Today's speakers are CEO André Rogaczewski and CFO Thomas Johansen. André, please begin.
Good day and welcome to this presentation of Netcompany's results for Q1 2025. My name is André Rogaczewski, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Netcompany. I'm joined today by our CFO, Thomas Johansen. Before we get going, there are some important disclosures that I need you to read through. Could we please have slide number two, please? I will pause for 30 seconds here and let you have a read-through of these important disclosures. With that, can we please go to slide number three? The topic of today's presentation is our performance for Q1 2025. I'll walk you through the business highlights for Q1 and our financial guidance for 2025. Once I'm done, Thomas will go through the numbers in greater detail before we open the call for questions. Can we have the next slide, please?
The Group continued the growth momentum from last year and grew revenue in Q1 2025 by 9.1%. Gross profit increased by 16.1%, yielding a margin of 29.5% compared to 27.8% in the same quarter last year. The improvement in gross profit was a result of improvement in all regions. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 24.4% in Q1 2025, yielding an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.6%. Thomas will go into more details behind the margin development in each specific segment. During the first quarter of 2025, the workforce in the Group increased by 342, equal to a 4.4% increase. Can we have the next slide, please? We want to give you a short update on the SDC transaction we announced on the 10th of February. We are very satisfied with the ongoing process of the transaction, and on the 31st of March, we will have regulatory approvals granted.
We are now awaiting the final fulfillment of conditions and expect to close the transaction mid-2025. In connection with the closing of the transaction, we expect to begin the integration of SDC into Netcompany Banking Services, and we will also reinitiate our share buyback program. We look forward to being able to share more information with you subsequent to closing off the transaction. Can I have the next slide, please? During the first quarter, we have won several new contracts, of which I'm mentioning a few here. In the Danish public sector, we were selected as the vendor for the development and maintenance of the student debt system. The new system will be implemented by leveraging our Amplio platform. Also, in the Danish public sector, we were selected by the Agency for Digital Government for the modernization of the NemKonto NemAccount system, the central account registry facilitating public payments.
The modernization includes moving the solution from an old mainframe solution to our Amplio platform. In the Danish private sector, we have renewed and prolonged a number of ongoing projects that I'm not able to disclose further. Can we have slide number seven, please? In Netcompany Southeast Europe and European Institutions, formerly known as Netcompany-Intrasoft, we have also signed several new contracts in the first quarter of the year, of which we have highlighted a few here. In the public sector in Greece, we have signed a contract with the eGovernment Center for Social Security, IDIKA. The scope of the project is to improve the operational functioning of hospitals in the national health systems. As mentioned in connection with our annual report, we also signed a large solo contract with the Greek tax administration early in 2025, another important testimony to the success of our product and platform approach.
In the private sector in Greece, we have been chosen as leader of a consortium for EYDAP, the largest water supply and sewage company in Greece. The project includes the implementation of our Pulse platform. In the European Union, we have been awarded a multi-year framework agreement with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, securing the external borders of the EU member states. Can we have the next slide, please? In Q1 2025, we employed an average of 8,150 full-time employees, which was an increase of 4.1% compared to the same period last year. Compared to revenue growth, the number of FTEs grew at a slower pace as a result of our increased use of existing platforms throughout the entire group. In addition, it was mainly in the international part of the group we added net new employees.
The attrition rate for the last 12 months was 18%, which was an increase of 1.7 percentage points compared to last year. We continue to be able to attract the talent we need in all entities. Can we have slide number nine, please? Irrespective of the increased geopolitical turmoil and the high level of uncertainty in the beginning of 2025, we reiterate our full-year financial expectations. For revenue, we expect growth between 5% and 10% for the year, and for adjusted EBITDA margin, we expect to end the year with a margin between 16% and 19%. These targets are based on organic growth and hence exclude the impact from the SDC transaction. Upon closing off the SDC transaction, we expect to reinitiate our share buyback program. Our expectation to buy back shares to a total value of DKK 2 billion by the end of 2026 remains unchanged.
Can we have the next slide, please? Now, before I pass on the word to Thomas, I just want to highlight our latest campaign, where we on the 22nd of April illuminated the Statue of Liberty in Paris with the message, "Stand Tall, Europe." In these uncertain times, we believe that Europe is in a unique position to strengthen itself, and we take pride in being a mission-critical provider of world-leading digitization services and solutions supporting governments and enterprises throughout Europe. With that, I will now pass on the word to Thomas. Please go ahead, Thomas.
