Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to SECO's full year 2023 results and business update presentation. Before I hand over to your host today, please be advised there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. I now have pleasure handing over to Mr. Lorenzo Tozzi, SECO's investor relations. Leave the floor to you.
Thank you, Elena. Good afternoon, everyone. We truly appreciate your presence here today. Our CEO, Massimo Mauri, and our CFO, Lorenzo Mazzini, will take you through the full year 2023 results before delving into our business update section. Without further ado, I will now hand over directly to Max. Please, go ahead.
Thank you, Lorenzo, and welcome to everybody. I think the 2023 has been a challenging year, characterized by an important customers' activities on the de-stocking. But to better understand what's happened in the 2023, we should look into the back, into the 2022. As you may know, in the 2022, we had a shortage of components, and where we had a lead time about 45 weeks, which forced all the customers to build a very high level of inventories. While in 2023, we saw a progressively de-stocking activities, which is now almost completed, but it affected actually our growth.
Moreover, if we were to compare 2022 with 2023 on a fair basis, I think we would then have to deduct around EUR 50 million of revenue related to the one-off price increase we did in 2022. And at that point, making it in the range of the result of 2022, in the range of EUR 185 million, and comparing them with the EUR 210 million we posted in 2023.
Having said that, I think the revenue we grew in the range of 4%-4.5% was also better than what the market and our main competitors did, and we will look into it later on. The software business, accounting for around 11% of our total turnover grew at a different speed around 22%. Moreover, we almost tripled the recurring revenue on the software parts, which is coming in the range of EUR 10 million for 2023. Therefore, the profitability also has been much better. We gained around 600 basis points on the gross profit margin, and over 200 basis points on the EBITDA margin.
The EBITDA margin grew in the range of EUR 50.5 million with a year-on-year growth around 15%. Also, the net income adjusted was in the range of EUR 23 million, significantly improving from 2022. Well, the focus for SECO in 2024 will be to continue to work on our organic growth and expand our recurring revenue business both on the product CLEA and StudioX, and continue to squeeze the synergies from the acquisition that we did with special focus on the German side. And continue to be focused on the profitability improvement, and the cash flow generation.
In fact, returning back to the previous analysis on the growth in 2023, as I said, SECO outperformed the market quite significantly. Here, you can see the result of our two main competitor on the hardware side of the business, which both reported a negative growth trend in 2023, due to basically the de-stocking activity that I was mentioning before. So I will be back later. I now hand over to Lorenzo Mazzini, our CFO, that will drive you deeper into the financial results.
Thank you. Thank you, Max, and good afternoon to everybody. Just some words on our key financial highlights on our main financial indicator. So for what concern net sales, we already seen the growth that we recorded together with Max. A thing that I would like to point out, actually, is the important growth recorded in the Clea business that you can see grew in the year up to 22%. So, with the percentage pretty much higher respect to the edge computing business that was affected by the de-stocking activity and scenario that Max already well described. For what concern our profitability indicators, so firstly, gross margin, you can see that we recorded a really important improvement, a 6 percentage point of increase in profitability in the year respect to 2022.
This important growth of profitability is explained by many reasons. The first reasons is for sure the increased contribution of the Clea business that, as you know, is featured by a higher profitability respect to the edge computing business. A second point is for sure the fact that, particularly on the second half of the year, we benefit of the sales mix, customer mix, in particular, on profitability. Moreover, than these, during all the year, and in particular, starting from Q2 2023 and continuing up to Q4 2023, we saw an important decrease in the cost of our components, so that was affected in 2022 to the shortage situation and the scenario.
For what concern our performance at the EBITDA level, we can see that on relative terms, we increase EBITDA of two percentage point, and we reach an important target for us, that is a 24% of EBITDA adjusted in the year. This grow in relative term is obviously primarily explained by the growth of the profitability at gross margin level. For what concern the net income, the net income increase by on absolute terms, more or less, as you can see, by EUR 2.5 million or relative terms, so we have a slight improvement, as you can see.
