles to soldiers, creating an accelerated demand globally. The market will continue to grow for the years to come, and we are well positioned to capture this increasing demand with timely deliveries. In parallel, there is a new market emerging on top of night vision as the new battlefield requires increased situational awareness of the soldier. This trend is being recognized by armed forces all around the world. For example, modern soldiers need to be able to quickly identify and react to threats such as drones and communicate these to commands, who can then disseminate the information to all assets. Here, new technology is required to fill this need.
The Theon's ARMS ecosystem allows exactly this. Fused imagery with advanced image processing allows fast and more efficient threat detection. This can be managed by the ROC, creating a modular fused binocular, and the Orion, which is a standalone solution with slightly enhanced capabilities. The integrated augmented reality capabilities allow fast and effective display of key data in the battlefield, such as friend and foe location. All three of our products shown here, the ROC, the Orion, and Theon, which is used for daytime data display, provide these vital augmented reality capabilities. Finally, the smart battery plug and smart gateway provide the required interconnectivity of all these products, allowing the communication of threats and other data back and forth with the command and control center.
Theon ARMS products have already seen a very strong entry in the market, having been selected by major European programs such as the German Future Soldier IDZ. In particular, the ROC attracts significant interest from users around the world due to its modularity, allowing the upgrade of soldiers' capabilities using existing night vision goggles. We strongly believe that these products will become the new reference products in European and global armies and will allow Theon to diversify its sales significantly starting from 2026 onward. On this very promising note, I will now hand over to Dimitris to take you through our excellent financial performance in 2024.
Thank you, Philippe, and good afternoon, everyone. Me and the team are proud indeed for another year of excellent financial performance. I would like to start with two general statements. First, Q4 remained once again our strongest quarter in terms of order intake, revenues, and profitability, as it typically happens in our business. Second, our new acquired company, Harder Digital, had a minor effect on our results as we have consolidated only two months of operations. Now, on to our summary financial highlights. The order intake reached EUR 466 million, slightly lower than last year due to the phasing of some tenders that finally led to a strong Q1 2025, but still higher than deliveries in the year, implying a book-to-build ratio of 1.3 times. This resulted in an historically high soft backlog of EUR 654 million, covering 1.9 times the annual revenue.
Revenue grew by more than 60%, landing at EUR 352.4 million, above guidance, while EBIT surpassed EUR 88 million, maintaining the highest operating margin in the sector at 25.1%. We invested EUR 10.7 million in CapEx in line with our focus on driving sustained and continued growth. Lastly, the company holds a net cash position, which allows delivery of our ambitious growth plans going forward, but also to ensure we can deliver strong returns to our shareholders in line with our guidance. Moving to our backlog, we have achieved significant growth of 20%. On top of the soft backlog, we have options related to these contracts for an additional EUR 300 million, adding up to a total soft backlog plus options of close to EUR 1 billion. These numbers do not include the orders announced in 2025 so far, nor high-probability projects actively chasing.
We expect that part of the options will be exercised during 2025, given the anticipated increased defense spending and the low penetration rate globally. Out of our current soft backlog, we expect to deliver approximately 50% in 2025, 40% in 2026, and the remainder in 2027 and beyond. As already shown, the significant value of new orders has led to an increase of more than EUR 100 million in the soft backlog year over year, allowing for very good visibility and security in the coming years. The majority of revenue came once again from night vision products, and Europe remains our core market, and it accounted for 82% of total revenues in 2024, with the remaining 18% coming from all over the world. This is expected to continue in the foreseeable future.
2024 was another year of robust profitability, with adjusted EBIT of EUR 88.4 million, up 56% compared to the previous year. Adjusted EBIT translates into a margin of 25.1% in line with our guidance. This figure incorporates one-off adjustments of approximately EUR 1.5 million. We continue to invest in company's growth in accordance with our strategy. In 2024, CapEx increased by 40.1% versus last year to EUR 10.7 million and was primarily directed towards increasing the capacity of Harder Digital and designing new innovative products like the ARMS Generation and our extended portfolio of platform-based [optronics] that will all serve to further our growth potential in the coming years. During 2024, we continue to hold a high strategic inventory, providing enhanced capability to address ad hoc orders coming from urgent demand, specifically towards year-end. Working capital increased significantly, but this is a temporary snapshot in time.
