Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Electro Optic Systems 2024 half year results. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Dr. Andreas Schwer, Group CEO. Please go ahead.
Morning. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Andreas Schwer. I'm the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Electro Optic Systems. I want to welcome everybody to this call, where we want to showcase our half-year highlights and the business update of our company, and I have with me here, Clive Cuthell, the CFO and Chief Operating Officer of Electro Optic Systems. Clive, maybe you want to say some words.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining. We are this morning reviewing the slide deck that was published on the Australian Securities Exchange a little bit earlier. Andreas will make some remarks on the highlights of the financial results and then discuss some key trends in the market and our work on the order book. I will then cover the financial results, and then we will open it up to questions at the end, so thank you for joining, and I'll hand back to Andreas, who is on page five of the presentation that we filed on the ASX this morning.
Thank you, Clive. Page number five of the presentation shared on the web. Our summary of the first half of the actual business year was exceptionally good. The results were higher than or better than expected. EOS grew the revenue by 92% in the first half of 2024, which is up 92% over the last year, the first half of last year. By that, we have achieved the highest-ever revenue in the first half of a calendar year. That is really exceptional. We have also achieved an EBITDA of AUD 11.5 million in the first half, which is one of the strongest first half EOS has ever seen in the past. Eleven point five are AUD 26 million over and above the corresponding period of last year.
So we have a couple of other good financial results to be reported and discussed in the course of this call. I do not want to go into further details here, as Clive will cover that in his part of the presentation, in the financial section. If you look to the market and to the factors which have supported our growth, it is a collection of different points, and the most important one, obviously, is the geopolitical uncertainty, which is still very supportive and which will remain very supportive in the short to mid-term, at least, in particular, the strong trend towards counter-drone technology. Obviously, very much in support of our growth story is our much widened product and much widened customer base, and our continuing growth, in particular in the European market.
All that comes over and above what the company has seen in the past. Our innovation is continuing. We have released to the market over the last year, some new products, and I will come back also on that point later on, but as we continue commercializing our existing IP, which we have piled up on our shelves over the last decades, there's much more to come. We continue to seek third-party funding to support our growth opportunities. As we are promising from day one, when we took over the leadership of this company, we will not invest significant amount of shareholder monies going into new disruptive technologies like the higher energy laser weapon or space control. For those kind of initiatives, we are seeking third-party funding, and we are quite advanced in those terms as well.
Overall, again, the first half of 2024 was a great success, and I would like now to share with you some of the highlights. If you please, swap over to slide number six. We could position EOS for further growth in first half of this year. So we have done a repayment of our second debt facility. AUD 20.5 million has been paid back to our creditor Washington H. Soul Pattinson in time, and we plan to pay back the third and last facility also on time in the middle of 2025. We also positioned the company to growth by asking for a very modest capital increase in order to pre-finance long lead items like cannons, which we've successfully done.
We've signed a framework agreement with our key cannon supplier, Northrop Grumman, and we are well positioned now to execute the growth. We also have upgraded our leadership capabilities. We have hired the previous head of sales of the Rheinmetall Group, a key person for us to better conquer the European market. So overall, we have done, I think, a good job here. Some of the significant order intakes we were expecting to receive in this year have been slightly delayed from the first half into the second half, but we are very optimistic to make them all happen. If you please go to slide number seven, market conditions, geopolitical backdrop. I don't want to spend too much time on that one.
Just two aspects you can see on the chart, that in particular, the European market has grown significantly on the backside of the Ukraine conflict, and also the NATO spending has changed by almost 18% year over year compared to the last year. This is giving us lots of confidence for the short and mid-term perspective.... I would like, you know, to go to slide number nine. I want to put aside slide number eight for a second. Slide number nine is giving you the overview on what kind of products we've introduced over the last twelve months. We've introduced the R150, a lightweight system, which is the most modern system in the small caliber range, which is worldwide available. We have started to market this product.
