Thank you very much, and to be here, and let's start in commenting the first nine-month revenue results. I want to say clearly that our growth is not as strong as we expected at the beginning of the year. Anyway, I want to share with you some consideration about it. First of all, let me say that last year we grew at 43%. It included around EUR 14 million of PPV, meaning that last year we sold, due to the shortage, components at a very higher price compared to the normal. And basically, we was forced to acquire components at maybe normal price, EUR 5 at EUR 50.
Therefore, we invoiced customers for EUR 50. This was a one-off revenue, and if we offset it from the 2022 result, well, at that point, our growth path still above, well above 20% year-on-year. The slowdown any way that we observe it in our growth path over the course of the last three years, we started the year very strong at 28%, coming down to the last quarter, which is basically equal, slightly negative, 1% less. The last year is mainly driven to two factors. One is the customers are basically postponing orders, not canceling them, but postponing them due to economic condition. And the second, we still have some overdue backlog.
Anyway, we are planning to resolve it and to cover it by the end of this year. In terms of margin, I should say that thanks to mainly two components, one is the fact that the shortage is over, and so we was able to get the components at the right price. And thanks to the Clea business expansion, our margin is quite good at 49.5%, over 200 basis points better than the last year. This together with a good control in OpEx has driven us to a 23% EBITDA on the revenue, equal to EUR 37.3 million.
I think it's important also to say that we generated around EUR 44 million of operating cash flow in the 9 months. That's not bad at all for me. In terms of outlook, we think the last quarter of the year will be good in terms of revenue, and we expected to see Clea jumping over EUR 7 million in revenue in a single quarter. This is driven by the recurrent revenue part of Clea that is growing and driven by new customers that are starting in entering into Clea world, and so paying the one-off fee at the very beginning of the relationship.
So last point that I think we should consider looking our results is the SECO overall SECO performance are pretty well and definitely better than our main Taiwanese competition. Which is basically based by the fact that we are very well diversified into many different vertical market. We have more value added that we are bringing to the customers, thanks to our capability to design a product fully integrated, to be manufacturer in the right way in one end, and thanks to the Clea and AI services that we are adding to our product, generating value for our customers as well as for ourselves. Let me now hand over to Lorenzo, who will illustrate to you more in details our financial results.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Max, and good afternoon to everybody. Well, in this slide, we present to you our key financial indicator for the 9 months ending Q3 2023. As you can see, for what concerns sales, we have, as Max already explained, a good performance. We increase in a significant way in absolute terms. For what concern edge computing business, it has been growth in the 9-month 2023 respect to the 9-month 2022 at 12%. But a really good performance also for the software part of our business that are above 10% of our sales, and increase respect to the same period of 2022 by about EUR 2 million.
Really important is the performance that Max already explained, relating, relating to gross margin. We improved the gross margin respect to the same period of last year by 2.5%. This is a really great result, because for sure there is the component shortage situation that is almost solved. But we put in place a really effective strategy in terms of purchasing actually all the components in the right moment of the market, and also covering the cost at the right time. So this has been able to give us a really good performance in Q2, but also in Q3. Thanks to this factor and, for sure, thanks to a proper control on the OpEx, we achieved a more than proportional growth in adjusted EBITDA in respect to sales.
Actually, you can see that adjusted EBITDA grew at 16%. But more important, the profitability of the company is increasing respect to the same period of last year by one percentage point, and we are at 23% of EBITDA. For sure is a good level for us. We can do better, but is a really good level for this time moment and for this actual environment. Regarding instead adjusted net income, you can see that the profitability is around 10%, like the same level of profitability of the last year.
Let's say, I would like to say that this key financial indicator for, let's say, the quarter during the year, is not so significant due to the fact that, as you know, and as highlighted in this slide, the taxes are calculated in a theoretical way, as every other listed company. So there is not a specific calculation of all of the tax benefit that we may have. And another important point, that we have a full impact of financial expenses on the P&L, but we do not accrue the interest instead the active, so the positive financial interest that we are going to gain, thanks to our derivative policy, that hedge our important loan, our acquisition financing that we've taken, for the acquisition of Garz & Fricke, today second in Europe. Thanks, Max, to pass to the next slide.
Well, just a quick snapshot on our sales and our breakdown by geography and by verticals, so by end market. As Max already told you before, this is a really strong point of our business and of SECO, that is the really good diversification, firstly, across the most important geographical areas in the world, but most importantly, by verticals. As you can see, actually, our growth is really well spread over the geography and the vertical. This is an important factor that allow us to continue growing and also mitigate a lot the risk of being linked or dependent by a single geography or a single sector. We can move to the next slide and talk a little bit more about our profitability.