The once again high top-line growth, along with the delivery of a large part of annual sales towards the year-end, led to a working capital of EUR 165.5 million. However, its normalization is already visible in Q1 2025. We believe a working capital of around 35% of revenues is reasonable going forward. Our net cash position of EUR 41.7 million, including, of course, the cash raised at the IPO, enables high dividend payment as well as smooth execution of our business plan. Lastly, I want to reiterate our financial targets for 2025 and beyond. For 2025, we expect revenue to be in the range of EUR 410-430 million, and we are in a strong position to achieve this with 90% of the bottom end of this range already covered by existing orders.
We remain focused on maintaining an EBIT margin in the mid-20s, and we expect to spend EUR 20 million CapEx this year, the highest ever, continuing our organic investment plan. This will be mainly directed to Harder Digital's production capacity expansion. At the AGM, we will propose a dividend payout of 35% of net income realized in 2024, translating to almost EUR 0.34 per share. In the medium term, we expect to continue growing in line with our addressable market and to maintain an EBIT margin in the mid-20s. CapEx is expected to reach a maximum of 3.5% of revenue, and we aim to maintain a 30-40% dividend payout ratio. Needless to say that this guidance only refers to our organic growth and does not include any potential effect coming from acquisitions.
Moreover, while we expect the rearm initiative to direct a large number of EU funds to European manufacturers, we remain conservative by not factoring in yet any impact until we have more clarity on the timeline of EU's new policies implementation. I will now hand back to you, Christian, to provide an overview of our outlook for 2025.
Thank you, Dimitris. Looking ahead, we're concentrating on four main areas. First, capturing the increasing demand in our key markets with our man-portable products, but also with increasing focus on the platform-based market, which is another high-growth area, and our commitment to our shareholders during the IPO. Secondly, continuing our M&A strategy to diversify product portfolio even further and form new partnerships that will help us deliver our plans. Theon, I have to stress that, remains very selective in this direction. Third, further strengthen our supply chain for tubes by restoring past higher capacity levels in Harder Digital, where we managed to make considerable progress to drive incremental capacity and, of course, by extending our commitments, long-term commitments to our other tube suppliers. Fourth, consistently developing new products and improving the existing ones to remain ahead of the competition.
Last but not least, I would like to remind you that we had a kickstart to 2025 with more than EUR 200 million in already announced and committed orders and options, providing Theon with enhanced security for our 2025 delivery. Such rate of sales, as the one I mentioned before, represents a more than double replacement of our Q1 invoiced and delivered level of products. We expect such replacement rate to continue throughout the year. To this effect, let us point out to you that Theon participates in very large tenders exceeding EUR 450 million that are expected to be announced next few months. We also expect an acceleration of option exercises. The nature of our products, I want to remind that, involves relatively short-term deliveries and relatively small order size, as opposed, for example, to aircraft and air defense procurements.
This, in turn, makes it easier for decision-makers to accelerate such orders. The financial year 2024 performance, along with a strong start to financial year 2025, means we remain very optimistic for the business. We maintain conservative targets while being attentive to opportunities that arise and are confident in achieving our objectives. Thank you all for attending today's call, and I would like to invite you now to ask any questions you may have. Good afternoon.
Apologies, ladies and gentlemen. Please stand by. We are experiencing technical difficulties. One moment, please. Thank you for your patience as we ask you to continue to hold. Please stand by for Q&A. If you would like to submit a question, please do so using the Q&A text box on the webcast.
Sarah, can you hear us now? Excuse me, Sarah, can you hear us? We had a technical issue.
Yes, thank you. We can hear you. Please go ahead.