We've received the first orders, and we are planning to participate to huge tenders towards end of this year, where we can introduce the R150 in large, very large quantities if we successfully bid on those, activities. We also have introduced some time ago, our Slinger system. The Slinger is our counter-drone kinetic system, based on an R400 design. This become the benchmark on the market. It's the proven worldwide technology, which has been evaluated by many of our clients. We have signed first contracts. The system is in operations in the battlefield, in Ukraine and in other areas. It is declared being highly successful, and it is obviously the benchmark because of its key features like advanced range, performance, and, reliability. We also have introduced to the market, the R800, the most powerful weapon station on the world market.
This weapon station is competing against unmanned turrets. Unmanned turret comes in for three times the price and three to four times the weight of this kind of weapon, but again, with the same firepower and same effectiveness on the battlefield. That's the reason why we have lots of confidence in the R800 being our flagship product in the market, and our flagship product will be produced in Huntsville, Alabama, our U.S. facility. We expect a first R800 contract to be signed very soon. We also have introduced our integrated counter-drone laser dazzler system. This has not been to be mixed up with the high energy laser weapon systems.
The drone laser dazzler is a system which can be integrated on a remote weapon station as a kind of secondary weapon, and which is capable of disrupting incoming drones by blinding or dazzling the sensors of the drones. This system has been demonstrated very successfully in the recent twenty-twenty four NATO Sandbox event in Canada. So you can see we have a much widened product base and a much higher revenue potential in the future compared to the past, where most of our remote weapon station business was linked to the R400, a single family. Now we have three families in the race, and each family comes in three versions, ground to ground, naval, and most notably now, counter-drone. I would like you to go back to slide number eight now. Slide number eight describes a recent trend in the market, the trend towards anti-drone systems.
What we are seeing worldwide, not only in Ukraine, but also in Israel, like the last few days or last night in Ukraine, where hundreds of drones were intruding into peaceful countries and causing lots of troubles for the entire air defense systems. Those kind of attacks are operated mainly by low-cost, mass-produced drones. Drones which can be manufactured for a few hundred dollars, drones which come in autonomous swarms, in large quantities, leading to an oversaturation of the airspace. Drones which you hardly can kill by missiles for a price of $500,000-$1 million. There's no commercial case for that. Drones which require disruptive technologies, new technologies like high energy laser weapon systems and high-end cannon-based air defense systems, all of that in combination in the future, to allow for a multilayered air defense with a high success probability.
Today, the air defense forces around the world are facing a huge challenge and are seeking strong support here. This kind of trend towards low-cost, mass-produced drones is irreversible. It will remain a big problem, not only short term, but for the longer term. EOS, with its product portfolio, is well positioned to support our clients in a very effective manner in that. Let's go to page number ten. Page number ten, you can see one graphic. It shows the number of Houthi drone attacks over the last two years, and you can see here that the emphasis has been shifted from land-based Middle East to international waterways. We expect this trend to continue, not only to continue, but to become stronger in the future.
By the way, similar graphics we've shown in the recent past also related to Ukraine. In the Ukraine warfare, it became apparent that, first of all, soft kill options become less and less effective, so the drones operated by the Russians are more and more resistant against jamming. And, on the other side, the Russians have shifted towards large swarm attacks, which requires a change in the air defense strategy. So this kind of counter-drone warfare comes over and above a market, which is very bullish anyhow. We are benefiting from the geopolitical crisis around the world. When armies are facing depleted stocks, there's almost no more stock left in Western nations.
to support Ukraine in the ground-to-ground warfare, and over and above this kind of strong demand, which we continue for at least another seven to ten years, we have now the counter-drone warfare, which came into play only since the Ukraine war has started. Again, those two effects, plus our enlarged and widened product base, were, are making us very confident to grow our business very sustainable over the next few years. Page number eleven. Page number eleven, you can see what I mean with layered air defense. To counter different threats in air defense domains, means that you have to have different effectors in play to conduct against small drones, medium-sized drones, rockets, missiles, aircraft, and helicopters. For the very, very short range, electronic warfare remains a subject of interest.