Thank you for that, André. Like already mentioned, I'm the CFO in Netcompany and I will now go more into details with the financial performance of Q1 2025. If we move past the break slide number 11 and straight into slide number 12, please. André has already spoken about our performance in general terms, and I will now go more in detail with the performance for Q1 2025. Revenue increased 9% in Q1 measured in constant currencies, and currencies impacted growth negatively by 0.1%, leaving reported revenue growth at 9.1% for Q1. The growth was driven by increased activity in all business segments besides the U.K. compared to the same quarter last year. Revenue grew 3.5% in the Danish segment and was driven by an increase of 6.5% in revenue from the public sector, while the private sector revenue was on level with Q1 last year.
Netcompany Southeast Europe and European Institutions continued its strong growth performance from 2024 and grew revenue by 18.6% in Q1. The growth was driven by a combination of license revenue and continued growth in the public and EU areas. As more and more of our large implementation contracts are based on one or more of our products or platforms, license revenue is a natural part of Netcompany's business and will continue to be driving revenue growth going forward. The products and platforms are the enabling factors that allow us to grow significantly, while the IT services industry is not. Also, Netcompany Norway delivered strong growth with 19.7% revenue growth in the quarter, which was driven by continued ramp-up on the Avinor contract. In Netcompany UK, the public sector grew revenue by 9%, driven by increased activity on the DALAS Framework contract and other larger engagements with HMRC and NHS.
A decline in the private sector as a result of discontinuation of historical low-margin contract left the overall revenue for the U.K. segment in line with the same quarter last year. Netcompany Netherlands grew revenue by 3.7% in the quarter compared to a tough comparable in the same quarter last year. Can we move to the next slide, please? The gross profit margin in Q1 was 29.6%, an increase of 1.9 percentage points compared to the same quarter last year. The margin was positively impacted by higher license revenue in Q1 2024 compared to the same period last year. Lower margin in Denmark was caused by continued time spent on business development and tender writing, product development on existing products, and resources spent on the ongoing SDC transaction. Netcompany Southeast Europe and EU increased gross profit margin by 5.5 percentage points to 24.7%.
The improvement was positively impacted by the license related to the solo tax project in Greece. In Netcompany UK, gross profit margin improved by 2.8 percentage points to 21.8% in the quarter. Improvement was driven by increased utilization and the previously mentioned discontinuation of historical low-margin contracts. Gross margin in Netcompany Norway increased by 6.8 percentage points in Q1 compared to the same quarter last year as a result of better utilization and ramp-up on the Avinor project. In Netcompany Netherlands, gross margin increased 2.7% and reached 36% in Q1. Can we move to the next slide, please? Adjusted EBITDA margin before headquarter allocated costs increased by 2.2 percentage points to 18.6% in Q1 for the Group. Adjusted EBITDA margin in Denmark was 22.3% compared to 23.4% in Q1 last year. The lower margin was a result of development in gross profit, as already discussed.
Netcompany Southeast Europe and European Institutions' adjusted EBITDA margin increased 6.4 percentage points in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 last year. In Netcompany UK and Netcompany Norway, the adjusted EBITDA margin increased 1.6 percentage points and 8.7 percentage points respectively, driven by better utilization in both segments. In Netcompany Netherlands, the adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 2.2 percentage points and reached 18.6% for the first quarter of 2025. Can we move to the next slide, please? We have continued our focus on working capital during Q1, and as a percentage of revenue, the combined work in progress, pre-billed invoices, and trade receivables was 27.3% compared to 33.6% in Q1 2024. This development was caused by an increase in pre-billed invoices and better and faster collection of accounts receivables. Can we go to the next slide, please?
In the first quarter of 2025, we generated free cash flow of DKK 67.9 million compared to negative DKK 4.9 million in the same quarter last year. The improvement in free cash flow was driven by improved operating profit. As a result of the improved cash flow, our cash conversion rate also improved from negative 4.3% in Q1 2024 to 47% in Q1 2025. Days sales outstanding decreased from 66 days in Q1 last year to 57 days in Q1 this year. The main reason was the timing of the Easter last year had delayed some payments in the beginning of April 2024. Debt ratio was 1.2 times compared to 1.6 times in Q1 last year, positively impacted by the current pause in our share buyback program as a consequence of the SDC transaction.