Okay, great. Apologies for this inconvenience. First of all, we would like to remind everyone that we will only be accepting questions through the chat. Please feel free to type your questions at any time, and we will try to address them. Dimitris, you could start with two topics already multiple times in the chat. First, with regards to U.S. tariffs and the expected impact on our business. Second, the evolution of working capital.
Yes, thank you, Nikos. Yeah, we have seen such questions coming up quite often. First, regarding the U.S. tariffs, of course, the situation is, let's say, a bit strange. I mean, it's changing day by day, and it's full of surprises. From the information that we already got from our customers, who have communicated with the respective authorities in the States, it seems that all military equipment that is addressed to the government of the United States is going to be exempt from any tariffs. This leaves a small amount of turnover that is going to be directed to the U.S. civil sector that might be impacted by tariffs, but this is indeed very small, around 2-3% of our total turnover. Now, around working capital dynamics, the figures this year mostly come from the inventory and our receivables.
Around the inventory, I think that we have communicated many times in the past that it is our strategic decision to keep high inventory, especially in key components like image intensifier tubes. This gives us the opportunity to capture ad hoc demand, especially the one that is coming near the end of the year. This is one of the main reasons, actually the main reason why we are the only company maybe that can deliver that fast and capture such demand. Now, regarding the receivables, the high receivables, this is to a big extent attributed to the fact that we are delivering a big part of our turnover near the end of the year. Just to give you an idea, in 2024, we have delivered around 30-35% of our total annual turnover in November and December only.
This means that the respective amounts are collected from these invoices towards the beginning of the following year, meaning January, February, March. This is quite typical, as I said, something that we see every year in our business. We have this increased flow at the end of the year. It is a matter of, let's say, phasing mostly, and it goes together with the progress of our business. Now, going forward, I think that given the fact that our growth is going to be smoothened out in the following years, meaning that we're not going to grow by 60% in the years to come, I believe that the working capital is also going to be normalized. As already mentioned before, we believe that a 35% rate of working capital on turnover is something that we expect as reasonable.
Thank you, Dimitris. Maybe I believe Christian, you can answer about market expectations and sustainability of growth.
Which one is that?
You have multiple questions in this front.
Yes, thank you very much. As I said from the beginning, we are conservative in our estimates. I can tell you that in 2025, we will know very soon we will be able to announce a decision on major tenders in Europe. That, in turn, will allow us, conservatively again, to recalibrate our guidance. I can tell you that there are constraints for most of the companies, much, much less for Theon for 2025, given the limited supply of tubes. In 2026, Theon has secured a very large number of tubes, plus the increased capacity of Harder Digital, of course. I can also tell you this, that is very important.
We expect some of those tenders that I mentioned earlier, for which Theon has already been pre-qualified or pre-awarded, but we are expecting, obviously, like all major tenders, for all legal complaints to be addressed by the decision authorities. What is very, very interesting here is that since this involves our ARMS products mostly, we expect to increase, and this is our target, and we expect the announcements to be made first, and then we will give you guidance. We expect this series of products, which includes thermal, to increase up to 20% for 2026. This is a major achievement that we expect to attain, because it allows us to further expand our turnover. To answer some questions, we have given the existing parameters because people are asking us how much we can increase the production capacity.
Right now, we could increase the capacity up to EUR 650 million. I repeat, EUR 650 million per annum. Of course, this will be driven by the demand and, of course, any constraints in tube supplies. As Dimitris has very correctly stated, we have a leading position in the market, which allows us to, as far as we know, to be the only ones that have such long-term agreements with tube suppliers. Of course, restoring Harder Digital's capacity to what it used to be, it's already a very big help. Harder Digital, I must say also, Harder Digital integration has been working very well since we acquired the company. The company is quickly restoring its capacity, and we expect this company to add to our profitability, although to a smaller degree, even in 2025, which is quite an achievement.