Here, Electro Optic Systems is entering into strategic partnerships with companies, being the world-leading players in those domains. Those electronic warfare systems will be combined with our own in-house produced and own IP-based products, such as the remote weapon systems, like the R400 in Slinger version, but also the R800 will come in an air defense type of version. Further on, directed energy systems in the range of 50-100 kilowatt, where EOS is well positioned, and I will come back on this point in a couple of slides later on. EOS also has integrated very successfully 70 millimeter rocket systems on our weapon stations.
Those rockets come at a much lower price tag than missiles, typically between $15,000 and $20,000 a shot, which is still much more than what the cost per shot is from the remote weapon station and obviously from a directed energy laser system, but it is much cheaper than the cost of a missile. Those rocket systems are also successfully tested in Ukraine, in the battlefield, on our weapon systems. Obviously for the higher value targets and for the longer ranges, short-range missiles will remain the effector of choice. You can see that EOS is very, very positioned to cover a broad range of drones, Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3, in a range of 0.5 kilometers to up to 3-4 kilometers.
And depending on the power level of a directed energy system, if you go over and above the 100 kilowatt, this can be even enlarged to higher ranges and distances. So EOS is the only company in the market offering this wide range of counter-drone effectors. EOS is offering those kinds of systems as a supplier to other OEMs, offering integrated systems to the market, but EOS itself is also offering our own integrated counter-drone system, which we call Titanis. Please go on to page 12. We've discussed the markets. The markets are in strong growth. The markets where we are in are very supportive, in particular the European market, thanks to the geopolitical tensions. With our increased product base, and we discussed which products we have introduced so far, and I can tell further ones we'll follow over the next few months and years.
And our increased sales capability with new leadership teams being in place, with our aggressive approach towards key markets such as the European market, we're in a very strong position now to fill up our order book. So I think we have ticked the first three boxes. Now it's all about making those orders happen. We are in advanced stage for some of them, and further to follow. On page number thirteen, you see a list of opportunities. It's not an exhaustive list; it's just some few opportunities we are working on. We are working on the Land 400 Phase 3 project in Australia, where we are close to sign the contract finally with the government in Hanwha for remote weapon stations, R400, to be put on the Redback vehicle.
We are in an advanced position in Ukraine with multiple opportunities, not only the two contracts, the two framework contracts, which we have signed last year. Also, further opportunities have been arising, and we are working very closely with the clients here. In Europe, we have been selected by a couple of countries, tier one countries, to evaluate our Slinger type of counter-UAS system. Usually, those kind of orders are of small to medium-sized magnitude because those governments first only buy a few systems for testing, and then in the second phase, once the tests have been successfully completed, they go into large quantity orders. So here we have a significant number of opportunities across multiple countries.
Then in North America, we have been selected by the U.S. Army to deliver some R400 Slingers to be mounted and integrated on M1 Abrams tanks for advanced testing in the counter-drone warfare. Here, obviously, the imminent need also comes from Ukraine. So here we are well positioned, if those tests would be successful, to go into large quantity orders for the U.S. Army. We also are looking for contracts where our R800 will be mounted onto Stryker vehicles. That this particular program is a donation program by the Canadian government for Ukraine. We also are aiming for a contract signature over the next few weeks. In Europe, we have several, quite a large number of opportunities ongoing. I want to put the attention only to one of that.
It is a tender coming out by a Western European tier one country, asking for more than one thousand R150 type of weapon stations. We will go into this bid with a Western European partner, and you might remember our strategy is always to team up with the local champions to reduce time to market and capital expense. So here, we will be very well positioned with one of our European partners to successfully bid for this opportunity. And again, it is for more than one thousand units, with several batches coming after the first one even. I'm also very happy to announce that we are in a quite advanced stage with one of our Middle Eastern customer, to bid the next generation R400, which we call R500, to this client towards end of this year.