We expect leverage at the end of 2025 to be around 1.5 times, reflecting additional net debt to be incurred to fund the SDC transaction and the impact of the expected reinitiation of our share buyback program too. Can we have the next slide, please? Revenue visibility at the end of Q1 2025 increased 3.8% to DKK 5.6 billion compared to DKK 5.4 billion in Q1 2024. In general, revenue visibility was higher than normal in the beginning of 2024 last year as a number of contracts, primarily in the private sector, were signed for a longer period than normal. When we reported our annual report, the revenue visibility at the beginning of 2025 was, in fact, one percentage point lower than at the same time in 2024, illustrating well the extraordinarily high level of revenue visibility that we saw in the beginning of 2024.
Compared to revenue visibility at the end of 2024, revenue visibility sequentially into the end of Q1 2025 increased by 15% compared to a 9.1% revenue growth in the same quarter. Just to make sure that everybody understands the nature of the non-contractually committed part of revenue visibility, let me here just reconfirm that the non-committed part of revenue visibility historically has been 100% converted into realized revenue, which we also expect for the non-contractually committed revenue for this quarter. The notion of non-contractually committed revenue is used on engagements typically in the private segment where we have significant teams performing mission-critical work for our clients that will continue for a substantial period of time, but where the clients, due to internal procurement procedures, have not extended the contract legally for the full year yet.
However, based on the nature of the work of the contracts, this revenue will be realized and the contracts will be prolonged during the year. Pipeline in both the private and the public sector for 2025 remains at a satisfactory level, indicating continued growth, and we remain committed to our financial guidance for the year, as André has already mentioned. With that, I've concluded the detailed financial walkthrough, and we now open up the call for questions. If we move to the Q&A slide, please, and open the call for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press five-star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question again, you may do so by pressing five-star again. We will have a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question is from the line of George Wyatt from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi, morning. I've got a few questions, please, to start with. Firstly, just as we think forward to Q2, have you seen any—I guess you haven't—but have you seen any changes around customers committing to starting new projects? I guess when we think about the broader Q2 dynamics, fewer working days, any view at this stage on the potential pipe of license revenue for Q2? Q1 was obviously quite strong. Second question, maybe, André, on the topic around the kind of system sovereignty of Europe. What needs to change in terms of how the EU procures for this to be a meaningful tailwind for the European providers over time? Are there already ways that that can be written into tender contracts, or there's going to be a shift in how those bids are evaluated? One for you, Thomas, with regards to reporting disclosure.
As you move closer to completing on SDC, are you looking to revise your disclosure at all, or would SDC just become a sixth reporting segment? Thank you.
Thank you, George. Good questions. I think I'll try and answer the first two and then I'll leave the third to you, Thomas. We don't see any change in the overall attitude or behavior from customers when acquiring new projects. We have dressed the market continuously with our platforms and products. The sales cycles are the same length as they've always been, quite long, but when we get in, we start discovery phases, and then we start very strategic long-term partnerships with our customers. Of course, it's a market with a lot of volatility, and geopolitically, there's much more uncertainty out there, but it's been a strange market for the last two, three years anyway. I think the things we are coming with, all the types of services and platforms, we are extremely relevant, and we see that relevance occurring across our market.
We do not see any new behavior, and we do not see any changes in the way customers look at us. When it comes to the sovereignty and the whole Stand Tall Europe campaign, I think it is important to say that what we are doing here is creating an awareness of how important it is for European companies, our customers, governments, and private enterprises to think digitally, and digital is the way forward to create the competitiveness they need. There are definitely three areas where public tenders, and that goes for all European countries, are changing towards a more strategic nature, and we are involved in all those three strategic areas. One is the digital, you can say, structural backbone of digital IDs, digital wallets, the whole idea of companies and citizens being able to be identified digitally for us to build our solutions upon.