These, however, despite the fact that our taxes grew in the year by EUR 2 million, more or less, and the effective tax rate increased more or less by 10 percentage points, due to the fact that we have higher profit in our German company, that is featured by less tools to reduce the impact on taxes. Thank you, Max. We can move to this slide in which I tell you more about our sales breakdown by geography, by end market, and in particular, by product. I think that we want to highlight again, that is for sure important for us, is the fact that the software part of our revenue exceeded EUR 22 million in the year, and in particular, the recurring revenue part is increasing and reached and exceeded in the year EUR 10 million.
Other than this, for what concern our sales by geography, you can see that the growth that we recorded in the year across our key geographies, so EMEA, APAC, and USA was one close to the other, so we have a good balance of growth among the geographic areas. For what concern, instead, our revenue breakdown by industries, you can see that here we had more volatility during the year of the growth. This is a really, actually, really good point of our diversification among end market. We have a good diversification of risk among end market that allowed us to actually recorded an important growth, a good growth in the year, despite the situation of the de-stocking that Max explained. We can move on to the next slide.
Yeah, in this slide, we can see our performance instead at adjusted EBITDA level. We exceed in the year an important target for us because we exceed the EUR 50 million, and we close the year to EUR 50.6 million, with the profitability in relative terms up to 24%. As already said before, the growth of relative terms is primarily explained by gross margin, but moreover than this, we did during the year a good activity of cost controlling, in particular OpEx, I mean, due to the fact that for the destocking activity of the mass of the market, in particular, starting from the second half of the year, the sales growth decreased a little, as you can see.
For what concern the key adjustment that we did on our EBITDA, the items are the same of the previous quarter, so the biggest part is explained by the actuarial value of the stock option plan that amount to EUR 2.6 million. The residual part are costs related to extraordinary transaction or one-off cost, not relating to the normal business. Thank you, Max, for moving to the slide of the adjusted net financial position. We closed the 2023 with a net financial position of EUR 52 million, with a really important decrease during the year, partially explained by the capital increase realized by 7-I ndustries. But partially and more importantly, generated thanks to actually the cash generated from the business.
In the second half of the year, we generated EUR 10 million in cash. And thanks to the cash generation explained by both EBITDA and also a good management of net working capital, in particular on the trade receivable part, we closed the year with a leverage ratio of 1, with an important decrease from 2.7 of 2022, that also this is an important target for us, so to move the leverage ratio up to 1 point. Thank you very much, and I leave the speech again to Max for the continuation of the presentation.
Thanks, Lorenzo, and I think I would like to start in talking about the sector. I think we can look at a very good research that Capgemini performed a few weeks ago. You can find it also into the web, because it's a free research. The name is the Eco-Digital Era. And I think in this research the analysis made is showing that digitalization is a secular trend, that together with the sustainability, is one of the biggest trend of our economy.
And I think, the analyst that performed the research also outline how edge computing, data analysis, and the AI service integration are the most promising technology, which is actually the core of the technology stack where SECO is working, where we did a lot of work in the recent past to be stronger and to sign a clear differentiation in between SECO and the competition. In fact, I think what's happened on NVIDIA at the level of the server in a B2C market was pretty much.
I'm pretty much sure that every one of you is very familiar with this story, but just to make a short remark, NVIDIA was booming, basically driven by the fact that in the consumer market, many people have started in using ChatGPT. And it's basically was the reason why a lot of data center was forced to improve the capability to perform the AI into their hardware, and NVIDIA was covering that demand. I think the same kind of trend we will see happening in the next three years into our sector. Why?
Because AI will bring money to the customers, will bring money for reducing the cost of the maintenance of the devices on the field, that will bring money into maximizing the revenue that those devices are making. And also to improve the user experience that people can have interacting with a machine. So I really think the AI part of our business will be one of the biggest macro trend in the near future. How SECO will play with it?