We hope to get formally down selected over the next few weeks. If this order comes into place, it will be a very significant order. The size is more than AUD 500 million. If you go to the right side of this page, you can see that we are in a very advanced stage of negotiation with two clients for high energy laser weapons. Here, here we are talking about laser weapons in a range of 50-100 kilowatt. We are aiming for signing one contract, at least this year. If we are lucky, two. If we are not lucky, then that means that the second contract will be signed first half of next year. Each of those contracts will be in the order of AUD 50-100 million.
Each of those orders will be a game changer, not only for EOS. It will be a game changer for the high-energy laser weapon industry itself. Why? Because those type of contracts will be the first contracts worldwide of a laser weapon in this power range for export markets. So far, nobody has sold into export markets a laser weapon between 50 and 100 kilowatt. And we expect further contracts to come once we've signed the first two ones. It is worth to note that in this market segment, the segment of high-energy laser weapons, 50-100 kilowatt, there's only one Western side competitor on the market. So EOS and this company will share the non-US market.
U.S. market itself, where several U.S. companies are supportive with weapon systems even higher than the one hundred kilowatt class, is a market which is quite closed. A market where those U.S. companies have are probably facing difficulties in exporting because of U.S. export legislation. So if you look to the non-ITAR Western type of laser market, we are very, very, very confident. They have a very strong standing together with the single and only one competitor, which is competing against us in this market domain. So it's a very promising market, market opening up now and also strongly supported by the anti-drone warfare. The high energy laser weapon will play a very central role in the future, complementing soft kill and kinetic kill and rocket-based systems in the counter-drone warfare. Again, we are very, very positioned for that one.
We also have received smaller contracts in the area of space technologies, space control. Even if those contracts are of smaller size, they are very strategic, opening for us the avenue towards space control. This is one of our significant strategic growth avenues. I will come back on this point also in a second. We are also working on several opportunities for EM Solutions, each of them in the range of AUD 10-15 million each. EM Solutions will remain one of our big growth drivers. I kindly ask you to switch to slide number 14, Contract Backlog. You can see the significant growth in backlog over the last two years. Actually, in June, by June 2024, we are slightly lagging behind the December 2023 figures, but we are aiming for significantly higher year-end figure than end of last year.
This is caused by some delays in some major order intakes, which we are hoping to get in the first half, which now have shifted into the second half of this year. So overall, the pipeline remains very attractive. The backlog will keep up, and we are confident to beat the last year's figures by end of this year. I would like to hand over now to Clive, to give you a further insight into our financial performance. Clive?
Thanks, Andreas. Turning to page 16, the first half financial results are summarized on this page, and as Andreas said, revenue, as we've announced previously, up 92% on the half, or up AUD 16 million. Gross margin, up on first half last year to 44%, reflecting pricing, discipline, and focus, particularly in the sales part of the business. EBITDA, as a result, at AUD 11.5 million, continues its positive trend. The two charts on the right show the historical results and how the results for this half compare to revenue and EBITDA previously. As you can see, if you take those twelve months to the end of June, the revenue level is just under AUD 290 million revenue for the twelve months.
to the end of June, and the EBITDA for the comparable period is AUD 32 million. So that, we are still in a lumpy business, which we'll touch on in a second, but I think these results give an indication of what the business is capable of. In terms of other aspects of the results, the financial costs continue to trend down, as debt is repaid, and we expect that to continue over time. In terms of outlook, we have not provided revenue guidance. As I said, the business remains lumpy, and that means it can be quite easy for revenue to move from February forward to November or vice versa. So we look at that quite carefully.
We are continuing to work, as Andreas said, on diversifying the business, and we are confident about the future, and we will keep the market informed if there's any divergence between our expectations for the year and the market expectation. Turning to page 17, which highlights the segment result, the defense business, as the page shows, has revenue up AUD 50 million or up 100% on the prior year first half. That result for this half includes some acceleration of our work in the Middle East to make and deliver product to the customer under a long-standing contract that is coming to an end.