Well, before doing it, I think it's important to outline that the Clea business is around EUR 16.3 million in the first nine months, with a growth of 12% year-on-year. But more important, the data recovery revenue part of this business is around already 40%, and as I said before, is growing quarter-by-quarter. Thanks, Lorenzo.
No, thank you, Max, for this underlying view. Really appreciate it. Well, just have a look more in details about our EBITDA performance. That grew by more than EUR 5 million respect to the same period of last year in absolute terms, but more importantly, in relative terms. So we reach 23% respect to 22% of the same period of last year. Here for sure, the support really important is being given by our gross margin, that grew more than proportionally respect to our sales. Actually, the gross margin grew at 18% for... The most reason, actually, as I already told before, is a really effective purchasing strategy that we put in place in components, but moreover, also some good effect on sales mix.
Firstly, the software part that, as we saw before, Clea is increasing, is increasing also the recurrent revenue part, and as you know, the software has a profitability higher respect to the hardware. And so, also this factor gives us an important contribution to achieve this performance in terms of profitability. Just a last remark on this slide regarding the adjustment we do to EBITDA. Here you can see that the biggest part is represented by the actuarial value of stock, of stock option plan by EUR 1.2 million. You know that in July we approved a new stock option plan for the period, the 2024-2027, and actually, obviously, for the first time, the accrued part of the actuarial value include also the part relating to this new stock option plan.
For what concerns extraordinary transaction costs, this relates mainly to the capital increase we did with 7-Industries and by a one-off bonus relating to the acquisition we did more or less five years ago of InHand Electronics, that is today our USA legal entity, on which we have a bonus for the people that remain in the company after five years. Thank you, Max, for going to our slide regarding our performance in terms of adjusted net financial position. As you can see, we closed the nine months at EUR 59.7 million. This is for us a really really good results, in particular if we compare this performance with respect to the performance of last year.
Actually, if we adjust, let's say, the net financial debt beginning of the year by the, 75, let's say EUR 74 million, if we exclude the extraordinary transaction cost of the capital increase by 7-Industries, our net financial position remains stable in the period. That is, it's really good results. Actually, the company considered that generate in the nine month an operating cash flow of EUR 14 million, respect to a number that was more or less close to zero of the same period of last year. Actually, you remember that last year, due to shortage, we were obliged to increase a lot our inventory.
The performance in terms of operating cash flow has been driven mainly, obviously, from the EBITDA, but mainly due to the fact that we reduce a lot our inventory with respect to last year in relative terms. Actually, consider that the rotation of inventory decreased by more than 20 days. That means, a improvement on our inventory rotation by more than 10%. Actually comparing just the absolute figures, we closed the nine months of 2023 with EUR 80 million of consolidated inventory, with respect to EUR 83 million of the last of the same period of 2022. So we decrease inventory by EUR 3 million, but obviously in a period in which we have much more sales due to the growth that the company, that the company is facing.
So really good indicator, and this is showing that the fact that the net financial position it remains stable means that the cash generation of the company is able to pay not just the maintenance CapEx, but also the development CapEx that we do in this year, a lot, in particular, actually, in R&D, because as you know, we are investing to support the growth of the next couple or even three years. Thank you, Max. Max, I leave the speech to you again.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Lorenzo. I want also to provide you a business update from the family of the new product that we will launch on the market in during the course of 2024. It will represent from the end of 2024 and 2025, a new revenue stream for SECO, and it will cover one of the main topics in our market for the next years. I think AI on the Edge will be one of the most important value add for the customers. As you can see, we have different kind of product that will be based on Axelera.
As you know, Axelera is a chip designed specifically to run AI inference, and maximizing the performance and minimizing the cost and energy consumption. And the launch of this different kind of product will basically fulfill perfectly the customer's needs, and will give to us an additional revenue stream that will boost our growth in the near future. Another important new product that actually we presented this week in Germany to the Hannover Messe, a big exhibition, in the industrial field that is taking place exactly now.
Well, this is a modular vision family, and the purpose of this new family of display plus electronics together is really to provide the customers a solution that they don't need to customize, because actually is already made by design to be, in some way, personalized to the customers. This solution is cost effective, is really able to cut the customers' time to market, our time to market, and so it's a great new product, and I know from the exhibition that we already got interest and discussions, and potentially orders on this new product in those days, which is definitely good. Another important update is what we are doing to enlarge the penetration of the market. About Clea.