We have a great deal of that infrastructure, and we also advise both countries and agencies about that. We have the digital assistant, AI-driven assistants, to be working on digital documents and data. This is also an area where strategically a lot of governments are thinking how to do. Finally, but not least importantly, all the digital ecosystems that are being built out there, that goes for airports, logistics, transportation, but even physical assets, we are also very relevant there. We're pushing that overall strategic agenda for our customers to understand that it's not just one solution, it's an entire digitization of their government and their companies, and we can actually deliver valuable platforms, assistance, and guidance in all those areas together with also other partners they might choose. Within that way, we become extremely relevant as a joining partner on that journey. Thomas, maybe you could.
Just to add on the question regarding the inclusion of SDC into our report post-closing, we will report SDC on a standalone basis for 2025 so that the numbers are clear to everyone, George.
That's great. Thank you. If I could just throw one more in. I noticed on the Festina Finance side, you increased your shareholding quite materially. Kind of flagged that as a 1 billion DKK EV business now, you're in, what, 22% of it. Do you have a specific game plan there? Or more broadly, when you take minority stakes, what's the idea that you have in terms of exit or just the thesis?
I mean, the whole idea with Festina Finance is that we truly believe it's one of the best software products when it comes to life and pension and calculation engines for that. It is market-leading also in a European perspective. Now, what we do is that we acquire a stake in a company that is actually very successful. That's good, obviously, but it's also a strategic, you can say, partnership or marriage where we go out together because we build our Amplio platform on top of Festina Finance kernel, and then we address customers, I think, with a very great solution and a solution that is absolutely market-leading. In that sense, it's also a sign of loyalty and going to market strategy where we are, so to speak, very well integrated both financially, but also in an offering type of way.
That's great. Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Claus Almer from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you. Thank you. There are a few questions from my side as well. The first goes to Denmark and the development in the gross margin. It is mentioned that the cost associated to SDC is dragging down on the margins, I guess, excluding the ones being included in the special items. What would margin have been without these extra costs? That would be the first one.
Thanks for that, Claus. We do not disclose in the report what the impact is for either increased tender writing activity, increased our spend on product development, or the SDC activities. The margin is dropping on a gross margin level, is dropping, what, 0.8 percentage points. It is probably fair to have some sort of an even split between the three elements in terms of what is driving the margin down.
Okay. Thanks. Is there more tendering activity going on in this quarter since this has been mentioned, or is it just more than normal level?
It's more than normal level that has been going on in this quarter in the public area, also in the private area. No secret that we are getting much more active into the entire financial services industry vertical in which we are currently working with SDC and the integration, which is great. There are also a number of other activities in that vertical that we're spending time on. There's continued investment going into the public sector in Denmark, both in terms of the broader tax vertical, but also in the vertical in public sector that is receiving increased funding throughout Europe, which would be defense.
Okay. That makes sense. My second question goes to this 1.5 times expected leverage end of the year, including the SDC. What kind of capital structure of SDC do you assume in that calculation?
The capital structure of SDC is assumed to be that the one billion that we are paying in terms of equity or in terms of purchase price to the sellers will be injected as equity into Netcompany Banking Services, which will then be paid out for that. Since it is a merger, we will also resume the equity of SDC going into Netcompany Banking Services. When you add those together and you then subtract the purchase price, you get to a proxy for what the capital structure is going to look like by the end of 2025.
Thomas, what I was trying to figure out is the net cash position within SDC. What is the assumption behind that?
The assumption behind that is going to be that it will look as it has looked over the last couple of years in SDC, where the institutions' customers are paying a number of prepaid through the year, and that cash will reside into Netcompany Banking Services. Now, we're making all of these agreements right now with the owners, i.e., the customers to Netcompany Banking Services. I cannot disclose more than what I'm disclosing here, but it will be similar to how SDC has looked historically.
That makes sense. Just a final one. You're changing the name of Intrasoft. Why is that?
Because we concluded the integration of Intrasoft into our platform, and it is now Netcompany Southeast Europe and EU institutions, a very logic thing for us to do, also really to reflect that we are one group, and that's important for us also going forward.
It doesn't reflect that you are considering adding new activities to that segment?
No, but with our platform.
That's my question.
No, I think, as Thomas alluded to, it's a natural thing to be naming it what it should be, part of the group now delivering solutions in that region. Now, we deliver platform and product-based solutions. We will be delivering, as we always seen in Munich, we've seen it in Stockholm, we've seen it in several places. We can now deliver solutions in particular geographical areas just by pushing a particular product or platform and then grow from there. Of course, in that area of Europe, they will be handling that part.