We've been very focused on accelerating on that contract, because as we complete deliveries, we will be able to complete the final invoicing on that contract, and collect the cash retentions due on completion of that. Acceleration has a cash benefit that we're working on, and we would like to get the final cash receipts into the business during 2025. We also show here the results for the Space Systems business, which includes EM Solutions, and as you can see, the result is up nearly AUD 18 million to a AUD 41 million revenue for the first half. That's obviously significant growth driven by, primarily by our EM Solutions naval satcom business.
If I turn over the page to page eighteen and cover the first half of 2024 cash flow. So our cash flow for Q1 and Q2 have already been reported to the market, so this is not a lot of new news. But as you can see, during the half, the business invested quite a lot in manufacturing. Some of the manufacturing was for product that we were paid for helpfully in 2023 by customers. So we received money in 2023, and we completed the manufacturing in the first half of 2024. Some of the spend on suppliers and employees is for manufacturing for that accelerated delivery to the Middle East, which we will get some more cash receipts for in the second half of the year.
The Contract Asset, which has been an area of focus for us as a management team, is sitting at AUD 89 million at the end of June. That's a working capital balance, and that is increased from the position at the end of December, but it's actually come down in the second quarter. That's a new piece of information this morning. We continue to focus on reducing the working capital in our contracts, and as we complete the deliveries to the Middle East, we would expect to see that working capital asset being realized in cash in 2024 and the first few months of 2025. Other aspects of the cash flow include investing, which includes the security deposits on bank guarantees, which benefited from a cash inflow in Q2.
There were some increases in the security deposits back in Q1, and that came out net neutral. Capital expenditure, as we've indicated before, the business is not capital intense, and capital expenditure was AUD 1.4 million during the period. And the financing cash flows include the debt repayment and the equity capital raising that Andreas mentioned earlier. So cash balance of AUD 52 million at the end of the period.
In addition, there was AUD 66 million of cash that was tied up in cash security deposits, and we, we are targeting some realization of that in the second half of this year and early in 2025, partly driven by the completion of operational tasks that allow guarantees to be required, so delivery of product, that kind of thing, and partly driven by potential opportunity for reduced collateralization percentages on specific guarantees, which we'll continue to work on. On page 18, brief update on debt. As Andreas said, debt repayment made. This, we, we have continued to run this business for cash with strategic discipline and operational discipline, and that was in place during the period, and that's going to continue in the future.
I'm going to hand back to Andreas in a second, but as I close this page by noting that we aim to continue to repay the final installment of the debt on schedule in October 2025. Because there's a 100% make-whole penalty on any early repayment, there's no benefit to shareholders from making any early repayment, so we'll continue to target scheduled repayment. Andreas is now going to make a few remarks on some of our longer term growth opportunities and progress during the half, and I will hand back to Andreas.
Thank you, Clive, for handing over to me. So let's swap to page number twenty-one, the growth strategy. EOS is perfectly positioned to sustainably grow not only in the short, but also in the medium and the longer term. We will do this in a quite organic manner in our today's cash cows, which are the remote weapon systems, where we are world market leader, and we are the benchmark globally in terms of precision and accuracy. We do this in the counter-drone products. So far, it's remote weapon station, specialized for anti-drone warfare. Also, here we are worldwide the benchmark, and obviously we are doing that in EM Solutions to our naval SATCOM offers. This kind of significant organic growth is supported by very strong markets and the geopolitical situation worldwide, and again, by our widened product base.
Even if the Ukraine war would come to an end tomorrow, it takes at least seven to ten years to refill the emptied stocks and arsenals in Western worlds. So this kind of outlook and the fact that each of those kind of systems or product lines are cash cows today, is giving us strong position, and a strong position, not only in quantities, but also in terms of commercials, in terms of revenues and earnings. So this is the baseline for business, and we are about now to grow this business over and above what is expected by introducing two new segments. One is the segment of directed energy or high energy laser weapon business, and I kindly ask you to go to page number twenty-two.