This, of course, is not included in our guidance of EUR 410-EUR 430. There is. I can also say that when the announcements were made about Europe trying to increase its demand, initially, the market reacted positively, and then there were doubts whether this is actually happening. I must say, and this is a very important point in today's call, I believe. I must tell you that when we start announcing tenders, new orders, which was EUR 200 million already, which, again, is more than twice the average of products delivered at the same time that is in Q1. This is also a very impressive performance. The vast majority of it came from northern European countries, which confirms what has been said in the press that it has been translating very quickly.
I will repeat exactly what I've been saying and we've been saying even during the IPO process. Many analysts thought correctly regarding other cases that our company and night vision in general has a very short, relatively delivery time, and therefore, there's no visibility for the years to come. I can tell you that this is an advantage, actually, and I said that the same way during the IPO process. This allows decision makers to make quick decisions on us because it's a relatively small order, even if you order 50,000 or 20,000 binoculars, it's still much less than ordering aircraft and air defense, which, of course, they also tend to be delivered after three or four or five years.
What Theon has, and in general, night vision companies right now, they have an increasing demand due to still low penetration of night vision. They have an increasing demand for night vision equipment, a very relatively easy process for decision makers to take decisions and use their budgets and knowing that they will deliver on time. Again, this year, we expect this rate of more than double replacing whatever is being delivered, that is, for the EUR 410-430 guidance numbers for 2025. We expect incoming orders to continue to be and end up in the year more than twice whatever has been delivered during 2025.
Thank you, Christian. Maybe we can continue with Philippe, who has received multiple questions about specifically the U.S. tender. Who do we partner with? When do we expect the outcome of this tender? And how long deliveries will last?
Yes. Thank you, Nikos. Yes. Allow me to answer some of these questions that we have just received. Obviously, we cannot go into details who we are participating with in this tender. Of course, we can say that we do participate. Later during this year. On the competitive landscape, again, I cannot tell you too much, but it is the usual suspects, so to speak, similar to the U.S. Marine Corps tender at the time. We do believe that, obviously, we have a fair chance, to say the least, especially having the reference product, our Night Vision Binoculars with the U.S. Marine Corps in the U.S. Now, this tender in the U.S., obviously, is an important tender, a prestigious tender, in which, as I said, we believe we have a fair chance to win this tender.
To answer some of the other questions that we received as well in terms of growth of the company, Europe is obviously going to be the focus of our growth for the coming years. As you've heard, and I'm sure that you read, the defense budgets in Europe are expected to increase, in some cases, dramatically. A lot of money is going to be spent. The focus is going to be on procuring defense equipment with fast deliveries. In the next two, three years, the focus will be on acquiring equipment. At the same time, it's expected to be a lot of money to be freed by the European Union to invest into development of new products, which, as you have heard, concerns the rearm initiative.
Here, again, we have, I could say, a head start with our A.R.M.E.D. ecosystem, and we intend to develop this further. As much as possible, use as well of guns that's going to be liberated by various sources in Europe.
If I may add, this is Christian Hadjiminas again. We must not also underestimate the fact that this surge in demand in Europe and the constraints, of course, in expanding the capacity of tubes for the U.S., but mostly for Europe, has also led to an increased impending demand from the Middle East and Far East. Middle East and Far East, you need to understand that they are very well aware, the major buyers there, that there is a constraint on the tubes. Of course, even if they were to call for tenders right now, they would have a hard time securing supplies for 2025 and 2026. This is a pending demand that ensures that there will be continuous growth in this segment of the business for 2026 and 2027. Once again, Theon has managed to be in the best position of having secured the critical components.
Thank you both. Maybe we can continue with some more technical questions, Dimitris. We'll see questions about operating leverage, evolution, and use of funds with regards to CapEx.
Yeah. I see that someone is asking about operating leverage, that although our turnover increased 61 last year, our EBIT margin has not increased in 2024. Okay. Given that we have been awarded more and larger tenders, you do appreciate that, I mean, the larger a tender gets, the higher the, let's say, discount you need to offer in order to be awarded. So although there is obvious operating leverage, at the same time, our gross margin has been slightly decreased given the size of the recent tenders.