That makes a lot of sense. That was all for me. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Claus.
The next question is from the line of Daniel Djurberg from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you, Operator. It's Daniel Djurberg here, and good day, André and Thomas. My first question would be a little bit on work in progress being down some here, and you have had two quarters in a row with significant increase in pre-billed invoices. Work in progress is now roughly 53% of total contract work by the end of Q1 versus 39% a year ago. Should we be worried about this, or is your funnel good enough to secure an increase again in work in progress? Just some insights here would be great. Thanks.
Thanks for that, Daniel. The decrease in net value work in progress is actually a result of our continued focus on working capital management. If you look at the asset side of work in progress, then you'll notice that contract work in progress is increasing from DKK 1.4 billion in March 2024 to DKK 1.7 billion in March 2025. What we've been able to do is to have the customers to fund part of that build-up in the work in progress. The work in progress on the asset side is a result of the underlying activity. When we then take the net work in progress, then we are also taking into consideration our, i.e., Netcompany's ability to have the customers fund the work in progress, which we believe is much more sound than Netcompany having to play banks for the customers.
Perfect. André Rogaczewski, on the pipeline, you mentioned that both in private and public sector, it remains at a satisfactory level indicating continued growth. Can you comment, I guess, this continued growth, is it in line with your final year or 2025 guidance? Would it be in the low end or mid end or upper part of that range? Thanks.
Yeah. Not surprisingly, we cannot really comment on whether it's in the low end or in the high end, Daniel, and you would be surprised if we said something else, right? What we can say is that we continue to see good and strong activity in our pipeline, also on the private sector, and it really comes back to our offerings in terms of the products and platforms. The change we did a couple of years ago, focusing very much on products and platforms, is really starting to pay off now. That is what is differentiating Netcompany, not only in the public sector, but also in the private sector, and it will be a foundation for continued growth for Netcompany going forward, both in the public, but also importantly in the private sector.
Sounds good. May I ask you two details on special items in what should we expect in Q2, similar to Q1, the DKK 20 million more or less? Also, if you look at the revenue split, you have something called labeled as recognized at the point in time, DKK 46 million, up from DKK 2.6 billion. Can you just help me to understand what this is?
Special items, so cost for our advisors, legal and financial advisors and the likes, which of course is not a small amount, is expected to be continuing more or less on the same level into Q2. That is the cost for our advisors. I think if you compare back to when we acquired Netcompany-Intrasoft two and a half years ago, the amount in special items at that point in time for advisors was to the tune of DKK 50 million-DKK 55 million. In terms of the definition of the point in time or over time, the DKK 46 million is the IFRS notion for license revenue. That is the license revenue in Q1, DKK 46 million compared to DKK 2.5 million in Q1 2024.
That license revenue was what we also, when we closed 2024, to some extent had alluded to there was an opportunity for that to be part of the 2024 accounts, which it turned out not to be because the contracts were signed in the beginning of January. That is the swing there.
Yeah. Thank you so much for clarification. Thanks.
Thanks, Daniel.
Next up, we have Yiwei Zhou from SEB Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have three questions here. I'll do one at a time. Firstly, I just want to understand this accounting change. You say in the report that it increased your gross profit by DKK 4 million. How should we understand the impact on the EBITDA?
There's no impact on EBITDA.
Thank you, Andre.
There's no impact on EBITDA.
Okay. You're basically just separate and reporting in one line.
Yes.
There's no impact.
Yes.
Okay. Great. Thanks for clarification. Second question on the current market trend. We see the Dutch parliament calling government to reduce dependency on the U.S. technology, and we also see some other European countries have followed. A lot of talks are also here in Denmark. What are you seeing with your customers? If you can elaborate a bit.
There's no doubt that the customers also on a very high level are discussing, actually discussing several things. They're also discussing sovereignty, yeah, and where the data is placed, but also in greater terms how secure and how sure they are upon their data systems and their IT systems to work on a daily basis. There's more uncertainty about whether they're standing on a robust fundament. In that sense, they also discover that many of their systems are really old and they need to do something. Actually, in that sense, it's not bad for a vendor like us to be delivering that type of infrastructure, delivering those types of applications, and being able to do it pretty fast, and having a very good idea about how to go about doing it concretely. In that sense, our platform approach is ideal because we can reuse so much from other implementations.