Our High Energy Laser weapon business, which we have developed over the last three years, is now at the turning point to become a commercial business, to become the third pillar of cash cow in our company. As mentioned before, we are in the final stage of negotiations with two international clients for 50-100 kilowatt laser systems, the first of its kind in world market. If we export that to our two export clients, it will be a landmark for this type of industry and position us in the front position, in the pole position, in this type of industry. In order to do so, we have set up also a laser innovation center in Singapore.
We established that in order to be closer to our customers and to have a strong pool of very well-educated engineers and scientists, helping us making this business one of the leading pillars of EOS. So again, we hope to be able to sign one contract this year and the second one at least next year. So again, this is pushing EOS into another domain. Each of those type of system is selling at a much higher price tag as a remote demonstration. From that, you can get an idea of what the revenue of EOS could be in the medium and long term. Over and above this kind of strategic third pillar, we have the pillar of Space Control. Space Control is a technology or is a kind of service and product, which allows clients to engage against satellite sensors and satellites from ground.
It's a unique positioning of EOS. There is no company outside EOS offering this kind of catalog of capabilities, allowing the clients to control what is happening above his territories in a war scenario. This is obviously a quite sensitive, highly classified type of business. It still will take some time to get there. We've received the first funding in order to move our space domain awareness type of business into the segment, but we are very confident to make this the second significant future strategic growth pillar on the medium and long term, so over and above the existing remote weapon station and satellite communication terminal business, those two pillars will boost EOS into another league, and we are very confident to make this growth happen. Why are we confident? Not only because of the markets, but also because of the fact that we today master all those technologies.
There is no significant risk coming from development activities or further research needed. We have it all on our shelves. We just need to commercialize things and putting things together in order to make those changes and those growth strategies happen. I kindly ask you now to go to page number twenty-three. In the summary, the markets are better than just being in tech. The markets are highly supportive. The product range is widened. I think we have the widest product range in remote weapon stations in the world market, and we are now very well positioned to make sustainable, significant growth happen. The counter-drone opportunity is a game changer for our type of industry, and we are well positioned because of our highest accuracy products.
We will continue having a close eye on CapEx costs and any kind of expenditure, and we continue commercializing our IPs, things which we have developed in the past to make it now money and cash for the company. Overall, we are very confident to continue our growth strategy and profitability of our company. I would like to finish the presentation now with those words, and would like to open up the floor for discussions and questions. Thank you so far for your attention.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Today's first question comes from Annabel Holden with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Andreas and Clive. Congratulations on your results today. I was just hoping you could give a bit more color on the gross margin adjustment relative to your stat accounts. Looks like there's about a 26 million COG adjustment. I assume it's relating to inventories for revenue not recognized, but can you talk to how you'd expect this to flow through future periods' margin profile?
Yeah, so the margin during the half went up to 44%. We calculate that, as we've said in the presentation, with an amalgam of two or three lines in the P&L, Annabel, and some of the lines reflect the movement of inventories during the period. So, it makes more sense to just aggregate these lines together rather than overthink what's in there. The net, if you add the raw materials and consumables used and the changes in inventory by AUD 25 million, you get a total cost there of about AUD 80 million. And what that's telling you is that we increased inventory effectively net during the period by the AUD 25 million amount.
That will flow back as we recognize revenue in future periods in the second half, but it's not expected to have an accretive or dilutive impact on the 44% gross margin that we've reported in the half. While we don't provide guidance on gross margin, what I would say is, in the last 12 months, we've gone from a 34% gross margin that we reported in 2022 and early 2023, to something that's 44% this period. And the disciplines that we've put in place to achieve that, I would expect to see these disciplines to continue and to achieve a similar result.
That's helpful, thanks. And one more, if I've got time. There's a really strong pipeline that you've articulated. It looks like several billion AUD in opportunities sitting there. And it's over the sort of last twelve months, there's been some mid and senior level management additions. Are you still comfortable with a fixed operating cost base of around AUD 100 million?