Which we expect with the digital. The next one, what was it? Just a minute. Okay. How much of the CapEx is for Harder Digital and how much is maintenance CapEx? We expect that out of, we are talking about 2024, I guess. A small part is about Harder Digital, around, I would say, EUR 3 million-EUR 4 million. Maintenance CapEx is very minimal, around, I would say, EUR 1 million. Going forward in 2025, we expect that out of the EUR 20 million, around EUR 10 million is going to be directed to Harder Digital renovation and acquisition of new production equipment. Again, maintenance CapEx is very small, close to EUR 1 million.
Next, I believe Christian, you can answer about identified delays with the communicated M&A plan, the timing of potential deals, and expected multiples to pay.
Okay. Yes. First of all, as I said before, we need to ensure that we're doing the right acquisition at the right time and the right price. As you know very well, all of you, there is, given this surge in demand and growth in the defense sector, many companies have raised many shareholders of many defense companies that are possible targets for us or from somebody else. They have increased their prices. Yet we are still in a position to find acquisitions. We expect this year to conclude two acquisitions. We also expect to conclude purchases of product lines. It doesn't have to be involved the whole company. As I said, Theon is very selective, and it will only add companies or product lines that are really accretive. Most importantly, product lines that Theon is in a position to industrialize further and to use its global footprint.
Here, I have to say, we do have an advantage because there are many companies out there in the areas that we operate. These are companies with very promising products, but unable to because they do not have the global footprint that we have. These companies are also not, so they do not have the capability like Theon does to change and industrialize and change and adapt a product to what really the end customers want. I want to remind here that end customers tend to be the same ones that buy our products, are the same ones that buy those adjacent products of the companies we have in mind. Our value added to these companies is considerable.
If I may add here, Christian, with regards to multiples, what we are targeting right now, I mean, the targets that we have identified are close to, I would say, high single digit to low double digit. There are ongoing discussions about the potential acquisitions that Christian has mentioned.
Thank you. Next, we have a couple of questions, I think, for you, Christian, about potential future sell down to increase free float further or selling higher stakes to big strategic investors at the times.
I can tell you, no, at this stage, we don't have any such plans. We also have a lockup period, as you know. We believe we have addressed the liquidity aspect, and that's why we have new investors. This was also reflected in the movements of our share price. No, at this stage, we don't have plans to further sell more shares. If I may, just to add to what I was saying earlier, because that's also very important to convey regarding M&As, we are still going to deliver the bolt-on acquisitions that we have promised to the market. I would like to tell you that given Theon's performance, we are in a position, and as you know, we are not at all leveraged as a company.
We have started, aside from the bolt-on acquisitions that we are still on track to deliver, we are starting looking at larger acquisitions as well. This is because as Theon develops, there is room to do that. Of course, we have and we've already started discussions about increasing our war chest. So far, we are not experiencing any difficulties in doing so so that we can increase our war chest and ammunition in order to go also for a selective one or maybe two larger acquisitions. Thank you.
Thank you, Christian. Now, Philippe, we have received some questions about our go-to-market strategy for the platform's products. If you could discuss about the landscape in the tubes market.
Yes. Thank you, Nikos. Yes. On the platform side, I'm happy to state that the plans are moving well forward. We have received some first, if only small, orders at the one hand. On the other hand, we are going according to plan with the development of these systems. There is indeed quite some interest from potential customers, platform manufacturers, in which we are in discussions for various such systems. We do expect [platform-based optronics] to make an impact on the revenue starting in 2026. When it comes to margins, this was one question, what margins we would expect from the [platform-based optronics]. It may well be that at the beginning, margins may be a little bit reduced. Obviously, this would be to get into the market, to establish ourselves, to have a reference.