All companies and governments are very different. If you can reuse 50%, 60%, 70%, and then very fast configure the rest, that is the way forward. With the reference cases we have, both for governments and private enterprises, we are very relevant in that sense. This uncertainty is also definitely a possibility and a way into a market where normally we have a longer sales cycle, for sure.
Okay. There was also some talk about there would be a new funding to develop its own technology and software. Is something you are seeing has started proceeding or it's still early talks?
No. I think what we're doing is every platform we have already is basically in place. It's on our shelves. It can be reused for a lot of purposes. We can, of course, as we've always done, go into a strategic engagement with the customer and build something on top of that or create some new type of solution. Most of what we need in order to go into the markets right now, especially within government, is already on our shelves, and we can use it immediately. We don't see any greater funding needs to go into this market. If that was your question, why?
Yeah. Thanks. Then I would also like to ask about SDC. I realized that some of the Norwegian customers of SDC have switched to a competitor recently. Could you maybe talk about if that was due to the pricing or it's due to the concern about the new ownership structure?
No, no. The short answer to that is that SDC, we came in, it's all about timing. The new banking services that we'll provide are coming over the next one, two years when we get the whole deal established and we start building what we need to build and harvest the synergies that are there. We will be addressing those markets with very relevant services. What you see there is a result of previous activities and previous tenders and whatever being going on. We are absolutely certain we have a very interesting and great set of services in Denmark.
Sorry.
Can you hear me?
Sorry.
You say this year, you are.
I think we have some problem here.
taking all measures to hold back costs.
You can hear me? Multiple lines on. Is somebody from sales asking questions in another call? Can we please have all lines muted?
It was actually my colleague who's too loud. Sorry.
Can you ask him then to either mute his call or go somewhere else because we cannot hear your question?
Sorry. It was actually because my colleague asking that question on the other conference call. Sorry. It's good for me now. Thanks. I'll jump back to the queue.
The next question is then from Alastair Borthwick from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hey. Good morning. I'm Alastair Borthwick from Bank of America. A few questions from my side. I'll take them one by one. Firstly, on the U.K., could you just give us some color on the grant for public DALAS contract? What is the contribution in Q1? How should we think about that increasing through the rest of the year?
On DALAS, we cannot give any specific numbers other than saying that we are seeing activity, which is great in the DALAS frame agreement, and we are also seeing activity, which is more than five people. It is activity that is notable. We cannot comment on the size or the level as we're not entitled to. Very happy to see that that framework is absolutely alive, as we have also said throughout 2024, and that there will be a continued expectation for the framework to be realized at the original value, as we also said in 2024. Very happy to see that that is being reconfirmed.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. On similar lines in Norway with the Avinor contract, maybe you can comment on the size. If you could just talk about do you think you will reach the full run rate value of that as you progress through the year, or is there more to be done next year?
The ramp-up on the Avinor contract is good and has been significant for the Norwegian business. We expect the ramp to continue throughout the year on the Avinor contract from the current level.
Okay. Got it. You talked about exiting some low margin contracts in the U.K. Any color you can offer on that maybe in terms of what is the impact of that Q1 and as far as that continues through the rest of the year?
No, no further comments than what is in the quarterly. It becomes a little bit too transparent to various customers if we are to discuss all individual customers on a profitability perspective. We are on an increasing margin trajectory for the U.K., both as a result of continued improvement in utilization, increased ramp-up on DALAS, and the discontinuation of lower margin contracts.
Okay. Understood. On Denmark, you mentioned the contract activity was higher than normal. Do you think that would start to benefit your growth if you get those contracts this year itself, or is that for 2026? Was that higher than normal activity somewhat factored into your outlook for the year?
I'm not quite sure I got the first part of the question. Can you please restate that?
Yeah. Does the higher than normal contract or tender activity you're seeing in Denmark, is there any potential benefit from that factored into your outlook for 2025?
If you're asking us where we expect to realize revenue in the grid between 5% and 10%, we cannot comment on that other than we reconfirm our guidance for the full year on top line 5%-10%. Clearly, tender writing activities is a key part of making sure that the pipeline is growing. Now, as André said, sales cycles continue to have the same length. The increased tender writing activities that we're seeing in Q1 is probably fair to assume is not going to be the driving factor for revenue growth in all of 2025, but more into 2026. The pipeline that we are working on and converting on is, to a large extent, also a result of the work being done in 2024.