Yeah, broadly speaking, that's right, Annabel. We have not added a large amount of cost to the overhead base in making some of these senior appointments. It's very important to us that we have the right capability, but that's, we're not looking at adding, you know, tens of millions of AUD to the AUD 100 million overhead base. We do continue to look at our overhead base, and make sure it's appropriate for the business and the outlook, but, we're not expecting to see high growth, in that cost base, so that discipline's gonna continue.
Great. Thanks. Congratulations again.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one, and wait for your name to be announced. Our next question today comes from David Storms with Stonegate. Please go ahead.
Hello, and thank you for taking my questions. Just wanted to kind of start by asking if there's any more you can say about the nature of the delays in the order intakes, maybe just what caused the delay and your confidence that it'll show a year-over-year increase in the backlog?
Okay, thanks for this question. Obviously a very, very, a very natural question, which we are prepared to answer. So the reasons are manifold. It depends case by case. To just give you some examples, the contract for the R800, which we are expecting to receive from the Canadian government, has been postponed because the Canadian government has asked for a price audit of the vehicle manufacturer. This price audit has taken three to four months' time. It has been completed now, and now the government has expressed a willingness to sign the contract over the next few weeks with a prime contract with the vehicle manufacturer, then with us in the second step. That's one reason, for this Canadian contract. I'll give you another example.
In Australia, we have delays in signing the Land 400 Phase 3 contract, not because of doubts by the customer, no, not at all. The reason is simply that the client has slightly modified its technical requirements, which requires an update of our offer and a renegotiation, not only with the finance client, but also with the vehicle manufacturer, in this case, Hanwha from South Korea. Each of those iterations usually costs four to six months, and it happened here because of evolution of technology in the market. So the client was right, you know, in order to ask for some addition to what he was asking two years ago. So that was a little bit unexpected, but natural to come, and will lead to a delayed contract signature. We hope still to have this done before end of this year.
That's those are just two examples, and, again, we are working here not in a kind of a commodity business. We don't sell washing powder. We are selling highly sophisticated products in highly sensitive markets for governments, which have sometimes very complicated administrations and sometimes budget shifts from the left to the right. So we have to cope with that one, and that's the reason why we always reiterate that our type of business is a little bit lumpy. We have not lost any of those opportunities. We have not given up on any of those. We are very persistent, and each of the ones which we were indicating at the beginning of this year is still live, and almost everything what we've indicated, we hope to be able to sign before year-end.
Understood. That's great color. Thank you. And then just one more, maybe touching on margins again. I know slide nine does a real nice job of breaking out, you know, the product diversification. Is there anything that you can tell us that will help to quantify how the margin outlook will change, as, you know, this diversification becomes a larger and larger portion of the portfolio?
Sure. I'll take that question, so we have worked hard to achieve the gross margin increases that have been reported over the last 12 months or so. The product development that has taken place and the markets that we are selling into, we do not expect any significant accretion or dilution to the gross margins as a result of the product launches that we've made and the contracts that we are pursuing. There is a bit of variability in our margins.
Typically, you would expect to earn lower margins on very large multi-year contracts, and you'd expect to earn higher margins, sometimes on smaller projects or projects where there's an urgent operational need. But when you add these up, you can expect to achieve margins in the 40%-50% range, and we've managed to get, I think, 44%, during this half. And we're not expecting significant accretion or dilution in the forward period as a result of the strategy that we're pursuing.
That's fantastic. Thank you for taking my questions, and good luck in the next half.
Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Schwer for closing remarks.
So thank you very much to everybody contributing to this call here. Thanks in particular to all of our investors and interested parties. EOS is a success story. EOS has huge potential in the market because we have the right products, we have the right quality, and we are benchmarking each and everything what we are doing. We are admired around the world because of our leading technology and our spirit of innovation.
This, combined with a cost culture which we have put in place over the last two years, will allow us to realize significant growth in a very profitable manner. So we are very confident. We hope that you are loyal to us, that you stick to us, and we hope to make this success happen again, not only short term, but also medium and long term. Growth is our strategy, and we will execute as promised. Thank you very much to everybody. Have a nice day.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.