As you know, Clea is our IoT, AI platform that is basically we kickstart the launch of Clea worldwide, at the worldwide level. As you know, we kept it more locally for a while to be sure that the platform was working well. The platform is working well, the feedback from the customers are pretty good, and so now is the time to really push all the market and to promote this platform worldwide. You know, additionally, we also modify our commercial strategy with the intention to enlarge the customer base, and due to it, we reduce the one-off and a fee to get faster customers and more customers to start with the platform.
This is an example, I think the EV charger station that we present to CES in the very beginning of 2024. It's a clear example how the SECO competence and the SECO capability can bring value to the customers. Because what you can see here is a full solution, all integrated, based on our technology, dedicated to the EV charger station. You can see a display, couple of display, all the electronic behind, a payment system, Clea connection, and all the AI apps that basically offer you as a user a very, very nice experience. With the capability for the owner of the EV charger station to monitor relevant KPI of the station, like advertising performance, like energy store, like numbers of customers, and so on and so forth.
So I guess this is all from my side. We will also live from CES a big webinar on the EV charger station market, and we will send the invitation also to the financial community. Be aware that this is not a financial let me say moment. It's fully dedicated to business, so it will be very technical and very business related. Anyway, if someone is interested, we will share the link to participate to it. I think that's all from my side, and we can open now the Q&A session.
Thank you to the speakers today. We now have an opportunity for questions. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please use the Raise Hand function on your screen, or for those dialing in, it's star nine on your keypad. Once your name is announced, please unmute your line, state your company name before asking your question. Thank you. Our first question today comes from Mr. Marco Vitale. Please, Marco, the floor to you.
Thank you. Good afternoon. It's Marco from Mediobanca. Two questions from my side. The first one is on the outlook on Q4. I was wondering if we could assume that the quarterly revenue trend could follow the same path that as experienced also last year, in the sense that is it fair to assume that you expect a record level in terms of quarterly sales compared to the other quarters of the year, and thus exceeding also Q2 of revenues that were close to EUR 59 million, consider also the EUR 7 million for Clea? Second question is on the profitability.
I was wondering if we can say that as long as the chip shortage is over and the mix continue to be supportive of what concerns Clea and the recurring revenue attached to this, if it is correct, we can assume a gross profit in excess of 50% also over the coming quarters? And then the last question is about cash generation, if an acceleration in the Q4 would could have some impact on net working capital trend for the final part of the year, and what level of net financial position we expect into year end? Thank you.
All right, so let's, let's start from the revenue. I think, yes, the last quarter, last quarter, historically speaking, is the quarter where we do more revenue, and it will be true, also this, this year. Moreover, I think in terms of margin, the margin that we are expecting on the Q1 are pretty good, driven by, as you said, the mix, but driven also by Clea, it is growing a lot, in the quarter. So, we're all expecting to have a robust margin in over there. Last, yes, we expect to generate cash in the Q4 .
So, we expect our financial, net financial position at the end of the year will be better than what we posted in the ninth month. So more or less, that's the answer to your question.
Thank you. Thank you, Max.
Many thanks. Our next question today comes from Miss Arianna Terazzi. Please, Arianna, go ahead. Arianna, please remember to unmute your line. Thank you. Okay, we're gonna go move forward then. Our next question today comes from Miss- Mr. Mathis Sarrazin. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, perfectly. Thanks.
Good. Thank you. So Mathis Sarrazin from Crédit Mutuel Asset Management. Just a question on Clea, on the EUR 5.5 million in Q3. Can you give us the main driver? Is it new customer with upfront fees, or is it the ramp up of production, regarding the second share growth, the quarter-on-quarter growth?
Uh-
Same question for the EUR 7 million in Q4. Do you think the growth will be driven by the ramp up production on new customer? Thank you.
Right. Right. I will say, for both the quarter, it's a mixing between the two, meaning that, we, we add, 40% of, of the total EUR 5.5 million, already as per the current revenue, meaning we already reached, around the EUR 3 million per quarter, in recovery revenue, and it's, it, it is growing quarter- by- quarter. The, the rest of the part is driven by new customer. As I, as I said, we, we decided to, to lower basically, the, the, the initial fee that we was charging. It was in the range of EUR 1 million per customer, which is now in the range of EUR 500,000, for customers. It's really depend on from the dimension of the project, but it's something in between EUR 1 million maximum and EUR 200,000 minimum.