Thanks to the partnership that we did with Axelera and with Qualcomm, we are building a very broad range of new product that we will start to launch into the market in April 2024, and we plan to launch around eight new product specifically dedicated to run AI on the edge. It will be very important, because in that way, customers can really control the cost of their data analysis better than going to the cloud. We did some calculation, and the difference here is in the range of five times cheaper storing and processing analytics on the edge instead to go to the cloud.
So I really think, it will provide a lot of benefits to our customers, giving us, a new, revenue stream that we will start, to grow, from 2025 and forward. Related to this, also the fact that the customers will be, encouraged to, to make data analysis on the device. All the infrastructure that we built at the, on the software side with our IoT platform, CLEA, and our, AI services solution, Studio X, will be very, very important for customers to really build.
Sorry. Really build a good technology infrastructure to allow them to perform all those analysis, and to actually receive important and value-added output from the data. Looking at what we are doing more specifically, we will launch a couple of new product that we will present at the Embedded World, the most important exhibition of our sector, that will take place early in April in Nuremberg. And also we closed the publication of the CLEA module that started on Google Cloud Marketplace. This is important because we are enlarging the customer base on CLEA, also using a different sales channel and different marketplace to try to get more traction possible with new customers.
Well, I think, another piece of our software offering is for sure, the piece related to the AI services, where basically we are offering two kind of solution. One is Studio X, which is the solution where you can get generative AI on your device, basically having the possibility to make a troubleshooting analysis, to have a chatbot operating on the device and directly interacting with the user. Moreover, as you know, we are developing a lot of customized algorithms that helps customers in make a real-time data analysis on their data to extract value-added output.
I think, altogether, this providing us a quite unique and very distinctive positioning on the market, creating the real value added for the customers, and the real competitive advantage that SECO can show against the competition. Because we are merging together different kind of competence and different kind of technology, from edge computing to touch display, the capability to have a large part of our production in-house. All the stacks on the software side that I already mentioned provide the customers a unique end-to-end offer, where they can really leverage on our technology to make more business, to increase their profit, and to have a stronger return on their investments on technology. I think that's all from my side, and so maybe we can open the Q&A discussion.
Thank you. Thank you to the management team today. We now have an opportunity to ask questions. We kindly ask all participants to use the Raise Hand function, or for those dialing in, it's star nine on your keypad. First question today comes from Mr. Marco Vitale. Please, the floor to you.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on the organic growth outlook. If you could provide us any indications, what do you expect for this year? Also, take into account the slowdown that you recorded in the last quarter of the year, and also the de-stocking activity that you were mentioning. I was wondering if you could provide us some sense of where are we now in terms of inventories, channels, and so far across your main customers. The second question is about the margins. I noted a very strong improvement in gross profit in the final quarter of the year.
I was wondering if you could provide us additional details on what drove this strong performance, and also if looking at the 53% gross profit margins for 2023, if this level could be taken as a floor for 2024, or either if it is sustainable. Final question is about the M&A. If you could provide us an update on your strategy for external growth. Thank you.
Right. So let's start from the last question. I think on M&A side, which is still a part of our growth strategy, I think the 2024, nothing will happen. We will be focused on organic growth and in margin and cash flow improvement. So regarding the question on the margin, yes, 53% would be used also for having a good base to think about the 2024. Because we will continue to improve our marginality, thanks to the expansion of the software business and thanks to the reduction of the cost of the components.
Of course, part of the reduction of the cost of the components will pass through the customers, but we are in a good position to keep up at least a portion of it for ourself. In terms of where we are with the market trend, which is the current trading and where we are going, I think it's fair to say that we will have the first half of the year and the second half of the year with a different kind of velocity in terms of growth. With a steady business basically, or low growth in the first half of the business due to the end of the de-stocking activity.
We are almost there, and we are already recorded the initial sign of a real changing, because we have customers that are increasing the demand in the second half of the year. Also, saying that we are almost out of stock. So, and that's definitely a very good sign. And so I was talking about two different velocity, because in the second half of the year, we are expecting to have a growth back to the normal for our sector, which is definitely a double digit strong growth that we will get for sure in the second part of the year. So that's just to give you an indication about the current trading in 2024.