In the long term, we expect these margins to go up and be in line with margins of our thermal equipment. In the design and development side, we expect to increase the workforce on the design department from 40 up to 80 engineers, a part of which obviously is going to work on [platform-based optronics]. At the moment, we are around 65 people. At the same time, we're outsourcing this design work to teams in the market that have outstanding experience and can design such equipment very, very fast, obviously always in cooperation with our design team. Of course, we're looking as well at acquisitions, minimum one acquisition that's going to support the development of platform-based [optronics]. That's for the platforms. Now, Niko's coming back to your question about the image intensifier market.
There was one question whether the Buy European initiative is going to increase the demand for European tubes.
Yes, we do expect that the demand is going to go up. That is why on one hand side, as you all know, we invested in Harder Digital, which we intend to increase as well in terms of capacity. On the second hand, we signed this long-term agreement with Exosens, which secures the supply situation for tubes, in particular with European tubes, but not only. Obviously, looking as well at the U.S. demand and the global demand. I can say that for now, at least, it seems that our actions that we have taken are satisfactory and sufficient to supply equipment to our customers now as well as in the next two, three years.
We have another question about our strategic roadmap for Focus Optech in South Korea. If this will be a rep office, distribution center, or we also plan to start production there.
No, it's not going to be a rep office, and it's not going to be a distribution office either. It is going to be we're going to build on it, and we started doing this. We want to be able to have another plan that can deliver fully a product from A to Z independently of Europe, a plan that it is near the demand that we expect to increase a lot in 2026 and 2027. Philippe mentioned two or three countries that are positioned to increase their buying of night vision, again, with the constraints that most of the night vision tubes are going right now to European customers. Focus Optech will be in a position in 2026 to be able to deliver fully products to the Korean Army, to the Japanese Army, and to the other armies in the area.
Thank you. Dimitris, we have a question about contribution of Harder Digital to our sales, EBIT, and free cash flow in Q4 in 2024.
Yeah. As we have consolidated only two months, it's really minimal. I mean, I think it's around EUR 1 million in sales, EUR 200,000 in losses in terms of EBIT, and free cash flow also very minimal. I don't remember the exact amount, but it's really small.
Okay. Next question is about China, who stops delivering rare materials or makes it harder to get the materials. Any comment on this one?
Yes, I can comment on that. We do not really see any threat maybe to our subcontractors, like for instance, germanium is one of them, a possible, but its impact on which prices have increased already, its impact on our total product cost is really insignificant.
Okay. Thank you, Christian. Some follow-up questions about working capital with regards to expected % of sales in the future.
Yeah. I think we have addressed that in the beginning. Yes, a small comment about payables. Yeah. The fact is indeed that we are paying quite quickly, especially our main suppliers such as Exosens. This, on the other hand, gives us the possibility to have very good terms from our suppliers. By having these good terms, we are able to be competitive in the several tenders that are coming up.
Okay. Let us review what is still pending. Philippe, any comments about the aftermarket potential? This is still a very small part of our sales, but do you expect any change there?
Yes, indeed. Aftermarket is a quite small revenue stream for us. But obviously, with numbers growing, at some point, customers will not, well, first of all, have to do much, much more maintenance and will not be able to cope with the maintenance themselves, which is a typical scenario, especially in Europe. By the way, we opened up a Theon Denmark, which does maintenance of our night vision equipment at the moment for the Danish customer. The intention is, of course, to grow this and do maintenance as well as assembly at some point, maybe sooner than later, for the northern European customers, again, in light of the increased demand for maintenance. Still, overall, it will always, I believe, remain a relatively small part of our revenues.
I guess, Philippe, again for you, what is the market opportunity for our thermal clip-on, especially compared to Night Vision goggle penetration?
I mean, we've said it many times before. I mean, the first equipment that a soldier needs to have to operate in the night is a night vision goggle. You've seen the penetration rates of night vision equipment. In a second step, obviously, you need to be able to enable the operator to engage the enemy, to target the enemy. Here is, to a certain extent, where thermal equipment comes in because thermal equipment allows much, much bigger ranges and has much better detection capabilities. We do see in Europe, and I wouldn't necessarily call it a second wave, but it may become a second wave where many countries have started procurement of night vision goggles. They now start actually procuring thermal equipment to do exactly this, equip the soldiers with targeting capability.