So, I think it's fair to say that it's EUR 0.5 million per customer. And in Q4, we will have also. We actually already signed important new customers that will start their project to be in mass production, generating recurrent revenue end of 2024, beginning of 2025. And so, moreover, as I said, the recurrent revenue part is growing every quarter, and I think we will be over EUR 3 million by the end of the year. So at EUR 3 million in a single quarter.
Mm.
So that's an important results after only one year and a half from the launch, even considering that in our industrial field, you need to spend time before entering in mass production, because any customers need something very specific.
Okay, very clear. Just to jump on that, how many customer did you convert from your pipeline to real customer during Q3? And how many do you plan to convert in Q4?
Yes, as I said, more or less, between five and seven customers in Q3, and there will be significantly more end of Q4.
Okay. Okay, very clear. And just to recap, how many customer today are in a mass production phase?
So we have a total of 25 customers, end of first half, which is now around 30 customers as a total. I should say, half of them are into mass production, less than half.
Okay. Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you to you.
Many thanks. Our next question comes from Miss Arianna Terazzi. She has written her question in the chat, so I will read it. She states: "Thanks for the presentation. The first question is, could you elaborate on your expectations for FY 2024 so far, considering you were mentioning in the past calls that some orders would go in mass production?" Her second question is: "Then, I would also appreciate an update on the current order backlog." And the third question is: "My last question regards the new product families. Can we expect the same kind of margins from them versus the current business? Thank you.
Okay, I got all of them. So first of all, about 2024, we are working on the business plan right now, so we'll be able to provide indication later in the very beginning of the next year. Just in general, we will have new customers that will start entering in mass production. There are both hardware and software-wise next year. Moreover, we will have a very big and important European customers that will grow significantly next year. We already had the meetings, so we will have another meeting actually this week with these important customers to secure all their demand in terms of supply chain for the next year. That will for sure provide a positive effect in terms of growth.
Moreover, I expect that the dynamic that we observed in terms of customers that are delaying orders, moving orders from a quarter to another, it's not over yet, so I expect to see it continuing for couple of quarters, at least. So, we are now making all the calculations for the positive, let me say, the negative effect, and we will come out with some indication at the very beginning of 2024. Generally speaking, SECO will be able to grow for sure. At which kind of speed? Let's see it at the right time.
Second question was related to order backlog, and as you know, we are not providing this kind of information, so I do want to say nothing else about it. The third question was about the margin that we are expecting to have on the InHand business. I think InHand business here will be very innovative and will drive a business, InHand business, basically, at 50% margin, which is in a very high part of the margin that you can have with an InHand customer.
Many thanks. Mr. Razzi, if you do have any follow-up questions, please feel free to write them in the chat. Our next question now comes from Mr. Mathis Sarrazin. Please, Mathis, the floor to you.
Thank you. So, a question on CapEx. Can you come back on the level in Q3? It seems that it's double the level compared to Q1 and Q2 this year. So just to understand where you are investing the money now, and what should we expect for the Q4 and 2024? Thank you.
Yes, I leave maybe Lorenzo to cover this one.
Yes. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Max. Well, for what concern also the Q4, we expect to continue in the same path, because we do not have an important peak, or, let's say fluctuation by quarter for what concern our investment in R&D. That is, the biggest part for sure, of our CapEx, and counts more or less for 75%-80% of the total CapEx that you can see on our cash flow statement. So, I could say that, the level of 2,000 and of the Q4 will be similar to the level of the Q3.
I would say that Q3 was significantly higher comparing to the first two quarters because of SAP. As you may know, we went live with SAP in Germany because now Germany is using the same kind of ERP that we are using across all our group with five significant investments in the forthcoming years. And only this project unfortunately cost us over EUR 2 million, and most of them are included in the Q3 CapEx.
Okay, and just, I finish on that. What is the usual, normalized level of R&D per quarter or per year?
It's around EUR 4 million per quarter, more or less.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Many thanks for this question. Our next question today comes from Mr. Bharat Nagaraj. Please, the floor to you.
Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. I have one question, please. I understand that the product mix of your peers in Taiwan and elsewhere is quite different from what you're doing, but just do you have any comment on how they have performed related to yourself? Are you seeing them also trying to replicate your success in customized solutions and in Clea? Thank you.
Yes. I think if you look in the performance of our main competition in Taiwan, and referring in particular to Advantech and ADLINK, they both posted a 20% decrease year-on-year in revenue during the Q3, and decreasing in as well as into the market. Which is not the case of SECO, thanks to the factor that, as you said, we are selling more customization to the customers. We are selling more software to the customers. Actually, what we combined together, our capability to design and produce a hardware system well customized for our customers, together with a full stack of software, is actually a unique value proposition that we can bring to the customers.