Okay. Understood. Then just one last one on licenses. You usually talk about that being about 1% of your revenues. Clearly, you had a good Q1. Should you think about maybe this year could be a bit higher than that 1%, given if you have some more license revenues coming in for the rest of the year?
Yeah. We have no comments on the proportion of license revenue to total revenue for the year. However, we continue to have multiple cases in pipeline that also include products and platforms, which will also yield license revenue for the remaining part of 2025 without giving you any indication for the number.
Okay. Understood. Thank you so much. Thank you, André.
Thank you.
Next up, we have Balajee Tirupati from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi. Thank you, Balajee Tirupati from Citi. Congratulations firstly on another steady performance in a rather uncertain environment. Two questions from my side, if I may. Firstly, could you share color on dynamics between public and private sector? The private sector has softened further in the quarter. Is the current elevated uncertainty going to further impact your private sector business? Second question is if you could comment on EU and European government response towards prioritizing European vendors. Have you seen any tangible signs? Would some of the large global services companies' strong local presence be seen as European in that context? Thank you.
Good questions. Thank you, Balajee. As I usually say, we have a very strong foothold into public sector across Europe, and it is deliberately. We have tax and customs verticals. We do have a lot within digital government. If you look into some of our other offerings, they actually span across both public and private sectors. Some airports are private. Some airports are public. That goes for a lot of infrastructure as well. As long as it is very regulated industries and they are within our span when it comes to platforms, we do not really care that much. You are right. Public sector is a very important part of our business. It is not that we think that private sector is not responding to the need for digitization.
On the contrary, we see very, very strong indications in our pipeline that a lot of private enterprises are looking into legacy modernizing many of their older systems exactly the same way it's been happening in public sector. When it comes to the EU and whether there's a tendency to go towards more European vendors or if the global players are trying to become more European, so to speak, we see that happening as well. Just recently, we saw Microsoft come out with a press release about their services being able to be handled on European soil by European data. We definitely see a European response to this need for independence, and I think it's a positive one. We see European companies being considered more interesting than ever before. That also goes for both governments and private sector. In that sense, I think we are very well positioned.
I hope that answered your question.
It does. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Anders Olesen from Jyske Bank. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi, André. Hi, Thomas. Just coming back to the license revenue. I'm sorry. I'm maybe a little bit unsure how to understand this. They made up around, I think it was 2.6% of revenue this quarter. I think you said earlier that they should be around 1% of total revenue for a whole year. Is that correct? Could you remind me how much you expect they will make up for the total year of 2025? If it is around 1%, should we then expect a margin drag in especially Q2 and Q4 because this quarter's last year had a very high level of, or at least a higher level of license revenue? Maybe given that a large portion of these license revenues has been taken now here in Q1. Just hoping you could help me clarify how to maybe model that for the remainder of the year. Thanks.
I can certainly clarify what we've said. The modeling you have to do for yourself, Anders. In 2024, we said that we would expect license revenue to be around or a little more than 1% of revenue where we also ended. We decided not to give any indications for what license revenue would be of total revenue for 2025, and we will not do that either today and not going forward. What we see and what is important to, of course, note again is that all the big projects and all the big engagements for digitalization that we embark on and that we win, we win because we have products and platforms. Therefore, products and platforms will yield a consistently growing part of license revenue. What that then ends up in, we'll see when the year has passed.
We will see more and more license revenue simply because we sell more and more large-scale projects that are tied up to one of our products or one of our platforms. I cannot give you more steer than that. The license revenue related to Solo Tax for Q1 was the one that the market had expected that we did in Q4. That was then pushed from Q4 into Q1 as the contract was signed in January. It is important to stress that license is not to be seen as a one-off. It is a natural part of our business. It will be a natural part of our business going forward. It is an important part of our business because it ties into the products and platforms, which is truly what is setting Netcompany apart from the rest of the IT services industry.
Okay. Thomas, I hope you will forgive me for trying one last time. Would it be fair to assume then at least that the license revenue level is structurally higher than the 1% that you gave for 2024?
I will, of course, always forgive you for asking those questions, Anders, but I cannot answer that.
All right. I tried.
I think you can deduct from my previous statement where you should think it's going.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much.