On top of this, and this is actually quite important, and we mentioned it in the presentation, when we're talking about the A.R.M.E.D. ecosystem that we have made a strong entry into the market this year, where we are able to equip the Night Vision goggle with the IRIS- C, which is the small thermal clip-on. We expect this to be a major seller in the time to come because we have more than 200,000 Night Vision goggles in use all around the world. In theory, and it may become actually practice, every goggle can be equipped with the IRIS- C to provide diffusion, to provide the augmented reality capabilities. Not only our goggles can be equipped with the Iris, any Night Vision goggle can be equipped. We do expect that the IRIS- C will be used by many, many users as the orders come in.
Okay. Thank you. I guess one last question, combined question for you, Dimitris, before we conclude the meeting. It is about our current workforce of around 620 people. Is it enough to increase our capacity in terms of sales? On top of that, is the low assembly cost we have here in Greece a competitive advantage versus our competitors?
Okay. Around the first question and the production capacity, indeed, this 618 people.
Together, of course, with the hirings that we're going to do this year, is more than enough actually to serve the top line as it has been guided in the beginning. Of course, we have the possibility to expand our production capacity even further. We can increase shifts by adding, of course, additional personnel. Just to remind you that we have recently acquired an adjacent plot in Athens that we can deploy quite easily. I mean, it can be built in, let's say, 12-18 months with a very minimum capital, around, let's say, EUR 2 million-EUR 3 million. We can expand the production even further.
Now, what was the other one, Nikos? Sorry.
If we have a competitive advantage with the assembly line here.
Of course, of course, we have. As you can imagine, we have very good engineers in Greece, but at the same time, the wages are far, far lower than the ones of our competitors, be it in Israel or in the U.S. or in France and so on. Yes. Indeed, there is a competitive advantage.
Let me add here, this is Christian Hadjiminas again. Let me add, Dimitris, something. I have to say that our Wetzlar plant, which is a joint venture with Hensoldt in Germany, is also a very competitive plant. We have managed with a very excellent cooperation we have with Hensoldt to make it a very, very competitive plant. I would say almost the same as our Greek plant, which is a very good achievement as well. Germany, of course, I want to add, Germany is definitely part of our focus also on our acquisition strategy. Now, I cannot help, but I also need to answer another question so that I'm not accused that I'm avoiding it. This is the question about our long-term agreements with Exosens. First of all, we do not see ourselves as fighting with Exosens against. In.
Together all these years to open up markets that did not exist neither for Exosens nor for us. That was based on a very good cooperation. I cannot disclose about the price conditions. Of course, we are the largest buyer of Exosens, I would say more than 60%. Of course, this would imply some slightly better terms. Again, you need to understand that many of the contracts we received are follow-on orders from existing customers where we have already in the past agreed with Exosens to keep the same price conditions, with all, of course, the inflation adjustments wherever they apply. We are not really fighting against Exosens on margin. We are opening together new markets. We ensure together that all our customers, like in Germany, Sweden, and other places, are happy.
On that basis, we have follow-on contracts that retain the same profitability for both of our companies. Thank you.
Okay. Philippe, one last comment about average selling price of our goggles and the thermal clip-ons. Any generic question answers?
On the thermal clip-on, I would not like to give you any detailed indications on the cost in light of the fact that we are in various competitions at the moment. I hope that you can understand that we cannot give such information at this moment of time. When it comes to Night Vision goggles, there was a question whether we see a price increase given the supply and demand situation. Prices have already increased in this supply and demand situation. There may be some further increases, but I would not foresee any major price jumps coming in the next short-term period.
Thank you. I believe with this, we can conclude today's meeting. Thank you very much, everyone. You may now disconnect.
Thank you. Thank you.