I don't see any kind of competitor that can really provide the same kind of integrated solution. And, and thanks to it, actually, we are significantly outperforming the market.
Sure. Thank you. If I may ask one quick follow-up question, please. In terms of your future, let's say, steady state operating margins, how do you see yourself? Where do you see yourself getting to?
Well, I think, our company and the strategy of our company is designed to, to increase our profitability as we go year on year, because of the growth of the software business, and because of, the growth of the vertical integrated solution that we are combined based on the experience that we are making on the market, as per ready solution, plug-and-play solution by verticals. And this is very important. So our company will continue to growth the profitability progressively year on year. Of course, we have a stronger correlation in between the level of revenue and, the profitability, due to the fact that, we have, approximately 75% of our cost as per fixed cost mainly people wages. And so if we reach a good level of revenue, we can do a good margin.
There are two points that are driving the profitability. One is the level of the revenue, and the other one is the gross profit margin. The strategy is designed to be able to outperform the market, as actually we are doing on the revenue growth in terms of the next 3-5 years. And moreover, to increase progressively our gross profit margin, it will driven us better profit and better cash flow generation, for sure.
Thank you very much. Very useful.
Many thanks.
Sorry, sorry, Max. Let me add just one important point that I do not said before relating to the CapEx and to the question in the CapEx. Just in Q3, I now understanding the question, that you are looking at tangible CapEx. We have a one-off effect that we not repeat again in Q4. That is just an accounting matter, because for new rental contract that we had for new offices in Italy and in U.S., the auditor makes us account this new contract according to IFRS 16, and the value is slightly more than EUR 1 million. So, I didn't let's say say this effect before because I was thinking about our intangible CapEx.
But the tangible CapEx, there is slightly more than EUR 1 million, or just one-off effect that is just the reclassification due to the application of IFRS 16 on this rental contract. Thank you.
Thank you, Lorenzo. I think this could be all.
Many thanks. Currently, we do not have any further questions queued, so we will wait just a few moments to give everyone the opportunity. If there are no further questions, I will now hand back to the speakers for any final comments before bringing this presentation to a close. But please, if you do have any follow-up questions, do feel free to reach out to the team. Thank you.
I noted that there is a question from Pietro Nargi. Please, Pietro.
Hi, Max. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just a quick question about the end markets. Looking at the Q3 results, it seems that industrial automation was lower year-on-year. So if you could provide also a qualitative outlook on the market condition across different end markets. And if also in terms of geography, if you could provide comment on the market stance in the U.S., in Germany, and also in Italy. Many thanks, Max.
Absolutely. In terms of end market, we are observing very different kind of dynamics from market to market. Just to give you some example, on the vending machine, on the coffee machine, on the solution related in general to our clients, we are facing a big increase into the demand for the next year. In medical sector, we think nowadays is the worst sector because it's decelerating a lot, and customers are basically delaying the shipments of the goods also for two quarters or more. So I got two different kind of sectors, just to give you an idea how different is the trend entering in different kind of verticals. This is important because as you know, SECO is very horizontal, so we are covering many, many verticals.
In fact, we are expecting to see military bounce back in 2024. It was decreasing in 2023, and industrial continue to suffering, at least for the first couple of quarters. So the company is very well balanced to really drive growth, even in this kind of, let me say, very complex scenario, where we have super high interest rates in one end that is affecting customers, and then customers is trying to squeeze the working capital, reducing the pieces in their inventories. And in another end is also affecting the demand. So, and the demand is strictly correlated with customers order. Moreover, we have, as you know, a lot of geopolitical tension that are not helping customers in looking the future in a positive way.
And so this is the reason why we are living into a very difficult window that I think is gonna be continuing for 2 couple of quarters. Anyway, end of the story, SECO is strategically positioned to continue to grow. Maybe a lower growth path as we expected in the past, but to continue to grow significantly for the next future. So that's a nd when it will be over, because the interest rates will become to be cut, at that point, our company will accelerate again the growth path.
Many thanks. I will now hand the word back to the management team for any final comments before bringing this presentation to a close. Thank you.
I don't have any further comment. I would like to thank you all for your time today. Of course, Lorenzo Mazzini is always available if you have further questions or any request of, you know, having more information; we are here to provide it. And thank you very much for, again, for your time, and see you soon. Bye-bye.