Okay, very clear. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next question comes from Mr. Bharat Nagaraj. Please, the floor to you.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I have two questions, please. The first one, how much of the Axelera AI edge computing revenue that you talked about is baked into your budgets or current forecasts? And secondly, on the demand that you say you're seeing, some of it in 2024 so far, is that replacement of existing install-based demand, or is it, like, completely new demand? And what are the end markets you're seeing that in largely?
Right. So let's start from the Axelera part, meaning the AI accelerator. This is something that we will start to collect as a revenue in 2025. It's not included in our budget yet, because we will launch the product, as I said, the first product in April, and many others later on. And I think we will collect all the results of this launch with customers in the course of 2024. So I will be more specific end of 2024 on it, but we are expecting to see a lot of requests coming from customers because the market is going there.
We actually already got some good project and good requests from important customers, that they really are looking into the AI accelerator solution. So we already have a sort of pipeline of request, but I think it will significantly increase. Also, we will launch actually the product on the market. Regarding the starting of the business in 2024, I think what, what... The good news, and it looks very promising for me, not only for 2024, but also looking at 2025 and going forward. We are getting a lot of new project for new devices from new customers, and also from important existing customers.
This will drive us into a very robust growth from the 2025 and over, because we are collecting significant awards in design win activities with new customers, existing customers for new project. This is, I think, a very important point to take into account.
Very good, thank you. If I may do a quick follow-up, thanks for the answers, Max. Just a quick follow-up then, could you help us understand with regards to how you're outperformed the peers? Is that mainly because of Clea growth from Clea, or is there anything else as well that you can talk to? Thank you.
Well, I think, we have mainly three factors. One, as you said, is the, the clear growth, which is important, because it's, bring to us, an improvement, an improvement on, on the margin. The second is the, the, the top line growth in general, because it will provide us, operational, benefit in terms of less incidents of the OpEx, on, on the revenue, providing, again, additional, performance in, in terms of margin. And the, and the last, is for sure the margin that we are making with the hardware due to the factor that the price of the components are going down, and will lower the, for sure, our price to the customers.
But keeping at least a small pieces for ourselves, providing end of the story, as another improvement on our marginality, margin, thanks to the edge computing part of the business. So I think that's are the three pillars where we should focus on, the improvements of the marginality.
Thank you very much, Mr. Mauri. As there are currently no questions queued, we will wait a few seconds to give everyone the opportunity to raise their hands. Please, Mr. Vitale, the floor to you.
Thank you. Sorry for two follow-ups. First one, if you could provide us an indication about the level of CapEx that you are planning for this year. And then the second one is, a follow-up on the pricing that you were just mentioning. On average, what could be the impact of the ever negative pricing that you expect for this year, if you are able to identify this or isolate from a volume trend? Thank you.
Right. So I think on the price, it will be something in the range of 2%-3%, as per a price decrease to the customers. And, the other question was, Marco, sorry?
On the level of CapEx for this year.
Right. We should be in the range of EUR 20 million-EUR 22 million.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. As there are no raised hand, I will hand back to Mr. Mauri for any final comments. Thank you very much.
I think, overall, we did a tough year. We navigated into quite well from my point of view, thanks to our positioning, and the strategy is working. Also looking the EUR 7.7 million of cash we generated the last quarter of the year looks quite promising for 2023 and 2024. Also, the continuing increase of the recurring revenue on the software part will drive for sure the company in a better position in terms of profitability as well as cash flow generation.
Last but not least, with the level of debt that we recorded in the end of 2023, which was 1x the EBITDA, we have a definitely a very good position in terms of balance sheet to further look into our future. So thank you very much for being connected today. And of course, we're still available for any follow-up that you may need. You can drop down an email to directly to Lorenzo Tozzi. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Thank you very much. This presentation will now come to an end.